Questions/Observations re: BD-RB

[Fullasoul]

Just wanted to make some observations (and ask a few small questions) regarding BD-RB...

I've used DVD-RB a dozen or so times, and I'm fairly well-versed with most things video....however, I'm VERY new (less than a week new) to the world of Blu-Ray. Liking the familiarity of the interface (and because DVD-RB was, back when I chose it, THE way to make high-quality backups IMHO), I installed BD-RB yesterday to attempt my first BD backup. On my quad-core PC, I was able to get a 37gb BD down to DVD9 (with all menus and extras in tact) in just under 2 hours using the high (default) setting. I then proceeded to try it again using the highest setting, and that brought the encode time up to about 14 hours. Comparing the 2 versions, there's perhaps a bit more pixelation in just a few high-motion scenes on the first encode, but overall, they're quite similar. All in all, I gotta say that I'm VERY pleased with the results! So, my questions...

1. Is it normal for there to be THAT much difference in the encoding time between high and highest settings?

2. I know jdobbs is more focused on stability than adding features now (which makes perfect sense IMHO), but will BD-RB eventually have the 'reduce quality of extras by xx%' feature that DVD-RB has?

3. Where can I make a donation? This thing rocks!! :)

[jdobbs]

1. Not that much difference -- are you sure you had "High" set on the first encode? I sure sounds fast. I would have expected even an i7 to take 4-5 hours.

2. There's no limit to what I'll be adding eventually. I'll probably also add an ability to bring HD extras down to 720x480 also (many discs use 720x480 already).

3. In my signature block -- and much appreciated. :)

[Fullasoul]

I specifically remember that on the first pass, I actually didn't select a quality setting. I saw the choices and noticed that high was listed as the default, so I left it alone. Perhaps it defaulted to something lower?

Obviously on the second try, I specifically selected highest.

[jdobbs]

Yeah, probably. I mistakenly had a test setting for very fast/very low quality encoding still set in the INI file when I posted the ZIP file. I've since updated it.

[Sophocles]

More an observation than a question.

I just did King Arthur and for no particular reason I selected 640 kbs audio and to my surprise it wasn't 448 kbps. 640 kbs is my preferred choice for audio. Thanks JD

King Arthur is a relatively long movie 2:21:38, so I obviously decided to go with a movie only DVD-9 backup with a single 640 kbs audio track. The result was very good but I noticed that the bitrate never peaked higher than 10 mbs through the entire movie. Like I said the result looked quite good, but isn't that just a tad low?

[jdobbs]

The maximum bitrate is set to 17.5 Mbs for DVD-5/9 -- so the limitation wasn't from the settings, it must have been all that the movie demanded.

Why were you surprised that it wasn't 448Kbs?

[Sophocles]

Why were you surprised that it wasn't 448Kbs?


I seem to recall 448Kbs being your default setting with nonworking settings for higher bitrate sound intended for future settings, but didn't work at the time.

As far as the bitrate distribution on King Arthur, I expected it to be more demanding. It took almost 6 hours (5:57) to reencode its 2:22 length. I was however using a new system that isn't quite as fast as my main rig.:rolleyes: