newbie question about DVD RB and CCE Basic

[robertm]

newbie question about DVD RB and CCE Basic

I used RB (free) v.0.98.1 in combination with the HC encoder to backup
DVDs. I was (and still am) very impressed with the result. The difference
between the original movie and the RB/HC-generated one is either marginal
or non-existent, unlike e.g. Shrink, where quality loss is very apparent.
There is only one catch: to process an 8 GB DVD into a 4.3 GB VIDEO_TS
file takes at least 4 1/5 h on my 2.5 GHz pc.
Now I read all those nice stories about the CCE Basic encoder: even better
than HC (not really an issue) but also faster - which IS an issue. So I forked
down $58 to buy CCE and changed a few settings in RB so it knows where
to find CCE, and converted a 7.5 GB movie - with very disappointing results.
The conversion also took about 4 1/5 h, and the quality was much worse than
that obtained with the (free !) HC encoder. 'Blocky' I would describe it.
I am sure the problem is not the CCE encoder but rather my unfamiliarity
with the settings. In RB one can change only two CCE settings: VBR_Bias
and Quality Prec, with default settings of 25 and 16 respectively. Some
people state that settings 10 (VBR) and 24 (QPrec) are better, so I tried
those as well: still a 'blocky' result. I increase QPrec even to 48: same
result. I also opened CCE itself and generated a new profile with the following changed settings:
2-pass VBR (was 1-pass CBR)
Bitrate VBR Min = 0, Avg=6.0 and Max=9.0
Quant. Charact. Flat part priority=30

The result is still lousy - and it still takes about 4 1/2 hour. Could somebody
give me some indication how I can improve the result.

Thanks in advance! Robert

[rkr1958]

I've used DVDRB-Pro w/CCE-Basic for almost two years now with very good results. If I remember correctly, it takes around 2 to 3-hours to backup a 2-hour movie. I use the default advance setting in DVDRB-Pro for CCE-basic.

One simple thing to check is under Mode > Encoder that you've selected CCE-basic as your encoder and not some other encoder or transcoder (e.g., ReJig).

[fritzi93]

Well, lots of folks use CCE with DVDRB, no problem. I don't know how it could possibly be the fault of CCE, but conversely, it's difficult to come up with anything helpful.

Really, the defaults should be adequate. If you increase Quality Precision, you allocate more bits to the background. It's also called flat part priority. So if you get blocking in the background, raising this value MAY help. Also, if you get the infamous "banding", it's advisable to raise that value. Doing so will mean less bits available for motion, though.

As to VBR Bias, the closer to zero you set it, the more latitude you give the encoder. Set it too low and you may get blocking on dark scenes and fade-ins. Set it too high and you'll get noise in motion scenes. So the higher the number, the more like CBR, and the lower the number, the more purely VBR-like.

(Apologies if you already knew all the above).

Jeez, I thought if I started discussing it, some useful suggestion would come to me. Hasn't happened.

[EDIT] Could it be the source material is crummy? HC is supposed to excel at low-bitrate crap source material, while CCE does not. Tried encoding something else?

Everything installed correctly? Latest version of Avisynth?

You don't by chance have some inappropriate filter saved in the filter editor, do you?

One last thing: 8 Gigs is a hell of a lot to compress, can you trim it down before encoding, or even run it at half D-1?

[manono]

You're talking about 2 different DVDs, aren't you? An 8 GB one done using HCEnc and the 7.5 GB one done with CCE? Apples and oranges. Come back after having done the same movie using the 2 different encoders.

[robertm]

Thanks for your response; my reactions:

to rkr1958: no, the CCE encoder was selected

to fritzi93: I decrypted the original with DVDFab Decrypter: the result is contained in a 7.71 GB
VIDEO_TS folder. I used this folder as a source for both the RB/HC result and the few
RB/CCE encodings. I did not encode something else yet, but I will do that, just to see
what the result will be in that case.
I had installed already Avisynth 2.5, but to make sure I downloaded the latest version
(2.5.7 RC3) and installed that. Havn't tried it yet.
You remark "You don't by chance have some inappropriate filter saved in the filter
editor, do you ?"; my (newbie !) reaction: what filter editor ?
to manono: no, there is only one source, and it's actually 7.71 GB, see above. Sorry for the
confusion!

Thanks again for your reactions, Robert