DVD Convert without quality of loss (.AVI? increase bitrate from original?)

[MwBakker]

Hello all,

I am converting DVD's for my dad so it can be digitally saved into his Dropbox, but I have some questions:

1) My file manager tells me these files are .VOB, but Movavi converter tells me these are originally mpeg files? Am I dealing with mpeg or not?

File manager

[Attachment 51156 - Click to enlarge]

Movavi

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2) .AVI is a container that is known to use minimal compression, but would this then be my best output if I want to be closest to 0 when it comes to quality loss or is to mp4 in this matter better?

3) I want optimal quality so I turned a DVD with 9.12mbps bitrate to 15.76mbps (.mp4) at the same resolution because my philosophy was that higher bitrate at same resolution means higher quality. But then I realized this all might makes no sense because I am 'creating' bitrate that never existed in the first place. I went searching online and found this topic here:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/271931-Will-the-quality-increase-if-the-bitrate-is...ter-conversion

stating:

"different codecs do not perform the same. Your original video is most likely divx or some other codec that performs very well at low bitrates. MPEG needs about 4x to produce the same quality."

So now I am not sure: if I keep the same bitrate (9.12mbps) will this decrease quality or would it still make no sense to increase the bitrate?

[DB83]

Your dvds are mpeg2. All dvds are mpeg2. The vob is, like avi, just a container but for the video it is only mpeg2.

Avi as a container can include a multitude of video codecs and as you have discovered not all are created equally.

No. For h264 you do not need all that bitrate from the vob. Visual quality may be better. Even so you can decrease video bitrate down to 25% of the vob and still have good quality. But quality is in the eye of the beholder and not all dvds are also created equally since it depends on the content - fast movement etc. requires more than little movement. Experiment.

[MwBakker]

Is every .mp4 h264, or just the HD version? (see image below)


[Attachment 51158 - Click to enlarge]

Visual quality may be better

Compared to AVI?

"No. For h264 you do not need all that bitrate from the vob."

but I want no quality loss so the least I would go for is the original 9.12mbps then right? What if I increase this bitrate to for example 15mbps, would this extra bitrate be pure imaginatary or actually make a difference?


[Attachment 51159 - Click to enlarge]

[videobruger]

The VOB vs MPEG:

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/protocols-formats/difference-between-vob-and-mpeg/

Actually the best you can use is MakeMKV. It leaves the audio and video untouched and merely repack them into a MKV container.

[MwBakker]

The VOB vs MPEG:

Actually the best you can use is MakeMKV. It leaves the audio and video untouched and merely repack them into a MKV container.

I have .MKV as option for output. But what do you mean with "untouched" it compresses my 4.34GB DVD to a 1.13GB as shown below


[Attachment 51160 - Click to enlarge]

Then my next question is, does increasing the bitrate (DVD original = 9.12mbps) to for example 12mbps make sense or not at all?

[Cornucopia]

@videobruger, the site linked was CLEARLY written by a non-techie, as there are numerous inaccuracies in those statements. Short answer - suffice to say that VOB is an application-specific sub/superset of the MPEG2-Program container.

However, I agree that MakeMKV is a good option. Another, possibly even better option for your dad (because it is more likely to be supported by legacy media players), is VOB2MPG. Rewraps the MPEG2video+AC3/MP2audio into an MPEG2-ProgramStream Container (*.MPG). Either one of these would NOT change the bitrate, and the overall filesize change is negligible (both are re-wraps of the original contents).

Scott

[DB83]

The program you are using will always recompress. The program that was suggested i.e. MakeMKV does NOT recompress.

One thing you must understand is that video size = run time * bitrate. Increase the bitrate, which may not improve quality, will increase the size which may not be what you want.

Also real quality is the relationship between the original source, the codec (for dvd = mpeg) and the effectiveness of the encoder. Mpeg is what is known as a 'lossy' format. That means that any subsequent encode actually loses some real quality. But h264 is a more efficient codec than mpeg so visual quality may be fine even when you use less bitrate so reduce the size.

[MwBakker]

Alright thank you all for the given info.

MakeMKV seems to do the job well, except I have to crop and cut the video. Still after cut and crop I want to maintain as much quality as possible.

hat means that any subsequent encode actually loses some real quality.

