Wts(jmanz)
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, you do have to build the ‘place holders’ in your dvd video project first, but it is pretty straight forward.
Jim
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Bob,
I think anyone is welcome to do whatever he/she wants when making a disc, including ‘protecting’ it. The ‘protection’ scheme takes seconds to erase with DiscDoctor, and if one is truly keen on copying it, that process isn’t going to stop it. It can however alienate you with good customers if their discs fail to play (at any time). Forgive me if I find it ironic that you have a post about a disc failing to play smoothly months later. Just as I alluded to at the end of my first response to this thread–there is hardly a week that goes by where I don’t see a post about a disc failing to play properly when it did originally. You can bet when/if that occurs, the customer will suspect your scratch had something to do with it (whether it did or not). I personally have a hard time justifying damaging a disc to ‘protect me’ from copiers. You wouldn’t accept blank media that has been scratched, but yet you expect a customer to pay for a damaged disc. You can call the process what you want, but in reality you are damaging the disc. Just my 2 cents.
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These sorts of ‘protection’ schemes come up from time to time. I would agree that prevention of casual copying would be a nice option, but the reality is that no matter what, if someone wants to copy your disc, they are going to be able to do it. Scratches or marks on the disc are easily removed with DiscDoctor or similar devices. One should build the price up for content creation, and not base the profitability solely or primarily on volume sold. I have read countless threads here and elswhere of problems with discs not playing properly on one’s own personal set up or a customer dissatisfied with failed playback. Imagine delivering a disc with a scratch or mark from the get go and have that happen. I can assure you that the customer will almost for certain blame the ‘damaged’ disc they received.
In the end, IMO, you are taking a risk by doing this. The risk being that you alienate customers with a practice that damages their disc before they even get it. You are not personally aware of the long term impact on the disc by your action, and whether or not it can result in the disc layers warping or delaminating or propagating your scratch–with the end result being the disc plays at first, but not later. It doesn’t take too long to either find a thread (here or elsewhere) where the customer has complained that the disc played at first, but doesn’t now. Maybe it can be chalked up to ‘bad media’ or the customer damaged the disc in a way it won’t play, but with a scratch, I can tell you exactly what the customer will think.
Jim
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Not to be too argumentative, but I personally shy away from ‘absolutisms’. There are, IMO, merits to using either CBR or VBR. When disc space is an issue, then I completely agree that VBR is the only way that one can produce reasonably high quality (visual) files using lower average bitrates. VBR’s advantage is that the encoder is given a range to encode–using lower bitrates for less complex scenes (like talking heads) and bumping the bitrate up to cover more complex or high motion scenes. VBR still has to ‘hover’ around an average, and the encoder has to ‘choose’ when and where the bitrate should be adjusted. Unless you are a compressionist using a higher end soft/hardware encoder, you are probably not doing segment by segment encoding, and are leaving this task up to the encoder. All encoders are not created equal, and that’s why one can detect differences (sometimes significant) between encoders given the same material. The lower the average VBR bitrate one chooses, the more the ‘men are separated from the boys’ when comparing encoders.
CBR does have it’s advantages over VBR, especially with consumer and prosumer software encoders, when disc space is not an issue. This is a quote from Ben W on Canopus’ forum for Procoder (excerpted from a similar ‘raging’ debate over VBR and CBR over two years ago):
“Yeah, a 8000 Kbps CBR file will always be at least as good as a VBR with a 8000 Kbps peak. The difficult parts will be at the same data rate, and the easier parts could be at a higher data rate than the VBR. VBR is only needed when disc space is the limiting factor instead of throughput.”
