Which is The Best Quality - Best or DVD Standard

[mike1961]

I know DVD Standard at 3.2 gb/hour is variable and Best is constant at 3 gb/hour but which is better? I remember reading somewhere that variable may contain artifacts where constant won't.

Thanks,
Mike

[AngelofDeth]

Its probably best to just experiment and use whatever looks good to you. It will also probably depend on how good your source is to begin with, and also the size of your TV. I use 1.6GB/hr and it looks fine to me, and doubles the amount of recordings vs 3.2GB/hr.

[mike1961]

Angel - I actually use Fair quality .9gb/hour for my sitcoms. But, my wife thinks all the qualities look "pixilated" and I can't seem to satisfy her just yet (but things do look a lot better with the NVidia DualTV tuner than ever before). So, as a default I'm currently using dvd long play. But, I'm asking this for videos where I want top quality so that I can convert them to mp4 for my permanent library so I'm not concerned about file size since it will be removed off the temp drive anyways. I just wasn't sure of the differences between dvd standard (variable) and best (constant) quality since the disk size is comprable.

Thanks,
Mike

[AngelofDeth]

Someone else is probably better qualified to answer that. I doubt I could tell any difference between 3.2/3.0 if I didn't know which was which. I'm not sure if the higher bitrate would be better in converting it to mp4 either, although I think any difference will probably neglible at best. Your wife thinks all recordings are pixelated, even the 3.2GB/hr ones? How does your sagetv playback compare to if you hook your source (cable/satellite) directly to your tv?

[tmiranda]

It all depends on what you are recording. Shows that have many fast action scenes with a lot of on screen detail will need higher bitrates and even using higher bitrates you may see blocking and artifacts at the beginning of the movement. This is because in VBR mode the capturecard takes a few moments to "notice" the fast action before upping the bitrate.

Foorball is a good test if VBR will work for you or not. It has scenes with a lot of players and other detail that suddenly go from "still" to "fast action". If you get no artifacts at the beginning of a football play you will probably not get them anywhere.

As for conversion to DivX, the GIGO principal applies: If the MPEG is full of artifacts the conversion will be too. You may also get audio sync issues goiing from VBR MPEG to DivX. Personally, when I am converting I capture at the highest constant bitrate possible so I know I have the best possible source material. YMMV.

[ChePazzo]

This is what I use:
mmc/python2_encoding/DVD\ Super\ Long\ Play=videobitrate\=2500000|width\=352|height\=480|audiobitrate\=192|vbr\=1|peakvideobitrate\=8000000|outputstreamtype\=10


works great. Wife can't tell if we're watching real TV or recorded TV (though when she finds out it's recorded, she gets weird and asks if we've caught up to realtime yet so sh can change the channel).

[mike1961]

ChePazzo - makes me wonder if variable bit rate up to 8000kbps at 352x480 is better than the standard default used of 720x480. By the way, I think TIVO also uses 352x480. Why would this work so well on a TV if most have better resolution along the width?

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

Try viewing 352x480 on an HDTV or even a big screen SDTV and you'll see the difference. But if you take the same bitrate,say 8Mbps at 352x480 that you would for 720x480 and viewed it on a small TV then of course the 352 would look better. But would look worse on a big screen TV or a TV hooked up via component or DVI. This is why "BEST" is different for everybody.

As far as recording quality for encoding?
I asked similiar questions over at DOOM9 and basically what I got is to record using constant quality at the highest bitrate and resolution possible.
My reasons for asking was final quality and encoding time. I thought recording at the same resolution that I wanted to encode in would save me some encoding time. I was informed that encoders will be able to give better quality when downsizing and the encode time involved was negligible.
and that Constant quality would have less sync issues and also better quality.

[mike1961]

Anyone know of good settings for mmc/python2 because I've tried some and when I look at the file format it keeps saying it's being recorded in 720x480. I have an NVidia DualTV Tuner card. Does it support 352x480 or where can I find the card's specifications?

DVD Maniac - it seems that for the best quality video, a constant quality would be preferred. But, when going to the lower qualities which take less disk space I think a variable quality would be better. In other words, at say less than 2 gb / hour at say 720x480, I think a variable quality would be better.

