DVD2MPG saving space test - results inside

[Networker]

Greetings. Still a new wet behind the ears user, < 1 week.

Love GBPVR and of course as a usual newbie I have posted a few stupud emails, if only I'd check the forums more... In any case, I can say there is nothing but kindness and help in this forum, I ca't say that for other forums I've been on.

I know, I know.. on with it...

Well my requirements for the PVR skyrocketed exponentially, especially once I found GBPVR and the MVP product. And even though I'm a stickler (sp??) for HDD space is cheap.. I still wanted to get the best video quality bang for my HDD space.. All my stuff needs to stay MPEG so I can use hardware decoding on the MVP and probably once I get a PVR350, if that is what goes in my new box (see some other post on TV quality )..

So taking a DVD I performed several tests and visual quality tests. And here, finally, are the results....


DVD: Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets widescreen

RAW movie: 7368 MB
DVD2MPG: 6050 MB (picture great!
DVDShrink ISO (complete backup-movie size): 3750 MB (good)
DVDShrink ISO->DVD2MPG: 3910 MB (not so good)
DVDShrink ISO (re-author movie only): 4463 MB (no test yet)
DVDShrink ISO->DVD2MPG: 3910 MB (no test yet)

I kicked off the re-author -> dvd2mpg when I left for work this morning.. I'll check it at home tonight and update this topic, however I wanted to get it started while I was at work.

Also, I started to create a chart to compare the quality settings from the Hauppauge book/settings and GBPVR.. I'll share that later soon as I either get an image up or HTML some code..

John

[jorm]

If you get really bored and want to run more tests. You can try converting a movie mpeg to divx using audiogk or dnko and then use the new xrecord and try to decode the divx file. Might be a nice way to get more movies backed up at one time.

[Networker]

Funny you should say that. I played with AutoGK last night, man it took a long time to encode that same movie from DVD (4h15m). And I didn't even have audio, but the picture looked good, capped the movie at 2GB and it was good, well who knows w/o any sound.

I haven't gotten the new xrecord yet, I think I saw you released one but haven't gotten it yet. I guess I should look for the post and find out what it will add for me. Are you saying you saying it will decode and play Divx/Xvid now?

Well my chart is done, and it's a good reference, but the link posted in another thread to
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tutorial/bitrate.html

was exactly what I was looking for as a 'industry' reference and so I just pasted that into
the spreadsheet I created.

John

[jorm]

What the new xrecord does is transcode. The default batch uses VLC. If you activate the converter in the skin (its commented out) you will see start transcoding with play grayed out. Once you start transcoding you will be able to play and stop transcoding.

The idea is we might be able to support other transcoders as well. I had done some testing with Mplayer and it seemed like it might be better for skipping and time estimate then vlc.

But you can just change the transcode.bat for that.

I was thinking it could be cool to have a divx dvd jukebox. I know a lot of divx movies are about 700-1000megs.

I have been meaning to play with mplayer if we can get it all working well it might be nice to have a 200 gig jukebox with 200 dvds there.

DVD Jukebox Plugin?

Jorm

[colin]

hey d3cypher,

if you are going to the effort of encoding to DivX or Xvid, have you considered encoding to Mpeg I or II using techniques from doom9.org or from kvcd.net?

You can do some seriously good ecodes of your DVD's as backups. For less than 700 Mb look into mpeg I (very good at low bitrates) or if you are capping at 2G then you could some some very good encoding to Mpeg II at that size. The advantage then is not needing to transcode to watch the movie over MVP.

Cheers,
Colin.

[Networker]

Exactly, my main purpose for the GBPVR has changed very quickly.. But one think remains the same, I want to support at least 2 MVPs and so I'd rather keep the DVD backups in MPEG format. Disk space is pretty cheap, matter of fact I'm picking up a 200GB drive tomorrow for $100, not bad.

I have never done any Divx or Xvid stuff so I thought I'd try. Took way to long. I've been on videohelp.com and doom9.org for several things so far.. But I'll check kvcd.net as well.

I'm pretty anal about my video quality so I'd rather keep it high bitrated. (poor English)

I'm not sure this is the place to do it, I'm still looking in the forums. But I really want to see what the users that have 150/Xcard combos, 150/Vid TV out and 350 users to determine what I should do next. I think I'll start a new post.

John