Originally posted by omegaman7:

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This is mainly for CREAKY. But all replies welcome.
I would think that ALL dvd compression softwares use a paticular universal line of code? Bare with me. Very green/New to software/computer programming. What does Rebuilder do that shrink cant? I would think that the dvd format is only sooo flexible before it becomes incompatible with even standalones. Obviously computers merely need be taught how to perform tasks. Dvd players only support so many formats. [img]img362.imageshack.us/img362/6228/bowingbeforegodhc6.gif[/img]

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Originally posted by mr bass:

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Picture Types

When choosing residual data, it is important to consider that there are three types of picture in an MPEG stream. They are called I, P and B-pictures. A typical DVD video contains pictures in the following sequence:

I-B-B-P-B-B-P-B-B-P-B-B-P-B-B-I-B-B-P-B-B.... and so on.

I pictures
These contain residual data only. There are no motion vectors, so they do not depend on (or "reference") any previously decoded pictures. Essentially, they are like standalone JPEG images. They occur at a rate of 1 in every 15 pictures (also they occur at the point of a scene change).

P pictures
These contain both motion vectors and residual data. The motion vectors always reference the previously decoded I or P picture. This is important, because it means that any error resulting from compression of the previous I or P picture will also be visible in this picture, and furthermore, if an additional error is introduced by compression of this picture, then the error will accumulate and artifacts will become more noticable. Note the accumulated error will also be visible in the next picture which references this picture, so things can get out of hand rather quickly. P-pictures occur 1 in every 3 pictures.

B pictures
Like P pictures, these also contain both motion vectors and residual data. The motion vectors always reference the last two decoded I or P pictures (data from two pictures is averaged). The important characteristic of b-pictures is, no picture will ever reference this b-picture (only I or P pictures are referenced), which means that any error introduced by compression of this picture will just be a one-off occurrence, visible in this picture, but not accumulated or carried forward into any other. Note also that B-pictures form the vast majority, occuring 2 in every 3 pictures.

If you are still following this, then you'll probably have figured out that when choosing residual data to compress, it makes sense to first select the data in b-pictures. This is because (a) they form the bulk of all pictures, and (b) any artifacts introduced by this compression will not be visible in any other picture.

This is what DVD Shrink does. If the resulting video size after compressing all b-pictures is still too large, then it will try to distribute the remaining compression over the remaining I and P pictures, and this is when artifacts start to become really noticable, because errors introduced into I and P pictures will be visible and compounded in all following pictures (until the next I-picture). Note that at low compression ratios, DVD Shrink will never need to touch I and P pictures. The exact % compression where this becomes necessary depends largely on the DVD, or more accurately, on the video encoder software used to encode it.

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Originally posted by jdobbs:

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· Just what does DVD Rebuilder do and why would I want to use it?
Over the course of the past couple of years DVD ripping techniques have changed dramatically. Newer "one click" programs have made backing up a DVD a fairly simple process... but there is a significant trade-off. The quality that can be attained by even the best of these programs is poor in comparison to original techniques that used Cinemacraft Encoder, TMPGEnc, or other top-notch encoders. The reason is simple. When using one of these encoders the picture is rebuilt from scratch and optimized for the resulting bit rate. One-touch transcoders usually change quantization and/or motion info in order to lower the bit rate. This can result in pixelation and poor overall picture. But, man, they sure are convenient. That's where DVD ReBuilder (DVD-RB) comes in. This program was built to bridge the gap between the incredibly easy but limited "one-click" solutions and the incredibly complex but high-quality methods of DVD ripping and backup. Another advantage of DVD-RB when compared to older methods is that it doesn't require access to an expensive authoring package. DVD-RB includes its own reauthoring engine that reconstructs the DVD in a way compatible with its original design. jdobbs

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Originally posted by omegaman7:

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Well... Trial #1 Success!!! Whats odd is, another person posted that it took Dvd-RB 45 minutes for his Quad, My Dual Core only took 53 min. Slow Slow Slow settings, CCE encoder, I would say that the effect versus dvd shrink is MARGINAL at best! But this was the first trial. Whats more interesting is, My processor never reached more than 72% Usage, And averaged, (IMO) 50-60%. HOWEVER, They way the transfering (Harddisks) were configured, it may have slowed things down a little. It looked like my processor may have been waiting on the drive. SHOULDA used my TB drive. its 300% faster. What encoder would you recommend based on video quality. DISREGARDING SPEED. I WANT it to take its time 2-3 hours and do a good job. CCE did a GOOD job with the movie. But... some of the extras were robbed more than i'd like. I only told it to take 25% from the extras.

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Originally posted by dialysis1:

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Those settings can be applied to any movie where the user feels more bitrate is needed. Under certain circumstances you can even have some segments remain untouched so that no reencoding takes place. This will also speed up the processing time.

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