file too big

[pabramma]

I just made a back up of a movie that is two hours and twenty five minutes long, I created three cue/bin files, but the third bin file is 879 megs and it won't fit on a 80 minute 700 meg cdr. The first two files it created are each 805 megs and I used nero to burn them. That size always works fine. Does anyone know why the third file is so much bigger, is there a setting I need to adjust, I looked under the bitrate tab, all enteries are set to 800. Do I need to rerip or can I somehow split the third bin file up?
thanks for your help

[pabramma]

Is there a setting in dvd2svcd that ensures bin files aren't too big to burn to a 700 meg 80 minute cdr? Is it under bitrate?

[internetpilot]

What encoder are you using?

You may want to change the CD size under the bitrate tab (like change it from 800mb to 780mb). Sometimes bumping that down a bit helps.

Depending on your encoder, you may just want to bump down the quality value a bit. You most likely would not notice the quality reduction, but you would notice a significant reduction in total movie size (which would reduce that third disc).

I frequently have the same problem with even just two-disc movies. I didn't used to have this problem as much as I do now, but maybe that's just because I'm burning more movies these days...or maybe something changed in one of the revisions of DVD2SVCD...?

[pabramma]

what quality do you recommend? I have it set to High Quality, also what motion search percision? mine is set to constant bitrate (cbr) Thank you so much for replying!

[internetpilot]

On the DVD2SVCD Encoder tab, I use Constant Quality (CQ) for the Rate Control Mode, Offset CQ Value is set to 80.00, CQ Value Factor is usually set to 1.000 (but that's what I bump down to like 0.980 to correct file size problems), the % of Movie to Test is set to 2, and the "Used Fixed CQ Value" checkbox is NOT checked.

I've found that the CQ mode seems to produce the best quality, but opinions vary. Most people do not use the CBR option because of just what you're encountering -- files that are too big. CQ mode will adjust the bitrate for action scenes versus slow scenes. About the only drawback to that is that still shots can be pixelated a little if you're trying to shove too much on one or two CDs. If you're okay with putting a movie on 3 CDs, then CQ would work very well, and your last file would probably not even be a full disc.

Hope this helps! The forums is not as active as it used to be. Seems that everyone is going over to DVD. I'm not the most knowledgeable about this product (even though I've been using it for quite a while now for about 200 movies), but I didn't want your message to just sit here.

[pabramma]

Once again thank you so much. I use dvd2svcd a lot but really don't understand the inner workings, so I appreciate all the help I can get. What you suggested seems to have worked as my last backup made files the right size. thank you again.

[Nick]

Actually CBR should never oversize :confused:
CBR, because it uses a constant bitrate, wastes bits on scenes that do not need them and do not use enough bitrate on more complex scenes. For high bitrate applications, eg a short movie to DVDR, this is not such a problem as bitrate is always high enough to ensure reasonable quality. In lower bitrate applications, eg long movies to SVCD, this is more of an issue as motion scenes will suffer.

@ pabramma - I can only imagine that you have changed some settings on the bitrate tab if you are oversizing with CBR. If you are sure you mean CBR, not CQ, what are your settings for bitrate (only need the bottom line - ie Max, min, max ave, min ave & whether min ave box is checked).

Cheers
Nick

[pabramma]

max 2530 min 300 min avg 1600 (greyed out) box unchecked max avg 2230
Are those the numbers you were referring to? Yes I was using CBR but it was suggested I use CQ instead.
BTW the encoder I use is: TMPGEnc

[internetpilot]

Originally posted by Nick
Actually CBR should never oversize :confused:
CBR, because it uses a constant bitrate, wastes bits on scenes that do not need them and do not use enough bitrate on more complex scenes. For high bitrate applications, eg a short movie to DVDR, this is not such a problem as bitrate is always high enough to ensure reasonable quality. In lower bitrate applications, eg long movies to SVCD, this is more of an issue as motion scenes will suffer.


I guess what I really mean by "oversized" is that to maintain quality during the actions scenes and such, you'll end up with a like a 3 or 4 disc movie when you could get pretty much the same quality out of of a 2 disc conversion using CQ (or VBR). But you're right in that the number of discs/file size should be very predictable with CBR versus CQ.