ISO/VOB versus MPG/MPEG (1 Viewer)

[stanbridge]

Hi There,

At present I have about 250 ISO files of movies, compressed to 4.3Gb each using DVD Shrink.

Many of these have the menus and everything else still in tact.

Of course I would also like to be able to reduce the size of each movie and from threads like this one, it looks like MPEG compression is the way to go.

That said, can someone explain the pros/cons of converting to MPEG?

* I do not want any noticeable reduction in image quality.
* I do not want any noticeable reduction in sound quality.
* I want to retain the surround sound playback.
* I would like to keep the menus, special features etc, but if this would cuase problems, then I would sacrifice these if it's going to cut my overall filesize in half (from 4.3Gb per movie).

Any/all info is very much appreciated!!!

Cheers,

Stanbridge!

 

[R300]

I tried the exact same thing with a few titles (vob to mpg) but I found mepo did not like to seek very well and sometimes would freeze up altogether. After that I trashed that idea, I tried automkv from doom9 and have converted all my titles to mkv (main movie only).

 

[gdog05]

I've used a utility called FairUseWizard that will encode to whatever specs you want. Xvid, Mpeg, whatever encoder is installed I believe. You can set the output quality, pixel size even. Final size dictates a lot. It will encode with a double pass to preserve quality. It will extract subtitles even, if you're a junkie like me. And, it will batch multiple .iso files. I love it, maybe you will too.

 

[dasher]

Tell me, can any one hear mount ISO images in mediaportal. Because i can't! Using deamon tools and doing the config in MP seems to work -ie: no error messages, but come to selecting the ISO file, it just does not mount!
So for this reason i have to use "MPEG_Streamclip" to encode to mpg. But with all conversion theres losses of quailty! i have found this to replay/pause/seek fine.

 

[R300]

Tell me, can any one hear mount ISO images in mediaportal. Because i can't! Using deamon tools and doing the config in MP seems to work -ie: no error messages, but come to selecting the ISO file, it just does not mount!
So for this reason i have to use "MPEG_Streamclip" to encode to mpg. But with all conversion theres losses of quailty! i have found this to replay/pause/seek fine.

I have no problem mounting iso's in mp ........using DT version 4.10 with only the following checked in the options ---> Automount
Autostart
Tray Icon

all others unchecked

How do you have yours setup?

 

[dasher]

i have tried deamon tools version 3.47, 4.08, and 4.120. with just about all different combinations of settings!! It just don't work... I have the tried a few different SVN this year with no success. Well i'll go try version 4.10 now see how it goes. BTW do you know what window services are required for virtual drives?

 

[stanbridge]

Tell me, can any one hear mount ISO images in mediaportal. Because i can't! Using deamon tools and doing the config in MP seems to work -ie: no error messages, but come to selecting the ISO file, it just does not mount!
So for this reason i have to use "MPEG_Streamclip" to encode to mpg. But with all conversion theres losses of quailty! i have found this to replay/pause/seek fine.

Using the latest release of MP1 I can mount ISO files without any problems. I haven't done anything fancy at all other than just point to the folder containing the ISOs as per the usual setup, so I don't know what help I can offer. Um, I rip my DVDs into ISO via DVDshrink. Sorry, I know that's not much help!

That said, can someone explain the pros/cons of converting to MPEG?

* I do not want any noticeable reduction in image quality.
* I do not want any noticeable reduction in sound quality.
* I want to retain the surround sound playback.
* I would like to keep the menus, special features etc, but if this would cuase problems, then I would sacrifice these if it's going to cut my overall filesize in half (from 4.3Gb per movie).

Any/all info is very much appreciated!!!

Cheers,

Stanbridge!

 

[R300]

Since you already have used shrink to compress you have already degraded the original quality of the dvd's......though they may look good to you now so then it does not really matter as long as your happy with the quality.

I would think you could save some space by just merging the 'vobs' into one and then you do not affect the quality of the video or audio then just change the extension to 'mpg' and play in mp , that does not keep your special features and menus as I don't know of a way to keep them.

 

[stanbridge]

Yeah, quite right, the overall quality IS already compressed (to 4.3Gb). That said, I've seen some movies at about 500Mb! Is that just because the quality has been reduced to 1/8th of my 4.3Gb compression level?

 

[stanbridge]

*bump*