XviD How Many CD's??

[Mug]

Hey All,

I'm kindof a semi-newbie to ripping with XviD and DivX but I can honestly say I have a fair grip on most of the things. But recently this has been on my mind.

I'm not sure whether to rip a movie with a length of under 2 hours to 1 CD, 2CD's or even 3.

To use 1 CD ripz for not bad video quality but no ac3 audio (I use mp3 128kbps) is mainly what I use to save myself money on blank media. 2CD Ripz beuatiful video quality, and even a ac3 audio track if u want, but then you'd be using 2 disks. Now 3 CD Rip i think thats a bit over the top, not really what I consider a good idea.

But I'm really interested in what you other XviD or DivX users rip to.

Cheers,

Mug :)

[ammer]

see 1cd has one movie on one cd. 2cd has two cds with one movie. 2cd needs changing unless its automatic. so make 2cds when you want to change cds or have automatic cd change. but i'm a lazy bastard you see, so i put em one disc.

[ammer]

oh and if it was 5hrs i'd still put it on one cd even if it were just blocks moving around, just to hear the dialog and have blocks illustrate the movie. a prime example of laziness.

[bond]

i do 1cd rips!

it should be possible also for a semi-newbie to get good 1cd rips with xvid or divx5 (of course you can get even better results if you know more about the different settings possible, avisynth filter...)

i use 96kbps ogg vorbis for the sound (perhaps he-aac @64kbps in the future) and mux the movie into .mkv or .ogm

the movie length isnt really important, more important is the brightness, sharp or soft edges, resolution if it will be possible for you to get good results on 1cd

[Mug]

Hey Bond,

At 96kbps ogg vorbis for the sound isn't that getting a little rough quality wise i mean. I havn't really played around with ogg vorbis, i generally just stick with mp3, but yeh I'd like to hear more about it.

[bond]

Originally posted by Mug
At 96kbps ogg vorbis for the sound isn't that getting a little rough quality wise i mean.no, you cant compare 96kbps mp3 (shitty quality) and draw the conclusion that vorbis (which is a far superior codec) at that bitrate sounds also worse

I havn't really played around with ogg vorbis, i generally just stick with mp3, but yeh I'd like to hear more about it.plz search the forum, this has been discussed very often...

[stax76]

most people try to do 1 CD rips if they don't own a DVD burner but in many cases 1 CD is not enough for superb quality especially if you want to have two audio tracks, personally I encode always with 200000 pixel at comptest 75%, luckily I own a DVD burner

[Mug]

Well lucky you!! But yes I pretty much always use only one audio track, I see no need as yet for another. So what do you think of the quality of a 1 audio track 1 CD rip??

[stax76]

it depends on the movie length and compressibility, you only have to keep track of two things, the resolution and the comptest, high quality is at least 200000 pixel at 80% comptest for me, you can make rips with 150000 pixel at 50% but they wil rather look poor! (poor like my english, lol)

[Kb_cruncher]

I have made extensive comparisons between mp3 and vorbis audio and can say with a great amount of certainty that vorbis at 80kbps is equal to mp3 at 128kbps.You can also try Xcd to fit 800mb to a 700mb cd:D,Real Video 9 is also worth a look:eek:

[tangent]

I've even used Vorbis at 48kbps (set q = -1) and it still sounds pretty decent. Sound degration isn't as bad as the video degration when I used that bitrate to compress 3h30 worth of FOTR:SE onto 1 CD...

Vorbis is an excellent audio codec which handles the low bitrates way better than MP3 can. And it's still improving...

[JohnV]

I'm trying to achieve somekind of future hardware compatibility possiblity, so I'm using QT 6.3 AAC 80kbpb cbr for my 1CD encodings with XviD (2 b-frames, no qpel,no gmc), in Matroska container.
In the future there will be mkv->mp4->mkv direct converter, so I can easily transform my Matroska media to hopefully HW compatible MP4 stream in the future.

[bond]

Originally posted by JohnV
I'm trying to achieve somekind of future hardware compatibility possiblity, so I'm using QT 6.3 AAC 80kbpb cbr for my 1CD encodings with XviD (2 b-frames, no qpel,no gmc), in Matroska container.hm , according to my (small) tests nero sounds better at that bitrate than quicktime and it supports vbr too (as i am sure you know ;) )

perhaps i am not right but at least it should be worth testing it...

[JohnV]

Originally posted by bond
hm , according to my (small) tests nero sounds better at that bitrate than quicktime and it supports vbr too (as i am sure you know ;) )

perhaps i am not right but at least it should be worth testing it... Well, you are certainly right what comes to HE-AAC, but I'm not quite comfortable using it yet (because there isn't even DS decoder for it yet). But for AAC-LC, I'm not quite happy with Nero's lowbitrate AAC-LC performance yet, although it is getting better. Granted, I haven't tested the lowbitrate vbr LC enough.. gotta do some testing..

