Need to shave 91Mb off the size of a DVD

[Mishel]

I have a DVD immage that I have stripped down to its bare minimum... movie only but its just 91Meg too big and I have already removed all the titles so my only option is to re-encode a section... I hate to lower the quality but its better than splitting it over two DVD-R's.

I have tried CCE but the audio wont quite go back into perfect synk.

With all the new software that is around (its a job to keep up with all the options) what are my best options for such a small reduction in overall size bearing in mind that the file is on the HDD.

[oddyseus]

if u don't mind losing the end part of the credits, u can cut 2 or 3 mins of them and it would fit just nicely.

[Mishel]

Titles and credits are already off... just the movie is left.

[coona]

You can also transcode menu (I don´t know how big your menu is) with DVD95copy or tools like it.

Just an idea ;).

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51202

[Mishel]

No menu... to reduce size the DVD starts with the movie.

What I really want to know is... remembering that the VOB files are on the HDD I also have them demuxed to the consituate scenes as mini vob's and also to seperate AC3 and mpeg.

Now which is my best option for re-encoding to shave off the 91Meg (note that I have problems with CCE loss of synk when re-combining.

[coona]

I always use CCE so my recommendition couldn´t be else :). To avoid audio sync problem you should be sure that:

1) you don´t encode audio in CCE
2) you perform pulldown (as I guess you´re NTSC person :)).

You can of course use TMPGEnc but I have never used it so I can help in this way :(.

[Mishel]

This particular DVD is a PAL version I wonder if that is why I am having synk problems...

I have compaired CCE and TMPGEnc and personally prefer CCE for quality but I have never been able to get a perfect re-synk after recompression. TMPGEnc synks up ok but you can spot the re-encode section, which you cant with CCE well if I could synk the audio you wouldnt...

Normally if I need to recompress I have a Sigma DVR card that knocks the spots off CCE and TMPGEnc but that requires the original stream to come in via SVHS cable and my other PC's arent available at the moment to stream it from file (cant do it from my original DVD as I wanted to use my edited file without the titles, trailers and menue) hence I thought I would give it a go from one of the software encoders.

I must admit I would like to sort my problems with CCE but after trying all the various guides and help sites I still cant get the audio back into synk :-( it really bugs me and it must be something simple of a conflict with someting else on the PC's (W2000 Pro).

By the way I like Prague I spent some quality time there with the oter half a couple of years ago.

[benf2]

one more thing u might try is too use one of the 1 click tools on the movie you have compiled. You shouldnt notice too much difference in quality for only shaving 91mbs off it. I ran into the same prob last week and this solution worked just fine.


Other choice is to rencode the ac3 to a lower bitrate. 1 step lower should shave the 91mbs depending on the length of the movie.

[Mishel]

Thats what I'm after..... Which one ???

If I rencode the ac3 to a lower bitrate would I still get surroud sound or would that convert it to boring stereo.

[benf2]

i think i did dvd2one for it cause dvdshrink was taking off too much.

[benf2]

u can download for free from doom ac3 machine...i use ... real easy.. just choose a lower bitrate and choose 5.1 from the drop down arrow and u will have a new ac3 5.1 file.

[Mishel]

Must admit that I have never tried that one... I will buz off for a while and have a read.

Thanks for the pointers. PC is now stripping off the AC3 to see what I can do with that. Any recomendation for a good audio resampler as I have never bothered to resample the audio before but in this case as you suggest it may just do the job and its such a great film I would hate to spoil the picture quality.

[benf2]

download ac3 machine and u can use this guide as help...if u have a separte subwolfer make sure u ck the box lfe to lfe and NOT lfe to main http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/ac3machine.htm

[Mishel]

Audio demuxed at 404Meg off I go to download :-}

[coona]

You can also try BeSweet. It is command line utility (you can download GUI) and it is very straightforward :).

I´m glad to hear such fine words about Prague :). How is in Tampa?? Are you hockey fan??

[Mishel]

Down sampling complete...

Demuxed file was 404Meg new file still 5.1 is only 202Meg.

Starting to get excited now I will have a quick scan through the new movie b4 I burn it. The kids have been waiting weeks for me to let them have this one to put in their PS2. They dont seem to understand why I dont like sticky fingers on my originals or to find them amongst a heap of discs on the windowcill.

wil let you know how it goes.

[benf2]

@coona

I am not to far from Tampa, its nice here..Not bit on Hockey..But our football team did manage to win the SuperBowl :)

[coona]

Congratulation Buccaneer :).

[Mishel]

Now I'm stumped....

I use VobEdit to demux VOB files and am well versed in working with the video side but have never used it to work on the audio side.

Question. How do I use VobEdit to put my downsampled audio back into the VOB files. Its easy with the video what am I missing ??

[benf2]

what authoring program do u use?

[Mishel]

DVD Maestro... yea I could do it in there but I presumed that you could put it back in VobEdit simply like you would with demuxed m2v files rather than reautor in Maestro.

[coona]

I don´t know how to do it in VobEdit but you can do such "authoring" in Ifoedit. Here is the guide:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/ifoedit-dvdauthor.htm

It should be easy :).

[mic]

It appears you have your prob solved Mishel, but wanted to post another possible route if you or anyone else runs into this sort of thing in the future and reducing audio bitrate doesn't help.

Just finished one proj, where I used Sonic Foundry's Vegas to time compress a non critical part of the movie (at the ending) and merged the re-encoded material with the cut original. Same thing they do on TV all the time to make room for commercials, & if not done to excess, can't tell. Also good for those who keep the credits - just speed those up a bit.

[Mishel]

Thats it......... :-}

Several days of experimenting... LOTS of help from the forum... result...

It worked both ways to recombine the audio using either DVD Maestro or IfoEdit. I must say that the IfoEdit is MUTCH easier.

Die Another Day movie only, original quality, 5.1 audio re-sampled at 224 bps, no menue, no credits and 108Meg to spare on one DVD-R.

Just so that the kids can play the movie on their PS2 when they want without mucking up my original. Sometimes I wonder if its worth the effort but then I enjoy the challenge. The original will probably now sit in the book case and gather dust as I have an awful habit of backing my collection up and then dont even bother to watch them, too bussy backing up my next birthday/Christmas pressy.

Thanks for all your help and advice guys.

[Mishel]

Did you use Vegas 3 or 4. I like that proggy. Must admit I had not thought of doing it that way I will bear that in mind for future projects.

[mic]

I use Vegas 4 -> great prog. for a lot of video stuff, but it has a few weaknesses like everything else.

On the plus side you can handle 5.1 audio, even create a fake 5.1 mix off of a stereo track that sounds pretty impressive. It handles audio in general better then most anything I've tried, & it does stretching without any noticable pitch change in realtime. Most of the standard stuff like fades are very fast and don't require any hardware or pre-renders. It has a subsampling option that can help some times. It includes some nice color correction. And in general it's extremely easy to use, very intuitive compared to Prem IMO.

On the down side, it takes a plug in or their DVDA installed to do AC3 in Vegas - otherwise renders 5.1 wmv or 6 mono files. Any time Vegas has to resample the video, even a simple resize, the program crawls... much better to do that sort of thing elsewhere like in VirtualDub as even figuring in the added render you'll still save a ton of time. It doesn't handle text as well as some others, tending towards alliased text in the finished project. For stills you're limited to jpg or png. And their Mainconcept mpg2 encoder, while it does a great job having been reworked for Vegas, can cause problems in windows if you've got other mpg2 codecs installed. The biggest down may be in the future as Sony just bought the product line from Sonic Foundry, and I wonder if they're going to continue marketing or updating it.