Questions for BD-RB

[Samson777]

0..............

[worknstiff]

OK, Samson777, Where to begin, and let me preface my statements with this. BD Rebuilder is a simple program that does some very complicated stuff in the background and that the "Hidden Options", are hidden for a reason. I usually don't ever go there unless I know specifically what I need them for. On The Amazing Spiderman 2, it has a run time of 142 minutes, with a 24bit DTS-HD audio track. If you are keeping the DTS-HD audio and also keeping all the extras, then you are perhaps causing a self-inflicted injury, IMHO. Just one of the extras is the "The Wages of Heroism: Making The Amazing Spider-Man 2", which is 1080p, with a 1:43:42 total runtime, along with a few other things like "Deleted & Alternate Scenes (1080p, 23:01 total runtime). YES, it is possible to "KEEP IT ALL", but you really need to make some concessions, like maybe down-converting the DTS-HD by keeping only the CORE or maybe giving up the extras. I think you should also let BD Rebuilder take care of the encoding bitrate by selecting Automatic Quality Setting or at least do the High Quality or even the Highest setting under the Setting's, Encoder Settings, instead of the "QUICK_CRF=30" hidden option, and I don't use the "Quicker" encode for extras either because I think it doesn't use a lot of time looking at the complexity of the extras and uses a quick and dirty encode CRF. Of course jdobbs is the real expert here and I will be glad to see what he has to say about this problem you are having. I did this disk and didn't have any probs, of course I don't keep the extras unless I have lots of room on the disk, which hardly ever happens because I keep the HD audio. If you are not wanting to try alternative encoding options, you don't have to use them, just leave all the check marks empty. And, ALSO if you really want to get some help here, the secret is logs, logs, logs. I am just goofing around with my simplistic understanding of this complex program and who knows, with a complete log maybe it's just a configuration problem after all. I hope this helps.

[Samson777]

o.........................

[jdobbs]

From the first post of this thread:Please do not post any non-bug-related messages in this thread. I'd like to reserve it for bug reports only. If you want to start a "I wish" or "let's debate something" discussion, let's put it somewhere else, ok?I do not see a bug report anywhere in your two lengthy posts. That's why you haven't gotten a response from me. It's a fairly simple matter to start another thread with your questions.

Sometimes I let the thread meander around a subject related to a bug report... but this isn't even close. Also -- the purpose of using a forum is so that others that are familiar with the program can help answer questions. Deciding to demand a response only from me is inappropriate. I make no money on this software, in fact I am considerably in the hole. Asking me to also single-handedly become a help desk for nothing as well is kinda' pushing it, don't you think?

[Samson777]

O.............................

[Sharc]

Didn't think I was being pushy or ungrateful for what you have
provided. On the contrary on the few occasions I have
contacted you I have expressed my sincere gratitude for
what you have done..

Your arguments are pointless, sorry.

..... but you are also unaware of my own financial situation, and how far worse it may be from your own.
Maybe, but com'on. Apparently you have the means for PC with infrastructure, other Software, DVDs, Blu-rays etc. And the electricity bill seems not to count as your are aiming at super-ultra-placebo settings including 7.1 DTS-HD audio (a pointless luxury) which take forever for encoding.
....aside from everything else we have to pay for day-to-day lets total up the cost of Backing-Up
a Blu-Ray movie. ...... cannot copy without a Blu-Ray burner and recordable discs and both those are a cost.

Yes, but you expect jdobbs and other volunteers should now compensate for these cost? Nobody is obliged to backup (his) Blu-Ray discs, right?
Want to play your Blu-Ray movie on PC. Need playback software, PowerDVD or Arcsoft_Totalmedia-Theatre. Another cost there.
Why are you wasting your limited financial means for bloatware? There exist excellent (free or donationware) alternatives.
.....would it not be economically more feasible if I purchased a second copy of the Original Blu-Ray when it goes on sale a few months from now ? ..... or just buy 50GB recordable Blu-Ray disks and just have to pay AnyDVD HD, because without them, we can do nothing.
The decision is with you. Just go ahead. What does this have to do with any obligation for jdobbs with BD-RB?
.... And also avoid the time and effort spent on all those settings and time of reencoding.
Have you ever thought of jdobb's (and other authors) time to provide these tools - free of charge????
If BD-RB will now cost me also, I will have to consider alternatives....
Which are? Should this be a threat? Just go ahead and good luck.
Hope this does not upset you (jdobbs).....
I hope this as well, really..... :rolleyes:

My advice:
- Download the most recent version of DB-RB
- Install exactly as per instructions
- Leave things at their defaults and encode
- Perhaps blank unwanted huge Extras
- Select ac3 / 640 for audio. It's very very good but much smaller than the original bloated audio:
=> (uncheck) Do Not Convert DTS to AC3 (Blu-ray only)
=> (check) Do Not Reencode AC3(Blu-ray only)
=> (unchecked) Use 448kbps for AC3 encoding
=> (uncheck) Use 192kbps, 2 channel for AC3
=> (uncheck) Keep HD Audio for BD25/Alternative Intact

- Then see the result and revert with questions and log.

