Better way of calculating bitrate needed.

[Roveer]

I usually put a single movie on a single DVD and when they don't fit, I will re-encode with CCE and use DVDMaestro to remux and author.

My problem has been finding a good way to calculate my bitrates for CCE. I used a post here that was really made for REMPEG and uses percentages. for example if I have a 5.6gb movie I was using the formula

(4.37 / 5.6) x 100 = 78.03%

I then was lowering the AVG and MAX bitrates in CCE to equal 78% of 6000 and 9000 respectivly. It works pretty well, but leaves me about 200mb under when added back with the audio. That's 200mb that I'd rather have used!!! And I recently did ANTZ using this method, and came up a whole GB short,(as in under), so I'm re-encoding with higher bitrates.

Is there a better calculation that I can use?

Regards,

Roveer

[The_Flash]

You can use any divX bitrate calculator or even http://www.algonet.se/~otsu/bitrate.html

[SiC]

This is my method and it always works:
580,000 / total minutes of movie = total video + audio bitrate

*Example*
We have a 2 hour movie with 448kbps audio.

580,000 / 120 = 4833.33

4833.33 - 448 audio bitrate = 4385.33 video bitrate

This method has never failed me and it leaves a little bit of space on the DVD-R to author a menu.

BTW 580,000 is my *magical* number and it always works.

[Roveer]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I'll give the magic number a try and let you know how it worked!!!

Regards,

Roveer

[SiC]

Go Go Go!! This is SiC's magical number and it will always work!! :D

[Roveer]

Forgot to ask,

Where are you leaving your MIN and MAX settings? I'm assuming the magic number equation is for the AVG.

Regards,

Roveer

[SiC]

Minimum 0
Maximum 9000
Although Robshot says 9800 for maximum, every once in a while CCE over shoots beyond 9800 and Maestro gives an error after compiling the file (but still plays back fine on standalone). So I stick with 9000kbps for maximum now.

[Kandor]

I use gordian knot and set it to divx4 bitrate and set the size to 100 mb less than what the actually dvd-r can contain and I loadup the audio size to in gknot and it will give me an bitrate for the video that makes the size exactly as the size I was aiming for.
the 100 mb less is because in maestro when you load it up 100 mbs are already used in a empty project.
in this way I have made rips that are withing the exact numbers that I shot for and I dont have to do the bitrate calculation my self.

[Roveer]

Sic:

Your method is giving me pretty good results. I did a LONG movie last night (174min) and used your formula. The resulting mpv file was only 3.7gb with the audio file I was only up to just under 4gb. I did do a 4 or 5 pass CCE which is different from the usual 3 pass. I did another long one today using the formula only using 3 pass. Let's see if that changes anything.

Have you found that the formula breaks down a little on exceptionally long movies? As you know, I'm trying to make sure I get every byte possible out of my DVD-R, especially on these long (epic) type movies.

Regards,

Roveer