DVD Transcoding Quality Comparison (Screenshots)

[royal]

Seeing as CloneDVD was released today I was really eager to try it out as it was suppose to be par with IC. After testing the movie Speed, I was simply disappointed with the results. So I ran it through some of the other DVD transcoders out there to see if they could do any better. I thought some of you may be interested in the results. In my test I used the latest release of the following programs: CloneDVD, DVD2one, DVD95copy, DVDshrink, Instant Copy.

I used the movie Speed (Disc 1), which is total size of 7.44gb (7.07gb video & audio). I removed all audio tracks except DD 5.1, which took the video & audio down to 5.88gb (total size 6.18gb). I kept the menu but downsampled it. To get the movie down to 4.37gb, I would have to reduce the video to at least 66%.

I chose 2 fast action scenes from the movie which should get blocky and artifacts should be noticeable.

Here is the screenshots for scene 1:
http://www.geocities.com/royalloyar/scene1compare.zip
Here is the screenshots for scene 2:
http://www.geocities.com/royalloyar/scene2compare.zip

I personally think there is a huge difference between CloneDVD & Instant Copy, and would say CloneDVD was worst at handling the faster action scenes. If I did a comparison of a slower-paced movie (romantic,etc) I don't think you'd notice much difference between the quality.

Things to look for in the screenshots:
Scene 1) The colorful curtains on the bottom right (with CloneDVD it is blurry and blocky whereas with the others it's clearer).
Scene 1) To the right of the burning bus there is 3 or 4 visible dark blue blocks on the CloneDVD & DVD2one screenshots.
Scene 2) The bus sign is blurry with CloneDVD/DVD2one/DVDshrink

From my conclusion, I would them rate best to worst in this order

1) Instant Copy
2) DVD95Copy
3) DVDShrink
4) DVD2One
5) CloneDVD

I guess I'll have to stick with Instant Copy (and the undersizing issue). I hope this helps any newbie's who are wondering which transcoders to use, I think the screenshots speak for themselves.

[Gil T Pleasure]

Links don't work.

[kaede]

thanks man. saves me the hassle of comparing each on their own

[leisuredoc]

Folks,

These links are .zip files so just right click, download then unzip and view them.

Thanks for the thorough comparison, royal!

leisuredoc
:D

[thop]

first link is already down. based on the 2nd picture i agree with your conclusion ... i will continue using dvdshrink, quality is fine with me :) but 66% is a bit much for me, i would've done main mocie only.

[DMagic1]

I agree with your list for the 1st shot. On the 2nd shot DVD2One does a better job than Shrink. If you look at the word Monica on the bus, you will see that the word is a bit clearer with DVD2One than with Shrink.

[royal]

If anyone with more bandwidth could mirror these files so others can check them out that would be great. The bandwidth seems to die pretty quick with geocities and you have to wait an hour til the links work again.

If I did main movie only, it would have been about 69-70%, as the menu was only around 200mb (can be compressed to about 130) no other extra's on the disc as it's all on disc 2.

I agree, with DVD2one the sign does look a tad clearer.

[wumpi]

Originally posted by royal
If anyone with more bandwidth could mirror these files so others can check them out that would be great. The bandwidth seems to die pretty quick with geocities and you have to wait an hour til the links work again.I put the files on my web-server and will leave them there if traffic doesn't get exorbitant.

http://www.turcic.com/scene1compare.zip
http://www.turcic.com/scene2compare.zip

I am still not sure what transcoder (beside IC) has the best results. royal, did you use the new DVD2One 1.2.0 in your tests? I am curious if the annoying pulsating effect has been removed there.

[MackemX]

Originally posted by royal
From my conclusion, I would them rate best to worst in this order

1) Instant Copy
2) DVD95Copy
3) DVDShrink
4) DVD2One
5) CloneDVD
I'll agree with that

DVD95Copy actually has decent quality at the top of the sign on the bus unlike the rest (minus IC) and also to the side of the bus it doesn't block as much either. There are more areas where fine detail is lost but those were the most obvious

I guess during playback it would be hard to see, but on the right setup you would notice that the DVD2One picture would not be as sharp as the DVD95Copy if you looked hard enough

looks like it's the best of the rest in this example with IC just showing how great it is when made to work :D

[m1482]

Originally posted by royal
From my conclusion, I would them rate best to worst in this order

1) Instant Copy
2) DVD95Copy
3) DVDShrink
4) DVD2One
5) CloneDVD


I agree with that too !!!