Finally, if you want to increase your electricity bill, set in the .ini:
ENCODE_QUALITY=4
QUALITY_ULTRA=2 #0=slower, 1=very slow, 2=placebo

[jdobbs]

@Samson777

Now about my post,
when I google to get info on BD-RB I quickly get linked here.You kinda' missed the point, being the noob that you apparently are. You posted in the bug thread. All you had to do was create a new thread rather than convolute that thread (more). Instead, you decided to post a ridiculous editorial. So I created the new thread myself. See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

If you have other options to use rather than BD-RB -- I'd suggest you use them.Didn't think I was being pushy or ungrateful for what you have
provided. On the contrary on the few occasions I have
contacted you I have expressed my sincere gratitude for
what you have done. :rolleyes:

[Samson777]

0...0...............

[gonca]

All it means is that your settings (quality, etc) are causing your cpu to be fully utilized.

How many instances of x264 do you see in task manager?
Do not confuse number of threads, or cpu core numbers with the multiprocess number. Multiprocess number is the number of instances of x264.

[jdobbs]

Exactly as gonca explained. x264 will take advantage of multiple cores. The only time you need to set MULTIPROCESS is when you aren't using 100% of your CPUs during encoding. That can happen sometimes on very powerful machines when the frame serving (which may not be multi-threaded) can't keep up with encoding speed of the processors. In those cases running multiple instances can help utilize all the processing power.

[Samson777]

00......0.......

[varekai]

Ok, so if I get a PC with more CPU Cores
I'll know what to do now. Thanks !
Now that you know what to do, do not forget to push the Donations (https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=DVD-RB%40jdobbs.net&item_name=jdobbs+Development+Donation&item_number=DV-DN-001&no_note=1&tax=0&currency_code=USD) button...

[Samson777]

..1....01...

[gonca]

Using X264's internal LAVF for frame serving does not allow MULTIPROCESS, according to the link.
As for how many cores you will use, it depends on your settings (quality, resizing, filtering, etc)

[mparade]

One last clarification on the matter.
In the event that I get a CPU with many many Cores,

if I select
Use X264's internal LAVF for frame serving

does that nulify my selection of
MULTIPROCESS=n ??

Based on what is written here http://www.jdobbs.net/freeware/multiprocessing.html
it would seem to be the case.

But does that still apply with this new version fo BD-RB ??

In other words, if I insist on selecting
Use X264's internal LAVF for frame serving
am I inevitably confined to using 1 or at most 2 CPU Cores
no matter what value I put for
MULTIPROCESS=n ??

This in fact had been my initial question.
Please clarify.

I think you should read this first of all:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MeGUI/x264_Settings#threads

As you might know, BD-RB is using on the x264 command line the option of threads=auto as the default. With MULTIPROCESS set at 0 (so disabled), I am constantly on 100% CPU usage with 4 physical and 8 logical cores. So, the threads used by x264, in my case, is 12 when threads=auto is used.

[Samson777]

................1......01.

[mparade]

well if you have 4 physical cores with HT (8 virtual cores)
then you can run a max of 8 threads. And I will assume
this is what you meant to say.
( Or else, how do you figure 12 threads )?


But it's good to know that with 8 virtual cores you
get 100% CPU usage and with
MULTIPROCESS
not set (default value).

And thanks for the link. Kind of informative, if I knew more
about video encoding.

No. I meant I have two logical cores per one physical core.
So, I have 8 logical cores which means 8x1.5 threads run by x264 as default. If I say thread I mean the one x264 is using to increase speed on multi-core systems.

[Samson777]

Oo0.............1......0

[mparade]

Therefore your reply would mean that a single instance of x264 will
split the job to run on all available CPU Cores. This is very good,
if in fact it does that.
It however baffles me that it would have split the job to 12 threads
on your 8 logical core system. But if it works for you, that's fine.

