How to improve visual quality of DVD rips? Don't look as good as TV capture.

Sandstone

I'd like your opinions and advice.

I'm using DVDFab 9.3.0.5 on a friend's PC, so I am no expert at its use.
I'm ripping DVDs to MP4, mostly at Standard quality, with default settings for MP4 rip.

Some of the rips don't look as good as I expected. So, to compare, I downloaded an episode that was captured from a TV broadcast.
The TV broadcast capture is .mkv and 325 MB.
My DVD .mp4 rip in Standard quality is 589 MB, and my DVD rip in High quality is 743 MB, so both are much larger than the download.

Yet, the downloaded file often looks better, smoother, less "digital". The DVD rips exhibit sort of jaggies or tiny lines around objects and actors' faces during motion, there is some moiring, and blotchiness in dark areas.

Why do my DVD rips not look as good as a TV capture?

Thanks

october262

what is the TV broadcast capture coming from cable or satellite ??
do they broadcast in HD.

3dman7

Use the mp4 pass-through profile it will not compress the video.

signals

It's not really a valid test, you are using an obsolete and unsupported version of DVDFab and comparing the output to something you downloaded from the internet that was made who knows how from who knows what kind of source material (SD? HD?). Try the newest version of DVDFab on your PC to see the result. It has a 30-day free trial.

Sandstone

Thank you all for your replies!

what is the TV broadcast capture coming from cable or satellite ??
do they broadcast in HD.
october262

I don't know the source, other than TV broadcast. It is labelled as HDTV.

Use the mp4 pass-through profile it will not compress the video.
3dman7

There is no MP4 Passthrough option. There is MKV Passthrough.

It's not really a valid test, you are using an obsolete and unsupported version of DVDFab and comparing the output to something you downloaded from the internet that was made who knows how from who knows what kind of source material (SD? HD?). Try the newest version of DVDFab on your PC to see the result. It has a 30-day free trial.
signals

I know it's not apples to apples. The point is that the download looks better than what I directly ripped from DVD, even though my DVD rip is three times the size.
Re. unsupported: my friend's version is not ancient, it's only a year old.
Is newest version that much improved in quality of video output? I looked at the version history, and it appears mostly new features, added support for various copy protections, fixing crash issues, etc. Is the video output quality likely to be any different?

3dman7

The mp4 pass though is in the last version 9 posted at the Fab front page and the new version 10 also has it this is why you need to upgrade versions new profiles were added even 4k now.

Sandstone

Thanks for the suggestion. However, I don't think that's the solution. I tried MKV Passthrough, and the resulting ripped file is 2.4 GB. That is simply too large. I rip to files so I can easily transport several episodes on a flash drive, and put on my laptop and tablet for travel viewing. About 500 MB per episode is reasonable, maybe 750 MB is quality is markedly improved, but 2.4 GB is too much.

Can version 10 co-exist with version 9 on the PC? (Leave 9 in place, but install 10 to try it out?)

3dman7

Yes both versions install into different folders.Under encoder settings theirs a different encoder called CRF decoder in advanced settings you can try it with the default settings.Going to lower numbers gives better quality but bigger sizes.It's a pull down.You can also try going to a higher number to give smaller file sizes there's no free lunch you can't have it both ways.If you had a blu ray you could use h265 if your playback device can play it this will compress look like original but using less file size.

Sandstone

Thanks. Yep, I know there's "no free lunch", that it's a tradeoff between quality and size. But, the downloaded file is a third of the size of my DVD rip, yet that much smaller downloaded TV rip looks better. That's what I want to understand.

3dman7

The TV capture was in hi def and had a better resolution to start with so when they made it a mkv they had a better source to work with and likely used professional very expensive equipment to make the conversion look good thats why it looks so good a conversion from a dvd has much less resolution to start with and then compressed even more by ripping so the old saying applys here crap in crap out.Now theirs play back programs that can make a dvd look much better but why not get the TV capture in hi def. and compress it with h265 and see the results.That's providing your equipment can play it back and is small enough for you.If thats too big or you can't use it then try making the mp4 from the hi def. TV capture.

Darkore

Since they are using that old of a version of DVD fab. Could it also be that they are using a really old video driver that might have issues as well? Just a thought.

