I give up again...

[Kanati]

Where can I find a chart on MB/hr or MB/min for the recording time/space? I have it set to "Best" right now I think and am getting about 2 gig per hour. I don't need that high of a bitrate for standard television... I'd be happy with about half that, but I have no idea what the bitrates are for the preinstalled settings...

[nielm]

the bitrates are in the Sage.properties file.
See http://www.sage.tv/2_papers/HPquality.txt (linked from the manual's Recording Qualities page via Appendix H)

[Kanati]

Wellllll... I read that actually and that's not really what I'm looking for... I know I've seen a chart that shows the current presets, and their recording times... Kinda like


Best 6MB/Min 720x480
Good 3MB/Min 720x480


or something like that... I just can't find it now.

[dvd_maniac]

Hi Kanati

Best equals 6mbits/sec
8bits=1 byte & 8mbits=1megabyte, so 6mbits/sec=.75megabyte
.75MBx60sec= 45MB/min
45MBx60Min=2.63GB/hour

You could try also try the following qualities:
Fair = 1.7mbits/sec = 12.75Megabytes/min & 765Megabytes/hour
Good = 2.8mbit/sec = 16.5Megabytes/min & 990Megabytes/hour
HalfDVD = 4mbit/sec = 30Megabytes/min & 1.75Gigabytes/hour

I myself use Max mepg-2 quality
12mbits/sec = 90Megabytes/min & 5.27Gigabytes/hour

then I use AutoGK to shrink it down to 300MB/hour.

Are you asking for smaller size because you want to keep it on your computer?

[Opus4]

Kanati: you mean this post, that quotes an older post containing a list of the default qualities? It is all contained in the properties file, just presented in a different way. (Same thing, but a little different.)

- Andy

[Kanati]

Bingo! Thanks guys.

Are you asking for smaller size because you want to keep it on your computer?

Yeah... I like to archive the files to DVD. With tivo it's a real pain because even now with tivo2go where they allow you to transfer the files to your computer, it takes FOREVER to transfer them (roughly a bit more than 1:1 speed) via wireless (B is the only format supported currently, though some have gotten G to work somehow), and after you transfer them they are in a proprietary format that requires a password to view and only on one specific machine. You have to run the files through a directx program (graphedit; comes with the directx sdk) to get them into a regular mpg format... And then once that is done, you can start shrinking them. Unfortunately at best quality, the files are way too large for graphedit to work with correctly, and the audio gets skewed...

Anyway, I just want a good quality recording that I can leave on the sage box for a while until I get a number of files ready to go, transfer them to my main box, shrink them to divx or xvid and burn them to DVD where I can later view them on my rca set top that can read divx or now, on the sage box directly off the DVD.

Thanks for the help...

[dvd_maniac]

If I were you I would record at a high quality setting if you plan to encode them into Xvid or Divx. You can shrink a good source down to a pretty small file size without too much lose in quality. But if you start with a bad quality you will need to make the encode bigger to compensate.

My Xvid encodes are 300MB and I can barely notice any quality difference between the encode and regualr TV on my 57" Hitachi HDTV (via s-video)

I used to use a lower quality setting and then encode but the resulting quality is IMHO around 70% of what I get now.

[Kanati]

I will take that under advisement and experiment a little. Thanks.

[mike1961]

dvd maniac (or anyone else)....how long is it taking you to convert a two hour movie in that high format of 5+ gigs per hour down to 300 mb in divx format?

Thanks,
Mike

[Kanati]

I've found that it doesn't take too much longer if at all on my machine to convert a higher quality mpeg to xvid... So I went to "great" quality. I think it takes me about half the length of the show to create the xvid. So one hour to convert a two hour program. Wish it was a lot quicker, but oh well...

[dvd_maniac]

on my P4 2.8 HT enabled a 45 minute(Without Commercails) takes about 1hr20min. On my dual-core 820 2x2.8 it takes a little more then realtime, about 55 minutes. Divx 6.1 just came out and claim a HUGE speed increase. I have tested it out and find it to be more Divx propaganda!!! But you might give it a shot if speed is your main concern.

I am using VideoReDo to take out the commercails first now. It is just as easy, if not easier, than using VirtualDub to take out the commercails after and cuts down on encoding time by about 25%. Than I use 225MB for one hour and 110 for 1/2 hour shows

[mike1961]

I'm wondering a few things:

1. You said you like to use the Nero Recode for movies instead of xvid. Why not the Nero for everything?

2. Is it the Nero 7 that I use for the recode and my understanding is it only works on unprotected DVD's. What a pain....If (like you) I want all my DVD's on my hard drive in compressed format then what is the best way to do this? Seems like the best way would be to just download it from p2p but I'm not sure which one's might have a good selection with decent speeds...perhaps downloading is actually not the fastest way since it takes a while to download 500 megs or so.