But,
QUESTION: Where did you look to find out that x264 was
using 12 threads ?? In Task Manager (processes)? I don't
see that info there.

I think currently the best way to check that is to set threads=auto on a sample encoding than changing it to threads=12 and you will see that encoding speed will be almost identical.
At the moment the only basis of my statement is:

" threads[edit]
Default: 1.5 * logical CPUs detected
Enables parallel encoding by using more than 1 thread to increase speed on multi-core systems. Previously, this threading was based on a slice encoding model, where the video was encoded in n slices (where n == threads). Since r607 this model was changed to sliceless threading, where the 'atomic unit' is now macroblock rows. The rest of this section refers to the latter system only. The quality loss from multiple threads is mostly negligible unless using very high numbers of threads (say, above 16). The default setting provides more or less optimum speed. If you want to reduce the quality loss, use one thread (Not Recommended, unless all other settings are already maxed)

Recommendation: Auto"

If I were you I would calculate the x264 thread number on my machine then manually would rise the thread hiddenopt to a number until you get to the same fps number you would get by using threads=auto. You will see it will be almost the same that was calculated, even though, I have tested only thread=1 and it was like a worm compared to thread=auto.

[Samson777]

00.....01.........

[mparade]

I looked at the HIDDENOPTS.TXT and saw that by default
BD-RB uses
THREADS=auto
( and I assume it does this even if we do not include the
above line at all in our .ini file )
and because of your statement


With my settings of

ENCODE_QUALITY=4
QUALITY_ULTRA=2

QUICK_EXTRAS=1
QUICK_USE_QUALITY=1
QUICK_CRF=27

it is easy to see that my first priority is MAXIMUM image and
sound quality of the main movie.

Once I established that, I would try to optimize speed but
not at the expense of quality. So I think it is best that I
do not include
THREADS=n
at all considering that BD-RB will default to "auto" anyways.

Or I might consider setting it to 1. But then in that case
would I also be limiting myself to using only one CPU Core
on a Multi-Core system such as yours ???

I have just currently finished my quality tests using x265 presets...sorry I haven't tested x264 presets yet because my aim now is to archive the main features of my BD collection taking advantage of HEVC additional compression efficiency of around 30-35%.

Anyway by HEVC the situation regarding "--threads"
a little bit different: "Default 0, one thread is allocated per detected hardware thread (logical CPU cores)", but with HEVC encoding I am still constantly 100% CPU usage.

Regarding HEVC I could make rough proposals from what quality presets what to expect based upon my CRF tests. For x264 I haven't made any tests as I mentioned. If I were you I would simply leave threads=auto and check what both ssim number and file size parameter "does" with each preset at the same CRF number and sample. But I think you do not have weeks for making such tests. :eek:

By x264, option threads=auto is the default which means that it is inserted on the command line as default, even though you haven't inserted it in the ini file, be careful.

As varekai told recently: "Now that you know what to do, do not forget to push the Donations button... " :)

[Samson777]

00..00

[mparade]

Thank you for your reply mparade.



Can anyone help me with an Audio question please ?


I must preserve the (Original) HD Audio of the main movie
only and maximize the Image Quality as much as possible.

So I think it logical to reduce the Audio and Image quality
of the Extras to only acceptable levels (DVD quality image
and 2 channel Stereo Audio).


So I have made the following selections.

NOTE: the "V" symbol represents a check mark.


(V) Do Not Convert DTS to AC3 (Blu-ray only)
( ) Do Not Reencode AC3(Blu-ray only)
( ) Use 448kbps for AC3 encoding
(V) Use 192kbps, 2 channel for AC3
(V) Keep HD Audio for BD25/Alternative Intact


( Some people say it is best to uncheck all of them.
Converting even the Audio of the main movie to 640kbps
AC3. But I have read that this downgrades 7.1 channel
streams to 5.1) Not good for me !


The intention here is to preserve the HD Audio of the main
movie but reduce the audio of the Extras to
192kbps, 2 channel.

So, is this the effect that my settings above will give ???

Is your target media BD-25 or HDD?
The original audio in your extras are 224 kbps, 2 channel, right? I am pretty sure that using those settings above would reencode your commentary tracks as well.

What do you mean maximize the image quality as much as possible? If you want absolute quality then just leave it on placebo, choose a quite low CRF number, borrow the newest "machine" from Nasa and wait a few days for the encode to complete. :)

[Samson777]

1.00..............1

[Groucho2004]

I already set it to "placebo"
ENCODE_QUALITY=4
QUALITY_ULTRA=2
...
Right now my fps is 0.34 !!

