Does DivX4 2-pass VBR offer this hope??

[JimmyBarnes]

I recently downloaded 166 min Pearl Harbor 640x304 on 1x 700 MB CD
(64 kb/s WMA2).

As the ripper (not me) modestly says:
"This 2 hours and 46 minutes movie fits on a single 80Mb CD, and the quality is still very good. Even better then most 2CD Divx 3 rips I have seen so far. Just take a look at the high motion sample."

After watching the whole movie carefully, I would have to agree. It's
really very good with blockyness only seen infrequently (usually briefly on open sky scenes). The sort of quality you would expect from a sub-90 min movie on 700 MB. The only other 3 hr movie I have seen on 1 CD was "Saving Private Ryan" - watchable but with many ugly, blocky/ragged scenes.

The ripper thebigfoot@hotmail.com is coy about his method - all he'll
say is he used DivX4 2-pass VBR.

I've ripped some 20 movies so far using DivX3.11alpha. In my limited experience, it's hard to use a reasonable framesize (at least 512 H) for anything over 100 min, and still get a good quality rip that will fit a single CD.

What I'd like to know:
* Did our friend fluke it?
* Does Pearl Harbor just happen to be extremely highly compressible?
OR (what I'm hoping)
* Does DivX4 2-pass VBR offer the real possibility of encoding truly high-quality rips onto a single 700 MB CD, for virtually any movie
(3 hr or a little over)?

Opinions please, especially from people who are using DivX4 2-pass VBR.

thanx
JB

[Apocalyptica]

DivX 4 2-pass is a good choice for 1 cd rips, only DivX 3 SBC is a little bit better. In combination with Gordian Knot it is very fast, and now even easy to use. Check the DivX4 GordianKnot guide at doom9.org
I wouldn't do a 1 cd rip for a 3 hours movie. The maximum where I create a 1 cd rip is about 120 min. (+/-10min depending on compressibility of the movie)

[JimmyBarnes]

Originally posted by Apocalyptica
DivX 4 2-pass is a good choice for 1 cd rips, only DivX 3 SBC is a little bit better. ... I wouldn't do a 1 cd rip for a 3 hours movie. The maximum where I create a 1 cd rip is about 120 min. (+/-10min depending on compressibility of the movie)

The point I was trying to make is that I have never seen a DivX3 movie of this length (almost 3 hr) in such high quality on 1 CD (I've got some 40 DivX3 movies, half of which I created myself, half of which I downloaded).

For those wih broadband, go to AB.movies and look for
"Subject: PEARL HARBOR Divx4 VBR 01/46 Pearl harbor.ace" (posted by Lostcluster) and check it out for yourself. IMHO Well worth the effort if only as a "technical curiosity", quite apart from the good entertainment value.

JB

[pcsl999]

2_pass & VBR is design for solve your problem. But it don't work in some cases.

Low motion need less bitrate, Fast motion need more bitrate. Divx can average the bitrate for them; it save Low-motion bandwidth; then let Fast-motion can get more bandwidth. You can find it on Nandub min & max bitrate setting. This is a very good idea to reduce file size & keep quality.

"Saving Private Ryan" film is 3 hours. The content of first 30-40 minute are war on beach & the Ending 20 minute are war on town; Divx need a lot bandwidth on total 1 hour fast motion. Divx can work 1CD on this special case; there are too much fast motion.

Most love movie is 100 min; 99% is low motion. Divx can handle it very well for 1CD.

"PEARL HARBOR" is 3 hours; 95% is love story, 5% is bomb harbour. Divx may work for 1CD.

You much think about the movie, not only the timing. A rate of Low & Fast motion is very important.

[Peters]

Originally posted by JimmyBarnes

For those wih broadband, go to AB.movies and look for
"Subject: PEARL HARBOR Divx4 VBR 01/46 Pearl harbor.ace" (posted by Lostcluster) and check it out for yourself. IMHO Well worth the effort if only as a "technical curiosity", quite apart from the good entertainment value.

JB

I do and no surprise , quality not very good (at least, at my point of view).

There's no miracle, for this clip (640x304) we have an average bitrate of 730 and because of the res and the high motion, it's not enough..bad macroblocks.

Well, putting 2h46 (endtitles cut off) is a real challenge and i suppose this movie is watchable, it's a matter of taste, i prefer 2CD for such a long movie or decrease resolution.

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Peters
Well, putting 2h46 (endtitles cut off) is a real challenge and i suppose this movie is watchable, it's a matter of taste, i prefer 2CD for such a long movie or decrease resolution.

havent seen the movie, but i fully agree. BTW there must be an error in your bitrate calculation ( dont have GKnot here to prove ), a 166 mins movie with 64 kbps sound will never offer > 700 kbps for video .... should be rather < 550 kbps .... no way for 608 * xxx res unless bilinear resizing is used ( not recommended ) .... i'd go for 560 * xxx max, and only with heavy filtering and 'soft bicubic' resizing filter .....

[Peters]

@ChristianHJW

I've just seen and downloaded a sample, not the movie. 730 was the average bitrate of the sample , for the movie it has to be 600 kbps.

I agree with you for strong filtering and a soft bicubic(maybe bilinear but i don't like it)

[Foo]

This encode looked like crap. Not really sure what DivX 3.11 two discs Lostcluster has seen, but he's obviously missed all the good ones :). He could have pulled of a *really nice* 704x304 (being nice to matrox folks) two disc of this. Someone else posted a two disc SBC of this with the 5.1 channel track shortly before. All the good posters (the few of them left) have moved on to greener pastures.

foo