lower bitrate vs shrink?

[EAO]

Last night I capped a 2hr 20 minute -edited - movie off the TV. Problem was trying to fit it onto one DVD using 720x480.

Using TMPGenc, I settled on 4600 CQ, high quality, and I won't know until tonight how it looks. But the bitrate level has me concerned as it is was an action movie.

It made me wonder if I would have been better off encoding at the highest bitrate allowed and using DVD Shrink to make it fit. Or perhaps this was a perfect case of when to use 2 pass vbr.

I suppose that I could have lowered the resolution to 352x480, but I did not think that it would look as good as 720x480 when played on a 4 year old 60 inch projection TV. Opinions?

[garryheather]

I would say that a bitrate calculator and multi pass (2 or more) VBR are your friends.

[ronnylov]

I think it will look fine the way you have done it. Just author the DVD and save as a titleset and if it still does not fit then use DVDShrink.

If compressing from mpeg2 to mpeg2 at a slightly lower bitrate then DVDShrink is the way to go. But you may get better quality if encoding only once to the desired bitrate compared to encode to a higher bitrate first and then use DVDShrink.

But I might be wrong. I did a direct capture to mpeg2 at 6 mbit/s VBR using my ATI AIW Radeon and but I forgot to decrease the bitrate before starting the capture. There was no problem to compress it to 4.5 mbit/s with DVDShrink after authoring to fit a DVD-R. There was not big differences from the original. But I don't know how the quality would have been if I captured to 4.5 mbit/s directly. I used deep analysis to get the best out of DVDShrink. In my experience DVDShrink is much better than you would beleive if you have not tried it before. Mostly it's not worth to reencode with TMPGEnc if the authored DVD does not fit the disc. Just shrink it!

[bugster]

EAO, you don't say what format the original capture was done in. If it was avi (Mjpeg, huffy, DV etc), the you will always get the best quality encoding to the correct size first rather than encoding to a too large mpeg and shrinking. The difference may not be much though.

For 2 hours 20 min on one DVD, I would definatley use 2-pass VBR and would seriously consider 1/2 D1 resolution, especially for an action movie, though if there are a reasonable number of 'non'action' scenes you might be OK.

[bottle-necked]

I agree with buster.

I have been wondering exactly what DVD Shrink is doing since it's progress is so much faster than reencoding the video. I had a menu screen and selected manual compression and moved the slider way down on it. I had a nice background photo in the menu, but after shrinking the menu background photo was gone and the background was white.??? Is the program just stripping the video of bits or something? It sure stripped my background photo clean out.....

?

[derekwc]

Hi I'm new here. What's 2 pass VBR?

How can I even get my files onto DVD shrink? None seem to show
up....

[EAO]

Whoops - sorry I wasn't clear. Source is .avi. Half D1 was a possibility, but I was concerned about how it would look on a large projection big screen. Not hi def. So I backed off until I can get opinions. Perhaps I'll post it in a new thread. Speaking of which...

Hi I'm new here. What's 2 pass VBR?

How can I even get my files onto DVD shrink? None seem to show
up....

2 pass vbr let's you fit more source onto your media, because the program scans where it needs the higher bit rate on the first pass and allocates accordingly on the 2nd. This conserves space based on the parameters you set.

DVD shrink and why files won't open... depends on the type of files you have.

You would probably get more responses to your questions, if you posted your own thread rather than hijacking mine. The guides are also very helpful.

[bottle-necked]

It made me wonder if I would have been better off encoding at the highest bitrate allowed and using DVD Shrink to make it fit.

I ran a few tests and here are my results. These are photos of a tight zoom area at the same point on each of the clips.

1. Default VCD 1.150Mbps

2. Shrunk (32.8% max setting available)

3. Lowed bitrate encoding .505Mbps

4. Lowed bitrate encoding .434Mbps

The file size of the DVD Shrink version was a little less than the file size of example #3, but larger than #4.

Full frame image from original VCD clip as reference

Hope this helps.

[EAO]

Seems to me that lower bitrate is better. But at my age I'm blind in one eye and can't see out the other

Thanks for all your hard work. Nice truck/suv

[bottle-necked]

Thanks.

My wifes 2003 Hemi. Good pickup, I like it but she won't let me drive it. haha

I was surprised with these results. I though shrink was doing a better job, of course I shrank that VCD a bunch!!! Like 1/2 total file size or so. lol

Good luck with everything.

[derekwc]

Whoops - sorry I wasn't clear. Source is .avi. Half D1 was a possibility, but I was concerned about how it would look on a large projection big screen. Not hi def. So I backed off until I can get opinions. Perhaps I'll post it in a new thread. Speaking of which...

Hi I'm new here. What's 2 pass VBR?

How can I even get my files onto DVD shrink? None seem to show
up....

2 pass vbr let's you fit more source onto your media, because the program scans where it needs the higher bit rate on the first pass and allocates accordingly on the 2nd. This conserves space based on the parameters you set.

DVD shrink and why files won't open... depends on the type of files you have.

You would probably get more responses to your questions, if you posted your own thread rather than hijacking mine. The guides are also very helpful.

Don't mean to "hijack" your thread, but no one here will respond to
the "new" thread I made. It seemed like y'all were talking about stuff
that would help me out, but being new to this I just thought I would
ask to clarify....

[bottle-necked]

derekwc
check your PM. (personal messages)
and welcome to the forum

[hakeemshabazz]

I'm just a newbie to all of this...but is an old projection tv using a 720x480 resolution? why go to that resolution if not...unless you captured it at that res...

(forgive my ignorance, if i'm sounding retarded

[bugster]

I'm just a newbie to all of this...but is an old projection tv using a 720x480 resolution? why go to that resolution if not...unless you captured it at that res...

(forgive my ignorance, if i'm sounding retarded

720*480 is (one of) the standard resolutions for DVD-Video.