Is SBC/others worth the trouble at 2 CD?

[pdontthink]

Hiya!

I just finished my first attempt at encoding a
DVD with GKnot and DivX 4.12 at a 2 CD bitrate,
and it was from what I could see very beautiful
quality.

I have read many times people saying "any moron
can make a good 2CD rip," and so I am wondering
if it is worth the effort to learn SBC or even
fiddle with the Div4log project if I am going to
stay with 2CD-level bitrates???

Thanks for your many fine opinions!

p
:stupid:

[MxxCon]

whatever floats your boat :)
if you are happy w/ your results keep doing whatever you are doing.
some people want more efficient encoding so they try new and differnt things.

[Kandor]

This is what I personally prefer
I do a SBC encoding with gknot on 2 cds with the original AC3 sound.
and in my eyes the quality is better. more sharp and less artifacts than the divx 4
but I like divx4 too so sometimes I use it anyway.

//Kandor

[ChristianHJW]

For DivX3 SBC is a must.
For DivX4 2 pass is giving very good results ..... and nobody could really prove to me that editing the log file really will result in better quality ..... but as always, i may be wrong here :D

[pdontthink]

Thanks, everyone, for great opinions! :)

[NeVeRLiFt]

If you guys are gonna go through the trouble to make 2cd rips why not make VCD's using TMPGEnc. The quality of my VCD's using Sefy's template is very good and they play in your HomeDVD unit ;)
For DivX 1cd is the way to go now. If you cant make a 1cd DivX that looks good, you got problems.

[UHT]

surely looking good is a very personal thing though, what looks good to one person might look like crap to another...

[jokklas]

Very intresting that you only talk about 1 or 2 CDs regardless of movie length. I'd like to see a 1CD SBC rip of a 2,5 hour movie look good :P. Same goes for Neverlifts VCD talk, no way a 2CD VCD looks great for a 2,5 hour movie.

Instead say something like: If the movie is ~90min then a DivX 4.xx 2-pass will look very good even on 1CD but when you wanna squeeze in over 100min on 1CD then go for DivX 3.11 SBC rip. Would really be a more valid statement.

[jokklas]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
If you cant make a 1cd DivX that looks good, you got problems.

When you are talking so highly of your 1CD DivXs then the movies are maximum 2 hours long give or take a few minutes, cause when longer than that it doesn't look very good I think (not the group release either, many 1CD group releases that should've been 2CDc out there looking just.. ok. Even from groups as ViTE, DOMiNiON etc..).

[UHT]

its not just the length of the movie you have to take into account, also its level of compressability which is just as important a factor

i encode quite a lot of approx 2hour long movies to 1cd, mainly those which i think are more films which are not about "eye candy" if you see what im saying

also ive been doing a lot of mono dvd's lately, "the night of the hunter" "a matter of life and death" etc. and those ones can look fine at much longer lenghts due to the audio savings

[jokklas]

UHT: True on all points. The compressability differs a lot from movie to movie. It's just that when a certain someone talked about his rips I kinnda assumed they where almost DVDish in qual (sound as well).

[UHT]

Yeah I assumed that too, was just pointing those things out so that anyone else reading this thread wouldnt be confused by it

Personally I tend to work on more of a trade off of quality, so long as it looks fine to me from the distance I watch it, on the size of screen I have and in the lighting I use then its fine. After all these are PERSONAL backups

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by UHT
Personally I tend to work on more of a trade off of quality, so long as it looks fine to me from the distance I watch it, on the size of screen I have and in the lighting I use then its fine. After all these are PERSONAL backups

Same here I agree 100%.
1hr 30min movies look great. Over that and you loss some quality.
But thats only for certain parts of the movie ;)
I will always use 1cd DivX and 2cd VCD's.
And if anyone says what about SVCD.... you can have your 3-5 cd's for a movie LOL

[jokklas]

Is VCD 2.0 better to use then SVCD?

[NeVeRLiFt]

VCD 2.0 is just a compliant VCD. its 1.15 bitrate 352x240
SVCD is around 2.6 bitrate (2.0 - 3.0 depends) 480x480
If you like having 3-5 cd's for a movie LOL then by all means use SVCD.

