These rules are extended edition of TXD2K5. In my personal opinion a lot of movies are f..up because TXD2K5 guidlines are not only outdated but are waste of codecs. Please write you suggestions to evaldas@jocys.com.

Hight Quality (HQ) compression:

Standard Quality (SQ) compression:

Audio bitrates (AAC audio):

Bitrates (AVC video + AAC audio):

Popular bitrates:

Formula: X min = (10*n) - 2

•  28 min - TV episode (animation)
•  48 min - TV episode (standard)
•  58 min - TV episode (intro/final episode)
•  98 min - Standard movie
• 178 min - Long movie

Note: If extension was added to movie then extension size must be step of 10 min. For example: "Special Extended Edition" adds +30 min to the move length.

Standard TV Episode (~50 min) must fit into 350MB:

• 336MB for video (7MB per 1 minute)
• 7MB for 1 min sample
• 7MB for subtitles, images and other information.

Standard Movie (~100 min) must fit on single 700MB CD:

• 686MB for video (7MB per 1 minute)
• 7MB for 1 min sample
• 7MB for subtitles, images and other information.

• Try to match same video and audio quality. It would be stupid decision to combine 780Kbps (Normal Quality) video with 320Kbps AAC (eXtreme Quality) audio
• For music DVDs audio is more important so consider to use higher quality bitrates for audio tracks.
• If fortune was spend on movie special effects then consider to use "High Quality" bitrates for video. Some people will not thank you if you squeze "Lord of The Rings" or "Titanic" on 2CDs.
• Don't create "resolution bottlenecks". This is most common scene mistake. XviD with 780KBps can do

• MUST be AVI or MP4.
• Default bitrate for one audio track of AC3/MP3 is 64Kbps
• Default bitrate for one audio track of AAC is 48Kbps
• AAC must be HE-AAC.

• AVI = XviD + MP3 (Stereo)
• AVI = XviD + AC3 (5.1)
• MP4 = x264 + AAC (Stereo or 5.1)

• PAL (25 fps) = MINIMUM runtime is 100 minutes/CD.
• FILM (23.976 fps) = MINIMUM runtime is 105 minutes/CD.
• NTSC (29.97 fps) = MINIMUM runtime is 87 minutes/CD.

• These runtimes are scalable via the following equation: N CD time minimum = (N-1) * allowed time where N is number of CDs and allowable time applies to fps as outlined above: i.e. 3 CD FILM rip minimum = 105 x (3-1) = 210 minutes. - MINIMUM time length rule is as implied - that is the MINIMUM time per CD -- NOT MAXIMUM!!! (i.e. no such thing as "must be more than 1 CD")
• Release runtime must be at least 50 minutes for using the full burnable media capacity. In such cases, releases MUST utilize a MINIMUM of 680mb of the 700mb standard burnable media (Multi-CD releases MUST conform to the 680mb minimum, for each CD used). Any other use of the media shall not be over 350mb (Sizes between 350mb to 680mb are not allowed).
• Media usage is at ripper's discretion, please use it.

• MUST be MP3 or Studio AC3 (AC3 transcoding forbidden).
• MUST be STEREO for STEREO sources, MONO for MONO sources (MONO audio as STEREO on source is considered a MONO source).
• MUST BE VBR! NO CBR MP3!
• Tracks must have the original frequency as it was on the DVD's audio: i.e. 48khz for 48khz and 44.1khz for 44.1khz.
• MP3 files must be normalized.
• ABR is considered a VBR technique.
• AC3 MUST be used wisely and correctly. Ripper's discretion on when to use it. Using or not using AC3 IS NOT a technical flaw.
• MONO AC3 is not allowed, in that case must encode to mono MP3.
• Multi-language audio tracks are FORBIDDEN! (Use INTERNAL!)

• MUST use most popular profile supported by hardware players.
• MUST use 2 pass technique during encoding.
• NO DUPES BASED ON CODEC TYPE, USE INTERNAL!
• Height and Width: Must be a multiple of 16.
• Cropping is required to be the MAXIMUM possible (black borders must be cropped to their maximum). Over cropped releases are considered a technical flaw. Some movies present changing ARs, in that case the cropping applies only to the image that presents more pixels (Means that part of the movie will have bad cropping).
• Movie encodes must be within 5% of the original aspect ratio. Calculating AR % error: (Release AR - Original AR)/Original AR x 10

Video Aspect ratios and recommended resolutions. Resolution must be not larger than Maximum.

OKbps - Optimal Kbps

Kpps - Kilo pixels per second

• 1 = 1:1
• 2 = 12:11 (4:3 PAL)
• 3 = 10:11 (4:3 NTSC)
• 4 = 16:11 (16:9 PAL)
• 5 = 40:33 (16:9 NTSC)

• MUST be <=20 seconds and MUST be inserted according to scene changes and framesizes as determined by the codec or encoding application.
• Group watermarks of any kind on the video will not be tolerated!
• Intermission messages must be removed from the avi!

