Instant Copy trick discovered??

[louthewiz]

I was trying to make 2 copies of a back up for myself and I noticed that instant copy processing time is cut by 50 percent with the same good results as if I was doing only 1 copy.Was this a fluke? Or was it a great discovery I found within the program and all I did was select the number of copies from 1 to 2 hmmmmmm....:D

[writersblock29]

Not really...

When you first process a movie, and InstantCopy does its little five-pass information gathering, it saves that information. This can be either usefull OR a pain-in-the-butt. Usefull, if you're making multiple copies of a project. A pain, if you tried to do it once... but something didn't work out right, and you want to change it. I don't know about other users out there, but my version will always do everything EXACTLY the same for the same movie. Let's say I run a trial, and my final project is waaay too undersized for my liking. To run it again with a higher resize setting -- even if I set it for 100% -- it's going to give me identically the same file size (with the same quality) as it did the very first time I ran it. So, it seems, it's another give-or-take feature that certainly has its uses... right along with a few headaches. Like a wife!

[Grover]

Let's say I run a trial, and my final project is waaay too undersized for my liking. To run it again with a higher resize setting -- even if I set it for 100% -- it's going to give me identically the same file size (with the same quality) as it did the very first time I ran it. Can't you just delete the "data" file that IC creates during its 5 pass setting and start over from scratch ? Ican;t check it now but I'm fairly works from past experience. You have to go digging into the MultiCopy folder but it's fairly easy to find. Then delete it and re-start IC, adjust to your NEW settings and it will do another "testing video quality 5 pass" thingy.

Cheers...

[MackemX]

Originally posted by writersblock29
Let's say I run a trial, and my final project is waaay too undersized for my liking. To run it again with a higher resize setting -- even if I set it for 100% -- it's going to give me identically the same file size (with the same quality) as it did the very first time I ran it sounds like another RTP

reason why here (http://www.deano.dsl.pipex.com/backup/sizing.htm)

[writersblock29]

@MackemX

Well... yes, and no. It's interesting that you use the movie "Road to Perdition" as your example, because this is the same title that I had trouble with once -- and it fits within the context of this discussion. The first time I tried this title, I first ran it through IFOedit to create a movie-only project to start with. After zipping it through InstantCopy, I was aggravated when I discovered that my project came out as 3.2 Gigs; after all, I created a movie-only project to PRESERVE space for better image quality! I ran it again, oversizing to 99% (I think... this was awhile ago), and -- even though it didn't take as long to process the second time through -- I got the same result. DOH!

It was later -- after having to reformat my hard drive because of picking up a virus -- that I tried it again, with a newly-installed InstantCopy. Remembering my past failure, I oversized the bejesus out of it (again using IFOedit for movie-only). The result this time was 4.32 Gigs, and that's the version that I settled with.

I beleive that what InstantCopy did, was save the information the first time I ran RTP. That's why it would give me the same results every Jack time I tried it. After reformating my drive (and, thus, removing all traces of the prior installation of IC), I was able to start fresh again.

I've heard about what Grover mentioned (thanks, Grover!), but I'm always leary about deleting files within programs. Does this actually work? Or does it solve one problem, while creating others?

[MackemX]

I ain't gonna reinstall, but I may just flush my system of IC and try again sometime

I'm sure I deleted the discdata files as I remember it analyzing the DVD again, but that obviously ain't enough

[Scarpad]

I've done the same movie more than once to resize and I am getting different file sizes in the results, what am I doing differently.

[writersblock29]

@Scarpad

Hard saying. Do you use InstantCopy to strip stuff out? Maybe keep something the second time through that you stripped the first time... or vice versa? Unless I'm doing episode disks, I don't use IC to strip anything from my projects, opting instead to use IFOedit for a movie-only "starting point" for IC.

Also, do you delete the diskdata files before starting over? I don't, since I've never wanted to chance deleting something important by accident. On the other hand, perhaps my solution lies with doing this.

Either way (getting back to louthewiz's discovery) it can shorten the processing time for multiple projects. I'm not sure if Pinnacle meant it that way or not (why else would IC save information about a project?), but it does.

[Scarpad]

I don't delete the data files, and I don't strip anything out. In most cases I do the exact same sizing again , this time I just bump up the the movies destination size