BD-Rebuilder is effing amazing!!!

[BigVern]

And so is the x264 encoder!!!

Let me explain.

I had ripped down my blu ray of Avatar for my Mede8er player, output size was around 15 gig for a very nice quality encode with AC3 640k, sound is not that important to me so AC3 is fine :)

So last night, just for curiosity sake, I slipped in the blu ray disc again and set the target size to BD-5 [DVD-single layer] to see what the resulting picture was like!

Today I loaded it onto the Mede8er player's HD and was blown away by the quality!!!

I have an LG 42LH7000 full HD TV, and I sit around 8~10 feet away from tele and could not tell the difference between the BD-5 encode and the 15 gig one I done a while back, and Avatar is 2 hours 41 minutes long and loads of action scenes!

So now, I'm gonna encode more of my Blu-Rays down to BD-5 to play on my Mede8er, less space, more films on the Mede8er HD :)

I have just ordered some films from Amazon, and one being Dances with Wolves for £9.99, and that is 181 minutes long, so I'm gonna have crack with that one down to BD-5!

[jdobbs]

X264... accept no substitutes... :)

[prOnorama]

Avatar is a CGI movie you can compress the sh*t out of it basically of that flat non-grainy computer generated stuff, no I'm not surprised and yes they sell it at every supermarket even so why even bother. Just IMO. It's not like you're keeping a lost gem there are millions of copies around.

I have an LG 42LH7000 full HD TV

That's a cheap TV. Last years' model. Actually they are giving these away *free* with 2 year mobile phone subscriptions here. (A year ago they were still dumping "HD Ready" stuff, but they moved on to last years's LCD TV's now).

(Note: *free* means not really free of course, it's the sell factor for middle of the road mobile phone subscriptions, they buy the TV's in large volumes of course).

[BigVern]

Avatar is a CGI movie you can compress the sh*t out of it basically of that flat non-grainy computer generated stuff, no I'm not surprised and yes they sell it at every supermarket even so why even bother. Just IMO. It's not like you're keeping a lost gem there are millions of copies around.



That's a cheap TV. Last years' model. Actually they are giving these away *free* with 2 year mobile phone subscriptions here. (A year ago they were still dumping "HD Ready" stuff, but they moved on to last years's LCD TV's now).

(Note: *free* means not really free of course, it's the sell factor for middle of the road mobile phone subscriptions, they buy the TV's in large volumes of course).

I was commenting on the quality in relationship to the size of the film, not whether Tescos, Asda, etc, sell Avatar! Is English your native tongue, because you seem to be having trouble understanding my post?

As for my TV, whoopee-do, its a cheapo set now, but it weren't last year when I bought it, but as with most electrical things, they depreciate in value as soon as you leave the shop with it.
So, what is the point of your post? Did you want to share your thoughts on how much you could compress a blu ray down before the picture started to look tatty, or have you got a touch of the ADHDs.

[Ghitulescu]

His positive point was that noise-free videos can be a lot compressed without exhibiting any artefacts.

The rest I think was commenting on the quality of the playing-chain, which if I correctly understood it, does not allow to spot subtle differences that are there.

[BigVern]

His positive point was that noise-free videos can be a lot compressed without exhibiting any artefacts.

The rest I think was commenting on the quality of the playing-chain, which if I correctly understood it, does not allow to spot subtle differences that are there.

So, he has point about CGI moves being compressed to hell. But what about:-

I'm not surprised and yes they sell it at every supermarket even so why even bother. Just IMO. It's not like you're keeping a lost gem there are millions of copies around. :confused:

and

That's a cheap TV. Last years' model. Actually they are giving these away *free* with 2 year mobile phone subscriptions here. (A year ago they were still dumping "HD Ready" stuff, but they moved on to last years's LCD TV's now).

(Note: *free* means not really free of course, it's the sell factor for middle of the road mobile phone subscriptions, they buy the TV's in large volumes of course). :confused:

So by his standards, my TV is last years thing, and I need to replace it every year to "keep up with the joneses"? What a load of tosh.

It must be me then? I better go seek some medical help :scared:

[jdobbs]

It was definitely an abrasive response to a simple "I like it" post.

[Ghitulescu]

The quality was, is and will be a matter of personal experience, expectation and awareness. Some people cannot tell the difference between MP3 and the original WAV, some can see a difference between eg Sony BDP-S5000 and BDP-S760 (for Bluray 1080p/24) and they are prepared to fork another 1000€ for this.

If you're happy, then this is the most important point.

[extravirgin]

Continuing with the 'let's get this back on track' theme I have to say I'm with BigVern. I had another little play with BD Rebuilder yesterday and for the first time tried out a BD-5. Percy Jackson if you must know. I'm very impressed with the quality having previously only burned BD-9s. I think I'll be saving myself a bit of money on disks from now on.

