I'm trying to devise a solution for serving my music video DVD collection to my PS3. I've been experimenting with PS3MediaServer and some various rippers/encoders. 1) BANDWIDTH: I've determined I'm going to need to implement powerline ethernet until the PS3 can support the faster N wireless. I'm getting a bit of stuttering on my 54g network even with 720x480 resolution. This was encoded with Handbrake using 60% RF 20 quality. I'm surprised but I think the quality my PS3 has for the 54g connection is average to low as it is pretty far from the wireless router. 2) QUALITY VS FILESIZE: I want to have the lowest possible filesize while maintaining quality that is barely noticeably lower than the original DVD or Blu-Ray video. Can anyone recommend encoding settings that will achieve this and how much space I can expect to save over the original source? I'm guessing just a high-quality encode using x264 in MKV? 3) STORAGE: I'm not interested in a movie library but I imagine the disk space requirements will be huge compared to disk space requirements for my 2000 MP3 collections. Let's assume 500 DVD resolution 5-min videos and 100 1080P (Blu-Ray) 5-min videos. Using a high quality encode, can anyone throw out an estimate what the storage requirement will be? 4) REMOTE STORAGE? Since I can stream 1080P from Comcast or Netflix, is their a remote storage service out there that I could just upload all my videos to and stream them across the net. Then I wouldn't have to worry about buying storage, backup, etc. 5) LIBRARY INFO: The other think I'm frustrated with is unlike CD ripping, it appears there is no way to read the artist name, album name, and chapter/song title from the DVD and use it to create the filename and tag the file with the information. Can you even tag an MKV like an MP3? I think you can tag an MP4? So it appears I will have to manually enter all my filenames (so they make sense) at least and if possible tag the files. If it is possible to tag MKV or MV4 files, will the PS3 read them via the PS3MediaServer or will it always just only show the filenames? Any recommendations/insights is greatly appreciated.
2).Yes, the best would be an x.264 encode. You can't go too crazy with it, the PS3 will stop playing it. 3). You don't say anything about the bitrate, you only mention the resolution;can't determine a correct file size without a bitrate estimate, however, 500 x5 = 2500 minutes of play time. A normal featured movie is about ~90 min. 2500/90=~28 full length movies. If you rip a normal movie in x.264, @1.5GB per movie, you have awesome quality and still not reach 45GB for all your DVD clips(I usually make mine about 500MB, and I am happy, the quality is good.If I would make it 1 GB, would be more than awesome for me, but I need the space) . I don't know about the Blu Ray rips, but since you have 5 times less play time, that would amount to less than 6 full length movies; not sure what size people rip a BD, but even at 8 GB per movie, you would still only have less than 50 GB. I think all these estimates are on the HIGH end. Even if you buy only a 500GB HDD, which are pretty cheap nowadays(even the 1TB are rather fordable), you will barely put a dent on its capacity. 4).I don't know if you will find anywhere online the quality of streaming that you get from Comcast/Netflix. At least not for free. Then you have to worry about internet speed/buffer times... 1). if you are willing to spend some money to make it work(like getting the powerline ethernet), why not buy something simpler: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/19893.cfm Connect this to your TV and whatever storage device you will get, connect it directly to the USB port and have no worries about bandwidth and stuff...
Well I looked into online storage, the most popular providers, and the cost for 500GB is outrageous and their would be a bandwidth limitation most likely already. It appears there is no service that is offering an online storage solution aimed at private video streaming. I've being playing with the transcoder more. It appears a good rule of thumb is 10MB per minute of DVD quality video (720x480). Blu-Ray is 6 times the resolution. Not sure if the x264 filesize at 1920x1080 is 6 times but I would assume so, so that would be 60MB per minute of 1080p video. So that's 500 DVD videos X 5 min each = 2,500 minutes x 10MB/min = 25,000 MB = 25GB. 100 BD videos X 5 min each = 100 X 5 = 500 minutes x 60MB/min = 30GB. Total requirements = 55GB. That is way lower than I expected. I've already got a 500GB drive with about 350GB free. I'm still having problems finding the best GUI transcoder that either does batch convert so I can queue up the separate chapter files or separates the chapters automatically. In the former case, I can name the files appropriately (i.e., Billy Jean.m4v) and in the later I have to go in and rename the files when it is done. Wish there was an encoder smart enough to load up the chapter titles and name the files with the them (search the Internet for DVD info if necessary) like pretty much any CD ripper does.
I just noticed the VOB file for the chapter is 330MB so 50MB is only 1/6th the original DVD source material. That is far more compression than I though I was getting. My main concern is I don't want to have to reencode the files in the future. Since I have plenty of space (and storage is only going to get cheaper), I think I'm going to go for a very high-quality encode that results in filesizes more like 20MB/minute for DVD video and 100MB/minute for 1080P. Although my powerline ethernet isn't fast enough for 1080P so I'll probably encode at 720P. That's find for music videos. I'm not storing any movies.
Did you try Handbrake? Also, look at the ones from this thread: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/20681.cfm
Great link, thanks. Yes, I tried Handbrake but the motion it produces in the MP4 is jerky and the filesize is about the same as what Staxrip produced but no jerkiness. I know it may be a matter of settings but Handbrake is lacking in preset profiles compared to Staxrip.
You don't have to use a preset, you can customize the output...That's what is seems you're trying to do anyway...
Ya but determining which setting needs to be tweaked is time consuming. I just want to set a preset and forget it. The only setting I want to mess with is the cRF maybe notch it up or down a little depending on the source.