[bond]

Originally posted by JohnV
Granted, I haven't tested the lowbitrate vbr LC enough.. gotta do some testing..yup, i didnt talk about he-aac

[JohnV]

Originally posted by bond
yup, i didnt talk about he-aac I tested the latest Nero development plugin I have with one movie soundtrack (fit to size 80kbps LC vbr). It's pretty close to QT 6.3 80kbps cbr imo. Depends on the case really which is better. Nero lowbitate LC vbr has potential to become better than QT 6.3 lowbitrate cbr, but I wouldn't yet proclaim Nero as better here.

[visigotik]

I use 1 cd for movies under 1h:45m, 2 cd's for movies over 2h, and for movies between 1h:45m and 2h it depends on how well the movie compresses.
Besides blank cd's are cheap.

[Mug]

true blank cd's are cheap, but switching cd's (if needed) can be really really annoying!

[ammer]

i see. you are absolutely right mug.

visigotik, as the movie gets longer, the picture size(resolution) gets smaller; well after 10 series of futurama, south park, rurouni kenshin, the simpsons, more and more series, you end up with a nice postage stamp sized picture. unless compression ratios can do otherwise, but i still like watching block representations of movies.

[dihelson]

I use no less than 2 or 3 CDs.
Most of my 160 movies were made on 3 CDs.
The quality is very good. Who needs DVDs ? :)

Regards,
Dihelson

[malone]

I've been doing 1GB rips with Vorbis + Xvid. The results are fantastic and i put 4 movies on a dvd. But before i had a dvd burner , i would do some on one cd, some on two ... just depended on the source and how important it was to me.

[U977]

Hi,

I usually aim at a width resolution of 704, thus quite close to DVD resolution.

Then, I aim at a minimum compressibility rate of 70% in GKnot, although I don't trust the compressibility value so much anymore. This is step is a first try. At taht moment, given those two conditions, if I need 2 CDs, I'll go for 2 CDs and split the movie (not using GKnot for splitting, because I prefer to choose the moment of the split). However, if 1 CD is enough, I'll try to go for one, because it's always easier not to change.
Anyway, I always play the movie, and if I'm not satisfied about the quality, I play a bit with settings ( XviD: amount of B frames, B frames threshold; or maybe lower resolution, but I really don't liek to do so), and if still not satisfied, I'll add one more CD.

Sometimes, I share 3 CDs for 2 movies, because I'm try to remains savy :-)
I also have access to a DVD burner, but I don't use DVD+Rs to burn DivX or XviD movies. I use them only for DVD content. Besides, DVD-Rs are still a bit too expensive for backup purposes. I use them only for the few movies I like the most.

When I play XviD or DivX movie with more than 1 CD, I join the AVI files before watching it, so I can just lie in my bed while enjoying it.
The funny thing is that my computer screen is bigger than my telly (the one in my bedroom, I mean)...

I still use MP3 for the audio, because I could not make my mind yet about another format (tried AAC, but it was damn long to encode).

[unmei]

here usable DVD-R are cheaper per mega than usable CD-R. with usable i mean one that doesnt break after a few usages or a few month of storage, and has a case.

I only encode anime, with those i always went for approx 10 mbyte/s, sum of all streams. Meaning 3 eps per CD.
But recently (xvid getting really kickass for anime and vorbis instead of cbr mp3) i sometimes do 4 eps per CD.

btw vorbis at q050 to q300 is really ok, if you want more quality you better avoid recompress and copy the AC3

[ammer]

putting the avis on the computer would be good, but the avis could just be played in a play list; preps just too much and too much time.

with 2 cds you have double the space used, double the cost, and twice the chance of having a cd lost or damaged.

have you tried adding filters and more filters until you're satisfied? that way all bit using video would be removed and then you could put it on one disc.

[U977]

@unmei: I know, I should have tried vorbis :-) I never did because that time I looked at it, it was still far from being widely used, even if already good. Thks, I'll try to look to it. I don't keep AC3, because I don't need so many audio channels (stereo is enough for me), so I though it is not worth for me to keep such a large audio file. That's also because 128kbps MP3s are satisfying me very well for voices in movies. It would be different with the DVD of a concert :)
Or maybe I'll look again at AAC, now. Anyway, thanks for motivating me! lol

@ammer: true, there can quickly be a problem of space :-) However, I don't like to use filters, because you loose details when you use them too much, and the current compression ratio of the latest version of the codecs (especially XviD, in my opinion) is already amazing, without applying any other filter than the resize one.
I'm curious to know, what's the average number of DivX movies you put on a DVD?

I think it's also mainly a matter of taste, and preference.

[ammer]

hmm, well it seems movies can fit on one disc; i'm looking to see when compression schemes can put two movies into just one disc. i'm sure by then compression ratios have doubled, which will be nice.

[Mug]

Hi everyone,

It's me Mug the guy who started this post. Well as a status update, ever since I started this post I had only ever been doing 1 CD rips with mp3 128kbps. Which to be honest seeing that I don't have a MP4 capable dvd player in my living room is a stupid idea. So alot of people have pointed out about different audio compression formats and you are soo right! MP3 is the old now, unless ofcoarse you want support for a dvd player of some kind. SO at the moment I've been playing around with Ogg Vorbis & i have to say the video quality does increase especially on the long movie rips. The audio quality of a 80kbps ogg vorbis rip to a 128 kbps MP3 rip sounds exactly the same, but with Ogg I'm saving up to 50mb of space!!! So I say whoever hasn't tried ogg vorbis should get right into it.