But still MKV seems to be the least?

ither one of these would NOT change the bitrate

But what if I do increase my bitrate via Movavi on an MKV output? So 9.12 mbps to 15mbps will that just increase size without doing anything or would it actually differ in quality? Remember the original is 9.12mbps

[DB83]

The quality will be different. Whether it would be any better is impossible to answer.

[MwBakker]

So just for confirmation:

My DVD .mpeg2 has an orignal bitrate of 9.12mbps, I can convert this to an .MKV with Movavi and set the bitrate to for example 15mbps, while keeping the same resolution. You say that there is a possibility that quality could increase? But why, cause basically I just 'added' ~6mbps bitrate to the file out of absolute nowhere.

[DB83]

Actually I did not say that so kindly do not put words in to my mouth. The crucial word is 'different'.

Allow me to direct you to a topic I contributed to a few days ago

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395229-Comb-artifacts-in-progressive-source/page2

In reply #43 I posted a short sample from a dvd which I repacked as an .mkv but at the same quality as the dvd.

In reply #54 I have converted the start of the dvd to an h264 mp4 at a higher bitrate - there are some other changes but you might get an idea if a higher bitrate with a different codec actually makes it look better.

[jagabo]

My DVD .mpeg2 has an orignal bitrate of 9.12mbps, I can convert this to an .MKV with Movavi and set the bitrate to for example 15mbps, while keeping the same resolution. You say that there is a possibility that quality could increase?

No. Every time you recompress with a lossy codec you will lose quality. The higher the bitrate the less quality you will lose. But more modern codecs like AVC (h.264) or HEVC (h.265) can compress much more than MPEG 2 without losing much quality. So if you recompress to MPEG2 at 15 Mb/s and compare to AVC at 4 Mb/s, you may find the latter looks better than the former.

You should use a smart editor like VideoRedo that reencodes only cut GOPs (about 1/2 second at the cuts with DVD VOB files, the rest of the video will lose no quality) and remux what's left into an MP4 container.

[MwBakker]

Actually I did not say that so kindly do not put words in to my mouth

different can either be better or worse, both are possible

Thank you for the example I will have a look into it, I am trying to reproduce your test on my DVD but the quality is from a camera of 1997, so I think I might not see difference with my naked eye. Although there are over 50 DVD's going from 92 to 09 that have to be to converted and I just want to hit the right spot and make my dad happy with cut/cropped digitalized videos with minimum loss of quality.

[MwBakker]

You should use a smart editor like VideoRedo that reencodes only cut GOPs (about 1/2 second at the cuts with DVD VOB files, the rest of the video will lose no quality) and remux what's left into an MP4 container.

unfortuantly that tool doesn't seem to have a crop function in it.

If I keep using Movavi (paid version) and I would convert to .mkv and do all the cutting/cropping along with the conversion (this is possible with Movavi) and set the bitrate a bit higher than the original would that make me come nearest to the original quality? Or would that be with .mp4 .H264? Or is this simply a matter of trial and error instead


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And speaking of bitrate, what about this quote form the topic I added

No, unfortunately the quality won't increase. To increase the quality, you need to add what's missing or been thrown away. Increasing the bitrate doesn't do this - your quality is only ever as good as what you start with

so to be clear: this does not count for all conversions? It would still matter to increase the 9.15mbps to surpress as much quality loss as possible, or is that as D883 said impossible to tell

[MwBakker]

Actually I did not say that so kindly do not put words in to my mouth. The crucial word is 'different'.

Allow me to direct you to a topic I contributed to a few days ago

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395229-Comb-artifacts-in-progressive-source/page2

well comes to show in that topic people can be very rude these days even when someone tries to help.. you got quite some patience I can tell. Kudo's on that.

Anyway I saw both examples and it's usefull stuff to put in mind when I do my conversion. Is the laggy part at the beginning of the .mp4 due to my video player or is this the side effect you wanted to show me what could happen when converting to .mp4 with higher bitrate? Also the .mp4 is zoomed and cropped, right?

I am still a little paranoid for choosing which way cause 50 dvd's cut/cropped/converted is a looong way and I want to do it right and have it saved on dropbox. Anyway thank you so far, sir

[jagabo]

You should use a smart editor like VideoRedo that reencodes only cut GOPs (about 1/2 second at the cuts with DVD VOB files, the rest of the video will lose no quality) and remux what's left into an MP4 container.

unfortuantly that tool doesn't seem to have a crop function in it.

