Unable to transcode at different rates

[rpboy]

So I've been using InstantCopy 7 for a while now and have been very happy with it. Gotten real good at getting close to 4.37GB without going over.

But I ran across a DVD that's causing me some problems. The DVD only has one title set, though it has 12 titles in that title set. One title is the movie, 5 titles are trailers, 1 is behind the scenes, 1 is production photos, 1 is FBI warning, and so on.

So I went through and set the FBI Warning and production photos titles to 30%, trailers and behind the scenes to 50%, and main movie and menu at 65%. This showed about 4.6GB according to IC. Went through and did its thing and came up with a 4.39GB image.

DOH!

So I tried again, tweaking the values slightly - raising one here and lowering another there. IC now said 4.55GB for size. Went through and did its thing and came up with a 4.45GB image.

HUH????

So on a whim, I extracted the files from the PDI and viewed them in PowerDVD. Watching the FBI Warning, there is no way that it was transcoded to 30%. I don't see any macroblocks at all. Same thing with the production photos.

< Long post almost over ... >

So I am wondering if InstantCopy is not able to do different transcoding percentages within one title set? And that's why I am getting strange results.

If that's the case, I wonder what percentage its transcoding everything at. Whatever the highest percentage is that I specify? Its certainly not the lowest.

Any comments or feedback would be great!

[MackemX]

there is a bug within IC that cannot correctly identify the full contents of a Title as I showed with my example of Spy Kids 2 and it sometimes ignores video

the best thing to do is to use the Title size recorder program I wrote and have uploaded and then use that to see what affect IC has on the title at a given % reduction and you can adjust it accordingly on the 2nd run by simply adding the relevant MB to each Title and the Excel program will suggest a setting

but some Titles even if you set them to 50% will only reduce to say 70% due to the content of the files and it looks like the production photos are an example of this as IC cannot compress them anymore

the Grinch and a 200MBish title was a prime example where I set it to 50% and it only reduced it by 5MB or 95% no matter what I set it too

the program is in my guide HERE (http://www.deano.dsl.pipex.com/GUIDE/filesize.htm)

worst part for you is that if you had used my guide HERE (http://www.deano.dsl.pipex.com/GUIDE/2big.htm) you could have adjusted that first run in around 10 minutes or so to make it 4.37Gb :)

but now you know for the future

[rpboy]

Originally posted by MisterX
some Titles even if you set them to 50% will only reduce to say 70% due to the content of the files and it looks like the production photos are an example of this as IC cannot compress them anymore

Thanks for the information.

I took a different route with this. I used the PDITool to extract the files, then ran IC on it again, setting all the movies and features to 100% and knocking the trailers and production photos down to 90%.

That reduced the file sizes enough to fit onto a DVD-R. :)

You said that it looks like IC cannot compress the title anymore. Two of the titles I had set to 30% on the initial run (FBI warning and studio logo) were not available on the second run. I assumed because they were already small enough. But the production photos could be compressed further.

That's why I was wondering if all titles in a single titleset got the same compression regardless of what values you set it too.

I will check out your guide further (gave it a quick glance just now ... looks like work - hehehe) but luckily I haven't run across any other DVDs that have everything in one title set.

[MackemX]

Originally posted by rpboy
I took a different route with this. I used the PDITool to extract the files, then ran IC on it again, setting all the movies and features to 100% and knocking the trailers and production photos down to 90%.

That reduced the file sizes enough to fit onto a DVD-R. :)

You said that it looks like IC cannot compress the title anymore. Two of the titles I had set to 30% on the initial run (FBI warning and studio logo) were not available on the second run. I assumed because they were already small enough. But the production photos could be compressed further.

That's why I was wondering if all titles in a single titleset got the same compression regardless of what values you set it too.

I will check out your guide further (gave it a quick glance just now ... looks like work - hehehe) but luckily I haven't run across any other DVDs that have everything in one title set.

when you are talking about one title set are you talking about one set of VTS VOB's or one Title within IC?

glad to see you sorted a way to do it, but in my method you just untick everything apart from the title you wish to adjust as compressing an already compressed video may not give the same quality result tho the difference will be very minimal anyway. In fact I thought there was a bug that it still transcoded the main title if you adjusted the % on another extra title. How long did it take to process when you ran it again just reducing the extras?

IC sometimes ignores certain content of a DVD altogether and does not show it as a Title anywhere. To check just untick all titles and slide menu upto 100% and see if the total predicted size is the same as the menu. Spy Kids 2 had an extra 421MB that wasnt included in the Titles!

[rpboy]

Originally posted by MisterX
when you are talking about one title set are you talking about one set of VTS VOB's or one Title within IC?

There was only one set of VTS VOBs which totalled about 7 GB. In it were 12 titles:
Main movie was 1, trailers were 5, production photos were 1, FBI warning was 1, behind the scenes feature was 1, deleted scene was 1, studio logo animation was 1, and something else was there too.

Originally posted by MisterX
In fact I thought there was a bug that it still transcoded the main title if you adjusted the % on another extra title. How long did it take to process when you ran it again just reducing the extras?

It took about 20 minutes to transcode the 5 trailers and production photos. It had taken about 140 minutes to do the entire DVD previously.

[MackemX]

weird cos I'm sure someone mentioned that even if you had the main movie @ 100% it still transcoded if you adjusted other titles and I experienced the same thing with Stuart Little 2 with a setting of 100% for main movie yet it still took 2 hours :confused:

thinking back now maybe it only does transcode @ 100% when you remove audio also, so because you did not remove audio on the 2nd run as you would have already done this, it probably just copied it the movie title across

interesting and I will try this sometime just to check how it works

[red321]

Hi MisterX,

Don't worry you havn't gone mad, I was the other person who entioned the problems with 100% transcoding. I had further chats about this in this thread http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48876. It seemed like I was the only one in that thread that had seen this. As I am definately not imagining the problem:p I was at a loss. I will double check with your comment about not stripping audio. Got a horrible feeling that I allready tred that though....

[rpboy]

Originally posted by red321
It seemed like I was the only one in that thread that had seen this. As I am definately not imagining the problem:p I was at a loss. I will double check with your comment about not stripping audio. Got a horrible feeling that I allready tred that though....

I have noticed that sometimes when I uncheck an audio stream or a subtitle from a title, it removes it from other titles as well. If I reselect it in the other titles, it is also reselected in the original one I deselected it from.

So maybe what's happening is that even though you have the transcoding rate set at 100%, an audio stream or subtitle was removed and that is what caused it to get processed again?