Can somebody spend a few minutes to explain . . .

[auge_28]

Ok guys,
I have been using DvDFab for several years to back up my DvDs, in the last few months I have started using Fab to put my DvDs on a hard drive to use with my WD HD TV Live and it works great.
But I find myself wondering if I am making the best files for this purpose.
Can somebody spend a few minutes to explain how important stuff like Frame rate and file size is… other stuff like that? Also something about making sure I have the right resolution.
I typically use “Generic AVI, H264 and audiocopy” settings with a set file size of 2000.
This works but I am afraid that when I replace my TV, a 55” rear projection that is breaking for one of these 47”-50” plasmas that I will be disappointed in my movies.
Oh, I don’t have any HD movies, just standard DvDs with no plans of changing in the near future.
I pretty much follow GregiBoys “Best Practice” walk through but I think if I had a better understanding what the setting are for I can make something I will be happy with.

So, if anybody has time to explain some of this stuff and the patience for a couple follow up questions please let me know.

[Guest]

Thread moved from Blu-ray forum to General Questions.

[ibij2]

This is a great question auge 28.
I have always used the preset options and assumed you were getting the best possible quality/format as long as you copied to DVD9 (double layer). Of course, once you rip the DVD (say to DVD5) that is what you have on your HD and cannot make a DVD9 unless you re-rip using DVD9.
If your talking Blu-ray...I have no knowledge of these, have not started using blu-ray yet...but would love to learn more.
Are you using Blu-rays?
Jim

[GregiBoy]

I think you have it nearly right.....

H264 = Yes
Audiocopy = Yes

I personally would use MKV rather than AVI as it is a more up to date container providing your player will play it, which I am pretty sure that it will. This container will allow you to utilise other features in the future such as muxing in multiple audio tracks, subtitles, album art, etc.

This may not be an issue now but I guarantee that as you become more skilled with the process, you will start wanting more.

I'll give you an example. The "War of the Worlds" DVD has both DTS & Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. On some equipment that I have, the DTS sounds far superior while on other equipment, DTS will not play.

Muxed both sound tracks into the MKV and I can choose which one I play.....

Now there are only two other variables.

Resolution: You may have seen some of my previos thoughts on this but I will reiterate:-

DVD's are generally authored around 720 x XXX resolution (PAL) and 704 x XXX (NTSC). The XXX figure (Y Resolution) depends on the aspect ratio of the movie, Widescreen, 16:9, 4:3, etc...

It is best to maintain the resolution that it is authored at. Going bigger requires FAB to interpolate the missing pixels and smaller, original resolution id degraded.

Bitrate: I thin you are in the right area at 2000. I normally use 1800 as a start point, but if a movie has fast action scenes, I usually sneak it up to just over 2000.

Hope this helps and enjoy!!!!

[GregiBoy]

His post had nothing to do with DVD5 VS DVD9. It was about creating a file for playing by a Media Player.

Perhaps, you misunderstood?

This is a great question auge 28.
I have always used the preset options and assumed you were getting the best possible quality/format as long as you copied to DVD9 (double layer). Of course, once you rip the DVD (say to DVD5) that is what you have on your HD and cannot make a DVD9 unless you re-rip using DVD9.
If your talking Blu-ray...I have no knowledge of these, have not started using blu-ray yet...but would love to learn more.
Are you using Blu-rays?
Jim

[auge_28]

I think you have it nearly right.....
H264 = Yes
Audiocopy = Yes

Good so far.

I personally would use MKV rather than AVI as it is a more up to date container providing your player will play it, which I am pretty sure that it will. This container will allow you to utilize other features in the future such as mixing in multiple audio tracks, subtitles, album art, etc.

I wanted to use MKV’s but the default settings do not work on my WD HD TV Live and nobody answered my question about what settings to use. I know my media player plays them, just not the ones I make, I get audio only.
Also, I could not figure out how to get a second audio channel, which would be wonderful as I would LOVE to also rip the commentary to several films.

Resolution: You may have seen some of my previos thoughts on this but I will reiterate:-
DVD's are generally authored around 720 x XXX resolution (PAL) and 704 x XXX (NTSC). The XXX figure (Y Resolution) depends on the aspect ratio of the movie, Widescreen, 16:9, 4:3, etc...
It is best to maintain the resolution that it is authored at. Going bigger requires FAB to interpolate the missing pixels and smaller, original resolution id degraded.

Do I have to do anything to maintain the original resolution or is it a matter of default?

Bitrate: I think you are in the right area at 2000. I normally use 1800 as a start point, but if a movie has fast action scenes, I usually sneak it up to just over 2000.

The 2000 is for file size, I don’t really know what is meant by bitrate and frame rate, and they sound important.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out here, your Best Practices walk through is a big help. Do you have one for MKVs or is it similar and I just need to find settings that work with the player?

[GregiBoy]

The WD WILL play MKV's, I have made them and done it myself even though you may have seen some of my comments on this forum where I have stated that I regard the WD range as GDMFPOS's....

You need to go to the "Conversion Settings" screen and make the adjustments that I mentioned. Get familiar with these setting as they are the key to everything you do.