Sorry, I missed that. If you're going to crop you have to reencode everything.

If I keep using Movavi (paid version) and I would convert to .mkv and do all the cutting/cropping along with the conversion (this is possible with Movavi) and set the bitrate a bit higher than the original would that make me come nearest to the original quality? Or would that be with .mp4 .H264? Or is this simply a matter of trial and error instead

No matter what lossy codec and bitrate you use you will lose quality (relative to the original). The issue is how much quality you will lose, and whether or not you will notice it. Just to put some random "quality numbers" to it. Let's say reencoding your 9 Mb/s MPEG 2 video (after cutting and cropping) to MPEG 2 again at 9 Mb/s loses 5 percent quality (relative to the original). Reencoding to 15 Mb/s MPEG 2 instead may lose only 3 percent. Reencoding to AVC (h.264) at 9 Mb/s may lose only 1 percent. Reencoding to AVC at 4 Mb/s may lose only 2 percent.

The additional problem you will have is that your sources are probably interlaced video and require special interlaced handling and encoding. I don't know how well Movavi deals with that.

[hello_hello]

Does Movavi have an option for specifying quality rather than bitrate? I ask, as the x264 encoder has a quality based encoding method. The bitrate will change for each video according to how hard it is to compress, rather than the quality changing because the bitrate doesn't.

Here's a couple of encodes of sample from a DVD I had handy. Not great quality to begin with, but I'd argue I gained quality in one respect, because the source is interlaced and I used a better de-interfacer than would normally be used on playback. They were encoded at a higher quality than I'd normally use for DVDs (CRF16 for x264). The bitrate is roughly 3000kbps. Usually it'll be higher for that particular quality (I encoded a fairly static scene) but it'll be whatever it needs to be.

Edit: Replaced the 640x480 encode with a new version as I did a silly that stretched the picture a little.

[MwBakker]

Does Movavi have an option for specifying quality rather than bitrate?

During conversion the quality seems to be determined bij the bitrate, cause when I slide the bar to "best quality" the bitrate increases but no other cases do.

.H264 shows at .mp4 HD as output file but none of the videos at the 1994 - 200x range are HD yet.

I believe I saw Handbrake having the crop option, if I put this software at 65% quality with .mkv using .h264 would this process lead me to least loss? Would be a shame to have 40$ spent on software and then use freeware instead but all for the best quality. Memories can never be re-captured and should be used with extreme caution

[MwBakker]

No matter what lossy codec and bitrate you use you will lose quality (relative to the original). The issue is how much quality you will lose, and whether or not you will notice it.

yes, that is exactly what I said: seeking the best option to have minimal loss of quality, but also not having 12GB of a file while a 5GB does the exact same job or performs even better. .mkv or .mp4 I read different opinions on them which makes it tough. Currently I have about 8 videos uploaded .mp4 (no h.264 as it seems) at ~5GB

The additional problem you will have is that your sources are probably interlaced video and require special interlaced handling and encoding. I don't know how well Movavi deals with that.

Nor do I, but I have tried many possible outputs at high quality (high bitrate) without change in resolution before I started this topic and every output seemed fine for my eyes.

[hello_hello]

I believe I saw Handbrake having the crop option, if I put this software at 65% quality with .mkv using .h264 would this process lead me to least loss? Would be a shame to have 40$ spent on software and then use freeware instead but all for the best quality. Memories can never be re-captured and should be used with extreme caution

I don't have Handbrake installed but If I remember correctly, when the quality encoding method is used (if Handbrake still has other methods) the quality is specified as an RF value. It's the same as CRF for x264, which is constant rate factor. I'm not sure if it relates to a percentage in any way, but the lower the CRF value the higher the quality (and the higher the bitrate). If you want absolute perfection try CRF14, but below CRF16 the bitrate can increase dramatically for no percievable quality difference, so if it's too high try CRF16 instead. I mostly go with CRF18 for DVDs but I also denoise them and/or apply other filtering so there's less noise or grain to encode and I can get away with a slightly lower quality. Film grain looks even worse to me when it's not encoded well. l also use x264's Film tuning for everything and most devices these days support High Profile, Level 4.1 or greater. You can specify all that with Handbrake.