Also now I'm messin around with 2 and even sometimes 3 CD rips now.

Thanks tons for all your helpful advice,

Cheers

[bond]

Originally posted by Mug
The audio quality of a 80kbps ogg vorbis rip to a 128 kbps MP3 rip sounds exactly the same, but with Ogg I'm saving up to 50mb of space!!! So I say whoever hasn't tried ogg vorbis should get right into it.welcome to the (still exclusive) club :D
and the next generation aac and he-aac (also called aac+) is on its way (still needs some tuning and testing imho)

[Soulhunter]

For me, 1CD-encodes are complete @!%*# ! :D

I havent seen a 1CD-rip that was looking good till now, so I always go for 3CD's or 2 movies on 1 DVD-R...

HiRes. + HiBitrate + AC3-5.1 = Makes me lucky...! :)

Sure, it depends on the length...

For me, 3CD's or 1/2 DVD-R for regular movies - 120min.

Just my opinion !

Bye

[dihelson]

Originally posted by Soulhunter
For me, 1CD-encodes are complete @!%*# ! :D

I havent seen a 1CD-rip that was looking good till now, so I always go for 3CD's or 2 movies on 1 DVD-R...

HiRes. + HiBitrate + AC3-5.1 = Makes me lucky...! :)

Sure, it depends on the length...

For me, 3CD's or 1/2 DVD-R for regular movies - 120min.

Just my opinion !

Bye

Put one more VOTE... I agree with you.
Almost all 1 CD Xvid seems garbage, unless you haven't seen on a more than 25" screen yet.
Perhaps, for 1 hour is fine, but confine 1:45 or 120min on 1 CD is a crime...Use 2 or 3.

Just one more oppinion..

[\AX]

"Almost all 1 CD Xvid seems garbage"

i totally disagree. completely.
ive only used xvid 3 times so far for these lengths

55min
98min
125min

In the above the 55min was obviously fine
the 98min was great too
the 125min was something i had to work at.
i used a filter something like "addnoise" or something
like that and got great results. the res on the 125min
was 288. 1 audio track and 1 subtitle track into a .ogm.
I used some other filters i found on the FAQ or whatever
that i dont remember by name. There is a ALOT of filters
that will undoubtly help you...just muster up the time
to read up on them (thankfully avisynth is easy to use)

like somebody posted earlier...using avisynth filters can
help ALOT. If you dont use avisynth filters then you need
to realise 2 things.
1. Your loosing like 30% viewable quality. I mean on how
it looks to YOU when you watch it...not the machine.
2. There is just now way coming straight from dvd2avi that
your going to be able to get the quality you want to 1 cd.
Avisynth is really easy to learn. It resembles ALOT of Java
to me and if you dont know anything at all about Java then
know the syntax is VERY friendly.

To do a 2cd rip in xvid, and not use avisynth, well that seems
like a complete waste to me of cds and time.

Im not boasting avisynth, im just saying it helps ALOT, this is
a FACT (to me atleast).

Would like to note though, that i use XCD to get a extra ~95MB
on 1 cd. At first i was using this extra space for a extra audio
title (for japanimation i still do). But 2 of the 3 rips ive done
ive wound up putting it towards the video bitrate. To be honest i
didnt think just this little would help much...but it looks like
it helps ALOT. To my eyes (not the machine), this extra space almost
makes it appear 2x the quality vs. not using it. Recently ive been
overburning the XCD by ~1minute and even that much seems to help some.

Off note i have found, for some odd reason, that discjuggler can burn
a extra 15min that other software wont. Well other software will but
it will have to overburn...discjuggler can do the same extra 15min
WITHOUT overburning.

I wind up getting nice cd sizes. I get like 95mb extra with XCD. Then i get a extra 15MB by overburning. Then i use DJ to overburn which gives me a extra 15MB that appears no other app will do. Im getting like on average of ~115 extra MB with all cds this way now. This extra
115MB is in combination with avisynth helped TREMENDOUSLY when i did
the 125min rip.

(if someone could clear up why or how DJ is burning a extra 15MB vs.
no other app will (not nero, clone, cdrwin, etc...) i would be much
appreciative. It could just be me and my system or it just might not
really be able to do it and im just confused...but if you havent tried
yet to overburn with DJ please try it, you will see what im saying.
It's VERY VERY strange this seems to happen "automagically". I 99%
sure that this is happening. With cds "burned to the brim" and not
overburned i can copy 1:1 with clone or nero. But if i use DJ to
"burn to the brim" and not overburn then when i try to copy these
cds in nero it always prompts it must overburn. So i close Nero and
try to copy it 1:1 in DJ and it does NOT prompt for overburning)

oh i would like to add i have given up on encoding XviD for now. That
125min rip took i dont know how long on my 1.33ghz athlon. Something
like 2 days. Until i get a faster system or XviD is semi-optimized i
can't use it. I consider XviD the best codec to use and also consider
that a FACT...but its just too slow right now with my hardware/no-optimization.

