"Real World" x264 usage...

[Quarkboy]

Although my purpose was to better educate the general anime fansub community about x264 and it's uses, perhaps people here would be interested in this http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=29837 post, where I give a table of x264 settings used on recent anime fansubs.

Thanks to the developers for sticking the command line settings into the bitstream, which enabled me to compile this.

[Sirber]

230MB or 170MB for a 24 minutes file is insanely too big...
Codecs are getting better, but filesize are just staying as big!
A tipical 170MB xvid + mp3 can be reduced to 90MB using x264 and AAC with no quality loss.

I hope one day I will not be forced to use RealAnime to get decent filesizes...

[Quarkboy]

230MB or 170MB for a 24 minutes file is insanely too big...
Codecs are getting better, but filesize are just staying as big!
A tipical 170MB xvid + mp3 can be reduced to 90MB using x264 and AAC with no quality loss.

I hope one day I will not be forced to use RealAnime to get decent filesizes...

My encodes are at 140 MB, (I could do 100 for most episodes, but occaisionally 140 is really better, and I like consistancy :) )

Unfortunately most fansubbers don't seem to realize this, or are too worried about losing downloads from a percieved lack of quality from the smaller filesize.

[bond]

Some caveats: Some options, like -nr, -aq, and -no-fast-pskip, are based on unofficial patches--nr and --no-fast-pskip are official options in x264 svn

[Quarkboy]

--nr and --no-fast-pskip are official options in x264 svn

for some of the versions used in the encodes, they weren't official at the time, I believe. The main point is that since they weren't neccesarily recorded in the bitstream, I couldn't accurately say whether or not all the encodes used them or not. I know in particular that I use -nr in my encode but 408M doesn't record that option.

[Manao]

I could do 100 for most episodes, but occaisionally 140 is really better, and I like consistancyOne could argue that you trade quality consistancy for size consistancy :p

[akupenguin]

I know in particular that I use -nr in my encode but 408M doesn't record that option.
So I forgot to add it to the SEI when I first wrote -nr. 409 does record it.

[ChronoCross]

too many people spend too much time worrying about standard sizes in the anime community.

175MB 24 mins
350Mb for double eps no matter how long it is.

People who do fansubs generally don't even pay attention to what they are encoding, do poor filtering, and then pick a size that is either too small or too big. It's impossible to have a decent standard for sizes. I have seen 24 mins of video that can be encoded at 100MB for DVD quality and I've seen 24 minutes that you can't fit into 270MB decently.

My theory is to play it by eye and not worry about the sizes. if you encode something at a "standard" size and it looks bad, up the bitrate considerably.

[bond]

--crf is the answer :)

[Sirber]

long ago it was to fit 3 or 4 episode per CDR. Now it's useless.

[DryFire]

I don't really think keeping one size the whole way through is important.

But for something like fansubs sometimes you need to think about filesizes for reasons other then quality sometimes.

[Quarkboy]

So I forgot to add it to the SEI when I first wrote -nr. 409 does record it.

I'm not accusing you of blasphemy... just saying that since many of the encodes were made with 408, I couldn't accurately compare it. Also, abolutely none of the later encodes used -nr... I think I might be the only one to use it in my sugar sugar rune encode (where I used -nr 100 or -nr 50... I forget which).

-no-fast-pskip is still not recorded, right? Plus, if a custom quant matrix is used, is it stored somewhere in a human readable format?

[akupenguin]

no-fast-pskip is not recorded. The fact that you used a cqm is recorded, but not the matrix itself. For that, you need to take it from the bitstream itself (and no, I don't know anything to do that in human-readable format either).

Thanks to the developers for sticking the command line settings into the bitstream, which enabled me to compile this.
That's exactly why I included it :) I too wanted to see what settings people are using.

[bond]

h264_parse from mpeg4ip displays the matrix values

[BlackSharkfr]

But for something like fansubs sometimes you need to think about filesizes for reasons other then quality sometimes.
You mean 2 seasons (2x13 eps) per single layer DVD don't you ?

[DryFire]

You mean 2 seasons (2x13 eps) per single layer DVD don't you ?

That or the fact you might be distributing a couple thousand copies of it, if not more.

[lexor]

That or the fact you might be distributing a couple thousand copies of it, if not more.
woah, getting close to rule6 breakage there :)

anywho, say I go out and buy one of them Full Metal Alchemist DVD set that we just got in stores here (with english dub voices) and I want to back it up to 1 DVD5, it is hard for me to gauge size/quality ratio since I have to encode separate episodes. If I had 1 long movie, I'd just tell it the running time + final size and let it run, but with multiple episodes you can't safely give one episode more bitrate, since you not sure others would fit without having to reduce their quality. So the CD argument is still valid, we have larger storage now, but the problem didn't change from the CD days, it's still about feeting stuff in consistently (only now it's 20 ep for 1 DVD5 and not 4 ep per 1 CD).

[akupenguin]

So run a 1st pass crf on several episodes, then run the 2nd passes to make them all fit in a given total size while retaining relative bitrate.
Sure, your average bitrate calc won't do this for you, but there's nothing technical preventing it.

[lexor]

So run a 1st pass crf on several episodes, then run the 2nd passes to make them all fit in a given total size while retaining relative bitrate.
Sure, your average bitrate calc won't do this for you, but there's nothing technical preventing it.
yeah but I'm so used to the convenience of megui, it makes me ignorant to all the cool switches (don't even know what crf is, or how to use it). megui with profiles keeps me all doped up like a bear in a zoo, I don't want to be there, but I loose the will to escape.