DV: CBR vs VBR

[GParent]

I have studied as much as I could and I still have questions. I have a small (60 minute) DV-NTSC video and its non action, low light, indoors, jazz group video. So far, I have not seen any noticeable differences experimenting with CBR vs VBR, using CCE 2.67.00.10. I even tried 2 pass CBR, just out of curiousity.

All of my CCE experiments have used Quantizer set to 15 or 16.

My CBR tries were set to 8000.

My VBR tries were MIN=0, AVG=7500, MAX=9800.


What would be recommened to play with other settings?

Should I try Quantizer set to 25? How about 40?

What will that give me if I try it and what causes this macro blocks to happen?


Lastly, what is the best advice if I want to encode a DVD that will play on the most number of DVD player if it is commercially pressed?

Thanks,

GParent

[digitalman]

You should try and keep the minimum bitrate to 300kbps. I guess some players have issues with reading bitrates of zero. VBR is the best way to go. CBR wastes a lot space because of the constant high bitrate that is needed for a good picture. A low bitrate CBR encode looks horrible. Also do not set your max to 9800 unless you are including the audio in your encode. The total max bitrate of 9800 for DVD players should be audio plus video combined. All movies need to have a frame rate or 29.97 NTSC or 25 PAL. You can use a program called Pulldown to change this without reencoding if your video is not one of these standards. Most DVD players handle all resolutions okay so that should not be a problem. Audio needs to be at 48khz. I tested this myself and anything other than that did not work.
The PDF that is included with CCE gives you a good idea of where you should keep your settings. 25 is a good setting for Quantizer.
Not all settings are correct for all videos. You may want to get more video on your DVD than 2 hours, so your settings could change. Also some movies have considerably more action than others, so again different settings are needed for the perfect encode. Considering the amount of settings that are available in CCE and AviSynth(another huge subject altogether), you could spend hours and days finding what works for you. I guess that is why some people call this a hobby.

[GParent]

How about this:

MIN=500
AVG=6500
MAX=8000
QUANTIZER=25
DCT=9
DVD COMPLIANT=OFF (UNCHECKED)


Is it true that the DVD standard recommends that MIN should be 2000, and no lower?

[RB]

Sounds good. But I would raise Quantizer to 35 at such a high bitrate.

AFAIK, the DVD standard does not define a minimum bitrate. I usually always set it to 1000.