Nero Recode 0.90 beta

[DVDRFreak]

Just downloaded the latest Nero version 6.

There is a transcoder in it wich allows transcoding of a disc to Harddisc or directly to CD.

It is possible to deselect audio or even complete titles.

Running a test right now to see what the quality/speed is.

Result

Encoding time: 00:45:45
Original 6.35 GB

Copy 4.36 GB

I did a full disk width a compression level of 74% for main movie and about 52% for extras (standard values that Nero recode comes widt when analysing is finished)

There is a bug that the AUDIO_TS folder is removed and the VIDEO_TS folder is in upper/lower case (e.g. VideoTS). The result is that my software player did not recognize the disk after renaming to uppercase all was fine and I could play.

Navigation:
Fast forward / Backward works fine, no hangups in powerDVD like I had with InstantCopy.

Quality:
I still should do some more testing to comparee them to DVDshrink/CCE for example.
My first impression is not bad there is some pixelation and there are some macro blocks but i did not notice yet the anoying flashing effect. Still need to see what the result is when I burn it and try to play it on my TV.
This is a first impression I want to see what happens when I only rip the movie. Or what it will do if I take a action packed movie widt a lot of high speed motion in it.

VTS sectors:
Are OK. Nero corrected them.

Layer-Breaks:
They are not removed.

Average Bitrate comparison (Bitrate viewer):
Original:
Birtate: 4871
Q level: 8.28

Copy:
Bitrate: 3754
Q level: 7.44

[SniperKilla]

yep i tested just now also, heres some screenshots for people that havent tested yet... i tested on the perfect storm, which is 8gb in size..

http://members.verizon.net/~vze4dt3c/nero/nero-options.JPG

http://members.verizon.net/~vze4dt3c/nero/nero-finished.JPG

and heres the property page for the resulting files..

http://members.verizon.net/~vze4dt3c/nero/nero-size.JPG

hit 4.36 right on the nose...

and heres a screen cap of the movie running in nvdvd

http://members.verizon.net/~vze4dt3c/nero/FTP05.jpg

all in all, nice results, for a first release...

you can remove whatever features you want, i like that, and you can replace them with a image of your choosing, so you can have like a FEATURE REMOVED image....

not bad at all tho

[Doom9]

hmm.. is it just me or does this look a lot like dvd shrink? The selection menu
DVD
- Menus
- Main movie
- Extras
is just the same, and then we have the well-known sizebar. Makes one wonder, doesn't it? (btw, I'm not meaning to say ahead stole any code, I think they're above that, but maybe someone licensed the engine and made some improvements.

[Richk50]

"hmm.. is it just me or does this look a lot like dvd shrink?"

Exactly what I was thinking. Wouldn't it be great if DVDShrink made some money out of all his hard work.

[DVDRFreak]

Same feeling over here.

Only the result is better i.m.o.
The sizing is exactly 4.36 GB and the quality is quit impressive.

Did run another test on a music video (6.5 GB compression level 67%).
Used the profiles to build a custom profile that keeps everything and sizes the DVD equally. I love the idea of profiles so I can build different ones for music/movie/episode DVD's this is realy great.

The video contains a multi angle clip that is very hard on transcoders (flashing backgrounds/macro blocks that make it unwatchable when I used DVDshrink 2.3/CloneDVD). The result from this proggie is very impressive (read almost the same result as the CCE re-encode I did). The only difference is that there are a few macro blocks but the are hardly noticable when playing the video.

The only thing that is missing is the reauthor function so I can do movie only. I can strip the menus and everything else but this will result in a DVD showing the picture I selected for stripped contents where the menu's used to be.

This proggie is impressive for a first release. I think that with a little work it could become a winner.

[valnar]

Does anyone know if the transcoding is even all the way through (ala DVD2One or DVD95Copy), or does it dig deeper into the structure like IC?

I've been waiting for an IC killer (quality-wise). Nothing else matters, not even speed.

-Robert

[quantum]

How are you supposed to remove a title? I see sniperkilla's screenshot shows extras at zero percent. I can't get my size below %47.

