Blu-Ray~DVD Backup & Conversion

[jdobbs]

--sar 1:1
Are BD native square pixel, or does the original picture need to be resized before encoding? Else --sar x:y to be set accordingly? That's because 1920x1080 and 1280x720 are both naturally 16:9 (square). If you use a 720x480 source (moving a DVD video to BD format) you'd have to change the SAR to 32:27.

[jdobbs]

16 B-frames is the maximum, and as you are using adaptive B-frames, x264 makes the decision of how many B-frames to actually use.

This is a nice pdf guide to many of the options: http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/pub/x264/ I just found in mewiki that although the X264 maximum is 16, you have to settle for less if doing HD-DVD or Blu-ray. But it didn't give a limit. I know I saw 3 somewhere -- and all the examples I find online are set to 3... still researching.

[Sharc]

That's because 1920x1080 and 1280x720 are both naturally 16:9 (square)......
Yes, but the movie picture is often not 16:9. An 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 movie for example may be stored either
a) letterboxed (with top and bottom borders), or
b) horizontally squeezed (anamorphic).
In case a) sar is 1:1 as I understand
In case b) however the pixel aspect ratio will not be 1:1 and needs to be signalled as sar x:y for correct playback as I understand. Is the pixel aspect ratio standardized for anamorpic BD similar to PAL or NTSC DVDs, or does case b) for BD sources not exist at all?

[jdobbs]

If you are reading it from a Blu-ray disc it has to be one of those resolutions -- meaning it is in reality 16:9 that is encapsulating the other resolution with black bars (letterboxed). Every disc I have seen is 16:9. Kinda the same rule as DVD (which only supports 4:3 and 16:9).

[laserfan]

...If you use TSMUXER's blu-ray output it creates the BD file structure. You don't need a blu-ray disc, though. A DVD will work fine.You did say "blu-ray format" out of tsmuxer so I was being dense.

I did NOT know an ordinary DVD was useable! Thanks... :o

Yes in the making (BD Rebuilder), but not close to completion. My programming time has been pretty limited lately.Though you might well not wish to commit yourself in this way, perhaps you should start a "Contribute to future BD Rebuilder" fund. At least it might attract some beer money! :)

[Sharc]

If you are reading it from a Blu-ray disc it has to be one of those resolutions -- meaning it is in reality 16:9 that is encapsulating the other resolution with black bars (letterboxed). Every disc I have seen is 16:9. Kinda the same rule as DVD (which only supports 4:3 and 16:9).
All right, the sar should then always be 1:1 when re-encoding BD originals to AVC/H.264.
For reference I attach the table from the 11/2007 edition of the ITU-T H.264 standard. It indicates the SAR for other standard resolutions (DVD, SVCD, for PAL and NTSC ....) which may be good to know for feeding the x264 encoder with the appropriate --sar parameters when re-encoding other formats to AVC/H.264 - see title of this thread.
(The full H.264 standard can be downloaded from the ITU-T at no charge still).

[jdobbs]

Gotta be careful, though. A lot of the resolutions shown there are illegal... for both DVD and BD.

Interesting that the table doesn't have 720x480/576, 16:9 without overscan... that's probably the most common NTSC/PAL DVD configuration.

[Sharc]

I see.
So you mean *without overscan* the 'generic' values should apply, i.e.
NTSC DVD 4:3 720x480 => sar 8:9
NTSC DVD 16:9 720x480 => sar 32:27
PAL DVD 4:3 720x576 => sar 16:15
PAL DVD 16:9 720x576 => sar 64:45

How the the DVD has actually been authored can in fact only be read from the header of the stream - if it is specified there at all - correct?

[jdobbs]

Yes. But on a DVD the final decision as to whether it is displayed 16:9 or 4:3 is made based upon the IFO information. There are discs out there that are flagged as 4:3 in the stream but are actually 16:9 anamorphic -- and the IFO tells the player to play them back correctly. There's nothing really different about the two streams, just the header information within the streams (and, of course, the aspect of the input).

Also, the BD AVC playback standard is a subset of the H.264 standard -- so there are some things you can do with H.264 that aren't acceptable on BD.

[Sophocles]

Though you might well not wish to commit yourself in this way, perhaps you should start a "Contribute to future BD Rebuilder" fund. At least it might attract some beer money!


You know I'll play and test.:D

I''ve just ordered a couple of Blu RAy discs to play with. I suspect this will give me a reason to upgrade to a decent Quad core Nehalem.