3. What parameters do you like to use for the Nero 7 recode and also for the AutoGK and why one versus the other?

It seems like this is going to take an awful long time to encode my dvd collection.

Thanks,
Mike

[mike1961]

Oh - I'm more concerned with quality and compression than speed since speed is a one time thing (to compress).

By the way, it seems like one has the added advantage that when things are compressed there is less bandwidth across the network when playing movies since (I would think) the decompression is happening at the client side.

Mike

[mike1961]

DVD Maniac...you said you use 225MB for one hour and 110 for 1/2 hour shows. First - do you mean 110 megs for 1/2 hour shows (which are really like 22 min or so since they don't have commercials)? Also, if you are using the AutoGK then are you using the custom setting as opposed to the 75% quality setting and are you doing this in xvid? Any advanced custom settings or can I get away with the defaults?

So, I'm interested in also knowing why you use AutoGK xvid for tv and I think you are using nero for movies. Why not the same product for all? Lots of questions but I'm new at all this.

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

DVD Maniac...you said you use 225MB for one hour and 110 for 1/2 hour shows. First - do you mean 110 megs for 1/2 hour shows (which are really like 22 min or so since they don't have commercials)? Also, if you are using the AutoGK then are you using the custom setting as opposed to the 75% quality setting and are you doing this in xvid? Any advanced custom settings or can I get away with the defaults?

Yes they are filesizes after taking out comms. The only other setting I change is I use CBR64 audio. I do not hear any difference using a larger (128Default) bitrate. But to each there own. "Experiment a little"

I use Nero Digital (Mpeg-4 AVC) for moveis because I am feeding it a great source, has no commercails to cut out and the quality is very good compared to ASP version of Mpeg-4.

I use AutoGK with Xvid because of speed difference in encoding compared to AVC. I used to record and convert which meant that I would at some point have to take out the commercails. Not a feature you can do with Nero Digital files without a lot of work. Plus I was recrdoing a lot of shows. About 5-6 hours/day.

Now that I use VideoReDo to take out commercails and my DVD collection is caught up I am thinking of using Nero Digital Standard AVC for everything. a bitrate of 450-499 using Standard AVC is good for me, but experiment a little until you are happy with filesize/quality

PS you have to use an external video player in Sage to play the AVC mp4 files from Nero

[mike1961]

It seems like I have to use a program to rip the dvd before nero will encode it. That is going to take even more time...any recommendations? I was thinking dvd shrink but I don't know how long that will take compared to others.

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

It seems like I have to use a program to rip the dvd before nero will encode it. That is going to take even more time

How do you do it now?

AnyDVD will allow you to read on-the-fly without ripping, but anything that does this method "Might Be" prone to shorten the life of your dvd drive.

I was thinking dvd shrink but I don't know how long that will take compared to others.

I have an HP lightscribe writer that takes about 10-12 minutes to rip a full dual layer DVD using DVDDecrypter.

[mike1961]

I guess I'm just trying to understand the process step by step to go from creating a good quality compressed mpeg avc file from a DVD. If I understand you correctly the end result is around 500 megs or less per movie.

So - to start I take my DVD put it in the computer. Next, I can't just open Nero recode because it won't allow me to create the file since the dvd is protected as are all dvd's that I purchased. I'm thinking I need to use something like dvd shrink. Then there are all the options and I'm thinking I should choose the no compression format from that so it creates the files onl my hard drive fairly quick and then use nero recode. But, I'm not sure.

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

You can use Shrink like you stated. WITH NO COMPRESSION. This is in fact RIPPING the DVD to your hard drive. Then import into Nero Recode, If you'd like to save some space click on start/end and on the right move the slider to the left to the start of the credits. This will cut out the credits. You can queue up jobs here as well. Next choose a bitrate or filesize and hit next. On the next screen hit Advanced, go to general and change the maximum reference frames from 1 to a 2 then encode.

I recommend that you take a good Sci-Fi action movie like the Fight in the rain scene in Matrix III by changing the start & end times so that you are only encoding something like 15 minutes of the movie. Try to lower the bitrate until you notice a quality lose you can't live with. Also try the different Profiles...
I do most action/Sci-Fi movies at 499 (Standard AVC) with 80kbit/s 5.1 Audio and low action movies at 400 (Starnard AVC) with 48kbit/s Stereo Audio
But if you really like a movie do it better. Remember this is all about what you think looks better on YOUR setup.

[mike1961]

For some reason I can't see anything in the Start Frame but I can in the end frame. It's just a white background.

Is it possible to Preview before encoding?

Also, do I hit the More button, Options, Nero Digital Tab and select "do not ask me, alwasy do a second pass" and if so do I set the delta threshold average quantizer at 2.0? I have no idea what all that means.

Thanks,
Mike