best RB settings for backing up episode disks?

[Antonioni]

Hi, i'm using RB 0,49 with the following settings (great program btw)
CCE SP 2.66+ Trial
VBR_Bias 25
Quality_prec 16
Passes 3


I am backing up my Sopranos series 1, and two of the disks contain four 55 min episodes. I have backed up three disks and have the feeling that a 4 epsiode disk could have a better result.
Now ( i don't know if my eyes deceive me) it sometimes looks like when people turn round, around their faces it gets a bit unclear. (blurry).
Is there a better setting for these long episode disks or is this as good as it gets?


Thanks in advance


A

[Mutant_Fruit]

I tried backing up Fawlty Towers before using DVD Shrink, and the result was horrible. I have yet to try it with DVD-RB (as i just had a HD crash and am still recovering data). Any particular settings i should use in DVD-RB/CCE2.5 to get best quality

[Noah]

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
I tried backing up Fawlty Towers before using DVD Shrink, and the result was horrible. I have yet to try it with DVD-RB (as i just had a HD crash and am still recovering data). Any particular settings i should use in DVD-RB/CCE2.5 to get best quality
Is this the 3-disc R1 version? I did this movie only (well, episode only) in Shrink and it turned out great. I can't remember what the reduction % was, but it must have been fairly minimal.

[Mutant_Fruit]

its the 3disc R2 version, but still, that shouldn't make much of a difference.

And i did think that even after deep analysis the video quality was a bit poor when i used shrink. Even after cutting as much as i could, i think i had to reduce by about 40%, and it did't look too good.

[Antonioni]

So was it a stupid question i asked, or is it just not possible to say how these things are done best?

[osho]

well I have done Alias, Sopranos, CSI around 25 disks with stardart settings. and quality is amazing. most of episode disks dont have extras so they are all movies. therefore I set 5 passes with CCE and Trellis with quenc .

I am getting just amazing results with quenc but it is 2x time CCE.

again I do nothing psecial just more passes and use optimazed matrix.

[evestorm]

I have done pretty much all of X-Files Season 1, R1 and I used CCE 2.5 SP and just set it to 3 passes and didnt mess with any extra settings, and it came out looking nearly perfect. I could barely tell the difference between the retail and my backup. Other than my little fast forwarding issue and the original floating sync issues that have since been taken care of by a new version of DVD-RB, I have had no problems at all.

E

[ShadowKnight]

is it recommended to deinterlace the episodic discs? I havent really played with deinterlacing, and I do believe that since they are made for tv that they are interlaced right? unless the convert them to progressive when they make the dvd. I guess I'll run a few tests on an episodic disc I have to analyze the differences with this option on/off. If anyone else has tried this already, let me know if it makes a good difference overall... I'm trying for the best quality I can get. I want as good a picture on High Definition screens as possible. I'll post my results here when I finally get around to doing this.

[Antonioni]

ok guys thx for the response, im gonna try now with 2.5 and 4 passes
and also see if the deinterlace thing makes a difference.

[The_Flash]

You don't need to deinterlace your source unless you're planning to watch it on your PC. When played back on the TV you won't notice the lines at all. Some may argue that applying the deinterlace aids the compression. If it does, it is miniscule to my eyes.

Anyways, with CCE v2.66+ some users (myself included) report that a Quality Precision value of 16 or less is too low, causing color banding and some nasty blocks on flat backgrounds. I tend to concur with RB's findings that a value of 28 to 34 produces better results. Of course, everyone sees the world a little differently.

As for the VBR Bias, I rarely use anything beyond CCE's default of 30 unless applying relatively heavy compression. In the event of the latter (which sounds like the case for Antonioni) I would drop it to 25.

[Mutant_Fruit]

When i do my encodes, i don't get blocks on my encoded files, but they look grainy. Thats fine imo, as you don't notice that when played back on a TV. But is there a way to minimize graininess? Should i run more than 3 passes? Or are there other settings i should use.

i use CCE1.5

[Noah]

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Or are there other settings i should use.

i use CCE1.5
Increase your quality_prec value. I'm not sure what the range is for CCE 1.5 (you sure its not 2.5?), or if that option is even available.

[Antonioni]

thx The_Flash

I will give it a try with 266+ vbr 25 and QP 28 + 3passes
and disable interlaced, reduction level =56.6% overall bitrate=2.351kbs

[The_Flash]

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
But is there a way to minimize graininess?


If what you actually mean is 'mosquito noise' then Noah is correct. Increasing the Image Quality Priority in v2.50 should help to reduce that.

If you actually are referring to the grain of the film, it is often seen as desirable to retain that look rather than softening the picturing. To each his own of course, if you do wish to soften the image you can now easily add your own avisynth filters with DVD-RB v0.51c. Perhaps a smoothing filter.

[Antonioni]

i tried with vbr 25 qp 28 and the outcome is worse, so i give it one more go with RB 0.49 cce/eccle 2.5 vbr 25 and qp 20.
Otherwise i try 51c with filtering
Thanks for the help so far

[Mutant_Fruit]

Its probably mosquito noise, i'll give those settings a test out later tonight. Thanks for the advice.c

And i did mean CCE 2.5, it was a typo :p

[Mutant_Fruit]

bingo, upping the image quality setting worked wonders. Its a lot smoother looking/less noisy now. In fact, it looks perfect to me :D

Thanks for the tip.

[Fr4nz]

With CCE 2.50 you should use vbr_bias 15 (bitrate is very low) and quality_prec 16.

