2 CD Size

[AlterEgo]

I've been trying to make a movie 2 CD's and 1400MB. I have tried 2x with no success. It seems that I could only get it to reach about 950 MB. The runtime of the movie is 125 mins so the bitrate would be too low for one disk. The AR is 2.35:1. What I tried to do is raise the audio bitrate to 224 but it still didn't raise the end result very much. I read about adding the ac3 file as the audio, but when I went to do this in gknot, it has a setting for frames. I'm not sure what to put there as ac3 isn't explained in the guide. The video is 23.976 NTSC DVD. In the preview it says film as well. No % of film just film. Would it help to raise the resolution higher?

Any help on this would be great.

[manono]

Hi-Almost certainly you've maxed out the filesize for your given resolution and settings. So-try raising resolution, using Bicubic instead of Bilinear resize, remove any smoothers you may have put on.

Evidently the movie you're working with is pretty compressible. Just because it's 125 minutes doesn't mean it can't be done for 1 CD successfully (Crouching Tiger being one well known example). And if it says FILM only, then it's 100% FILM.

[AlterEgo]

Thanks for the reply, but I was wondering how to add the ac3 file instaed of an mp3 file. I think this will help my size problem. I re-ripped and found that changing the res didn't up the filesize very much. I'm posting my gknot log here. Maybe this can help a little.

Any help would be great
This is the link to the log file. (http://www.geocities.com/theshet/snow.txt)

[seoulsteve]

using NanDub:
under video, choose whatever_Movie.avi (the movie with no sound file which was created by GKnot)
under audio, choose your ac3 file.

set everything (both video and audio) to direct stream copy, est voila. maybe...:) i've never muxed an ac3 with an avi, so i don't know what really happens. the options, however, are there.

[AlterEgo]

What about the frame setting for the ac3 file? What should it be set to? In Gknot, the options are there to use an ac3 file instead of mps. There is a frame setting as well. The setting goes from 1-30.

[nimbus]

hey its pretty simple do it this way..
in the bitrate window select 1x ac3 for the audio
... then go thru the normal steps... after you get toteh preview window and press save and encode select the appropriate audio stream under audio 1... usually 448 kps 3_2 blah blah
then just choose "just mux"
then gnot will do the 2 passes for video and add the ac3 at the end.. is this what you wanted?

[nimbus]

btw.. wheni do this gnot puts the values in and I change nothing. Just let gnot do the delay values etc

[AlterEgo]

Thanks for the help. I'll try it this way. I've been trying everything to get it to go to 1400MB. The best I could do is 1.04 gigs. That's with audio at 442. I always get the following msg.

9:52:29 AM: ERROR: Calculation impossible! Desired Video Size is bigger than First Pass (= maximum divx-size for this filter-combination). To solve this you can: 1) lower your Total Size. 2) lower your Video Size (e.g. add bigger audio). 3) do another first pass at a higher resolution or with other filters.
9:52:29 AM: ERROR: Please read the included How-To to understand better what happened!
9:52:29 AM: WARNING: Encoding continued anyway.
9:52:29 AM: WARNING: Filesize will be approximately 277598 kb lower than desired (but best possible quality for this filter combination).
9:52:29 AM: WARNING: Thats an average bitrate of 934 k(=1024)bit/sec (=the highest possible bitrate)
9:52:29 AM: WARNING: instead of 1240 k(=1024)Bits/s (=your desired bitrate).

Can anyone help with this? Thanks in advance.

[seoulsteve]

the error message is saying that the second pass is trying make a file which is bigger than the first pass. in other words, you're trying to make something big (second pass) out of something small (first pass). this is like asking for change at the store and trying to get $1.50 worth of quarters with a $1 bill; it's just impossible.

i'd raise the resolution of the film to solve the file size problem. a higher resolution needs more bits/(pixel*frame) and will thus increase the file size of the encode (while increasing quality as well). i'd also drop the audio bitrate back down to something like 160.

if you follow my suggestion, then you'll have to do another first pass.

btx, what movie are you encoding? i've had some success with 2 hour movies fitting on one disc (with bitrates around 700).

[AlterEgo]

The Movie's called Smilla's sense of snow.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120152

Doesn't the TDX rules state that a divx has to be a certain bitrate? That's why I'm going through so much crap over this movie. I've always done movies 96 mins or less.

[seoulsteve]

a DivX encode doesn't have to be of a certain bitrate. all of my encodes are different, anyway. there is probably some upper limit (the same bitrate as the vob's?) that you can not surpass (again for the same reason that you can't make something big out of something small).

float the bitrate (don't fix it, in other words) and you should be able to create a proper sized avi.

[dragoman]

Hi,

You could also try adding another audio track. For example, if you have all that extra space, perhaps the dvd has a special audio track (i.e. directors commentary).

I find that if I have extra space to work with I enjoy putting the director's comments in the movie (worked well for a 2-cd rip of Ninth Gate, for ex.)

dragoman