Should I convert collection to 1080p

[Bodhi395]

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I have a few hundred DVDs, most of which I have ripped to my 1 TB media hard drive using Apple TV preset in Handbrake. I am interested in having a definitive film collection of my DVDs, but am worried the quality of DVD, and the quality I ripped them in will be outdated in 5-10 years.

To me, my DVD rips look pretty good, although some not so much, it depends on the movie. So, should I give up on these DVD versions and start buying Blu-Rays and ripping them? If I did rip Blu-Rays into high quality digital files, would those last me into the foreseeable future? I worry that a higher quality format will quickly supersede 1080p, maybe 4k or higher. So would investing significant time and money in 1080p rips be worth it if they will be superseded in future?

 

[imthenachoman]

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I have a few hundred DVDs, most of which I have ripped to my 1 TB media hard drive using Apple TV preset in Handbrake. I am interested in having a definitive film collection of my DVDs, but am worried the quality of DVD, and the quality I ripped them in will be outdated in 5-10 years.

To me, my DVD rips look pretty good, although some not so much, it depends on the movie. So, should I give up on these DVD versions and start buying Blu-Rays and ripping them? If I did rip Blu-Rays into high quality digital files, would those last me into the foreseeable future? I worry that a higher quality format will quickly supersede 1080p, maybe 4k or higher. So would investing significant time and money in 1080p rips be worth it if they will be superseded in future?

C'mon man...you know the answer to that.

The moment you finish ripping/converting the last DVD/Blu-Ray/video the format you used will become outdated and a new one will reign as king.

HOWEVER, since Blu-Rays are encoded at a max of 1080 it's not like you'll be able to encode them to a higher format.

So for the DVDs and Blu-Rays you have, figure out what resolution they were recorded at and rip them 1:1. It will take a lot of space but space is cheap. That way you always have the best you can have.

 

[floh]

Honestly, why would you want to rip a ton of BluRays? I mean, I can understand that some of your movies might really benefit from HD, but consider these few points:

1. Most of the movies you own are absolutely OK as you have them right now. At least most movies I have, I bought because of their content, not their cinematography. All those movies, you can keep as is. Only buy BluRays for the ones where you really love the look.

2. If you buy hundreds of BluRays (or even if you agree with point 1 and only buy tens...): Why would you want to rip them? You will either have huge artefacts on your rips or the rips themselves will be really huge.
This might be a stupid question, but: Why don't you just play the BluRay whenever you want to watch the movie?

3. A DVD contains up to 9GB of data and is encoded in MPEG2. If you use H.264, you can rip this into about 1.5GB file size without it looking significantly worse. That is because H.264 has a better encoding algorithm that lets you save space without losing quality (well, not much...). A 1080p BluRay contains 40GB of data, already in H.264. So you will not be able to compress this without losing quality. You can do the math yourself: Even if you reduce the file size (which will result in more artefacts than for your DVD rips, be aware of that), you will end up with HUGE amounts of data. You will not be able to fit your current DVD collection on current hard drives in 1080p.

4. My advice: Buy BluRays for movies you really love, they do look better. Don't rip them. Keep your original DVD rips on a hard drive for portability. If you want quality, just take the BluRay with you.

 

[mBox]

You can also find some of them ripped already online.
But as much as I love being a pack-rat, collecting DVD/BD then converting is overkill.

 

[floh]

You can also find some of them ripped already online.

Good point. If you want to buy BluRays and then rip them, why not buy video-on-demand? You'll have your digital version ready made...

 

[Bodhi395]

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Good advice, I think I just am a bit anal about these things and dream of having that perfect collection of movies in pristine quality, easily accessible from hard drive to stream to my Apple TV at any moment, and that will last for years down the road. While having the physical discs will work, I much prefer a digital collection on a hard drive. I also think discs will be gone in 5-10 years, and any new movies I'll want to buy will only be available in digital files.

I think right now I'll stick with my DVD rips and maybe slowly transition movies I think will look better in HD. There def are certain movies that benefit not only from being on HD, but from restorations studios might have done before releasing the movie on Blu-ray.

 

[Sirolway]

No!
Having them ripped at higher quality doesn't make the films any better; one of my favourite films is "12 Angry Men" with Henry Fonda, & I'm always going to love that more than Avatar (blech!), no matter how wowie the Avatar sound / effects / definition ...

And as someone else pointed out, there will be ever-higher / better formats released

I have 1.5TB of video on disk (mostly recorded off TV). It's full so adding more = removing something old. The day is not too far off where I can get all this stuff from streaming services, at which point I'll wipe it - no point storing stuff you rarely access, when it's readily accessible for a small fee online ..

Not yet though; no onnline catalogue is yet complete enough ...

 

[mBox]

Future...

