Converting a DVD to HDTV-ish resolutions, recommended matrix and settings?

[Chainmax]

I'm going to get a hold of the "Hackers" DVD soon and wanted to make a ~0.33b/pf 1280x544 (its aspect ratio is 2.35:1) Xvid version of it. Now, I don't have a standalone capable of playing HD Xvid files for now but I'd like to file to be playable on them should I come across one. With that in mind, I'd like to know which Xvid version you recommend me (I currently have Koepi's XviD-1.2.-127-25022006), with what matrix and at what settings (including CQ vs 2-pass) to use for this task.

[HeadBangeR77]

Hello ;)
As a very experienced member you should know these are lots of questions packed together, and I don't know anything about your experience with XviD (I don't want to write about things which would be obvious for both of us). Let's start:

1) Possible compatibility issues with SAPs are pretty well summed up here... (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=903451#post903451)
If you come across a HD SAP (I haven't got the faintest idea if they exist atm), my nose tells me it should be capable of swallowing higher bitrate than 8000 kbps, should tolerate higher spikes and accept both 2 consecutive B-frames and QPEL. Assuming this I think you could go with Advanced Simple Profile L5 (it will not limit the resolution - its limitation concern bitrate). Some custom matrices may still remain an issue however.

2) CQMs:
a) Sharktooth's V3 HR, with modified inter matrix, as described here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=941078#post941078).
b) Heini's MR (available here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=854722#post854722)) with the same modifications, although they could spoil it a bit.
c) Soulhunter's V3 matrix - it has its inter part all 16-teens, so should be more compatible than the previous two.
d) You could also try Didee's SixOfNine and its HVS modified version (a bit more compressable). They may and may not have SAP compatibility issues.

You're most probably aware that ~0.33b/pf is an outdated "quality" indicator, and without knowing the source it's really hard to tell which matrix to choose. However, for an average regular film it should be enough at 1280x544 to deliver good quality with all the above CQMs.

3) Some compressibility results with different CQMs:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=488788#post488788

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=941123#post941123

Both SixOfNines are less compressable - there's sort of a gap between Soulhunter's V3 /Heini's MR and them, and I don't know all 200 hundred CQMs to fill it.

4) Koepi's 1.1.2 build is stable, but not multi-threaded, if speed comes into the equation. I don't know about Koepi's 1.2alpha, but Celtic Druid's builds utilize MT for sure.

as to settings you should have a look at this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=119399).

to be continued after I've had a smoke :p

[HeadBangeR77]

As to 1st pass settings you may give these ones (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=966131#post966131) a try. First pass at Q3 or eventually Q2 - depends on the difference between passes (which is connected with your choice of matrix). Full quality first pass is a waste of time imho, while Teegedeck's presets should consider MSP=6 to enhance frame type decision's precision.

As to B-frames I would stay with 2/1.62/0 or 2/1.50/0, as showed by Didee:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=869789#post869789
(which reminds me I should go for 2/1.50/0 with my HQ encodes ;)).
You won't possibly have enough bits to spare to go for 1/1/1.

Since you don't like noise (nor grain I assume) you should stay with VHQ4 imo, instead of VHQ3.

And that should be it - good night.

[G_M_C]

Well i dont konw all the technical terms and specs; But i use a bitrate of approx 5000~6000 for 1280x720 material (in your case closer to 5000 should be appropriate).

I also use the "usual" XviD settings like I-frame quant 2~4, P-&B-frame 2~5 (meaning: min~max), 2 b-frames, quant offset 1.62. etc. etc (i.e. the "usual" settings you read in most of the thread here on the forum). And I alway use 2-pass encoding. Also i use very slight noise filtering. For this i use FFT3DGPU with a low sigma(2,3,4)-setting of 0.2 ~1.0 (based on the noisyness of the clip).

The matrix i use comes from a MPEG2 series of matrices. I start off with this one, works fine in like 90% of all cases:
http://tweakers.net/ext/f/7c13fc31ddc8b5cd3de7c290e9a6e317/full.png

And in rare cases when you notice that you have an undersize, or the avg. quant after the 2nd pass is low (ie. when you notice you have some head-room) you use a better matrix (dont have the pic at hand right now, ill post it later).

[Chainmax]

HeadBangeR77: thanks for the help, but the first link you gave me is about suggestions for SD footage as stated in its very title. What I want to know are the settings that are compatible with HD Xvid capable standalones. Such standalones have been around for quite a while now (for instance, SeeMoreDigital has one).
The presets thread you link to is also of no use to me as those presets don't have standalone compatibility (let alone HD capable ones) in mind. Thanks for trying to help anyway :).


