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Methinks you're getting into the "format" vs "container" thing - so here's a primer:
Format = the actual encoding format of the audio and video streams, of which there are many. For audio there's wav, mp3, aac, ogg (Vorbis), raw, and many others. For video some of the more popular ones are Divx, Xvid, MPEG1 (VideoCD standard from many years past), MPEG2 (DVD standard), MPEG4 (newer updated more efficient forms), h.264, and others.
Containers are what holds the audio and video streams encoded using the formats above and include: AVI (probably the oldest still used container and the most popular by far), MKV (the "new kid on the block" but it can do most anything), MP4 (yes, it's a container, not a format), M4V (same as MP4 with some additional potentials), Ogg, and nowadays WebM by Google.
Newer containers like MP4 and MKV can hold not only the audio and video streams but also chapter markers, captions or subtitle streams, and other data including multiple audio tracks too. MKV is the "King" in that respect as it offers the most potential for the most possibilities above and beyond all the rest. The downside to using MKV is that not every device out there is capable of reading the container to get the streams inside it.
It's becoming more popular but right now the most widely supported native container format is MP4 which is workable on most any device you'll find. Now, just because the device can read the MP4 container does NOT mean it can decode the audio and video streams contained inside it - that's where you have an issue with format support if you encounter it. Like an MP4 container that has an Xvid-encoded video stream with an Ogg Vorbis audio stream but the device you're trying to play that MP4 on can't decode Xvid or Ogg Vorbis content. That's more common than you might realize but it happens.
Today's most popular "video" file would probably be an MP4 with h.264-encoded video and AAC-encoded audio. That's playable on most anything - but there's multiple levels of potential h.264 encoding (Baseline, Main, High Profile, etc) that can cause problems too...
Yeah, it's confusing at times but, best advice is stick to what works for you and your hardware - you're the one watching it, so as long as all your stuff works with the encodings you create, what else really matters?
I don't usually care about the menus and stuff so I simply rip the DVD as the original MPEG-2 video stream with 5.1 audio track and leave it in the VOB container. Never had a problem playing it with all the main media players.
I do combine the pieces together into one large VOB file though as on a DVD they are split into 1GB pieces.
I like this method because it provides the best video quality (original) which is important for me when starting with a SD source like a DVD.
I rip to iso and then play with XBMC.
Meh...I just leave them in ISO format/container. I rip only the movie (audio+video) and subtitles (especially forced ones). Anything I use can read ISO just fine (I mostly use XBMC on anything that is not my HTPC, where I use MC7+MediaBrowser and have Daemon Tools mount the ISO for MB).
The biggest reason I do this is so that I can take any movie that I have and burn it back to a DVD with little to no effort. If you have kids, this is invaluable, as I can just use a portable DVD player for them in the car and let them watch whatever.
Disk space is cheap but not that cheap.
I've got over 1000 HD films and if that was 30GB per BluRay That would be over 30TB and i need more room to continue growing and more for redundancy heh. Plus films aren't all I store.
DVDs I don't compress cause I want all the quality they have and they aren't very large. But BluRays I compress with x264.
MKV is a container, not a format. MKV can just as easily contain MPEG-2 video as it can h.264 or HEVC. Heck, I think it can even contain multiple video streams.
Lol I was the last post in 2011.
Anyway, I'm moving on to h.265/HEVC(massive storage savings), using a Intel atom plex server direct playing to an Xbox one.
I did some testing with x265 and IMO it isn't ready for prime time.
CRF23 on x265 doesn't look as good as CRF23 on x264. You save some space for a loss in quality and compatibility.
I am sticking with x264 for now.
You guys are using 23 for your media library?
I was happy with the file size using 18 and wondered if I was giving up any quality.
How big is average bluray (live action, modern movie....no film grain)?
Remember, CRF is reverse what you'd expect. Lower factor = higher quality, and larger file size. So the CRF really tracks the file size.
Ya thats more what I was getting at. For archiving purposes, 23 just seemed way too aggressive. For re-coding for a portable or to fit to a certain size, it's fine. But for watching on the big TV, I wouldn't be happy with that. But then again, it depends on how much storage space you have. If you are planning on fitting an entire library on a single 4TB drive, then I could understand being aggressive with your file size.