Sandstone

The TV capture was in hi def and had a better resolution to start with so when they made it a mkv they had a better source to work with and likely used professional very expensive equipment to make the conversion look good thats why it looks so good a conversion from a dvd has much less resolution to start with and then compressed even more by ripping so the old saying applys here crap in crap out.Now theirs play back programs that can make a dvd look much better but why not get the TV capture in hi def. and compress it with h265 and see the results.That's providing your equipment can play it back and is small enough for you.If thats too big or you can't use it then try making the mp4 from the hi def. TV capture.
3dman7

Thanks for your continued ideas. I take your point that HD would be higher quality than DVD. But, the DVD is still very good, much better than the rips without the visual issues I noted.

Since they are using that old of a version of DVD fab. Could it also be that they are using a really old video driver that might have issues as well? Just a thought.
Darkore

Thanks for your reply and the thought. NVIDIA drivers were updated maybe a year and a half ago, so not recent but not so old. But, both the TV rip and my DVD rips were played on the same laptop, and the smaller TV rip looks much better.

cholla

I thought I would contribute a bit.
The smaller TV capture was probably a first rip & never encoded, transcoded , or otherwise ran through a second conversion.
Add to that as suggested probably ripped from a HD source.
Also what is the difference in the Audio track of the .mkv & .mp4 from the DVD rip ?
The Audio track can make a large size difference.

The there is the arguement about using a transcoder verses an encoder to rip a DVD.
My understanding is DVDFab uses a transcoder . Some consider this lower quality.
Even when using DVD Ripper the DVD compliant folders & files are first ripped to a Temp folder & then converted to .mp4.
So it is a double conversion .

Then of course it depends on the encoder used . You should use H.264 & a two pass encode.
I haven't used it much but if your equipment can process H.265 it is supposed to be even better.
Whether that's the case with a DVD rip might be argued.
Then whatever you will play an H.265 .mkv or .mp4 with needs to be determined.
In other words you probably can play it from your computer with the correct media player.
It might not play from your TV unless it is connected to a HTPC.
My TV can use a USB from an external hard drive but it won't play H.265.

On a side note I usually get some better quality from a .mkv than a .mp4.
Or at least it looks that way to me.

Sandstone

I thought I would contribute a bit.
The smaller TV capture was probably a first rip & never encoded, transcoded , or otherwise ran through a second conversion.
Add to that as suggested probably ripped from a HD source.

The there is the arguement about using a transcoder verses an encoder to rip a DVD.
My understanding is DVDFab uses a transcoder . Some consider this lower quality.
Even when using DVD Ripper the DVD compliant folders & files are first ripped to a Temp folder & then converted to .mp4.
So it is a double conversion .
cholla

Thanks, cholla, that's very interesting. For sure, transcoding is not ideal, I know this from working with audio conversion and editing.

And yes, you're right, some of my players cannot deal with H.265, just H.264.

MrVideo

Even when using DVD Ripper the DVD compliant folders & files are first ripped to a Temp folder & then converted to .mp4.
So it is a double conversion.[/quote]

The there is the arguement about using a transcoder verses an encoder to rip a DVD.
My understanding is DVDFab uses a transcoder . Some consider this lower quality.[/quote]
Do a google search on "transcoding" and clicking on the first entry that goes to the wiki entry. Transcoding and encoding walk a fine line. In all cases, encoding is involved if you change the file size of the source file. Encoding is involved when you go from MPEG-2 to H.264, or H.265.
[quote]Even when using DVD Ripper the DVD compliant folders & files are first ripped to a Temp folder & then converted to .mp4.
So it is a double conversion.[/quote]
Sorry, but not true. There is no conversion to MP4. It is a wrapper, just like MKV. Whatever is ripped, encoded, etc. is just placed into the wrapper. The video and audio files have nothing done to them when placed into the wrapper.
[quote]Then of course it depends on the encoder used . You should use H.264 & a two pass encode.[/quote]
Agreed.
[quote]On a side note I usually get some better quality from a .mkv than a .mp4.
Or at least it looks that way to me.
cholla

Then you need new glasses, or glasses. As mentioned above, those are just wrappers. Neither results in any quality issues, MKV is a more popular wrapper as it will handle a lot more of the newer audio formats.