[twinches]

Originally posted by royal


From my conclusion, I would them rate best to worst in this order

1) Instant Copy
2) DVD95Copy
3) DVDShrink
4) DVD2One
5) CloneDVD



I agree with you 100%, I downloaded the files and compared myself before reading you conclusion and I came up with he same conclusion, although DVD95copy and Instant Copy are VERY close. However I will probably stay with DVDShrink just because it is free. Can you tell me what LEVEL in DVDShrink was used for this?

Thanks!

Also for those of you that are comparing these pictures. I have found that a much better way to compare them is not to do side by side comparisons, but to put all of the files into a folder and then use a program like AcdSee that allows you to open up one picture and then page up / page down between the pictures in the folder. This way when you rotate "page up/page down" between two different pictures, you can see the pixels "move" if there are any differences in the frame. For example, I took the original and switched between it and DVD95copy and noticed very little change in the pixels in parts of the frame, in IC7 the pixels did not change at all. Then I took the original and DVDshrink and when switching between them I notice much more movement in the pixels, which signifies quality loss. Weather or not the picture "looks" better is not relevant as it may look better to some people because the grain in the film might get smoothed out and to some people it may look better to them. But the fact is that if you see pixel changes between the two images when switching between them, then there is a quality loss. And the more you see the pixels change, the more you are losing.

[0xdeadbeef]

Just a remark:
Comparing two screenshots of one movie will not lead to significant results for each and every movie! Maybe not even for this very movie.
DVD95Copy and (at least older versions of) DVD2One are known to take over the original stream for an amount of time and then compressing the stream very much, then taking the original stream again and so on. So by chance you could get a screenshot which is 100% equal to the original or one which is complete crap.
IC7 in compare distributes the bitrate over the whole movie. Then again, each and every frame looks a bit worse than the original. Same is true for CloneDVD and DVDShrink, though their transcoding engines are probably much simpler.

[snidely]

From my conclusion, I would them rate best to worst in this order

1) Instant Copy
2) DVD95Copy
3) DVDShrink
4) DVD2One
5) CloneDVD

How about DVD2DVD-R/CCE? That method pretty much qualifies as a "one click" solution, and CCE does a pretty nice job with large heavily compressed files. You may have omitted the best of the bunch. :)

And just out of curiosity, did you ever run the same comparisons with something like a 5.5 gig movie? I'm curious to know how they all compared when the transcoding was less demanding.

[MackemX]

Originally posted by snidely
How about DVD2DVD-R/CCE? That method pretty much qualifies as a "one click" solution, and CCE does a pretty nice job with large heavily compressed files. You may have omitted the best of the bunch. :)

And just out of curiosity, did you ever run the same comparisons with something like a 5.5 gig movie? I'm curious to know how they all compared when the transcoding was less demanding. do DVD2DVD-R/CCE now do complete 1:1's now? :). It may be easy 'one-click' for some regarding movie only but not for the masses which is what these 5 are aimed at

we all know that DVD2DVD-R/CCE is better quality than the rest but it ain't in the same league as these proggies for ease of use/options/cost regarding 1:1

the difference between the little boys will be less with a 5.5Gb file, but then again I don't think size isnt the only factor when comparing files as other factors need to be taken into consideration. One factor being that you could have a 5.5Gb file thats only 90mins long yet another 210mins and both would probably give different comparision results

the sooner someone uses CCE like encoding within something like IC using at least a 2 pass method the better for the fussier of us :D

[snidely]

do DVD2DVD-R/CCE now do complete 1:1's now? . It may be easy 'one-click' for some regarding movie only but not for the masses which is what these 5 are aimed at

DVD2DVD-R/CCE does movie only - single PGC, or at least so far. :D

My philosophy is this: If the movie can be backed up 1:1 without ANY compression, then that is my first choice. If the movie doesn't fit 1:1 without compression, then I go with "movie only" and try not to compress at all, or at least as little as possible. If the movie is very large, then I do it 1:1, but this time split it onto 2 discs (or use DVD2DVD-R/CCE :) ). So the only time I compress (for the most part) is when the "movie only" still doesn't quite fit onto a single disc, and that is why I asked for comparisons between all the "one click" solutions when the files are under 5.5 gb, and in this case DVD2DVD-R/CCE qualifies, as I am comparing "movie only" and not 1:1 copies..