[Acaila]

but its just too slow right now with my hardware/no-optimization.Actually XviD is very much optimized, so the reason it's slow for you must be the settings you enabled.
For example, VHQ was created to give an extra quality boost in exchange for a significant slowdown, but most people new to XviD enable it by default because they hear such good things about it and then wonder why encoding is so slow.

But I agree with you on Avisynth, it's essential for creating high quality 1 CD rips. With Avisynth and the correct filters creating such high quality rips is not really difficult. Of course blowing a video up by displaying it with a projector will make almost anything look bad (except the original), so it's not really fair to judge rips like that. Always judge a rip on the display type it was created for.

[U977]

\AX,

As far as I know, the Avisynth filters you're speaking about increases the compressibility by smoothing the image in a way or another.
It's up to you to make your mind about it. Personally, I like a lot more movies that were encoded without using those filters.

I've seen some 1CD rips wich were of "good" quality thanks to extensive usage of those filters, and the image looks simply too regular to me. English is not my mother tongue, so it's hard to explain. The image looks too artificial to me, and I really don't like that.

So, yes, it's a pity to have to go for 2CDs, but IMHO, it's certainly not a waste of time.

That's what I realized, personally :)

[sysKin]

Originally posted by U977
As far as I know, the Avisynth filters you're speaking about increases the compressibility by smoothing the image in a way or another.
It's up to you to make your mind about it. Personally, I like a lot more movies that were encoded without using those filters.
I discovered that it's much better to use very sharp resizer (like lanczos) and use the filters (I like fluxsmooth and VagueDenoiser). Some people prefer to use softer resizers first. Since (almost) all filters try not to smooth edges, when sharp resizer is used, they see edges better and the image looks better.

Qpel helps a lot in compressing sharp images.

I'll be trying to compress Starship Troopers on 1cd soon (with 2 vorbis audio tracks - english + commentary - I always do that). It's 2 hours exactly, I'll tell you how it went :)

Radek

[bond]

Originally posted by sysKin
[B]I discovered that it's much better to use very sharp resizer (like lanczos) and use the filters (I like fluxsmooth and VagueDenoiser). Some people prefer to use softer resizers first. Since (almost) all filters try not to smooth edges, when sharp resizer is used, they see edges better and the image looks better.hm, you mean you use the sharp resizers before the other filtering (i always did the reverse (till ow ;) ))?
interesting idea...

[sysKin]

Originally posted by bond
hm, you mean you use the sharp resizers before the other filtering (i always did the reverse (till ow ;) )) Hmmm... I never thougt about it ;) I just figured out that denoisers are slow, so it's better to use them on smaller picture :) that's it.

[Koepi]

Since you use the filters on the smaller picture you'll loose even more details. (Think of it in a spiritual sense ;) ).

I do filtering on the cropped image and then resize.

Regards
Koepi

[bond]

i played around now with avscompare (great tool as always :D) and i dont think that sharpresizers before additional filtering gives better results than the reverse method...

[mfluder]

Has anyone tried using b-frames as a noise filter? :D

[Didée]

Originally posted by U977
As far as I know, the Avisynth filters you're speaking about increases the compressibility by smoothing the image in a way or another.
It's up to you to make your mind about it. Personally, I like a lot more movies that were encoded without using those filters.

I've seen some 1CD rips wich were of "good" quality thanks to extensive usage of those filters, and the image looks simply too regular to me. ... The image looks too artificial to me, and I really don't like that.
Well, you should try RV9 to fit a 2h-movie on one CD.
I am sure you will be, erh, SURPRISED by the result. ("How to make an animee out of a natural movie")

:D

Didée

[unmei]

in my experience, putting denoisers before or after the resize has not that a great influence on quality. (this might be a religious thing rather than a scientific). Therefore i always have put resize first to speed up - but as there are still 80% of the pixels, it has not that a huge influence. But i a) used bilinear resize so far and b) only do anime.

Using lanzcos seems a interesting idea.
I always avoided it because i read it were for hi quality encodes and i considered average quantiser 3-4 (counting the b-frames) not hi quality, but i should really try it if syskin thinks it's good for 1cd movies (probably lower datarate than my animes) then it might be good for my animes too :D

@mfluder:
I use b-frames (2/150/75/0/DX50B-VOP) but i don't understand "as a noise filter" :(

[mfluder]

Originally posted by unmei

@mfluder:
I use b-frames (2/150/75/0/DX50B-VOP) but i don't understand "as a noise filter" :(
Well, that was partly a joke (hence the smiley) but it is true neverthless. This is a known side effect (positive) of b-frames. If your source contains a small amount of noise IMHO it would be better not to filter that noise at all because b-frames are going to do that for you. That way you keep more details which would otherwise be removed by a noise filter.

But remember that this only works nice for a small amount of noise. If your source has a lot of noise you will have to use filters.

Just try it for yourself and let me know what you think. I would love to hear your results.

