[thumbinollie]

So I'm curious

What file formats do you prefer in your video library?

I have almost a terabyte in my collection, 250+ movies and 2800+ tv shows. As I dont currently have the cash for another terabyte drive at the moment, I'm looking to reduce the size of my existing library.

I have a lot of .avi files, and I'm wondering if there is a better file format that will give me smaller files?

Discuss

[Chris!]

I think the video codec of choice is probably h.264.
What container you put that in though...
(MKV/M4V/MP4 etc etc)

[skyking376]

I use .mkv (google "makemkv")

Be advised I started with a "blank slate" when I discovered XBMC 4 months ago. Since you already have files in different format I don't know if you can convert or not?

Standard Definition movies (aka "SD", "720P") are all I have and the largest to smallest file sizes were from 3.5GB - 7.2GB. From clouded memory I remember hearing that blu-ray movies were between 40-60GB? somewhere in that range?

[UnderCoverUZI]

Standard Definition movies (aka "SD", "720P") are all I have and the largest to smallest file sizes were from 3.5GB - 7.2GB. From clouded memory I remember hearing that blu-ray movies were between 40-60GB? somewhere in that range?

SD would be closer to 480 not 720p.
HD is 720-1080

Also, depending on the size of a bluray and the length of the movie they can vary from 2-13 GB give or take a few.


Getting back on topic, if you have all those TV shows I'd say try and remove some you might not watch again if you don't want to spend the money on more storage. I doubt by downsizing your files you would gain that much room. You probably would loss some quality in the videos as well.

[thumbinollie]

Getting back on topic, if you have all those TV shows I'd say try and remove some you might not watch again if you don't want to spend the money on more storage. I doubt by downsizing your files you would gain that much room. You probably would loss some quality in the videos as well.

Removing files isn't an option. I'm a diehard user of the PseudoTV addon so the more media I can have pumped into it the better. I hate paying for cable!!!

I might just suck it up, slow down the rate I'm adding stuff, and get more space.

[PatK]

Using something like handbrake on your avi files to convert to H264 overall might give you 30%, but the effort is substantial. In the end a bigger toy box is the real solution.