CCE basic question...

[pantherman85]

I am wondering if anyone has done any tests or can just see a quality difference at some point when using CCE basic with DVD Rebuilder. I am wondering at what point can you compress a DVD with this program and start seeing a noticeable difference in quality. For example, do you see it when you take a movie that is 7.5 gigs and compress it to fit on a 4.7 gig DVD-R??? I am just trying to figure out at what point is it safe to leave the extras and stuff on a DVD, because I won't lose noticeable quality in the compression anyways. Right now I have been playing it safe and have just kept the movie alone. Thanks.

[deh707]

oh yes babe, there is a difference.

dvd-rb is, in my opinion, the best program to use, when it comes to quality, not speed.

i even use it, keeping menus AND extras untouched, and removing foreign language. i do get worried that the quality of the main movie will look ugly, but it looks great, even at a bitrate of 1,500 (3-pass cce).

it looked better than using dvdshrink doing: 70% menu compression, 65% extras compression, remove foreign language, deep analysis, maximum smoothness of main movie.

dvd-rb with no menu and no extra compression still looked better than dvdshrink with menu and extras compression.

when using dvd rebuilder, you might wanna set "Steal space from extras: 25% or 50%", if you want to compress the extras

[steve2713]

There's too many variables to put an easy guideline on 'how much' you can compress and still get noticeable results. You have to factor in the quality of the original transfer, the length of all the combined content being compressed, etc. And then, define 'noticeable' - it's going to vary by the viewer, as well as the quality of what you'll be playing it back on.

For example, if the orignal content is a good clean transfer of 2 hours of video with one audio track to fill an entire DL disc, you could probably compress that to near half it's original size and still have a result that looks great. But take a noisy transfer with 6 hours of content on the original DL and try to cut it's size in half, and the ending result will likely be less impressive.

I've used DVD-RB with CCE a few times, and it can be very impressive. I did a 3 1/2 hour movie that was a noisy transfer, zero extras, and the results were very nice, but I could certainly 'notice' it from the original. I will say that it DID do a nicer job than Recode, which may well be the best quality transcoder at this point. There was some macroblocking when zooming in on the Recode transfer, while the DVD-RB transfer had much more subtle macroblocking.

If that same transfer was of 2 hours of video content and the original wasn't noisy, I wouldn't be suprised if the result would be hard to tell from the original, so as I said there's going to be variables you'll have to consider.

[steve2713]

when using dvd rebuilder, you might wanna set "Steal space from extras: 25% or 50%", if you want to compress the extras

Be careful how much you use of this setting, because it can really butcher your extras, again depending on how long the original content is, how much it needs to compress it, etc. The last transfer I did with DVD-RB, I set the extras at 33%, 2 pass, and the results on the extras was nauseating MASSIVE macroblocking and it was honestly barely even viewable. I re-did the transfer at 25% extras, and a 5(!) pass, and the extras were still quite poor looking even though the original looks fine, Shrink or Recode did a better job in this case, unfortunately. The main movie looked slightly better with DVD-RB, though. Again there's too many variables to suggest strict guidlines on what is 'good' and what is 'bad' when it comes to what will be 'noticeable'.

[pantherman85]

You guys have been very helpful, but i have a couple more questions because I am new to this;

1). What exactly is a noisy transfer?
2). What is with the 'pass' thing?? Is it the more passes the better the quality?

[steve2713]

You guys have been very helpful, but i have a couple more questions because I am new to this;

1). What exactly is a noisy transfer?
2). What is with the 'pass' thing?? Is it the more passes the better the quality?

Noisy transfer, by that I mean the video has alot of noise and artifacts, like older films that have lots of scratches on the film, etc. The noisy transfer I was talking about was an old B&W movie that had alot of scratches and similar 'noise' on the video. Noise like that makes it harder on the encoder vs. clean video.

The more passes the better, but the more passes you do the longer it'll take. I did the same DVD at 2 passes and 5 passes, and it was a mild improvement. More than 3 or 4 passes and you'll likely see almost no improvement, at least from what I've seen with CCE (other encoders will vary).

[rkr1958]

2). What is with the 'pass' thing?? Is it the more passes the better the quality?

It's the number of passes used for the Variable Bit Rate Encoding Option. This option "maintains" picture quality while miminizing file size. CCE Basic allows for a maximum of two passes. Those versions of CCE that allow for 3 or more cost $2000 and more. For me, $58 for CCE-basic is affordable, $2000 is not. By the way, I love DVDRB w/CCE-basic.

My rule of thumb is if I have to go below 90% in DVDShrink I'll use DVDRB w/CCE-Basic. While I could go lower, this is where I set my threshold.

[pantherman85]

"Basic allows for a maximum of two passes."

Huh, from what i can tell Using CCE basic with DVD Rebuilder does let you go beyond 2 passes in the DVD Rebuilder options for CCE basic/Advanced expert settings. Is this not actually making more passes???

[FulciLives]

"Basic allows for a maximum of two passes."

Huh, from what i can tell Using CCE basic with DVD Rebuilder does let you go beyond 2 passes in the DVD Rebuilder options for CCE basic/Advanced expert settings. Is this not actually making more passes???

I never used DVD Rebuilder but CCE BASIC is limited to 2 passes when doing a multi-pass VBR whereas CCE SP can do many more (I think it is 9 passes though 5 is more than enough in just about any situation).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman