Bitrate For Best Quality

[dragonslayer73]

How do I calculate best bitrate with Nero, x264, or divx.

My goal is best quality not size.

Thanks.

[shon3i]

Then use lossless encoding

and read the rule especilay rule #12:

In short, don't ask what is best!

[dragonslayer73]

By best I mean equal to original.
And if your going to suggest reading rule#12

How about posting a link.

Thanks

[GmorG McRoth]

By best I mean equal to original.
And if your going to suggest reading rule#12

How about posting a link.

Thanks

http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm

[Dark Eiri]

Yup, lossless is the only thing that will look exactly equal to the original.

[dragonslayer73]

OK noted.

How then should i word question.
Most people in forum keep asking for bitrate and calculations refering to size of output file.

I am interested in converting dvd (that I own) to say mp4 and how to calculate the bitrate for little to no loss in quality from original.

So my orginal question is valid when it is read completely.
Not an opinion but a formula to calculate from either original size or length to nero avc format with no loss in quality from original.

My goal is to create a video server.
I am going to convert my massive dvd collection so that I can play on any TV in house I am going to have approx 3TB of hard drive space.

I want the server copy to be as close to the original as possible in quality.

Sorry if question is still wrong but I do not know how to otherwise word question.

Thanks again.

[dragonslayer73]

When you say loseless do you mean to basically just keep dvd in original vob format.

I thought utillizing avc encoding it was possible to still compress a dvd but keep orginal quality using the proper bitrate.

[Manao]

You can compress it only if you accept a little and mostly not perceivable quality loss.

Since you don't seem to care about bitrate, what you should do is use a one pass "crf" encoding with x264. Start with crf 18. If the quality suits you, try a higher crf till the quality doesn't suit you anymore, and use the last suitable crf from now on, for all your encoding.

If the quality didn't suit you in the first place, reduce it, till it pleases you, then choose that crf instead.

What crf does is giving you a predictable quality, without any size prediction. However, around crf 18, the size will be smaller than a DVD, for a quality I'd judge acceptable.

[dragonslayer73]

Thanks for the answer.

Any suggestion on Nero AVC bitrate for starting rate (or should I stay away from nero).

I appreciate the reply.

[Romario]

Try to use 12000-20000 bitrate.

[Dark Eiri]

If you want DVD to x264 or Nero with compression, I would suggest 2500 to 3000 on Nero.

[Kurth]

Im encoding my DVDs using one of the MeGUI video profiles CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) this profile encode your DVD using Constant Quality 18 (CRF 18) and the final quality is very good I dont really see any real difference between the DVD and the Constant Quality 18 encode.

The final filesize of this type of encode vary between 1.4GB and 1.8GB (video+audio).

For me this profile CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) is the one that I will always use to encode my DVD movies.

If you dont like the quality of the CRF 18 encode you can use CRF values between 12 and 18.

I think CRF 12 is like Xvid Q1, well I dont see any quality difference between 12 and 18.

CRF 18 is 50% less file size than CRF 12.

For me values less than 18 is useless, even on 2-Pass encode I always use QPmin 18.

[Dark Eiri]

This way sounds good. I'll try it too.

[DigitalDivide]

I've done the same thing, moving all my dvd's to an UnRaid server.

I use the HQ Slower profile (x264)...with one or two changes. I encode all movies to a bitrate of 2,500 with AC3 and english subs.

I'm a stickler for quality and find these settings to be DVD quality.