QMatOp for DVD-RB : QMat Optimization

[SAPSTAR]

QMatOp 0.13b for DVD-Rebuilder

[EDIT] Last version 0.13b available on my website http://qmatop.9k.com/main.html



This software is designed to optimize the Quantization Matrix of each cell in the ECL file generated by DVD-Rebuilder. It's using dctune2.0 from the NASA, and also avs2avi from Christophe PARIS in order to sample each cell and determine what is the best matrix according to the current average and max bitrate.

INSTALLATION:
You must have Sun JRE 1.4.2 or higher installed. The java command must be in the environment variable 'PATH'. The whole directory structure as contained in the ZIP file must be kept.

CONFIGURATION:
Edit the QMatOP.ini file, change the value of the workdir variable to your current workdir in DVD-RB.
Then execute QMatOP, wait and enjoy......

Or

Run QMatOPGUI.exe, change the values, click on the Big Green Checkmark button.....wait and enjoy....

In case of any issue, feel free to contact me in DOOM9.

HISTORY:
Changes in 0.13b :
- Added an Auto GOP feature - Still being tested and to be tweaked.
- Created a GUI for starting the whole process - Still to be improved
- Added a progress bar
- Improved the way smallest segments are managed. Should be faster now.
Changes in 0.12b :
- Corrected a bug in the WaitForPrepare procedure when spaces are present in the QMatOp path.
- Added a new function to adjust automatically for each cell the Quality Prec. parameter(only for CCE). QualityPrecAuto is by default activated. CCESP26X specifies if you are using CCESP26X, as the range for Quality Prec was different with CCESP 2.6x.
- Added a new function to adjust automatically for each cell the Vbr Bias. parameter(only for CCE). QualityPrecAuto is by default activated.
- One click mode detection added to prevent strange behaviors.

[aaron10]

The download link is awaiting approval I surmise?

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by aaron10
The download link is awaiting approval I surmise?

Yep....:(

[samuelal]

Thank you for the contribution !!! (even though it's not available to be downloaded yet).

This sounds very promising!

I am looking forward to it though I would sure like to hear from the more experienced users here if sort of calculations can in fact contribute to the final output quality of the backup which we create.

BTW: If this program finds a certain cell to be encoded in a more/less compressed manner (quant-wise), would it affect the final output size of the project and thus not utilizing the entire ~4.3 GB available for each disc? If it does affect the output size, is there a way to overcome it?

Any comments on this would be welcome!

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by samuelal
Thank you for the contribution !!! (even though it's not available to be downloaded yet).

This sounds very promising!

I am looking forward to it though I would sure like to hear from the more experienced users here if sort of calculations can in fact contribute to the final output quality of the backup which we create.

BTW: If this program finds a certain cell to be encoded in a more/less compressed manner (quant-wise), would it affect the final output size of the project and thus not utilizing the entire ~4.3 GB available for each disc? If it does affect the output size, is there a way to overcome it?

Any comments on this would be welcome!

Thank you....About the size, it won't change anything, it will just allow the encoder to compress more some part and so it will be able to allocate more bitrate in some other frames.

My current algorithm is still "beta", I'll most probably tune it day after day....But my first encode which was Ghost In The Shell 2, was really promising, especially in the Half-D1/Half-space cells.

[samuelal]

My current algorithm is still "beta", I'll most probably tune it day after day....But my first encode which was Ghost In The Shell 2, was really promising, especially in the Half-D1/Half-space cells.

Cool!!

Any new word as to when and if it's going to be approved?

Edited: sorry, just noticed that you already took care of it! thanks!

[Fishman0919]

SAPSTAR about how long should it take to run??

[Fishman0919]

Ok, it has been about a hour and nothing...


Execing cmd.exe /C del /Q .\frames\*.ppm
Could Not Find C:\QmatOp\frames\*.ppm
Execing cmd.exe /C .\avs2avi .\tempavs -o a -c XVID




and thats it, did I miss something?


Edit: You forgot to include you have to have Xivd installed :D

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
Ok, it has been about a hour and nothing...


Execing cmd.exe /C del /Q .\frames\*.ppm
Could Not Find C:\QmatOp\frames\*.ppm
Execing cmd.exe /C .\avs2avi .\tempavs -o a -c XVID




and thats it, did I miss something?

Hmmm do you have XVID installed on you computer ?? I know it may sound stupid, but avs2avi needs a codec name, even it's not really used in our case.....I may have to find a codex installed on any computer ?!? Any suggestion ???

Anyway, about the time, it depends on the length of the total video, I mean movie + extras. On Santa Clause 2 for example, it took about 30-40 minutes on my AMD 2600......

