Nero AVC Quality Expert Settings

[Difatoni]

Backing up 720x480 DVD collection. Current settings, 2mbps, 5.1 HE 256kbps, 2-pass, HDTV-AVC profile.
Interested in QUALITY, not concerned about encoding time or size.
Let me know any obvious settings I need to change. Thank you
Movie I am testing- The Matrix
Also, are HD-DVD remakes any better quality than original DVD's? (The Matrix eg)

Resize- Disabled

AutoCrop - Enabled

Deinterlace - Automatic (should I deinterlace when it recommends not to?)

Decision quality- High Quality

Maximum vector range -256 to 255.75

Maximum reference fram 1
Maximum GOP size 300
Maximum B-frames 3

CABAC on
Bidirectional prediction on
Macroblock partitions on
Weighted prediction on
8 x 8 Transfrom off

Deblocking on
Deblocking strength -2

Picture level on
Macroblock Level on
Advanced on

Enhanced Chroma Prediction on



I'm confused, does the latest Recode have high profile codec or not. And if so, is the HDTV-AVC profile any better in quality in any way? (Settings behind the scenes different?)
If not, is there a big release coming that anyone knows of?


What makes the Apple trailors play so well in Quicktime?

[DarkZell666]

You should have 8x8 turned ON and set 3 reference frames instead of 1. Decision quality should be to the max (isn't it called "Extra" ?).

Automatic deinterlacing can be trusted to some point (at least the few times I used it it produced the intended result).

The HDTV profile only modifies the maximum-bitrate allowed for a given timeframe (ans possibly something else I can't remember). No extra features are enabled over the Cinema AVC profile IIRC.

Btw 8x8 transform is a High Profile feature, but that's about the only High Profile feature Nero AVC has ;) So, in case your question is "does nero produce main profile compliant streams?", the answer is somewhere close to "yes, if you disable 8x8 transform". Hopefuly someone that uses Nero more often than I do will correct me if I'm wrong :)

[Difatoni]

the expert settings allow me to set it to max 4 reference frames, is that even better? And should the B-frames be 3 or is there a better number for picture/video quality?

[DarkZell666]

the expert settings allow me to set it to max 4 reference frames, is that even better? And should the B-frames be 3 or is there a better number for picture/video quality?

Aha go for 4 refs then, I thought it was limited to 3 last time I tried :) You can set 3 b-frames safely, since the encoder will decide wether it should use 3 or less automatically according to the context. But usually, more b-frames means more quality for a "target-filesize rip", because they compress more and allow data to be allocated in a more efficient way to other frames that need it most.

[Difatoni]

I guess the only question left is what benefits will the Nero high profile have over what it has now for DVD quality movies? Should I definately wait for the high profile or will it not make a difference. Waiting is not a problem.

[DarkZell666]

Nero supports High Profile already, but not all features from High Profile.

According to the h.264 page on wikipedia, 8x8 and CQM are the only interesting features in High Profile anyway (and Nero supports those 2 features), so the quality wouldn't be much better (but I'm a bit skeptical about that chart, as there seems to be some things missing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264).

[shon3i]

You should disable auto crop function, because you not use resize filter, that can make non mod16 resolution for width, that can be problem, for height isn't much important, if you se custom aspect ratio.

[Difatoni]

please explain that about the autocrop. Would not autocropping preserve the original picture better?

[DarkZell666]

please explain that about the autocrop. Would not autocropping preserve the original picture better?

If you use auto-cropping without auto-resize, the final resolution might not be mod-16, and it will hurt the quality (I didn't check, so you'll have to check that out yourself).

It could be better to :
- not crop at all
OR
- crop manually, and resize manually.
OR
- auto-crop and auto-resize (but I don't trust auto-resize too much ^^')

You'll have to try for yourself what looks best :)

[Difatoni]

they look fine, but when you say hurt quality, do you mean just change the picture ratio, or will it actually playback with a lower quality picture

[DarkZell666]

Did you see me talk about ratio anywhere ? :)

Codecs usually don't like non mod-16 resolutions because blocs need to be 16x16, and codecs need to add "invisible" black bars to code the picture properly, and adding black bars screws motion-estimation for those blocs (and this disturbs ratecontrol, which in turn contaminates the quality for the rest of the movie).

In fact, encoding to non-mod-16 resolutions is just like not cropping enough of the original black bars => a bad idea :)