Is this a good starting point?

[bit-wise]

My number one priority is video and audio quality, therefore I have always done a movie only, no menu, and no subtitles backup using DVD Decryptor and IFOEdit.

Thus far, if the resulting files were over the 4.7-something limit, I have used DVD Shrink to transcode the video stream (and remove credits if they fall outside a chapter boundary).

Me being picky, I am really eager to try CCE. I've read all the guides I can find and most of them try to cover all aspects (subs, menus, trailers) of a backup using CCE.

My question is this. For a first time attempt at CCE, am I introducing more complexities for myself by first stripping all the unwanted audio and all subs from a movie using IFOEdit, and then demuxing the video to feed into CCE. It seems there are a lot of tools (Reauthorist, DoCCE4u) that may remove some of the complexity (such as how much to shrink the video stream). But they may not work if I have the raw VOB files on my HD instead of an ISO image.

Ideas?

Oh, and I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this. Yes, I did search the forums but didn't find anything on the subject. So don't flame me if I didn't enter the correct search criteria...

[syzygytec]

My number one priority is video and audio quality, therefore I have always done a movie only, no menu, and no subtitles backup using DVD Decryptor and IFOEdit.

Sounds like you've been making life hard on yourself if thats your goal. I'd like to invite you to try my D2SDVD2DVDRoBa tutoial. Please click my siggie and give it ago, I'd be glad to help you in anyway, but your no newbie so it should be a breeze to follow. Let me your results should you try.

[bit-wise]

Thanks, I will give it a go today/tomorrow and let you know how things go.

Quick question. I'm working with the trial version of CCE (2.6) whereas your guide was working with CCE 2.5. Will the registry settings be the same (or at least similar?)

[bit-wise]

A quick question on restarting. My power went out during the CCE encoding process. Is it possible to restart by selecting the VOB files in the /movie directory (the ripped ones), or do I need to completely start over by re-riping the files from the DVD?

So far, the guide/tools seem to make this painful task (for a first timer) a very hands-off process!

Thanks.

[windtrader]

You can restart the dvd2dvd process by using the recover feature under the misc tab. Click the recover button, select the crash recovery file, open the drop down and select the step where you want to restart. Works well. :-)

Make sure to have the "Don't delete any files" box checked so all the files needed to restart are available.

[bit-wise]

Thanks for the recovery tip. However, when I attempt a recover DVD2SVCD somehow opens 2 instances of CCE and they lock each other out (file in use error) after the transcoding process. No issue, I decided to ISO my movie so I can restart faster.

I have my first two questions...

The first is about using the FACAR Detect Borders. Following the directions, I open the preview pane, find a frame that has enough light area that the detection algorithm finds the edges, switch back to DVD2SVCD and change the Frameserver method back to FACAR, which imports my settings. When I switch back to FACAR in DVD2SVCD, the image in the preview pane instantly shrinks on all sides (so now I get black borders on the left and right of the frame, as well as the top and bottom compressing). These borders appear in the resulting mpeg file.

The second question is about the mpeg file and audio. I noticed the mpeg file had the entire audio track embedded in it. When we author the movie, does the authoring program ignore the audio in the mpeg file and use the AC3 stream that was produced earlier?

bit-wise

[windtrader]

Look at your dvd2svcd_log and the Overscan value. Yours is probably set to 5. This is how it came by default. I manually changed this to do no overscan which does not shrink the image. I am pretty sure it is in the AVISYNTH.INI file in the DVD2SVCD directory. ---AVS Begin--- OverscanH=0.00 OverscanV=0.00 BlockOptimization=0 AsoTV=1

The audio that is embedded in the final output is that which you select in the conversion tab of DVD2DVD. If you select the AC3 track, that is what you will get. I've found you can have two audio tracks as the max.

[bit-wise]

@windtrader
That seemed to do the trick, the overscan values were set to 0.04, and setting them to 0 removed the resizing.

@syzygytec

*edit* Following your sig does not work but linking to http://www.geocities.com/syzygydvd/ works fine. And I, being a ninny, had attempted to import the wrong mpv file.

It appears that your guide went off-line? I'm getting a page not found error when I follow the link. I had not printed the section on authoring the new DVD. I attempted to go it alone with DVD Lab, but am getting a 24.93 FPS error, so there may be some configuration I have not done within DVD Lab yet. (It claims it needs to be converted to 29.9 FPS, which is what I would have expected the CCE output to be in the first place)

[bit-wise]

Actually, I stand corrected in the sizing issue. I no longer chops vertically, but still shrinks the video stream horizontally. I've included a snippet from the log file. Any ideas what might have caused this?

Other than the resizing, I've been able to go all the way to a -RW DVD with everything working fine on a stand-alone player. Thanks for your help thusfar.

Executing Cinema Craft Encoder.
StreamSectors: 4682829788
AudioSectors: 376097568
VideoPAPO: 66713580
ScanOffsetBytes: 238061
SeqAligningBytes: 15130067
DVDBytes: 0
VideoEndHeader: 4
SubtitleSectors: 0
EmptySectors: 238.00
PictureSectors: 0.00
PureMPEGStream: 4224650508.17
Seconds: 6626.41
CalcMPEGStream: 4224650508.17
Frames: 158707
CDSize: 4480.00
Number of CDs: 1
Cut point 4476.00
Variable Settings:
Frames: 158707
Anti Noise Filter: Off
Passes: 4
Image Quality: 17
VAF file creation: On
Video Encoding Mode: One Pass VBR
Q. Factor: 6
Min. bitrate: 0
Max. bitrate: 5100
Aspect Ratio:

---AVS Begin---
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\DVD2SVCD\AVISYN~1.5PL\Mpeg2dec\MPEG2D~1.DLL")
mpeg2source("C:\PROGRA~1\DVD2SVCD\Movie\DVD2AV~2.D2V")
ResizeTo=7 global ResizeMethod=2 DebugMode=0
GammaCorrection=1.0 Hue=0 Saturation=1.0 Brightness=0 Contrast=1.0
DetectedTop=6 DetectedHeight=464
OverscanH=0.0 OverscanV=0.0 BlockOptimization=0 AsoTV=1
global Bicubic_b_Value=0 global Bicubic_c_Value=0.6
DestinationWidth=720
DestinationHeight=360
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\SimpleResize\SimpleResize.dll")
# Import("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\qmf15b1.avs")
# Import("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\QMF_functions.avs")
# Import("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\PreResize.avs")
Import("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\FACAR.avs")
# Import("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\PostResize.avs")
Import("C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Movie\ResampleAudio.avs")
ResampleAudio(44100)
ConvertToYUY2()

[windtrader]

DestinationHeight=360

I think this should be 480. You need to poke around and find where TargetWidth is set. I forgot where it's set. In the frameserver tab, is your "resize to" set to DVD (720x480/576)'

Maybe this is it in avisynth.ini; avisynth_facar section.

5=DestinationWidth=^TargetWidth
^DetectedHeight=480

[bit-wise]

Oddly enough, I tried a whole bunch more test runs of a single chapter, and they all came out fine. The AVISYNTH.INI file had the correct Height value (464 for this movie), and the file was modified and timestamped during each run. I then ran the entire movie, and it too came out great.

I'm not sure what caused the first two to fail, but I plan to try some additional movies at different aspect ratios to see if I can reproduce my user error.

Thanks for your help!