So I'm in the process of ripping my anime collection to my external hard drive. So far I've got 241 GB ripped, which is 14% of my collection.

Earlier today though I decided that I'm going to convert it all to lower quality video in order to save space. With 14% taking up 241 GB, all of it would take 1.7 TB, which is just shy of filling up my 2 TB drive. Which I use for other things, so that obviously isn't going to fly.

Luckily with Handbrake, I'm able to convert it all so that it takes a fifth of the space with no discernible difference in quality. I converted my rip of the first episode of Fooly Cooly with it, and the resulting video looked damn near identical to the original when I played them side-by-side with VLC. The original weighed a hefty 1.03 GB, whereas the shiny new file came in at 204 MB.

So in other words, my potentially 1.7 TB library of anime now will only take up 350 GB or so. Unfortunately the converting process is a slow one, with the conversion taking just about as long as the video's runtime to complete. It'll be worth it though. Frees up a shitload of space and also lets Zune and Media Go recognize the videos so I can put them on my Zune HD or PSP Go if I so wanted.

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