[Soulhunter]

>
I used a filter something like "addnoise" or something
like that and got great results.
<

I also use it + ffdshows addnoise to enhance my 3CD encodes... :D

>
The res on the 125min was 288.
<

I use 720 or more... :D

>
There is a ALOT of filters that will undoubtly help you...
<

Yap! I use them to...

>
Your loosing like 30% viewable quality.
<

So you can gain 30% quality also with 3CD encodes... :p

>
To do a 2cd rip in xvid, and not use avisynth, well that seems like a complete waste to me of cds and time.
<

Or use avisynth and have a even better 3CD rip... :D

>
Would like to note though, that i use XCD to get a extra ~95MB
on 1 cd.
<

But this means you HAVE to use ogm with its included error-correction!
Use AVI+XCD and every single scratch will it make unreadable...:(

>
Until i get a faster system or XviD is semi-optimized i can't use it.
<

Uhm? Isnt it yet ??? ;)

>
Always judge a rip on the display type it was created for.
<

Yap! I like to watch it on my 82cm TV... NICE! :D :D :D

>
I'll be trying to compress Starship Troopers on 1cd...
<

I made a 3CD encode of Starship Troopers and I can see only a "small" difference to the DVD. (Maybe my eyes to sharp to make 1CD encodes :D)


Whith this post I dont want to diz the PPL here, I just want to say that I make 3CD encodes because it repuduces the quality "I" want.
I know much PPL that are happy with thier 1CD encodes, but I AM NOT. (add. call me insane, but sometimes for me even DVD quality is not enough ;))

Maybe I just need some sleep... :D

Bye

[U977]

@Didée: I've read the topic of Sagittaire about codecs comparison, and it says the same than what you say: RV9 is the best at low bitrates. However, because of my past experience with realvideo, I'm now allergic to any realnetworks product... I'm still under treatment, but I think I can soon stop with the medications :p

@Syskin: thanks for the tip, I'll give a run with Lanczos! I'm very interested to know what will have happened with your Starship Troopers challenge :)

[U977]

@Soulhunter

(add. call me insane, but sometimes for me even DVD quality is not enough )

Since I saw some HDTV samples, I'm having nightmares about that too... lol

And still speaking about DVD rips, even now, there are few old encodes I did 2 years ago, that I do again now, to have all the benefits of the latest versions of the codecs.

[unmei]

many of the DVD i got DON'T have THAT great quality to call you insane :D
Put it this way: mpeg-2 is "old", DVDs have half of my screen's resolution and interlacing is not made for the PC. You could get much greater results with the codecs we use if the input were not already this limited :p (however i don't think my comp can decode a 1280x1024 xvid in realtime, blah, but it is rather old anyway. A new one might do it)

[Didée]

Originally posted by U977
@Didée: I've read the topic of Sagittaire about codecs comparison, and it says the same than what you say: RV9 is the best at low bitrates. However, because of my past experience with realvideo, I'm now allergic to any realnetworks product... I'm still under treatment, but I think I can soon stop with the medications :p

OMG! Strike in the heart! I'll die .... ;)

I was referring to your statement with the artificial look when using (too much) noise filtering. And that's what RV9 is delivering to me, at medium-to-low bitrates: a picture quality that is almost free of the visual artefacts we know from mpeg-4, but at the expense of seriously "sketching" the video. That is, the movie is not vivid any more. Faces look like plastique masks, and hard edges are reproduced pretty sharp, too much in comparison to the huge loss of fine details, so that I often think "hey, RV9 has managed to make this movie an animee".
And that is my personal bottomline: For animee and similar, RV9 is really great at low bitrates. For natural sources, tastes are quite different. I don't like RV9 much, it denaturates the picture way too much, and any PSNR measurement doesn't help with that aspect.
But I do see the reasons why others prefer RV9 over everything, it's just a matter of taste - and mine is different.

Just to stop any rumours about me becoming Nerd #2 ;)

- Didée

[U977]

Didée, the RV9 nerd #2, has said that... ;)

Good, I got the right meaning of it, Didée, now! lol

Back on the DVD quality topic, I saw some very bad quality DVDs recently too.

"Addicted to love" (Now I don't wonder anymore why it was given free with the standalone DVD player that my parents bought. Oh no, I'll have to explain them how the DVD player can be used, now... and explain again, and again, and again...) has reached the lowest image quality level I saw until now on DVD.

I also bough the "Benelux" (Belgium-Netherland-Luxemboug) version of "The Omen". Image is quite ok, but the sound is very bad. Saturation is reached several times during the movie.
Money, money, money... (Hope I won't have to pay something to the crazy RIAA for mentionning that Abba song).

[RexManning]

Talking about high quality rips... I'm currently encoding a movie with a size of 712x432 pixel (cropped). And since I want to be able to view this movie on my big ass TV (if I can afford one some day :-) I am going for optimal quality. Now here's my question: does it make sense to increase the resolution to let's say 800x336 with it being stretched by 112% horizontally? Or does zooming degrade quality too much? There's probably a reason why Gnot colors those boxes red when it goes above 100% :)

[Nibor]

Increasing resolution to higher values than the source makes no sense IMO!
(Never tried it, but I think that's the way aha aha, it is :D)

Reason? Hmm, why give the codec a higher resolution to encode if this results (in the best case) in the same quality as if it would be encoded at your currect resolution and then resized by the player?

