Quantization Type for 1 CD rip

[ookzDVD]

Which is acceptable for 1 CD rip ?

1st : H.263
2nd : H.263
or
1st : H.263
2nd : Modulated
or
1st : Modulated
2nd : Modulated
or
?

Thank you.

[Rasi]

I am using the 2nd method and a 120 minutes movie looked simply nice...

[MaTTeR]

I don't fall into either of your categories that you mention:)

I'm actually using H.263 on both passes with trbarry's very nice simpleresize DLL. Like Rasi, a 120 minute low motion flick turns out quite nice.

Edit- I'm also using Lumi-Masking on both passes. My last 4 rips have been like this and have tirned out very well.

[canadian_fbi]

i generally use h.263 for everything unless i'm doing a really compressible movie that has bits to spare at 640x###. i did a 1-cd rip of shrek last night at 576x320 with h.263 and had no problems at all with sharpness. in a perfect world i'd go with mpeg all the time, but it does tend to decrease compressibility a good deal and practically you probably won't notice much difference. but then again, sometimes i think we're a little obsessive here and go for quality that might be a bit excessive sometimes ;)

matter - is lumi-masking really new and improved? i don't suppose you have any with vs. without shots to compare with to share? one thing i've been concerned with from something of a theoretical standpoint is the fact (?) that dark blocks are more visible on a tv, and that when i start watching my xvid movies on a tv, the extra compression in dark areas will become noticeable.

[Acaila]

I always start out by using H.263 for the first pass and modulated for the second. When it's finished I write down the quantizer distribution DebugView tells me, and decide further action from there on.
- If the movie uses <3000 (roughly) frames of quantizer 4 I run both passes again with MPEG quantizers and set the P-frame max to 3.
- If the movie uses >3000 frames of quantizer 4 I run only the second pass again with a max P-frame quant of 4 or 5 (whichever doesn't cut off too much) with modulated type.

This way I restrict my quants to only the highest quality ones without constricting the codec's calculations too much. Most low motion movies can be fit onto one CD @640 res with MPEG quants of only 2 and 3 for both I and P frames (I even did a 2 hour low motion movie like this recently, quality is superb).
The average movie fits onto one CD @ 640 res with modulated quants of 2-3 for I-frames and 2-4 for P-frames. Usually when I entounter too many quants of 5 it's an indication to lower the resolution or use a smaller audio file.

I expect most people to freak now that I've said I set such a low max quant :), but thanks to XviD & DebugView we can now see what quants the codec uses (I wish I could have had this back when I encoded in DivX4). I encode by the phrase "a movie only looks as bad as its worst frame". Don't take it to extremes and you'll always have beautiful movies.

[MaTTeR]

@canadian_fbi

I honestly didn't expect very good results here lately with 2ps lumi-masking given the history. However, all my rips get played back on the home theater system which contains a 31" standard TV. To date I've noticed no blocks in the shadows at all, in fact I don't see the blocks on my monitor either. Unfortunately I don't have any comparison clips but maybe I can get some time to do that this weekend and post them for you.

[canadian_fbi]

that sounds good matter, but don't wear yourself out - i read about all the testing you did on the m2f2 cd maker the other night :)