Keep in mind that just like Betacam/VHS then DVD and now BD, there is talks of higher resolution.
I work with 4K and I have a feeling that it will overtake BD eventually.
Itll never end cause now Im hearing 8K

 

[Bodhi395]

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Keep in mind that just like Betacam/VHS then DVD and now BD, there is talks of higher resolution.
I work with 4K and I have a feeling that it will overtake BD eventually.
Itll never end cause now Im hearing 8K

It can end for movies made up to a certain point. I've read that movies shot on film, which is basically all movies before 2000, usually don't have any increase in picture quality above 4k. So, if 4k becomes the standard and you get 4k versions of those older movies, those movies will be safe forever, as they will never be able to increase their quality in the future.

As for movies shot digitally, they will be stuck at whatever resolution they were shot at forever.

So, theoretically at the point that 4k becomes standard, a person who wants to create a movie archive that will last forever, simply needs to get all movies shot on film in 4k, and get all movies shot digitally in whatever resolution they were shot on, and their archive will be future proof.

 

[nateo200]

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It can end for movies made up to a certain point. I've read that movies shot on film, which is basically all movies before 2000, usually don't have any increase in picture quality above 4k. So, if 4k becomes the standard and you get 4k versions of those older movies, those movies will be safe forever, as they will never be able to increase their quality in the future.

As for movies shot digitally, they will be stuck at whatever resolution they were shot at forever.

So, theoretically at the point that 4k becomes standard, a person who wants to create a movie archive that will last forever, simply needs to get all movies shot on film in 4k, and get all movies shot digitally in whatever resolution they were shot on, and their archive will be future proof.

Agreed.

@ the thread in general and to the OP,

For now, 1920x1080p appears to be a very high quality format if not overkill for most everyone. When DVD came out the only advantage I saw was digital and not much resolution. With BluRay's there is allot more resolution and quality than everyone thinks. Once you grasp just how good 1080p is I think you will see that their is not much point in going any higher resolution for some time. 4k is really really really really overkill for most everything, its nice for making movies that would normally be shot on film but its essentially 24 full size JPEGs every second for 2 hours....think about all those JPEGs you've taken and never needed all that resolution.

I take BluRay's from 1080p and I shrink them down to 720p...I can keep ALLOT of detail this way at a size of 1.5-2gigs using the most efficient and advanced encoding schemes (which takes a LONG time but I save on disk space).

 

[emaja]

If you buy hundreds of BluRays (or even if you agree with point 1 and only buy tens...): Why would you want to rip them? You will either have huge artefacts on your rips or the rips themselves will be really huge.

You can find nice balance between size and quality easily with Handbrake. I use constant quality and an RF of 18 and they look great. File sizes are quite manageable.

It's all about convenience and protection from damage - especially if you have kids. I'd much rather have them use the AppleTV than risk scratching a disk.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Good point. If you want to buy BluRays and then rip them, why not buy video-on-demand? You'll have your digital version ready made...

Own the physical media and you can sell it to someone else, leave it to others when you die, etc. Own the media attached to your iTunes account and there's no resale and you need to think about leaving your iTunes account to someone when you die.

To other points in this thread, TV is about convenience of on demand video. If the OP doesn't care about storage space, ripping BDs is a great way to have maximum (consumer) quality in an TV convenient way. Storage space is cheap.

If OP has a family, the kiddies can destroy physical media. Rip it once and they don't.

If OP has mobile devices or wants to take favorite BD movies with him, sure he can cart along the discs, or he could rip a bunch of them to a small hard drive and have them all on demand wherever he goes.

And OP, 1080p is probably THE max standard for the next decade or more. I think the HD standards were finally locked down in about 1986 and it took about 2 decades before they were feeling like they were actually implemented on many channels (but many others are still not there 26 years later). A 4K standard that is going to lead to 4K TVs, media players, media formats, over the air broadcasts, etc is not even established yet. While I don't think it would take 26 years to get there, I can easily see it taking 10+ years.

My thinking goes like this: 1080 is the max standard for probably at least a decade. Try to adopt that standard as much as possible. Apparently still- for now- physical media trumps iTunes media in terms of maximum quality. Thus, if storage space is not an issue and you're going to spend the money on either BD or iTunes, I'd probably buy the BD and rip them.

As others have offered, re-buying all of your existing DVD titles is a personal choice thing. You might start by just picking those movies where the visual quality really matters to you (which may not be all of them). There are also media trading services online and/or you might start putting select DVDs up for sale and then using the proceeds toward buying BDs. You might be able to get a few dollars for a DVD and then find a new BD (or even a Used BD) for not too much more if you really look around). Don't forget about places like movie stores going out of business (a local one were selling BD's at $1 each) and places like Pawn Shops.

 

[DisMyMac]

When digital catches up to 70mm film, it may be worth the effort.

16:9 is a terrible standard anyway. I'm all for increasing resolution, but this odd ratio seems like an indecisive compromise that only assures strange PAR values, and that all widescreen standards would suffer... they basically went back to pan-scan in many blu-ray releases.

And don't get me started on frame rates....

