DVD Rebuilder-Passes Question

[bappida69]

Hi,

Finally I was able to get the combination of DVD RB and CCE 2.50 working.

I have a few basic questions. I set up the passes to 3 in DVD RB. Do I need to change any setup in CCE as well?? Also, how would I know whether 3 passes have taken place or not. Is there some kind of rough estimate, as to how long passes(2 or 3 etc.) would take? I just needed to make sure that 3 passes have taken place

Thanks in advance.

[jyn999]

Hi,

Finally I was able to get the combination of DVD RB and CCE 2.50 working.

I have a few basic questions. I set up the passes to 3 in DVD RB. Do I need to change any setup in CCE as well?? Also, how would I know whether 3 passes have taken place or not. Is there some kind of rough estimate, as to how long passes(2 or 3 etc.) would take? I just needed to make sure that 3 passes have taken place

Thanks in advance.

Look at the CCE windows. The .VAF window will report the number of frames (let's say 234) to be processed for the segment. That's pass 1. Then the .M2V window will report 468 frames processed. That's what CCE considers as passes 2 and 3.

The .M2V window will report 702 frames for 4 passes, 936 frames for 5 passes, and so on and so forth.

Time for encoding depends on your processor and memory.

[Gurm]

After the first pass, though, each pass is pretty consistent in time. So if X is the time it takes to do pass 1, and Y is the time it takes to do pass 2, and Z is the total number of passes, the time taken is ROUGHLY:

x + (z-1)y

[jyn999]

After the first pass, though, each pass is pretty consistent in time. So if X is the time it takes to do pass 1, and Y is the time it takes to do pass 2, and Z is the total number of passes, the time taken is ROUGHLY:

x + (z-1)y

It's not apparent whether CCE actually does additional passes after the .VAF analysis pass and the .M2V encoding pass. In the .M2V window, CCE reports that it is processing (z-1) * (the number of frames) reported in the .VAF window.

Maybe you can get a more definite answer from the Doom 9 DVD-Rebuilder forum

[Gurm]

Ahh yes, the problem here is that the number of passes that CCE does is off by one from the number of passes DVD Rebuilder is set for. It's a known issue, one that the author of DVD Rebuilder doesn't seem to want to rectify. I can't really say I have an opinion one way or the other, but...

[bappida69]

Thanks for the prompt responses. In the CCE SP, I have multipass VBR set to 3 passes. I also have set up the passes to 3 in DVD RB. I am assuming from the replies that in this RB set up I will have 2 passes(3-1).

Since my files have already been encoded, can I verify how many passes have happened based on the log files of RB?? Or do I have to wait till I do the next encode??

Thanks in advance.

[jyn999]

Thanks for the prompt responses. In the CCE SP, I have multipass VBR set to 3 passes. I also have set up the passes to 3 in DVD RB. I am assuming from the replies that in this RB set up I will have 2 passes(3-1).

Since my files have already been encoded, can I verify how many passes have happened based on the log files of RB?? Or do I have to wait till I do the next encode??

Thanks in advance.

The number of passes set in DVD RB will override the setting in CCE. You can open the Rebuilder.INI file with Notepad to see the latest settings.

[soloredd]

Can someone briefly explain why using, say, 3 passes VBR would be better than 6 passes VBR, besides time? When a pass incurs, what exactly is it doing? Is it compressing each time, degrading video, or is it making the quality better?

I'm still a little confused on that.

Just for info:

I did a backup of a movie that was 1 hour 56 minutes. I first used Shrink, dumbed down the extras and menus, cut out audio, etc. I used DA w/ Sharp. I then did a 6-pass VBR using RB & CCE. Honestly, I can't really tell a difference. Shrink took about 1 hour to process, RB took around 7 hours.

[jyn999]

Can someone briefly explain why using, say, 3 passes VBR would be better than 6 passes VBR, besides time? When a pass incurs, what exactly is it doing? Is it compressing each time, degrading video, or is it making the quality better?

3 pass VBR is not better than 6 pass VBR. 6 pass encoding will give you more quality than 3 pass encoding but the difference is very slight and may not be worth the extra processing time.

I'm still a little confused on that.

Just for info:

I did a backup of a movie that was 1 hour 56 minutes. I first used Shrink, dumbed down the extras and menus, cut out audio, etc. I used DA w/ Sharp. I then did a 6-pass VBR using RB & CCE. Honestly, I can't really tell a difference. Shrink took about 1 hour to process, RB took around 7 hours.

That's the philosophical difference between DVD Shrink and DVD RB. You can have DVD Shrink improve quality at the expense of menus and extras. DVD RB will produce a new DVD containing all the content of the original DVD with quality very close to the original (at least to my eyes).

I use both programs. If speed is more important than quality, go with DVD Shrink. If quality is more important than processing time, go with DVD RB.

[soloredd]

Thanks for the reply, jyn.

I should have edited my post, I know by experience with divx/xvid that 3 pass is not better than 6. You did answer my question, though, when you stated the difference might be very slight.

I'm going to try another test to see what happens. Just curious, what are the variables that help you decide between using DVD RB or Shrink? A particular movie, length, size?

[jyn999]

Just curious, what are the variables that help you decide between using DVD RB or Shrink? A particular movie, length, size?

The length of the movie is less important to me than the quality of its transfer to DVD. Some movies are digitally remastered for DVD. Some movies (LOTR and Star Wars) use extensive CG which improves the quality of the transfer to DVD. Some movies (Shrek and Finding Nemo) are entirely CG which makes for a beautiful transfer to DVD.

If it's a DVD I really like and I want the best quality, I use DVD RB. If the transfer to DVD was done well, I'm OK with using DVD Shrink.

[guns1inger]

CCE (and any worthwhile encoder) only encodes on the final pass. All the passes leading up to that are used to analyse the video content to determine the best distribution of data based to meet the target bitrates. Each successive pass refines this analysis, until it is applied in the final pass. There is a law of diminishing returns to this however, as the bulk of the work is done in the first analysis pass, refined in the second, and after that tweaking around the edges. Given the amount of time it takes per pass, you have to ask yourself is the investment (time, power, hdd usage etc) worth the often indistinguishable increase in quality in a small portion of scenes or even just frames (because after the second pass, the refinements might only apply to a single frame). This is a personal choice.

I have stopped going above 3 in DVD RB because I could see no justification. Depending on the length of the film, 3 passes takes between 3 - 5 hours. The quality at this point is equal to (give or take a small improvement to that single frame) what I would get if it ran 11 hours.

[theKramer]

I have been using the "One Pass VBR (with Analysis)" setting and I dont notice any quality difference than using 3 or more passes.
Plus, it takes only 1.5hrs in One click mode