Optimal encoding with FFmpeg for DVD

[kolak]

You can't get new license of old SD encoder anymore.
Only 2nd hand.
You can get h264/5 encoders from Miguel.

[Metal-HTPC]

Originally Posted by Emulgator

I wouldn't touch that HC2Setup64.exe, hank315 never released setup.exes
BTW at the given speed of CPUs these days and HC's good threading it does not need a 64 bit build to make anyone happy.
That old CCE was 32bit AND the winner.
hank315's 0.24 beta 16-02-2010 was rather an acadamic example if a 64bit build would work I guess, since he continued improving his 32bit builds from then on. Still you can have it if you like.

well I basically switched everything to 64bit here as I'm not too much into combining 64 and 32bit. I would definitely love to test this rare 64bit version of HC and am curious if it accepts AVS+ and the scripts involved and how the speed it if I do a prefetch for 24 threads which you can't do in 32bit avs anyways by the way.
It probably also works with commandline right?

Originally Posted by cubicibo

Silicon Philosophies took over CinemaCraft products and technology, including their MPEG-2 encoder. While they no longer offer the product on their website, you could always send them a mail if you really think it is worth your money.
There's also an eBay listing for a very late version supporting Windows 10 pro. But you are on your own here.

thanks for the info. I doubt that they still sell it but I definitely give it a go and write them. the ebay listing is pretty expensive and if you're unlucky that DVD or CD-Rom and maybe even the usb dondel is long dead...

[kolak]

They don't sell it anymore.
I know guy who owns Silicon Philosophies.

[benwaggoner]

Rhozet Carbon Coder also had a very good MPEG-2 encoder and possibly is available used some places. It required a dongle for individual licenses, so you'll need that as well.

A blast from the past. I wrote one of the manuals for ProCoder 1.0, which eventually evolved into Carbon Coder.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Carbon Coder was fun The servers in my profile pic were running it at some point!

AWS Elemental's MPEG-2 encoder was impressive for low bitrate MPEG-2 last I looked, not sure how it stands up for DVD style encoding. It's at least super cheap to use in AWS for one-off activities.

[qyot27]

Originally Posted by Metal-HTPC

well I basically switched everything to 64bit here as I'm not too much into combining 64 and 32bit. I would definitely love to test this rare 64bit version of HC and am curious if it accepts AVS+ and the scripts involved and how the speed it if I do a prefetch for 24 threads which you can't do in 32bit avs anyways by the way.
It probably also works with commandline right?

The 0.24 beta 16-02-2010 that's hosted in the old versions on videohelp doesn't have any 64-bit build in it. There's not even any mention of 64-bit in the 0.24 thread until September of 2010, and even then the discussion seems to be focusing around using 64-bit MeGUI, which would probably be piping from the old 64-bit AviSynth to 32-bit HCenc, not opening it directly.

What the 16-02-2010 beta does have is a build with differing optimization flags:

Also there's a special version included which doesn't use CPU dispatching which runs 2-3 % faster on my Intel Q9450.
Any CPU which can do SSSE3 will run it, it might also speed up AMD systems, Intel compiler options: /O3 /Og /QaxT /QxT
(There are rumours CPU dispatching by Intel compilers doesn't do that well on AMD ).
I don't have an AMD system at home or at work so I can't test it.

HCenc_024_QaxT.exe would be that build, but

$ file *
HCenc_024.exe:      PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows, 6 sections
HCenc_024_QaxT.exe: PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows, 6 sections
HCgui_024.exe:      PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows, 6 sections

All 32-bit.

[kolak]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

Rhozet Carbon Coder also had a very good MPEG-2 encoder and possibly is available used some places. It required a dongle for individual licenses, so you'll need that as well.

A blast from the past. I wrote one of the manuals for ProCoder 1.0, which eventually evolved into Carbon Coder.

Best for interlaced content, but not good for critical DVD encoding. Can create GOPs without B frames, which fail on some players. Still not as good as SP3 for progressive sources.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by kolak

Best for interlaced content, but not good for critical DVD encoding. Can create GOPs without B frames, which fail on some on players. Still not as good as SP3 for progressive sources.

