Your choices to making your archive, comments?

[sidar]

hello,

I'm old in divx scene but very new in dvd scene. i made around 250 dvd to divx, with hoping some time there will be a divx settop player, but still there is not. (i know there is some players, but they all have some problems.) this is because divx 3 is very different from divx 4 and so so...

but now i ordered a dvd burner, pioneer 104. i want to make my movie archive, and want to keep it not for a couple of years, for everlasting :P

i read a lot a lot guides, but now I want to ask you guys a question. how do you rip your dvd's? which way do you prefer? example 3 svcd movies in a dvd-r, 2 reencoded dvd's with low bitrate in a dvd-r, 1 dvd with reencoding to a dvd-r, 1 dvd to 2 dvd-rs (most movies are on dvd9)

I will start to backing up my movies, so i dont want change my mind in every two month and wasting my time... example i ripped 100 movies with surround, than with AC3. so i advice the young divxers making always with AC3, even they cannot use them.

so which do you prefer, and waht do you advice me in this case?

thanks a lot and sorry for taking your time with this long message

[TRILIGHT]

I'm not certain I understand what your question really is. This is a DVD Authoring forum. Can you better explain what it is you are asking? Thanks!

[sidar]

firstly thanks for reply :)

sorry, maybe its my english. which way do you prefer for doing dvd backups? i mean take dvd9 film, do you backup it to 2 dvd-r's, or one dvd-r with reencoding (i think you use cce :) ), or just reencoding 2 film and fitting them one dvd-r?

in which way should I do my backups, i know its different from ppl to ppl, but i want to just learn what do you do? i can give an example: maybe you can not see 1500 - 2500 bitrate difference in a pc with 15", but you can see it on a 100 hz TV. so let say i dont have a TV, and I want to make my backups compatible and good quality for the future, i made 250 divx and now they are crap because i can not use them on a set top box player.

so which way do you prefer? :))

thanks a lot for reading :)

[TRILIGHT]

Ok, now I understand. Well, if you're wanting full "future" protection, I don't think you're going to get it. You'll find that it won't be long before discs begin providing an even HIGHER quality than they currently do. This, of course, will require burning across multiple DVD-R discs or perhaps the Blu-Ray technology.

The thing is, you have to make a choice of what is acceptable to you given the rate of technology. Eventually you have to "jump in" and go with something. This is what you did with Divx. Sometimes you make a good choice and sometimes a bad. ;) Anyway, that being said, I personally re-encode mine using CCE and put the whole movie (menus, subs, etc.) onto one DVD-R. I find this to be the most convenient as it is good quality and does not require me to get up in the middle of the movie to change discs out. I think you'll find that this is the most convenient and provides a quality level that you will not even notice a difference (computer OR TV).

If you're wanting to preserve the full quality of the disc, you will have to split the disc into two. This is the only way to fit DVD-9 titles on DVD-5 without losing any quality be re-encoding the video. (Keep in mind the audio is still at the full rate it was before. Only the video is re-encoded.) Ultimately, this decision is up to you. Even splitting across two discs, you're going to find there will be a new technology to replace the current quality of DVD anyway. Until this new technology is released and I can get a 50" plasma TV without having to spend $15,000, I am very satisfied with the quality I currently get through my process.

[sidar]

thanks trilight!

firslty you are right, i should make a choice. i though a lot and read a lot (many ppl wont understand this and will say: "crazy man, isnt there anything other than this to do? you are wasting your time!" :p

trilight, i hate changing discs, and i will reencode the dvd and useone dvd. i have some questions, if you dont mind trilight:

1- i read your signature, you say dont use rempeg! :) i have both rempeg and CCE SP, i think you'll advice CCE, but is it very hard to use? "getting best out cce" guide seems very difficult, there is graphs etc . which way do you advice me for a newbie in dvd, remplg or starting with the hard one: cce?

2- i read a lot of guides, but the most easiest and keeping quality guide is yours i think. i have some point which I dont understand, want to ask you:

a) you say make sure the fps is 29.970. is it for all movies, or only for ntsc films? example lots of movie i have are pal.
"Make sure the FPS rate is 29970 (It should default to this anyway"

b) why dont we save our subtitle as .son file, and save it as sonic dvd creator file?
"Next, click “File…Save As” and save the Sonic DVD Creator text file into the same directory you just ripped the subs to. "

c) why we say 30.000 fps, for the subtitle? is it for ntsc or all? example should I choose 25 for pal?
"For the Output Format, select the “Spruce DVDMaestro (*.son)” tab and select “30.000 NTSC”. "

d) do you think it is a good idea to ripping extras to a low bitrate, so free some space up for the main movie? or is it very hard to manage?

e) do we pulldown for ntsc films or pal filmes too? i read in DVD2SVCD program, that "use pulldown only for ntsc movies"

f) could you please send me your color palette files for subtitles? i want to use an experienced palette :))

yours, and thanks a lot again. if you find my questions very stupid, just ignore them. :D

[auenf]

the guide does seem to be very NTSC specific, and if you are doing a PAL movie, then you should put in the right fps, not the NTSC fps, and pulldown is for NTSC FILM only not PAL.

