Hi all. This is my first attempt at KDVD's, after months of making kvcd's and getting pretty good at that. But on the first pass, I got some problems that I hope someone can help me with. My aspect ratios are not showing up correctly and the sampler sizes are way too high.

If you want you can skip my narration and straight to the questions below.

I'm trying to burn 3 of my dvd's to 1 KDVD as a test: Hellboy, Van Helsing, and Master and Commander. They're all NTSC and are all 16:9 dvd's. I know that they're a little more than 6 hours, but what the hey, I'll give it a try, knowing that quality will suffer, but this is a test dvd anyway. So, I'm following Vmesquita's newest guide, using tmpgenc, and using his script almost exactly, except I'm not using any subtitles.

One of the problems is that I don't have a widescreen tv, but I'll get to that below.

(If someone sees anything wrong in what I'm doing, please let me know)

He mentions audio is about 1.4 mb per minute. Total running time below is 390 minutes, so about: 546MB for audio. 4482MB - 200MB overhead = 4282MB - 546MB AUDIO = 3726MB for VIDEO.

Master & Commander: frames: 199024, min: 2:18:20
Hellboy: frames: 175425, min: 2:01:56
Van Helsing: frames: 189361, min: 2:11:37

So total frames: 563810, Minutes: 390, GOP = 18 for tmpgenc.
563810/390/18 = 80.315. Then 3736/80.315= 46.5MB for SAMPLER.

Now, for my tmpgenc settings, which I think are a little wierd. First, I load each avs file and then load the full dvd template. For each, I checked 3:2 pull down so each would play at 29.970 in my dvd player. I went to rate control and changed cq to about 72 as a test. I changed the min bit rate to 64 bits because my dvd player had no problem with this on KVCD. I left the max bit rate at 5000. I also read in another post someone said it's better for KDVD's to put the component precision to 9 bits instead of 10, and put the search precision at high quality (slow) instead of (very slow), so I did those.

Then I went into the advanced settings and saw that for each movie it set my source aspect ratio to 4:3 (NTSC, 704x480) automatically. It's should have been 16:9 525 line NTSC, right? Each movie is 16:9, so I changed this to 16:9 for each movie. I kept my video arrange method at full screen (keep aspect ratio) and then I closed and created the samples.

I'm assuming after doing the math if the sampler size comes out to about 45 MB, then that's the total size the samples can be for ALL 3 MOVIES COMBINED, correct? It wasn't mentioned clearly in the guide and for a while I thougtht that was the sample size for each movie (pretty dumb ).

They turned out way too big: Master and Commander was about 16.5MB, which is alright, but Hellboy's sample size was about 22MB, and Van Helsing came to: 23.7MB for a total of 62MB

Now here's my questions:

1. When I looked at these dvd's in anything except dvd2avi, it says the frame rate is 29.970. So, why in the guide does it say to use forced film in dvd2avi (which changes frame rate from 29.970 to 23.970, right?) and then LATER use a pull-down flag to change it back? Why do we do this? If we want 29.97, then why not keept it at that and not use force film in dvd2avi?

2. Why is my source aspect ratio being set at 4:3 when it's a 16:9 movie? dvd2avi detected it as 16:9, why can't tmpgenc? And then is it right to change it to 16:9? (and then for that matter, should I change it to regular 16:9 display or 16:9 525 line(NTSC) ?

3. Now onto the tv problem: I don't have widescreen, I guess I have a regular 4:3 tv. I read in another post though, that someone said it's better to leave a 16:9 source with a 16:9 output, and let your tv do the work of formatting it to your tv. Is this the best idea? I don't want a squashed picture or anything, but I don't want it exactly full screen either, because then it'll be stretched, correct? So on the "video" tab, what should I set as my aspect ratio? For my samples, I left them as 16:9 because that's what the template set it to.

4. Then after considering the above, is it better to have my video arrange method as full screen (keep aspect ratio) ? Like I said, I don't want a squashed or stretched screen, I want the movie as if I put in the original dvd into the player. What's the best setting, considering the question before, for a 4:3 tv? In kvcd, I used to use "center" all the time.

5. Is it wrong to have a 3:2 pulldown in tmpgenc? I'm asking because the guide says use a separate program to do that.

6. Master and Commander is longer than any of the other movies, yet the sample was much shorter thant the others. Is there a reason for this? Or is it just that perhaps the action is less that the other 2?

7. Now onto the samplers: Is there something wrong with my settings that's making the samples way too big? They total: 62MB, and that's already with the cq at 72 (pretty low, I think) and minimum bitrate at 64. I really don't want to cut this down to 352x480, because I personally think this looks bad on my tv. I want it to look like the original, but I'll sacrifice more quality if that's what it takes to keept it at 720x480. I know that the movies are a little over 6 hours and 30 minutes, but that's only half an hour, it should be enough to make the samples that big. Actually, I did burn Hellboy for the heck of it at the settings above to see if the sampler was a little wrong, and I got an 1800MB movie file, which would be good if this was a 2 movie dvd, not a 3
Any suggestions?

Anyway, thanks for reading all this mess, if anyone has any help they can provide on any of the questions, I'd REALLY appreciate it. Thanks.