Video - Framerate:

• MUST be as close to original source framerate as possible.
• In some cases PAL movies should be ivtc'd (i.e. to 24fps). Therefore using a PAL source is not an excuse for lack of ivtc.

DivX Home Page: http://www.divx.com/products/products.php

• Profile: Home Theater
• Encoding Mode: Insane Quality
• Noise Reduction: OFF
• Psycho Visual Enhancements: OFF

• Encoding Mode: 6 - Ultra High (-quality 6)
• Level: VHQ Mode 4 - Wide Search (-vhqmode 4)

• Mode: Double Pass (-pass1, -pass1)
• Bitrate: 780 Kbps (-bitrate 780)
• Maximum Bitrate: 4000 Kbps (-vbvmax 4000)
• Peak Bitrate over 1 Second: 8000 Kbps (-vbvpeak 8000)
• High bitrate scenes degradation: 30 (-chigh 30)
• Low bitrate scenes improvement: 15 (-clow 15)

• Type: H.263 (-qtype 0)
• Adaptive: ON
• Trellis: ON

• Container frame overhead: 0 (-overhead 0)

• Maximum Interval: 300 (-max_key_interval 300)
• Boost: 100 (-kboost 100)
• Minimum Size of a Quantum: 2 (-imin 2)
• Maximum Size of a Quantum: 8 (-imax 8)

• Minimum Size of a Quantum: 2 (-imin 2)
• Maximum Size of a Quantum: 8 (-imax 8)

• Enabled: OFF (for compatibility) (-max_bframes 0)

• Minimum Size of a Quantum: 2
• Maximum Size of a Quantum can be calculated by formula:
      FrameSize [bpf] = VideoBitRateKbps * 1000/ FPS;
      BitsPerPixel [bpp] = FrameSize / width / height;
      MaxQ = 1 / bps;
      For example:
           32500 bpf = 780Kbps * 1000 / 24fps
           0.098 bpp = 32500 bpf / 768px / 432px
          10 maxq = 1.2 / 0.098 bpp

• Use Lumimasking Algorithm: ON (-lumimasking)
• Quarter Pixel (QPel): OFF (for compatibility)
• Global Motion Compensation (GMC): OFF (for compatibility)
• Chroma Motion: ON
• Chroma Optimizer: ON
• Packet Bit Stream: OFF
• Closed GOP: ON (for better cutting) (-closed_gop)
• Packed Mode: OFF (-nopacked)

http://www.nero.com/nerodigital/eng/Main_profiles.html

http://www.nero.com/nerodigital/eng/AVC_profiles.html

http://ww2.nero.com/nerodigital/enu/DVD_Player_Recorder.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

• Profile: High Profile
• Level: Level 3.1 (--level 3.1)
• Show a progress indicator while encoding: ON (--progress)
• Enable PSNR computation: OFF (--no-psnr)
• Output file: auto (--output "" "")
• Parallel Encoding Threads: 2 (--threads 2)

• Mode: Double Pass (--pass 2)
• Bitrate: 780kbps (--bitrate 780)
• Maximum Bitrate: --vbv-maxrate
• Max local bitrate (kbit/s) [0]
• Statistics File Name: "x264_2pass.log" (--stats "x264_2pass.log")
• Number of reference frames: 16 (--ref 16)
• Minimum Size of a Quantum: 2 (--qpmin 2)
• Maximum Size of a Quantum: 48 (--qpmax 48)
• Delta Frames (P-Frames and B-Frames)
• Maximum Size of a Quantum: 4 (--qpstep 4)

• Decide references on a per partition basis: ON (--mixed-refs)
• Enable early SKIP detection on P-frames: OFF (--no-fast-pskip)
• Subpixel motion estimation and partition decision quality: 7 (--subme 7)
• Trellis RD Quantization: 2 (--trellis 2)
• Partitions to consider: p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 (--partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8)
• Adaptive spatial transform size: ON (--8x8dct)
• Integer pixel motion estimation method: uneven multi-hexagon search (--me umh)
• Enable coefficient thresholding on P-frames: OFF (--no-dct-decimate)

• B-Frames: OFF (--bframes 0)
• Deblocing: ON (--deblock -2:-1)
• Strenght: -2
• Treshhold: -1

• Minimum Size of a Quantum: 2
• Maximum Size of a Quantum: 48

• Run Avisynth in its own thread: ON (--thread-input)

ISO 14496-1 (Systems), Animation/Interactivity (like DVD Menus)

ISO 14496-2 (Video), Advanced Simple Profile (ASP/H.263)

ISO 14496-3 (Audio), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)

ISO 14496-10 (Video), Advanced Video Coding (AVC/H.264)

ISO 14496-14 (Container), MP4 container format (*.mp4)

ISO 14496-17 (Subtitles), MPEG-4 Timed Text subtitle format