Mpeg2 or Mpeg4

[MStele]

Hi. I'm going to be putting together a media server soon. The majority of the files I plan to put on there are in Mpeg2 format. Other than saving space, is there any reason to convert these to Mpeg4? I was thinking of going h.264 with them but i havent had much luck in finding an encoder that gives me close to original quality. I've done some Divx, which was very good, but Divx isn't supported by everything so I want to stay as mainstream as possible. I've tried Handbrake, and while its very good, I'm just not falling in love with it, most likely because it relies on x.264 and not the official h.264 codec.

My gut tells me just to keep the original Mpeg 2 files as they are and just eat the space, and that is an option.

 

[sivart]

anytime you re-encode you will lose quality. If you have the server space (hard drives are cheap now) and the files will play on all of your devices, why would you want to lose quality. I have some MPEG2 TV captures, I just cut the commercials to save space without any re-encoding.

With a 1 hour TV show you cut about 30% of the file size just by removing the commercials.

 

[Wuzup101]

I personally encode most of my DVD rips to mp4 with handbrake (ps3 preset with 3000kbps average rate and 2 pass encode turbo first pass). I like the results for the size.... however I'm still trying new things (and I still have all the VOB files on my computer).

As the poster above said, hard drive space is really low these days. One can get 1.5TB drives for $110 ish without a sale at newegg. If you have the space (or are willing to just buy additional drives as you need them) then there is no big reason to re-encode. I'm actually thinking about just going that rout too...

 

[MStele]

Originally posted by: Wuzup101
I personally encode most of my DVD rips to mp4 with handbrake (ps3 preset with 3000kbps average rate and 2 pass encode turbo first pass). I like the results for the size.... however I'm still trying new things (and I still have all the VOB files on my computer).

As the poster above said, hard drive space is really low these days. One can get 1.5TB drives for $110 ish without a sale at newegg. If you have the space (or are willing to just buy additional drives as you need them) then there is no big reason to re-encode. I'm actually thinking about just going that rout too...

I just wish the PS3 would get ntfs support so that I can just dump them all on a 1.5 TB harddrive and just usb to the PS3, thus not needing a WHS server, but as of now the PS3 only supports Fat32 externals and they have a 4GB file size limit.

 

[tw1164]

Originally posted by: MStele
Hi. I'm going to be putting together a media server soon. The majority of the files I plan to put on there are in Mpeg2 format. Other than saving space, is there any reason to convert these to Mpeg4? I was thinking of going h.264 with them but i havent had much luck in finding an encoder that gives me close to original quality. I've done some Divx, which was very good, but Divx isn't supported by everything so I want to stay as mainstream as possible. I've tried Handbrake, and while its very good, I'm just not falling in love with it, most likely because it relies on x.264 and not the official h.264 codec.

My gut tells me just to keep the original Mpeg 2 files as they are and just eat the space, and that is an option.

I'm unaware of an "official" h.264 codec, it's just a standard. x264 is a popular freeware encoder for the h.264 standard. Try grabbing Megui or some other x264 frontend, and encode your file using a CQ of 18. It's unlikely you'll see a quality difference large enough to outweigh the size savings.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: sivart
anytime you re-encode you will lose quality. If you have the server space (hard drives are cheap now) and the files will play on all of your devices, why would you want to lose quality. I have some MPEG2 TV captures, I just cut the commercials to save space without any re-encoding.

With a 1 hour TV show you cut about 30% of the file size just by removing the commercials.

How do you cut the size without re-encoding?

 

[sivart]

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: sivart
anytime you re-encode you will lose quality. If you have the server space (hard drives are cheap now) and the files will play on all of your devices, why would you want to lose quality. I have some MPEG2 TV captures, I just cut the commercials to save space without any re-encoding.

With a 1 hour TV show you cut about 30% of the file size just by removing the commercials.

How do you cut the size without re-encoding?

I remove commercials without re-encode. 1 hour takes up more space on the hard drive than 42 minutes does.

I use this program to cut commercials and other light editing.
http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: sivart

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: sivart
anytime you re-encode you will lose quality. If you have the server space (hard drives are cheap now) and the files will play on all of your devices, why would you want to lose quality. I have some MPEG2 TV captures, I just cut the commercials to save space without any re-encoding.

With a 1 hour TV show you cut about 30% of the file size just by removing the commercials.

How do you cut the size without re-encoding?

I remove commercials without re-encode. 1 hour takes up more space on the hard drive than 42 minutes does.

I use this program to cut commercials and other light editing.
http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm

I was under the impression that any cutting, or splitting in video files and audio files requires re-encoding

 

[sivart]

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: sivart

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: sivart
anytime you re-encode you will lose quality. If you have the server space (hard drives are cheap now) and the files will play on all of your devices, why would you want to lose quality. I have some MPEG2 TV captures, I just cut the commercials to save space without any re-encoding.

With a 1 hour TV show you cut about 30% of the file size just by removing the commercials.

How do you cut the size without re-encoding?

I remove commercials without re-encode. 1 hour takes up more space on the hard drive than 42 minutes does.

I use this program to cut commercials and other light editing.
http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm

I was under the impression that any cutting, or splitting in video files and audio files requires re-encoding

If it is re-encoding there is no bitrate loss and a 30 minute program does a "stream copy" in about 3 minutes. Well under most re-encoders time. It does re-encode a few frames at the cut, but most of the time that is in a "blank" area of the program and is not noticed.