the difference between the little boys will be less with a 5.5Gb file, but then again I don't think size isnt the only factor when comparing files as other factors need to be taken into consideration. One factor being that you could have a 5.5Gb file thats only 90mins long yet another 210mins and both would probably give different comparision results

I understand and agree. I should have stated (for example) "a 5.5 gb "movie only" that is 105 minutes long, which is a very common configuration." I think this would provide a useful measuring stick to compare the various engines, including DVD2DVD-R/CCE. What I don't understand is the group of people who use IC, unless of course they are doing 1:1 backups. If you are going to take the time to use IC for "movie only", why not go all the way and use DVD2DVD-R/CCE? The amount of work and time difference is almost insignificant. :D

I want my program to either be FAST (like DVD2One or DVDShrink) OR GOOD (like DVD2DVD-R/CCE). InstantCopy is that one program that is somewhere in the middle of nowhere man's land, as it isn't fast (like DVD2One or DVDShrink), and it really doesn't qualify as being good (like DVD2DVD-R/CCE). Yet a lot of people prefer it under a large set of circumstances. Why is that?

[Aragorn]

I want my program to either be FAST (like DVD2One or DVDShrink) OR GOOD (like DVD2DVD-R/CCE). InstantCopy is that one program that is somewhere in the middle of nowhere man's land, as it isn't fast (like DVD2One or DVDShrink), and it really doesn't qualify as being good (like DVD2DVD-R/CCE). Yet a lot of people prefer it under a large set of circumstances. Why is that?


Easy answer : Most people want it easy, and the result should be of good quality.
The reason why most people use DVD2One, DVD95Copy etc. is because they assume that the quality is the same for all these programs (as all are transcoder)... That is also the reason why some people will use DVD2One instead of IC, because DVD2One hits the 4.3 GB limit exactly, where IC left 100-200 MB unused. If compared it will show that the IC copy is still better, but this is something not all beginners will aknowledge directly. In fact there is no real need for speed (do you really copy two DVDs daily?), so all that really matters is quality (and perhaps cost of software - where DVD Shrink is unbeaten so far)...

Aragorn

[JazzySOB]

The way I do is I rip the movie with DVD Shrink in uncompressed mode and remove stuff or make it a "movie-only" and then I encode it with Instant Copy. The results are magnificent.

[dwflo]

Try Elaborate Bytes CloneDVD 30Day Trail Version. Was able to copy the full disk of Eagles Hell freezes over dvd onto on DVD+R. The quality is not as good as the original, but acceptible. Do not know what encoding they are doing but, it works. Took about an hour to process and burn. Had to rip it with DVD Decrypter, 'cause it is copy protected.
Never could get the others to do the same without ripping the movie only.

[HeeD]

In my tests CloneDVD was as good as all the others. I use a 53" HDTV with a progressive player with 480p. I am not testing on small TV nor do I care about comparing stills. Comparing stills has nothing to do with what the video looks like in motion and that is what matters the most.

Everyone that is unsure, go download CloneDVD and try yourself rather than base your opinion on the product by this thread alone.

FYI, IC and DVD95Copy have navigation issues. I am not sure if IC has been fixed in later versions because I do not own it. I do own DVD95Copy and the latest 1.5 still has issues with some stand-alone players. DVD2One is the best as far as having the transcoded DVD act the same as the original. I still have not done enough tests with CloneDVD to determine if it beats out DVD2One for full-backups, but so far it seems to do better job than all the others. DVDShrink would be the best if it offered a bit more flexible compression.

[loggy]

Originally posted by JazzySOB
The way I do is I rip the movie with DVD Shrink in uncompressed mode and remove stuff or make it a "movie-only" and then I encode it with Instant Copy. The results are magnificent.

What is the advantage to using Shrink if focused on movie-only/uncompressed as opposed, say, DVDD's default selection in Files for ripping prior to IC?
I'm not very familiar with IC, but plan to check it out for movie-only to see if there really is a substantial quality improvement and see if sizing-issues are a significant problem (I do appreciate the exact sizing from D2O).

