CloneDVD2 vs DVD-Rebuilder (pro)

[Ch3vr0n]

Just wondering can anyone explain to me wich is better and why exactly it is. Transcoding vs recoding & stuf. Even though i've been using CDVD2 for a few years now. I'd like to know.

Can anyone (jdobbs ?) answer me on this one ?

[MilesAhead]

Just wondering can anyone explain to me wich is better and why exactly it is. Transcoding vs recoding & stuf. Even though i've been using CDVD2 for a few years now. I'd like to know.

Can anyone (jdobbs ?) answer me on this one ?

If you try DVD Rebuilder Free version you should have an idea if you want to get Pro. Set HC encoder to Best Profile and see if you like the output. The Pro version allows running a copy of the video encoder per CPU core. Same quality output, just faster(there are some other tweaks I'm sure but the reason I got Pro was for the multi-instance support.)

I haven't tried CloneDVD yet.

[steptoe]

Transcoders do a similiar job to converting a CD to MP3

It removes the information it 'thinks' we are not likely to see/hear, but in fast motion scenes you may see blocking where too much information has been removed

Re-encoding literally takes the video apart and rebuilds it to match the avilable bitrate, rather than removing information to match a given size, which is why transcoders are much faster

Thats why it takes much longer, it has much more work to do


Personally transcoders are okay for reducing the size by a small amount quickly, but you try running a 25GB blu-ray movie through a transcoder and getting that down to 4.3GB without quality loss would be impossible

Encoders are re-building the same movie to match the best bitrate possible and also applying various algorithms and adusting settings on-the-fly to squeeze as much information out of the source as they can, which is why BD-RB can take upto 24 hours per rip


A few years ago I tried to use transcoding to squeeze Lord of The Rings 2 disc DVD onto one 4.3GB DVD. It did it, but the quality was atrocious, trying to get 9.4GB of video onto 4.3 just isn't feasable unless you want to watch it on a mobile phone (some do !!) then you are also reducing the screen size so it wouldn't be noticeable

[varekai]

You should do a comparision test with same movie and size using CloneDVD, DVDShrink, DVD Rebuilder and find out what you think looks the best on your setup.

Here are som links on the subject:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=821001#post821001

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=111906

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=91418

I'm always looking for quality so speed vs quality is not an issue for me.
Within the given squeeze size limitations steptoe is mentioning, DVD Rebuilder
does an excellent high quality job, whatever movie, 10 times out of 10.
Also DVD Rebuilder has a lot of options you won't find elsewhere.

[jdobbs]

Just wondering can anyone explain to me wich is better and why exactly it is. Transcoding vs recoding & stuf. Even though i've been using CDVD2 for a few years now. I'd like to know.

Can anyone (jdobbs ?) answer me on this one ? First, you have to be careful -- "transcoder" doesn't have a specific, unambiguous meaning. Sometimes something described as a "transcoder" may actually decode/reencode. But in most cases it refers to an algorithm that never actually "looks" at the pictures of the stream and performs any meaningful analysis, but instead simply reads, changes coefficients, motion vectors etc., and writes.

Encoding always does better -- hands down. Anyone who would argue that is simply ignorant of how each works. There may be times (such as when doing only slight shrinking) that you may not easily see the difference -- but it is there.

When encoding you are looking at the Q of all pictures in the video stream and allocating the compression factors across the entire mix to give the best end-result for the overall video. How it does that changes with bitrate (size). A transcoder doesn't relook based upon the new bitrate -- it allocates (in most cases) exactly as was done at the faster (original) bitrate. That can make a huge difference.

For example, you may have a fast-motion or complex sequence that doesn't need a lot of variation from the average bitrate of 8Mbs (because that is plenty) but when reduced to an average bitrate of 5Mbs it may need a huge amount of variation (back up to 8Mbs, perhaps). Other sections may have been given more bitrate than they actually needed in the original encode, because there was plenty to go around. An encoder would take bandwidth from where it isn't needed and reallocate it to the complex scenes. In transcoding, however, in most cases the scenes would just be reduced equally -- and the complex scenes might end up looking pixelated or blocky.

