Misc. AutoGK questions

[Crix]

I just started to use AutoGK, and while waiting 5 days to post, I have gone thru the forums. However, there are still some unanswered issues I want to ask about:


1. Subtitle position.
I have the common problem with subtitles appearing too high up on the picture when using internal subtitles in AutoGK. I know about the solution to edit the .idx file, and it works fine. But I would like to fill AutoGK's job que with several movies to encode, and leave it for a couple of days.
Therefore I was wondering if anyone had a more elegang solution, like setting default alignment values in VobSub or something? I haven't gotten that to work yet.
There might be a .ini file or some registry settings I can set, but as there are no default ones anywhere, I don't know if it's possible and what to edit if it is.


2. Subtitles hard or soft?
I have gotten the impression that even if the subtitles are internal, they can still be 'hard' ("burnt" into the movie itself) or 'soft' (included into the movie file, but not "burnt" into the movie, making it possible to enable or disable it within a compatible player).
If I use internal subtitles with AutoGK, will they be 'soft' or 'hard' then?
And how likely is it that a certain software and hardware based player support 'soft' subtitles?


3. Multichannel when AC-3 to MP3?
If I choose to encode the soundtrack into MP3 in AutoGK, will the AC-3 track be downmixed to Pro Logic II, to preserve the multichannel information, or will I get a pure stereo signal instead?


4. WinRAR, will AutoGK EVER find it?
How can I make AutoGK ever find WinRAR? I have it installed, and I tried putting unrar.dll into both AutoGK's and VobSub's folder, but it still claims it can't find it. What files should I put where to make it able to find it and make use of it?


5. Quality issues.
How long can a DVD movie usually be before it's very adviced to encode it to 2 CDs instead of 1?
In general, if I want to watch a movie in high quality, I'll rather use a DVD or DVD-R. My XviDs are basically just to be able to play them on my PC when I want to, and to make them easier to move around. I still want a decent quality on the movie, but I don't need a top quality DVD replacement or anything.



I have looked into the choice of doing the DVD -> XviD in "manual" steps or writing my own scripts, to be able to configure the applications more as I wish. But I like the idea with AutoGK, doing the whole thing with few hazzles and good results, and especially the ability to que jobs. Therefore I would like to keep on using AutoGK, and hence, switching to "manual" methods (or remove my option to que jobs) to resolve my issues is not an option for me at this point ;)

[len0x]

1. I'm not really expert in subs as I rarely use them myself. What is the solution using modified IDX file ?

2. Internal subs = hard subs. They cannot be "soft" or switched off, they are part of a video.

3. Pure stereo. I see no benefit of trying to keep high quality audio in low quality format.

4. See here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64266&perpage=20&pagenumber=132

5. No one will answer you that - its purely subjective and depends on a source (you can have 1:30 hour movie that will only look semidecent on 3CDs). I never do 1 CD rips myself, for instance.

[piscator]

For 5 merely a suggestion, but not applicable to AutoGK but GKnot. If you use GKnot you can do a compressability check (see guides) and you can estimate the quality for the target size you choose (pretty accurate) and imo a must for a good estimation of the target size.

Compression depends on the content of the movie. Some 1.5 hour movies are easy to fit on one CD and some are hard to fit on two CD's. As a rule of thumb, movies with a lot of high-motion scenes and a lot of light/dark scenes (i.e. with a lot of contrast in it) are harder to compress, so need more space. And movies with a lot (or only) dark scenes are easy to compress. So if you want to use AutoGK, you'll have to make a well-educated guess. That's the cost of the no-hassle ;)

Edit: I never use 1 CD rips either. The lowest I go (and that's rarely) is 1/5 DVDR = 896 MB.

greetz,
Piscator