This might not be the best place for this question but I honestly can't think of another place, but if you know of one please let me know. But I figured someone here might have the experience I'm looking for.

I own the discs for various Star Trek series and everything Stargate. What I'm trying to do is use handbrake to encode them to put them on Plex. But everything I try, it just looks worse. Is there a repository of like recommended settings for various media?

I'll try to keep this short, sweet, and to the point.

I, like so many of you, love this game. Possibly more than we should. But for me, before this game, I had truly lost most of my interest in video games as a whole. Every year, various problems get worse and 2023 was the final straw for me. Ever increasing greed (Blizzard, Unity, EA, just every studio really). To say they came out in a lazy, incomplete, greedy state undersells it I feel. I truly feel we're still on the brink of another video game crash. Because the crash wasn't just one game (E.T.) but was the general greed and terrible quality of the industry back then. Pushing new products (games, consoles, accessories, etc.) just to push new products with crazy turn around time all in the name of profit. And this year, just stacked with all prior years, I had enough.

This game is so good in all the right ways. The writing, the acting, the world feels alive. NPCs respond differently based on who you are and what you've done. Even banter between your party. A truly impressive amount of thought put into things allowing you the player to really play however you want. It's not a mad loot carousel because your character power isn't based on gear directly and is tied to the character which allows for far more interesting items. There's no greed either, no stupid 'sEaSoN pAsS', no excel spreadsheets worth of 'versions', no subscription, no shop using real money for gear/cosmetics, no 'planned DLC' that's obviously content they cut out in order to sell back to the consumer. Heck, this game supports multiplayer... REAL multiplayer in that I don't believe you ever actually need a dedicated server. I believe you can do direct remote, split screen co-op, and LAN play... what other game in the last decade does that?

It reminds me of how games used to be before Bethesda broke the seal with horse armor.

BG3 is just a complete, high quality game, for gamers. It feels like it was made with love, care, and respect. And playing the game brings me joy.

Are there any good collections anyone might be aware of, for EA information or datamined information.

I'm curious to see what ideas got scrapped and how things changed. I know of a few things, like a little on Daisy. How certain abilities were actually going to be handed out.

But places like Grymforge really elude to something... there's a bunch of stuff hints that something might be near. From whatever caused some of the destruction you see. Because I refuse to believe it's all a vague reference to Yurgir.

And then there's some MTG pictures I saw, that list someone has potentially the main villain, in the very least a bad guy, and in the current game plays a very different roll.

Edit: Added spoiler tag just in case

So, after playing many hours and just recently starting Act 3, there's been one thing that's been bugging me and I finally have it sorted out.

The whole "rarity" attached to gear is really dumb and misleading.

It's using the overly used grey/green/blue/'purple' coloring and naming that's common and many other RPGs. But in those games, it's somewhat reflective of rarity... which is what it's described as in BG3, the rarity of an item. But it's a lie.

Example Periapt of Wound Closure is an item that's sold by a vendor. How is it rare? As far as I can tell, there's just one in the game. But every named item I have, there's just one in existence.

I think labeling things as common/uncommon/rare/ etc. is wrong and thus makes people think certain items are better simply based on the 'color' of the gear instead of considering what the gear does. I've already had this conversation with multiple friends who absolutely think they're going to give a "stat stick" to their caster, because they're so used to Blizzard's way of thinking. Or that they 'needed' new gear because they leveled up and now must replace gear asap (even in Act 1). The fact I showed videos of some guy soloing the game, or beating the game as lvl 1s, or a video of some guy causing havoc by chucking potatoes and only potatoes... falls on deaf ears.

I think if the naming was swapped from 'rarity of item' to 'quality of enchantment' it would make more sense, but I still think it's not necessary. Or if it was standardized to like normal gear (nothing special) remains grey, gear that's just slightly enchanted (like +1 Sword) is green, and all unique named items are blue. Since you certainly can get lots of grey, fewer greens, and only one named. But that's just an idea.