No need to do a whole movie, just do a couple of chapters and try to play it from a USB stick directly plugged in.

You cannot do multiple audio tracks with Fab. I actually use other software to produce my MKV's as I feel Fab is still lacking features such as multiple audio & subtitle tracks, chapter breaks & album art all embedded within the file.

[auge_28]

The WD WILL play MKV's, I have made them and done it myself even though you may have seen some of my comments on this forum where I have stated that I regard the WD range as GDMFPOS's....

You need to go to the "Conversion Settings" screen and make the adjustments that I mentioned. Get familiar with these setting as they are the key to everything you do.

No need to do a whole movie, just do a couple of chapters and try to play it from a USB stick directly plugged in.

You cannot do multiple audio tracks with Fab. I actually use other software to produce my MKV's as I feel Fab is still lacking features such as multiple audio & subtitle tracks, chapter breaks & album art all embedded within the file.

Good advice on doing the testing on a USB thumb drive, I can rip the same chapter with different settings and name the file with the settings and go from there. Maybe figure out for myself what they do . . . no better way to learn.

I like the media player but that’s because I have never used anything else. I do plan on just hooking up a PC in a media case to the plasma when I get one… then use VLC player.

[auge_28]

Another question for you GregiBoy:

Do you use the cropping feature in DvDFab?
I have some DVDs that are 4:3 ratio with letterboxing (on all 4 sides, I have no problem with blackness on top and bottom but it seems wasteful to have it on all four sides.), I wonder if I cropped them if it will them fill more of my TV screen?

Any advice about this?

[GregiBoy]

yep, I crop them all so there are no black areas even though encoding the black results in very little increase in file size.

It will not fill up more of your screen and maintain the correct aspect ratio.

[auge_28]

GregiBoy (or anybody with an answer) . . .
How important is “Frame rate” option should I use that or “file size”?
I would like quality as close to a standard DVD without having a huge file; I like them to be around 2gig at the most. I can be flexible here of course.

[GregiBoy]

Hi there,

I regard frame rate as very important and I always choose "Same as Source". This means that Fab does not have to interpolate any frames.

I do not use file size as a yardstick as this can vary dependent upon the length of the movie.

I always use 2 pass encoding and adjust the bitrate to around 1800 as a start point for H264 MKV's or 1100 for XVid AVI's, sneaking the bitrate up if the movie has a lot of fast moving action.

I then do not worry about what the file size is but it is generally around the 1.5 Gb.

The only real way to see what you are happy with is do a few test encodes yourself of a few chapters of your favourite movie where you know the scenes really well and play it on your equipment from the original and the three different bitrates.

Ask some friends/family for their opinion but don't tell them what is the highest, etc and you may be surprised from the results.

I suggest that you start at 1500, 1800 & 2100 bitrate.

Both of these parameters have been debated ad nauseum on this forum, but these settings work for me on 52" HD Samsung & LG displays played with a variety of media players.

Hope this helps...

GB

[auge_28]

GregiBoy
So far this is working great.
I love the cropped videos, for some reason this did not work well for me before . . . probably my fault.
Of course since I bumped up the bitrate it takes nearly twice as long to do the final rip, but as you said in your walk through, I just stack them up and run them as I am sleeping.

I was reading about digital bit rate as I knew nothing about it and have learned some stuff.
It seems that the higher the bit rate the more “key frames” there are which means the less interpolation the player has to do. This interpolation is some kind of magical guesswork that the hardware/software has to do to paint the pixels were it thinks they should be. This guess work leads to the artifacts most people think of as a "low resolution movie", so no matter how big the file size is if you have low bit rate you have problems.

I also read that standard DVDs have a bit rate of around 5mbit/s. I’m assuming that if I ran the bitrate at 5000kbit/s I may as well do a 1to1 transfer and have a file of about 7-8 gigs. I am pretty sure that 2mbit/s will work great for me making a file size of about 2-2.5 gigs, you said you use a sligtly lower bit rate for your large formate TV. The bit rate is a “bit” higher than you recommended, but I figure I could just “set it and forget it” and be happy with the results.

Please let me know if I am misguided in anything I said above, I appreciate your help, your walkthrough and your pushing me to get off my lazy ass and learn something…
I still have a lot more to learn.

[Complication]

The bitrate between MPEG2 (DVD) and H264 or XVID cannot be directly compared. These are distinctly different technologies. H264/XVID/DIVX are much newer and are designed to fit more detail into less bitrate. There are other settings within these codecs that will affect how much bitrate is used but are not supported by every device.

Your set-it-and-forget-it plan is probably best. Hard drive space is cheap and your time is valuable. That is, unless you are looking for a new hobby.

[auge_28]

You cannot do multiple audio tracks with Fab. I actually use other software to produce my MKV's . . .

I don’t know if the rules of the forum will allow you to advise me on what to use to make the MKVs.

I love DVDFab and will always use it, but it would be nice to be able to rip multiple audio streams for some of my film history DVDs with commentary . . . I have been tempted to rip the darn movie twice so that I could get the audio options.