All the open source encoder GUIs use x264 for h264 encoding as far as I know, so they're the same in that respect, and x264 is considered the benchmark for h264 encoding quality.

Handbrake will crop and encode anamorphically. If you want to resize to square pixel dimensions and do so by resizing the width up rather than reducing the height, you'll probably need to use Vidcoder, which is an alternative Handbrake GUI.

If you live in PAL land, which I gather from one of your screenshots you do, there's generally not as much to worry about as there is for NTSC. There's exceptions, but PAL is generally interlaced or progressive. Anything shot on video will be interlaced. Movies are mostly progressive. For interlaced sources I'd recommend de-interlacing to 50fps, and I think the Handbrake method is labelled bob de-interlacing. For progressive content you shouldn't need to enable any de-interlacing or de-telecine filters. It's better not to de-interlace a progressive source as it can reduce the quality a little. If you do, the output will be 50fps, but unlike interlaced sources it'll really be 25fps with each frame repeated.

It's possible Movavi is encoding the video as interlaced in which case it'd be de-interlaced by the player, but it's less efficient in respect to compression, or it's possible Movavi de-interlaces everything, or does it automatically... I've never used it.

MKV, MP4 and AVI are all just container formats. They can each hold various types of video and audio. It'll be the same h264 video whether the output is MKV or MP4, but it's not used in an AVI container much. AVI generally implies encoding with Xvid or DivX and they're an older/different type of encoder. x264 is better. H265 and the x265 encoder are newer formats but for standard definition I still think x264 is better, and the x265 encoder is much slower.

[hello_hello]

PS If the DVDs are home made movies and they're interlaced and you really, really care about the quality, the best de-interlacer I know of is an Avisynth function (QTGMC). You'd have to use an Avisynth based GUI such as MeGUI, and getting QTGMC to work can be a bit of a challenge initially, or I think QTGMC and the various Avisynth plugins it requires are bundled with StaxRip and Hybrid.

[MwBakker]

Wow that is a sudden ton of information. When I am home I will fire up HandBrake and use the settings you have described. Original noise or grain are not a big issue to me, they only show in the dark and this is simply because homevideo camera's that time lacked the hardware to work this out correctly. I have to add the homevideo camera was pretty decent so it's still worth to go for as much quality as possible still.

(QTGMC). You'd have to use an Avisynth based GUI such as MeGUI, and getting QTGMC to work can be a bit of a challenge initially, or I think QTGMC and the various Avisynth plugins it requires are bundled with StaxRip and Hybrid.

that quote contains quite some terms which I do not understand fully (QTGMC, StaxRip, Hybrid) but honestly to go into this much of detail was not my plan anyway. I do not care for a 5% loss of quality since I will convert/crop/cut it all at once and not touch it afterwards no more. But more than 5% quality loss is going to be visible I suppose and that is something I want to prevent

[jagabo]

.mkv or .mp4 I read different opinions on them which makes it tough.

VOB, AVI, MKV, MP4, TS, M2TS, etc. are containers -- logical boxes that organize and hold audio, video, and other things. What container you use has little bearing on the quality or size of what's inside. Modern ones are designed to be extensible so they are suitable for new codecs as they are developed. What container you use depends more on what playback restrictions you have. For example, if you want to use an old AppleTV you need to use MP4, not MKV. Widest support these days is probably AVC and AAC in MP4. The same in MKV isn't far behind.

[MwBakker]

.mkv or .mp4 I read different opinions on them which makes it tough.

VOB, AVI, MKV, MP4, TS, M2TS, etc. are containers -- logical boxes that organize and hold audio, video, and other things. What container you use has little bearing on the quality or size of what's inside. Modern ones are designed to be extensible so they are suitable for new codecs as they are developed. What container you use depends more on what playback restrictions you have. For example, if you want to use an old AppleTV you need to use MP4, not MKV. Widest support these days is probably AVC and AAC in MP4. The same in MKV isn't far behind.

