Reauthoring/Calculating AVS Filters before an OPV

[ShadowKnight]

I use dvd-remake to remove unwanted extras and menus from the original dvd. When I run the reauthored content through DVD-RB with OPV I get a smaller output size than I would have gotten without re-authoring the content. But its only less by about what I took out I believe, just from glancing at it. My question to anyone who might offer advice, is if theres a way to pick up that slack space. and also perhaps why it doesnt make up for that space already. Enlighten me!
One other thing along the same lines... when I run OPV and add a normal filter during the cce encode, the filesize comes out below what it would without it, would there be a way to calculate for the filter beforehand so that the slack space can actually go to use?
I'm fairly new to all of this, and am eager to learn about all I can.
So if you have any ideas on these matters Id love to hear.

On a complete side note... not to sound like a noob or anything, although I guess technically speaking I am, I have no idea how it works, lol... can anyone point me to a thread about what Q is and how it works? I've read a lot of DDogg's posts, and wish I could understand more of the technicalities of how it works. I'm also interested in how a multi-pass re-encodes to the specified size. I'm eager to learn. Thanks everybody.

Oh, and Jdobbs, you've got money coming from me for your hard work so far. Thanks for making our lives easier :)

Edit: Jdobbs, I put $20 in your pocket, err paypal... Best I can do right now. I'll throw a few bucks (or more) your way every month if I can (most likely). You deserve some compensation for your time, and your doing a great job. Just wanna make sure you know that. I can only imagine how stressful this can get for you, so... thanks for the free pie bro ;)

[wmansir]

First, you can strip stuff out before encoding and DVD-RB should automatically use all the space available. It just makes whatever you feed it fit on a DVD-5, it doesn't matter what preproccessing you have done (as long as it didn't break anything).

Second, there is no (simple) way to use filters and OPV at this time. The program goes immediately from making the .avs files to figuring out the Q value. Perhaps it would be more logical to put the Analysis in with the encoding function, but then you wouldn't know what Q value was being used until you started encoding.

Third, Q means Quantizer. It's basically a way of stating how much quality (or detail) reduction is needed. So a Q=10 is more like the original than Q=20. I haven't played around with it in CCE myself so I can't comment on exactly what values are acceptable.

EDIT: because I forgot about multipass.

Multipass does not work based on quality reduction (Q), it works just by numbers (xxxx kilobytes per second). So the file size can be calculated very accurately before hand, but the quality cannot. OPV, on the other hand, can give very consistent quality, but cannot guarantee file size.

[ShadowKnight]

@wmansir

Thanks for the reply on this. I aprreciate the info.
I've figured out a lot more about the whole process since I posted this, and I now know the answers to most of my newbie questions lol. Its amazing what you can learn by frying your brain with info for a week straight. Its also amazing how much more I want to learn about :)
I'm still wishing I could find an easier way to use avs filters with OPV. Adding an extra step for the Q-anylize (when in OPV mode) might work, or maybe just a simple Pre-edit of the avs that is used so you can add the filters you want, or tweak the sample variables manually even... and then afterwards you could run the prepare phase and it would use the modified avs instead of the default one. Its a thought.
Or maybe someone can make an add-on that will do the Q-anylize with selected avs filters, and then just import the results (open project) to DVD-RB and encode?
Just throwing out ideas.

Heck heres one more, if you dont want to go through much effort at all, you can just add an option(on/off) to pause before running the avs created for the q-anylize. That way we can just manually edit it... then when were done with that we can hit the go button in the popup box that lets us know its been paused, and then were good to go. Would that work? Cause right now in order to do it you gotta edit the avs file while the anylize is running, and get a faulty first test, before it runs the modified avs. at least.. I believe my mothod is working, its just a bit of a pain. But I'm glad I even figured out how to do this at all.

I'm noot sure if its working that way tho... my first attempt tired out 5 q values, the first being from the original avs. and after the 5 it settled on a q value it didnt even test. :-/ I think I'm gonna try this out again and see what happens.

[jdobbs]

Version 0.52 has the ability to add filters to AVS files. If you use this, the filter will be added before Q prediction.

[jdobbs]

I'm noot sure if its working that way tho... my first attempt tired out 5 q values, the first being from the original avs. and after the 5 it settled on a q value it didnt even test. :-/ I think I'm gonna try this out again and see what happens. If a Q is reached that predicts to be within 1% but is too large, the next larger Q (smaller size) is selected. It doesn't make a lot of sense to test the Q again when you know it is the closest you can get without going over. This is also the reason I tell everyone that getting 4.1xGB is not undersized output in OPV. There are instances in which a specified Q value will deliver 4.10GB and the next smaller Q value will go over the maximum disc size.

[ShadowKnight]

Sweetness! I can hardly wait:) I'm excited about how well this is coming along. You've definately got the best program for dvd out there IMHO, and its getting better constantly :)
Thank you jdobbs for everything.
You can count on getting more dough for all your efforts. I know I will contribute when I can. :)
I'm so impressed with this program, and all it can do already, and add-ons ect.

EDIT: I almost forgot:
@Jdobbs
Could you add an option to turn on or off the creation of the vaf in OPV?
your probably already doing this, but I wanted to make sure it gets said, cause I think mostly its not needed, the extra passes, (when that get implimented) aren't necessary on all encodes, just those certain tough encodes. Hopefully this wont be too much trouble.
Thanks:)