[Sharc]

Yes. But on a DVD the final decision as to whether it is displayed 16:9 or 4:3 is made based upon the IFO information. There are discs out there that are flagged as 4:3 in the stream but are actually 16:9 anamorphic -- and the IFO tells the player to play them back correctly.
This still seems to leave some room for speculation as to whether a 16:9 720x576 PAL DVD (read from the ifo) was mastered 'with horizontal overscan' (sar=16:11) or 'without horizontal overscan' (sar=64:45). Perhaps the discussion is somewhat academic because the two figures match closely (16:11=1.455 vs 64:45=1.422) and in case we decide for the wrong sar the remaining distortion will hardly be noticeable. But still, is there a safe way to pick the true sar (par) from somewhere - except from a "circle test" which may be difficult to do in practice?
The problem seems to be similar to the colorimetry discussion when the colorimetry is not specified in the stream and one has to make an assumption.

[rack04]

Is there anything simialr to TSMUXER that will output to HD DVD format? Just wondering if this process could also apply to HD DVD.

[jdobbs]

There's another program called TSREMUX that also outputs to Blu-ray format -- I think I saw something similar that supports HD-DVD somewhere before, but I can't remember what it was or where. By the way, the source code is available for TSREMUX under GPL, so if someone has a programming background it could probably be modified to do other things.

[rack04]

Comments from any X264 experts out there who could improve the command lines are certainly welcome.

Here are the settings used in the "Standalone-Blue-ray" profile created by sharktooth for MeGUI:

program --pass 2 --bitrate 8000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 3 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -1,-1 --subme 6 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 38000 --qcomp 0.5 --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input" --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --sar 1:1

[shon3i]

Sharktooth's profile are just fine, only thing i will change is --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 38000 to --vbv-bufsize 50000 --vbv-maxrate 62000, that is max for level 4.1 and HP from Annex A of H264 specification.

[jdobbs]

Those settings are fine if you are writing to BD-RE or BD-R.

But, you can't set the "--vbv-maxrate" that high if you are going to write to DVD-R or DVD+R, because you are limited to configuring for no more than 2X, as shown in my example a good value would be "--vbv-maxrate 17500" that would give you reasonable room to add in audio and subs (as long as you aren't planning on using LPCM).

You also have to adjust the "--bitrate" value based upon whatever will fit... it isn't likely that 8000 will ever fit an entire movie on a DVD (except maybe a short movie on a dual-layer). Like I said, the settings I posted have successfully backed up a lot of BDs to Blu-ray already...

It's optional, but I'd leave "--trellis 1" set as well, it slows the encode down, but you need to take advantage of all you can at DVD bitrates.

I'd recommend you use different command sets for pass 1 and pass 2 as my post showed. The first pass doesn't need a lot of the "slower but higher quality" settings because you are going to rewrite the H.264 file in the second pass anyway -- it will probably save you a few hours of encoding time and not affect quality at all.

[rack04]

Those settings are fine if you are writing to BD-RE or BD-R.

But, you can't set the "--vbv-maxrate" that high if you are going to write to DVD-R or DVD+R, because you are limited to configuring for no more than 2X, as shown in my example a good value would be "--vbv-maxrate 17500" that would give you reasonable room to add in audio and subs (as long as you aren't planning on using LPCM).

You also have to adjust the "--bitrate" value based upon whatever will fit... it isn't likely that 8000 will ever fit an entire movie on a DVD (except maybe a short movie on a dual-layer). Like I said, the settings I posted have successfully backed up a lot of BDs to Blu-ray already...

It's optional, but I'd leave "--trellis 1" set as well, it slows the encode down, but you need to take advantage of all you can at DVD bitrates.

I'd recommend you use different command sets for pass 1 and pass 2 as my post showed. The first pass doesn't need a lot of the "slower but higher quality" settings because you are going to rewrite the H.264 file in the second pass anyway -- it will probably save you a few hours of encoding time and not affect quality at all.

From what I gather the maxrate is set that high because it is the maxrate for blue-ray. As you said this value will have to be adjusted to fit on DVD-5 or DVD-9.

Also, Trellis=1 is disabled when Psy RDO is on.

[cdanddvdpublisher]

There's another program called TSREMUX that also outputs to Blu-ray format -- I think I saw something similar that supports HD-DVD somewhere before, but I can't remember what it was or where. By the way, the source code is available for TSREMUX under GPL, so if someone has a programming background it could probably be modified to do other things.

Little late to this discussion - TSREMUX is quite handy and fairly good with it's Blu-ray output. I don't know if I would recommend for your situation though.

[Wombler]

I've followed this thread with great interest but have noticed that the thrust of it has altered dramatically since the first few posts and in fact it now focuses mainly on the exact opposite of the thread title.

