Why 700MB?

[ChromeSushi]

Hi guys,

I have a newbie question. Why do most people rip their movies to 700MB file size. I assume it was originally done to fit a CD-R, but DVDs are as cheap as CDs now, so is there another reason you stick with 700MB?

Thanks!

[LigH]

Do they?

How do you know? -- From filesharing services offering illegal copies? ...

Quite possible that larger files would provide better quality (like 1/3 DVD ~ 1.4 GB), but moviez releasers may want to save bandwidth. The internet is already going down by too much spam, warez, and moviez.

[ChromeSushi]

No, this has nothing to do with illegal anything :confused: , I am asking a technical question. Is there a specific reason for 700MB - is that the most efficient size? Is there no discernible quality increase in 1400MB or a full 4.5GB?

[LigH]

Ah ... no, the main reason will have been the CD capacity; in those times when the codecs were simple, and the DVDs and especially the burners expensive, people tried to spend only one recordable CD medium (because swapping disks in the middle of the movie is annoying; R.I.P. SVCD!), even if that meant some hardly acceptable quality, or a remarkable decrease of the video dimensions.

Of course you are able to keep more of the original quality with some higher bitrate and bigger size - up to the "saturation" of the codec. So today, as the DVDs and burners are cheaper, you should try to create bigger files (1/3 DVD capacity is quite useful today), and as the CPUs get faster and the codecs use multiple cores well, you should also try more advanced settings or codecs (in the range of the abilities of the device which shall play them later).

And of course, the most advanced codecs today can achieve a less obvious loss of quality at lower sizes. But still, there is loss. Therefore, no copy will equal a carefully treated original.

[ChromeSushi]

Thanks. Up until now I've just been backing up my movies the easy route with DVD Shrink and DVD5s but I've been staring to look into the more "complicated" options as I think it will be more convenient to start putting stuff on a Hard Drive. I clearly have a lot of research to do, but I do find it all quite interesting.

[odditory]

Do they?

How do you know? -- From filesharing services offering illegal copies? ...

Quite possible that larger files would provide better quality (like 1/3 DVD ~ 1.4 GB), but moviez releasers may want to save bandwidth. The internet is already going down by too much spam, warez, and moviez.

He wasn't asking for your commentary on the demise of the internet. He was just asking if there was a good or technical reason to encode to 700MB or not, besides for CD archival.

As well, by shooting off and accusing the poster of using illegal fileshare services, you are no less guilty than the person you're accusing, since you're revealing yourself to have knowledge of them too.

Best thing to do on these forums is stick to facts and keep emotions and politics out of it.

[Dark Shikari]

There is no rule against asking questions about the Scene; asking "why do they rip to 700MB" is a perfectly valid question.

The primary reason for this is that it started because of CDs, and its stuck due to inertia.

They're used to 2pass bitrate mode, and so they need a bitrate to pick.

[JohnnyMalaria]

IIRC, the DVD spec limits individual VOBs to 1GB.

[Atak_Snajpera]

IIRC, the DVD spec limits individual VOBs to 1GB.

Because DVD uses old file system (iso) istead of UDF

[Ranguvar]

Yeah, I'd stick to 2CD for Xvid with high quality settings, maybe 700MB for x264 if you know how to use it right ;)

[SvT]

Some people in my country have a datalimit. So some prefer 700 Mb instead of 4,5 Gb.

[Guest]

Some people in my country have a datalimit. So some prefer 700 Mb instead of 4,5 Gb. Are you talking about downloading videos?

[SvT]

Are you talking about downloading videos?

No :) I'm trying to explain why some people prefer to share their wedding video to their oversea family in DivX (or some other format) instead of a full DVD.

Making it 700 Mb gives you the chance to burn it to a CD for storage and prevents you from exceeding your limit. (with 1.3 Gb service packs, the limit is soon reached)

Just trying to answer question in the first post and I didn't read the datalimit for a reason. :helpful:

[Tack]

Who burns to CDs anymore? Honestly.

I understand the need for a bitrate target, but it seems to me it's nowadays vastly more sensible to target a filesize of 4700/3 MB than two files of 700 MB.

[setarip_old]

@Tack

Hi!Who burns to CDs anymore? Honestly.That would depend upon what part of the world you're in...

[LigH]

"Honestly"? -- I do not burn DVDs anymore. External USB harddisks are already as cheap as DVDs (or even less, ~0.20 EUR/GByte), and more reliable (burned DVDs age faster than expected, especially discount media) and easier to use (mount, copy, delete when you get bored). All you need to think about is if your favourite consumer player (many of the current models already have an USB 2.0 plug) would be able to read an NTFS partition (they usually only support FAT32, which limits single files to less than 4 GByte).

