Back in March 2014 I started converting my DVD rips into MP4 files for use with Plex. I ran two laptops (both with 2.3GHz dual-core CPUs) 24/7 until early March 2015 when I added a third computer - an eight-core 4GHz machine.

Today I finally finished converting all of my disc-based video content to MP4.

Some quick statistics:

• Total number of files: 4998
• Total content runtime: 134 days, 8 hours, 56 minutes, 47 seconds
  • SD runtime: 115 days, 12 hours, 25 minutes, 17 seconds
  • HD runtime: 18 days, 20 hours, 31 minutes, 30 seconds
• Total file size: 5182.3GB
  • SD file size: 3042.04GB
  • HD file size: 2140.26GB
• Average MB/minute for SD content: 18.73
• Average MB/minute for HD content: 80.72

I’m pretty pleased with how everything has come together. Seeing it all in Plex, nicely organized… it’s a good feeling.

I can definitely say CPU power is important in video conversion. My laptops could convert an average SD movie in three or four hours, but an HD movie… I couldn’t get one converted in a day. The eight-core behemoth can take the same SD movie and finish in an hour or less; and HD movies take about four hours - same as SD content on my laptops.

Anyway, if you’re looking to convert a bunch of video, it’s worth investing in some hefty CPU power. It’ll save you tons of time.

Finally, as part of this, I’d like to introduce my media center documentation on ReadTheDocs.

It’s a work in progress, so this is sort of a “soft launch,” but I think it’s fleshed out enough to be of some use. I will probably do a more dedicated blog entry for it when I’ve got more of it filled out.

Information about how I converted my stuff with Handbrake, including the script I used to pull the report data above, as well as the specs for my behemoth conversion/Plex server, is all over there.