Good choice, although still not slow enough to have your CPU heat the room for the entire winter.

Sarcasm aside, how about taking a moment to think about why the x264 developers named the preset "placebo"?

Also, have you considered the electricity cost for this job and compared it to the cost of a BD-R50 which can be had for as low as $2.00 ~ $2.50 (not to mention the time it takes to complete the job)?

[Sharc]

......Also, have you considered the electricity cost for this job .....?
Just read through the beginning of this thread and you will immediately understand why Samson777 has no cent left for a donation to the athor of BD-RB :rolleyes:

[Groucho2004]

Just read through the beginning of this thread and you will immediately understand why Samson777 has no cent left for a donation to the athor of BD-RB :rolleyes:
Good point. :)

Some may not care about the energy bills (possibly because they don't have to pay for them) but for us who actually have to pay for electricity, here's a little example:

I'm not even using the rates one has to pay in Europe which are much higher than in the US. If you live in a city like LA or NYC, you'll probably pay about 16-20 cent/kwh. Let's say 18 cent.

The power an average computer draws at full CPU utilization with x264 can be anywhere from 200-400 watts, very much depending on CPU, power supply efficiency, etc. Let's say 300 watts.

Samson777 mentioned above that he's getting about 0.34 fps. This means that a 2 hour movie needs 141 hours encoding time.

Hence, 141 hours * 0.3 kw * $0.18 = $7.6 for the encode (again - not to mention the time it takes).

Your mileage may vary but I think it's easy to see how ridiculous it can be to use something like the x264 placebo preset.

[SuLyMaN]

Well, thank you much to both of you.

Ok, so if I get a PC with more CPU Cores
I'll know what to do now. Thanks !

If I was supposedly in financial difficulties as you say you are, It would not even cross my mind one single split of a second to get a PC with more cores....

Sorry for the OT.

[Samson777]

Up your !

[jdobbs]

You're right, your financial ability is nobody's business. But I think you're being a little too sensitive....if the
person who put out this software demanded payment
he should not reales it as share-ware with donation option.Typical. I wasn't even in on the discussion -- but I get to be the target of your rant. Just one more reason why developing freeware is such a bad idea -- other people's sense of entitlement.

[Groucho2004]

I wasn't even in on the discussion -- but I get to be the target of your rant. Just one more reason why developing freeware is such a bad idea -- other people's sense of entitlement.
There'll always be Samsonites and Toilet Ducks, don't let them discourage you.

[hello_hello]

Your mileage may vary but I think it's easy to see how ridiculous it can be to use something like the x264 placebo preset.

How do the calculations work out if the PC would be left running whether it's encoding or not? :)
Mine mostly runs 24/7 as it's generally doing something, even if it's not CPU intensive work, and it's also my media player, so I'd only be saving the power the CPU itself uses for encoding, or thereabouts.

Mind you I don't see much point in placebo myself. If for no other reason than I'm not patient enough. Amongst other things, the Placebo preset changes -me to tesa, which is slower than esa, which (according to the x264 Wiki) is already a lot slower than umh without providing much extra benefit.
http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings#me

[jdobbs]

How do the calculations work out if the PC would be left running whether it's encoding or not? :)
Mine mostly runs 24/7 as it's generally doing something, even if it's not CPU intensive work, and it's also my media player, so I'd only be saving the power the CPU itself uses for encoding, or thereabouts.

Mind you I don't see much point in placebo myself. If for no other reason than I'm not patient enough. Amongst other things, the Placebo preset changes -me to tesa, which is slower than esa, which (according to the x264 Wiki) is already a lot slower than umh without providing much extra benefit.
http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings#meBig difference. I happen to have a UPS unit on my set of computers that tells me the total wattage being used. There are three computers on it, including about 17TB worth of hard drives. When idling the entire set of computers is using about 225 watts. If I start encoding on just one of them (leaving the other two idling) -- the total wattage increases up to 375 watts.

[Groucho2004]

How do the calculations work out if the PC would be left running whether it's encoding or not? :)
Mine mostly runs 24/7 as it's generally doing something, even if it's not CPU intensive work, and it's also my media player, so I'd only be saving the power the CPU itself uses for encoding, or thereabouts.
The idle consumption depends on the mainboard, CPU, graphics card and power supply efficiency. 40 watts would be very low, 70 watts average and 100+ watts would be high.

Using the average of 70 watts and the values I used above you would pay 365 days * 24 hours * 0.07kw * $0.18 = $110 per year.