[FlimsyFeet]

As well as a CD-R, a 700MB file can also be written to a 1GB SD card.

[Tack]

"Honestly"? -- I do not burn DVDs anymore. External USB harddisks are already as cheap as DVDs (or even less, ~0.20 EUR/GByte).
I don't burn DVDs either. But your use-case (which is the same as mine, incidentally) seems to be against, rather than for, 700MB files.

[Tack]

As well as a CD-R, a 700MB file can also be written to a 1GB SD card.
As well as a DVD-R, a 1550MB file can also be written to a 2GB SD card.

I don't think the argument is very good in either case, because you're left with an awkward amount of free space.

[Tack]

Hi!That would depend upon what part of the world you're in...
Fair enough. Though it does stand to reason that we're talking about people who are in the part of the world where downloading hundreds of megs or gigs of video isn't a big deal.

So the reasonable question to ask is: are there really parts of the world who have excellent Internet access where DVD burners and media are prohibitively expensive or unavailable? And, if so, is this a demographic large enough to dictate a practical lowest common denominator?

I'm not certain, but my intuition is no. Dark Shikari's rationale makes the most sense to me, but of course it's a pretty poor reason to continue on with 700MB files.

[dimzon]

Who burns to CDs anymore? Honestly.

I'm still prefer CD over DVD.

Actually I've found DVD much less stable for long-time-term archiving :mad::mad::mad:.

[LigH]

But your use-case ... seems to be against, rather than for, 700MB files.

Exactly. I already voted for "as big as necessary" in ^ reply #4. ;)

[Irakli]

I'm still prefer CD over DVD.

Actually I've found DVD much less stable for long-time-term archiving :mad::mad::mad:.

...also most drives can report c1/c2 errors in case of CD, so you know when the quality of your burned CD becomes not very good (e.g. can check for c1/c2 errors with nero cdspeed). In case of DVD, however, only few drives can report PIE/PIF errors, so you don't know when your DVD is going to become unreadable.

I no longer use CDs/DVDs. External hard drives are much more convenient.

Regards,
Irakli

[ChromeSushi]

So, space and bandwidth issues aside, what is the saturation point for most codecs? Is there much of a difference between a DVD9, DVD5 and a 1.4GB divx/xvid/etc?

[Soulhunter]

"Honestly"? -- I do not burn DVDs anymore. External USB harddisks are already as cheap as DVDs (or even less, ~0.20 EUR/GByte), and more reliable (burned DVDs age faster than expected, especially discount media) and easier to use (mount, copy, delete when you get bored)...
Same here! Completely stopped burning as soon I realized that some stuff I burned ~2-3 years ago already contains errors or isnt readable anymore at all [yes, I used quality blanks and the discs definitely worked back then etc... Maybe its related to the fact that I smoke... Yes, I know it a bad habit... But you know what!? HDDs seem to be absolutely unaffected by it, lol]. So, for some time already I store everything on HDDs [a total of ~2.5TB so far n expanding... next 500GB will be ordered soon ^^] and Im much muuuch more happy! :]

So, space and bandwidth issues aside, what is the saturation point for most codecs? Is there much of a difference between a DVD9, DVD5 and a 1.4GB divx/xvid/etc?
Strongly depends on you! Some ppl like my Dad already have problems seeing a difference between a 700MB XviD encode n the original DVD... Others are not even entirely happy with a 1/2 DVD5 version! It all depends on your playback equipment [ie. the display], the quality of your sight [eagle or mole...], how trained you are in spotting image imperfections [like they are after editing video/images for more than 10 years] n how much you are bugged by the imperfections... If I had to put my own quality threshold in numbers: 1 DVD5 per SD movie via MPEG4 ASP [XviD with CQM, fixed quantizer, VHQ1 and B-VOBs at 1/1/1 or 1/1/0 as I tend to notice some sort of "flicker" with the quant variation the default B-VOP settings give] which equals a PSNR close to 50dB [sometimes 1, 2, 3 dB below, depending on the source] :O


Bye

[alstar1]

Probably the easiest answer is because they can!

[Shinigami-Sama]

No :) I'm trying to explain why some people prefer to share their wedding video to their oversea family in DivX (or some other format) instead of a full DVD.

Making it 700 Mb gives you the chance to burn it to a CD for storage and prevents you from exceeding your limit. (with 1.3 Gb service packs, the limit is soon reached)

Just trying to answer question in the first post and I didn't read the datalimit for a reason. :helpful:

how about not everyone has dvd readers yet?

my parents didn't, my grandparents didn't
my aunts and uncles didn't
not until this year did they all finally get them
so you'll see the 700meg releases for a few more years
I assume no more than 5 before we finally move out of them and into the 1550megs that we should have been at a few years ago