 

[stefmesman]

When digital catches up to 70mm film, it may be worth the effort.

16:9 is a terrible standard anyway. I'm all for increasing resolution, but this odd ratio seems like an indecisive compromise that only assures strange PAR values, and that all widescreen standards would suffer... they basically went back to pan-scan in many blu-ray releases.

And don't get me started on frame rates....

Aslong as there are no definitive standards these problems will remain the same. Transitioning an market to higher resolutions takes a long time. I agree with your statement on resolution. For the average consumer right now, well encoded 720p video is pretty good quality if you have an tv set witch is is pretty decent at upscaling. For the guy above, 35mm film is comparable to 4k digital video. But for most of us 1080p is already way higher resolutions then our home uses can utilize to the maximum. Taking viewing distances and tv sizes in account.

to the OP if you rip your files in 1080p format. (blu-ray) anything you will do to compress them will make them less quality (depth and color spectrum wise) since Blu-Ray video is already a pretty compressed video kind. There will always be an higher resolution coming, but i doubt 4k will bring a big difference on any tv below 60" (not even to mention 8k or UHD) for the best quality, just watch blu-ray. If you want to access from Apple TV i suggest you compress your blu-ray rips to an 10Mb/s data rate or something similar. to save some space. a high resolution rip will take you 50gb a movie. a 10Mb/s will give you around 15Gb and a multi pass will give you around 10GB. (wich is pretty decent quality)

Right now some digital films are shot in 4k or higher, but none of them is mastered in 4k or anything like it. Every movie right now is mastered at 2k (2048p) the only reason they are shot in 4k is the so called "crop factor"

 

[DisMyMac]

Aslong as there are no definitive standards these problems will remain the same. Transitioning an market to higher resolutions takes a long time. I agree with your statement on resolution. For the average consumer right now, well encoded 720p video is pretty good quality if you have an tv set witch is is pretty decent at upscaling. For the guy above, 35mm film is comparable to 4k digital video. But for most of us 1080p is already way higher resolutions then our home uses can utilize to the maximum. Taking viewing distances and tv sizes in account.

As long as everything needs to be letter or pillar boxed anyway, they should have made 2:1 the physical display standard. 'Course we'd still see the same crop/butchering of movies like The Last Emperor (the blu-ray is 2:1), and the same fools would watch 4:3 television stretched across the entire screen.... Oh well.

 

[nateo200]

When digital catches up to 70mm film, it may be worth the effort.

16:9 is a terrible standard anyway. I'm all for increasing resolution, but this odd ratio seems like an indecisive compromise that only assures strange PAR values, and that all widescreen standards would suffer... they basically went back to pan-scan in many blu-ray releases.

And don't get me started on frame rates....

Are you serious? Or are you trolling? Frame rates are not an issue on BluRay...unless you hate 24fps which has been used for practically every film for the past few decades. How are they going back to "Pan and scan" with 16:9? Almost every BluRay I've seen is in its native aspect ratio in the 1920x1080 picture with the horizontal encoded pixels being different depending on if its say 1.85:1 or 2.4:1. 16:9 is far from something as bad as 4:3...**** I hated looking at the square screen since I was a kid! I'm all for 2.35:1 TV's being standard one day but for 90% of people 16:9 is perfectly fine...

 

[rlogan814]

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OP if you are "buying" the blurays but want the convenience of keeping them on your hard drive and streaming to ATV, I would just buy the HD movie through iTunes. Why waste all that time converting a bluray? Plus, I just saw my collection of 283 TV episodes and 18 movies purchased through iTunes at 720p now have the option to download the 1080p version for free. Are they bluray quality 1080p? No. Can I stream them to any room in my house and stream them on the road? Yes. Will iTunes update them for free if something more than 1080p comes out? Maybe. For me it's not just having the best resolution, but having the convenience of streaming and not popping discs in and out. If you add free resolution upgrades to it, how can you not choose the iTunes digital HD option?

 

[DisMyMac]

...unless you hate 24fps which has been used for practically every film for the past few decades.

I hate pulldown. That's all.

How are they going back to "Pan and scan" with 16:9?

As I said, The Last Emperor was pan-scanned into 2:1, as was Apocalypse Now. Then there is "vertical" pan-scanning (whatever that's called). The blu-ray for Barry Lyndon is one example.

I'm all for 2.35:1 TV's being standard one day but for 90% of people 16:9 is perfectly fine...

Any odd ratio for a new physical display standard is bad - because if movies weren't released in that ratio, then they should always be presented with pillars or letterboxing anyway. Cropping horizontally or vertically is evil.

Selling 2:1 televisions in say 2048x1024 resolution would solve many headaches, assuming that discs will be mastered properly. Of course I wouldn't want movies to be filmed in 2:1 because my brain keeps screaming "Hey look- two squares stuck together!!" as I am trying to watch the movie....

In effect, I am against "anamorphic" anything... and my solution is to fix every display on earth.