Humm humm, that's kind of hard to explain for me, I'll try to clarify what I want to say, if it's not clear...
Or maybe my argument's false... ?

Greets,
Nibor

[RexManning]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Artificially enlarging the picture won't do the overall quality any good. However, while W-Zoom is 112%, H-Zoom is only at 78% so there's still some room to go... So going as close to 100% as possible while keeping the B/(P*F) between 80% and 100% is pretty much the optimum, right?

[Nibor]

Oh, well, I didn't think of the vertical resolution which is still smaller than the original vertical resolution! Good point :)
Yes, in this case, it makes more sense!

But what do you mean by B/(P*F) in percent? This value is in numbers like 2.0 or something! Do you mean this value compared to the compressibility test?

Another point..
Have you ever thought about encoding it anamorphic?
You wouldn't even have to resize if you'd do it this way!

- Nibor

[RexManning]

Yes, I meant that value in relation to the compressibility test. That's pretty much the only value I'm looking at when choosing the resolution (I know that one shouldn't rely on the comp-test too much but if the ratio is above 80% the result can't get that bad).
Anyway, I'm not really into Gnot so I'm not quite sure what you meant by 'encoding it anamorphic'... I did choose 'PAL anamorphic (16:9)'. Not cropping results (obviously) in a significant drop of the B/(P*F) value from 0.378 to 0.287 (which equals a decrease of the ratio from 91.5% to 69.5%). Is that what you meant? Or am I missing something here?

[Nibor]

Just to be sure you know:
With every resolution you try, you have to make a new compressibility test! Above 80% is pretty good with the actual builds! Ok... :)

Anamorphic encoding. I'll try to explain this a little bit..
DVDs are in resolutions like 720x576 (PAL). Ok, if we watch these DVDs, the picture gets resized by the player but the resizing is not "proportional"... The movie gets resized to something like 1000x576 (just a sample), that means the horizontal resolution is increased!
That's because the picture is originally stored not in the "right" ratio of horizontal and vertical resolution. Originally it's stored with more vertical resolution! (Because vertical resolution is more important to the human eye than horizontal!)...
Now, if we encode a DVD, we normally resize the picture (like DVD player does) _before_ we encode it, so that if we play the video the picture looks like it should look..
The "idea" of anamorphic encoding is that the picture is _not_ resized (just cropped if necessary) before encoding! Now, if you'd play that file with normal settings it would look like a DVD in original (-> more vertical resolution). But the _player_ can resize it so it looks right! You can use special container formats which can store this "resizing information" or just use a player where you can select the right resizing manually.
Hope you could understand something in this "small" explanation ;)
(English is not my mother language so it's hard for me to explain such things!)

The advantage of this "method" is that you don't lose vertical resolution and don't have to increase horizontal resolution to something higher than the source!

Look at this post if you would like to know how to create such files:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54677

I'd also recommend you the basics on doom9.org or do some searching..

And now, I'm really really tired :)
(and I've only 4.5 hours left to sleep :D)

Bye!
Nibor

[RexManning]

Well, thanks!
However, it does sound a little complicated to me. I'm totally satisfied with my 700x300 XviD... I guess the difference to an 'optimized' version will not be visible on my 18.1" TFT (not to mention my TV). I'll rather include two AC3 sound tracks :-)

[Soulhunter]

@RexManning
>
does it make sense to increase the resolution to let's say 800x336...
<

Increase the resolution is only a good idear when you use AviSynth filters to enhance the picture quality and/or store it anamorphic as Nibor suggested...

[RexManning]

Is there any way to do this with OGM? The thread Nibor mentioned only deals with Matroska.
I think Matroska is an awesome container format but as long as OggMux (or another easy-to-use tool) doesn't not support MKVs and as long as playing MKVs is that complicated it's not really worth the effort (for me anyway). I'll stick to OGM for the moment (and a OGM -> MKV conversion shouldn't be too much trouble).

[Nibor]

Don't know about OGM aspect ratio support...

Muxing in Matroska is easy with VirtualDubMod!
But setting the aspect ratio (to make anamorphic) is not possible with it yet, I think.. (You have to use MKVtoolnix for that)
And for playback just use mkxds from matroska.org, not really a problem!

:: Nibor ::

PS: Still tired :p ;)

[RexManning]

So I just crop the picture and encode it with Gnot with an 1:1 Input Pixel Aspec Ratio, then mux the whole thing with VirtualDubMod (do I have to add the chapters to the audio streams as well or is it enough if I add them to the video stream?)? Sounds easy. I'll give it a shot right away :)

Edit: Gee, I need Cygwin for MKVtoolnix? That sucks...

[Nibor]

MKVtoolnix uses MinGW in the newer versions...

No, it's not that easy, sorry to "disappoint" you! :rolleyes:
As I said you can't mux anamorphic in VirtualDubMod because you can't set the aspect ratio flag yet! Don't know anything about chapters at all, sorry...
You have to mux it with MKVtoolnix, which is command line based. How to do it is explained in the thread I posted..