Because if you don't restore the frame rate to the original (23.976), you'll be encoding the 29.97fps telecined interlaced material. So you want to keep the original progressive material, encode that, and then run pulldown, which simply sets flags in the stream to tell the decoder to telecine at playback. If you are encoding to KDVD, and you want to keep your original anamorphic aspect, you have to encode 16:9.
If you are doing a KVCD, you are forced to encode 4:3, because VCD specs don't allow 16:9 aspect. Yes. The DVD player will correct the output. If the movie is wide screen anamorphic, and you encoded 16:9 anamorphic, all will be taken care automatically. Leave it at 16:9, but again, if you are doing KDVDs. Use FitCD (Or MovieStacker, if you have it) to correctly calculate the correct resizing, and then use "Center Custom Size" (and entering the required values), instead of "Full Screen"? Using the above method, your aspect will be correct Center, with the parameters given by MS or FitCD. No. It's fine, and you must encode with 3:2 pulldown if your source is 23.976 progressive, and your target is (K)DVD Exactly. It's related to the kind of action on each movie. Could it be you are using TMPGEnc version 2.59
Which has several bugs, specifically to file size Hope it helped

-kwag

Thanks kwag, that really helped. I understand a little better about kdvd's now. And, yeah, I was using tmpgenc 2.59. Any suggestions on the version I should use, because I wouldn't want to go back to a version that has the sizing problems corrected, but has other bugs, you know?

Sorry, dumb question. I thought 2.59 was the newest version Anyway, I should look into buying the newest version they have.

I encoded some DVDs with 4:3 AR by mistake.
If I want to keep original 16:9 must I to reencode it or simply I can change header info to 16:9 AR?

Do you mean that the character are cone headed ? Or did you resize correctly to 4/3, with the corresponding A/R correction ?

If the picture is cone headed, then you just have to flag the stream with dvdpatcher. Else, of course, you must re-encode.

Note: I always flag all the stream, not only the header. I'm not sure if this is necesarry or not.

I have 4:3 TV.
I always encoded KVCD 4:3.
Now I am starting with DVDs.
How must I set the encode thinking that in a future I can have a widescreen TV set, but I don't know when it will be.
Is it related also with DVD sources?
What if it is 4:3?
What if it is anamorphic?

Simple : if you plan to use the potential of a widescreen TV one day, they you have to encode your DVD in anamorphic now.
Do remember that a standalone is abble to display an anamorphic in a correct way on a 4:3 TV, using letterbox. So your anamorphic DVD will be ready for now, and ready for the future.

Not at all but it is generally a better idea to encode an anamporphic source in anamrphic DVD, and let full screen or letterboxed ones (like avi) in the same mode on your DVD. But if you want, you can encode a letterboxed source in anamorphic. Moviestacker or Fitcd are abble to give you correct resize parameters for that.

Kwag wrote: a question,as far as I remember,it was a discussion here earlier about
Center or Full Screen setting in TMPGEnc,and the answer that time
was that it doesnt matter wich one to use,cause the correct AR etc.
was given by the script.Is that still "valid" or does the Center setting
have any advantages over Full Screen??

@Phil:If I have a DV video,720x576,full screen,and want to make
ready for the day I buy a widescreen tv,will the resizing lines be like this:
?

taken from FitCD,anamorphic output,looks strange in my eyes

It is still valid.

No. You can't turn a full screen 4:3 picture into a 16:9 without cutting out the left/right side or distorting your picture.

That is already done by the TV itself when you use these exotic zoom mode they handle (like the one called 14:9 ). So don't bother to crap yourself your DVD

From a full screen ? Yes, of course ! It is not strange, it is distorted

FS -> FS : yes
WS -> FS : yes (by adding black borders -> this is called letterboxing)
WS -> WS : yes
FS -> WS : NO !

Ok

So if I encode a fullscreen video with 4:3 setting,I got black borders on left/right viewing it on a 16:9 TV.

If I encode a fullscreen video with 16:9 setting,it fills the whole screen
on a 16:9 TV(with a slightly disorted picture)
Right?

Yes it is. And personnaly I prefer to have this than using the internal zoom.

Not at all ! You CAN'T encode a FS source with 16:9 settings or the picture will be completly distorted. Not slightly.

WS set are already designed to zoom 4:3 picture and put them on all the screen by using one of the internal zoom. None of the tool we use handle such A/R compensation and so, it is not possible to encode directly the DVD in such way.

That are these zooms that distorts "sligthly" the picture (that is was is said in the manual but honnestly, people that can't stand this horrible result don't need other thing than a VCR. Or perhaps after a new brain and eyes surgery).

Then Ill use 16:9 setting in encoder only when the source is 16:9.
(1.67:1/1.78:1/1.85:1/2.35:1).

Thanks

Then I can't put, for instance, Harry Potter 1 4:3 and Harry Potter 2 anamorphic in same DVD?

Of course you can. They will be in two separate VTS (technical name for "Title"). The same way as in commercial DVD the movie is anamorphic and the bonus are often 4:3.

Phil, you prefer to use FitCD that the Sansgrip filters?

As they are the advantages?

You can put an example of script AviSynth for KDVD Full 16:9 and another one for 4:3?

Thanks,


-Maurus

Maurus, you also started a new thread for that subject in the SansGrip Filters forum, which has been answered.

Sorry...