Yeah, the Canopus/Rhozet engine was a great fire-and-forget encoding solution, but didn't offer the kind of fine grain tuning that professional DVD authoring solutions did.

It's what CustomFlix/CreateSpace used for the their automated DVD-on-demand business back in the aughts.

IIRC, I used it for Criterion's Stan Brakhage DVD release in the early aughts, which was some very unusual and challenging content.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by Blue_MiSfit

AWS Elemental's MPEG-2 encoder was impressive for low bitrate MPEG-2 last I looked, not sure how it stands up for DVD style encoding. It's at least super cheap to use in AWS for one-off activities.

Yeah, Elemental got a HUGE amount of cable business work due to having MPEG-2 statmux encoders that could reduce ABR @ quality by about 20%. IIRC, they did a lot of advanced adaptive preprocessing to achieve that. Improvements in statmux tend to have bigger impact than for single-stream, as the more streams you get into a channel, the more flexibility you have to optimally distribute bits between them.

I don't recall ever hearing about Elemental being used for DVD creation, though. They certainly had all of the required components for it, but Blu-Ray was already taking off when Elemental hit their big sustained growth period.

They wouldn't have had the kind of fine grained tuning professional disc-targeted encoders had, though.

[WSC4]

Originally Posted by GMJCZP

nevcairiel has reported that for the purposes of the mpeg2 -preme codec it has been renamed to -mepre, however I have made the difficult decision so far not to reincorporate it in the script, since this has obtained a gain in encoding speed in the order of 25% or more.

I have not posted here for a few years and I retired from encoding DVDs via FFmpeg and authoring with DVDStyler. However, I had to re-encode a DVD yesterday that I found had been authored incorrectly with the wrong profile and would not play.

Back in 2019 using manolito's parameters, I found FFmpeg had made -sc_factor and -me_method dia options obsolete. I now find that the -preme and -skipcmp option causes:

Unrecognized option 'preme=2'.
Error splitting the argument list: Option not found

Unrecognized option 'skipcmp'.
Error splitting the argument list: Option not found

-preme had been changed to -mepre by the developers. Doing a CTRL+F search through https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html does not find or mention the -skipcmp, -preme or -mepre options. Why? Where did they come from?

I need to try your DVD script version 4.2. Has it been updated?

[GMJCZP]

Originally Posted by WSC4

I have not posted here for a few years and I retired from encoding DVDs via FFmpeg and authoring with DVDStyler. However, I had to re-encode a DVD yesterday that I found had been authored incorrectly with the wrong profile and would not play.

Back in 2019 using manolito's parameters, I found FFmpeg had made -sc_factor and -me_method dia options obsolete. I now find that the -preme and -skipcmp option causes:

Unrecognized option 'preme=2'.
Error splitting the argument list: Option not found

Unrecognized option 'skipcmp'.
Error splitting the argument list: Option not found

-preme had been changed to -mepre by the developers. Doing a CTRL+F search through https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html does not find or mention the -skipcmp, -preme or -mepre options. Why? Where did they come from?

I need to try your DVD script version 4.2. Has it been updated?

I've tested the latest 32-bit version and haven't noticed any issues with version 4.2 of my script, I don't know which 32-bit or 64-bit version you're using. For builds you can check here.

[WSC4]

Originally Posted by GMJCZP

I've tested the latest 32-bit version and haven't noticed any issues with version 4.2 of my script, I don't know which 32-bit or 64-bit version you're using. For builds you can check here.

Thanks for the link, and I now realise I have been using a version that is obsolete. For 15 years, I have been using Gianluigi Tiesi's at https://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/ His builds have not been updated since 2022 and were not compiled with those options. I have message him several times but no answer. I think he has retired from this sort of thing permanently.

There are 2 official Windows build and many unofficial. Which do you use?

[GMJCZP]

Try any of them to see which one works best for you, or try them here.