DVD Rebuilder - three questions!

[boombass]

I'm just starting to use DVD Rebuilder and I've read enough lately to make my eyes bleed. I have three questions, hopefully easy, that I'd like to see answered.

1) What is the difference between the free DVD Revbuilder and the non-free (Pro?) version? What more do I get out of the non-free version?

2) What is the difference between the various CCE versions? Will I get the same results from SP and Pro versions? [Edit - just read the FAQ, sorry!]

3) If I do more than 2 VBR passes (and I think I can do this in the free version of DVD Rebuilder), will I get better quality? Or a better file size? Or what? I've read some posts of people doing 5 or 6 passes (!) and that seems excessive. But if it's really worth it...

Thanks for your time!

[BadServo]

1) What is the difference between the free DVD Revbuilder and the non-free (Pro?) version? What more do I get out of the non-free version?


They are mostly the same, however the Pro version has a handful of extras that make it well worth having. Firstly, you get to support a great project, and reqrd the hard work of it's developer. Secondly you get the ability to use the HC Encoder. It's a freely available encoder with (IMHO) quality that is on par with and occationally better than CCE. This saves the money one would spend on CCE and makes DVD-RB and even better value.

Then there's the Segment Viewer/Editor. This allows you to view the contents of individual portions of the DVD video and blank them out. This is useful is the disc has several trailers or extras that you don't need. Blanking them leaves the DVD structure in tact, but frees up extra space to store the parts of the disc you wish to keep, increasing it's quality. If you've used DVDShrink, it's kinduv like reauthoring the disc, but without lsoing menus, etc.

It also features quite a few advanced tweaking parameters for the geniuses in the audience. And more recently allows you to create ISOs from the resulting files or burn them directly via DVD Decrypter from the DVD-RB interface.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's the basic differences.


3) If I do more than 2 VBR passes (and I think I can do this in the free version of DVD Rebuilder), will I get better quality? Or a better file size? Or what? I've read some posts of people doing 5 or 6 passes (!) and that seems excessive. But if it's really worth it...


The number of passes used and it's effectiveness is largley dependant ont eh encoder your using and the personal taste of the person doing the encoding. For example, HC limits you to 2-passes reguardless. CCE can go several passes, but the general concensus seems to be that anything over 6 is drastic overkill and that in most cases with average length movies of standard complexity, more than 3 shouldn't be required. I personally always used 6-passes because I'm anal, but I've since switched to HC and it's no longer a problem. ^_^ AutoQMatEnc can use as many passes as CCE, but doesn't benefit from more than 3 quality wise. In some rare cases, raising the passes higher will help improve the accuracy of the resulting disc size. Of course, the above is again purely a matter of preference.

[Jack'n'xbox]

1-more features, i.e. iso creation plus more.

2-CCE versions 2.50 slow but stable with high quality
2.70 fast with same quality, but some errors are to be expected.

3-You can do many pass with the free ver but more dose not = better. Keep it at three passes. Four for longer and more demanding DVD’s

[Rockas]

2-CCE versions 2.50 slow but stable with high quality

Not quite true... on AMD Athlon processors 2.50 is about 30% faster that 2.70 or all the other versions... that's why I use it :D

[jptheripper]

with regard to passes, i normally do 4 pass. REcently i had a redicously demanding badly authored disk that gave me episode bitrates of around 1700 on a marginal old anime source, so i did a 10 pass with filters enabled (undot and deen) resulting quality was nearly identical to the source, even with a half drop in bitrate to a low level

[Jack'n'xbox]

Hey, I stand corrected. Thanks from me and others.

While I have some of your attention I have been getting a heavy bass in the audio any input on that? I use RB .93.2 and cce 2.50. and a black line at the bottom of the screen where the wide screen bar is.

[boombass]

Thanks all! You've answered my questions, but I just want to clarify a little bit.

I did a 4-pass encode of a movie last night. Probably overkill (5.92 GB original ISO size), but it looks fantastic. I didn't watch the encode (obviously), so how can I be sure it was really 4-pass? The log says nothing about 4 passes. Can I count the number of files in the work folder?

