30-Day Trial Of NeroDigital Working Fine!

WoW!

I set the thing up before I went to work today and just let the proggy do it's thing. Tonight I got to see what it was Up To!

I encoded a 50-min NTSC episode of Star Trek TOS using Nero's "Standard" Certified Profile, and I have to admit it looked awfully, *awfully* good!

Anyone else out there try the 30-day trial version yet? I am going to assume that 'Nero Recode' and 'Nero Digital' are pretty much the same thing.

Thankfully the Nero interface is intuitive and most of the settings are standardized once you choose a profile. For the tweakers, you can over-ride some of the settings. (This turned out to be important).

I chose a filesize cap of 495 MB. Why? Well because there are 81 episodes in the TOS series, and I figured that 9 shows x 9 discs (9 episodes on each of 9 single-layer blanks) would do the trick nicely. Nero suggests a whopping 5 - to - 1 dataspace gain over mpeg-2 with comparable quality, and I judge this to be (about) right. Also, 9 x 495 maxes-out a dvd-5 just nicely!

And Nero Digital was just about as *bang on* in it's filesize estimate as you can be! Final filesize was 492 MB; an almost perfect result. (Better to be slightly under than slightly over).

The default setting for the audio is AAC 2-channel (no 5.1 avail with the 30-day trial) at 80 kbps, 44.1 Khz downsampled. I found this to be just plain unacceptable. I heard artifacts even with (an earlier) encode at 128 kbps, even though the Nero site says that 128 kbps should be indistinguishable from the original. (It's not).

When I manually chose 160 kbps and left the sampling at 48Khz, things improved dramatically - the audio was excellent. Also, I was pleased to note that Nero, by default, uses VBR (variable bit rate) for both audio *and* video encoding. At first I was a bit skeptical of this, because in my (limited) experience, I've found that VBR encoding can lead to all sorts of horrific audio/video sync problems. This is the *first* time I have made such a high-quality vbr encode that maintained perfect A/V sync from beginning to end!

(I'll post the .log file at the end of this thread).

There is just SO much to like about this program!

Blockiness was just about non-existant when I used the Nero Player. (I checked off a little box which enables the player to post-process the video, so this probably helped.) The TV episode looked MORE filmlike in quality than a TV show! And the video was _smooth_; non-jerky; fluid, natural motion! I'm using just a pretty standard 2.4 Ghz AMD chip.

The resulting mpeg-4 file even maintained all the original chapter stops of the original DVD (!!) which, for me, is an absolute first. This is going to make file searching a _very_ easy thing to do when/if set top Nero Digital players become popular. I found that even fast-scanning forward or backward (with the Nero player) didn't knock the video out-of-sync. Another first!

Using the 'Standard' profile and 495 filesize cap, the original NTSC 720 x 480 resolution was automatically reduced to 528 x 400 pixels, but I couldn't tell the difference on my (pretty standard) 17" CRT monitor.

Encoding time will vary considerably when you choose different quality settings. There are (about) 6 different quality levels to choose from. The "Best" level is not really the best - for that you have to go to the "Extra" level - the highest one available.

At the "Best" setting (2-pass encoding), the video was processed at about 36 frames per second - just slightly faster than the real-time 29.97 (30) fps of the original. At the 'Extra' setting, there was a substancial reduction to 22 fps. Quite a bit slower, but was it worth it?

OH YES! I found a distinct difference in overall grainess - the video improvement in 'Extra' mode, to me, is well worth the slower encoding time.

I could go on, but I didn't keep very many notes, but my overall impresson of this 30-day-trial package was Most Satisfying!

Any findings from anyone else who tried this proggy out appreciated.

[[ I used Windows-2000, Service Pack 4 with DirectX 9.0c for these findings. ]] I also used a standard DVD-Decrypter rip for the files, although I have successfully used a backed-up DVD with equal success.

Can't wait 'till Blu-Ray gets here! We're talking about about a LOT of TV shows on one disc!