Enf...

[TRILIGHT]

Thanks for the reply, Auenf. I wrote the guide for NTSC because I really have no experience with PAL titles at all. I wouldn't even know where to get them. As such, I did not want to make guesses when writing the guide. I wanted to include things that I had actually done and I knew would work.

As for your questions, Serdar:

1- CCE is not as difficult as you imagine it to be. If you do find it overly complex, I recommend becoming more familiar with what it is you are actually doing. I cannot stress enough to everyone how important it is to have this fundamental understanding of the basics. It not only helps you to solve your own problems in certain instances, but it also enables you to ask better questions such that people can understand what you're going for and can get you a fast response. Also, having this fundamental understanding of the underlying technology enables you to know what it is you're searching for in the forum should you run into trouble. Many times, the reason people say "I've searched but can't find anything" is because they do not understand what it is they are really doing and, therefore do not even know the right terminology to search for. I'm not trying to "flame newbies" here. Those that take offense to what I say just don't get it and will never learn. Hopefully everyone can see that my suggestions to learn the basics is to help everyone to find their answers faster by knowing the right questions to ask.

2- Thank you! I tried to make it as simple as possible for a "complete copy". I've found it to be very reliable as most remuxing done via IFOedit and Rempeg has been unpredictable.

a) See Auenf's response. The guide was written for NTSC titles. Replace what is necessary.

b) WOAH!!!! I can't believe I didn't see this before! Actually, what bothers me even more is that it took this long for someone to report the mistake! Either they aren't reading the guide or they understand that it was a typo. You see, before the new version of SubRip was created, you had to save as a Sonic DVD txt file and then use a conversion program to get it to SON format. Now that SON format is built into SubRip, that is no longer necessary. Apparently when I edited the guide to include the new SubRip info, I mistakenly left the "Sonic DVD" line in there. I will contact Doom9 and have him correct this for us!

c) Again, see Auenf's response concerning PAL titles.

d) In some instances, it is a very good idea to drop the bitrate of the extras. If you're not that concerned with them but still want to keep them, you can give yourself a lot more space for the movie if you do this. IFOupdate is AWESOME!! Simply follow the same instructions for redoing your extras and, as always, do not forget to update your VTS Sectors! Just be careful and you should be able to do this fine. Of course, if a VOB set that contains extras exists as a multi-PGC set, it will become a bit more complex. Just learn what you can and pay attention to what you're doing. You will be fine.

e) See Auenf's response concerning PAL titles.

f) I have no color pallete files for subtitles. SubRip creates them based on the color selections you choose. Read the part in the guide about importing the pallete.

[brett]

You definitely don't want to go putting two DVD's on one DVD-R very often. I've done this a couple times with things I don't care about very much, such as putting Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat Annihilation on the same DVD, or putting both Monty Python Live DVD's onto one DVD-R, but most people will tell you that's a dumb idea.

The price of DVD-R's will continue to go down, and the speed of burners and ease of ripping will go up, so for the future's sake, you'll really be better off just having one movie per DVD-R for your own convenience. I would never want to make a rip of a movie to two DVD-R's. If there were that many special features, and I liked the movie that much and wanted perfect quality, I must say I would just go purchase the original.

I utterly despise DVD's forcing you to watch the FBI warning, copyright warning, movie rating, and/or "coming attractions." I'm so sick of having to wait through that stuff that I'd much rather just have the movie play immediately and I don't even bother with menus usually, especially movies like Crouching Tiger and Rocky Horror that make you wait through some long animation every time you click a button. If I do add a menu, I still have the main feature play first, so you have to actually hit the "menu" button to get to the menu.

I've given several movies to friends, and I must say that none of them have said, "Hey! Where's the menu?" They actually think it's pretty nice that the movie starts right up. I do, of course, still add the director commentary and subtitles. I just wanted to point out that, while many purists you'll see on the forums wouldn't think of leaving out menus, a lot of the general public actually thinks it's better that way.

[sidar]

firstly thank auenf and and brett and trilight for replies...

yes brett, i am with you at that. one movie one dvd seems cool. i asked because in my country the dvd's are 4-5 dollars each...


trilight, thanks for replies. and you prepared a super guide... thx.

1- thanks for advices... be sure i understand you, from other scenes i know this feelings. now I started a collection (blackadder) for copy, it is 8 gb each disc, and hopefully i can transcode them beautifully. but i have a strange question. i follow your guide, everything seems fine. but the guide which name is "getting best out cce", i tried it yes I can do it, but it is very long. i should now backup around 200 dvd's, most of them from friends... with this way, i should do all things on the monitor, and it takes long time, and much effort. can you give me some tips with cce, not so detailed, short and effective... i dont want to use rempeg because everybody and you say, its slow, its bad quality... so i want to use CCE, but not so detailed. (example, in the first pass, i made it and it came 800 mb, i want it 600 mb. maybe directly lowering bitrate give the result, or did you try it, does it seem fine?)

2- b) yeah i got it, because at the end of the guide you say "import the son file", so it seems ok. but for newbies like me it can be confusing :)

d) for extras, thanks for advices.

f) you mean the default pallettes are ok, thx. :)