I'm still having problems on some stations and I'm not sure if it's the source or what. But, on my big screen LCD TV not all stations look crystal clear. I'm not sure if it's just the DirecTV signal or something else. But, we never had these problems with Tivo so I am curious as to how to set up a 352x480 stream.

Thanks,
Mike

[blade]

I don't see why you think capturing at a lower resolution is going to give better PQ. I trust dvd_maniac knows what he's talking about, so unless you plan to watch the recordings on a very small screen I don't think you're going to see any improvement.

On a 57" HDTV anything less than 3 gb/hr @ 720*480 and I can easily see flaws in the lower bitrates or resolutions. I actually like 3.4 gb/hr constant bitrate. I wouldn't even consider capturing at anything less than 720*480. The smaller your screen the lower rate you'll likely be able to get by with.

I've heard some people claim Tivo looks good and others say it's PQ is crap. Either way it uses a hardware decoder, are you certain the differences you're seeing aren't caused on the playback side of things? I have certain shows and stations that give my 3:2 pulldown detection fits and the quality isn't all that great. Shows that are detected and deinterlaced properly look great.

I often run Fraps and it displays 24 fps for film and 60 fps for video. I use the Nvidia decoders with smart detection and I can definetly see the difference when the content isn't detected properly.

[dvd_maniac]

DVD Maniac - it seems that for the best quality video, a constant quality would be preferred. But, when going to the lower qualities which take less disk space I think a variable quality would be better. In other words, at say less than 2 gb / hour at say 720x480, I think a variable quality would be better.

What I was trying to convey is that you should "always" use Constant Quality and the highest bitrate and resolution you can "IF" you're intent is to encode and archive the video, but use whatever you are happy with for viewing videos you "DON'T" plan to archive.
But do not expect better quality by using the same bitrate at lower resolutions "UNLESS" you plan on viewing them on a small screen SDTV with S-Video or lower quality connection method. As far as VBR Vs. CBR? For just viewing, if VBR works for you then great but not for archiving.
If your hard drive space is limited on your recording drive and you sometimes record faster then you view then adjust the bitrate accordingly for the non-archived shows.

One thing I have noticed in my encoding extravaganza (a little over 2000 episodes encoded) is that I keep upping the bitrate and resolution... When I upgraded my family room tv from a 36" SDTV to a 57" Hitachi HDTV I found that my 352x480 encoded Xvid files were barely watchable. Although they looked great on the 36".

When archiving I have learned to look to the future.
Hope this is useful info.....

[mike1961]

DVD Maniac - I completely agree that whenever encoding to mp4 one should always start with the best source possible.

On another note - are you still using StaxRip to encode mpeg 2 files and Nero for DVDs? Something very odd has happened with my StaxRip. I've noticed that when I open an mpeg 2 file to being the encoding on some mpeg 2 files it's as if the length has been completely truncated from say a 2 hour movie to around 65 minutes or even less. One movie that's about 100 minutes got trunctated to 20 minutes when I opened it to begin the process of cutting, previewing, etc. But, there was no point. I noticed that the moment I open a file to being it does some dropping of frames (I think b frames). I'm not sure what's going on. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

Hi Mike,

I have never experienced anything like what you're describing. Are you sure that it truncuates after DGIndex finishes but B4 you enter cut mode?
If you are experiencing any problems I would start troubleshooting by deleting the Staxrip folder and reinstalling it, maybe you did an installation of something that conflicted with an application that Staxrip uses. I had that happen to me when I installed Nero 7 and the AAC audio encoding dll's were incompatible with Staxrip which uses Nero 6.6's AAC dll files.

And yes I am still using Stax for TV recordings and Recode for DVDs.
However, I might be switching to Nero Recode for everything soon.
Nero will be releasing the "Nero 7 Reloaded" version which will FINALLY contain High Profile AVC encoding.
It should mirror X264 in quality and also support multi-threading so the encode times should be the same as well. But obviously the ease of use over Staxrip will be the deciding factor. Release date should be middle of September.

[ChePazzo]

So, one thing I learned from doom9 was that if you are using a low bitrate, 352x480 will result in a better picture because you get more bits to define each pixel.

