having trouble getting best quality

[musicnyman]

hey guys,

i've been at this for weeks and tried mulitple settings including 100% quality pass with single pass, using 2gb max, maximum quality, to get the best quality out of my dvds.

so 100% works fine, no problems there, no brainer, it just assigns 100% quality to the whole movie but file size is of course kinda big at times. but i can't have the avi be bigger than 2 gigs to be able to play this on my media server.

so basically, i don't care about file size. i just want the best quality but below the 2 gig range, so the past 2 days i've been playing with "2gb maximum". single pass says the projected size is going to be about 1.8 gigs which is perfect. nice quality file. second pass turns the file into a 688 meg file and watching the movie, the quality is not that great.

any ideas? thanks,

i know it's saying that it can overcompress the file, which is fine, it's at 145% for compressibility test, but didn't think it would shrink it down that much and have the movie be a lot less quality then i wanted it to be.

[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] AutoGK 1.60
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] OS: WinXP (5.1.2600).2
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Job started.
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Input file: VTS_16_1.VOB
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Output file: E:\workspace\home on the range.avi
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Audio: Unknown Audio
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Subtitles: none
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Codec: XviD
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Target size: 2047Mb
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Custom audio settings: CBR MP3 with bitrate: 192Kbps
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Started encoding.
[9/30/2004 10:36:17 PM] Demuxing and indexing.
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Processing file: H:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_16_1.VOB
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Processing file: H:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_16_2.VOB
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Processing file: H:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_16_3.VOB
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Processing file: H:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_16_4.VOB
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Source aspect ratio: 16:9
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Source resolution: 720x480
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Found NTSC source.
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Source seems to be pure FILM.
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Found 109615 frames
[9/30/2004 10:38:47 PM] Encoding audio.
[9/30/2004 10:52:58 PM] Audio size: 109,706,240 bytes (104.62 Mb)
[9/30/2004 10:52:58 PM] Overhead: 1,301,632 bytes (1.24 Mb)
[9/30/2004 10:52:58 PM] Video size: 2,035,427,200 bytes (1941.13 Mb)
[9/30/2004 10:52:58 PM] Running compressibility test.
[9/30/2004 10:52:58 PM] Writing the following script to E:\workspace\agk_tmp\home on the range_comptest.avs
===========================================================
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\DGMPGDec\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\autocrop.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\undot.dll")

movie = mpeg2source("E:\workspace\agk_tmp\home on the range.d2v")
cropclip = autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=0,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0)
fixed_aspect = 1.18518518518519
c_width = width(cropclip)
c_height = round(height(cropclip) / fixed_aspect)
input_par = float(c_width)/float(c_height)
input_par = input_par > 1.4 ? input_par : (4.0/3.0)
out_width = 704
out_height = round(float(out_width) / input_par)
hmod = out_height - (floor(out_height / 16 ) * 16)
out_height = (hmod > 4) ? (out_height + (16 - hmod)) : (out_height - hmod)
new_aspect = (float(out_width) / float(out_height)) / fixed_aspect
autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=new_aspect,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0)
Undot()
LanczosResize(out_width,out_height)
SelectRangeEvery(300,15)
===========================================================
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Duration was: 6 minutes 39 seconds
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Speed was: 13.73 fps.
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Compressibility percentage is: 141.11
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Switching b-frames off
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Chosen resolution is: 720x432 ( AR: 1.67 )
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Predicted comptest value is: 97.92
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Running first pass.
[9/30/2004 10:59:37 PM] Writing the following script to E:\workspace\agk_tmp\home on the range_movie.avs
===========================================================
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\DGMPGDec\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\autocrop.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\undot.dll")

movie = mpeg2source("E:\workspace\agk_tmp\home on the range.d2v")
cropclip = autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=0,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0)
fixed_aspect = 1.18518518518519
c_width = width(cropclip)
c_height = round(height(cropclip) / fixed_aspect)
input_par = float(c_width)/float(c_height)
input_par = input_par > 1.4 ? input_par : (4.0/3.0)
out_width = 720
out_height = round(float(out_width) / input_par)
hmod = out_height - (floor(out_height / 16 ) * 16)
out_height = (hmod > 4) ? (out_height + (16 - hmod)) : (out_height - hmod)
new_aspect = (float(out_width) / float(out_height)) / fixed_aspect
autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=new_aspect,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0)
Undot()
LanczosResize(out_width,out_height)
===========================================================
[10/1/2004 12:52:52 AM] Duration was: 1 hour, 53 minutes 15 seconds
[10/1/2004 12:52:52 AM] Speed was: 16.13 fps.
[10/1/2004 12:52:53 AM] Expected quality of first pass size: 145.22
[10/1/2004 12:52:53 AM] Warning: final AVI will likely be undersized.
[10/1/2004 12:52:53 AM] Running second pass.
[10/1/2004 2:53:03 AM] Duration was: 2 hours 0 minutes 10 seconds
[10/1/2004 2:53:03 AM] Speed was: 15.20 fps.
[10/1/2004 2:53:03 AM] Job finished.

[musicnyman]

i tried uninstalling xvid and divx and 3ivx, then rebooting, and reinstalling auto gk 1.60 and now it works fine. second pass is projecting a file size of 1.9 gigs which is perfect. thanks,

[therealjoeblow]

Originally posted by musicnyman


so 100% works fine, no problems there, no brainer, it just assigns 100% quality to the whole movie but file size is of course kinda big at times. but i can't have the avi be bigger than 2 gigs to be able to play this on my media server.



?? I've burned dozens if DVD's with single AVI's ranging from 2400mb (1/2 of DVD capacity) all the way to 4.3gb and everything in between with no issues, files play back perfectly on a PC. Granted, I don't have a commercial stand-alone so I don't know about their compatibility.

You just need to make sure you're burning the discs as UDF v-1.02 DVD format, *not* DVD-ISO (the ISO format has a 2 gb per file maximum). All modern OS's can read UDV 1.02 format natively (Win98, Win2k, XP, Linux should be able to also).

Nero has this capability - don't know about other burning apps.

[len0x]

Originally posted by therealjoeblow
Granted, I don't have a commercial stand-alone so I don't know about their compatibility.


UDF is not support by almost all of them...

[musicnyman]

this is fixed anyway :) uninstalling the codecs and reinstalling it did the trick. other people had the same problem as well on other forums and that did it.

thanks,

[therealjoeblow]

Originally posted by len0x
UDF is not support by almost all of them...

...Neither is Matroska, so the I guess I'm really screwed ;-)

Seriously, though, I won't ever own a proprietary 'black box' that binds me to the mercy of a manufacturer for firmware updates to fix bugs. I use (and always will) a HTPC, it can play whatever I throw at it now and into the future, whether it be video, audio and/or games.

As far as UDF/Matroska - I just don't like the idea of storing 4+ gb of movies (whether that's 1@HQ or 6@LowQual of them) on a disc in a format as fragile as .AVI - I've had a few CD's that got seriously scratched at just the wrong place, and you can't ever play that .AVI again. Matroska (or even MPEG and OGM for that matter) will just get a little bit pixellated, and keep on chugging.

Everything that I encode gets remuxed to MKV after AutoGK's done. Just my personal preference. I strongly believe that once the industry matures a little more, MKV will be the standard container of the future.