"Prepare" step

[boombass]

What exactly happens when I push the "Prepare" button?

Specifically, if I go into the Preview/Edit tab and blank out segments I don't want, do I have to "Prepare" again before I encode?

How about if I change a menu option, such as changing how much space is stolen from the extras? It seems like I have to prepare again.

As a side note, what is a reasonable bit rate for a movie? I know it is somewhat subjective, but what is a good threshold? Is one encoder better than another at a certain bit rate?

Thanks!

[k2002rahmani]

Prepare, blank out what you want, and encode, and then rebuild. Preparation is done only once, it is the process known as an Analyze by many transcoders. It simply looks at the movie and determines the size of each element, and how much reduction is needed, etc.

Prepare is done once, that's all.

I think bitrates are just different for different movies, don't think there is a best or worst. For encoders, CCE SP is the king (open to some debate) but is $2k. CCE basic is not a huge drop in quality or speed, and is much better tradeoff at $58.

HC is supposedly the best free encoder, and is very quickly catching up to the speed and quality of CCE.

Thanks for using DVD-RB!

[boombass]

Thanks for the explanation of "Prepare".

I want to use the 3-step process so I can blank out as many unnecessary parts as possible. But now it seems I must tell DVD-RB to do each step manually - after Preparing and blanking all I want, then I must press Encode, and finally Rebuild.

Can I automate those last two buttons, or can I use One-Click mode and have control over what I blank?

Thanks for your answers!

[k2002rahmani]

Nope, I have suggested this feature, it is not yet available. But you can just do a Movie and Menu only or Movie only if thats what you want.

[boombass]

It would be nice if you could. Some DVDs are a bit tricky - they embed commercials in the same stream (VOB?) as the main movie. It looks like DVD-RB considers the biggest VOB (or chain - I don't know the words!) to be the movie, no matter what else it may contain.

But I'm probably worrying too much about nothing. How long will it take to zip through that commercial? And how long for a brand new encode? Beh. The quality of the main movie won't improve enough for that. I just gotta keep that in mind.

Don't always have to be perfect!

[Rockas]

Thanks for the explanation of "Prepare".

I want to use the 3-step process so I can blank out as many unnecessary parts as possible. But now it seems I must tell DVD-RB to do each step manually - after Preparing and blanking all I want, then I must press Encode, and finally Rebuild.

Can I automate those last two buttons, or can I use One-Click mode and have control over what I blank?

Thanks for your answers!
yes you can.

Just run prepare phase and choose all the options you want.

Go to menu File and select "Skip PREPARE Phase...."

After that save your project "Menu File - Save Project"

Now go to the Batch tab and load the project you saved and then press "Start"... if you want to you can also choose "Shutdown at batch completion" to turn off the computer whan the job is finish.

You can do this if you're using the PRO version.

oh! by the way... read the help file... this is there :D

[k2002rahmani]

Yes this is true. I hadn't thought of doing it this way before. Although it is a few more clicks than 1-click, it seems like a good way to do it.

[boombass]

That's good! Thanks, Rockas, I'll give it a try.

I have another question, but I don't want to start a new thread because I think it will benefit only me. I have a strange DVD that I want to back up. It is dual-layer, but the second layer adds only about 100 MB to the total - so the whole ripped disc is 4.41 GB. Just a little too large to fit on a DVD-R. When I look at it in DVDShrink, the level of compression it wants to do is 1.4%! (Meaning 98.6% of the file size is intact.)

So, would it be fine to use DVDShrink? And more importantly, would it be detrimental to use DVD-RB? What do you think?

[Rockas]

Well... I don't know your source DVD... but with such a reduction level I don't think it will become much worst than the original... I don't think you'll notice the difference.

Anyway... if you don't like the result of Shrink... you can always use Rebuilder :D

[k2002rahmani]

I don't think DVD-RB can EVER be detrimental.... :D

[Rippraff]

@boombass

That's what I do in such cases: Keep your main movie in Shrink at "no compression" and shrink only the menu.

Cu Rippraff

[boombass]

@Rippraff
That seems like a good idea. The extras are just commercials, so who cares?

It's such a weird disc. Why did they go to the trouble and expense of making a dual layer disc just to put 100 MB of commercials on it?

@k2002rahmani
If I understand correctly, DVD-RB recompresses each frame (actually, CCE or HC or whatever recompresses each frame). I think I read somewhere that DVDShrink will take information out of some, but not all, frames to achieve its compression. Like on B-frames only. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I seem to remember reading a post that said DVDShrink was a better method for discs that requried very low compression. But I haven't been able to find those posts again.

I think I know what I want now. I will use Shrink, and save the big guns (DVD-RB) for big dual-layer discs.

Thanks everyone!