Hopefully this app is headed in the right direction, and can compete with the quality of IC7. I look forward to saying buh-bye to IC7 forever, not that I use it much anyway.

[SniperKilla]

i clicked on the extras folder, and clicked disable on the right, and it disabled all extras and the slider went to 0%

you can do the same for individual extras if you want to keeps some

[quantum]

Yes I did that. The extras don't go to zero. It seems to deselect the audio in the extras but otherwise the percent bar stays the same and it's not being subtracted from the overall compilation. I've tried two different disks with a bunch of different extras and it's the same thing.

[dragongodz]

well i dont like to spread rumours but i did hear that dvdshrink was flown over to have a meeting with the guys at ahead and they offered him a job.

so if any of you guys that are in contact with him would like to get him to confirm or deny that it may shed some light on it.

[DVDRFreak]

You can disable the extra's or just one title by pressing the disable button when you have selected the title or a complete tree. Tested it on a few DVD's now and it works perfectly.

You can also disable menu's in the same way if you make a custom profile (or modify the default profile) in such a way that you allow the menu's to be transcoded.

This profile option works great I made two for testing:
One that keeps everything and compresses everythin equally (for music DVD).
One that keeps all titles and just one sound track/subtitle and compresses the extra's more than the main movie (for movies)

The only thing that is missing (or I did not find it yet) is to be able to make a profile that just transcodes the main movie only.

[t1955feb]

Are your dvd's working on a standalone player, mine not....

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by t1955feb
Are your dvd's working on a standalone player, mine not....

They work if you transcode to harddisk first and then burn with the standard DVD video option in nero.

Nero re-code has a bug that it names the VIDEO_TS folder like Video_TS and forgets to create an empty AUDIO_TS folder.

I hope this will be solved in a next (final) version.

[roach76]

The 'AUDIO_TS' folder is not required for DVD Video movies. "The Matrix (PAL)" has no 'AUDIO_TS' folder.

[dragongodz]

well i have been informed that dvdshrink(the person) is working for ahead now indeed and did work on the recode module. so it is not surprising that it looks like dvdshrink(the program).

[mrbass]

Originally posted by dragongodz
well i have been informed that dvdshrink(the person) is working for ahead now indeed and did work on the recode module. so it is not surprising that it looks like dvdshrink(the program).

yep I believe it....now it all makes sense. I wonder if Nero 6 will come bundled with the new lite-on 4X DVD+R burners..hmmm.

[Fat Bast'rd]

Originally posted by DVDRFreak
You can disable the extra's or just one title by pressing the disable button when you have selected the title or a complete tree. Tested it on a few DVD's now and it works perfectly.

Strange, but it doesn't seem to show that you've pressed the 'Disable' button once you've pressed it. Oh well, there's always version 2...

[MackemX]

is this feature in the so called fully featured demo?

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by Fat Bast'rd
Strange, but it doesn't seem to show that you've pressed the 'Disable' button once you've pressed it. Oh well, there's always version 2...

It does show that you pressed it. The slider goes to 0% and the disable button becomes an enable button.

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by MackemX
is this feature in the so called fully featured demo?

Yes its is. You must install nero vision package, this includes nero recode.

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by roach76
The 'AUDIO_TS' folder is not required for DVD Video movies. "The Matrix (PAL)" has no 'AUDIO_TS' folder.

It is requiered according to the original DVD specifications. Some standalone players will not play the DVD (mostly older ones) if the AUDIO_TS folder is not on the DVD.

[Fat Bast'rd]

Originally posted by DVDRFreak
It does show that you pressed it. The slider goes to 0% and the disable button becomes an enable button.

Ah no. I've just done my first transcode, and it doens't appear to have remove the chosen video streams, which might explain why I'm not getting what you're getting....

To be sure, you select which stream (or branch, let's say all the extras) and simply press 'Disable'? The button then turns into an 'Enable' button and the slider goes to 0%?

If that's the case, then the disable button isn't working for me.

[Fat Bast'rd]

S'ppose I should point out I am working off an ISO image on my hard drive thru Daemon. Did an 'Import DVD'.