DVDs are a poor source for video in the first place. The first issue is that it uses the older MPEG-2 codec. If you rip and re-encode to a smaller file using MPEG-2, you will definitely get crap out. If you re-encode using a 2-pass H.264 encoder, you will get much better results.

As pointed out, capturing shows from cable/satellite HD broadcasts of old shows will be better because they go back to original NTSC analog tapes, or extremely high bitrate digital transcodes of analog to digital. Those SD 720x480 digital files are then transcoded to HD 1080i via very expensive SD to HD transcoders. Even though HD broadcasts are crap a lot of times because of the low MPEG-2 bitrate, it can still be much better than a DVD as a source.

cholla

I will let DVDFab staff answer as to if any encoding is done when the DVD is compressed to DVD-5 .
Due to the speed I believe this is done by transcoding.
I usually rip to DVD-9 so it should be transcoding as no size change is done except for removed menus or any other removed item.
Even faster.
If I do a rip with a software that encodes it is much slower.
This leads me to believe DVD Ripper is transcoding to a Temp folder then using a conversion process that involves encoding to create a .MP4 or .MKV .

There is no conversion to MP4. It is a wrapper, just like MKV. Whatever is ripped, encoded, etc. is just placed into the wrapper. The video and audio files have nothing done to them when placed into the wrapper.
MrVideo

Then all I need to do is add the .MP4 extension to a DVD compliant folder & it becomes an .MP4 ?
No that doesn't work so there must be conversion. That's why there is software is called a converter.
For this thread the converter is DVD Ripper.
If nothing is done to the audio & video files then the wrapper should only take a millisecond or less.
That's not what happens when I use a converter . It takes a lot more time.

When finished if nothing is done then MediaInfo or other tools should read the same information in a .vob ,.mp4 , or .mkv.
When I do this all have differences so a different logarithm must be used by each.

I've had a problem with the .MP4s created by DVD Ripper playing on my TV.
When other conversion software .MP4s do play .
Yet a .MKV done with DVD Ripper does play.
So there are differences .

Then you need new glasses, or glasses. As mentioned above, those are just wrappers. Neither results in any quality issues
MrVideo

I don't need new glasses. Presumptive on your part to tell me what I see.
As above different logarithms are used in the encoding & these can result in quality differences.

.

MrVideo

I will let DVDFab staff answer as to if any encoding is done when the DVD is compressed to DVD-5 .
Due to the speed I believe this is done by transcoding.
I usually rip to DVD-9 so it should be transcoding as no size change is done except for removed menus or any other removed item.
Even faster.[/quote]
You are totally misunderstanding the word transcoding. The VOB files that are on a DVD are really MPEG-2 Transport Streams (TS), another wrapper. If you tell DVDFab to rip the files from the DVD and just wrap them to MP4 or MKV files, there is no "transcoding". In a nutshell, the VOB files are combined together and the MPEG-2 and AC3 audio streams are just rewrapped into MP4 or MKV files.
[quote]If I do a rip with a software that encodes it is much slower.
This leads me to believe DVD Ripper is transcoding to a Temp folder then using a conversion process that involves encoding to create a .MP4 or .MKV .[/quote]
Like I said, no transcoding. The VOB files are separated into MPEG-2 elementary streams (M2V) and a Dolby Digital audio stream (AC3). Then the elementary stream files are encoded into a new MPEG-2 elementary stream that is smaller, or into an H.264 elementary stream. The new video stream is then multiplexed with the audio stream in a MP4 or MKV wrapper. Technically you can actually take the VOB files and extract the MPEG-2 video and pass it directly to the encoder. The newly encoded elementary stream file is then multiplexed with the audio from the VOB file into the new MP4 or MKV file.
[quote]Then all I need to do is add the .MP4 extension to a DVD compliant folder & it becomes an .MP4 ?
No that doesn't work so there must be conversion. That's why there is software is called a converter.[/quote]
Doesn't work because VOB files (really TS wrapped files) are different than MP4 wrapped files. But, you can rename VOB files to TS files and they'll play just fine.
[quote]For this thread the converter is DVD Ripper.
If nothing is done to the audio & video files then the wrapper should only take a millisecond or less.
That's not what happens when I use a converter . It takes a lot more time.[/quote]
It is not instant because the program that does the rewrapping to MP4 or MKV, has to read the MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio from the VOB wrapped file, bit-by-bit and put then into the new MP4/MKV wrapped file.
[quote]When finished if nothing is done then MediaInfo or other tools should read the same information in a .vob ,.mp4 , or .mkv.
When I do this all have differences so a different logarithm must be used by each.[/quote]
When rewrapping VOB files to MP4/MKV and no recoding is done, Mediainfo will give the almost same data in that the video is MPEG-2 and the audio is AC3. But, here-in lies the rub with VOB files. They are only a big as 1GB. So, Mediainfo will give you a different length for the MPEG-2 video than it will for MP4/MKV, as two, or more VOB files might have to be combined to get the final result. This is especially so for a movie. For TV shows, the multiple VOB files might contain more than one episode. Sometimes it is one episode per set of VOB files. DVDFab reads the contents of the files that control the VOB layout to determine what needs to be extracted.
[quote]I've had a problem with the .MP4s created by DVD Ripper playing on my TV.
When other conversion software .MP4s do play .
Yet a .MKV done with DVD Ripper does play.
So there are differences .[/quote]
The differences are in the format of the wrappers. The content, i.e., the MPEG2/H.264 video and AC3 audio will be the same in both. Not all TVs and players are created equally. Some barf on MP4 or MKV wrapped files. Some might barf on the content. I've run into issues in that if the wrong type of audio is wrapped, i.e., the audio format is not part of the MP4 or MKV spec., the player might barf on it. I've had the issue where the MKV wrapper allows for a newer audio format, but the player's MKV support was old and barfed on the audio. When it comes down to it, MKV is the preferred wrapper these days. It is much more versatile than MP4.
[quote]I don't need new glasses. Presumptive on your part to tell me what I see.
As above different logarithms are used in the encoding & these can result in quality differences
cholla

