DVD-RB with HC vs. DVDShrink

[Joe_smish]

How do you guys think the HC encoder compares to DVDShrink. I just did a comparison and the only difference I notice when looking frame by frame is the HC back up is a little brighter. Other then that no major difference for a 60% encode. What are your experiences. Maybe I wasnt maximizing the settings properly for max quality.

[jdobbs]

????? That's not typical. But here are some things to consider:

1. The percentage doesn't mean a lot. The bitrate is more indicative of the "challange" to the encoder/transcoder. 60% of an original 8Mbs encode is 4.8Mbs, 60% of an original 4Mbs is only 2.4Mbs...

2. What are you using to play it? If you are watching on an inexpensive 19" TV you may not see the difference between any two encoders.

3. To some people (I'm not saying you are one of them), "OK" is good enough... and Shrink fits the bill.

4. There are discs that were overencoded on the original disc that will look just as good using a transcoder as an encoder -- but they are few...

I can assure you that there is a difference between a transcoder and an encoder. In most cases when you put them on an HD screen it is intuitively obvious to the casual observer.

[Joe_smish]

I was watching them on my 15.4" WSXGA+ computer screen. I was watching the files off my HD using VirtualDubMod so I can do a frame by frame comparison. Im not sure what the best way of testing is so this is what I came up with. Maybe thats a bad way to compare.

EDIT: Also the DVD itself (original) was sort of fuzzy, I dont mean bad quality or whatever, just that its not as crisp as most DVD's today. It was a version of Fight Club that was "Digitally Mastered for Superior Sound and Picture Quality". The orignial file size was ~7600 MB. Im not sure what the bitrate was. I'm guessing it was high though b/c the movie isnt that long for such a big size. I did Braveheart with shrink before Fight Club and the orignial file size (both w/o extras) were about the same, and Braveheart is about an hour or so longer.

[onesoul]

Let me give my opinion.

Transcoders can't compare to a good encoder engine especially on that kind of reduction, some scenes can look as good (or closer to original) but other scene sequences will look very bad (not even comparable), the overall output imo is more important, if you want a balanced quality.

Now for the encoders as I said before, my favorites are HC and Quenc, with HC topping Quenc for minor issues.

You can check this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91405) which links to a test I made with interlaced source.

There you can see some things I mentioned here, Recode is there which is similar to Dvdshrink.

More, although I didn't put in the test, I also tried Procoder with same source and it shared similar issues with CCE 2.67.00.27.
I also add that CCE 2.5 looked better than 2.67.00.27 but it shares one same issue, it blurs red (and violet) colors (Procoder does it too for what I remember), that doesn't happen either with HC or Quenc.

In the end, DVD-RB with any encoder is better than any trancoder out there. But I love dvdshrink and recode for it's features and I still use it for very low compression.

[jptheripper]

if you are watching on a computer stick with shrink, its so much faster.


if you want quality for all screens, stick with hc or cce

[onesoul]

Originally posted by jptheripper
if you are watching on a computer stick with shrink, its so much faster.


if you want quality for all screens, stick with hc or cce It's weird what you are saying because, you can notice much more artifacts, blocks, etc, on a computer's monitor than on a tv.

[JohnG]

Originally posted by Joe_smish
I was watching them on my 15.4" WSXGA+ computer screen. I was watching the files off my HD using VirtualDubMod so I can do a frame by frame comparison. Im not sure what the best way of testing is so this is what I came up with. Maybe thats a bad way to compare.

EDIT: Also the DVD itself (original) was sort of fuzzy, I dont mean bad quality or whatever, just that its not as crisp as most DVD's today. It was a version of Fight Club that was "Digitally Mastered for Superior Sound and Picture Quality". The orignial file size was ~7600 MB. Im not sure what the bitrate was. I'm guessing it was high though b/c the movie isnt that long for such a big size. I did Braveheart with shrink before Fight Club and the orignial file size (both w/o extras) were about the same, and Braveheart is about an hour or so longer.

OK, here's the deal. Please just go through the old posts BEFORE starting any new threads. There is no way on earth that Shrink comes close to what HC can do for that movie especially (I know b/c I just did it last week). Tests have been conducted that confirm this...not to mention that pure logic dictates it to be true. Besides, you can't tell anything from looking at a computer screen. Viewing on a TV monitor (preferably one exceeding 32") from a SAP is the only real way to judge quality.
If you just dig into this forum you will find ALL the answers you are looking for. :)

[Joe_smish]

Originally posted by onesoul
It's weird what you are saying because, you can notice much more artifacts, blocks, etc, on a monitor's computer than on a tv.

This is definatly true.

Besides, you can't tell anything from looking at a computer screen. Viewing on a TV monitor (preferably one exceeding 32") from a SAP is the only real way to judge quality.
I'm going home this weekend and I have a 36" TV so I will test them both when I get there. Your right I didnt do much searching this time and I apologize. I was in a rush to get to an exam when I posted that but I should have been more patient and just waited until after. I'm sorry.

[jdobbs]

Originally posted by Joe_smish
I was watching them on my 15.4" WSXGA+ computer screen. I was watching the files off my HD using VirtualDubMod so I can do a frame by frame comparison. Im not sure what the best way of testing is so this is what I came up with. Maybe thats a bad way to compare.