[Fishman0919]

lol, we posted at the same time

see edit above

working fine now...THX


Edit: You should include that in your readme

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
lol, we posted at the same time

see edit above

working fine now...THX


Edit: You should include that in your readme

Yep :o thank you, I changed it to MSVC, which is supposed to be installed by default in 95, 98 , 2000 and XP....should be ok now...

[Fishman0919]

Outstanding SAPSTAR... just plain OUTSTANDING!!!


Just other reason everyone should use DVD-RB!


EDIT: On 1 machine I did Elektra full disc, 33% extras...Looks incredible including extras and on another did LOTR -2 towers full... well, outstanding...THX

[hutch1711]

Am I the only dummy on the planet? SAPSTAR I'd love to try your program but JAVA confuses the crap out of me. I downloaded j2re 1.4.2.8 from the Sun site and loaded it onto my computer. I haven't got a clue what to do next. How do you make the java command a path environment variable :confused:

[Fishman0919]

If you installed java without changing default setting, its all set. You don't need to do anything else with java.

Just follow the readme with QmatOp

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by hutch1711
Am I the only dummy on the planet? SAPSTAR I'd love to try your program but JAVA confuses the crap out of me. I downloaded j2re 1.4.2.8 from the Sun site and loaded it onto my computer. I haven't got a clue what to do next. How do you make the java command a path environment variable :confused:
If you just installed JRE, it should be ok. My explanation is not very clear, I meant that you must add the java command path to the default path variable.
Select 'My Computer', then right click, then select properties, then choose the Advanced tab, there you should find a button 'Environment Variables'.
Choose the System variable Path press Edit, and add the path to your java command.

Example :
C:\Perl\bin\;C:\WINNT\system32;C:\WINNT;C:\WINNT\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel;C:\j2sdk1.4.2_08\bin\

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
If you installed java without changing default setting, its all set. You don't need to do anything else with java.

Just follow the readme with QmatOp

Again at the same moment ! :)

[hutch1711]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
If you installed java without changing default setting, its all set. You don't need to do anything else with java.

Just follow the readme with QmatOp

Thanks for responding Fishman0919.

Okay. I said when it came to JAVA I was a dummy! I don't see any console window, how does one activate it??? I have a separate directoty for SUN and QMatOp, I trust this is correct.

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by hutch1711
Thanks for responding Fishman0919.

Okay. I said when it came to JAVA I was a dummy! I don't see any console window, how does one activate it??? I have a separate directoty for SUN and QMatOp, I trust this is correct.

you just have to open a command window and then go to the QMatOp dir.

[hutch1711]

Originally posted by SAPSTAR
If you just installed JRE, it should be ok. My explanation is not very clear, I meant that you must add the java command path to the default path variable.
Select 'My Computer', then right click, then select properties, then choose the Advanced tab, there you should find a button 'Environment Variables'.
Choose the System variable Path press Edit, and add the path to your java command.

Example :
C:\Perl\bin\;C:\WINNT\system32;C:\WINNT;C:\WINNT\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel;C:\j2sdk1.4.2_08\bin\

SAPSTAR thank you also for your responses. I note in your example you refer to j2sdk1.4.2_08. This not the version I downloaded - could this be my problem?

[Fishman0919]

Ok, the easy way to do this is...hum...oh...ya

Go in to your "qmatop" folder, does not matter where you put it...

Right click on the "QMatOp.bat" file and choose "Create Shortcut"

Now, right click on the shortcut file you just made and choose "properties"

Now at the top it should be on the "Shortcut" tab...now next to "Target:" you should see something in the box like...
C:\##@@\%%$$\QMatOp\QMatOp.bat

After "QMatOp.bat" add where your DVD-RB working folder "d2vavs" is

Sorry, it should look something like this if your dvd-rb working folder is C:\dvd-rb
C:\##@@\%%$$\QMatOp\QMatOp.bat c:\dvd-rb\d2vavs

Now, after you run the "Prepare" phase of DVD-RB in 3 click mode...2 click on the shortcut you just make and edited...after this is done...10 to 30 min... go to DVD-RB and click "Encode"

Hope this helps

Edit: LOLOLOL, we need to stop this

[hutch1711]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
Ok, the easy way to do this is...hum...oh...ya

Go in to your "qmatop" folder, does not matter where you put it...

