x.264 File Sizing Questions

[Beck38]

I've occasionally leeched some of these HD postings on Usenet, and have long wondered exactly why the recoded file size (other than the full BR rips at 20+Gb of course)doesn't always equal the size of a DVD5 or DVD9. The person recoding?

I understand that maybe a movie of close to BR 50Gb size, with one or more of the HD-audio streams, might be recoded down to something in the 10-25 range or thereabouts. But I continually see recodes with 'standard' Dolby or DTS way over the DVD5/9 limit, and have wondered why, since they can only be either stored on a hard drive, or burned to expensive BR disc for storage.

Any thoughts as to the thinking behind this? I also should note that many recodes are of popular movies in BOTH dvd6 and dvd9 sizes, but with little (if any) technical info (like as to average bit rate) as is commonplace in the SD recode world.

Just musing....would be nice to know the thinking (if any) behind some of this....

[drew]

The scene rules require certain file sizes keyed to dvds just like SD rules, but p2p groups care little about that. (ESiR, CtrlHD, HiDT, EUREKA, DON, etc.) Generally these p2p groups stay close to the file sizes, but on "good" movies they usually opt for quality over the file size rules. Especially 1080p encodes.

Most HD site users store these files on HTPCs, Externals, or just watch them on their usual PC, so backing up to dvd is rare. If anyone is doing it, they are probably archiving scene releases in rar format. Besides, using mkvmerge or something you can split the mkv to fit on two dvds.

[Beck38]

Yes, I get the 'put it on the hard drive' thinking, it's just that the cost analysis of doing so for very long (or a lot) doesn't make much sense as even with the pricing of large drive arrays, the cost of even DVD9 burned storage (at ~$1.30/disc), is about 1/2 to 1/3rd the cost (of hard drive storage, not to mention expandability).

But I guess that I tend to think 'long term'/'very large collection' terms. When I first took the plunge on burning DVD's, I thought my storage scheme would work just fine, but later had to re-vamp (and mostly re-do) everything. Lots of time and effort kinda wasted in the first couple of years.

But I guess you're probably right that folks are thinking that perhaps doing x264 is mainly a 'stopgap' until BR discs get 'cheap', whatever that is. I just think it's going to take a very long time, maybe better than 10 years before we'll see <$10 from the >$30 level we have now; and burnable blank discs will have to drop off the cliff as well.

But watching on a PC is 'cruel and unusual' punishment, I'd think folks would opt for one of the NMT's (network media tank) set-top boxes (Popcorn Hour etc., <$200), I sure did. No more fooling around with viewing programs, plug-ins, codecs, HD capable video cards /drivers, that work half the time.

Well, I guess I'll have to 'do it myself' if I want it 'done right'. That's what got me into recoding DVD's in the first place some 7 years ago. It just doesn't make much sense to go to the effort and yield a result of, say, 7.2GB, when one might as well loosen it up to a DVD9 anyway, no matter where you're going to store it at.

But I guess that's just me!

[iLOVENZB]

Not everyone watches x264 rips on their PC, unless it's a HTPC which will probably be hooked up to a 60" monitor :P.

The scene has always had this mentality of backing up to a disk medium (3.5", CD, DVD). The rules will probably change in the next 10 years when we start seeing PB HDD's. Even PS3 games sizrs are DVD5/9 :O

[8khan8]

I don't know why, but a lot of my mates download the 1080p versions of movies which are usually above 20gb
I stick with the 720p versions, which play fine, (after some transcoding), on my ps3

I find 720p versions to be in the 2gb-8gb range (some animations are 2gb)
And 1080p versions to be in the 10gb-20gb+

[iLOVENZB]

I don't know why, but a lot of my mates download the 1080p versions of movies which are usually above 20gb
I stick with the 720p versions, which play fine, (after some transcoding), on my ps3

I find 720p versions to be in the 2gb-8gb range (some animations are 2gb)
And 1080p versions to be in the 10gb-20gb+

Depends if it's a scene or a p2p rip. Most scene 720p rips are 4GB (with the exception of a few groups).

I found a few Animation 720p rips (scene) to be under 4GB.

[vegasx]

I'm with you man, I stick with 720p...1080p is not worth the extra GB...

[manu1991]

With Players like the WD Media Player , Popcorn Media Hour etc , DVD's are becoming passe

Also about your HDD vs DVD cost analogy

Seagate's 1.5 TB HDD costs 119$ on newegg , that's just 0.08 $ per GB , i doubt you can go cheaper with DVD's

[Beck38]

With Players like the WD Media Player , Popcorn Media Hour etc , DVD's are becoming passe

Also about your HDD vs DVD cost analogy

Seagate's 1.5 TB HDD costs 119$ on newegg , that's just 0.08 $ per GB , i doubt you can go cheaper with DVD's

This is gonna be a 'yet, but' kinda answer.

I have 2 of the seagate 1.5TB's, and lots of additional storage as well. I'm looking at several large ('near-commercial') network storage arrays, and have a nice spreadsheet where I 'toss the numbers'.

Just go a bit further on the costs: .08/gig = 34cents per dvd5 (I routinely by Ritek inkjet printable blanks for <25cents per), and dvd9 would be some 64 cents. Now, that's about half the price of top Verbatim blanks (approx $1.30 at going prices), so yes, pure drive prices look like the way to go (but again, one must figure in the cost of the machine that drive is hooked to).

