Discussion Why are the downloads so large?

[KidJoe]

Quick question - any downside downloading in H265 versus H264 if file size is a non-issue? Any degradation in video quality with the more efficient H265 format? What about audio quality?

If all of your devices support H265/HEVC there really isn't a downside to downloading H265. Video quality is the same or better, and takes up less space.

 

[psig33]

Quick question - any downside downloading in H265 versus H264 if file size is a non-issue? Any degradation in video quality with the more efficient H265 format? What about audio quality?

IMHO Amazon's H265 encodes are not that great, it struggles with fast motion and at scene changes. Artifacts become even more apparent with grainy footage. H264 CVBR struggles with temporal consistency, it used to be the best choice before 2018 but that is no longer the case. To me H264 CBR offers the most consistent encodes in regards to quality. I see it like this:

• CBR: if you care about quality and are not too concerned about filesize.
• CVBR: if you don't care about quality nor filesize.
• HEVC: if you care about filesize but are not too concerned about quality.

Of course this is not across the board but more often than not, CBR is the best choice. The only downside is that you have to get the higher bitrate audio from the CVBR/HEVC manifest and then mux it with the CBR encode.

Yeah, I get that. What I'm saying is that for me, at least, 1920x800 @ 4000 kb/s is good enough and takes tons less bandwidth and disk space than 15000 kb/s, so it would be nice if we had the choice to just download that one, or any one of the others.

For that bitrate I would choose 1248x520 @ 4000 kb/s CBR, but that's just me.

 

[cartman0208]

If you care about quality, then don't save streamed media, period.
Go for the BluRay.
All that CBR vs. CVBR vc HEVC topic is tiresome. Do your own encodes.

 

[psig33]

If you care about quality, then don't save streamed media, period.
Go for the BluRay.

As someone who has been buying blurays ever since they came out, I agree. That answer is pretty obvious, but not everything is on physical media... Thanks for the insightful input, though.

 

[BCloud]

If you care about quality, then don't save streamed media, period.
Go for the BluRay.

It's what I do, the problem is that the release of some movies and tv shows are still in DVD (if they release them...) but not in blu-ray these days, I only find the HD version on the streaming services and it's why I mainly bought AS, to get videos that don't exist anywhere.

Quick question - any downside downloading in H265 versus H264 if file size is a non-issue? Any degradation in video quality with the more efficient H265 format? What about audio quality?

I downloaded first in HEVC but now I gave up with it, I found several videos where some important details are too blurry (birds in the sky that don't exist in the HEVC version because of too blurry), I prefer AVC CBR or CVBR.

 

[Kalemvar]

IMHO Amazon's H265 encodes are not that great, it struggles with fast motion and at scene changes. Artifacts become even more apparent with grainy footage. H264 CVBR struggles with temporal consistency, it used to be the best choice before 2018 but that is no longer the case. To me H264 CBR offers the most consistent encodes in regards to quality. I see it like this:

• CBR: if you care about quality and are not too concerned about filesize.
• CVBR: if you don't care about quality nor filesize.
• HEVC: if you care about filesize but are not too concerned about quality.

Of course this is not across the board but more often than not, CBR is the best choice. The only downside is that you have to get the higher bitrate audio from the CVBR/HEVC manifest and then mux it with the CBR encode.


For that bitrate I would choose 1248x520 @ 4000 kb/s CBR, but that's just me.

I agree CBR are lot more clear and detailed than CVBR concerning modern material.

For old series/movies, let’s say The Walking Dead that was filmed on 16mm and very grainy, CVBR give us 13-14 mbps but CBR is still capped to 10 mbps, do you consider CBR the best option ?

HEVC is simply not an option on both situations

Thanks

 

[AGuyWithAComputer]

It's a 3-hour movie in 1080p FHD. The average download in FHD is about 3.5GB/s give or take. Use the HEVC codec to minimize the file size when available. It is not available on Peacock but it is available on HBO Hulu and Amazon.

Oppenheimer is only available on Peacock at the moment. When I downloaded it, it was 10GB. Peacock likes to add CC tracks to the videos. With those removed and the SRT file added to an MKV converted to HEVC my final size is 5.12 GB

 

[Salotto]

For old series/movies, let’s say The Walking Dead that was filmed on 16mm and very grainy, CVBR give us 13-14 mbps but CBR is still capped to 10 mbps, do you consider CBR the best option ?

