Best PQ choices for DVD5/9

First off this is about making downloaded .mkv file be the best it can on my BDP-S550/LG50GP25.

So .... often we see these mkv in 720p from 4.7G-7Gb or so
and 1080p from 7Gb-13Gb

Now Iam willing to split a 13Gb on to 2 DVD9s to keep the PQ up.

I find it hard to believe that a BD25/50 movie will be just as good on a DVD5!?

What I am currently doing is using uncropmkv to make it AR compliant as these usually are not. Like 1920x800 to 1920x1080
Then I will output it to AVCHD format using either Tsmuxergui or popbd if it needs to be split and then finally burn it using Imgburn.

I've been happy with the results so far.

Sometimes the single DVD9 won't work because the m2ts file is just a little bit to large and so have had luck with BD-RB to resize it and them burn its output.

So:
-Would it be better to downsize the 1080p to 720p?
-Would it be better to stay away from those DVD5 sized mkvs? Or can they be improved upon by rencoding with higher bit rates etc?(Not likely I would think)
-It seems that those 720p in the 8Gb range would be the optimum ones to get when theres a choice?
-Its still not clear if what i've been doing is avchd or bd5/9??
After reading http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1095653&postcount=1 it would appear to be BD5/9

 

Keep the 1080p res and use BD-RB to compress to one DVD9... regardless of the size of the source MKV. I have never used BD-RB, or Ripbot264... however I do process my own BD/HDDVD rips using MeGUI/AviSynth. Whenever possible I include HD audio and always output to DVD9, which usually leaves a bitrate anywhere from 5-8mb/s. Results are extremely impressive.

MKVs usually never come whith HD audio, so acheiving at least 5mb/s shouldn't be a problem on any MKVs out there. Stick with DVD9s, and 1080p, encode with the proper settings and you cannot go wrong.

BTW, the discs you are creating are AVCHD.

 

Keep the 1080p res and use BD-RB to compress to one DVD9... regardless of the size of the source MKV.
> So your saying the PQ lost by shrinking a 1080p to 8.5Gb even if its like 13Gb is negligible? And don't bother splitting them.

I have never used BD-RB, or Ripbot264... however I do process my own BD/HDDVD rips using MeGUI/AviSynth.
> how long are your rencodes taking? Mine have been anywhere from 2-8hrs depending.

Whenever possible I include HD audio and always output to DVD9, which usually leaves a bit rate anywhere from 5-8mb/s. Results are extremely impressive.
> My A/V receiver doesn't work with True HD audio so I haven't worried about this. Though i am planning on getting one. So from your experience does HD sound much different/better?

MKVs usually never come whith HD audio, so acheiving at least 5mb/s shouldn't be a problem on any MKVs out there. Stick with DVD9s, and 1080p, encode with the proper settings and you cannot go wrong.
> Just curious but how do you think a 8Gb 1080p would compare to a 720p 8Gb in terms of PQ?

BTW, the discs you are creating are AVCHD.[/quote]
> okie dokie

I've been real happy with the results so far and wanted to know if I was missing anything ..

Thanks for your feedback ...

 

> okie dokie

I've been real happy with the results so far and wanted to know if I was missing anything ..
PQ-wise, possibly not. Audio-wise, most definetly.

Thanks for your feedback ... [/quote]

See my comments above.

 

I made myself a little sampler AVCHD disk:
720Pass1.mkv (12kBitrate)
720Pass1_4kbitrate.mkv
720Pass2.mkv (12kBitrate)
1080Pass1.mkv (12kBitrate)
1080Pass1_4kBitrate.mkv
1080Pass1_18kBitrate.mkv
1080Pass2.mkv (12kBitrate)

I am hard pressed to see any differences between these. I do have a 50" Plasma by the way.
Anyways ... fitting a mkv to 1 DVD9 sounds reasonable to me.

- If its say a 7Gb mkv is there any point to upping the bitrate to come closer to a full DVD9?
- I am interested in looking into MeGUI/AviSynth. But this thing has a ton of options and profiles to figure out. Can you point me to a good/simple guide to get started? Or give me a few quick pointers to test this out

thx ... again

 

See my comments above. Once you get MeGUI installed you'll need to configure some of the key apps to directories specific to your PC, one for sure would be x264.exe. Options -> Settings -> Program Paths. It will be located in the directory where you installed MeGUI (...tools\x264).

You'll also need to configure where the log files go for each encode (only done once)... from the main MeGUI window, select your profile (encoder settings dropdown), then hit the Config button beside it, in that window you configure where it goes... doesn't matter, select your directory and it should be .stats at the end.

When you are ready to encode let me know.

 

okie .... its already installed(full package with 3rd party stuff) and i've updated it too.

next .... ?

 

I'm assuming you have the MKV already on your PC. If the movie has an irregular resolution you need to add the borders to make it an AVCHD compliant stream.

First to start the process...

-Tools -> AVS Script Creator... load your MKV.

A preview window of the movie should appear, close it. Now, to add the borders go to the Edit tab, directly below the

Code:

DirectShowSource("C:\Downloads\Movie.mkv", fps=23.976, audio=false)

add the following...

