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  1. Originally Posted by mazinz
    I had no idea this thread was still going, notifications stopped. At any rate, I too prefer to use other programs, but most of the time if I run into some unforeseen bug for whatever reason, ConvertX comes through, gives me no problems and does it properly. In many cases this encoder really is not that bad, but having a more than 1 pass was needed. Now they just have to work on maximizing or getting it close to your desired output file size (4.20 something or 7. something gigs for DL) and I can see this program jumping further in status
    ?? You set it for dvd5 or dvd9 and it won't burn over that to fit on a SL or DL disc...
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  2. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
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    Trouble is you can set it for DVD5 and only get 3.6 - 3.8 GB when it should be using the full disc. I know it won't go over, but all too often it doesn't get close enough. HCEnc always hits the mark.
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  3. Member ChrissyBoy's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by guns1inger
    Trouble is you can set it for DVD5 and only get 3.6 - 3.8 GB when it should be using the full disc. I know it won't go over, but all too often it doesn't get close enough. HCEnc always hits the mark.
    This is because the underlying encoder of ConvertXtodvd is ffmpeg. This is the issue with all programs based on the ffmpeg libraries, given certain encoding parameters. It is an inherent and known issue with the rate control code. Ultimately the resultant bitrate is lower than what is requested and so the file size is less than calculated.

    2 pass should get more accuracy in terms distributing the bitrate on the second pass - but again this is flawed in the ffmpeg libraries.

    Finally you can achieve better bitrate accuracy and so more accurate file sizes (at the expense of speed) given the appropriate params, but ConvertXtodvd doesn’t do this in favour of speed.
    SVCD2DVD v2.5, AVI/MPEG/HDTV/AviSynth/h264->DVD, PAL->NTSC conversion.
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  4. Originally Posted by ranosb
    Originally Posted by mazinz
    I had no idea this thread was still going, notifications stopped. At any rate, I too prefer to use other programs, but most of the time if I run into some unforeseen bug for whatever reason, ConvertX comes through, gives me no problems and does it properly. In many cases this encoder really is not that bad, but having a more than 1 pass was needed. Now they just have to work on maximizing or getting it close to your desired output file size (4.20 something or 7. something gigs for DL) and I can see this program jumping further in status
    ?? You set it for dvd5 or dvd9 and it won't burn over that to fit on a SL or DL disc...
    No I was saying that sometimes it does not come as close to a dvd-5 max file size that it should (the closest I ever
    had this program come to that size was one disc it made 4.20 gigs). The largest this program has ever given me if I select the dual layer (dvd9) option was 6.15 gigs

    The reasons for this were already explained by other posters
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  5. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by guns1inger
    2 pass certainly doesn't improve it's ability to use a full disc. It still has a tendency to under cut the requested size, sometimes by 10% or more
    I never noticed (or recognized) ConvertX menu settings that are supposed to give you a requested disc size. I mean, how full it is -- not DL vs. SL. I did have one source that wanted to overfill a SL, and the SL results had been poor, so I fed it a DL as an experiment. It took an extra 3G of space with the DL, but the results were still poor.

    I do have encoding quality set to 'Highest.' Was that what you were referring to ?

    Originally Posted by guns1inger
    Trouble is you can set it for DVD5 and only get 3.6 - 3.8 GB when it should be using the full disc. I know it won't go over, but all too often it doesn't get close enough. HCEnc always hits the mark.
    EDIT: Just saw the follow-up posts. I dunno, but I wind up with a whole lot of full DVD-5s, and I don't think it's from overloading with too much content. The nature of the sources are going to vary quite a bit, but I'm usually going for a total running time of from 55 - 75 minutes. Because I thought that would be conservative, and I wanted to give it every chance to maximize the quality -- at least insofar as ConvertX is able to.
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  6. Originally Posted by Seeker47
    Originally Posted by guns1inger
    2 pass certainly doesn't improve it's ability to use a full disc. It still has a tendency to under cut the requested size, sometimes by 10% or more
    I never noticed (or recognized) ConvertX menu settings that are supposed to give you a requested disc size. I mean, how full it is -- not DL vs. SL. I did have one source that wanted to overfill a SL, and the SL results had been poor, so I fed it a DL as an experiment. It took an extra 3G of space with the DL, but the results were still poor.