It's confusing for anyone scanning the threads and anyone searching for Blu-ray to DVD would think they'd found the opposite and ignore the result.

Perhaps it would be in order for a mod to change the thread title to 'DVD backup to Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray backup to DVD' or something similar?


Wombler

[m1ckran]

I quite like it as it is.
It's interesting to see the way the thread has developed and I look forward to seeing the results provided in a way that simpletons, like me, can use and perhaps understand.

Michael

[Wombler]

I quite like it as it is.
It's interesting to see the way the thread has developed and I look forward to seeing the results provided in a way that simpletons, like me, can use and perhaps understand.

Michael

I realise this is your thread Michael but irrespective of this I wouldn't disagree with anything you've said there anyway.

I just think it would be better if the people that need this information could find it more easily in the future.

That's why I'd suggested adding to the existing title rather than changing it completely.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in here and it would be a shame to confuse people with the misleading thread title.

Just a suggestion though.


Wombler

[m1ckran]

No problem as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not trying to be territorial. Perhaps you're right.
Is this something a moderator (jdobbs for example) would care to consider?

Michael

[Wombler]

No problem as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not trying to be territorial. Perhaps you're right.
Is this something a moderator (jdobbs for example) would care to consider?

Michael

Thanks Michael and I had no intention of putting you on the defensive as I'm sure you're aware.

TBH I've no problem either way and if the mods are happy then I'm happy.

Just thought it was worth raising though.

The mods here at D9 are exceptionally helpful and as you're the OP then I'm certain they'd have no objection to changing it to whatever you think best.


Wombler

[m1ckran]

My original question has, I think, developed into the most interesting thread on the forum, but that is due to the many contributors who have taken it forward. I claim no credit for that.

I would be perfectly happy if jdobbs would like to alter the thread title to something more appropriate.

The ball, as blutach might say, is in his wicket. :rolleyes:

Michael

[blutach]

You can alter it if you like - just change the top of post 1 in advanced reply mode.

Regards

[jdobbs]

Also, Trellis=1 is disabled when Psy RDO is on. Hmmm... decided to read up on this. Psy RDO is still experimental and it isn't in the version I've been using, but I'll give it a try.

[rack04]

jdobbs, are you not cropping the black bars? Should I not crop because now I have one file that is 1920x800 and one thats 1904x784. Is this going to present and problem when I playback on a blue-ray player. See I don't have one to test these files on.

One other thing. What file size do you try to hit on the second pass to fit on a DVD-5? Don't know how much space is added when muxing with tsMuxeR.

[jdobbs]

It depends what scenario you are speaking of. If you are converting DVD to Blu-ray there may be times you can. But if you are talking about backing up Blu-ray then no, don't crop anything

Your output has to be one of the supported resolutions for Blu-ray -- the ones you mentioned aren't. Typically the resolution is 1920x1080 (by far the most common) or 1280x720.

I usually make an estimate that the muxing is going to take up about 6%. I usually reencode the AC3 to 448Kbs also (from 640Kbs in most cases), since I don't believe you can tell the difference. So the bitrate is going to be whatever will fit in about 4.3G after accounting for audio. You can use AVISYNTH to get the framecount, which will tell you how long the video/audio is.

[rack04]

It depends what scenario you are speaking of. If you are converting DVD to Blu-ray there may be times you can. But if you are talking about backing up Blu-ray then no, don't crop anything

Your output has to be one of the supported resolutions for Blu-ray -- the ones you mentioned aren't. Typically the resolution is 1920x1080 (by far the most common) or 1280x720.

I usually make an estimate that the muxing is going to take up about 6%. I usually reencode the AC3 to 448Kbs also (from 640Kbs in most cases), since I don't believe you can tell the difference. So the bitrate is going to be whatever will fit in about 4.3G after accounting for audio. You can use AVISYNTH to get the framecount, which will tell you how long the video/audio is.

I'm actually trying to compress and convert my HD DVD's to Blue-ray format that will fit on a DVD-5 and is playable on a Blue-ray standalone player.

[~bT~]

I'm actually trying to compress and convert my HD DVD's to Blue-ray format that will fit on a DVD-5 and is playable on a Blue-ray standalone player.

use ripbot264 and use the bluray output format resizing to full-hd or hd..

[Sharktooth]

@shon3i: In the blu-ray FAQ the maximum video bitrate for blu-ray is 40000kbps (however with AVC you'll never need that bitrate).
higher values could produce stuttering or interruptions during playback or even complete unplayability..
62000 is definatly too much. since, by official FAQ, the maximum combined audio and video bitrate is lower than what you suggest to set for video only, it is 54000kbps: http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_dvd_comparison
so my preset is fine (just 2000kbits off in the maxrate) and the new blu-ray preset (available for preview in the New MeGUI x264 presets thread) have been adjusted to 40000 since some time.