(BTW, what's happened to www.daemon-tools.com lately. It's gone off-air).

[DVDRFreak]

How I did it:

Used DVD Decrypter 3.1.6.0 in ISO mode to build an ISO image (all protections removed).
Used Daemon tools 3.33 to mount the image.

Then I start Nero recode and select the profile I want to use.
Hit the import button.

Now I can deselect the branches/titles I want by just pressing the disable button. The branch/title compression slider(for example extra) is set to 0% and the button becomes an enable button. All other branches are updated automaticly so the disc will be fully used.

[Fat Bast'rd]

Originally posted by DVDRFreak
How I did it:

Used DVD Decrypter 3.1.6.0 in ISO mode to build an ISO image (all protections removed).
Used Daemon tools 3.33 to mount the image.

Then I start Nero recode and select the profile I want to use.
Hit the import button.


Sounds 100% identical to me. Hmmm.... (though running Daemon 3.23). Would it be too much to ask to send 3.33 to me thru email? Address is in my profile?

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by Fat Bast'rd
Sounds 100% identical to me. Hmmm.... (though running Daemon 3.23). Would it be too much to ask to send 3.33 to me thru email? Address is in my profile?


It is freeware so you can download it for free at:
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/

[DVDRFreak]

I just watch my transcoded music DVD I mentioned earlier and I'am impressed with the quality. My CCE version had some navigation problems and I was looking for a tool that could do it all by itself with comparable quality.

Instantcopy I did try but this resulted also in strange lockups on my PC (PowerDVD fastforward) and also on my standalone DVD player.
DVDshrink caused the mult angle part to become macroblocked beyond recognition.

But this little proggie did it. Quality is pretty amazing (read damm good). The CCE quality is better for sure (no macro blocks) but it is to much a hasle to get all menu items to work properly. specially with a music DVD with tons of extra's and VTS's.

The complete DVD works without any problem. The few macroblocks that I see on my PC I did not notice at all while watching on my 32" widescreen (when I freez the picture I can find them but while playing I do not see them, go figure).

I just uninstalled all other transcoders and think I will stick with this one for my Music DVD's.

[luphy]

Wow, so the author of Shrink is working for Nero now?
I am assuming he/she won't be working on DVDShrink any longer?

Another question: can the Nero DVD encode/transcode engine
be used with older versions of Nero? Is it a feature that
can be used under the Extras like Nero's AAC/MP3Pro/MP3 encoders?
I wonder if you can buy just this DVD encode as an add-on?

Seems this Nero transcoder has a very flexible compression feature?
Can you select at 1% increments? Too bad layer breaks are not
removed. Oh, and does Nero have a built-in decrypter or you have
to use a third-party decrypter?
I think I'll wait until they implement the reauthor option (hopefully)
as I don't like to make backups with menus or extras and sometimes
like to cut off parts of the beginnings and endings to decrease the
amount of compression needed.

If the quality is as good as some of you are indicating, and if
they add reauthoring options and the ability to make full backups
over 2 DVD discs and remove layer breaks, this Nero 6 could very
easily corner the market for the general population!

[DVDRFreak]

It is part of the nero vision package. Maybe it can be installed besides older versions of nero if it does not use Nero 6 specific calls to the burning engine.

But I think it is asking for problems to try this because it is adviced (I read somewhere) that you uninstall all older version before installing the 6 version.

Nero recode is in a seperate folder in the nero folder. It is an exe wifth two DLL's.

[Fat Bast'rd]

Maybe it's too early to start making requests (though since Nero is a commercial product, I'm not going to get told off this time), but real men love constructive criticism anyway, so here goes...

(In no particular order):

- add auto de-select of all subtitles on menus to the profiles (bizarrely enough, several discs have subtitle streams for the menus, but no subtitles themselves - yet somehow they take up space - check LOTR)

- bug fix: priorities seem not to take effect (I'm running XP Pro)

- Add 'Idle' to the list of priorites

- the ability to trim the start & ends of streams (some main movies have 60 secs. of studio logos that I could do without; equally the ends of some movies can also have silly production logos)

- I'm intrigued as to how the compression percentages are worked out. Ignoring extras, on LOTR the menus are at 33% with the main movie at 66%. Can I not squash the menus even further...?

