I’m getting back into digital collecting after pretty much exhausting the local thriftstores of any movies I wanted to watch / own.

I was thinking of burning everything to DVD but then I came to my senses and just installed Jellyfin.

Question:

  • What video file sizes do you guys download and why?

  • And what is the correlation between video size and quality? I see some wild variations in file sizes even for the same res.

  • Who are y’alls downloading 20+GB movies? Are you storing all that or are you downmixing? Are you stealing your harddrives out of the recycle bin?

  • Any shortcuts for getting rich blacks for space scenes? Do I just need to suck it up eat the bytes? (I’m thinking of going this route for BSG and can’t remember if they go for video grain in space or true film black).

  • What is the obvious thing I clearly don’t understand by asking these questions?

So for me, it seems for file size, about 700MB / 90 minutes is about as low as I can go, and arguably it’s too low because I’m sometimes distracted by the low quality.

I’m a little confused by what’s going on because I’ll often watch a DVD that’s being upscaled by the player and have no complaints, and I think that’s base 480 or lower, but a labelled 720p can have some distractingly low res.

For my high end, 2GB at 1080p is about as high as I care to go unless it’s some crazy high quality cinematographic shit like Lawrence or Dune.

  • yessikg@fedia.io
    2·
    6 days ago

    I have been converting my collection to AV1 because several PC manufacturers have dropped h.265 support (because it’s too expensive) and AV1 is better than h.264 for file size. I do GPU transcoding because it’s faster but it’s more finicky than using the CPU. 1080p is the max resolution I download, usually I just go for 960p or 720p

  • FrostyPolicy@suppo.fiEnglish
    2·
    13 days ago

    File size doesn’t equal quality e.g. h265 encoded titles usually take less space than h264 encoded titles and the quality is imho better. For example from my own collection (ripped from my own discs) Dune 2021 Part 1 1080p 5.2 GB h265 re-encoded + original soundtrack + subtitles.

    The 20+ GB files are typically not re-encoded bluray (AVC/VC-1) or 4k releases.

    For a proper 1080p release with bluray audio expect anything from ~5GB up.

  • drkt@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
    1·
    13 days ago

    Who are y’alls downloading 20+GB movies?

    Any shortcuts for getting rich blacks for space scenes?

    The rich blacks are in the 20+GB movies.

  • Jump365@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    12 days ago

    Well…technically GB =/= quality.

    Different compressions will affext quality and aize differently.

    But I guess “on average” more GB is gonna be better. So if it’s like 100GB vs 5GB yeah there will be a big difference.

    A 10-15GB x265 and a 20-25gb x264? Less obvious answer.

    Basically just start getting stuff and eventually you’ll see what you like more.

    I hate banding and want every pimple on the actor visible so for me if I like a movie it’s remux central

  • ShutUpWesley@piefed.zipEnglish
    1·
    13 days ago

    I have a handful of quality levels I target, for most movies I target 1080p, with a size no more than 2.5gb/hour, as I don’t really need super HD4K Mr.Bean, but then I also have quality profiles ranging all the way up to. 4k 20gb/hour for movies that are worth the storage space.

    Since storage is so expensive, and I’m basically hardlocked at 24TB of storage for the foreseeable future, I may even decrease my “standard” quality profile to save space going forward.

    • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      I’m thinking about Blu ray legal versions of the stuff I want in 4k… if I can get it though. It’s a short list. The downside is that apparently the releases aren’t always done the right way so film buffs say “well ackshully the audio on the LaserDisc version is better” and it can be hard to get, especially legit versions instead of pirated rips (technology connections had a video about DVDs.)

      I tried getting some 4k stuff and between the audio format and HDR and whatever else, i gave up. I need new hardware to really make use of it and it takes up SO MUCH SPACE.

  • Chronographs@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    I’m pirating video because they won’t let me legally download a bluray without tons of drm. I don’t want to lose any quality and even with these ridiculously inflated prices hard drives are cheaper than buying all the blurays (which I’d also need to find a place to store) so I generally try and get remuxes or untouched streams. That said I got my drives from shucked external drives which are now going for over double what I bought them for.

    HDR should help with the rich blacks if you have a monitor that supports it, I think it might with tonemapping too but it obviously will depend on how it was mastered in addition to what anyone does to encode it afterwards.

    • LoafedBurrito@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I was buying WD elements external drives for $290 for the 22TB drives for years. They are now $1,335… I mean WTFFFFFFFFFFF. Can’t even shuck drives anymore.