[JazzySOB]

Originally posted by loggy
What is the advantage to using Shrink if focused on movie-only/uncompressed as opposed, say, DVDD's default selection in Files for ripping prior to IC?
I'm not very familiar with IC, but plan to check it out for movie-only to see if there really is a substantial quality improvement and see if sizing-issues are a significant problem (I do appreciate the exact sizing from D2O). IC have a lot of errors when you want to remove the extra's or warningscreens out. It seems that IC does not update the IFO-files correctly when you get rid of unwanted stuff. DVD-Shrink does the job good but IC has a better encoding algorithm resulting in better picture quality. Unfortunately, DVD Shrink wont let us allow to much to get rid of everything we like. In Full Disc you see a lot more than in Re-author, where the ability to get rid of unwanted stuff is limited. I'd hope DVD Shrink wil remove these restrictions so that we can remove more of the annoying warning screens etc. :)

[Yannis]

@ 3735928559u


Firstly, I want to say that your explanation (in the long thread about quality) on how the "1-click" transcoders can sometimes be better than completely reencoding the stream, made me try IC7. So far, I have been using IfoEdit+TMPGEnc+Maestro or dvd2dvd-r/CCE with equally great results. I totally agree with your arguments about the removal of higher order coefficients. Encoders can indeed blur edges, while transcoders (for reasonable compression) preserve edges and crispiness.

In this thread you say that IC7 differs from other "1-clickers" in that it re-distributes the bitrate reduction evenly. As this is extremely important and shows the weakness of the other solutions, can you tell me where I can find some technical details on the Ic7 algorithms and/or the other products. IC7 is slower because it does much more than others and I need to know what...

I tried a couple of movies and checked some I-frames. IC7 produced pictures indistinguishable from the original. I was overly impressed with the results... I think I will only be using TMPGEnc & CCE for my home DVs !!!

Thanks in advance,

[0xdeadbeef]

Ah, my unsigned integer representation ;)

Pinnacle didn't say too much about how exactly IC7 determines how to distribute the compression ratio. The only thing that is quite sure is, that IC7 tries to hide macroblocks in dark parts of frames. Or to put it in other words: it will compress dark frames and dark parts of frames more than the rest of the movie. Probably it does some more analysis. Maybe edge detection to preseve edges. Dunno.
But fore sure it does some analysis, while e.g. DVDShrink doesn't since it just uses the same compression factor for each and every frame evenly.

[fluffyschatz]

Is it not better to compare quality looking at the movie instead of still pictures? I personally tried InstantCopy, DVD2One and DVD Shrink on a particular scene in Minority Report that happens inside a greenhouse (lots of flowers and plants in the background). Only DVD Shrink 2.3 gave a good result there. All the others created artifacts in the picture.

[Yannis]

@ fluffyschatz

Indeed! But it is only that comparing stills is the best you have if you dont want have the time to implement code which locates differences and noise in the signal automatically. Just watching the movie, however, is up to someone's personal preference and their TV set, unfortunately...

As 0xdeadbeef said in http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55844 stills say nothing about motion vectors or P-frames.

About Minority Report, it is a >2h long movie. In this case I would only trust TMPGEnc/CCE. However, it is weird that IC7 is worse than shrink!! Theory says it should not! but I trust you believe it is better.

@ 0xdeadbeef

thanks for the reply. it is a great tool i think; being slower as it is, gives a hint of its quality (although slower does not always mean better!) in the sense that being a similar type of algorithm it spends more time in certain stages than other 1-clickers.


Yannis

[MackemX]

Originally posted by fluffyschatz
Is it not better to compare quality looking at the movie instead of still pictures? I personally tried InstantCopy, DVD2One and DVD Shrink on a particular scene in Minority Report that happens inside a greenhouse (lots of flowers and plants in the background). Only DVD Shrink 2.3 gave a good result there. All the others created artifacts in the picture. comparing stills is not really a good way, but the same can be said about individual scenes also

agreed, in that scene maybe DVDShrink is better but is it consistently better in every part of the film were some quality loss is apparent?

if you look at the original bitrate pattern and then the bitrate patterns of IC & DVDShrink you will notice a difference between IC & DVDShrink. So inevitably this will also have an effect on certain parts of the movie were one is better than the other due to different bitrate distribution

p.s. ignore me cos I'm probably talking crap as usual :)

[loggy]

"if you look at the original bitrate pattern and then the bitrate patterns of IC & DVDShrink you will notice a difference between IC & DVDShrink. So inevitably this will also have an effect on certain parts of the movie were one is better than the other due to different bitrate distribution"

Sounds right to me...
It's hard enough to properly compare both the new Constant and Variable Modes within newer D2O versions, much less with outputs from all the others.
I wonder if D2O/Constant was used in any of the above comparisons? Certainly the bitrate pattern, as such, is more true to original--and superior for many longer-movies (perhaps even to IC)...