Give Windows Media Encoder 9 a try :)

[cYo]

Just finished my first try with the new media encoder from ms.

I tried it with LotR Fellowship:
480x176 VBR 400kbit, 5.1 sound VBR 128kbit
final size: 695 MB

As you see, the purpose of this experiment was to fit the whole movie on one CD + suround sound.

Video quality is really good for such low bitrates. MS finally seems to have corrected the jumping background tiles in dialog scenes.
The sound is amazing. 128kbit dolby 5.1 - 2 years ago i would have said this is crazy :)
Now it is a valid option for me.

The only downpoint for my first try was the encoding time. It took aprox 18 hours on my TB1400.

Small guide to make your own encodings with media 9:
* rip the dvd (i use DVDDECRYPTER)
* DVD2AVI for making a D2V project and getting your AC3 streams
* BESWEET to convert the AC3 stream you want to use into 6 mono wave files (eg. besweet -core ( -input in.ac3 -output out.wav -6ch )
* Goridian knot to make make a avs file for video resize/cropping and estimating the size of the whole movie
* VFAPI to convert the d2v file into a "avi" file, so that media encoder can open it
* start media encoder select the "avi" file and switch media input to multi channel wave files. set the channels to the wave files you got from besweet.
* open up the avs file in a text editor and put the info for resize/cropping in the apropriate places in media encoder
* select your bitrates and hit encode.

For me personally, media encoder 9 seems to become a valid options for future backups.

cYo

[DJ Bobo]

Yeah sure, I would like to try it, but it doesn't work with Win98 ¬.¬
I get a nasty error window at the installation, telling me that I must have Win2K or XP ¬.¬
Why? I don't know! Microsoft is just getting even more stupid than before ¬.¬

[khp]

Did you try doing a side by side comparison with DviX5 pro ?

I did, and I'am not impressed. In my test WM9 came out visibly more blurred durring action scenes.

[cYo]

A month ago i tried a single cd rip of lotr. Comparing this with me9, in my view, me9 wins.
But it is clear, that normally you do not try to get a 2h50m action movie with lots of wood, gras and outdoor onto one cd, regardless of the used codec.

But as i said in the orignal post, this test was more for
a) trying a real low bitrate compression
so i can not compare normal bitrate rips (800-1200) with dvix, as i did not try it with me9
b) trying the new 5.1 sound encoding
Now this is the real strong point in my eyes. I'm a person that will sacrifice a small amount of video quality for getting 5.1 in my rips with such low bitrates and high quality.

And another point: my target system for a rip is TV out, and as you know, TV is a little more foregiving in some aspects, than your crystal clear monitor output :)

This post is no "me9 better than divx5". I just want people to encourage trying something new, and if you can live with the tradeoffs (no multi platform format, no open standard) i think that for low bitrate encodings/5.1 sound it is a valid option now. at least for me :)