Of course, encoding at the highest bitrates and highest resolution will yield the best picture, but if you need to lower the filesize, then you have to sacrifice something.

Now, I only have 36" screen tv, so the settings work good for me. I will play around some with the settings and post something if I see a difference on my small screen. I am also viewing through an MVP. Not sure if that matters.

[mike1961]

I did install QuickTime (from IPOD software) which may be where the conflict is so I'm going to try reinstalling.

On another note - I'm thinking there must be a way to take mp4 files and quickly transfer and burn them to DVD format with Recode. I tried taking 2-3 mp4 files and transferring them to 1 dvd and it seems like Recode wants to take hours to do the transfer (but the files are already in MP4 nero and high profile (staxrip) format so I would not think going from mp4 to dvd would take that long). I noticed that Recode burns the DVD really quick when I simply imported the Audio_TS and Video_TS dvd files into recode. I would have thought it would be easier to burn a DVD from an mp4 file. Any thoughts on this?

(I did a reinstall on StaxRip - I'm not positive yet but I think it's going to do it again on these movies because I'm seeing it's dropping a lot of "useless B frames" in the dos prompt right after I open the file. It does not do it on all movies but does on some).

Thanks again for the help.
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

I hope I'm not giving the impression that I am totally against 352x480 or that anything in that resolution stinks...

What I am saying is that if you want to keep the filesize the same but have better quality, lowering the resolution from 720 to 352 will not work in Almost all cases.
I was under the impression that Mike thought that it would because his Tivo used it.

Using 352x480 with a lower bitrate would save space and still look ok on a small enough TV. But from my experience using a slightly lower bitrate on a higher resolution will look better then using a slightly lower bitrate at a lower resolution.
Most shows record with enough bitrate to spare and lowering it a little usually doesn't hurt PQ (Except high motion action/sports etc...).
I think that this is a better method then cutting the resolution and bitrate in half.
Try to record the same 15 minute scene of a good quality movie at a few different quality settings and at each of the 2 previously mentioned resolutions. I did this and found that even on my 36" SDTV the higher resolution at the same filesize usually had a better PQ.
Although this is highly dependent on the source, output connection, filters, codec etc... so I am only speaking in general

[dvd_maniac]

Hey Mike,

The reason that Recode doesn't take a long time to burn the Video_TS and Audio_TS folders to a DVD-r is because they are already in VOB format. VOB is a wrapper for Mpeg-2 video and Audio files. So if you are shrinking a DVD-9 to DVD-5 it only has to "TRANSCODE" the video which is lowering the bitrate from one Mpeg-2 video to another.

But just like encoding from an Mpeg-2 video to X264 or AVC MP4 takes a long time, a MP4 or X264 video has to be "ENCODED" back to an Mpeg-2 video and so takes a long time in comparison.

The difference here is Transcoding vs. Encoding
Transcoding or more specifically Compressed-domain Transcoding means normally a re-encoding process that changes the video or audio features, such as resolution or bitrate, by changing parts of the a/v content, but not by reconstructing the content again (which is the case in encoding process). Compressed-domain transcoding also maintains the format of the file same as in the original file.

Sage's Placeshifter utilizes this technology

[mike1961]

Thanks for the explanation on mp4 --> mpeg2 to DVD. The only thing I'm perplexed about now is why StaxRip is cutting some of my mpeg 2 files when I open them. I'm almost certain the problem is that it is dropping way way too many "useless b frames." I'm not sure what to do outside of just encoding the movies with Nero Recode.

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

Post the logfile over at doom9's Staxrip forum and see what they say.
But remember that Recode will be out soon with High profile. I think this will make Staxrip obsolete. Can you hold onto the movie for a couple weeks?

[mike1961]

Yes - I'll hold onto the movies (3 of them). I noticed that StaxRip uses Java to do the dropping of the useless b frames so I'm going to try and reinstall java.

Why will Nero make StaxRip obsolete? It seems to me that if they do the same thing (with regards to mpeg 2 files) and since StaxRip is free, I can't see how it would be obsolete. Nero allows for encoding of DVDs but for mpeg 2 files it seems to me that Nero will just be able to do what Stax does and Stax is free.

Mike