G_M_C: I wasn't thinking much about bitrate but rather about filling an entire DVD+R, which for this movie would mean an average video bitrate of ~5800kbps keeping the 5.1 AC3 audio. I'm glad to see that it will likely meet my quality standards according to your experience, so thanks for the tip http://smilies.vidahost.com/otn/wink/thumb.gif.
About your Xvid settings: what about VBV buffer and maximum bitrate, do you leave them at default?
The filtering suggestion sounds very logical and it's what I'd do if starting from an actual HD source, but since what I'm doing is upsizing an SD source I want to keep as much detail as possible (i.e: SeeSaw before upsizing, LimitedSharpenFaster after upsizing). I will consider using it after upsizing and before LSF if results from the first try are not good enough though, so again thanks for the tip :).
That matrix seems pretty nice, what made you create it instead of using standards like Didée's or Sharktooth's matrices? Is it more compatible?

[HeadBangeR77]

Hey ;)
I know the first link deals with SD footage, that's why I've written much more afterwards, besides simple linking. If decent SD SAPs support 2 consecutive B-frames and QPEL, I just can't imagine decent HD standalones without such support. If this is true, then bitrate spikes and CQMs are the only remaining possible issues. It's logic, isn't it? However, it was just all the rule of thumb - I'm no expert, and SMD is for sure one in these matters.

As to presets - I know they don't have SAP compatibility in mind, yet CQMs seem to be the only issue with them (I'm not talking about old standalones that can barely swallow 1 B-frame or none at all). They still remain very useful as to codec's settings, although I've got a bit different attitude as to first pass settings and curve compression (even with the highest profiles).

I'm using similar bitrates with some upsizing encodes atm, and it should be enough for the given resolution. :)

cheers,
HDBR77

PS. G_M_C got it once from some DVD-rebuilding application AFAIR. ;)

[G_M_C]

[...]
G_M_C: I wasn't thinking much about bitrate but rather about filling an entire DVD+R, which for this movie would mean an average video bitrate of ~5800kbps keeping the 5.1 AC3 audio. I'm glad to see that it will likely meet my quality standards according to your experience, so thanks for the tip http://smilies.vidahost.com/otn/wink/thumb.gif.
About your Xvid settings: what about VBV buffer and maximum bitrate, do you leave them at default?
The filtering suggestion sounds very logical and it's what I'd do if starting from an actual HD source, but since what I'm doing is upsizing an SD source I want to keep as much detail as possible (i.e: SeeSaw before upsizing, LimitedSharpenFaster after upsizing). I will consider using it after upsizing and before LSF if results from the first try are not good enough though, so again thanks for the tip :).
That matrix seems pretty nice, what made you create it instead of using standards like Didée's or Sharktooth's matrices? Is it more compatible?

About VBV-buffer etc. When doing a HD conversion i use the standard setting AS@L5, HighDef or Unrestricted (the first is usually good enough btw). "Unrestricted" i use for stuff that i want to be spot-on as best it can get and/or has a lot of movement; So getting the best bitrate possible (last time used: re-encode of my capped version of BBC-HD's Planet Earth, wich simply had to be as best it could get).

But when you are encoding to be compatible with an HD-stand allone the HighDef setting might be best. In your case you might switch between these and see in the "level"-tab what works/seems to be best (or simply try them out).

And the matrix: Like HB77 (excuse the short-hand ;) ) says, its one of the custom matrices that come with DVD-Rebuilder's matrix editor. It's a "toned down" version of a very high bitrate DVD studio-matrix.

I'll post the others too, and the exact settings that are in use here atm. But you'll have to wait a bit, there's an encoding running atm :)

[HeadBangeR77]

Btw. As to filtering, I've never seen fft3dgpu with sigma values below 1 (for luma) destroying details, though I usually use 0.5-0.7. I've also marked fft3dfilter is a bit more conservative and leaves a bit more noise if both are applied with the same sigma values and their default settings (probably because of larger default overlapping in case of the GPU-version).

There's a difference between 2/1.62/00 settings for B-frames and 2/1.50/00. Theoretically it shouldn't affect B quantizers until we get P-5, yet it does (a slightly better quality for B-frames at the cost of P-frames, yet since the latter are 300% larger the average quantizer for all frames drop, and I really like the effect). ;)

[Chainmax]

HeadBangeR77: ah, I see what you mean now :o. Yeah, what you say makes perfect sense :).