For playback, you have to get "The Core Media Player" or "ffdshow" (latest alpha) and enable some settings. Maybe "Media Player Classic" also supports it, I don't know!

Peace!
Nibor

[RexManning]

Ah well, screw it :)
Maybe I'll just encode it 1:1, put in an OGM and change the aspect ratio to 16:9 afterwards in BS Player.
Do you think the difference in quality will be visible?

[Nibor]

Oh, just found that there's a GUI for mkvmerge at http://corecodec.org/projects/mmg/! Can't try it for now, I'm at work ATM :D :D

Yes, like this it would be easier, but its not _automatic_ *gg*
(I'm lazy you know... Hmm, but just when I want to watch a movie not when I encode it :p)

It should be a visible quality improve, I think..
But test it! Take a few minutes of the movie and do it anamorphic and non-anamorphic and then COMPARE :)

[RexManning]

I'm currently encoding part of the movie with an aspect ratio of 1:1 (704x432, 0.354 (CTest: 0.417)). I'll let you know if I can see any difference when it's done.

[unmei]

for the Display Aspect Ratio in MKVs:
if you dont like command line, or anyway :)

-MatroskaProp 1.3 (jcsstons matroska explorer shell extension) can set the Aspect Ratio. Select the mkv, go to properties->matroska info, at the bottom right is a button "change display size" ->there you go :P

the video track must be selected to see the button, and eventually it doesnt work with MatroskaMuxer-made files (tags in those cant be set at the moment, you need to direct stream copy those files in VDM, then it works)

(i know im a bit late, but i didnt check yesterday :P )
-increasing the resolution: bad idea IMHO. i did it once in my early days with really crappy mini-resolution anime. I thought i increase the resolution and then apply denoisers to make the fic at least watchable....well i could watch it, but i will never do that again. For a good source, incresing the resolution is just wasting bits.

[RexManning]

Thanks for answering. I think I'll just stick to OGM and switch to MKV as soon as all-in-one tools like OggMux are available for Matroska.

[\AX]

SoulHunter wrote the below...

Would like to note though, that i use XCD to get a extra ~95MB
on 1 cd.
<

But this means you HAVE to use ogm with its included error-correction!
Use AVI+XCD and every single scratch will it make unreadable...

---

I might be missing something here. any scratch on a cd making the cd unreadable, with this cd containing a video stream that has no to little error correction, will result in the same results regardles of what mode it is burned in.

if a cd has a scratch that cause's the disc to be unreadable, then its jut unreadable. SVCD, with it's error correction is the same thing. Most of us have used SVCD or the mpeg2 stream atleast on cd, and if that cd scratch's to make it unreadable, mpeg2 wont correct it, even with its good error correction. You will just have to live without that part of the movie and watch on.

I just find cd scratch's irrelevant since they can render any cd unreadable.

Ive read what you said many other places before, but it's irrelevant by ALOT. If you dont take care of your stuff, of course it will never last. Just because you wrote the bits in a different cd mode, makes it a 'risk' isnt right thinking too. Bits are bits, no matter how they are written.

Also if you just burned a .avi on a cd (mode1), what stops that from being unreadable?? Still the same stream with the same correction, .avi. Is there some sort of protection against unreadable cds by just burning the .avi to a cd?? (i really dont know if there is or isnt)

[ammer]

Also if you just burned a .avi on a cd (mode1), what stops that from being unreadable?? Still the same stream with the same correction, .avi. Is there some sort of protection against unreadable cds by just burning the .avi to a cd?? (i really dont know if there is or isnt)

go to www.cdrinfo.com for further information.

[r0cket]

Originally posted by Nibor
...vertical resolution is more important to the human eye than horizontal!)...

And my question is: is it necessarily to leave the image's size as it is on the DVD? I mean, we can do proportional resize and still get anamorphic picture (vertical > horizontal).
e.g. you have 720x576 DVD and resize it to 480x384 -> better compressibility + better look.

[Soulhunter]

@\AX

>
Ive read what you said many other places before, but it's irrelevant by ALOT.
<

THANKS !!! :D

But dont blame the Doom9 glossary (http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/) !!! ;)

XCD

eXtended CD is an upcoming CD format which allows your CDs to be written in mode2 form 2 mode which basically means that it contains less error correction codes thus allowing you to store more data onto a single CD. XCD allows you to store 800 MB of data on a regular 700 MB CD. But as there's less error correction on the discs, XCDs are not very scratch resistant and it's suggested that you only put data that has additional error correction in the container (for instance OGM) on such CDs. For more info refer to the XCD guide.

Some more info (http://xcd.sourceforge.net/) !

Bye

[gpower2]

@SoulHunter
I agree with you but not completely. Someone wrote that DVD source is too old for today's status and he's right! So, it has no meaning trying using filters with Avisynth or other stuff just to make it fit on 1CD,the quality that DVD offers is not so flawless and it can be easily fit on 1CD if you just lower the resolution. So simple! Always talking about 1:30 - 1:50 length movies. Above 2 hours it's almost impossible to fit in 1CD, unless it is quite dark.