I think you mean algorithms, not logarithms. If you tell DVDFab to do the same thing, but wrap in MKV instead of MP4, there will be no difference in quality, as the same video is wrapped into MP4 or MKV. Therefore it is impossible to have a quality difference when the video is encoded with the exact same specs. If different bitrates are used when creating the MP4 or MKV wrapped files, then yes, there will be a difference. It is possible to have a difference even if the same bitrate is used, because you can tell the encoder how to encode a little differently with options.

I've been dealing with video for many, many years. I've even authored DVDs with professional authoring software. Believe me I know how this stuff works.

tnhiker

Too much technical debate here as to the "why" vs. "how it came to be that way". The bottom line, which seemed to have gotten lost in argumentative discussion, is that the dvd rips using DVDFab don't look as good as the source--either original DVD or streamed movie. My experience has been exactly the same. We won't even mention the absence of navigation menus on MP4 files as a big negative for ripping from DVD to MP4.

cholla

Too much technical debate here
tnhiker

Possibly but sometimes some of this is necessary.

The bottom line is that the dvd rips using DVDFab don't look as good as the source original DVD . My experience has been exactly the same .
tnhiker

If you Clone or even use Full Disc or Customize(What I use if i want the "navigation menu").
Set to DVD9.
Then written to a good quality blank like Verbatim DL with AZO dye.
There shouldn't be any quality loss from the original DVD when Read & Written this way.

The bottom line is that the dvd rips using DVDFab don't look as good as the source streamed movie
tnhiker

This is what the technical discussion tried to explain.
Even though there is some disagreement .
Read those posts again for the explanation.

.We won't even mention the absence of navigation menus on MP4 files as a big negative for ripping from DVD to MP4.
tnhiker

Although other software discussion is usually limited in this forum .
Please post the software you know will do this.
I don't know of any & you probably don't either.
So I doubt it will be a problem.

I want to add this for Ripper .MP4s.
I'm not sure & it partly depends on the individual movie.
The bit rate for needs to match the DVD bit rate.
To confuse this that doesn't mean the bit rate you would use MediaInfo to get from a DVD .VOB.
H264 uses different algorithms to compress than DVD.VOB.
So the bit rate has to be equivalent.
Basically so there is no effectual compression.
That way the quality should be close to the same.
Any difference caused by the video being processed a second time.