- Disable menu buttons that refer to de-selected video streams. (Alright, I can do this with MenuEdit, but it would be nice to have it done automatically in one package, besides which MenuEdit isn't exactly written too well)

- Still Mode came in useful in DVDShrink. Why not keep it in?

- Bug fix: 'Keep additional copy on hard drive' should be greyed out when the destination is the hard drive.

- Bug FIx: Compile Time doesn't stop when the pause button is pressed

- Different levels of compression for different parts of a stream (so that start & end credits can be coded either in still mode, or extremely low quality/high compression ratio - when some end credits can last 10-15 minutes, this is important)

- Lastly (and none too important, I guess) transcode the audio. Some movies which are mainly talkies, can have DD5.1 encoded @ 448kbps, which could easily go down to 224kbps without any audible loss, thus saving further space. I do notice there appears to be something in the pipeline for this kind of thing in the profiles section

- One very radical suggestion (and I'm not saying this is easy), is to have some kind of OCR on the credits, so that they could be transformed into subtitles and played back over black video, yet take up not even a mere 1Mb - How's that for the ultimate space-saver? Have you cake & eat it!

(Alright, the last one isn't exactly going to be easy, and would probably require more research than it's worth, but at least the idea is out in the open, and you never know, someone might take it up).



Apologies if Mr. Shrink goes to work on Monday morning after releasing this on Friday, and finds all these requests for new features, but that's how popular his stuff is because he's so good at it. This is all positive criticism.

[Erik_Osterholm]

Originally posted by luphy
If the quality is as good as some of you are indicating, and if
they add reauthoring options and the ability to make full backups
over 2 DVD discs and remove layer breaks, this Nero 6 could very
easily corner the market for the general population! [/B]

What exactly are layer breaks? Pauses where layers change on the disc? Why is this even transferred when you make the ISO image?

[mpucoder]

@fat - of course you can complain/comment/request/beg about commercial products all you want. I'm not sure anyone from Nero reads this, but...

@erik - layer breaks are one of those misnomers (an inaccurate name) that has grown out of IfoEdit identifying clock discontinuities as possible layer breaks, as an aid to splitting a DVD.
A clock discontinuity is when the system clock reference (SCR), a running value used for synchronization, has been interrupted. Most usually it has been set back to zero because the 2 pieces of video were encoded seperately. The last "phantom" chapter of many movies is an example of this. It also occurs during a layer break sometimes, which is where it got its name. Playback is not seamless over a discontinuity in a lot of players, causing a pause. If the SCR has been replaced with a new continously inceasing value, the marks can be removed.

The true layer break code, six or more sectors of all zero bytes, is removed by the DVD reader, and never seen by PC software.

[Erik_Osterholm]

@mpucoder:
Thanks so much for the explanation! I'm trying to learn more about the DVD structure and what things mean, and that one really confused me. This all has quite the learning curve.

On another note, Nero Recode is really a spiffy piece of software. I wonder if DVDShrink is going to include some of the more advanced features, or if part of the contract with Ahead will preclude this. Having the ability to remove only certain streams while keeping the overall structure of the DVD and compressing all in one tool is very nice. Actually I'll probably pick up a license for Nero 6, but it kinda looked like even the download+upgrade license key was going to be a fair amount of money.

[sdionne]

did someone compare the quality vs InstantCopy and DVDXCopy ?

I tried DVDShrink, but the results are desappointing.. lot of macro block. and If Recode use DVDShrink... I dought the result will be better.

I'm trying to rip an anime.. and whin DVDShrink,CloneDVD lot of macro block. with Instant copy it's fine. DVDXcopy the quality is acceptable. CCE.. amazing :)

[daddy_fizz]

thanks for all the info, dl'ing this right now and am going to check it out, sounds sweet :D

~Fizz

[Fat Bast'rd]

[i]I tried DVDShrink, but the results are desappointing.. lot of macro block. and If Recode use DVDShrink... [/B]


Ah, but wot version? Anything below V2.0 had a different (ie; worse) compression algorithm.

