DVD Ripper Generic MP4 for PS3?

[Athanasios2104]

I have a licensed DVD Ripper, latest release, and i just tried to rip one DVD Folder (generated by also licensed DVD Copy) for PS3. First i tried PS3 profile with 1 and 2 Pass procedures, but the end result was a "laggy" (jerky, stutter, don't know what's the correct term) both for PC and PS3 viewing. I couldn't simply watch a movie with such "lag", i would get headache within minutes.

I then tried the Generic MP4 profile. I let all the options the ones DVD Ripper automatically assigned (ie. Framerate "as source"), just set 2-Pass ripping instead of 1-Pass; the end results looks (to my eyes at least) that has no lag/jerkiness/stuttering, just the smooth movement as if i was playing from the disk.

The question: is there a way to measure that the framerate is indeed OK (in other words noone will get a headache after a while) and could i be missing something when using the Generic MP4 profile instead of the PS3 profile?

Thanks in advance and ofcourse, Happy New Year

[Athanasios2104]

bump

[90312]

I’ve been trying to reproduce your issue but can’t seem to be able to. I just did "Inception" using the PS3 profile, I used a frame rate of 24 fps and a bit rate of 1500, I thought might be a bit low for all the action, explosions and whatnot. But it played perfectly smooth, even from the USB thumb drive. I kept the frame resolution the same as the source, in this case 720X300. How are you making your mp4? Details please.

[Athanasios2104]

I’ve been trying to reproduce your issue but can’t seem to be able to. I just did "Inception" using the PS3 profile, I used a frame rate of 24 fps and a bit rate of 1500, I thought might be a bit low for all the action, explosions and whatnot. But it played perfectly smooth, even from the USB thumb drive. I kept the frame resolution the same as the source, in this case 720X300. How are you making your mp4? Details please.

As wrote in the first post, i didn't make any changes to the default profiles, except the 2-Pass (instead of -default- 1 Pass).
I attach the settings Ripper put automatically, both for Generic and PS3 Profile.

[90312]

2 pass has been giving a lot of folks problems. Try boosting the bit rate to 1500-2000 and doing only one pass and see how it plays. I did one pass on "Inception".

[Athanasios2104]

Without changing the framerate?

Also, if the Generic profile works (as it looks like), why i should try PS3 profile? In other words, what's the setting(s) "that matter" and as such i should choose the PS3 profile as a basis?

[90312]

I would try 24 fps and see how you like it. The PS3 will also play DivX so you can try that if you like.

[Athanasios2104]

I would try 24 fps and see how you like it. The PS3 will also play DivX so you can try that if you like.

Thanks mate, i'll give a try with other movies as well and see how it goes.

As for the codec, i've read and i've been told that MP4 with h264 is very close to mpeg2 (aka almost loseless quality). And i really don't want to lose in quality =/

[Athanasios2104]

After dozens (literally) experiments with Ripper's settings i came to a dead end and i need your lights

I tried various methods for the same movie (The Rock):

PS3 profile - VOB passthrough: works great but as stated already, the subs won't play and this is a no-deal for me.
PS3 profile - mp4/h264/aac: I keep getting obvious stuttering with this profile and i'm conviced it has to do with the framerate. I tried various bitrates (1500 to 3500) and framerates (24, 29.97, 30) but it simply won't work. An option "same as source" would do the trick but there's no such option in the current release.

Avi: Works great with subs enabled, but for a weird reasons when i'd increase the bitrate, the height (of resolution) would decrease. I could manually choose a higher resolution but -correct me if i'm wrong- that would import a degree of distortion.

MP4: I guess i'll go with this one since it's everything the PS3 recognises but without the limitations the PS3 profiles have (in framerate and audio). Plus i'm told that mp4+h264+aac is capable of producing near-dvd quality outputs.

Now, i tried various MP4 settings to get a 3.99GB output, which means the compression would be minimum (auto settings would give 1.2GB output) while being recognised by PS3. More precisely, i tried 1500 - 3500 fixed bitrate, 3999MB fixed file size and (last) i scrolled the bar to its right limit (for fixed bitrate).
From 1500 to 3500 bitrate the mp4 file size would indeed increase from. But for 3500 bitrate, 3999MB file fize and max bitrate, the output would be the same; 2.11GB.
Now, i'm not good with codec/compression theory, but why can't i get 3.99GB mp4 file, even when i choose a "fixed" file size of 3.99GB?
Note the VOB file is ~5.5GB.



PS: As a sidenote, i tried both 1Pass and 2Pass and i got no issues with the latter one and as such the 2Pass is my choice.

[Complication]

I think the problems you are having with video stutter are specific to encoding from PAL. It may be the way that particular DVD was encoded that is giving DVDFab problems. Hopefully you have tried a few titles.

I use the PS3 as my primary playback device. However, if you like high quality video and regularly need the subtitles then I would recommend you purchase something that will play ISO and/or DVD Folders. There are many of them available and that would allow you to keep the original DVD video quality.

H264 is much more efficient then the old MPEG2 (VOB). DVDFab probably has some sane limits that make it so even if it is allowed to use more bandwidth, DVDFab doesn't bother if it isn't really going to improve quality. I didn't write the software so I am just guessing.

[Athanasios2104]

A good media player will definitely be in later plans, but atm ps3 is good. Afterall, i can always burn the movies to dvds, which saves me both the quality and the original disks. But since ps3 has a 250gb disk, i thought to fill it up with a small exhcange in quality.

As of now, i first do a "Full Disk" backup and then an mp4 rip.

[Athanasios2104]

I guess my question was missed after the media player parenthesis so, here it goes again:

Now, i tried various MP4 settings to get a 3.99GB output, which means the compression would be minimum (auto settings would give 1.2GB output) while being recognised by PS3. More precisely, i tried 1500 - 3500 fixed bitrate, 3999MB fixed file size and (last) i scrolled the bar to its right limit (for fixed bitrate).
From 1500 to 3500 bitrate the mp4 file size would indeed increase from. But for 3500 bitrate, 3999MB file fize and max bitrate, the output would be the same; 2.11GB.
Now, i'm not good with codec/compression theory, but why can't i get 3.99GB mp4 file, even when i choose a "fixed" file size of 3.99GB?
Note the VOB file is ~5.5GB.

[90312]

You can't set both file size and bit rate. Just tick file size and enter the size you want and let the bit rate set itself to whatever it needs to get the desired file size. The file still might not be exactly what you select, I just tried Twilight Eclipse with the file size set to 3999 and it came out 3.65GB. You should be able to get closer than 1.2GB.

[Athanasios2104]

You can't set both file size and bit rate. Just tick file size and enter the size you want and let the bit rate set itself to whatever it needs to get the desired file size. The file still might not be exactly what you select, I just tried Twilight Eclipse with the file size set to 3999 and it came out 3.65GB. You should be able to get closer than 1.2GB.

this is what i've done, set fixed size 3999MB but it keeps coming out at 2.11GB

[Athanasios2104]

Well guys, i'm one step behind before regarding this as a program bug. What i mean is that "fixed bitrate" and "fixed file size" simply do not work after a limit and i don't know the reason. I tried several movies, but the output file denies to comply with my "fixed" settings.

Any ideas?