DVD-RB and Compressability

[AGKnotUser]

Here's my theory: If I use a a filter, say HQDN3D(1.5), CCE Basic will have more room to compress the video into? The resulting file will the same size as without the filter but CCE will have had more room to spread the file out reaulting in slightly better quality than without? Comments please!

[Video Dude]

Yes it will be the same size, unless you do a constant Q.

With filter on clean source:
Softer picture, loss of detail, possibly less blocks

With filter on source with grain:
Grain reduced, picture probably will look cleaner, less bits will be needed since there is less noise


It is movie specific. You have to look at time length and also type (high action vs drama). And if the movie is clean or if it is noisy. It could be that a movie does not need the extra compressibility and by adding the filter you are actually reducing picture quality instead of improving it.

[jdobbs]

You have to remember that filters distort the source. Sometimes that distortion is a good thing -- but sometimes it may not be. If you soften a good-quality source, it looks worse than if you'd used no filter.

To take it to the extreme, think of it this way: If I used a filter to darken my source to the point that it is 80% blackness -- CCE will be able to make a reproduction of it that is damn near perfect. But you'd be making a perfect reproduction of something that has already been hosed.

My own rule of thumb is to never use a filter unless I first see something that makes me think I need one. Then I add a filter (just one) that will address the specific issue I see. It's very rare that I find a need.

[AGKnotUser]

Thanks Guys. Ok, so no filter.

[writersblock29]

@AGKnotUser

There are some sources where filtering might please you, while others simply don't profit at all regardless of what you try. It's all subjective, true: I might be raving about my percieved quality increase on a given project while the viewer next to me is rolling his eyes and questioning the results of my last eye exam. My advice (and this assumes you've got yourself a decent monitor and video card--not to mention calling into account the settings of your DVD playback software) is to take Rebuilder off "one-click" mode whenever working on a questionable source, and using the filter editor to try whatever filter on your source. Then play back the Avisynth script using your software. Like what you see? Then you just may--provided you have ample bitrate to reproduce it--like the results of your backup. It'll save you encoding time doing this, and there's no new software to install besides what you're already using.

I still find myself using exactly what I described above when dealing with older DVD releases. I remember Jdobbs once saying something along the lines that he watches the original footage and only selects one filter to correct whatever is troubling him--and after thousands of wasted hours (both mine and my computers'), I couldn't agree with him more. {Edit: I see Jdobbs' comment about this is directly above me! Geeze, my powers of observation!} You just might be able to reach perfection by using twenty filters (again, there's that "subjective" thing again)... but for a project you're only going to watch once or twice a year? Why take a full month to encode it? Once you factor in the fact that this same combination of filters is going to be utterly worthless for use on your next project... it'd be cool if we had one button that automatically set all things to optimum conditions--but I doubt we, the viewer, would agree with those settings in the end, anyway. Computers are mathematical machines, whereas our eyes only see what they see.

Sorry to be long-winded about it (I do that often :o ), but compromise is the name of the game.