Nero Digital video codec

After selecting the “Copy DVD to Nero Digital” option we see the screen below. In this screen we can select what we want to do with our DVD and which audio tracks and subtitles we want to keep or remove:

Let’s first take a look at the configuration of the Nero Recode software. When pressing the configure button we can the following options:

The options are all pretty selfexplaining and were all left at their default setting. After setting up the preferences it’s time to load our DVD movie. For our test we ripped a movie called “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” using DVD Decrypter. The ripped files measured 7,61GB in size. After loading the DVD movie Nero Recode 2 first analyzes the files and their compression ration. After Nero has finished analyzing the video is shows information about the loaded files and we can add the titles we want to copy:

If the screen above reminds you of DVD Shrink then you are not far off because Ahead used the expertise of the author of DVD Shrink to incorporate into their own Recode software.

For our tests we only want to rip the first title of the movie which contains the main movie. We do not want a menu or any extra’s. In Nero Recode 2 we can now set-up which audio tracks we want to keep and which subtitles. The subtitles will be ripped from the DVD files and included into the .MP4 file as a seperate subtitle track. We can also select what the final size of the movie should be. For example, do we want it to fit on a normal 74 or 80 minute disc, on a DVD recordable disc (4,4GB) or do we want the .MP4 file to be of another size?

For our preview we want to compress the DVD movie onto one 80 minute CD-R disc. This means that the movie will be compressed to about a tenth of its original size and thus the Nero Digital codec really has to do some work. After we’ve set-up our movie it’s time to take a look at the some of the other option Nero Recode 2 has to offer us. First of all we have an option called “Lock Ratio” which locks the bitrate for the movie quality. We don’t want this since a variable bitrate will generally always give better results. Below the Lock Ration option we have an option called “Start/End” with which we can set the start and end frame of our movie. This option is handy when you, for example, want to cut off the end credits of the movie to save same room (bitrate) for the main movie. The next button we can see is the “Video” button. This allows us to deinterlace the video (if needed), crop it and/or resize it. Via a simple menu we can control all these options:

For our tests we left all the option on automatic which are the recommended settings. The last option we’re going to look at is called “Audio“. As you probably guessed this option lets us set the audio encoding properties. For our test the stereo mode will do. In the options menu we can also select the Nero digital audio profile:

We once again left these options at the recommended setting, automatic.

Profiles:

Before we continue to the actual encoding of our test movie we need to mention the profiles Nero Recode 2 uses. With Nero Recode 2 you can use profiles for both the movie title and Nero Digital. The Title Profile lets you control how Nero Recode 2 handles the video quality distribution, the menu’s, the audio tracks and the subtitles. We don’t need to change anything here since we’re only encoding the main movie already and the audio and subtitle tracks Nero Recode 2 chooses by default are the ones we wanted:

The Nero Digital profiles allow us to choose in what kind of situation the created disc will be used. We can choose from Maximum Definition (which gives you complete control over the video encoding options), Handheld, Portable, Home Theater and High Definition TV. For our situation we choose the “Home Theater” profile.