? “Planet Earth” Encoding Question

[Synetech]

Hi,

I just got my mother the Planet Earth series from the BBC.

It is made up like this:

Disc 1:
  Episode 1
  Episode 2
  Episode 3
Disc 2:
  Episode 4
  Episode 5
  Episode 6
Disc 3:
  Episode 7
  Episode 8
  Episode 9
Disc 4:
  Episode 10
  Episode 11
Disc 5:
  Bonus Ep 1
  Bonus Ep 2
  Bonus Ep 3

It makes sense, except for two things:

(1) Each disc not only has its three episodes, but also a “play-all” episode which contains all three episodes in a single title. That’s just wasteful and annoying. What benefit/point is there to watching the three eps as one title instead of three in a row? Wouldn’t it have been better to skip that junk and put three other episodes on the disc instead? That way they could have cut it to three discs with 6/5/3 episodes, thus requiring less disc swapping and be cheaper to manufacture and buy because it’s two discs less. Duh.

(2) Each of the first nine episodes is around 2500MB (2400-2600), but the last two (on disc four) are 3750MB. I understand that because there were only two episodes on that disc instead of three there was more space available, but it really screws things up. I have been putting two eps per disc on DVD5s (~90%), but now I’m stuck. I am trying to put eps nine and 10 on a disc (and 11 and bonus 1 on another), but it won’t work. The stupid 10th and 11th episodes are too big. I figured that they just encoded them at a higher bit rate, but to no significant benefit since the other ones were able to be encoded to ~2240MB and these last two were not visually different, thus not requiring more space. So, I tried setting it to 60% to make it the same size as the normal title (~2240MB each). Unfortunately, when I compare it to the original video, it is noticeably degraded, even with Shrink’s maximum sharpness AEC setting.

I don’t understand. Why is it that they were able to encode nine episodes to 2500MB just fine, and transcoding them down 10% to 2240MB makes little visible change, but the last two that they encoded to 3750MB to use up the available space cannot be transcoded down to 2240MB without really messing it up? It’s not like the last two episodes were of detailed, fractal patterns that needs more space; they are of the same things as the other episodes. Why couldn’t they have been consistent and just encoded them to 2500MB originally? Why can’t those two eps look the same as the other nine at 2240MB?

[jagabo]

(1) Each disc not only has its three episodes, but also a “play-all” episode which contains all three episodes in a single title. That’s just wasteful and annoying. What benefit/point is there to watching the three eps as one title instead of three in a row? Wouldn’t it have been better to skip that junk and put three other episodes on the disc instead?

The three-in-one isn't separate data. It just instructions that tell the player to play the three individual episodes back to back.

So, I tried setting it to 60% to make it the same size as the normal title (~2240MB each). Unfortunately, when I compare it to the original video, it is noticeably degraded

Transcoding with DVD Shrink isn't as good as encoding from the original with a lower bitrate. Try reencoding with a good MPEG encoder.

[Synetech]

(1) Each disc not only has its three episodes, but also a “play-all” episode which contains all three episodes in a single title. That’s just wasteful and annoying. What benefit/point is there to watching the three eps as one title instead of three in a row? Wouldn’t it have been better to skip that junk and put three other episodes on the disc instead?

The three-in-one isn't separate data. It just instructions that tell the player to play the three individual episodes back to back.

Yeah, I just noticed that. Otherwise it would be a pretty big disc.

So, I tried setting it to 60% to make it the same size as the normal title (~2240MB each). Unfortunately, when I compare it to the original video, it is noticeably degraded

Transcoding with DVD Shrink isn't as good as encoding from the original with a lower bitrate. Try reencoding with a good MPEG encoder.

That’s the only explanation I could think of. I don’t suppose you can give me a tip on doing that? Is there an easy way?

[manono]

Is there an easy way?

The free version of DVD-Rebuilder. I'd suggest removing the extraneous stuff first. The BBC DVDs, for example, usually come with a lot of useless trailers.

DVD-RB, though, is usually used with complete retail DVDs. I suppose you can first use DVD Shrink in Reauthor mode to split up the episodes the way you want using no compression, before then sending them to DVD-RB. I guess you don't care about the menus.

[Synetech]

Rebuider has been suggested a few times, and I have tried it out. It did a pretty good job. The results of reencoding instead of transcoding are undeniable. Of course the time required is also undeniable.

Also, it ended up about 46MB smaller than I was hoping for. I am aware of the caveats of burning to the edge of a disc, the size I typically use leaves a clearly visible unused rim, and that extra 46MB could help smooth out the few frames that I found that were detectably blurred. Any idea on how to get Rebuilder to use that extra space?

[tinker]

Yes.
If you go into RB.ini file and change a default.
It was discussed on a forum a while ago, but I forgot where.
I am sure if you open the file you will find the correct line.

[Synetech]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I already used the TargetSize option. It was with that option that it still came up 46MB short.

[manono]

Hehe, if you up the TargetSize option too much it may work for a few, but sooner or later you'll get one that comes out oversized and you'll have to start over. 46MB isn't far short of the mark, and that roughly 1% difference between it and a completely full DVD won't improve the poor quality of certain parts appreciably. I haven't worked with those DVDs myself, but maybe there's just too much hard-to-compress stuff in there and it doesn't take well to being shrunk, even with a complete reencode. Also, every NTSC BBC DVD I've ever seen has been victimized by a bad PAL to NTSC conversion. Are these problem spots also in the source files? If you don't know, maybe you could post a 10 second portion of the source where these problems become evident in the reencode.

Also, I hope you didn't check the box to give the extras lower quality. When working with episodic DVDs that will cause the longest episode to be given best quality and the others go be degraded by the percent you choose.

[Synetech]

Hehe, if you up the TargetSize option too much it may work for a few, but sooner or later you'll get one that comes out oversized and you'll have to start over.

Yeah, I’ve heard that unlike transcoding, the final size of re-encoding is much less predictable.

46MB isn't far short of the mark, and that roughly 1% difference between it and a completely full DVD won't improve the poor quality of certain parts appreciably. I haven't worked with those DVDs myself, but maybe there's just too much hard-to-compress stuff in there and it doesn't take well to being shrunk, even with a complete reencode. Also, every NTSC BBC DVD I've ever seen has been victimized by a bad PAL to NTSC conversion. Are these problem spots also in the source files? If you don't know, maybe you could post a 10 second portion of the source where these problems become evident in the reencode.

I checked about a dozen frames from each title and only one of them was visibly degraded (as a still image), and one or two others where if you looked hard enough, you could see some blurriness (and get a headache). It is much better than the results that DVD Shrink gave (not that Shrink is bad, it just couldn’t do much with this one).

Also, I hope you didn't check the box to give the extras lower quality. When working with episodic DVDs that will cause the longest episode to be given best quality and the others go be degraded by the percent you choose.

Oh, I know. I actually examined that option carefully and tested to see if it would affect the next episode beforehand. When I saw that it did, I was shocked/worried/relieved, and made sure to keep it (and all other relevant options) set appropriately.