[Sharktooth]

also keep in mind blu-ray players are not magic players and they're not even fullly capable of playing level 4.1 streams.

[shon3i]

@shon3i: In the blu-ray FAQ the maximum video bitrate for blu-ray is 40000kbps (however with AVC you'll never need that bitrate).
higher values could produce stuttering or interruptions during playbac or even complete unplayability..
62000 is definatly too much. since, by official FAQ, the maximum combined audio and video bitrate is lower than what you suggest to set for video only, it is 54000kbps: http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_dvd_comparison
so my preset is fine (just 2000kbits off in the maxrate) and the new blu-ray preset (available for preview in the New MeGUI x264 presets thread) have been adjusted to 40000 since some time.
Thanks for explanation and information :) I am currently working on some ref frame calculator based on level and resolution, fps, etc (from wiki and anex a table),So i read many documents about this, and i can't find proper conclusion, aslo i looked into comercial encoders and started to be confused and bit scared because i realy want to make 100% bluray compactible videos. Thanks for profiles.

[Sharktooth]

my presets never failed, feel free to borrow the settings from them (use the newer ones). they should be 100% Scenarist compatible too.

[m1ckran]

New thread title...
Is that OK?

Michael

[Wombler]

The tildes would be a bit confusing for some (not that I'm hard to confuse :)).

You could simplify to 'DVD/Blu-ray - Backup & Conversion' I suppose.

Whatever you think is best though as I don't want to clutter up the thread unnecessarily. :cool:

I'm happy for you to PM me though if you'd like to discuss.


Wombler

[m1ckran]

No problem.
Job done.

I'm still happy for jdobbs to intervene if he thinks it appropriate.

Regards,
Michael

[Sophocles]

jdobbs

I've been experimenting with Bluray backups and I've had some interesting results. I did 10,000 BC and burned it to a single layer DVD-R with excellent 1080P Results. The original was about 17.5 GB which is relatively small for BD movie. It burned and played back just fine through my PC BD drive, but I have no way to testing it on a standalone.

I then searched through my discs to find the largest file that I could fine which was Spider Man 3 at 40 GB. I converted the HD DD sound to standard AC3 DD 5:1 448 kbps to reduce audio sizes and then once again set it to a single type5. It came in slightly oversized 4.6 GHz and there was some blocking in the dark areas of the opening credits which have a lot of imagery.

I didn't see any real problems with the movie overall but I didn't burn it either. Using imgburn I converted it to an ISO which converts it to UDF file and mounted it with Daemon tools for testing. It's obvious that this movie shouldn't be converted for burning to a single layer disc so tonight will resize it and set it for a dual layer burn. The 10,000 BC took less than 7 hours to complete and Spider man took almost exactly 10.5 hours. All were set for two pass.

I realize this might be a bit off topic but it was our earlier discussion that got me going on this so thanks. I can't wait until you develop your own system. HLG

[jdobbs]

I'm finding that ~2 hour movies are good on a single layer, but when it gets significantly more than that I burn it to dual layer. I especially noticed it with "Wyatt Earp" which is exceptionally long. In most scenes it looked good, but the dark scenes would show blockiness on a single layer disc. On dual-layer, though, it is indistinguishable from the original.

The other option is to use 1280x720 -- which pretty much never needs dual layer.

I've been burning a lot of these -- and it is very exciting to watch them on my blu-ray player at such a beautiful resolution.

I wouldn't pay much attention to the size of the original... it's the overall length in time that really makes a difference. You'll even find that some of the originals are MPEG-2, which isn't nearly as efficient as AVC.

[frank]

Originmal posted by jdobbs:
But, you can't set the "--vbv-maxrate" that high if you are going to write to DVD-R or DVD+R, because you are limited to configuring for no more than 2X, as shown in my example a good value would be "--vbv-maxrate 17500" that would give you reasonable room to add in audio and subs (as long as you aren't planning on using LPCM).RIGHT!!!

But my experience for BR-9 (DVD-9) after a lot of tests is:
Resolution: 1280x720p
VBV buffer size = 15000
VBV Maximum Bitrate = 15000

Then the vbv can hold the content for 0.5 sec when the bitrate is exceeding the maximum. You'll never get stuttering.

[Sophocles]

I'm finding that ~2 hour movies are good on a single layer, but when it gets significantly more than that I burn it to dual layer

I should have mentioned that Spider man 3 has a 2:20 run time. I realize that physical size is not a deciding factor to the actual number of frames across the movie, but I figured that it had something to do with the more than 3 hours that it took to encode than the previous encode which was 37 minutes longer. I probably could have cropped a little off the beginning and ending but I have a fetish and like to keep them.