Personally I don't care about space, only for quality, though I am not so persistent as you! I use the original AC3 sound of the movie without re-encoding, and I use XviD with :

Motion Search :Ultra High
Mpeg Matrice
VHQ:1
No QPel and GMC
Chroma optimizer On
B-Frames: 2,175,DX50 Compatibility,Packed Bitstream

But I restrain the quantizers,I use :
Minimum quantizer 3 or 2
Maximum quantizer 5 or 6

depends on the quality I want!

And the bitrate I use is 1-pass 1500kbitrate!

I leave it to the codec to decide the space it will use.

As for resolution, I always check to have a resolution close to 640x480 meaning that 640x480=307200. So I use resolutions which give 2000000-3000000 result.

With all the above, I get sizes of 700MB-1200MB. Especially with XviD I get more 700-900MB!

That is 1 1/2 CDs! I believe it is really nice! You can fit 2movies in 3CDs!

Try these settings for yourself!

@all the others in this post

I you use Mp3,Ogg or anything else for the sound and the other settings for the video, I believe you get your 1CD rip...

[r0cket]

Originally posted by gpower2
...And the bitrate I use is 1-pass 1500kbitrate!

I leave it to the codec to decide the space it will use...
Actually that way you not leave it to the codec. It will still restrict the bitrate in high motion scenes and overuse it in low motion with just a little deviation to keep the average bitrate of 1500kbps.
If you wish "the codec to decide the space it will use", use the "Quality" mode.

[gpower2]

@Rocket

Well, what I meant was that I find 1500Kbps high enough for high motion scenes and at low motion scenes the bitrate drops at about 500Kbps which is low enough for me. However your proposition seems interesting. Could you give me some tips according to what I used before? I will try it soon and I will give you my opinion (I normally encode 4-5 movies a week). I will appreciate it!;)

Cu!:D

[r0cket]

Could you give me some tips according to what I used before?
Well, seems that the only thing that I can suggest besides quality mode (I usually use quality level from 90 to 94) is not to use packed bitstream (don't really know why, but everybody's talking about it ;) )

[bond]

gpower2,
read the newbie settings sticky, there you find every info you need for encoding settings!

[gpower2]

@rOcket
Well, I guess I haven't made myself clear. I meant some tips about the quality mode, meaning what value should I use and how this value affects the min and max quantizers used. What is the connection between the quantizers I set, the value of the slider bar at quality and the quantizers that are actually used while compressing.

@Bond
I had already checked the newbie section and Snowbeach's-Koepi's guide(which is really one of the best I have read) and I didn't find much about "fine tuning" quality mode.

Most of the guides out there describe the 2-pass encoding. Personally, I haven't found great differences with 1-pass with my settings, so I find it a bit of waste of time. I know a lot of people disagree with me, but I believe there should be more info about 1-pass.

Hope some of the guys reading this could give me some info!!!

Thanks for bothering with me!

CU

[Pen-Pen]

my two cents ;) :

since koepi's last build went out, I never had to go for 2 cd... b-frames and VHQ-4 allow one to make some beautiful 1-Pass Q2 encodes, even for 2-hours movies (and since it's fixed quant, you can be sure it's beautiful ;))

of course, I would NEVER put LOTR (for instance) on 1cd, but such long films are an exception

so, my rule : make H.263 - VHQ 4 - BF 2/150/100/100 - 1-Pass Q2... change the resolution (lowest res acceptable for me : 512xXXX) until it's the right size... if you cannot make it this way, go for 2cd...

what d'ya think ?

[Animaniac]

I go for 900-1200 kb/s encodes. Anime usually falls towards 900 kb/s and "live-action" falls toward 1200 kb/s. Within this range long movies usually take 2 CDs and short ones take 1. Of course, as with any bitrate, good noise reduction must be done in order for the encode to look good.

[bond]

Originally posted by Pen-Pen
so, my rule ... BF 2/150/100/100afaik the highest possible value for b-frame threshold in the latest builds (koepi) is 60, so there is no need to use values above that
of course the picture gets very smooth with such high values...

[gpower2]

@Pen-Pen

I believe Q2 is just too much, and with it you don't take advantage of the "intelligence" of the codec to choose where to use worse quantizers for less complex scenes, especially the dark ones, using much more space than it is needed. Also, you use H.263 which doesn't work for me since I like sharp images, even if they have blocky edges for time to time (rare phenomenon in our days) rather than a totally smoothed image with no small details. As for VHQ 4, I don't know what PC you are using but it is too much for mine, so I stick to VHQ 1 which does its work really nice! About LOTR and other such films, I agree with you, I use 2-4 min-max quantizers for best quality and I use 2-3 CDs! Thanks for the suggestions anyway!

@Animaniac

Basically, I have the same range for bitrate at the end, so I agree with the CDs number. But I never use noise reduction filters for DVD movies! I don't like loss of detail! But for VHS or TV captures, noise reduction is a must. I personally find cnr2 and wavelet noise reduction two of the best filters for this job!

Someone else about 1-pass quality mode? Thanks!
CU