DVD2ONEX Question: Constant vs. Variable--which is better?

[terryj]

General Question that has me scratching my head,
for the mods and DVD2ONEX users:

Which is better in creating your DVD-R copy, to use
a Constant Bit Rate, or a Varible Bit Rate?

So far, I have noticed on some DVDs, using
Constant has created some smaller DVD sizes
( Malibu's Most Wanted, originally 5.4, set to fit
DVD-R, used constant, made a 3.9 GB output set)
but on some DVDs, it has made for what i call the
"Bad transfer syndrome", where the picture is heavy pixalated?
OF course, the source DVD was not that great either.

[galactica]

Its my understanding that for longer movies (3hour for example) constant will give you an overall higher quality for that movie than for that same movie under variable.

[terryj]

galactica,
so the equation would be
3hrs>constant
3hrs<variable

?
I will test this.
Also, does anybody know if CompUSA will take back defective DVDs
you buy on a 25 pack spindle ( as advertised yesterday)?
I got one, and it has a piece of the layer missing on the underside,
which caused Toast 6 to go into la la land!

[galactica]

more or less yes...

to be honest, i do CONSTANT for all my backup's.

I am pretty sure they will take them back.

[wulf109]

I'm on a PC but my results are quite the opposite. Variable produces noticely better results at any length. Constant mode seems much slower and appears to work by limiting the peak bitrate. I alway get fuzzy looking results compared to variable mode. If you source is progrssively encoded constant produces dreadfull looking results.

[galactica]

could be a difference between the OS's but i get exactly the opposite results on my mac .....

[terryj]

Agreed, Constant seemed to be much better on
Malibus Most than the Variable i did which caused
some blockiness in the Black of the Credits.

I am also thinking it might be CUSA media..
please see my new thread on "T3 Strange burns".

[Lobe]

They also say that Variable is usually better for Disc Copy and Constant for movie only. That makes sense, with Varible you can see very noticible effects on titles.. fade ins...extras.. etc... but it seems to heavily compress there leaving most of the movie untouched which is nice, unless the movie is too long then constant is as mentioned better. Amazing how bad some DVD's look, I thought it was DVD2OneX then I looked at the originally... looked the same, we're being more critically now. And DVDs are so highly compressed you can see the limitations... it's not that great of a format, of course a lot of the really bad ones are just poor encoding. And if it's already bad- like Cannibal- the Musical, it turns to complete unwatchable crap with DVD2oneX. Also I started to notice how porly transferred the Tarkovsky movies are- specifically the Rusico edition of Stalker.... very sad.

[galactica]

Agreed...

Ever watch the MATRIX on your Cinema Display in full screen mode.
The commercial disk has TONS of fragments, blurs and artifacts!

so imagine the copy

but they always look better on the TV, until you get a NICE TV that is

[cipher]

Just now I was trying to look information about the different bit rates, which was the best one. By now we all should know that there's a new version out, but, still, I think that a few of my DVDs were copied in Variable and others were copied in Constant... I've read a bit and noticed that most people say that variable is better, so I might stick to it until some news of the new engine comes up.

Maybe could someone pin this topic? I would dare to say that there are many others like me that are confused about which engine to use.

[thoughton]

I don't really think this topic is pin-worthy The DVD2Onex manual already recommends constant for very long dvds and variable for everything else. However as you can see from the above, it is very subjective (me, I prefer variable for 3hour tv-episode dvds).