Filesize problem with Nero Recode 2

[Famulus]

Hi
I followed your tutorial on Recode 2 but I'm having problems with the file size:
The menues need 117MB and the Main Movie 3775 MB. I removed the extras which were 563 MB. My problem now is, that the main movie keeps the size after deleting the extras. This means that the size of my DVD will be less than 4000MB but with not very good quality. How can I use the remaining ~400MB? I can not adjust the main movie quality (or I can only increase but not decrease the compression).

But at the bottom the blue bar is right next to 4400MB which would be good. What's the problem? Is the File Size (and compression) not updated but will be OK if I burn the movie or am I doing something wrong?

Thx in advance and please excuse my English, I'm not a native speaker

[Kedirekin]

Um, at a glance it looks like the original disk is a DVD5 (117+3775+563<4482). You don't need to compress it at all.

I recommend bypassing recode altogether. Use DVDDecrypter to rip to an ISO, then use DVDDecrypter to burn the ISO.

[spuddog]

I've noticed that the size of the file in the selection screen does not always ths same as the amount of space on the disc(blue Bar at bottom)
If the compressiom says 100% thats as good as it gets

I hope to see more discussion of rscode 2 as dvdshink people convert

[Famulus]

@Kedirekin
No, it's not a DVD-5. Windows Explorer's properties tells me it's 7.86 GB... I really don't know what to do anymore!

Thx

[Kedirekin]

I'm an avid DVDShrink user, but I'm not too familiar with Recode.

I've looked at the guide. You replaced the extras with a custom picture or color I assume. Did you by any chance uncheck the Fit to Target check box, or lock the ratios on any titles? If Fit to Targets is checked and no ratios are locked, I would expect Recode to adjust the automatic compression ratios on the remaining titles and menus.

If Recode isn't changing the automatic ratios when you disable the extras, does the overall size bar change at all. I would expect proper behavior should be that ratios change and the size bar not change (or not change much).

If recode isn't changeing the ratio, what happens if you lock the ratio and change it yourself (or do you have to change the ratio before you lock it)? You said you couldn't increase them, only decrease them - could you explain that a little more? What do you mean when you say you can't increase them? Are they already at 100%, or does the slider snap back when you try to pull it to the right? What happens if you uncheck Fit to Target and then try to increase the ratio?

I'm am just guessing here, but I hope my guessing helps. If nothing else, perhaps they'll give you some ideas of things to try or look at yourself.

[Famulus]

Thanks a lot Kedirekin. Here's a quick report:

First of all I restarted recode. Without doing anything the menues take 186MB, the main movie 3177MB, the extras 1489MB. This is 4856MB altogether. Since recode does not allow more compression (the video quality is now somewhere between 50 and 60 %). This is now problem since I want to remove the extras anyway.

Did you by any chance uncheck the Fit to Target check box, or lock the ratios on any titles? If Fit to Targets is checked and no ratios are locked, I would expect Recode to adjust the automatic compression ratios on the remaining titles and menus.No, Fit to Target is checked of course. I also hope that recode adjusts automatically in the background (and that's what I'll try next).

If Recode isn't changing the automatic ratios when you disable the extras, does the overall size bar change at all. I would expect proper behavior should be that ratios change and the size bar not change (or not change much).Yes the bar is adjusted (to about 4400MB which would be what I need). But I noticed something really strange when I disabled the extras: If I choose "custom picture" the size is 563MB which is too much! In the guide I used it took only 69MB (but it looks the same). Have you any idea why?
I'll choose custom color now, since this only takes 92 MB :)

Now I have the video quality of the main movie at 74%. I'll decrease the menue a little Bit and hope to achieve 80% for the main movie that way.
I just tried it and achieved 78.2% which is about the quality I get using CloneDVD. I'm quite happy now but I'm still wondering why "own color" wastes 92MB of space... This would get me some other percents of better quality...

Looks like your hints led me to a solution (but I still think it's strange that custom picture takes so much space)... :)

Thanks a lot!

[Kedirekin]

I know that still pictures takes space because the length of the title is preserved. You save a lot of space because the DCT coefficients and the motion vectors for all P and B frames basically go to zeros, but you still need a fair amount of space for the I frames (i.e. the stills).

I thought that custom picture and custom color *didn't* preserve the lengths of the titles. A 5 second custom picture or custom color would take practically no space compared to a 7 minute extra.

Perhaps that assumption is wrong though. What you're reporting makes it sound like custom picture and custom color do preserve the length of the titles, so custom picture would take about the same amount of space as still pictures (maybe a bit less if it's a simple picture). Custom color would take less space because I frames for a single color are so much smaller.

Can you verify if customer picture or color is preserving the title length? After you finish recoding, try playing one of the disabled extras and see if it is a few seconds or if it's more like the same length it originally was.

Also, I wonder if removing the audio for the extras would make a difference. Perhaps the audio is what is taking up so much space. In fact, perhaps Recode preserves the title length when you keep the audio, but reduces the length if you remove the audio. Again I don't really know because I'm not familiar with Recode.

Do please continue to post what you're seeing in Recode. It will be invaluable for others who come to search the forums for answers to similar problems.

[Famulus]

I thought that custom picture and custom color *didn't* preserve the lengths of the titles. A 5 second custom picture or custom color would take practically no space compared to a 7 minute extra.That's what I thought/hoped. But it really looks like custom picture and custom color preserves the length, though it doesn't make any sense for me.
I tried it this weekend and the extras I replaced with custom color were really played in the original length. There's another strange point though: The time counter of my DVD player was kind of confused. It counted much faster than it should. And even this speed wasn't constant. But of course I could see nothing but my custom color on the screen.

Also, I wonder if removing the audio for the extras would make a difference. Perhaps the audio is what is taking up so much space. In fact, perhaps Recode preserves the title length when you keep the audio, but reduces the length if you remove the audio. Again I don't really know because I'm not familiar with Recode.I also tried this. First I disabled the extras and then wanted to delete the audios. But they weren't in the list any more so I suggest that Recode does this automatically. I also tried removing the audio first and then disabling the extras but this lead to the same size of custom color as before.

Do please continue to post what you're seeing in Recode. It will be invaluable for others who come to search the forums for answers to similar problems.Of course I will and I hope you will too, if you have any other ideas or explanations about the mentioned problems.

[Kedirekin]

Sounds like you've pretty much sussed out how Recode works.

There are differing philosophies for DVD backups. One camp says preserve every bit of the DVD structure to maximize compatility and minimize problems. The other camp basically says "not", confident in their ability to not mess anything up. Sounds like Recode is in the first camp, even to the point of preserving title lengths when doing custom color or picture.

I don't know why your player plays custom color too fast. It may be due to something that recode is doing to squeeze as much space savings as possible - maybe using extra big GOPs or using a non-standard framerate. However, we're just guessing here, and at some point it doesn't make sense to guess any more; just accept the way it works.

To achieve the second camp results that it sounds like you want, you may have to look into other solutions, perhaps combining Recode with another approach called stripping. Stripping can be a little complicated (in fact, too complicated for me, but then I'm kind of in the first camp). There are some excellent guides by 2COOL in the IFO editing forum, and there's a promising new tool in the works called Titleset Blanker.

Have a look around - maybe you'll find just what you need.