Hi all, still a newbie here but am trying to take in all this great info. I have been using Shink/recode for most of my back-ups and wasn't too thrilled about the quality, especially when I watched some on a friends DLP HDTV. I bought a few packs of DL media so I could get exact copies, but they are just so damned expensive in comparison to to DVD-5. I did a little research and found that the answer I may be looking is rebuilder. I'm trying to figure it all out, but I used the installer and am going to use HC encoder. I already set it for "best" quality, but is there a way to set the number of passes to greater than 2?? If this works the way I hope it does, I may save myself a ton of money on DL media.
Try HC encoder on best quality and I think you will be quite happy with the outcome. I use and prefer cce mainly because it is a little faster than hc but you will find that rb/hc will produce much better quality than transcoders such as shrink or recode 2. If you are satisfied with the results (and I bet you will be) I recommend upgrading to rebuilder pro ($25 donation) and CCE basic ($58). Some like procoder but I have never tried it. Procoder express costs about the same as cce basic I think.
Just did a backup for my daughter of the old movie The Great Race used CCE Basic with the 2 passes compression read 55% and it came out excellent very little difference from the original.
@mort I usually just do the movie only with RB, and most of the ones I do aren't compressed down that much, so I was extremely pleased. Darn that RB is great, of course you always knew that since you are the one who nudged me in the right direction
i use rebuilder pro with cce basic now. before i used this, i used rebuilder (free) and hc. i set the quality to best and left it running over night. the quality was great. i have a 56inch hdtv and i really cant tell any difference in the two. rebuilder pro gives more options and cce is faster, thats about it.
I have another question now, When I use recode/shrink, I like to just burn the movie without menus and extras. Being that I'm still giving DVD-RB a test run, I cannot do this using the free version only and do not yet know if I want to pay for the pro version yet. Can I use Shrink to create VTS folder of just movie using "no compression" and still obtain the same quality that DVD-RB pro would give me just processing and burning the movie? Or am I losing quality by first running through Shrink/recode even though I am not compressing at all?
If you have dvd decrypter, use it to rip only the main movie files to your hdd. Open dvd decrypter then under edit click select main movie files then load those files into rebuilder. Some say shrink set at no compression will not alter the files but personally I think it does. Dvd decrypter for sure will not alter the files.
mort,arnie have you done any testing w/ the quantization matrices via advanced options?? if not try setting the low bitrate and very low bitrate settings down to lower matrices! tell me what you think mort you should definately see the improvement's on that "drive-in" you own(projection?) if you like the effects then I would give racka's matrix editor a go! this will give you alot better result's w/out losing menues and what not! ps watch out for extra's matices especially on serial dvd's or titles w/main movie on more than one vts!
Hiya L8ter, Haven't seen ya for a while. Doin ok? Good to see ya. No, I haven't done any experimenting there. What would you recommend for my "drive in"? He he, that made me laugh. Since you're here, I've got a question for ya. For CCE SP trial, where would you recommend setting VBR Bias and Qual Prec?
hiya mort, I lurk in the shadows mostly lol! imo these are source sensitive setting's if you read through the help content's under tip's & tricksII there are some suggestion's but I don't think these are the best setting guidlines if you talk to the folks @ d9 there is big talk about Q's and ave bitrates as being the biggest indicator of the reccomended setting's but w/out the app's to identify the quant (which is still pretty foreign to me) the best indicator would be the typ/high/low bitrate if there is a huge flux say there is a great difference between the high/low say 3000 difference but the typical is low then you would do good to drop the vbr bias to a lower setting maybe 15,10 quality predision is how well it applies the cbr like end to the high bitrate end of the spectrum! okay if you figure out what the meaning of all that is let me know as I've managed to confuse my self again! I would say low typ(>2000)= lower vbr, big difference in high /low = low qual.prec. but then again that's just my flawed perception of it and beauty is in the eye of the be holder! so feel free to exp! me ever since some ext. exp. w/ starwars II I left it set an vbr,25 qp 10 as this seemed to scare off some of the mosquito's??
@Mort81, I tried Decrypter in File mode...first I selected "select main movie files" under edit and tried to run those through DVD-RB, but it comes back with two error messages: 1: Illegal Source. Missing VTS_1. Aborting 2: The Source path does not match the one used during PREPARE. Encode Aborted. So I went back to decrypter and chose "select main movie files + IFOs", but I get the same message. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks in advance for all the help, it is truly appreciated.
what movie are you backing up?? sounds like a faulty rip, did you try the whole movie extra's and all, the results will be a considerable improvement over shrink , and this will help us isolate the problem! is this happening on more that one movie? I think this was addressed recently in pro version 1.06 don't know if the free version has been adjusted??
ebega. Hmm I'm not sure. Are you running anydvd in the background? May be a bad cell that dvdd can't detect. May need it or upgrade rb to pro. It has the options to encode only the movie or movie with only the menus and more. Try ripping the whole dvd with dvdfab decrypter and running it through rb. Have you tried ripping the movie to your hdd with dvd shrink movie only set at no compression and then running that folder through rb? You still might have to rip with dvdfab decrypter and then run it through shrink movie only set at no compression. I'm just trying to sort out if you have a problem in the rip phase or whether a set up problem in rb.
When I do the full disc it works no problems, but I just wanted to see the results of just a main movie before I purchase the pro version, not a bid deal considering the amazing results of a full disc run through rb. I tried to play with it some more and this is what happened: first movie tried was X2 (x-men 2), dvdd file mode clicked "select main movie files", those were vts_04_1....etc. RB said VTS_01 was missing and gave me the error. then i tried gone in 60 seconds with same method...on this disc, the main movie files are vts_01_1...etc, these ran through rb just fine. i looked for another movie whose main movie files were something other than vts_01_x, did Terminator 3, main movie files vts_05_x, which resulted in the same error message in rb. Call me crazy, but I think I'm starting to see a pattern here Not sure if there is anything that can be done about this, but I'm still pretty sure i'm going to get the pro version when I get some extra cash....thanks for all the help and if anyone has any other suggestions, they are more than welcome...thanks again
this sounds like dvddecrypter's inability to determine what extra's are! since it cannot view the files as video just measure them! I would try to use vobblanker if you really want to see a movie only encode as it will let you view and determine what you think are extra's somewhat the same fashion that rebuilder pro will do! I'm thinking x-men2 had no special protection on it?!?!
I checked the files that dvdd extracted and those were in fact the main movie files, so I simply renamed the ifo and vob files from (for Terminator 3) vts_05_1 to vts_01_1, did this for all files in the set and rb took to them just fine
I really like the HC encoder, make sure you have the most recent version .16. Here is a good rundown of the encoders. Look at all the pages as every page he tries a new encoder. http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=57235
I used the RB installer which had HC .15, after I download .16, how would I install it? Just replace the .ini file and HCbatch file with the new ones?