Code:

AddBorders(0,###,0,###)

Replace the ### with actual values to get the resolution of your movie to 1080.

eg.
If your movie is 1920x800, you need to add 280 lines total to the top and bottom to make the widescreen bars. That value should be split in two for the top and bottom. Your script should looks like this.

Code:

AddBorders(0,140,0,140)

Your complete script would look like this.

Once it looks similar to to this example hit the save button. A new preview window should pop up with the widescreen bars added in... close it.

-Now set the output to RAWAVC
-Set your encoder settings using one of the profiles

Now you need to set the bit rate... do this by setting a file size to the output. You'll need to know the file size of the audio file. With this info we can set the file size accuratly to totally consume a DVD9 by doing the following math.

8152mb (DVD capacity) -minus- audio stream size -minus- M2TS header (570mb) = video stream size.

This value will probably be close to 6400-6500mb... whatever the value is round it down to the nearest hundredth... eg, if your math show ~6453mb for the video, round it down to 6400mb... input 6.4GB in the MeGUI (Tools -> Bitrate Calculator). It is important you input in GB if you use this method... values is MB are not the same as GB... 6400mb does not equal 6.4GB... due to the fact that 1024mb = 1GB

The M2TS header size varies depending on what audio codec you use, and what sizes the video and audio are. 570mb is good for a 2hr movie with DTS. Maybe use 580 or 590 if your movie creeps towards 2hr30min.

Once you set your bitrate hit the Enqueue button (middle, right of main MeGUI screen).
-Go to the Queue tab, there should be two "Jobs" there. Hit the Start button, the encoding should start, the second pass will start automatically.

This will take some time... possibly 8-16 hours depending on which settings profile you use. I ususally use Ryu77's Ultra profile, this take ~20 hours on my quad core. You should be safe with Good Quality since you are not using HD audio.

Good luck.

 

okie ... followed your directions and pressed the start and not much happened!
Checked the log and say 2 errors:
[Error] An error occurred: x264 [error]: ratecontrol_init: can't open stats file
[Error] An error occurred: x264 [error]: x264_encoder_open failed

I checked and reset the path to x264 so what might this be about? Whats this stats file it can't open?

thx

 

ok .. figured it out. Megui was on D: and it was looking to c:??
Reinstalled Megui to C: and its working now ... Went with Ryu77 2-High Quality profile
Encoding starting ....

 

Sweet! That was easy!!!!

 

okie its done! It took some 10hrs in total. This is probably about the same as resizeing and then shrinking it as by the other software I use.

the results are a xxx.264 file only it didn't do anything with the audio!?
I had set the output to 6.0Gb and DOS shows it as 6.444. The unshrunk .dts is some 1.5Gb. Which adds up to about 8Gb. Oddly!, I muxed the shrunken .264 and unshrunken .dts to AVCHD folders for burning and the result was 8.496 Gb .. just small enough to burn! And the audio/video were in sync!!! Why does the unshrunken .dts work?

First off .... did we forget the audio?
Secondly ... why is the unshrunken .dts in sync with the shrunken .264?


thx

 

Also ... is there a better aduio output than .dts which is smaller but still has as good sound quality?

 

Keeping your audio stream as is was intentional, we were to shrink the video only, keep the original audio, and burn to DVD9. By the sounds of that, everything worked out fine? I'm not sure why you were surprised the DTS audio worked fine.

When recoding the video all that is being done is each frame is being reprocessed, certain pieces of information, mostly redundant information that has high bitrate... that only needs low bitrate, (data in terms of megabytes) is being removed keeping the same amount of frames, which in turn keeps the same runtime, which 99.99999999% of the time will keep the original audio in sync with your new video.

So, the purpose of recoding was to shrink only the video, keeping the original audio for the best possible quality on a DVD9.

Also, you can take your DTS track and convert in to AC3, which will shrink the file size by almost half, but will be inferior in quality. If your MKV comes with DTS @ 1536kb/s, it generally the best possible option for audio.

 

Yes everything is fine. I've burned it and tested with player/Tv and don't see any probs! Yeah .. i kind of figured that unless we were actually shortening the movie that the original .dts would be ok but had to ask for clarification....

Thankyou very much

 

Good to hear. Also, if you do notice any problems it is probably from whomever encoded to MKV in the first place. I started by processing MKVs, ran into a few with issues, poor encodes... this is why I process my own now, I rarely download anymore.

 

I've just discovered that my BDP-S550 can decode true HD/ DTS-HD MA 5.1
and that my VSX-516 has 5.1 analogue inputs. Up to now I haven't had any BD with this HD audio.

So .... how large are these kind of audio files typically? DTS being upwards of 1.5Gb

How are you de/muxing these kind of files into an AVCHD ... if you can?

I wonder if its possible to download just HD audio? If so then I could just redo mine with this HD audio.

thx

 

In order to demux HD audio you'll need the actual BD (plus a BD drive for your PC), or find torrent sites that actually have full ripped BD... which can be enormous in size, 20 - 45GB