Make those drives fairly decent in a solid raid array, and the cost of storage gets to 2-3 times that of the optical removables.

IF the pricing on DVD9's will continue their s-l-o-w decent, then perhaps fixed arrays can be used as a 'stop-gap' until the costs come better into line. I"m looking to do some kind of raid array fairly soon, the how large/how expensive numbers haven't been fully ground out yet.

All the comments on sizing are correct, in that most folks doing x264 don't seem to care much about size/bit rates, others care about bit rates, and a few do care about sizing. Like I kinda said, I guess if you want it done to what you want, you gotta do it yourself. Okay, that's my project for this summer! :D

[zot]

I've also noticed that Scene file-size standards are increasingly being ignored. At the start of the decade, it seemed that virtually all DVD rips were 700MB files, but these days the file sizes are all over the place.

[iLOVENZB]

I've also noticed that Scene file-size standards are increasingly being ignored. At the start of the decade, it seemed that virtually all DVD rips were 700MB files, but these days the file sizes are all over the place.

It depends on the movie and how long it goes for. An animation is usually a 1CD (700mb) it also depends on the nuker.

The Watchmen 720p rip was nuked for being 9mb oversized.

[Beck38]

I've also noticed that Scene file-size standards are increasingly being ignored. At the start of the decade, it seemed that virtually all DVD rips were 700MB files, but these days the file sizes are all over the place.

It depends on the movie and how long it goes for. An animation is usually a 1CD (700mb) it also depends on the nuker.

The Watchmen 720p rip was nuked for being 9mb oversized.

From what I see, everything is just 'all over the place', and your latest example (Watchmen) is right on the mark. I see (and d/l) lots of stuff that's 'just over' the disksize limits. Doesn't make sense. The minimal amount of 'extra size' doesn't make anything 'better' that anyone could possibly see (i.e., 8GB vr. 11, like that).

I've just about come to the conclusion to built something called the 'unRAID' box, can ramp up to as much as around 25TB+ (using 1.5TB drives, more if 2TB, and can start out with as little as 2 drives and easily grow from there.

Looking at the curve of disk prices over the last 10 years, it's conceivable that 10 years from now 1TB of storage could be <$5 or even less. But that's 10 years from now. 1TB may be the base level for USB thumb drives, for all we know!

Optical Media is stable, extremely long lasting, and cheap. Like I remarked before, I guess that if one wants it done 'right', one has to do it oneself. I'm sure these folks doing x264 stuff at the 15GB sizes see no problem whatsoever, and have only a handful of movies on any drive, or so silliness like spread things across multiple discs (which I've seen them allude to).

Well, I'm working out how to shift things around a bit, get a BD computer player for ripping, and set up a Vista machine for some processing. Will probably take a good month to get going.

But I have gotten some really good stuff, that was done right at the DVD5/9 sizing. Just that it's few and far between. Just wets the appetite!

[zot]

I suspect that one possible reason why movies come in a wider variety of file sizes could be because portable hard drives and flash drives have to a large degree replaced optical CD/DVD disks as a prime method of storage.

First DVD players started coming equipped with USB ports, then they evolved into HDD and flash drive-only players like the Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player. With more people using HDD and flash-based media players, those who stick to CD/DVDs could increasingly be left out.

I agree that it's bad judgement for a movie to be sized just over 700MB or 4.7/8.5GB so it won't fit on a disk. I also thought it was a stupid mistake for flash drives to be universally sized at 4GB and 8GB - when movies made for single and double-layer DVDs are going to be slightly over the limit for flash drives. Isn't that what many (or most) people use flash drives for anyway?

[Beck38]

I agree that it's bad judgement for a movie to be sized just over 700MB or 4.7/8.5GB so it won't fit on a disk. I also thought it was a stupid mistake for flash drives to be universally sized at 4GB and 8GB - when movies made for single and double-layer DVDs are going to be slightly over the limit for flash drives. Isn't that what many (or most) people use flash drives for anyway?

I have several usb thumb drives, and have *never* used any of them to shuttle around movies... It's simply MUCH easier (and just as fast) to use gigabit LAN. But I use flash extensively for moving music (flac, etc) around all the time, exp. since I bought a new car head unit about 2 months ago (7yr old one gave up the ghost).

I kept my eye on hard drive prices for a VERY long time, I use it to 'calibrate' pricing on things. Since I 'got into' flash, keep an eye on that as well, and 64GB usb types (the largest made so far) are just a tad over $100. But I can put ALL my music (CD's encoded to AAC/MP3 320kbps) on about half of one.

Oh well, I need to get going on things HD wise, plus a couple other 'projects' I already had lined up for this summer. Gotta get cracking!

[Beck38]

With Players like the WD Media Player , Popcorn Media Hour etc , DVD's are becoming passe

Also about your HDD vs DVD cost analogy

Seagate's 1.5 TB HDD costs 119$ on newegg , that's just 0.08 $ per GB , i doubt you can go cheaper with DVD's

On the price of bulk drives, yes. But add in the cost of the enclosure, case, etc to house it... and the price jumps up, especially with any protection like RAID.

But I did trip across something called the unRAID box, that although the initial price is high (~$2K), holds some 16+ drives (potentially >20TB), that looks pretty fair.

I'm bashing the numbers on that right now. And, the larger drives (2TB) are beginning to fall now that Seagate has their model(s) out to compete against WD.