EDIT: Also the DVD itself (original) was sort of fuzzy, I dont mean bad quality or whatever, just that its not as crisp as most DVD's today. It was a version of Fight Club that was "Digitally Mastered for Superior Sound and Picture Quality". The orignial file size was ~7600 MB. Im not sure what the bitrate was. I'm guessing it was high though b/c the movie isnt that long for such a big size. I did Braveheart with shrink before Fight Club and the orignial file size (both w/o extras) were about the same, and Braveheart is about an hour or so longer. That would explain a lot. A high bitrate original doesn't suffer as much from a transcode.

Another thing to be careful about... if you are pausing and viewing a single frame -- it isn't giving you a real comparison. It is very common when you stop an MPEG stream it will stop on an I-FRAME. Transcoders at high bitrates don't even touch the I-FRAME they make mods to the B-FRAMES first. So you may be comparing the exact original frame against a DVD-RB reencoded frame.

The ONLY way to compare video quality is watching it in full motion. Still comparisons will never give you a feel for quality.

There is only one way to make an accurate comparison and that is with a blind selection by uninvolved individuals. Look at this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91418) if you want an example of how it should be done.

[Joe_smish]

Thx for giving me that post. I've never done a comparison so I wasnt sure what the best method was. Thanks. Did Fisherman ever get around to doing the test with HC in there??

[Fishman0919]

No, I'm a little layed up right now... got a broken leg so working and my testing has kinda been put on hold for awhile but from what I have got done HC Encoder is holding it own with CCE SP 2.70 and procoder 1.5

[Joe_smish]

Originally posted by Fishman0919
No, I'm a little layed up right now... got a broken leg so working and my testing has kinda been put on hold for awhile but from what I have got done HC Encoder is holding it own with CCE SP 2.70 and prcoder 1.5
Cool thanks!! The reason I ask is because I couldnt get my back up to work with CCE 2.67 but I could with HC. I was just wondering how the quality would compare to the back up had CCE worked.

[jdobbs]

You might want to try the next version that get released with CCE again. I've added some more code to "get around" the CCE issues.

[Joe_smish]

Originally posted by jdobbs
You might want to try the next version that get released with CCE again. I've added some more code to "get around" the CCE issues.

Is this the pro version or the freeware? I would like to get the Pro version but I dont have a credit card or paypal account. Do you accept cash? I dont have a checking account either.

[QuantumLeap]

Originally posted by Joe_smish
Is this the pro version or the freeware? I would like to get the Pro version but I dont have a credit card or paypal account. Do you accept cash? I dont have a checking account either.

Do you have a mom, dad, sister, brother, or friend with a CC?

[Joe_smish]

I do have a friend with a paypal account. Is it possible to use his account and still have the proversion sent to me rather than him?

[jdobbs]

Just send an e-mail to dvd-rb@dvd-rb.com explaining the circumstances.

[elizerrojas]

so for those of us(me) who don't underestand all this fancy talk, the answer to the question; which one is better in terms of quality, between rebuilder and shrink, is?

i know it is hard to do but, can someone try to answer in plain english? thank you, thank you, and again thank you.

[Rockas]

@elizerrojas
What kind of a question is that? :D
It will have one answer here and another on Shrink's forum :)

I'll try to be honest :)

If you like to make "Movie Only" and the compression rate doesn't get lower that 90%... use Shrink... it's faster... or Use Shrink to extract the movie only without compression and then Use Rebuilder on ReJig mode.

If you like to make the whole DVD backup or Movie + Menus (PRO) than Rebuilder is the answer to your quality problems.

By the way... sometimes people don't pay attention to the great thing that can be the possibility of making "Main Movie + Menus"... let me say one thing... If your DVD Player's remote is broke and you buy an "Universal Remote"... you'll thank God every day for all the DVDs you have that still have menus... believe me... I know that :D

[elizerrojas]

thanks for the help rockas

[jdobbs]

If you like to make "Movie Only" and the compression rate doesn't get lower that 90%... use Shrink... it's faster... or Use Shrink to extract the movie only without compression and then Use Rebuilder on ReJig mode. That's the reason this type of question is so hard to answer. 90% of what?

First -- let's not talk about specific software -- there are lots of choices in the transcoder camp to choose from (Shrink and ReJig are just two). But they work generally the same way. They modify some parts of the source within the compressed domain. If you have an original that is encoded at a ridiculously high bitrate -- you can get great results with a transcoder at lower percentages, and if you have one that was done at a ridiculously low bitrate, a transcoder may look bad at 95%... of course you will find very few DVDs that are 90% or less anyway.

Here is the facts from my perspective: If your goal is quality -- processing with an encoder rather than a transcoder will give you the best results every time. There are rare (and I mean extremely rare) times when a transcoder will do just as well, and that is pretty much only on "movie-only" encodes. But why take the chance? If you do all your backups with an encoder (whether using DVD-RB or Big Three or some other [quality] encoder based product) -- you can be sure you're not going to be disappointed.

But if encoding time is more important to you than quality -- use a transcoder. There are also plenty of them to choose from other than Shrink. DVD2One, DVD95Copy, and many, many more. It is very convenient sometimes to get a copy in a half hour... and sometimes on some slower computers an encoder takes so long it makes you cringe.

DVD-RB is aimed at the quality crowd... but there is nothing wrong with either side. It's all personal preference.

[Joe_smish]

What program is there that can tell you the bitrate of the original movie? I know there is G-Spot for avi files and stuff but can that work with the .vob? or do I need something else?

[jdobbs]

You could use bitrate viewer. But the best way is to extract the M2V file, get its length in bytes, and if you know the framerate and number of frames (or time) you can just calculate it.