A CBR file encoded at the maximum setting for VBR will always be as good, and most likely better, than the VBR counterpart. Using CBR eliminates the need for the encoder to make ‘choices’ about when and where to adjust the bitrate–a high bitrate is used throughout. Using a high CBR bitrate ensures that all complex scenes and high motion scenes are encoded with adequate bitrates–no worries about the encoder making poor choices. Unfortunately those scenes that don’t need as high a bitrate (like squirrel hunting with an elephant gun–effective, but overkill) will also be encoded at a high bitrate, which in turn eats up disc space. This gets us back to where I started–if the content will fit on the media in question without concerns for this ‘wastefulness’, then CBR is a good option to consider. CBR encodes are generally much faster, which is an added bonus.
Your reference to the quote by Barry Braverman compares CBR files encoded at the same rate as the AVERAGE of a VBR encode–and of course his conclusions are accurate, but are irrelevant when one considers the above.
Jim
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“through the GigE pipe – not much longer than moving a FW drive from room to room”
But longer than pulling the drawer, spin the chair and reinserting it. 😉
Like I said, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and either work fine with the correct set up. I have CCE basic, and I would agree that with most encodes the differences are not huge. However, I personally find the encodes with Procoder to be superior. I use Procoder for much more than just mpeg encoding, so my bias lies there as well. ‘Quality’ is in the eyes of the beholder, and how much anyone will tweak the presets to optimize encoding as well as striking a balence between cost differences all factor in to whether or not buying one encoder or another is ‘worth it’. I believe there is a trial version of CCE Basic you can give a whirl. Procoder does a great job of HD encoding and is positioned well for future formats, it has a feature called a ‘watch folder’ where you can set PC to ‘watch’ a particular folder and start encoding the file(s) based on the parameters you set for that folder. Although there is some automation with CCE, the options for file output and streamlining workflow is superior in PC.
As Dave noted, neither have an ac3 encoder, which is something I would like to see added to PC, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Jim
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You currently can’t make frame accurate chapter marks with Procoder. I do most of my editing on a PC, and I can output a text file for my chapter marks and import that directly into DVDSP for automated chapter mark placement. If your project allows, you can output your project in ‘pieces’–each piece representing a chapter. You would then encode each separately with Procoder, and place them one after the other in DVDSP’s timeline. Since each piece is self contained, you can put a chapter mark between your segments and you will have frame accurate positioning. Obviously, this won’t work for all projects, but it’s an idea for those projects where frame accurate marks are necessary. I personally find that for many projects being within a few frames is close enough.
Jim
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If you find your file transfers are fast enough, then go with what works best for you. I have a similar set up, and found that the firewire drives were faster. I also found that with some file types the resource forks that a Mac uses didn’t translate well when outputting via the net to the PC for transcoding. To be honest I can’t remember the specifics, but I know that I and others struggled with this. It all went away with the set up I posted before, so I haven’t tried doing much(any) over the net of late.
“One other question: does Procoder recognize the chapter markers set and saved by Final Cut, in the QuickTime file?”
No.
I would think that Procoder Express would work, but you don’t have as many file conversion options. I use the full version, so I’m sorry if I can’t be more specific.
Jim
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File transfer is slower than over the internet, but it’s possible. I started out that way, but found it much faster to use a hot swappable firewire drive. I can output from within my Mac to a hot swappable bay, swap out the drive and plug it into my PC and away I go. I output my Procoder conversions either directly to that drive, or another (I have two dual bays–one dual for the Mac and one for the PC so I can keep the workflow going) and bring the converted files back in a reverse fashion and author on the Mac. While Procoder is encoding, I’m authoring or outputting additional FCP/Motion/Livetype files on the Mac–always in constant motion with little dead time.
Procoder works with the Quicktime files without the need for special conversions.
Jim
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My workflow is close to yours, but I do more editing on my PC than my Mac. With that said, I encode with Canopus’ Procoder on a PC, which IMO is one of the best software based encoders out there, and it’s fast. You can set up a batch of files to encode and once completed, import them back into your Mac for authoring. I use a external hard drive and transfer the files back and forth. I format the hard drive for a Mac, and use MacDrive to read and write to on the PC.
Jim