Below is the Nero-generated .log file. (it's not that long):


********** Nero Recode 2 CE **********

Version: 2.2.6.16

[My Name Edited Out]

[Temporary Serial # Edited Out]

Project type: Nero Digital
Target size: Custom (253440)

13:37:20 File LangStreamPatcher.cpp, Line 56
Command table patching started...

13:37:20 File LangStreamPatcher.cpp, Line 133
All tables successfully patched!

Burn settings:
Target: Hard disk folder
Number of copies: 1
Target folder: E:\NeroDigital\TOS (194747400192 bytes free)
NeroDigital profile: Standard
Shutdown when finished: false
Advanced Analysis: false
Compress Adaptive: false

13:38:19 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 158
NeroDigital: init

13:38:19 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 269
NeroDigital: burning 253440 sectors (253440 required)

13:38:19 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 343
NeroDigital: beginning 1st-pass operation

13:38:19 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 697
NeroDigital: encode tos1 Title 1

Source:
Size (720,480)
Display Aspect Ratio (4,3)
Deinterlace disabled
Cropping enabled (2, 0, 2, 0)
Resizing enabled (528,400)
Pixel ratio (1,1)
Bitrate: 916900 bps

13:38:19 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 722
Nth-pass file = D:\DOCUME~1\MICHAE~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\\tos1 Title 1a01108.bin

13:38:19 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 924
NeroDigital: waiting for graph to complete

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 1018
graph completed successfully

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 391
NeroDigital: finished 1st-pass

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 407
NeroDigital: 1 files require 2nd pass

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 480
NeroDigital: beginning 2nd-pass operation

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 697
NeroDigital: encode tos1 Title 1

Source:
Size (720,480)
Display Aspect Ratio (4,3)
Deinterlace disabled
Cropping enabled (2, 0, 2, 0)
Resizing enabled (528,400)
Pixel ratio (1,1)
Bitrate: 916900 bps

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 722
Nth-pass file = D:\DOCUME~1\MICHAE~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\\tos1 Title 1a01108.bin

13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 1192
NeroDigital: building graph

Audio channels = 2
Profile = 4
Bitrate = 160
RCmode = 2
Sampling rate = 48000
13:53:56 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 924
NeroDigital: waiting for graph to complete

15:02:17 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 1018
graph completed successfully

15:02:17 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 527
NeroDigital: Compiling volume completed successfully

15:02:17 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 557
NeroDigital: begin burn operation

15:02:17 File burn_ndigital.cpp, Line 200
NeroDigital: exit

-- A_Klingon --

 

Hmmmmmmm.....

You mean, there's nobody else out there trying out this freebie Nero offering ????

Update to the above post:

I had been using one of Nero's standard profiles, simply called "Standard" because I felt that would be good enough for basic, ("standard") Television shows. However, there is another _whole_ set of certified Nero profiles with the letters "AVC" in their name. These are much more advanced (and powerful) profiles than the basic ones.

I have found the difference between the two to be [bold]stunning[/bold], both in the video and audio quality.

The official profile I chose this time was "Standard-AVC", and I encoded the same clip as above to make a direct comparison.

This profile uses two cutting-edge systems that are going to be officially adopted by the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD groups as [bold]mandatory[/bold],

Video - AVC/H.264 (Advanced Video Codec)
Audio - HE-AAC - (High Efficiency Advanced Audio Codec)

I suppose that many of you will be familiar with these two systems, so if you have previously used them, I may be stating-the-obvious to you.

The quality of the resulting .mp4 video was SO close to the original DVD, that I (think) I *might* have been able to detect a difference, perhaps twice - in the whole TV episode.

The audio, now at only 128 Kbps (the highest offered in this mode) gave absolutely identical quality to the original Dolby Digital soundtrack. (I had had to use 160 Kbps earlier, to get away from audible artifacts). So, I would have to say that Nero's contention that 128 Kbps HE-AAC is indeed transparent to the original, is correct.