Right click on the "QMatOp.bat" file and choose "Create Shortcut"

Now, right click on the shortcut file you just made and choose "properties"

Now at the top it should be on the "Shortcut" tab...now next to "Target:" you should see something in the box like...
C:\##@@\%%$$\QMatOp\QMatOp.bat

After "QMatOp.bat" add where your DVD-RB working folder "d2vavs" is

Sorry, it should look something like this if your dvd-rb working folder is C:\dvd-rb
C:\##@@\%%$$\QMatOp\QMatOp.bat c:\dvd-rb\d2vavs

Now, after you run the "Prepare" phase of DVD-RB in 3 click mode...2 click on the shortcut you just make and edited...after this is done...10 to 30 min... go to DVD-RB and click "Encode"

Hope this helps

Edit: LOLOLOL, we need to stop this

Fishman0919

Excellent instructions. Thank you so much.

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
Ok, the easy way to do this is...hum...oh...ya

Go in to your "qmatop" folder, does not matter where you put it...

Right click on the "QMatOp.bat" file and choose "Create Shortcut"
[...]
Hope this helps

Edit: LOLOLOL, we need to stop this

Well thank you for helping the rookie, Fishman0919; Do you think I should make an autoinstall or what ?:confused: I thought, it was rather simple....like that.

[Carpo]

this seems like a good little tool to have in your audio/video toolkit, gonna test it out on a few films later :)

on the java issue does it have to be 1.4.x or can you use the 1.5.x version?

auto install? might be an idear, seeing as you have ppl with different levels of experience, may also cut down on the support posts you have to deal with ;)

[Fishman0919]

An autoinstall would problly be better, I thought it was rather simple but some may not... I think setting up DVD-RB is rather simple but alot of people can't and use Rockas DVD-RB installer.

Again, THX and great job SAPSTAR


on the java issue does it have to be 1.4.x or can you use the 1.5.x version?

I'm using java 1.5.2 or something like that with no problems.

[Rockas]

Do you think I should make an autoinstall or what ?

Believe me... you should, and by the way... include theJava package on it :)

[Carpo]

Target Perceptual Error: 1.5800781250
Compressed JPEG File Size is: 46087
Compression Ratio: 22.496908
Input Uncompressed File Size: 1036815
(Bitrate Optimization) Target File Size: 46080
(Bitrate Optimization) File Size Tolerance: 2304 (5.0 Percent)
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 1 Target Perceptual Error: 1.0000000000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 58299
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 2 Target Perceptual Error: 50.5000000000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 7142
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 3 Target Perceptual Error: 25.7500000000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 7548
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 4 Target Perceptual Error: 13.3750000000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 7973
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 5 Target Perceptual Error: 7.1875000000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 12001
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 6 Target Perceptual Error: 4.0937500000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 22085
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 7 Target Perceptual Error: 2.5468750000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 32248
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 8 Target Perceptual Error: 1.7734375000
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 41441
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 9 Target Perceptual Error: 1.3867187500
--Compressed JPEG File Size: 47785
Target Perceptual Error: 1.3867187500
Compressed JPEG File Size is: 47785
Compression Ratio: 21.697499

is what i get on near all vids i have tried this program on - i wont ask if its supposed to be like that cus when ever i see the word error its never good ;D

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Carpo
Target Perceptual Error: 1.5800781250
Compressed JPEG File Size is: 46087
Compression Ratio: 22.496908
Input Uncompressed File Size: 1036815
(Bitrate Optimization) Target File Size: 46080
(Bitrate Optimization) File Size Tolerance: 2304 (5.0 Percent)
(Bitrate Optimization) Iteration 1 Target Perceptual Error: 1.0000000000
[...]
Target Perceptual Error: 1.3867187500
Compressed JPEG File Size is: 47785
Compression Ratio: 21.697499

is what i get on near all vids i have tried this program on - i wont ask if its supposed to be like that cus when ever i see the word error its never good ;D

Yes it's normal, this is the DCTune2.0 log, this screenshot is the analysis of just one frame, it says perceptual error, because as you may know the JPEG/MPEG2 compression are not lossless, the purpose is to reduce this perceptual error as much as possible.

Once everything is finished, you should be able to find two REBUILDER files in your D2VAVS directory, one is .BAK (the old one), .ECL is the new one, optimized by QMatOp.

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Rockas
Believe me... you should, and by the way... include theJava package on it :)
I'll work on it......maybe next version.

