OK...1 More question...average bitrate?

[Hacker_Girl]

Ok....i've managed to get a film onto 1 disc by lowering the bitrate, I understand that by lowering the biterate you scarifice quality...but what would be average bitrate and what would be too low? I want to make the most out of my dvd-r disc's cause they are quite pricy!!
Thanks!

[bugster]

Ok....i've managed to get a film onto 1 disc by lowering the bitrate, I understand that by lowering the biterate you scarifice quality...but what would be average bitrate and what would be too low? I want to make the most out of my dvd-r disc's cause they are quite pricy!!
Thanks!

Average bitrate is what it says it is, when you use VBR to encode. You also set min and max bitrates when encoding VBR.

What is too low? That depends on many things. Thse include but are not limited to:
Quality and type of source material,
encoding resolution (full D1 vs 1/2 D1)
Quality of encoder
playback device (esp screen size)
What you consider to be 'acceptable' quality

Basically you have to experiment and see what quality you find acceptable, after all, you are the one watching it!

[Vejita-sama]

Buy a DVD-RW disc so you can play around with settings. No one can really say what to low is, it's a personal choice. There are people that put 352x240 1150kbit/s video on a DVDR which works out to 430min.

The quaility of your source also makes a huge difference. My personal view is that if the bitrate gets below 6000kbit/s you should lower your resolution to 352x480, if the resolution gets to 3000-3500kbit/s then drop down to 352x240.

Quaility keeps going down, but how low is to low is a matter of personal taste.

[Hacker_Girl]

OK...thanx....i'll practise with some dvd-rw's then

[unstuck2]

maybe this helps,
I've been transferring 8mm tapes to dvd.
after a lot of trial& error and advice here I settled on
352X240 with manual VBR, min set to 4000, max set to 6000
I can get ~80 min per dvd and the quality is pretty good.

[Hacker_Girl]

thanks...i'll have to play around a bit i think

[Thommers]

Use the CBR setting, it looks a lot better than VBR when you are done.

[Hacker_Girl]

K..thanks!

[whatsupnow]

Keep a note of the length of each movie the shorter the movie is means you can encode at a higher bitrate.

After a few attempts you will know the bitrate to set for say a 2 hour or a 90min so that it will still fit on your dvd-r while getting the best encode qualitity.

Buy the way how much are you paying for your dvd-r discs??

[Hacker_Girl]

I'm buying them for what works out to be just over £5.00 and that is from a wholesaler....know where to get cheaper ones?

[whatsupnow]

Here's a popular very reliable link in the UK.

http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/

hope it helps.

[unstuck2]

Thommers Posted: Jul 17, 2003 15:35

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Use the CBR setting, it looks a lot better than VBR when you are done

wouldn't CBR at 6000 give a higher file size than VBR with 4000 min, 6000 max which would still use 6000 only when it is necessary?

[poopyhead]

Use the CBR setting, it looks a lot better than VBR when you are done.

nope. VBR has much better bitrate allocation than CBR. CBR gives every single scene (including the end credits<----which is only scrolling text) the exact same bitrate. you think the end credits of the matrix deserves (requires) the same amount of bitrate as the lobby shooting scene??????????????????????????

don't think so.

multi-pass VBR is much better because you can give the encoder a range of bitrate to choose from, so that it will allocate less bitrate to end credits and transfer it over to high action scenes (i.e. lobby shooting spree).

wouldn't CBR at 6000 give a higher file size than VBR with 4000 min, 6000 max which would still use 6000 only when it is necessary?

depends on the avg. bitrate for VBR...

for example, given filesize of video encoded at 6 mbit/s CBR and the filesize of video encoded at VBR min 2 mbit/s, avg. 6 mbit/s, max 8 mbit/s. the filesizes will be very similar because the avg. bitrate of VBR is the same as the CBR bitrate. the only difference is that for CBR, every scene will get 6 mbit/s bitrate, while in VBR, some scenes will get less bitrate, while other scenes will get more bitrate than the avg. 6 mbit/s. the bitrate from scenes less than the avg. will be transferred over to scenes that have bitrate greater than the avg., so that on avg., the entire movie will have a bitrate = avg. bitrate.

[bugster]

I'm buying them for what works out to be just over £5.00 and that is from a wholesaler....know where to get cheaper ones?

try http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/

I don't pay more than £1.25 for DVD-r, tho beware of the really cheap ones.

[Hacker_Girl]

Wow...those are good prices...I actually bought my dvd writer from bigpocket...should've noticed that they sell the discs as well

[whatsupnow]

Another option is to go along to a local computer, fair you should be able to get dvd-r discs at a similar price.

Iv'e had great results from the purple TRAXDATA at around £1 per disc
allthough BP don't seem to stock them now.

Did you notice the UMAX divx player at BIGPOCKETS £139.99
plus a fiver for postage i've just got one so no more encoding for me.