[Mutant_Fruit]

Well, i'm dealing with high-bitrate stuff, genearlly averagin 3mbps and up. So the higher settings make a better resultant file for me.

[Fr4nz]

With 3mbps I'd suggest vbr-bias 17 and qpel 16 (with CCE 2.50) :)

[Mutant_Fruit]

it was on that, but with the higher image quality setting, i get much better results. So far anyway...

[Antonioni]

It seems that when i up the quality prec, the movie becomes more red

I have been trying to improve the result on a Sopranos episode disk with four 58 minute episodes. I got the advice to up the quality prec, but now the colour red is very prominent, especially in the faces.

These where my settings:

[Options]
CCE=1
LoadPlugin=1
EncoderMinimized=1
[CCEOptions]
VBR_bias=25
Quality_prec=20
eclPasses=3
[Paths]
CCENEW=C:\Program Files\Custom Technology\CCE SP Trial Version\EclCCE.exe
MPEG2DEC=C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\mpeg2dec3dg.dll
Source=J:\VIDEO_TS\
Working=H:\SOPRANOS DVD4\

I have tried it with Quality_prec=28 but then the faces where like tomatoes.
The original disk is fine btw
Still the overall result is not too good, some stuttering here and there and a bit grainy.

Dont really know how to improve this to an acceptable backup

[The_Flash]

Wow, 4hrs of footage onto one blank is tough. Even without menus and such you're probably looking at a bitrate well below 2500, which really isn't acceptable for DVD. If the quality is as horrendous as you say, you may want to just split it to two blanks (2 episodes per disc) and possibly avoid having to even use CCE. Otherwise I'm afraid you may just have to settle for an 'ok' backup.

[Mutant_Fruit]

for that low a bitrate, you really should be using quality_prec as low as 16... That might give better results. And remember, if it looks grainy on your computer screen, it will probably look better on your TV screen, most stuff does.

[Antonioni]

bitrate is 2.397, from what i understand is a Q value of 49 too high, so i'm gonna give it a go with undot.deen and see if it comes out as an acceptable quality.
Thx so far for all the advice




[01:09:26] Phase I, PREPARATION started.
- "One Pass VBR (w/analysis)" mode is enabled.
- VTS_01: 3.903.074 sectors.
-- Scanning and writing .D2V file
-- Processed 315.539 frames.
-- Building .AVS and .ECL files
- Reduction Level for DVD-5: 57,6%
- Overall Bitrate : 2.397Kbs
- Space for Video : 3.692.752KB
- Analyzing VTS_01 for optimal Q factor.
- TargetSize (sectors): 1874072
-- Predicted size (sectors) at Q=43: 2021698
-- Predicted size (sectors) at Q=48: 1893736
-- Predicted size (sectors) at Q=49: 1870652
- Q Value selected: 49
- HIGH/LOW/AVERAGE Cell Bitrates: 3.657/410/2.397 Kbs

[Antonioni]

DVD-RB 52
CCE 267/eclcce 1.81
OPV-Q=49
bitrate 2.397
undot.deen filters


well i have to say, using undot.deen made it look very good.
maybe its because the Sopranos is not a very high action series, that it works well like this, i don't really know.
But the difference is amazing.

Everybody thx for the help and advice

[mrwhitethc]

I just like to post that after doing both discs of season 1 for Sex and the City RB v0.51C CCE 2.5 (Old Ver) 2Pass, VBR Bias 15 and Quality Prec 16. Came out looking exactly like the originals. I tried the UnDot().Deen() approace but with the default values and it couldn't really tell if they helped so I'd rather stick to it unfiltered. Bewared these discs have a lot of mosquito noise in them, I would idealy like to clean that up and make it pure progressive but the mixed nature that it already is and the time i've taken so far I think I'm going to stick with these settings unless someone else has any experience doing these.

[clarkkent333]

Since I figured it was better to continue this thread than start another I was hoping for some advice with a TV series backup. I've been trying to do Coupling season 2 and its been coming out fairly grainy. I've been using the default settings with 4 passes (which actually means 3 passes if Im understanding this correctly). Someone here said a higher VBR setting might help so Im going to try and bump it to 30 and leave the quality setting alone. Any advice?

[Mutant_Fruit]

i would have said bump up the quality setting a notch or two. That helped hugely with Harry Potter. Before i incresed the quality setting, it looked quite grainy, afterwards it was perfect.

[clarkkent333]

Well I gave it a try with VBR=24 and quality=25 with 3 passes. Came out looking less grainy but still somewhat poorer looking than the original. Any suggestions on where to go from here?

[clarkkent333]

Well I gave it a shot with vbr=25 and quality=32 passes=4 and it came out damn good. Just thought I'd post it for reference.

[luphy]

I'm about to backup another HBO series (Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 2). I know there are some players out there that seem to have problems with that static HBO intro, and am wondering if there's a tool out there that will make it easy to remove that segment from each episode while retaining the original navigation.

Will DVDRemake be able to remove just that HBO intro for each episode and maintain everything else?

[Dimad]

Will DVDRemake be able to remove just that HBO intro for each episode and maintain everything else?
yes, there should be no problems doing this with DvdReMake.

[luphy]

We're talking DVDRemake basic, and not the Pro version right?

[mrwhitethc]

Thanks guys for all the help, Sex and the City looks just like original to recap here's what I used RB v0.51C CCE 2.5 (Old Ver) 2Pass, VBR Bias 15 and Quality Prec 16. Once again thanks to all for their help.