[Carpo]

learn something new everyday - error sometimes = good :D

[cobra21041968]

Hi
Since I think is very interesting this Sw , I would like to test it, but I got an error just after run the Qmatop, here is a sreenshot of what I have:


°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

H:\>c:

C:\>cd Program Files

C:\Program Files>cd QMatOp

C:\Program Files\QMatOp>dir
Volume in drive C is Local Disk
Volume Serial Number is A8E0-D462

Directory of C:\Program Files\QMatOp

11/04/2005 14:30 <DIR> .
11/04/2005 14:30 <DIR> ..
18/06/2003 17:55 225,280 avs2avi.exe
02/04/1998 16:42 136,192 dctune2.0.exe
07/04/2005 11:31 737 ECLItem.class
10/04/2005 21:25 <DIR> Frames
10/04/2005 20:15 <DIR> Inter
10/04/2005 21:25 <DIR> Intra
10/04/2005 21:25 <DIR> Pics
10/04/2005 20:11 428 QMatOp$1.class
10/04/2005 20:11 428 QMatOp$2.class
10/04/2005 08:54 41 QMatOp.bat
10/04/2005 20:11 12,009 QMatOp.class
10/04/2005 20:13 1,243 README.txt
07/04/2005 15:57 851 StreamGobbler.class
9 File(s) 377,209 bytes
6 Dir(s) 7,198,527,488 bytes free

C:\Program Files\QMatOp>QMatOp c:\test\D2VAVS
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 500
at QMatOp.D2VAVSParsing(QMatOp.java:194)
at QMatOp.main(QMatOp.java:46)

C:\Program Files\QMatOp>QMatOp c:\test\D2VAVS
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 500
at QMatOp.D2VAVSParsing(QMatOp.java:194)
at QMatOp.main(QMatOp.java:46)

C:\Program Files\QMatOp>QMatOp c:\test\D2VAVS
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 500
at QMatOp.D2VAVSParsing(QMatOp.java:194)
at QMatOp.main(QMatOp.java:46)

C:\Program Files\QMatOp>


°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
it look like a java problem , but the first time that I get this error I was using 1.4.2 and after update the the Java i'm still getting the same error.
Any suggestion is welcome here.
Thanks

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by cobra21041968
Hi
Since I think is very interesting this Sw , I would like to test it, but I got an error just after run the Qmatop, here is a sreenshot of what I have:


C:\Program Files\QMatOp>QMatOp c:\test\D2VAVS
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 500
at QMatOp.D2VAVSParsing(QMatOp.java:194)
at QMatOp.main(QMatOp.java:46)

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
it look like a java problem , but the first time that I get this error I was using 1.4.2 and after update the the Java i'm still getting the same error.
Any suggestion is welcome here.
Thanks
First bug, hmmm it's not related at all with your java version, that's a memory pb, I'll correct it. Your DVD must have a lot of different cells.(check the number of .avs files, must be huge).....It will be corrected in the next version.

[cobra21041968]

Originally posted by SAPSTAR
First bug, hmmm it's not related at all with your java version, that's a memory pb, I'll correct it. Your DVD must have a lot of different cells.(check the number of .avs files, must be huge).....It will be corrected in the next version.

Thanx for your quick reply.
You right my dvd is quite long , is the Lord of Ring two towers.
The reason of why I want to try your software is that all matrices that I have test so far I get not very good results. I'm wondering how could be with your toy. :)

[Fishman0919]

Humm..I ran LOTR - 2 Tower as one of the first disc I did with QMatOp and it worked fine.... :confused:

I ran two towers with the first ver. of QMatOp

[Carpo]

poss could be due to amount of mem in the system

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
Humm..I ran LOTR - 2 Tower as one of the first disc I did with QMatOp and it worked fine.... :confused:

I ran two towers with the first ver. of QMatOp
It may come from the DVDRB version, I noticed that in the last version some really small segment are generated, before jdobbs was ignoring them...

For everybody, could you include the DVDRB version used, when reporting a pb. Thx.
[EDIT] More info on the movie too, like PAL/NTSC ? Sometimes zone 2 and zone 1 versions are totally different. (from a structure point of view)

[cobra21041968]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
Humm..I ran LOTR - 2 Tower as one of the first disc I did with QMatOp and it worked fine.... :confused:

I ran two towers with the first ver. of QMatOp

I need to clarify how I do my backup.
I use to separate the end titles from the main movie, and using DVDshrink I use to create pictures for the end titles (saving space) every 0.5 seconds. So doing this i have at the end a huge number of files ( more that 1000 I think ).
That's could be the reason of why I got the problem.