Several changes were automatically made by Nero when switching from 'Standard' profile, to the newer 'Standard-AVC' profile.

Old filesize = 492 MB; New filesize = 492.5 MB
Old Screen Res = 528x400; New Screen Res = 656x496
Old Avg Video bitrate = 895.41 Kbps; New bitrate = 930.32 Kbps

These differences yielded a difference in overall quality that I simply cannot believe. We are indeed talking about an approximate 5-to-1 reduction (80%!) in filesize, with outrageously good quality !

But there was a very high price to pay for these improvements - a huge encoding-speed loss. Whereas it took me a little over 1 hour to do the 'standard' profile encode, it now took a little over [bold]7 (seven!)[/bold] hours to do the same tv episode. This <sortof> kills my enthusiasm for encoding a huge DVD library of (hundreds) of television shows, despite the fact that I could archive a huge number of them on a single, dual-layer, 50-gig blu-ray disc. (Single-layer blu-rays will still hold a whopping 25-gigs).

Less critical but still important, is that Nero's ShowTime Player was much slower in scanning through the file. (Fast seek, forward or backward, and next-&-previous chapter stops.) It usually took a few seconds to jump from one chapter to another.

However, I have to admit, the combination of HE-AAC and AVC/H.264 has produced the [bold]best-looking[/bold] mpeg-4 file I have ever seen.

Period.

Any thoughts?

 

just had a quick skim-read thru as i'd not heard of nero-digital before. then i saw a longfile of sorts which got me interested so will read thread properly at home 2nite...

 

Thanks, creaky.

On the doom9 site there's a dedicated forum about Nero Digital (aka 'Nero Recode' in sheep's clothing), but for the most part the discussion(s) are way over my head. I'm more practical than theoretical - (I just want to get the job done).

My NeroDigital (mpeg-4) encodes are turning out phenominally good-looking, but the encoding process is dog-slow - only a handful of frames-per-second on the 2nd-pass, and as there are no NeroDigital set top players in my area, and the process is taking so long, and blu-ray has yet to arrive, ...... NeroDigital remains only an interesting diversion for me right now.

However, mpeg-4 is THE encoding system of tomorrow/today, including Hi-Definiton/Blu-Ray.

But seven hours of encoding for a 50-minute episode of 'Star Trek' makes this little excursion of mine just a curiosity for now.

Too bad that Dela took his own preliminary mini-guide (early findings) of NeroDigital down. I had wanted to go over his findings again.

I'll send you a cd-r (700 MB) version of a movie if you like. (Any requests?) - This is _not_ a file-sharing offer (in case anyone gets all upset), but rather, an objective sharing of info.

I'm using the Nero certified profile, [bold]Standard-AVC[/bold] as opposed to the more basic [bold]Standard[/bold] profile, which -- although a *lot* faster to encode (one hour versus seven) -- doesn't look nearly as good.



-- A_K --

 

Update:

OOoops !! My mistake.

Dela had actually looked at (and reported on) [bold]ratDVD[/bold] and not [bold]Nero Digital[/bold] as I had thought.

Sorry 'bout that !

(Now, of course he did download and install ND..... hmmmmm ....)

 

As best I can tell, JXP, "Nero Digital" and "Nero Recode" are the same thing, but don't quote me on that. I think that Nero should stick to one name and permanently drop the other to avoid confusion.

I'm only using an OEM (free; bundled) copy of Nero that came with my burner, and it only has the more basic burning options - no video encoding.

But this 30-day trial of Nero Digital does produce wonderful-looking mpeg-4 encodes of dvd material that I've been testing it out on, and it's pretty easy to use too.

Trouble is, it takes a HUGE amount of time to encode stuff - only about 3 or 4 fps on my 2.4 Ghz machine, when I use the advanced "Standard-AVC" profile (which is supposed to be a standard, supported format of the upcome hi-definition disc formats.

3 or 4 frames per second is simply not good enough for any ambitious archiving projects though. Life's too short!

Pity.