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AcWxRadar said:

I need to figure out which file I need to reduce this to just the movie alone (none of the extraneous files) but I am not sure how to identify which file/files are absolutely necessary.
Too many files here and they take up too much space, I want to reduce them to the bare minimum and just the movie alone (I don't need the special features).

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General
Complete name                    : \\HistoryChannel\History.Channel.The.Real.Robin.Hood.x264.720p.mkv
Format                           : Matroska
File size                        : 2.19 GiB
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Overall bit rate                 : 3 557 Kbps
Encoded date                     : UTC 2010-05-13 00:26:34
Writing application              : mkvmerge v2.9.8 ('C'est le bon') built on Aug 13 2009 12:49:06
Writing library                  : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Muxing mode                      : Container profile=Unknown@3.1
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Bit rate                         : 3 102 Kbps
Nominal bit rate                 : 3 171 Kbps
Width                            : 1 280 pixels
Height                           : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Resolution                       : 8 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.140
Stream size                      : 1.90 GiB (87%)
Writing library                  : x264 core 94 r1570 d9db8b3
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=3171 / ratetol=2.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                         : English

Audio
ID                               : 2
Format                           : AC-3
Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID                         : A_AC3
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 384 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L R
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Stream size                      : 242 MiB (11%)

     
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Anole said:

As mentioned above, on most discs you can go for the 1gb .VOB files as they probably contain all the movie.
There may be smaller VOBs, which contain menu video and other special features.

But, since you asked for a space-saving feature and none of the extras, here's another approach.
Convert all the movies into XviD format, which the AZbox should play just fine.
It's a hell of a dandy media-player.
I'm not going into the "how", as there are a number of different ways from free to co$tly.
Likewise there are other formats you might like to use (such as h.264).
And, you can put them into different wrappers such as .AVI, .MKV, etc.

The storage reduction will be significant, and it's unlikely you'll notice any change in picture quality.
Whenever I do similar conversion processing (sometimes I re-make real DVDs from compressed video) I set the software to insert chapter marks every 5 or 10 minutes, just to make playback easier.
Some of the above containers support chapters, too.

This idea is even more important when you are using HD video of any sort.
The storage requirements can be onerous!
Here is an example of an hour 'n a half show that takes 2.2gb of storage.

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Mikhel said:

I think the best way its by converting the movie to another format, in this case Anole has a MKV file (MKV its just a container, and inside it has an AVI file proccesed with an encoder, be it plain DIVX/XVID or mpeg-4 = h.264), but from what i've been reading, the AZ has no problem whatsoever reading it.

That process, however, like all good things in life, takes time, the amount of time to process a 1hr movie/show it's about the same time of it's lenght, 1 hour (with a PC 3.0 GHz and 512 MB RAM, in faster computers the time diminishes but not a lot).

Still... if you want to do it the quick way you could use the little tutorial i made for BJ (for those VIDEO_TS folders on your HDD):
http://www.satelliteguys.us/azbox-discussion/214267-how-link-dvd-files-together.html#post2211627

And you can do the following for those DVD's still in the disc (i'll use one of those 50 movies for 1 dll orwhatever they are LOL, for examples purposes and to demonstrate it, because those have no restrictions as movies with copyright do... ;P):

You'll need either DVDShrink (an old software still pretty effective to this day) or DVD Decrypter (also an old but pretty good program), i'll first demonstrate it with "shrink":

Hope it helps =)... cheers!

Mike[/B]

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AcWxRadar said:

Anole,

I have acquired some conversion programs like this and will have to give them a try.
I had experimented with them in the reverse (trying to take recorded programs from the AZBox and making DVDs out of them), but I found it to be really messy and long.

Click to expand...

Anole said:

Whenever I do similar conversion processing (sometimes I re-make real DVDs from compressed video) I set the software to insert chapter marks every 5 or 10 minutes, just to make playback easier.

Click to expand...