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by cobra21041968
I need to clarify how I do my backup.
I use to separate the end titles from the main movie, and using DVDshrink I use to create pictures for the end titles (saving space) every 0.5 seconds. So doing this i have at the end a huge number of files ( more that 1000 I think ).
That's could be the reason of why I got the problem.
Yep this is the problem....By the mean time I release the next version (most probably tomorrow), you could try on the original DVD. (Half-D1/Half-space extras for example)

[Fishman0919]

Sorry, DVD-RB .83 pro and LOTR - The Two Towers NTSC R1

[cobra21041968]

Originally posted by SAPSTAR
Yep this is the problem....By the mean time I release the next version (most probably tomorrow), you could try on the original DVD. (Half-D1/Half-space extras for example)

Ok
Thank you

DVD-RB 0.80 freeware
LOTR - The two Towers PAL

[cobra21041968]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
Sorry, DVD-RB .83 pro and LOTR - The Two Towers NTSC R1

Did you try with other matrix before QMatOp? If yes did you see any differences? I tried many matrix without success, I can't resist to see what I could get with QMatOp.

[Fishman0919]

It made a difference. small but.. the biggest diff was the opening mountain scene... looked nicer with more detail on my 65" HD TV

[SAPSTAR]

See my first message...major changes in the way it's used and configured, should be easier now. The autosetup is for the next version, I have also an idea of improvement for the Half-D1/Half-space.....

[Fishman0919]

SAPSTAR, I'm getting an error with DVD-RB .83 pro and QMatOp .4b

I started to run The Hulk ntsc r1 with qmatop .3b after the "prepare" phase of dvd-rb and I noticed you had put up a new ver of qmatop.

I stopped qmatop .3b and After downloading qmatop .4b and installing I reran the "Prepare" phase of dvd-rb... then after editing the QMatOP.ini file with my dvd-rb working path I click the QMatOP.exe file and I get...

The device is not ready.
Execing cmd.exe /c move H:\DVDTemp\D2VAVS\REBUILDER.ECL H:\DVDTemp\D2VAVS\REBUILDER.BAK

over and over

Looks like it's still looking for it in the default dir from the .ini file...I did change it to my dvd-rb dir path

tried reboot for SAG's but still the same error

[TuRiSOft]

Now I'm tryin this:
1. I did the prepare phase w/rb0.83pro;
2. changed some vts to OPV w/rb-opt0.17
3. ran QmatOp0.3b on the result.

Now I'm going to start encoding and I'm trying to figur out if all those steps will get me to a big oversized output!

I'll let you know.
This is only a try!!!!

[HolyChain]

Hi there!

I'm getting the same error with QmatOp0.4b, that Fishman reported. Editing of the ini File doesn't seem to have an effect.

Little Update: i'm using DVD-RB 0.83 pro (yeah!). i've just deleted the ini file from within the qmatop directory and started the exe. it's still looking for the dvd2avs directory as defined by standard in the ini file. maybe the exe is ignoring the ini file?

But anyway: great little tool and thank you for contributing it :-) .

Greetings
HolyChain

[Carpo]

simple work around is to rename the hdd for the moment nad make the folders it says it wants, although this is a serious bug and will prob be fix rather quick :)

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
SAPSTAR, I'm getting an error with DVD-RB .83 pro and QMatOp .4b

[...]
The device is not ready.
Execing cmd.exe /c move H:\DVDTemp\D2VAVS\REBUILDER.ECL H:\DVDTemp\D2VAVS\REBUILDER.BAK

over and over

Looks like it's still looking for it in the default dir from the .ini file...I did change it to my dvd-rb dir path

tried reboot for SAG's but still the same error

Raaaaaaah ! :o :angry: Corrected ! My stupid brain just forgot to call the function reading the INIFile in the main program !!!!

[SAPSTAR]

Originally posted by HolyChain
Hi there!

I'm getting the same error with QmatOp0.4b, that Fishman reported. Editing of the ini File doesn't seem to have an effect.

Little Update: i'm using DVD-RB 0.83 pro (yeah!). i've just deleted the ini file from within the qmatop directory and started the exe. it's still looking for the dvd2avs directory as defined by standard in the ini file. maybe the exe is ignoring the ini file?

But anyway: great little tool and thank you for contributing it :-) .

Greetings
HolyChain
Last express version should work now.........raaaaaaaaah :o

[cobra21041968]

Originally posted by SAPSTAR
Last express version should work now.........raaaaaaaaah :o

mmmhh..I download the 0.05b on your web, but I got always the same error, look like is always the 0.04b.
Do I miss something?

[TuRiSOft]

Originally posted by TuRiSOft
Now I'm tryin this:
1. I did the prepare phase w/rb0.83pro;
2. changed some vts to OPV w/rb-opt0.17
3. ran QmatOp0.3b on the result.

Now I'm going to start encoding and I'm trying to figur out if all those steps will get me to a big oversized output!

I'll let you know.
This is only a try!!!!

Only 70Mb oversize! Good!