[ChristianHJW]

I easily get up to 55 mins onto 1 CD as standard S-VCD ( TMPEG, 480 * 576 PAL, 25 fps, 1650 kbps - 2000 kbps video 2 Pass VBR with slow settings, 160 kbps audio BeSweet Toolame ). For action movies 45 - 50 mins / 1 CD ( 700 MB = 795 MB ) looks perfect.

Never had to use more than 3 CDs, even on +140 mins movies.
VCD res doesnt look good to me, sorry mate.

[pdontthink]

Hmmm, really? If I were aiming for 2CDs, I should
think about ditching DivX for VCD or SVCD???
Can those formats accomodate AC3 tracks? Can they
accomodate more than one audio track?

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by pdontthink
Hmmm, really? If I were aiming for 2CDs, I should
think about ditching DivX for VCD or SVCD???
Can those formats accomodate AC3 tracks? Can they
accomodate more than one audio track?

VCD/SVCD will play in HomeDVD units thats all. And if encoded using Sefy's template you can get almost 90min on 1cd and it still look good. I'm not saying VCD/SVCD is better than a 2cd DivX ok. Hell if your gonna have 2 or more cd's just buy the damn DVD. Otherwise your defeating the purpose. To each there own. And I know I guy that still rips to 2cd's and want change for nothing. His rips look almost like the source. I'm talking about a guy that goes by the name Austin519 ;)
You should use the best software and methods and try each and decide for yourself what you like and wanna use.

[pdontthink]

yah, that's what i'm in the middle of... trial
and error with a buncha different tools and
whatnot. Can you tell me where I can find this
Sefy's template you speak of? Thx!

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by pdontthink
yah, that's what i'm in the middle of... trial
and error with a buncha different tools and
whatnot. Can you tell me where I can find this
Sefy's template you speak of? Thx!

You see how Doom9's site is the gold mine for DivX.....
well www.vcdhelp.com is the gold mine for VCD/SVCD

[diji1]

Hi,

diji1, it is interesting that you always go with 2CDs.
I would be interested to hear why (it's what I do as
well, although there are people who say that if you do
that, why not move to VCD or SVCD format, since you can
also play it on a standalone player).

Thanks for inviting me to this thread pdontthink, i hadnt actually read this post :D....

Why ?? Well, basically, like everything else, if your actually making a backup for personal use, then have it how you like in terms of size. I use 2 cds as a rule because
1/ cdrs are so damn cheap, i pay $1.00AUS for 700megs pioneers.
2/ i prefer the extra quality of larger filesizes, no abr mp3 for me usually, higher res/bitrate - its as simple as that. for some (shall we say, ahh, special movies with *a lot* of motion) ill even use more cds.

It's a pretty knowledge divx's are made by some ppl for distribution and it does take skill to acheive a good looking rip in 1 cd or less filesizes, but, really i don't think that anybody could rip a 1 cd rip that looked as good as my 2 cd rip - im not saying that i am the best ripper in the world or anything like that - but i don't think it's possible to achieve the same quality ( or even near ) with, say 650 megs less space ( accounting for an increase of 50 megs for increased audio quality ) - obviously i do not distribute my rips, right ??

If you guys are gonna go through the trouble to make 2cd rips why not make VCD's using TMPGEnc. The quality of my VCD's using Sefy's template is very good and they play in your HomeDVD unit
For DivX 1cd is the way to go now. If you cant make a 1cd DivX that looks good, you got problems.

Trouble ?? It's no trouble ;)

...id certainly rather have the quality of divx - u can always play it thru ur tv from ur comp + plus u can use a playlist and not have to change cds .....:)

....alrighty, seniority has come :cool:

[UHT]

*gives diji a clap for 100 posts* :)

[NeVeRLiFt]

I have a thing for 1cd DivX. 2cd will look better.
I have just got to the point if I'm gonna use 2cd's I use TMPGEnc and make me some killer looking VCD's. Not that there better than a 2cd DivX. But just so family and friends can use them and plus they really good.

[ChristianHJW]

There is no rational 'sense' in doing 1 CD rips ..... its sport ;)

And i still cant agree about the ' .... if i do a 2 CD rip i go for VCD ..' argument because i've never seen any VCD looking anyway similar to my DivX4 1 CD rips .... maybe i've never seen a good VCD in my life ?