    I do have encoding quality set to 'Highest.' Was that what you were referring to ?
    No what he was referring to is the max size for a dvd-5 (4.37 gigs) or dvd-9. Most other similar programs when you give them a size you would like your disc to be around (ex dvd5 at 4.37 gigs), these programs tend to come within 10-20 megs of that desired size. What convertX is doing on many occasions is not even coming close to that size when it could easily do so if it used a higher bitrate and did not rely on ffmpeg for the encoding

    If I have a 16gig mkv file and tell convertx to use a dual layer dvd9 size for it, there should be no reason I am left with a slightly over 5 gig file size when it could easily come close to the 7. gig file size for dl discs
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    That is my problem with ConvertXtoDVD....load one 700mm xvid...the "traffic light" shows excellent encoding capabilities....then gives you a 2.2gb DVD.
    Load two 700MB xvid files(with movie lengths that should be too much for one DVD)...the traffic lights show yellow....and it still gives you a DVD just above 4gb...nowhere near "full".

    It does do great PAL to NTSC conversion though...gotta hand it to it on that one.
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  8. Originally Posted by hech54
    the "traffic light" shows excellent encoding capabilities....then gives you a 2.2gb DVD.
    Load two 700MB xvid files(with movie lengths that should be too much for one DVD)...the traffic lights show yellow....and it still gives you a DVD just above 4gb...nowhere near "full".

    It does do great PAL to NTSC conversion though...gotta hand it to it on that one.
    Yes, the PAL to NTSC conversion is great, and Yes selecting DVD9 should produce a much bigger DVD, at first I thought it was due to the source file.
    Maybe a question for the makers at ConvertXtoDvd...
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  9. Originally Posted by mazinz
    If I have a 16gig mkv file and tell convertx to use a dual layer dvd9 size for it, there should be no reason I am left with a slightly over 5 gig file size when it could easily come close to the 7. gig file size for dl discs
    I'll give you one reason: the DVD spec. You can't exceed it.

    e.g. 90min movie 9000kb/s video 192kb/s audio is ~5.7GB. You can't go much over that or it's not DVD-Video compliant.

    I'm not defending or attacking ConvertX: it does a great job for quick & dirty conversions and I used to use it alot. But unless something has changed dramatically (i.e. they don't use ffmpeg anymore), there is no way anyone is going to get similar quality to CCE or HCenc. And the sizing issues would suggest they are still using ffmpeg
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    i have tried this 3 times with this version and set it to 4478mb with the "custom" size option and i hit between 4.29 and 4.31 gb's every time...never fails...of course its not HCenc or CCE but for the hassle it takes away and how simple it is to use...works for me
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  11. Agreed! It's gets you a watchable menued DVD very fast & in decent quality

    btw..installed v.3.53.139 & can find no reg setting to enable 2 pass. They must have taken it out after it being reported
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  12. Originally Posted by CBC
    Agreed! It's gets you a watchable menued DVD very fast & in decent quality

    btw..installed v.3.53.139 & can find no reg setting to enable 2 pass. They must have taken it out after it being reported
    Just download this and run, will put and enable two pass encoding, which does make a difference on HD sources like MKV...

    http://rapidshare.com/files/229995270/ConvertXtoDvd_enc_twopass_enabled.reg
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  13. very cool, thanks. Will play around with it & a couple of 720P .mkvs I have as testers
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  14. eh, set to High Quality settings, with 2-passes, it still spit out a finished VIDEO_TS folder only 2.87GBs.
    Don't see much diff, the 2 pass seems to not do anything worth the extra processing time. ah, well...
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  15. I had something written but decided to delete it, I did not see a delete post option so you are reading this
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  16. Member MysticE's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by CBC
    eh, set to High Quality settings, with 2-passes, it still spit out a finished VIDEO_TS folder only 2.87GBs.
    Don't see much diff, the 2 pass seems to not do anything worth the extra processing time. ah, well...
    Seems most don't quite understand how CXD works. It's implementation of ffmpeg is rather specialized. First it's Quality settings aren't really the same as what most apps use, they are actually more like 'Profiles'. In many cases 'High Quality Slow' is not the best choice. 2 pass encoding will not improve anything in CXD, the authors have been forced to add it to appease it's user base. I wish they had spent their time and money on other things.

    Now this will sound odd, but you don't want to end up with a packed disc. If set at 'High Quality' and you end up with occupation > 95% it's recommended that 'Medium Quality' be used. This is based on a source that contains a fair amount of action. Although there may be a slight softening of less complex scenes the high action parts should look better, obviously this is where most notice artifacts, blockiness/pixilation/ghosting whatever folks like to call it. The way they have set up their 'Profiles', 'Medium" will allow for more bitrate for the complex scenes.