/checks the presets tab and finds the HDTV preset. ZOMG, I'm blind :rolleyes:/
G_M_C: I can't believe I didn't see the HDTV preset :o. It seems it's a bit more restricted than AS@L5 which is what SeeMoreDigital's player supports, so it should be more compatible. I'll use that then. Neither lets me use a custom matrix though, just H.263. Oh well, at that bitrate and since it's a fairly low action movie I guess it won't matter.

[HeadBangeR77]

No matter the bitrate, it will look soft (from my POV) with H.263 quantization, and you might get an undersized encode as well. Maybe you should PM SMD as to matrices?

This has just reminded me, that Sagittaire claimed once CQMs were no issue with SAPs (which is false of course, although I'm a humble user, not the great codecs tester :rolleyes: ). If the profile doesn't let you choose a custom matrix, it does it for a reason imo.

Gee, I've just reread the previous post - of course a choice of CQM should be there with AS @ L5!

[G_M_C]

[...]
G_M_C: I can't believe I didn't see the HDTV preset :o. It seems it's a bit more restricted than AS@L5 which is what SeeMoreDigital's player supports, so it should be more compatible. I'll use that then. Neither lets me use a custom matrix though, just H.263. Oh well, at that bitrate and since it's a fairly low action movie I guess it won't matter.

Only H.263, strange. I use VirtualDub and Koepi's XviD 1.1.2 build and can choose a custom matrix in all 3 presets (AS@L5, HighDef and offcourse unrestricted). Choose "profile@level", tick "more", choose "MPEG-custom" from the roll-down box, and than tick "Edit matrix" ... that's it here on my machine.

Weird .... might be the build you use ?

Here is the proof of my statement, (probably wasn't needed, but anyway ;) )
http://tweakers.net/ext/f/b88af118bb3ae06a14ad6159205d3790/full.jpg

Ohh, yeah ... dont mind the matrix. It was in there when i made the screenshot, dont know if it is any good ...

EDIT
Forgot to answer one of your questions about the matrix i normally use (posted in an earlier reply of mine). You asked if it is more compatible, dont know. But i do know it works fine with my standard definition stand allone player. So i think it might be well usable, since many stand allones are kinda fussy about custom matrices. Thats why i use it, never had a problem with it.

EDIT II
For most stettings i used the same first-pass b-frame/quant/etc. settings as HBR77 posted in this tread (his post is the 2nd post in the thread) http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=121722. At this point I select my matrix.

For the second pass i put MS & VHQ highest (VHQ 1 step lower in scenes with much movement: Imagine a screen filled with a huge flock of thousands of birds taking off, or a big school of fish filling the screen). And offcourse the bitrate of 5000 ~6000, and turbo switched off.

[Chainmax]

Like I said, I'm using Koepi's XviD-1.2.-127-25022006. Maybe that particular version has incorrect presets, should I go back to XviD-1.1.2-01112006, i.e his final v1.1.2 build?

[HeadBangeR77]

Like I said, I'm using Koepi's XviD-1.2.-127-25022006. Maybe that particular version has incorrect presets, should I go back to XviD-1.1.2-01112006, i.e his final v1.1.2 build?
Like G_M_C already said, CQMs are selectable with ASP @L5 and HD-profile (1.1.2 final). I haven't got the faintest idea why they aren't with Koepi's 1.2 aplha. If you want to experiment a bit, you could give Celtic Druid's builds a try:
- they are multi-threaded, if it matters in your case,
- they are widely used (no one complaining, at least I haven't heard ;)),
- based on 1.2 alpha AFAIR.

http://esby.free.fr/CelticDruid/mirror/XviD/

http://esby.free.fr/CelticDruid/mirror/XviD/gcc/

@ G_M_C:
The unknown matrix is Didee's SixOfNine and no other. :D

Btw. I've modified my first pass settings (they shouldn't be slower than the ones you've mentioned, and are IMHO a bit more exact than those from XviD's presets):
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=966131#post966131

good nite ;)

[Chainmax]

I'm using Koepi's XviD-1.1.2-01112006.exe for some test encodes of something else and the profiles are named "Home" and "Highdef", with no PAL/NTSC distinction. They do let me select MPEG-Custom though. Is that correct?

[KillerZero]

What nonsense is this?