forty-two features request/questions

[polopo43]

Hi !
Excellent software thank you !

Just a few questions:
1) How do I know how much I should put in User Rate to fit my DVD on a DVD-R (4,3Go)?
2) Do you think it will be possible to add variable bitrate support ? I have heard that it is the best way to have excellent quality/low size DVDs.
3)What is the Rip Title Stream option ?
4)Why isn't it possible to use forty-two with PCM only or DTS only DVDs ?
Do you know if it will be hard to implement this in forty-two ?
5) Is there a chance that one day we will be able to rip DVD menus as well ?
6) Where do I donate ?

Thanks for all your work.
Polopo

[KaiCherry]

Hi !
Excellent software thank you !

Thank YOU!

Just a few questions:
1) How do I know how much I should put in User Rate to fit my DVD on a DVD-R (4,3Go)?
2) Do you think it will be possible to add variable bitrate support ? I have heard that it is the best way to have excellent quality/low size DVDs.

forty-two uses vbr by default, as mpeg2 is inherently vbr and it was my understanding from the encoder white papers that mpeg2enc works best when allowed to do vbr. As such, the bitrate you set is the *maximum* it will do.

Contrast this with the divx encoders; the bitrate is the *minimum* it will do in vbr mode.

I have found, from testing with my MooV2DVD app from awhile ago, that 6000 is really good when using ac3, since its smaller than mp2. To be safe, set it at 5000. You will be hard pressed to go over 4GB with the vbr settings, so crank it up!

3)What is the Rip Title Stream option ?

DVDs often have different versions of the movie as titles, like the pan/scan version as title 2

Music DVDs often have each video as a title instead of chapters. The default setting aims to transcode the main feature, which is what most people want.

4)Why isn't it possible to use forty-two with PCM only or DTS only DVDs ?
Do you know if it will be hard to implement this in forty-two ?

Actually this is possible with divx, due to the way mencoder works. Without complicated bs, and increased encoding time, or space, I haven't worked it out for mpeg yet. Its at the near top of the list tho.

What 42 tries to do is see if it can find an ac3 audio track that matches the language that you are trying to transcode for the title you are trying to transcode. Only if this fails does it reject the dvd.

5) Is there a chance that one day we will be able to rip DVD menus as well ?

There is a project in linuxworld working on ifoediting. Without this, its not going to happen

6) Where do I donate ?

Thanks for all your work.
Polopo

you can email a donation to me via paypal. kaicherry at mac dot com

-K

[Macnewbie]

Speaking of ifo editing, I heard/read that the developer of IFOEdit (the freeware PC app that can split DVDs to DVD-Rs while preserving menus) has gone to work for 321 Studios, the makers of the infamous DVDXCopy software. Kai, you should go work for 321 and help them make a Mac version of DVDXCopy. Good work on 42. I sent you a donation.

[polopo43]

This is really strange: if I use 42 directly from the DVD disc it works well but if I use it from a VIDEO_TS folder obtained with DVD-backup it tells me that it is not possible yet to encode PCM-only DVDs !!

How come ?

Thanks for your answer.
Polopo

[KaiCherry]

This is really strange: if I use 42 directly from the DVD disc it works well but if I use it from a VIDEO_TS folder obtained with DVD-backup it tells me that it is not possible yet to encode PCM-only DVDs !!

How come ?

Thanks for your answer.
Polopo

forty-two requires DVDs

-K

[polopo43]

Mmh... I also tried to make a disk image from the DVD. Doesn't work either. As you said, it really needs the DVD disk.

Any plans to support VIDEO_TS folders or DVD-disk images ?

[KaiCherry]

it works fine with legit images

it works great with dvds.

we have no plans of facilitating any (more than we do already) piracy, so, erm, you're gonna have to have those DVD's handy


-K

[polopo43]

Thanks !

Features requests this time:
- support for PAL
- being able to choose the final size of the movie

These would be nice...
Polopo

[pmcd]

forty-two requires DVDs

-K

Do you mean it won't convert mpeg2 files? That is, are you saying you need the physical DVD disk? That would certainly explain why I can't get it to convert any mpeg2 file...

philip

[KaiCherry]

forty-two requires DVDs

-K

Do you mean it won't convert mpeg2 files? That is, are you saying you need the physical DVD disk? That would certainly explain why I can't get it to convert any mpeg2 file...

philip

That's exactly why

-K

[s m y r n a]

just a req...

PAL support would do nicely, please...

I appreciate all the hard work & will donate once I can use the app properly...

[bilestyle]

i don't understand why people want PAL support so bad, every tool under the sun will convert PAL properly without any sync issues at all, and since there are SOOO many tools available, i dont see what the problem with usin one of them are. Either way im just sayin thing b/c i dont think PAL support is going to come any time soon, if ever.

[quasor]

Another trivial request. A checkbox to crop only, not rescale for Div/X.
thanks guys,

[mambo99]

Another request:

I like my final to be QuickTime. As KaiCherry said this doesn't work for nDVD because QT doesn't support ac3 audio. That's okay, so long as there's some way to get there. Currently there isn't. It would be great if there were an option to make the final QT compatible, or at least to output the audio separately so it can be added back in later.

There isn't way to get there currently. Or is there? (divx doctor nor divx validator can make sense of the .avi.)

My next attempt was to use DVD-medium option and this yielded a QT playable divx, again, as KaiCherry said it would. The mp3 audio slides out of sync later in the movie. But this isn't a problem for me because I simply extract the audio, encode to mp4 in QT and add the video back in. All's in sync. I'm happy.