    More confusion. For longer running time sources 'Medium' should be used (again assuming a fair amount of action).

    Also note CXD was originally developed/optimised for speedy Divx/Xvid conversions. It's now probably the most consistent converter for those who download off the net. No codec fiddling required.

    All this is fully explained at their forums by a member who has done over a hundred different tests, posting many graphs and charts comparing bitrate distribution etc.
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  17. Originally Posted by MysticE
    Originally Posted by CBC
    eh, set to High Quality settings, with 2-passes, it still spit out a finished VIDEO_TS folder only 2.87GBs.
    Don't see much diff, the 2 pass seems to not do anything worth the extra processing time. ah, well...
    Seems most don't quite understand how CXD works. It's implementation of ffmpeg is rather specialized. First it's Quality settings aren't really the same as what most apps use, they are actually more like 'Profiles'. In many cases 'High Quality Slow' is not the best choice. 2 pass encoding will not improve anything in CXD, the authors have been forced to add it to appease it's user base. I wish they had spent their time and money on other things.

    Now this will sound odd, but you don't want to end up with a packed disc. If set at 'High Quality' and you end up with occupation > 95% it's recommended that 'Medium Quality' be used. This is based on a source that contains a fair amount of action. Although there may be a slight softening of less complex scenes the high action parts should look better, obviously this is where most notice artifacts, blockiness/pixilation/ghosting whatever folks like to call it. The way they have set up their 'Profiles', 'Medium" will allow for more bitrate for the complex scenes.

    More confusion. For longer running time sources 'Medium' should be used (again assuming a fair amount of action).

    Also note CXD was originally developed/optimised for speedy Divx/Xvid conversions. It's now probably the most consistent converter for those who download off the net. No codec fiddling required.

    All this is fully explained at their forums by a member who has done over a hundred different tests, posting many graphs and charts comparing bitrate distribution etc.
    Hi Mystic

    Yes, I have seen the posts in the VSO forums on this very topic & the arguments by people who demanded the authors include multi-pass. My findings pretty much prove what was said about the multi-pass ....it really does not bring any better quality than one pass. And I would agree - it is really the strongest app for creating DVD ready material out there.
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  18. Hi there

    I m Fabrice, and co-owner of VSO Software, the company which makes ConvertXtoDVD. I don't know if I should feel good or bad about the fact you have published the hack of the 2 pass. just a quick word.. from our test for now, the 2 pass doesn't change really the quality, but there is a real difference ( maybe not visible ), till you are in the hack, you should better find the one controling the filters used to rescale the image, because in this case there is a BIG and VISIBLE change in the quality of the image. By default we are using for now a fast linear filter, but if you change it to Lanczos, the image will be sharper
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  19. Fabrice

    Thanks for posting, your program is great! Sorry about the discussion on the 2 pass hack, but it is out there.
    Can you explain how to access the filter change in CX2D? Or will this be implemented in a future release?
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  20. you may understand I don't want to put the information, as it is a feature reserved for upcoming v4, you could have this if you agree to keep it for you only. We don't mind to welcome new beta testers ( the top contributors got the access to very internal reg keys ), if you have a IM account to report and be in touch with technical team, and if possible a valid license for the program
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  21. understood, of course. Thank you!
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  22. also, we are working on multi-core optimisation, it is still under dev, but the gain ( especially with advanced filters ) will be quite nice.
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  23. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    I just recently ran into my first instance of a 2-pass job looking worse than the prior 1-pass for it had. (For lack of better terminology, I would call it a very fine-grain blockiness in the texture, &/or maybe a decrease in sharpness ?) No other settings had been touched. So far, I think I had found the 2-pass to be a wash at worse, and somewhat better in many cases. Not a big enough sample yet to say for sure, though. I'm thinking that your source has to fall within certain quality (and maybe format / codec) parameters to really benefit here, and I'd sure like to learn how to identify just what they are. On a reasonably fast dual-core or better, the 2-pass hit in job time is not too bad . . . but then I'm coming from several years of using a single-core P4.
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  24. you might want to gander up a few posts to see lapinou's comments on the 2-pass
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  25. my only concern is you are testing 2 pass with a set of filter not optimized for quality. so whatever the number of pass, you start with pretty bad condition. My only suggestion is to contact VSO to be enrolled as official beta tester and you will be able to get the best settings to "enjoy" the 2 pass later ( even if the difference isn't big )
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    MysticE: That is quite interesting, and the first I've heard of a reason to choose something other than the Slow | High Quality setting. (But I must confess that I have not read extensively in the VSO forums.) I'm not afraid of a packed or nearly-packed disc . . . and I do wish to maximize the picture quality. So, what if one's sources do not involve a lot of action ?

    for lapinou: I'm very interested in that lanczos filter, as an alternative to the 2-pass. After sifting through your registry settings, I'm going to take a wild guess that this is enabled in the key for

    resample_method ___________ where it currently says __________ IRM_FAST_BILINEAR

    but since I don't know for sure, or exactly what would get plugged in there instead, I wouldn't risk messing with it.

