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Hi all. First off I would be grateful for any help you fine folks are willing to offer. I am a Newbie here but I have read lots on here so far. I was wondering if you might be able to recommend some settings/options for encoding DVDs to xvid for playback on a 40" HDTV via xbox media center (XBMC). I plan on using AGK for encoding, but if this is not feature rich enough I would go with GK if need be.
Basically I have a softmodded xbox with XBMC where I am streaming encoded movies to it for playback on an older Toshiba 40" RPTV widescreen HDTV.
I am trying to determine what resolutions and bitrates I should be using for playback. Please note that playback is through an XBOX, not a PC if that matters. Here are some of my expectations.
I would like an average 2hr movie to take up about 1000MB of space. I only need to copy the original movie. No menus/subtitles/or multiple audio tracks, etc. That said I would like to keep the 5.1 audio track with solid bitrate.
I am having a hard time deciding what resolution and bitrate range to go with. From what I have read on here, 640x480 is optimal for 16x9 movies. That's fine. However I am puzzled, as it seems that for a widescreen/anamorphic movie that 640x480 is an incorrect ratio. Do I not need to worry and assume that AGK will pick the appropriate height when I fix the width at 640? For example if the movie is 2.35:1 and I fix the width at 640 will AGK set the height to 640/2.35 = 272? Would 640x272 be the correct resolution for a 2.35:1 DVD?
So assuming I use 640 for resolution, what is the ballpark bitrate I will get if I keep the file size to 1000MB for 2 hours? And will this bitrate be sufficient? I know that I should be shooting for .2bbp or bbf. But I don't know how to calculate that. Sorry. If the bitrate is not good enough to fit in a 1000MB file, than what would be better, keep the lower bitrate and 640 resolution or reduce the resolution and maintain the appropriate bitrate? Or are they both too much of a compromise and must I increase file size above 1000MB?
Lastly is audio bitrate. If I choose to maintain the 5.1 audio stream will this make a 1000MB file impossible if I also want decent resolution and video bitrate?
Also if there any special settings or flags I should be setting in AGK, I would be grateful for that. I do plan on encoding the credits with lower res as taught in the AGK guide as it seems this will save me 40-50MB in size.
What about 1-pass vs. 2-pass? It does not appear that AGK allows for such changes. In this case do I need to be using GK instead since it has so many more features?
Again thank you so much and sorry for all the questions. But I plan on encoding my library of 500 DVDs once and I want to be sure I do it right the first time.
Also I would be more than willing to paypal anyone $10 for a thorough response to my questions, as I would like to encourage some feedback.
Gregg
Basically I have a softmodded xbox with XBMC where I am streaming encoded movies to it for playback on an older Toshiba 40" RPTV widescreen HDTV.
I am trying to determine what resolutions and bitrates I should be using for playback. Please note that playback is through an XBOX, not a PC if that matters. Here are some of my expectations.
I would like an average 2hr movie to take up about 1000MB of space. I only need to copy the original movie. No menus/subtitles/or multiple audio tracks, etc. That said I would like to keep the 5.1 audio track with solid bitrate.
I am having a hard time deciding what resolution and bitrate range to go with. From what I have read on here, 640x480 is optimal for 16x9 movies. That's fine. However I am puzzled, as it seems that for a widescreen/anamorphic movie that 640x480 is an incorrect ratio. Do I not need to worry and assume that AGK will pick the appropriate height when I fix the width at 640? For example if the movie is 2.35:1 and I fix the width at 640 will AGK set the height to 640/2.35 = 272? Would 640x272 be the correct resolution for a 2.35:1 DVD?
So assuming I use 640 for resolution, what is the ballpark bitrate I will get if I keep the file size to 1000MB for 2 hours? And will this bitrate be sufficient? I know that I should be shooting for .2bbp or bbf. But I don't know how to calculate that. Sorry. If the bitrate is not good enough to fit in a 1000MB file, than what would be better, keep the lower bitrate and 640 resolution or reduce the resolution and maintain the appropriate bitrate? Or are they both too much of a compromise and must I increase file size above 1000MB?
Lastly is audio bitrate. If I choose to maintain the 5.1 audio stream will this make a 1000MB file impossible if I also want decent resolution and video bitrate?
Also if there any special settings or flags I should be setting in AGK, I would be grateful for that. I do plan on encoding the credits with lower res as taught in the AGK guide as it seems this will save me 40-50MB in size.
What about 1-pass vs. 2-pass? It does not appear that AGK allows for such changes. In this case do I need to be using GK instead since it has so many more features?
Again thank you so much and sorry for all the questions. But I plan on encoding my library of 500 DVDs once and I want to be sure I do it right the first time.
Also I would be more than willing to paypal anyone $10 for a thorough response to my questions, as I would like to encourage some feedback.
Gregg
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