[Ghitulescu]

Indeed, Avatar is not worth a BDR-50, not even a DVDR-DL, a 10cents DVDR is more than adequate :)

[jdobbs]

Continuing with the 'let's get this back on track' theme I have to say I'm with BigVern. I had another little play with BD Rebuilder yesterday and for the first time tried out a BD-5. Percy Jackson if you must know. I'm very impressed with the quality having previously only burned BD-9s. I think I'll be saving myself a bit of money on disks from now on. I've had lots of luck with BD-5 movie-only backups. If it's a so-so film I'll just back it up to BD-5. For the classics or something really good (or long), I've been using BD-9. But lately BD-25s have gotten so cheap (about $1), I've been just using those.

One thing I like to do with certain discs is to make a movie-only backup just for convenience -- especially the ones with the ridiculously long startup times where I'm watching an icon spin in circles for 5 minutes.

[Capsbackup]

-- especially the ones with the ridiculously long startup times where I'm watching an icon spin in circles for 5 minutes.

I refer to this as "foreplay".
The time you have to get all worked up and excited for what you hope is going to be one great movie with a memorable ending! :p

[prOnorama]

Avatar is a CGI movie you can compress the sh*t out of it basically of that flat non-grainy computer generated stuff, no I'm not surprised and yes they sell it at every supermarket even so why even bother. Just IMO. It's not like you're keeping a lost gem there are millions of copies around.

I'd made a mistake, make that billions.

BD-5/9 is the poor man's Blu-ray, obviously jdobbs is going to endorse it because it's his core selling product nowadays. But jdobbs is doing a good job (IMO this not meant as a hate rant just to say yes I can tell the difference in compression when I bring a 30 Gb Blu-ray down to 5 Gb on most sources just when I'd x264 --preset veryslow --CRF 16 the MOFO).

The Avatar reference was maybe unfair but still true they sell the shit at every gas station and supermarket so why bother making a "personal backup" you can just install MakeMKV or AnyDVD for it and make a backup from your personal disc?

[jdobbs]

I'd made a mistake, make that billions.

BD-5/9 is the poor man's Blu-ray, obviously jdobbs is going to endorse it because it's his core selling product nowadays. But jdobbs is doing a good job (IMO this not meant as a hate rant just to say yes I can tell the difference in compression when I bring a 30 Gb Blu-ray down to 5 Gb on most sources just when I'd x264 --preset veryslow --CRF 16 the MOFO).

The Avatar reference was maybe unfair but still true they sell the shit at every gas station and supermarket so why bother making a "personal backup" you can just install MakeMKV or AnyDVD for it and make a backup from your personal disc?:rolleyes: How can you have a "core selling product" that is free? I just tell it the way it is. The reason you can use DVD+-R is because 50GB isn't needed for an HD movie when using H.264/AVC. Of course there are those who'd like you to believe it is so the easily persuaded crowds will rush out and buy new products. But putting a quart of milk in a 5 gallon container doesn't make the milk taste any better. It just makes it bigger. BD-5... yeah it may not always be as crisp as the original -- but it still looks damn good. Using BD-9, though, you really can't see a difference.

With that said... BD-25 discs are selling for about a $1 now, so the point is rapidly becoming moot. Backups to those are unarguably as every bit as good as the original.

[Ghitulescu]

The reason you can use DVD+-R is because 50GB isn't needed for an HD movie when using H.264/AVC.

Maybe in the US. But in EU, to save even the last $, they pack multiple languages on the same disk, then they also pack some extras (interviews, trailers), and get the disk filled up quite easily. Probably not 50GB, but definitively 25BG. Some BD DL contain only some 33GB, like some DVD DL that contain 5GB.

I have a h.264 version of my Deep Blue Sea doku, stored on a BD-5. I can see the differences, especially when I'm closer than 1m to my 50" plasma. There are not big, yet they are there. To a certain extent, the compression artefacts are quite similar to those exhibited by a DivX/xVid copy for a DVD. Yes, a CGI movie is easier to be compressed, so a movie whose optical resolution isn't 1080p (like Godfather, Coppola edition on BD), so a drastical reduction in bitrate is not really dangerous.

This made me think that if I'll ever do a BD backup, that will be on a BD-R/E with no compression. Main movie, no menus, no Java ...

[Sharc]

I have a h.264 version of my Deep Blue Sea doku, stored on a BD-5. I can see the differences, especially when I'm closer than 1m to my 50" plasma.
...
... and when I am closer than 3 inches it looks so blurry ....:D

[GaPony]

I have a h.264 version of my Deep Blue Sea doku, stored on a BD-5. I can see the differences, especially when I'm closer than 1m to my 50" plasma.