These days, when computers are fast enough that the difference in time is very slight, I can't for the life of me understand why anyone is still transcoding. It's real use is related to occasions when an MPEG stream has to be changed on-the-fly in order to fit inside a limited-rate bitstream (such as in broadcasting).

That doesn't mean transcoding is bad -- just that it doesn't do as good a job (in terms of quality) as reencoding. It, for sure, is very fast...

As for "CloneDVD2 vs DVD Rebuilder" -- I have no idea whether CloneDVD2 is even a transcoder or how it works at all, I've never even used it. So my opinion as to "which is better" would be pretty much worthless.

[Ch3vr0n]

Thx fellas. Guess the only way to know is to give dvd-rb a try & compare it to the output of cloneDVD2

[jdobbs]

Good strategy. One of my favorite sayings:

"Opinions are like rectums. Everybody has one, and nobody cares about anybody elses."

[varekai]

@Ch3vr0n

I've saved this old rather lenghty thread planning do this test for myself but never got to it.
Will do it now just for the fun of it. The DVD-titles mentioned I believe are in most peoples DVD-collection.

http://club.myce.com/f62/there-best-dvd-backup-program-127917/#post918923

@jdobbs
Funny saying, hahaha :D I'm gonna use that one!

[NOKNOT]

I can only speak for myself, having both I cannot tell any difference between the output quality of the two. I purchased CloneDVD before they jacked the price up and it came with lifetime updates. I use CloneDVD whenever the video is not compressed more than 30% or 35%. If more then I use Rebuilder Pro. As been noted everyone has their own opinion. I really would like to see some updates for Rebuilder just to know its still in the running. Seem like it has been put on the self since BD-Rebuilder.

[jdobbs]

I can only speak for myself, having both I cannot tell any difference between the output quality of the two. I purchased CloneDVD before they jacked the price up and it came with lifetime updates. I use CloneDVD whenever the video is not compressed more than 30% or 35%. If more then I use Rebuilder Pro. As been noted everyone has their own opinion. I really would like to see some updates for Rebuilder just to know its still in the running. Seem like it has been put on the self since BD-Rebuilder. I guess if you want updates you have some ideas as to what should be updated? The fact is that it does pretty much everything possible with a DVD right now, has no significant reported bugs, and still does every disc created. What's missing? So I moved on... I probably will have another release just to support CCE SP3, though.

[MilesAhead]

I guess if you want updates you have some ideas as to what should be updated? The fact is that it does pretty much everything possible with a DVD right now, has no significant reported bugs, and still does every disc created. What's missing? So I moved on... I probably will have another release just to support CCE SP3, though.

I know what you mean about programs stabilizing. Unless you find a well-hidden bug, it feels done.

This might seem like a weird suggestion, but how about accepting a single .m2ts file as input and producing a dvd5 or dvd9 with an instance of HC per core? I don't know how much of a rewrite that would generate but if it's not too radical, I have the feeling the encode would get done real fast. :)

edit: although I must admit the dvd output in BDRB comes pretty close to maxing my cores. Multiple copies running just looks cool though. :)

[Oksana]

I was thinking of getting the "Pro" version, but x264 is using all 8 cores of my Core i7 960. I'm converting "How to Train Your Dragon" Blu-Ray to Dvd. Am I correct in thinking BDrebuilder uses x264 to convert to Dvd and HCenc rebuilding a Blu-Ray?

Would there be any benefit to using the 64-bit version of x264?

[jdobbs]

I was thinking of getting the "Pro" version, but x264 is using all 8 cores of my Core i7 960. I'm converting "How to Train Your Dragon" Blu-Ray to Dvd. Am I correct in thinking BDrebuilder uses x264 to convert to Dvd and HCenc rebuilding a Blu-Ray?

Would there be any benefit to using the 64-bit version of x264?Opposite. X264 to Blu-ray and HCEncoder to DVD.

If you change out the version (64 vs 32), it will stop working. BD Rebuilder already has both included, if you select "LAVF" for encoding the 64 bit will be used automatically (assuming a 64 bit O/S).