I've been using vobblanker to strip unwanted audio streams from movies in order to improve video quality. Rebuilder doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference when I do this, the same compression percentage is listed as if I never removed the audio streams. The same thing happens when I simply uncheck the unwanted audio streams in rebuilder. The only program that seems to make a difference is dvd shrink oddly enough. When I uncheck audio streams in shrink and select the no compression option the rebuilder compression percentage is actually less. Does rebuilder simply not list the recalculated reduction in compression or does it leave it the same as when the video file was opened? All dvd’s come out to around 4400 mb so I would assume that it uses all available space and not leave the deleted audio streams as blank yet used space?
I'm using the free version of rebuilder, I take it the one click option doesn't allow for the prepare phase? It takes me between 4 to 6 hours to rebuild depending on file size and extra reduction so the one click option is really the only one for me. I'll read through the guides again and see if I can use the prepare phase without having to click for each phase every few hours. (Given the speed of my cpu I usually set it up for auto shutdown before I call it a night).
These are all from the same full disc rip of LOTR fellowship of the ring D1 extended edition with only the 6 channel dolby and dts audio streams being kept. I tried 4 different methods of stripping audio streams. Notice the reduction level and space for video for the first three are identical. 1. dvdfab : Opened the dvdfab rip in rebuilder and unchecked all 2 channel audio streams. ----------------- [09:29:23] Phase I, PREPARATION started. - VTS_01: 3,197,014 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 151,947 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - VTS_02: 60,413 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 5,350 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - Reduction Level for DVD-5: 58.2% - Overall Bitrate : 3,464Kbs - Space for Video : 2,774,248KB - HIGH/LOW/AVERAGE Cell Bitrates: 3,874/600/3,464 Kbs [09:33:40] Phase I, PREPARATION completed in 4 minutes. 2. dvdfab + Vobblanker : Stripped all 2 channel audio streams in vobbalnker. ----------------- [09:13:00] Phase I, PREPARATION started. - VTS_01: 3,197,014 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 151,947 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - VTS_02: 60,413 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 5,350 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - Reduction Level for DVD-5: 58.2% - Overall Bitrate : 3,464Kbs - Space for Video : 2,774,248KB - HIGH/LOW/AVERAGE Cell Bitrates: 3,874/600/3,464 Kbs [09:17:14] Phase I, PREPARATION completed in 4 minutes. 3. dvdfab + Vobblanker + Fixvts : Same as above yet processed through fixvts to see if I could clean up the foot print so to speak of the two channel audio streams. ----------------- [09:03:38] Phase I, PREPARATION started. - VTS_01: 3,197,014 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 151,947 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - VTS_02: 60,413 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 5,350 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - Reduction Level for DVD-5: 58.2% - Overall Bitrate : 3,464Kbs - Space for Video : 2,774,248KB - HIGH/LOW/AVERAGE Cell Bitrates: 3,874/600/3,464 Kbs [09:07:52] Phase I, PREPARATION completed in 4 minutes. 4. shrink : Processed with no compression in shrink after unselecting all 2 channel audio streams. ----------------- [09:35:28] Phase I, PREPARATION started. - VTS_01: 2,819,834 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 151,947 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - VTS_02: 29,114 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V file -- Processed 5,350 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - Reduction Level for DVD-5: 68.5% - Overall Bitrate : 4,024Kbs - Space for Video : 3,222,422KB - HIGH/LOW/AVERAGE Cell Bitrates: 4,559/600/4,024 Kbs [09:39:17] Phase I, PREPARATION completed in 4 minutes. ^ Notice how the reduction level is 10% less and there is more space for video. The main difference in processing with shrink first is that all 2 channel audio streams are listed as unreferenced. The first three methods that I tried still listed the 2 channel streams as English audio and automatically put a check mark next to the main movie 2 channel stream. If I process any of the above 4 the final file size is almost identical (around 4400 mb). I'm still wondering if rebuilder still reads the “foot print” of the 2 channel audio streams and fills them with blank space. Note: I’m using dvd rebuilder v0.98.2 freeware (limited) edition.
I've no answer to your question other that to state that i always do the audio selection in the ripping program, which in my case is DVD Fab. Whether i rip in full disc or main movie mode i always remove unwanted audio streams in DVDFab (in fact i'd always previously done exactly the same thing back when i used DVD Shrink). As Rebuilder cannot do the ripping anyway, it makes sense to deal with choices such as this in the ripping program and not in Rebuilder... I vaguely recall that you can exclude DTS audio in Rebuilder's setup so i have that option ticked, but only because the option is there And i do have all non-English audio & subtitles excluded by default in Rebuilder (which has caught me out a couple times when Rebuilder happily encodes a (for instance) Japanese movie without any audio at all!, but i digress). Thinking about it, Rebuilder allows exclusion of Director's Commentary, so i have that ticked too, but i don't recall any other audio settings. I don't mess with any audio settings in Vobblanker/other programs outside of DVDFab & Rebuilder..
It's not a real big problem; it's just rather strange that shrink can recalculate compression percentage while it appears that rebuilder can't. As it is I end up using 14-18 GB of space for a movie. Dvdfab to rip, vobblanker to customize/clean, and rebuilder to fit to size. Now it appears I'm going to have to add 4-6 gig's to that figure in order to strip audio streams to reduce file size before encoding. I only have about 60 gig's available on my main drive, I know that external hard drives are cheap I'm just worried it would overtax my psu. I know I should pay for the full versions of fab and rebuilder, It just seems every time I’m about to another bill pop’s up or something else need’s to be replaced. I plan to eventually if for no other reason than to thank them for such great programs.
I hear you there. I (strongly) dislike paying for software of any kind, but those are actually the only 2 software purchases that give me a good feeling of having got some actual value from a purchase. I could actually have stayed with the freebie version of DVDFab as i never use it's paid-for features (as i use Rebuilder for ALL encoding now, even at virtually no compression) but i wanted to show thanks to the Fab guys for all the time i've used it and the gazillion updates that even the freebie version gets
Must be something with the free version since it hasn't been updated in a long time. I tried with the latest pro version and I could not duplicate this issue.
Thanks for trying; I think it's time that I give my thanks in the form of currency to fentago and jdobbs anyway. I'm thinking back now to the several dozen movies that I ran through rebuilder without knowing of this glitch 0.o, they all look great but what’s the point of taking the extra time to use an encoder unless I get the best quality possible. I only discovered the discrepancy when I was trying to find a work around for a movie, leather heads I think. I thought it was odd and pushed it to the back of my mind. Now that I'm doing my box sets I wanted to double check to make sure that this audio stream glitch wasn't a constant. I guess it's better to know now then to find out after I spend a week straining my poor cpu.
