Agreed, you can generally get acceptable quality with low file size (4-5 GB) with using x264 (~3 Mbps average) even without using the “very slow” preset.
I target “close to transparent” quality above all factors at the lowest file size possible. I am willing to do multiple rounds of encodes to targets this.
That being said there is source BD content (older movies mostly) that is difficult to encode and sometimes even cases when I don’t bother and simply mux in the raw x264/x265/VC1 stream.
One example is the Hornblower series from the late 90s, early 2000s. Lot’s of images of the sea, rain/storms, sailing ships out at sea. You can notice the lower quality with lower compression/file size at faster encoding presets.
For whatever reason, the Primer (2004) BD source encodes very badly even with x265 at high bitrate and the “very slow” preset. I just went with source BD stream and gave up on encodes with Primer.
Honestly if storage costs weren’t an issue, I would go with remuxes for older FHD/newer 4K content, with encodes only for newer FHD movies and DVD/MPEG2. But x5 20 TB HDDs and a good enclosure would work out to be about $2700 were I live. An SSD based system (arguably a pointless luxury for NAS media storage) would be much higher.
With GPU encodes, I also notice a quality differential for any given bitrate outside of “non competitive” option. Since quality is the key, this doesn’t work for me.
Funny how even with giant streaming services, there is still relatively large “market” for home DIY movie collections.
Agreed, you can generally get acceptable quality with low file size (4-5 GB) with using x264 (~3 Mbps average) even without using the “very slow” preset.
I target “close to transparent” quality above all factors at the lowest file size possible. I am willing to do multiple rounds of encodes to targets this.
That being said there is source BD content (older movies mostly) that is difficult to encode and sometimes even cases when I don’t bother and simply mux in the raw x264/x265/VC1 stream.
One example is the Hornblower series from the late 90s, early 2000s. Lot’s of images of the sea, rain/storms, sailing ships out at sea. You can notice the lower quality with lower compression/file size at faster encoding presets.
For whatever reason, the Primer (2004) BD source encodes very badly even with x265 at high bitrate and the “very slow” preset. I just went with source BD stream and gave up on encodes with Primer.
Honestly if storage costs weren’t an issue, I would go with remuxes for older FHD/newer 4K content, with encodes only for newer FHD movies and DVD/MPEG2. But x5 20 TB HDDs and a good enclosure would work out to be about $2700 were I live. An SSD based system (arguably a pointless luxury for NAS media storage) would be much higher.
With GPU encodes, I also notice a quality differential for any given bitrate outside of “non competitive” option. Since quality is the key, this doesn’t work for me.
Funny how even with giant streaming services, there is still relatively large “market” for home DIY movie collections.