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[tunetyme]

I have a variety of movies, DVD's, 720p & 1080p.  The question is what is the best format to save my movies in?  I want to have the highest quality video and audio (don't like MP3).  Is there one format that I can use for all?

Tunetyme

[hz1mf662]

I am looking for the same answer on video but do have a comment on audio.  

For me I want the best possible quality, space is not an issue especially for music.  What I have found is that the AIFF and WAV formats are uncompressed and maintain the best possible quality.  Itunes, JRiver, and my Ipod and Iphone all play the AIFF format. And I am pleased, I believe all play the WAV format as well.  Itunes will let you rip from CD to AIFF and it is fast because there is no compression.  I have also learned that the FLAC format maintains the original PCM quality of AIFF and WAV but is Lossless and therefore has the same quality but takes less space, it is compressed.  The Apple Lossles fromat is similar to this as well.  Unfortunately, Itunes and Ipod do not support the FLAC format.  This is not a big issue in general unless you want some of the new HD music that is being produced from Companies like HDTRacks. They obtain HD music, like an old  album that has been remastered and put out in 192 mhz vs. normal 44 mhz on CDs.  They provide these in FLAC format only, which is a bummer, for the itunes and Ipod people.

So best quality AIFF or WAV - FLAC and Appleloss less if you want same quality but less space - but device playability issues.


What have you learned if anything on Video format - I want the same thing I want the highest Quality - I use M2TS for Blu-Ray but ISO for DVD. THe problem I am having is that JRiver will play an ISO but it has to be virtually mounted.  I want to put the ISOs in the Library without having to mount it.  If you mount it, then import to the library it works - but if you unmount it it breaks the library link.  The problem with virtual mounting is that you can only do what drive letters are available so like G-Z.  But I have hundreds of ISO files.  I have heard something about H.264 and MPEG 2 but I am having a hard time discerning what is best quality, again space is not an issue.  ISOs are great but I want convenience in my library.  ISOs play fine on my WDLive media player, I just love the JRiver interface though.

Hope this helps and you can help me as well.  

[JimH]

Welcome.

Whether you use AIFF, WAV, FLAC, APE, WM lossless or any other lossless format, the device will see the same stream of bits, so the sound produced will be identical.  WAV has tagging disadvantages.

You might find out more about formats on the HTPC board at AVSForum:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

Or you could rip your discs in MC.

[4BYE]

Don't forget to look at .ape. Lossless and compressed to half the size as wav.
I have used it for years and all my CD's are converted to .ape files.

With MC16 I can make mp3's for my Samsung Galaxy SII or other devices from the .ape files quickly. I think it's useless to have larger files on e.g. phones unless they are hooked-up to the best best sound systems.

With video it will depend on your original files. I rip DVD's to my hard discs. With better resolution like Blu-Ray I find .mkv to be working fine.
My digital home video's are in avi files, about 12GB an hour. And my HDV video's in 1440x1080 m2v. From these files I make either DVD's when edited or other files depending on the use.

Hope this helps.

[CountryBumkin]

Your asking about ripping Movies - so my suggestion is to save them in MKV format (Google MakeMKV program). This way you can rip your DVDs to MKV and when you play it back you can use the MadVR renderer (if your computer is fast enough). Regarding Blu-ray movies, same advice. I also like to rip just the main movie (no ads, previews, or extras). MKV will make a bit perfect copy so your audio and video will not be degraded in any way.

[mbagge]

(I was overtaken by CountryBumkin, but you cannot have enough good advices  )

A well known solution to this need is the 'container' file .mkv
An .mkv file will be able to store all DVD and BD streams like mpeg2 video stream, Dolby or DTS audio stream and subtitles from a DVD and the H.264 video stream, DTSHD (and others) audio streams as well as subtitles from a BD.
And the .mkv file allows tagging and is well behaved in MC.
A widely used program to rip discs to this container file is MAKEMKV.
This program allows you to pick what streams you would prefer, maybe you only want to include the video stream and the DTS audio stream in your language. Of course you could store all streams.
On the downside you loose the menu selector on the DVD/BD discs.

[bunglemebaby]

Regarding Blu-ray movies, same advice. I also like to rip just the main movie (no ads, previews, or extras). MKV will make a bit perfect copy so your audio and video will not be degraded in any way.

Is there a way to make a bit-perfect copy of a DVD in an MKV container? As I understand it h.264 is the way to do that for a BD, but it must re-compress a DVD as it is a different encoder than used on the DVD.

[JimH]

Here's a similar thread at AVSForum.

Doom9 is another good source.

[steelman1991]

Is there a way to make a bit-perfect copy of a DVD in an MKV container? As I understand it h.264 is the way to do that for a BD, but it must re-compress a DVD as it is a different encoder than used on the DVD.

As CountryBumkin and mbagge have both recommended - MakeMKV will rip 1:1 bit-perfect copies of DVD's - well the Main Movie, you will lose menu functionality. If you required that you would either have to rip to an ISO image, or to DVD folder structure.

[tcman41]

It shouldn't even be a question, .mkv all the way.

hd video and hd audio , about 1/3 the size of a bluray rip, no brainer.

I only download movies at 1080P with DTS 5.1 or 7.1 audio, the picture on my samsung 52" is way better than anything I have ever seen at a movie theater.

[tunetyme]

Thanks!!!  I really appreciate all your input.  MKV it is.

Are there any plans to provide a conversion tool for Video similar to what is offered for Audio?

hz1mf662:

There is a growing group of hardware that will play Flac files.

Tunetyme