Alright that clears out. I have a few videos set online that had a DVD file size of 4.34GB and are now 5.5GB after cropping/cutting and have output .mp4 (but not sure if .h264 though, how can I see that?) I was about to remove them but as it seems I wasn't far away from my intentions at all and I might just let them be. Each upload costs ~45 min so I prefer not to re-do this process on these videos, unless it would have made a huge quality improvement

[jagabo]

If well done, you probably won't see much difference between the original VOB and an AVC MP4 file at 1/2, maybe even 1/4 the size.

[hello_hello]

that quote contains quite some terms which I do not understand fully (QTGMC, StaxRip, Hybrid) but honestly to go into this much of detail was not my plan anyway. I do not care for a 5% loss of quality since I will convert/crop/cut it all at once and not touch it afterwards no more. But more than 5% quality loss is going to be visible I suppose and that is something I want to prevent

So you know, even if you decide to go a different way...

Avisynth is a frame server. It has built-in filters, loads plugins and provides a way to create user-functions/scripts. Those functions can use the built-in filters, loaded plugins or other functions. User functions are basically text files. QTGMC is a function for de-interlacing. For Avisynth, video is opened and filtered via scripts and the output can be sent to an encoder.

Avisynth has no GUI but there's several Avisynth based GUIs that create scripts for you. Cropping, de-interlacing and resizing etc can be applied with a video preview the same way it's done with most GUIs. The idea is to use Avisynth for filtering and frame serving without requiring the user to know anything about Avsyinth. MeGUI, StaxRip and Hybrid are all Avisynth based encoding GUIs. I generally use MeGUI. It doesn't come with as many additional plugins or functions as the other two, but does make it easy to manually modify the scripts it creates and preview the changes. It's a good choice if you want to learn more about Avisynth as you go. I haven't used StaxRip or Hybrid much, but they come bundled with more third party plugins and functions than MeGUI does, and I'm pretty sure that includes the QTGMC function and the plugins it requires, so you can probably just select QTGMC from the choice of de-interlacing methods.

De-interlacing can cause artefacts as interlaced video consists of two fields from a slightly different point in time that have to be combined into a whole frame for a progressive display (50 fields per second for interlaced as opposed to 25fps for progressive). You can encode as interlaced, in which case the player or TV will do the de-interlacing, or you can de-interlace and encode as progressive, which is at least more efficient in respect to compression. If you play the original mpeg2 sample from my earlier post you'll probably see a shimmer around the buttons on the Tardis console from the 6 second point as the camera pans out. Admittedly the video was originally PAL and converted to NTSC, so it's not typical in that respect, but there's virtually no shimmer in the encoded versions. That's the sort difference if you care enough about the de-interlacing quality.

For the standard de-interlacing used by most GUIs, which tends to be on a par with player/TV de-interlacing, it's another reason to de-interlace to 50fps instead of 25fps, as it makes that sort of thing less noticeable. Of course none of this matters if your video is progressive, or if it was de-interlaced before being burned to DVD originally.

[MwBakker]

If well done, you probably won't see much difference between the original VOB and an AVC MP4 file at 1/2, maybe even 1/4 the size.

Propbably, but I am not taking that risk. I do not have many devices with various screen resolutions to test how they would function on the video being "strechted" out so I prefer to take the safe shot

[hello_hello]

If well done, you probably won't see much difference between the original VOB and an AVC MP4 file at 1/2, maybe even 1/4 the size.

Propbably, but I am not taking that risk. I do not have many devices with various screen resolutions to test how they would function on the video being "strechted" out so I prefer to take the safe shot

I assume jagabo was referring to file size rather than resolution.

[jagabo]

If well done, you probably won't see much difference between the original VOB and an AVC MP4 file at 1/2, maybe even 1/4 the size.

Propbably, but I am not taking that risk. I do not have many devices with various screen resolutions to test how they would function on the video being "strechted" out so I prefer to take the safe shot

I assume jagabo was referring to file size rather than resolution.

Yes. 1/2 or 1/4 resolution would be obvious unless the source was very blurry.

[MwBakker]

won't see much difference between the original VOB and an AVC MP4 file at 1/2, maybe even 1/4 the size.

I assume jagabo was referring to file size rather than resolution.

I was also referring to file size, won't the quality difference between the file sizes be more visible when viewed on large resolutions?

As in: "the quality is worse, only if you zoom in it will be visible to you"