DVD-Rebuilder + (CCE 2.5 or 2.7) or (ProCoder 1.5 or 2.0) ???

[puraido]

hi all,

I know ProCoder costs way more, but I just wanted to know which goes better with DVD-RB for DVD backups and why. I ususlly use DVD-Shrink for discs under 5-6 gigs or so and DVD-RB for the rest. I've seen tests on videohelp forums and other places about procoder, cce, etc but i have no clue. Also, does anyone know the difference between Procoder 1.5 and 2.0 as far as encode quality goes? and the difference between CCE 2.5 and the latest one, 2.7 is it?, in the same respect? I heard about both software that the prior versions are a bit faster and better-looking than the latter. I was hoping someone inform me a bit before i use the trial versions to test encode for hours and hours!!

any help would be great. thanks. puraido.

p.s. there are no extra ProCoder options in DVD-RB. This is normal, right?? Is there any configuring to do?

[UncasMS]

i use procoder2 most of the time

especially when it comes to large amounts of data that'll have to be reduced (i.e. low bitrate per pixel) procoder2 wins hands down

concerning procoder settings: there's hardly anything to chose:

2 passes will always be done (no more no less like with hc) and the quality can be set when using eclpro the first time or later on by easily editing the eclpro.ini

[puraido]

Thanks for the input, UncasMS.

I've been trying out the procoder demo. rebuilder handles all the settings for me i'll just give each demo a try and see if my eyes can tell the diff. thanks again. puraido.

[UncasMS]

make sure you pick a title with a longer playing time/bonus

a simple 90min title wont show much difference when done with either cce/hc/procoder or shrink

taking a 120min title + decent bonus material will clearly show you that procoder2 handles lower bitrates much better

[blutach]

No doubt about it - try something like Last Emperor 2.5 hours, or Apollo 13 (which was on a flipper originally) or JFK.

You'll see the diff, especially on a big screen.

Regards

[rocknn]

UncasMS, blutach........ Ok you guys have convinced me to get Procoder 2.0.
Now you have me wondering about the setting in Procoder 2.0 when using it with RB pro. I am getting my copy of Procoder 2.0 from mr UPS today. And I want to be sure to have the setting correct for using it with RB pro. I was using CCE basic and it was working great, till I tried soem tv espisodes of 7.5-7.9, about 3 hours long, then I was getting some macropixels in the charcoal, gray and black areas of non moving backgound...looked wormy if you know what I mean. After reading this post(among others) about procoder 2.0, decided to make it my new choice for the lower bitrate and higher compression jobs!
So is there any initial setting that need to be made to use with RB-pro? I will of course be using the mastering quality as the option inside RB-pro. Any additional insight or information you could send my way will be appreciated, esp to do with the eclpro.ini file.

[UncasMS]

the eclpro.ini is very short and hardly contains anything but quality level and gop length which has influence on the encoding quality so dont worry about this ini file

there are other aspects like extra/bonus material to be included, which can have a severe influence on the overall quality/bitrate

i prefer to resize extras to half d1 and use steal space from extras: 25%

[blutach]

It's so simple - point EclPro to Procoder 2 and you're good to go.

Regards

[rocknn]

Thanks for the info. Here is the way my elcpro.ini file looks. Everything look ok to you?

[Options]
Delay=0
Pause=10
Priority=1
Minimize=1
NoPathWarn=0
Procoder=C:\Program Files\Canopus\ProCoder 2\Procoder2.exe
[Quality]
Quality=4
AlwaysGOP15=1
AutoParameters=1
[Debug]
StrictGOPBrateControl=0
Legacy=0
[Temp]
Filename=

It did not set up this way through the elcpro.exe, I had to make some manual entries, so I want to be sure this looks good.

Did the first rebuild using DVDRB pro and Procoder 2 last night. Total time for encoding was 244 minutes compared to 100 using CCE basic. Quality is set at mastering for Procoder. I believe the overall sharpness of the picture is better. I am starting with an original file size of 7.5GB(aprox 3 hours) and its a TV episode.. "Enterprise" not the older Star Trek. I am getting an overall excellent backup from the original with one exception. With certain scenes, with certain shades of gray in the background, I see on occasion( maybe every 5 minutes) some macro pixels(very small artifacts) trying to form and move around kind of like live thing moving around. If its a larger gray area, maybe only 25% of the area is effected, then when the scene changes the macro pixels are gone. I am only interested in the absolute best quality. On these episode DVDs, there are no extras to remove except the the extra audio. This by no means does this happens on all of the gray areas, as there is a lot of video on the main deck of the Enterprise that has allot of gray in the back ground. Only a few selected scenes have the problem. I have just backed up one episode, from the 4 episode disk to see if it would react the same and it does not show the macro pixels. It is just like the original. So I am left to think that the bit-rate on some of the original is too low to rebuild and encode with a totally excellent backup. Any thoughts and or ideas would be appreciated.
O one other thing about Procoder, I noticed it maximizes, every time it starts with a new sector, then re-minimizes after it the processes begins, but I am sure that is what is what is should do.

[UncasMS]

but I am sure that is what is what is should do

true

concerning the overall quality issues you might try a filtering with fluxsmooth in order to increase compressability and thus maybe reduce artefacts

no guarantee but well worth a try - c.f. the sticky on *using filters with rb*

[blutach]

@rocknn

Do you have an ida of the BR of the segment you are having trouble with? Check it out with BitRate Viewer.

Look at "Digital Signal Degradation" here. Is that the effect you are seeing?

Regards

[nullstuff]

...just a report: some time ago I've tested DVD-RB w/CCE2.66 --- original movie was 202 mins for +8Gb --- after a 14 hours encoding session (ya, 10 passes) if I remember right, max bitrate was around 2400kbps: IMHO the visual quality was astonishing (for that low bitrate)...

-- nullstuff

[UncasMS]

what did the comparisons look like (which i assume you must have done) with 3 passes vs 5 passes vs 10 passes?

[nullstuff]

...I did only a 3-passes-test, in addition to the 10-passes: visual quality was... not acceptable IMHO (similar to the result obtained with DVD2ONE).

-- nullstuff

[UncasMS]

similar to dvd2one???

hmm, that amazes me - your dvd2one version must be incredibly good