[Fat Bast'rd]

P4 3.0C@3.5Ghz

Go easy on the over-clocking Paps. Is there really any point at this level???

[quantum]

To be sure, you select which stream (or branch, let's say all the extras) and simply press 'Disable'? The button then turns into an 'Enable' button and the slider goes to 0%?

If that's the case, then the disable button isn't working for me.Not working for me either, as indicated earlier in the thread. My first peek at the video quality and I think it falls somewhere in the range of the other transcoders and not up to the quality of IC7, so I'm not too worried about using it yet. The user interface looks promising, so if they could ever get it up to at least IC7 quality, it would be a winner for me.

[sync]

did someone compare the quality vs InstantCopy and DVDXCopy
I don't think DVDXCopy does any recoding at all.

Anyone have any thoughts on why disabling works for some people and not others? I can't get it to work.

With Nero Recode I got occasional clicking sounds in the audio.

[snidely]

Used DVD Decrypter 3.1.6.0 in ISO mode to build an ISO image (all protections removed).
Used Daemon tools 3.33 to mount the image.

So that's the only way to import a ripped DVD? Is there any way to rip the DVD in files mode and then import into Recode? I tried switching to "DVD Data Files" and then adding all the files from the ripped folder, but that didn't work. What did I miss?

[insertdisk]

For everyone who is having trouble with the disable button, make sure you have removed the check from the box which says "fit to disc" - then you should have total control of the slider.

[snidely]

For everyone who is having trouble with the disable button, make sure you have removed the check from the box which says "fit to disc" - then you should have total control of the slider.

Did that - no luck. The "Disable" button never changes to "Enable", though I do have control of the slider. BTW, I am using Win XP SP1.

[hammer42]

In order for the disable button to work you must click the more button, then configure, and then select a still to use for disabled video. There is a default one you can select, which results in the extras being decreased to something around 3 megs a minute, but if you make say a black jpeg you can get it down to about 700k a minute.

Hammer

[quantum]

Ahaaaa. So that's the little detail that was left out. I see that disabling does not really remove the title, but like dvdshrink, just reduces it. A disk I just experimented with had 1.8 gigs of extras. Hitting disable still left 270 megs in the title set.

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by snidely
So that's the only way to import a ripped DVD? Is there any way to rip the DVD in files mode and then import into Recode? I tried switching to "DVD Data Files" and then adding all the files from the ripped folder, but that didn't work. What did I miss?

You can import from Harddisk. Press the import button and select harddisk as import source from the dropdown list.
Then choose the folder where the files are located.

[snidely]

Ahh, so there are the missing pieces! Thanks Hammer and DVDRFreak!

[KYUSS]

Sorry for this noob post but how do i get this to work?

i tried clicking on the .exe in the recode folder and it said "your current license doesn't allow you to open this"

is that because i upgraded from 5.5?

thanks in adavance

KYUSS

[DVDRFreak]

Originally posted by KYUSS
Sorry for this noob post but how do i get this to work?

i tried clicking on the .exe in the recode folder and it said "your current license doesn't allow you to open this"

is that because i upgraded from 5.5?

thanks in adavance

KYUSS

Did you uninstall Nero 5.5 or upgrade.
I have read somewhere that you should uninstall all nero software (version 5.5 and lower) before installing the new version.

[Fat Bast'rd]

Originally posted by DVDRFreak
Did you uninstall Nero 5.5 or upgrade.
I have read somewhere that you should uninstall all nero software (version 5.5 and lower) before installing the new version.

I only installed the 2nd package to get Recode. That seems to sit happily with old Nero.

[Fat Bast'rd]

Originally posted by quantum
A disk I just experimented with had 1.8 gigs of extras. Hitting disable still left 270 megs in the title set.

In your case, it might be okay if you just try deleting the associated VOB files. This sometimes work, and might liberate the final 270Mb.
(You often need to edit VIDEO_TS.IFO to reduce the number of VTS titles in a couple of places - VMGM_MAT and VMG_VTS_ATRT).

If this still doens't work, try replacing the VOB's with mini blank ones.