Compress down to BD9 or BD5

[loueber]

I have a general question that hasnt seem to be answered anywear...
i havent done a test yet, as my burner is in the mail.
But since dvdfab can compress a BD down to a 9 or 5, that can fit on a small BD or dvd,:
Is the compression of the BD down to these sizes have better quality then that same movie that was released by the factory on a dvd?

[Complication]

Technically, yes, because the H264 codec being used by BD5/DB9 is much better than the MPEG2 required by DVD. Also, DVDFab will use the entire disc (no need to leave room for extras or menu items).

However, your mileage may vary. If the Blu-Ray encode itself was rather poor (seldom happens) then re-compressing it to a smaller size will compound the problems. Also, DVDFab automatically makes choices about how to compress the Blu-Ray which you may or may not like. For example, my BD5 copy of Terminator Salvation has lots of shimmer in areas that should have a rather consistent color even though the DVD versions I've seen do not have this problem.

[kelson]

I have a general question that hasnt seem to be answered anywear...
i havent done a test yet, as my burner is in the mail.
But since dvdfab can compress a BD down to a 9 or 5, that can fit on a small BD or dvd,:
Is the compression of the BD down to these sizes have better quality then that same movie that was released by the factory on a dvd?

The issue of PQ after compression is entirely subjective and depends on environmental factors like size and sharpness of your display, your viewing environment and the quality of your eyes as well as the quality of the original encoding and the quality of the compressing transcoder. So in other words, you have to do it and compare the playback on your equipment. Just remember, most recent BluRay titles are already encoded in H264 or VC-1 and still the size of a movie can be 30GB. If you keep the original 1080p resolution, you are squashing the movie onto a BD-9 by lowering the bitrate. You cannot severely reduce the bitrate by 50-70% and expect the PQ to look anything close to the quality of the original encoding. Again, depending on your equipment and viewing environment it may be totally acceptable to you for backup purposes -- something for you to determine.

[Complication]

The issue of PQ after compression is entirely subjective and depends on environmental factors like size and sharpness of your display, your viewing environment and the quality of your eyes as well as the quality of the original encoding and the quality of the compressing transcoder. So in other words, you have to do it and compare the playback on your equipment. Just remember, most recent BluRay titles are already encoded in H264 or VC-1 and still the size of a movie can be 30GB. If you keep the original 1080p resolution, you are squashing the movie onto a BD-9 by lowering the bitrate. You cannot severely reduce the bitrate by 50-70% and expect the PQ to look anything close to the quality of the original encoding. Again, depending on your equipment and viewing environment it may be totally acceptable to you for backup purposes -- something for you to determine.

He was asking if the encode would be better than a regular DVD. Are you saying that a BD9 backup would or would not be better than DVD?

[signals]

The ones I have tried (BD-9) look better than a SD DVD.

[kelson]

Complication:

Again it is subjective. IMHO the PQ of an overly compressed BD-9 movie does not look as good as an uncompressed DVD played on a high-end upconverting player (i.e. Oppo) to a large display with a tack-sharp picture (i.e. 50" Panasonic plasma). But that is with my equipment and my eyes. The resolution of the BD-9 may still be 1080, but the bitrate is so starved that blocks of pixels are getting merged and picture artifacts are appearing. Close inspection of clear still frames will show this. Others with different equipment may not come to the same conclusion. So there is no pat answer other than one has to try it and see for oneself if it is acceptable.

[Complication]

Again it is subjective. IMHO the PQ of an overly compressed BD-9 movie does not look as good as an uncompressed DVD played on a high-end upconverting player (i.e. Oppo) to a large display with a tack-sharp picture (i.e. 50" Panasonic plasma). But that is with my equipment and my eyes. The resolution of the BD-9 may still be 1080, but the bitrate is so starved that blocks of pixels are getting merged and picture artifacts are appearing. Close inspection of clear still frames will show this. Others with different equipment may not come to the same conclusion. So there is no pat answer other than one has to try it and see for oneself if it is acceptable.

You bring up a good point about 1080p being starved for bitrate. I guess this would make a good case to allow DB9 720p in DVDFab Blu-Ray to Blu-Ray.

[loueber]

ahh yes yes... you make perfect sence...
thanks...