I'm using CCE SP 2.70. Will I get the same quality encode from this as from the other CCE versions available? (What does SP mean, anyway?)

2-CCE versions 2.50 slow but stable with high quality
2.70 fast with same quality, but some errors are to be expected.

What do you mean, some errors are to be expected? Is 2.70 buggy?

@BadServo: The extra features you described in the pro version make it sound very worthwhile. If I blank out, say, a preview for an upcoming release (grrr) how does that change my viewing experience? Does it skip it entirely, or does my DVD player jump to a black screen for a moment before moving on?

Can you point me to some comparisons of HC Encoder with CCE (and others)? If it's as good as you say, and free, I'm in!

Thanks again everyone!

[BadServo]

I did a 4-pass encode of a movie last night. Probably overkill (5.92 GB original ISO size), but it looks fantastic. I didn't watch the encode (obviously), so how can I be sure it was really 4-pass? The log says nothing about 4 passes. Can I count the number of files in the work folder?


Well with the earlier versions of CCE I've used, you can easily tell if it's perferming the full number of passes without watchign the entire process. When you begin the encode, and the CCE GUI comes up, you'll see a progress bar displayed. On the first pass it will say "1/1', while subsequent passes will say "1/3", "2/3", "3/3". THis gives you a total of four passes. Although setting the number of passes to 4 would give you this result, it's common for people to refer to this as "1+3" passes, since the first pass is actually doing something slightly different. More information on this is readily available in these forums.


The extra features you described in the pro version make it sound very worthwhile. If I blank out, say, a preview for an upcoming release (grrr) how does that change my viewing experience? Does it skip it entirely, or does my DVD player jump to a black screen for a moment before moving on?


When you "blank" a segment of the disc, it replaces the portion of film with a tiny peice of video that is only a fraction of a second long. So for example, if you have a trailer that you can access from the menu that you blank, then in the resulting copy, when you choose the trailer from the menu it will play the tiny fragment and then retun you to where you were on the menu. In actual use it just looks like the menu flickers when you choose an option that/s been blanked.

If you blanked a portion of video in the middle of the film, the segment it is replaced with is so short, that it woulnd't be noticeable, and would look like a regular scene-transition.


Can you point me to some comparisons of HC Encoder with CCE (and others)? If it's as good as you say, and free, I'm in!

A friend on these forums (Sapstar) has been working on a new encoder for DVD-RB called "AutoQMatEnc." I performed a couple comparistive tests for him early on that are still displayed on his website. The comparison shows the same frame from different scenes encoded with HC, CCE, AQE, and the original frame. Perhaps this will help. YOu can view them here (http://www.badservo.com/external_links/AQEcompare.htm), here (http://badservo.com/external_links/AQECGCompare.htm), and here (http://badservo.com/external_links/AQELACompare.htm).

[boombass]

Thank you so much! I am on it now.

[boombass]

Umm, how exactly do I buy the Pro version of DVD Rebuilder? I can find a 'donate' link on the web page, but nothing specific that says it will allow me to download the Pro version. (Actually, I want the Rockas' Pro installer.)

I can do PayPal. What do I do?

Thanks!

[BadServo]

just donate 10 dollars or more. If you donate from a valid Email address, you'll receive the pro version soon thereafter. That's how ti worked for me anyhow.

[f@chance]

2-CCE versions 2.50 slow but stable with high quality
2.70 fast with same quality, but some errors are to be expected.
Please elaborate. What type of errors? Is this true of the latest 2.7* version and if so is it in the encoder or in the combination of DVD-RB & CCE?

Thanks

[borgraf]

Please elaborate. What type of errors? Is this true of the latest 2.7* version and if so is it in the encoder or in the combination of DVD-RB & CCE?

ThanksIt's the encoder, and seems to apply only to v2.70. You can find some reports around this forum if you search. On the other hand you can get lucky, i've used 2.70 since it came out and haven't had a single problem.