Tough Choices (Delusions)

[GKDaniels]

OK guys (and gals) if quality is such an issue to you, why not backup your DVD9's to two disks?

Personally, I like to fit a movie, and the extras I'm interested in, onto one disk if possible. And by possible, I mean with no more than 20% compression (using DVDSHrink 3.0-beta 5 with deep analysis - OR Pinnacles Instant Copy - both give excellent results without suffering, and I do mean suffering, through the effort of using Scenarist and the big three).
But when I can't, I resort to using (dare I say it) DVDXCopy (NOT XPRESS) - say what you want about it, its the only software I've found that lets you easily force the extras onto the second disk where they belong (lets face it, who watches the extras BEFORE the main movie?)

There are too many poor quality DVDR's out there - you simply CAN NOT SQUEEZE 9 GIG OF VIDEO ONTO DVDR WITHOUT A NOTICABLE CHANGE IN QUALITY - AND IF YOU THINK YOU CAN YOU ARE DELUDING YOURSELF. This is true no matter what software or method you use

Drop some extras, use two disks, buy retail, or live with poorer quality video - those are you only true options - life's full of tough choices - pretending you can avoid making them doesn't get you anywhere.

[Kedirekin]

Uh, okay.

My personal preference for splitting to two disks is to use DVDShrink twice. The first disk is movie only, or if possible just the menu and the movie (everything else still frames). The second disk has the movie still frames, which usually lets me keep everything else with no compression. There's more than one way to skin a cat (note: no cats were harmed in the creation of this posting).

That said, I don't aim for perfect quality on all my backups. I'm often satisfied as long as the backup is watchable; when I'm caught up in a movie, I rarely notice a few minor artifacts. So compression ratios down to 65%, and somtimes even 55% (if the movie is cooperative) are completely acceptable to me. Perhaps that's an outgrowth of doing SVCD for a couple of years.

[jdobbs]

you simply CAN NOT SQUEEZE 9 GIG OF VIDEO ONTO DVDR WITHOUT A NOTICABLE CHANGE IN QUALITY - AND IF YOU THINK YOU CAN YOU ARE DELUDING YOURSELF.
I gotta disagree with that one. I will be the first to say that reencoding anything -- even at the same or higher bitrate will result in degradation... and if you want to keep the highest quality just leave it alone. But there are plenty of instances where way too much bandwidth is used in the original -- more than is needed -- and the reencode isn't even noticable. Sometimes I think it is done just to make sure the original is dual layered and can't be copied easily.

Look at the quality you can get from CCE using VBR at extremely low bitrates (below 3Mbs avg) and you quickly realize just how good a picture can look when encoded with a quality engine.

Now, with that said, there are also DVD-9s that are already packed to the limit (long movies and episodic collections) and any amount of shrinking (however small) kills the quality.

It comes down to trying it -- and if it sucks, try something else.

[GKDaniels]

jdobbs, I will have to concede to your first point. I myself have run across two-hour black-and-whites (for example) using inexplicable amounts of band-width - so yes there are definitely exceptions to the rule.

The quality-at-less-than-3m/s statement I think falls into the delusion category - IMHO.

The fact remains that there are a lot of 3-4 hour movie rips floating around on the internet and in peoples' private collections, under the guise of single-disk DVDR - or just as bad - two hour movies with multiple sound-tracks and tons of extras.

I guess at the end of the day, I just don't understand this aversion to two-disk copies. I mean - if you are going to go to the trouble, why not opt for the higher quality - is it really that hard to get up and change the disk?

[vmesquita]

I have to disagree here. Yes, you will lose some quality but for now I haven't been able to notice the loss in my backups using the Big3 Method.
Sometimes it requires a little tweaking. I just did the Bonus disc of Indiana Jones Box, a disc containing 3 hours of hybrid content, full screen. I had to bring the resolution down to 352x480 and use CCE pulldown 2:3 detection. Because this option is only available on version 2.66, I had to create a ECL by hand, but in the end it all worked and there are no artifacts, only the picture is a little blurier because I used 352x480.
Is it worth it? Well I think it's fun to do backups. Big3 method generally gives trouble somewhere in the process, but I generally end up fixing it and learning more. The DVD-9 will always be better (more space can't be beaten, of course), but doing backups that look about like the original (for my eyes) is a lot of fun to me. I only use DVDShrink when about 10% reduction is needed.
Just my 0.02 cents. :)

[ablindog]

I know I'm probably not in the majority on this but, I keep my originals safely tucked away and dont mind pulling them out to watch extras or making of, or listening to commentaries. On my back ups I wish to go straight to the main menu and only usually keep the sceen selection for navigation. So far nearly every DVD I own,using this method, fits nicely on a single disc. I feel a lot more at ease loaning out my backups to family and friends than I ever did with the originals and they don't complain at all. Plus if one comes back damaged I just make another.
I watch my back-up on a 50" rptv and haven't found quality to be an issue at all. Plus I really get a kick outta doing this:devil:

This is fun
HR

[Imperial Zeppelin]

I'm right there with jdobbs, if you use CCE you're going to be hard pressed to figure out which is the original. My personal poster child is LOTR: TTT, original release. I CCE'd/DVDMaestro'd the movie with only a single sound track, subs and chapter points and on a 51" WS RPT I can't tell the difference between the original and the dupe.

Now I will agree that it's all about choices, but let's face it, most of the BS that comes on a disc is just that. You can lose the 3 different languages, coming attractions, director's commentary, and "The Making of The Making of..." features without any pain and increased space for the feature.

And yes, the quality of the original is always critical to the quality of the copy. My poster child here is Xena, Season 1. Here we have a DVD that's a full 8+ GBs containing 4 50-minute episodes with no special features and only a single sound track. However, when viewing the originals on my WS, it's of a quality that I would rate as "reject" if I my dupe were to look like this. On movies less than 2.25 hours I'll usually try InstantCopy or something and burn to a DVD-RW. If it passes the "visual test" I'll burn my DVD-R. If not, right to CCE, which is what I'll always use on anything greater than 2.25 hours immediately.

Finally, since many of us are making copies for our laptop computers for long trips, the car DVD player or the kids' play room, something which is a POS on a large TV is just fine for these uses. We're just protecting our originals.

Yes it's all about choices, but you can get copies that are visually & auditorally indistinguishable from the original, even on that top of the line home theatre system.

Zep

[vmesquita]

Good point, Imperial Zeppelin

Discs always contains useless stuff like languages you don't speak and you don't need. Or a 2.0 original soundtrack that is useless, since you can get 2.0 downmixing from 5.1 and every player can do that. It's also common to find trailers from other movies that don't need to be included.
And like I said, it's always fun to be creative to get more space!