Upgrading my media game with DVDs

The best version of a lot of TV shows are on DVD.

I’ve built a nice collection of second-hand Blu-ray discs. I meant to play them on a real Blu-ray player, pining for a streaming-free life, but I changed directions and rip them for streaming with Jellyfin instead. All this time, I avoided DVDs. I treated them as basically the bad version of a Blu-ray. Now DVDs are an important part of my media library, though with some important qualifiers.

The problem with my Blu-ray collection is that it was (and is) almost exclusively feature-length movies. I want Jellyfin to compete for my attention with traditional streaming services, that means it’s gotta have TV shows.

Thinking about what shows I want, my all-time favorite TV show is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9). I’ve watched it all the way through twice (along with tons of fan made clips on YouTube), and I expect to watch it a few more times in my life.

A sad fact about DS9 is that the image quality sucks compared to modern TV shows. The original Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation have already been remastered in high-definition, but the amount of computer generated effects used in DS9 makes a remaster impossible (or more effort than it’s worth). That means that the DVD of DS9 is the highest quality version that will ever exist.

This is important because the highest quality version of a lot of TV shows are on DVD. This realization changed my whole game. Previously, the most I paid attention to DVDs was while quickly scanning to see if a Blu-ray was misplaced among the DVDs.

Now I know what a treasure trove they are. I’ve since picked up DVDs for whole seasons of Babylon 5, The Bob Newhart Show, Extras, and original series episodes of Doctor Who.

I’ve discovered that DVDs are great for animated shows and movies. With bold colors, clear lines, and uniform lighting, animation doesn’t suffer from the image quality issues that afflict a dark and gritty space drama like DS9. It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and Dr. Seuss on the Loose all look good, even on an HD TV.

What I found interesting is comparing the file sizes of ripped DVDs compared to ripped Blu-rays. The DVDs are much smaller than Blu-ray, as you’d expect, but the larger file size of Blu-rays doesn’t mean great video quality.

For example, I bought the Blu-ray box set for Quantum Leap. It’s an older show, having started in 1989, with an aspect ratio of 4:3 instead of today’s usual 16:9. And despite being on Blu-ray, it’s not the sharp 1080p high-definition quality that I’d expect. There’s significant graininess, especially in dark or shadowy scenes.

My Quantum Leap rips are also very intolerant of compression. The picture quality gets much worse, even with the same compression settings that I used for other Blu-ray movies. With an acceptable amount of compression, episode file sizes end up being around 1.5 GB.

For Orange is the New Black (2013), another TV show on Blu-ray, my compressed rips are 600-700 MB. I applied more compression to Orange is the New Black than Quantum Leap, but it still has the sharpness of high-definition.

For a final comparison, take the The Bob Newhart Show (1972). It’s one of those shows that’s only available on DVD. Each episode’s file size is about 200-250 MB. But they’re about half the length as an episode of Quantum Leap and Orange is the New Black, so I’ll double the file size to 400-500 MB for comparison.

Now I have Quantum Leap (Blu-ray) at 1.5 GB, Orange in the New Black (Blu-ray) at 700 MB, and The Bob Newhart Show (DVD) at 500 MB. The leading picture quality is Orange is the New Black, with Quantum Leap a distant second, and The Bob Newhart Show a not-too-distant third.

It may not be a perfect comparison, but it taught me that older TV shows are perfectly good-looking on DVDs. I expected an older TV show on Blu-ray to look worlds better than a DVD and it doesn’t. I’d still prefer Blu-rays for feature-length movies, but DVDs are an important part of a well-balanced physical media library. They’re cheap, abundant, and in some cases, the best option.