    I may take your suggestion and contact VSO privately, but I have some doubts as to my qualifications to be a Beta tester, or whether my limited volume of ConvertX usage would be of much value here.
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  27. Member MysticE's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Seeker47
    MysticE: That is quite interesting, and the first I've heard of a reason to choose something other than the Slow | High Quality setting. (But I must confess that I have not read extensively in the VSO forums.) I'm not afraid of a packed or nearly-packed disc . . . and I do wish to maximize the picture quality. So, what if one's sources do not involve a lot of action ?

    for lapinou: I'm very interested in that lanczos filter, as an alternative to the 2-pass. After sifting through your registry settings, I'm going to take a wild guess that this is enabled in the key for ....
    Well if you've noticed 'recommended' has always been 'Medium'. As far as the new scaling here's a blurb concerning the new 3.6.4.158 beta.

    the main "big" difference in this version is a new scaler... what is the scaler ? , it is the part where we need to resize the picture ( so frame by frame ) to adapt to the DVD resolution ( PAL and NTSC are different resolution ), where we need to downscale or upscale the picture to fit the only possible resolution of the DVD.
    in this part, which can be very important and cpu consuming, we also need to make some color convertion ( RGB to YUV which is the standard for video on tv ), this step and the rescaler has been completely rewritten, and that's why it is a beta version.

    speed and color should be better and faster, your comment on this part will be welcome.
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  28. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by MysticE
    Well if you've noticed 'recommended' has always been 'Medium'. As far as the new scaling here's a blurb concerning the new 3.6.4.158 beta.
    No, guess I had overlooked that. I just installed this beta (upgrading from 3.5.135, which had worked pretty well for me), and hope to have a chance to test it shortly.

    Originally Posted by MysticE
    speed and color should be better and faster, your comment on this part will be welcome.[/i]
    I will. For the moment, let me cite what might be a good or at least a typical example. I just came across this thread here that looks quite promising:
    https://forum.videohelp.com/topic85263.html
    I don't create my own videos -- that's probably a long ways off -- but if we don't already have a thread here for "Favorite Video Discoveries" (found, rather than created), we really should. Most would likely be due to content, some due to technique, etc. Anyway, I'm not digressing. One of the rather nifty ones I stumbled across recently is here:
    http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80566018/?pc=48225
    It looks pretty good on my computer monitor screen (played normally -- never checked it out fullscreen), but if I run it through ConvertX to make it DVD-friendly and ready to show on a TV screen, it looks pretty bad. Converting the kind of video you find online is one of the main reasons for a program like ConvertX. But, in a nutshell, I think this is the problem: so much of the video you find online is just not good enough in quality. It probably won't make enough of a difference, no matter what settings you change in ConvertX, and probably no other encoder or program out there is going to give you results that would be significantly better.

    I've seen plenty of cases where if I just put the .AVI or .MPG file on a thumbdrive and if the Oppo is able to play it, that is probably about as good as it's ever going to look on the larger screen.
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  29. Member MysticE's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by mazinz
    I had no idea this thread was still going, notifications stopped. At any rate, I too prefer to use other programs, but most of the time if I run into some unforeseen bug for whatever reason, ConvertX comes through, gives me no problems and does it properly. In many cases this encoder really is not that bad, but having a more than 1 pass was needed. Now they just have to work on maximizing or getting it close to your desired output file size (4.20 something or 7. something gigs for DL) and I can see this program jumping further in status
    Although your post is a bit old, having a more than 1 pass is not needed. CX2D has a very unique way of doing things. It will be implemented, not because it's needed but to appease those who think it is. You should spend some time at VSO's forums, there are extensive tests and explantions of how it encodes. The difference between Medium vs. High Quality encoding is also interesting. Also note filling a blank to the max is not recommended or desirable with CX2D.
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  30. thanks MysticE for the nice clarification
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