forty-two v1.5 testing results...

[rockinsage]

I decided to run v1.5 through tests on the DVD's I had problems with on previous versions of forty-two. My results follow. I must say that I'm generally blown away by this version. Hats off to Kai, Bilestyle, and Chris! My comments after the test results shouldn't be taken as bashing in any way, but only as constructive comments. For the record, I have contributed to and believe in this project. That out of the way...


Frequency
SVCD (default bitrate, VBR Q6)
- in v1.0.2, DVD would eject right after test clip played
- in v1.5, disk eject problem FIXED! Works great!


Almost Famous
DivX (1CD)
- in v1.0.2, test clip played with no audio, full .avi also had no audio
- in v1.5, test clip is never created/played; full transcode starts normally but the .avi still has no audio (I did try all possible audio tracks); and even though 'almost_famous' was selected as the name, the full transcode .avi is called still called 'test.avi' in the selected output directory

SVCD (default bitrate, VBR Q6)
- in v1.0.2, the test clip was never created/played, but the full transcode went fine and did have audio
- in v1.5, test clip never created/played; but the full transcode went fine and did have audio (no change)

It's interesting that forty-two had audio problems when creating a DivX, but not when creating an SVCD...


Shrek
DivX (1CD)
- in v1.0.2, pixelation between scene changes in the test clip and in the full transcode
- in v1.5, forty-two usually crashes immediately after Prescanning, but when it did work, the test clip played ok but with the same pixelation between scenes as in v1.0.2

SVCD (default bitrate, VBR Q6)
- in v1.0.2, test clip and full transcode both played fine with no pixelation
- in v1.5, forty-two usually crashes immediately after Prescanning, but if not would usually crash when hitting 'OK' after selecting a name, but when it did not crash -- everything went fine and neither the test clip nor the full transcode contained any pixelation

It's interesting that forty-two still has pixelation problems with the DivX, but not with the SVCD...

By the way, all DVD's I'm testing with are in perfect condition.


Other Findings:

- my Mac often locks up and becomes unresponsive during Prescanning, but is ok once Prescanning is complete...

- using SVCD, when I select VBR Q6, the forty-two status window shows VBR Q3 during creation of the test file. I don't know if the display is incorrect, or if the app is actually using Q3 instead of Q6...

- 42 seems to crash during Prescanning often, but only on the more problematic DVD's (like Shrek or Almost Famous, but especially Shrek). So far it's been pretty stable on other DVD's. The problematic DVD's caused other problems (usually audio-related) with previous versions, but never caused crashes. Sometimes just trying again will get beyond the problem, but once or twice I had to reinstall everything to get it to stop crashing. And I did try repairing permissions, fsck'ing, etc...

- the audio sample feature is awesome and works well, but it's a little counter-intuitive. The app allows you to click on any of the possible audio tracks and click play, but you'll be met with silence unless you first click on the sound icon to the left. Clicking on the icon creates a sample for whichever audio track is selected, but the user can then click on other other audio tracks and hit play but the audio played will be from the previous selection. I understand what's going on, but it could be confusing. Maybe just selecting an audio track and clicking on the play button should create and play the audio sample, without having to also click on the sound icon to the left. Just a suggestion, feel free to ignore it

- dragging a DVD onto the forty-two app's icon launches the app but does not select the DVD. No big deal, just thought I'd mention it...

[ssevenup]

Sting - All This Time

DivX near DVD, took most of the day with title 1. 42 says it finds 18 titles and 33 chapters which seems to agree with what OSEx tells me. All attempts to transcode the other titles have failed. The audio sampler only shows one item to preview. Title 1 is the documentary and I would like to get at the actual concert if possible which by the looks of OSEx should be title 11. 42 starts up and acts like it's working on title 11 but finishes in just minutes with no resultant files at all.

The audio and video quality are top notch (including sync), and they should be too, at 2GB for 1 hour of content. Kudos for the progress on 42, I'm glad I kicked in. I'll try a movie next.

So X-men results in a 1.2 GB file at near DVD quality and looks awesome, but can someone tell me why at the same encode setting why X-men is 1.2GB for 100 minutes, and Sting was over 2GB for 60 minutes?

--MM

[pilauh]

just a simple question...

what is by default the audio bitrate ?

(I need this for use a bitrate calculator...)

thanks, ...

[Mauserman]

My first svcd attempt with v1.5 on "The insider (ntsc)" is out of sync.

I went with defaults at all times, i didn't choose anything exept for the audio and subtitle pulldown menues, there i went with "english in both cases.

I haven't been able to test it on a set top player yet, but it plays out of sync in "mac vcdx"; and i can't get it to play at all in "vlc".

Any suggestions?

[spiff41398]

Just wanted to report that 42 v1.5 is really slow on my G4/500 with 768MB ram. Converting an episode of Friends (23 mins.) to a 1CD DivX took more than 3 hours. Doing the same with ffmpegX took just over an hour. Bummer.

[KaiCherry]

just a simple question...

what is by default the audio bitrate ?

(I need this for use a bitrate calculator...)

thanks, ...

default bitrate for...?

-K

[mluschek]

this might be a newbie question, but, it does relate to Forty Two...
what bitrate/vbr should i use for the best quality results for converting DVD to SVCD, using Forty Two?

Thanks,
-M

[abomb]

I posted an error I had under a previous string and it turned out to be a DVD-R problem.. so anyway.

Ran 1.5 on my Bone Collector DVD - DVD to DVD, worked like a charm and gave me perfect Japanese subtitles (yatta!!) and English soundtrack. Took the .iso image over the Disk Copy and burned what seems like a perfect DVD.

I say "seems like" because it plays like a perfect DVD on my iMac G4/800 but does not on my Xbox. I used my Xbox to watch DVD's normall on my TV set cuz watching on an iMac is.. well.. perhaps too geeky for me.. and in a room that's not confortable. In any case, it plays on the Xbox and the sound is in perfect sync, but the picture is anything but watchable. Blotchy is the best way I can describe it,but not totally washed out.

Does this have anything to do with 42? DVD-R format playing on a regular DVD player? Anyone have any ideas?

Kai.. arigatou gozaimasu! Thanks a lot and I will be sending a donation shortly... u da man

I believe you should use the XboxISO program also on kaicherry's site. It looks like all you would need to do is mount the .iso 42 gave you and drag the video_ts and audio_ts onto the xboxiso program. I don't have an xbox so I cannot verrify it for you.

A@ron

Hello Kai, I have a quick question.

I just fired-up 42 v1.5 and selected the svcd setting.
I chose a VBR of 5. When I started the encode the preview window that appeared said I was encoding at a VBR of 3. Is that a cosmetic problem? Is it really at 5 or is it at 3? Just to make things clear in my head, thinking I had made a mistake I canceled the rip and started back up again. Same results again. Of course if its at 3 the output will be larger somewhat. Can you enlighten me? Hope this wasn't answered already ...
Thanks..

[mluschek]

Ok, well, i converted a DVD to SVCD (in 42) using a VBR of 3, and the default 2500 rate. It turned out looking pretty bad (vcd quality). am i missing something? or is this as good as it gets?


-M