Alteration to Half-D1 and Half Space for Extras option?

[brashquido]

Hi All,

Using the VIP 0.72 version of DVD-RB, and I've found that in a lot of cases significant space can be saved and then used by the main movie by selecting the Half-D1 and Half Space for Extras option. I now have this option on for almost every movie I do.

However, I find that halfing the space is usually too much of sacrifice to the extras, and with a bitrate of under 1000 usually come out looking very blocky and messy. What I usually do to correct this is do the prepare stage, and then use RB-Opt to increase the bitrate of the extras upto 1200 or so. In most cases this will take the quality up from being almost unwatchable, to something around VHS quality.

I think it would be worth considering to enable an option from within DVD-RB to set desired bitrates for each VTS/VOB id so that you were able to obtain a decent level of quality in the extras without having to use other programs. With my present method I cannot use the batch processing mode as I have to make alterations after the prepare stage, which in turn means I have to attend my computer on three seperate occasions for each project.

</end2cents>

[wmansir]

I agree, that's usually what I do too because it's hard to predict what bitrate the extras will get.

In a recent thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88306&highlight=change) jdobbs said he is considering a X bitrate option for the extras instead of a % reduction like it is now.

Here's a suggestion. On the setup page put a section for extra reduction settings. There could be a bitrate box or %reduction, a checkbox for Half-D1, ect. Then on the Mode menu just put a single option "Reduced quality Extras" or something like that, that enables whatever settings are set.

[pg55555]

Is a good idea.

As an alternative I'd like remind jdobbs of the option for a "Two Click" mode, so after the Prepare and the tweaking with RBOpt you can just select "Encode/Rebuild". And/or, in the Batch mode implement the RBOpt Support (Skip Prepare Phase)

[rayvt]

If you are encoding a lot of movies, breaking out of DVD-RB to fiddle with the bitrates is a major hassle. I've had the same problem as brashquido, with some extras getting bitrates of 800---so low as to be truly terrible. These extras already had a low bitrate on the original DVD, and cutting it in half was too much.

I tried to set the minimum bitrate to 1200 or 2000, but RB evidently doesn't take that into account, since the movies then came out too large to fit on a DVD.

It would be nice if RB would let you do half-d1, half-rate with a selectable minimum. Of course, it would also be nice if Brittany Spears had the hots for me. ;-)

[jdobbs]

Consider yourself lucky. I wish she'd quit calling... I keep having to tell her "it's over."

[lamster]

Originally posted by pg55555
I'd like remind jdobbs of the option for a "Two Click" mode, so after the Prepare and the tweaking with RBOpt you can just select "Encode/Rebuild".
It would also be useful for those of us who run in one-click mode and occasionally have to stop Rebuilder in the middle. When we restart, the only choice is to go to 3-click mode, which means it won't automatically rebuild when the encode phase completes.