That depends, many CVBR titles deliver very low bitrates like 3.4 to 7mb. The CBR delivers at least 8mb which goes up to 10mb which is the minimum to be a FULLHD.
In short: Each title has this variation in MBs, sometimes one is better than the other, it depends on how it was encoded.
Except for the audio, of course.

 

[zanetti]

For old series/movies, let’s say The Walking Dead that was filmed on 16mm and very grainy

grain is digital video's mortal enemy, especially when it comes to streaming. i was avoiding the walking dead like a pleague because of the grain, but then bitten the bullet and went with 1080p AVC CBR, which cost me around 800gb. then i downgraded to 720p AVC CVBR bluray rips and cut down the size to about half. it still looks bad. same goes for rescue me series. ive tried even 6gb 1080p AVC bluray files and still there were some serious issues in low light, complex scenes. not to mention series 24, the king of grain (at least to my knowledge). i did not try blurays, but even the highest bitrate files from AP are barely acceptable. thus, ive accepted the fact that grainy series will look bad and if i want to save precious HDD space, it will look even worse. im no quality snob, but even i have standards, lol.

all that being said, ive settled with the folllowing: all movies, 1080p AVC CBR, no exceptions (dont care if audio is 128kbps stereo or 192kbps 5.1, they all sound the same to me, maybe if i had a spiffy sound setup id care, but i dont so eff it, lol). TV series fall into three tiers: newer sitcoms, 720p AVC CBR or 1080p HEVC but only if HEVC looks acceptable. older sitcoms 720p AVC CBR only (no SD unless the series has been remastered, then i think most will be fine even at 540/480p, see the virginian... even SD is like 1gb per episode). other TV series, 1080p AVC CBR unless series comes in 12 seasons with 25 episodes per, then i drop down to 720p AVC CBR.

i simply stopped caring whether ill use 380gb vs 200gb when it comes to TV series because ive learned, from experience, that you cant have great quality and low filesizes. you can and absolutely will get acceptable quality and low filesizes, sure. in the end, ALL streaming content is lower quality than what you can produce yourself by ripping and encoding your own both DVDs and blurays, which is what i am doing with almost all older TV series i find on any of the streaming providers, given i can source DVDs and they are of acceptable quality (not all DVDs are made the same, a thing i also learned along the way).

anyways, you have 500 tokens. ramp up to unlimited speed, and try. i suggest to get movies in highest quality you can, and for TV shows... trial and error, experiment. ALWAYS try s01e01 in various resolutions and codecs, see which looks best/acceptable and go for it. but, also beware that something that looks great on 50'' 1080p screen might not look as good on a 75'' 4K screen. i had to redownload a 'hit tonne of stuff because what used to look good suddenly most definitely did not on a larger screen.

 

[rEvIoNtA]

I am trying to figure out why many of the downloads are so large. I googled how large one hour of 1080p video should be and it reported at the largest it should be 1.4GB. I downloaded Oppenheimer from peacock and it was 10GB, the movie is 3 hours long, so with the google results, it should be no larger than 4.2 GB. I downloaded a 42 minute episode of a tv show and it is 1.5, I feel like 42 minutes of video should not be 1.5 GB even at 1080p. It there anything I can do to reduce the size of these video files? I much prefer video at 1080. Is there is any freeware or paidware I can use simply point to the folder of video files to reduce the video file size? Am I overlooking a AnyStream feature? I have a fairly powerful computer with a lot of ram and cpu cores, so I feel like it should be able to do any work to reduce the file sizes. I can run windows or linux software. Thanks.

I suggest buying a larger drive, either internal or external. In 2024 someone is complaining about 10GB or 3GB? Get a 16TB drive!

 

[Foxymac74]

I suggest buying a larger drive, either internal or external. In 2024 someone is complaining about 10GB or 3GB? Get a 16TB drive!

Because the "media server" project (Plex Media Server is the sotware) i use my NAS, 5x 12TB drives... even with family PCs backups and a little file archive, there is pelnty of room....and i'm limiting to 1080p when possible (SD,720p,1080p). Just for example.