I'll look at making a few adjustments vbv buffer size and maxrate a bit and see what turns up but another fetish is the need to try and keep 1080P if possible.

Frank

Thanks for the info.

I suspect that most movies will do find with 1080P, but if I get some with really long run times I will consider both jdobbs and your suggestions.

[frank]

I suspect that most movies will do fine with 1080P...Do you know the resolution of your device??
Most notebooks and PC screens and a lot of TVs have no FULL-HD (1920x1080) panels!

For 1920x1080:
BD9/BD5 discs must be spun at high speed, equivalent to a 3× DVD drive speed or greater to get the high user data rate 33.24 Mbps.
Then you have to set the vbv MaxBitrate to ~38000.

AFAIK the PS3 has such noisy drives (games on data discs...) but no silent dvd pc drive.

[jdobbs]

When you're writing to DVD-R (BD-5/BD-9) you have to follow the AVCHD specifications -- and that means you can't assume anything greater than 2X spin speed. I also think that is where the 3 B-Frame limit came from too, but I'd have to check. With AVC 17,500 Kbs is plenty of bitrate for 1920x1080. As Frank mentioned, 15000 would probably be just as good...

[Sophocles]

Do you know the resolution of your device??

Yes, I have a samsung 24 inch S-PVA panel monitor connected by DVI-D dual link cable and default set to 1920 by 1200, (soon to be replaced by either the 27 inch or a 30 inch if I find one that I like). BTW, I prefer Samsung's S-PVA panels to Dells S-IPS panels for video playback.


My drive is a Lite-ON BD player which has 4X BD play speed and 12X DVD-Rom speed. My graphics card is an ATI HD 3870. My system has 4 gigabytes of corsair RAM in a 2 X 2 GB configuration, and my Processor is an E8400 overclocked to 3.8 GHz. It goes on like that any of 6 systems are adequate. I have vbv Maxbitrate still sitting at 30,000 but I've measured the quality of the results by running it through Procoder 3 and it lists them as 1080P. I haven't heard that it needs to be set to as high as 38,000 but I'll check into it.

[Khauron]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but:
What about Blue-Ray backup to DVD-5 / DVD-9? Can current version of DVD-RB handle it?

[jdobbs]

...I have vbv Maxbitrate still sitting at 30,000...As I mentioned, I wouldn't do that if you are ever planning on playing these back with a standalone (on BD-9/BD-5).

[jdobbs]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but:
What about Blue-Ray backup to DVD-5 / DVD-9? Can current version of DVD-RB handle it?No. DVD-RB only reads and reproduces DVDs. Blu-ray is an entirely different format. What has been discussed as a possibliity is the back of DVD to Blu-ray so AVC can be used to keep 100% of the quality. BD-Rebuilder (a completely different project) will provide that capability (assuming it ever gets completed).

[Sophocles]

As I mentioned, I wouldn't do that if you are ever planning on playing these back with a standalone (on BD-9/BD-5).

jdobbs

I doubt that I will ever purchase a standalone since I have an HTPC which I am also in the progress of updating, but if you suggest a maxbitrate of 15,000 then your word has always been good with me, and since Frank also recommends it I will make the changes to 17,500 since my next encode is still waiting for me to press start. I have got to get a portable hard drive to transfer my ripped files between computers. Hmm! Perhaps I can steal my wife's:P

[jdobbs]

I think at some point everyone will toss out their DVD players and replace them with Blu-ray. The cost will eventually drop to some ridculously low level (like DVD) and it just makes playback easier... that's why I always recommend using settings that will go with that flow. That way people won't have to reencode everything all over again in a year or two.

Of course, it's just my opinion -- and opinions are like anuses. Everybody has one, and nobody cares about anybody elses. :D

BTW -- good to see you posting regularly on Doom9 again.

[Sophocles]

I think at some point everyone will toss out their DVD players and replace them with Blu-ray. The cost will eventually drop to some ridculously low level (like DVD) and it just makes playback easier... that's why I always recommend using settings that will go with that flow. That way people won't have to reencode everything all over again in a year or two.


I agree prices have to fall on hardware soon or BD is going to face a Windows Vista moment. I still shop for standard DVD because for many types of entertainment such as "A Few Good Men," HD adds little to the overall experience. Where I enjoy HD is in movies that detail rich backgrounds such as scifis and historical films.


BTW -- good to see you posting regularly on Doom9 again.

Thanks, I enjoy Doom9 and hope to make it my second home.:D