But I'd like to use the nDVD option that I can make playable in QT.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for creating this software!

[occitan]

i don't understand why people want PAL support so bad, every tool under the sun will convert PAL properly without any sync issues at all, and since there are SOOO many tools available, i dont see what the problem with usin one of them are. Either way im just sayin thing b/c i dont think PAL support is going to come any time soon, if ever.

That's a bit of a blinkered view on the world 'bilestyle'. If 42 is supposed to be a simple easy to use tool for backing up or downsizing DVDs, then surely it should reach the parts of the modern civilisation living outside the US and Japan ? While some recent DVD PAL players in Europe can play NTSC discs, it's a long way from all, and even then many palm off part of the job on TVs (PAL 60) which are also not very common.

The other reason is that quality and encoding time will be better for PAL to PAL than PAL to NTSC, as the frame rate will not change.

So, if this is a tool hoping to reach people outside of the US, japan, PAL is very important.

Surely all the tools it is using in the processing chain are capable of being configured for PAL. The user i/f just needs a radiobutton or preference to select PAL or NTSC o/p. Why is it an issue ?

[KaiCherry]

i don't understand why people want PAL support so bad, every tool under the sun will convert PAL properly without any sync issues at all, and since there are SOOO many tools available, i dont see what the problem with usin one of them are. Either way im just sayin thing b/c i dont think PAL support is going to come any time soon, if ever.

That's a bit of a blinkered view on the world 'bilestyle'. If 42 is supposed to be a simple easy to use tool for backing up or downsizing DVDs, then surely it should reach the parts of the modern civilisation living outside the US and Japan ? While some recent DVD PAL players in Europe can play NTSC discs, it's a long way from all, and even then many palm off part of the job on TVs (PAL 60) which are also not very common.

The other reason is that quality and encoding time will be better for PAL to PAL than PAL to NTSC, as the frame rate will not change.

So, if this is a tool hoping to reach people outside of the US, japan, PAL is very important.

Surely all the tools it is using in the processing chain are capable of being configured for PAL. The user i/f just needs a radiobutton or preference to select PAL or NTSC o/p. Why is it an issue ?

I'll take this

I don't have any PAL DVDs...
As I wrote the logic that powers the engines, I can tell you that you make a lot of assumptions

PAL is officially under consideration. And the devs are American and Japanese incidentally

Oh yeah.

I hate assumptions "Just a button", eh? Nope. Faster encoding? No Idea. No PAL DVDs...but the framerate conversion doesn't work like you are used to either, so I wouldn't be so sure about that either

We will do PAL if we CAN do PAL.

-K

[s m y r n a]

I don't underestimate the work it would require to add PAL support to 42, but I think it would be a valuable addition to a great app...

Further to what Bile has said, I think 42 has gone quiet a bit further that just being a fix to the sync issue and has/will become a god-sent tool for the rest of us who don't want to worry about tweaking tens of options in order to get a transcode. I'm sure -like me- many others are very impessed with the simplistic approach/UI 42 has and would favour that to a plethora of options/tabs/sliders etc. you get in other tools...

Regards...

[KaiCherry]

Another trivial request. A checkbox to crop only, not rescale for Div/X.
thanks guys,

hrm...

First off...thanks for the vote of confidence The guys and I really appreciate it I got you message.

Originally, I was doing full dvd framesize on the nDVD, but it was pointed out to me, after grumblings on my part before I tested it, that the results are soooooo much better with the reduction, even at the high bitrate we are using (which is for nDVD and qDVD divx now an *insane* 2000Kbps in our upcoming version).

What I found, after doing a hi-motion vs low motion comparison, that the little squeeze make a big differance in quality.

So, to compensate in the new version we're throwing a good 25% more data into the video stream.

I don't know if this is satisfactory to you or not...let me know.

I'm willing to work with ya'.

And...thanks again

-K

[quasor]

You're welcome.

I'll take your word for it, as I haven't done nearly enough tests, but I share you grumblings, it seems like throwing away data doesn't make sense. I guess I'm not convinced that the squeeze could ever be good, what's the tradeoff? Or what bitrate is required to get the same effects fullframe?

25% come from just increasing the bitrate?

[KaiCherry]

You're welcome.

I'll take your word for it, as I haven't done nearly enough tests, but I share you grumblings, it seems like throwing away data doesn't make sense. I guess I'm not convinced that the squeeze could ever be good, what's the tradeoff? Or what bitrate is required to get the same effects fullframe?

25% come from just increasing the bitrate?

I hear ya! I was like 'but its full frame size!'

It did, in fact look better at the same bitrate with the size reduction. And I test the results on a Toshiba 40" HDTV...it was *definately* better at the same data rate, especially in really, really fast motion.

The 25% in fact is 25% *more* added. The qDVD and nDVD settings are at 2000Kbps now, and I may go up a little bit more, but at this point its like splitting hairs.

Sorry SVCD Guys, but the divx looks sooooo much better, and at a higher resolution.

Its a shame more folks don't have a way to view them on a home theatre..or they'd not fool with the mpeg2 stuff anymore.

I know I don't

-K

[marti286]

I would love to start testing 42 but I can't get the links to the encoders working. I think my internet provider is blocking that address somehow. Could someone please email me the encoders or put them on their idisk. I would great appreciate this. Thanks mart0593@mac.com