If you're watching a 50" plasma from 1m, you're not watching the movie, you're simply looking at colored pixels. Sometimes, people need to put their expectations in check and get back to reality.

[Ghitulescu]

Well, actually, I watch for defects. Since I need 1m, the differences are minimal. I don't need submeter distances to notice the colour flattening (I don't know how to explain this in English), they are quite obvious to the trained eye.

My post should not be interpreted as detrimental to BD-RB, if people like its output on a BD-5 that's perfect.

[Mr. Monte]

:rolleyes: BD-5... yeah it may not always be as crisp as the original -- but it still looks damn good. Using BD-9, though, you really can't see a difference.

With that said... BD-25 discs are selling for about a $1 now, so the point is rapidly becoming moot. Backups to those are unarguably as every bit as good as the original.

jdobbs,

I stopped using plastic (DVD-R, BD) discs about a year ago. I now have a Seagate FreeAgent Go USB powered drives with my WHOLE collection in them. Run that through a WD HD Live Media player and BAM. I even bought a Pelican case with pluck-it foam and have it all in that small case to take with me whereever I go.

Disc's will be gone like Reel-to-Rell, 8-tracks, Cassettes & Records soon.

I would almost bet mvoie companies releasing movies on flash drives one day ! :rolleyes:

[Ghitulescu]

I would almost bet mvoie companies releasing movies on flash drives one day ! :rolleyes:

Let's bet ;) They will use online services in the future, as this way they'll control better the distribution.

[Mr. Monte]

Might be some time though. With HD, bandwidth and users internet services..this will be a hamper. Not all people want to have to have a internet connection to watch movies. i'm assuming that is what you were trying to imply. The recent "fair-use" passing might also cause some issue with the movie studio's

[Ghitulescu]

No, I'm saying that every home will be provided with a sort of a cable (be it copper or fibre or whatever the future will invent). Inside the home might be everything wireless, this is irrelevant. This solution also has the advantage of targeted audience (one can switch the distributor and bing! the Chinese will be out of reach in American houses, just an example).

This started to be off-topic, so I'm stopping here.

[Groucho2004]

I now have a Seagate FreeAgent Go USB powered drives with my WHOLE collection in them.

Just curious - How many of those drives do you have with movies on them? How much data in total? And, most importantly, do you have backups?

[GaPony]

I don't know about Ghitulescu, but I have 5,000+ movies (DVDs and BD's) on 18 HDDs (30TB) being streamed to 3 PS3's, 2 WDTV Live, and 2 Asus O!Play devices. I'm using the Windows Home Server on a PC built just for this purpose. Everything has an original source disc, and the most important movies are backed up externally to offline HDDs.

BD-Rebuilder is an integral part of my system.

[Ghitulescu]

I don't know about Ghitulescu, but I have 5,000+ movies (DVDs and BD's) on 18 HDDs (30TB) being streamed to 3 PS3's, 2 WDTV Live, and 2 Asus O!Play devices. I'm using the Windows Home Server on a PC built just for this purpose. Everything has an original source disc, and the most important movies are backed up externally to offline HDDs.

I don't believe in HDDs for storage. My DVDs/BDs are only then copied if:
-I have guests (they need subtitles which are not present, a new authoring is requested and this cannot be done on the original, quite logic;))
-I need to keep the original safe
The external HDDs only keep documentaries from SAT/DVB-T which otherwise are extremely difficult to be obtained, but this until I'll author and burn the DVDR (sooner BDRs).
I explained several times and on several fora why.
No CDR (the oldest are now 13 years old) and no DVDR (the oldest are now 7) have yet failed me, however 4 HDD did (2 mine and 2 in various working places, the last two being that damn expensive enterprise type designed to work 24/7 for 10 years minimum).

[tennisbgc]

I don't believe in HDDs for storage. My DVDs/BDs are only then copied if:
-I have guests (they need subtitles which are not present, a new authoring is requested and this cannot be done on the original, quite logic;))
-I need to keep the original safe
The external HDDs only keep documentaries from SAT/DVB-T which otherwise are extremely difficult to be obtained, but this until I'll author and burn the DVDR (sooner BDRs).
I explained several times and on several fora why.
No CDR (the oldest are now 13 years old) and no DVDR (the oldest are now 7) have yet failed me, however 4 HDD did (2 mine and 2 in various working places, the last two being that damn expensive enterprise type designed to work 24/7 for 10 years minimum).I would definitly agree with you. Thats why disc will never die there cheaper,safer way of storing data. I have a media player and use hard drives but im really glad that most of my stuff is backed up onto discs.Just keep your discs in cases and your data will be safe for a long time.