Dir Annother Day - Resolution Change

[Ash]

Before CCE - 720x480 (verified VOB with Birate Viewer)
After CCE - 720x576 (verified MPV with Birate Viewer)

I basically use Trilight's method and what's weird is I've backed up at least 50 movies and this has never happened. Here are my basic steps:

Rip with Smartripper as backup
Use DVD2AVI/Force Film/Demux all Audio
Use VFAPIConv to convert from index to virtual AVI
Input AVI to CCE 6.62/DVD complient/No audio/Multipass VBR
*this is where resolution changes to 720x576*
Use Pulldown to prepare file for Maestro
Use ChapterXTracter to get chapters
Import to Maestro M2V and ac3, add chapters
and so on

I have tried using the index that DVD2AVI makes OR the one from Smartripper amd then CCE. BOTH times, after CCE the resolution is changed to 720x576!! I checked with Bitrate viewer the VOB or demuxed m2v and they are ok - 720x480, but AFTER CCE it changes to 720x576. I don't get this. I tried editing the m2v with DVDPatcher to force it to 720x480 but that just messes it up to not playback right on a settop player. Ideas please? This is very weird.

Ash

[adam]

Read your CCE manual. Your problem is that you are using the DVD compliant option. All this does is resize the resolution to match the fps. The manual says that if its 29.97fps it automatically resizes your res to 720x480, and if its 25fps it resizes to 720x576. That's all it says, so my guess is that it basically treats 24fps (23.976fps) like 25 and resizes to PAL compliant resolution. When backing up a DVD there is no reason to use the DVD compliant option in CCE, your resolution should already be correct. I don't know why you didn't have problems in your previous encodes, but skip this setting nonetheless.

Just a suggestion, you are losing lots of speed, and possibly some quality, by frameserving through vfapi. Give Avisynth a try instead, it can increase encoding speed by up to 30% (at least on my pc) by skipping the YUV->RGB conversion that you have to do when frameserving through VFAPI.

If you are not familiar with avisynth scripting then use DoItFast4u. It will do all of the cumbersome demuxing, dvd2avi'ing, subtitle ripping, avisynth script writing, etc.. and leave you ready to encode. Simply drop the AVS files into CCE or use DoCCE4u for even more automation.

[brw]

23.976 fps is treated as NTSC not PAL, but I've once had CCE use the wrong framerate. I couldn't recreate it though since reloading the file into CCE fixed the problem.