VC-1 "insane" settings?

[Dark Eiri]

Hey guys! ^^
I want to compare x264 HQ-Insane Profile with VC-1 at same bitrate. I wonder what would be the best settings on Nic's WMEnc for fair comparison? I mean, maxed quality, speed doesn't matter.
Should I enable VBR (Quality\Constrained\Unconstrained) on WMEnc? If yes, VBR quality being 100% still would keep the target average bitrate?
So, what would be the HQ-Insane settings for VC-1?

Thank you.

[ACrowley]

use wmcmd.vbs

It has a preset "insane"

V_preset insane

Use 2pass VBR Peak (Peak = 2,5x Average Bitrate) to compare with x264 2pass VBR

[Bigmango]

All the tests I did have showed that the x264 quality was much better than VC-1.

But it would be interesting to see your findings; looking forward to hearing from you.

[Dark Eiri]

All the tests I did have showed that the x264 quality was much better than VC-1.

I tried 2000kbps for 720 x 544 (I know, pretty high bitrate for x264, but believe me, even XviD CQ 100% wasn't able to do a clear picture, the video is like, fireworks hell) Yeah, the results showed much better on x264. Well, I'll stick with x264 for my encodes, then.

Thank you, one more time, guys! ^^

[ACrowley]

Sure...in my opinion ,x264 is better, no doubt
But thats not the Question for me.

x264 is faster, has higher compression compared to WVC1.
You can use custom Quantiter Matrixes etc etc

But:

SA Player Compatibility is the Main Reason for me to encode to WMV9 .
I can play these encodes on Xbox360 perfectly via GameDrive from DVD for example.

For my own purposes i use x264 (with DTS/AC3/EAC3) to reencode/Backup HighDefiniton Content cause i have hooked up my PC to my HD Display

@ DarkEiri
Maybe you should use HD Content to compare WCV1 with x264.
I Think 720p/1080i/p with HighBitrate benefit more from WMV9 AP

[Sagittaire]

In fact don't speak about VC-1 in this case because you use a particular VC-1 implementation from MS.

IMO WMV9 is not a really optimized VC-1 codec. For example WMV9 don't use adaptive BFrame and it's a probleme for fade. PEP encoder from MS use adaptative BFrame and don't have quality probleme for fade.

You must say that "IMO x264 is better than WMV9" and not "IMO H264 is better than VC-1".

[Bigmango]

In fact don't speak about VC-1 in this case because you use a particular VC-1 implementation from MS.

IMO WMV9 is not a really optimized VC-1 codec. For example WMV9 don't use adaptive BFrame and it's a probleme for fade. PEP encoder from MS use adaptative BFrame and don't have quality probleme for fade.

You must say that "IMO x264 is better than WMV9" and not "IMO H264 is better than VC-1".

I have not tried PEP, so I just went to the MSDN forums to get some info on the PEP encoder.

The people there are saying that compared to PEP, x264 does better quality at lower bitrates, but it also takes a lot more time.

An example post is here:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1089787&SiteID=1

[jubilex]

From my tests, x264 at HQ-Slow (Megui profile) encodes faster and does a noticeably better job than vc1 at the same bitrate, regardless of the wmv settings. Even maxing out your wmv encode with "insane" preset and all that, while taking up to 4-5x longer than the x264 encode, is still visibly inferior in quality.

One big problem is that wmv seems to vary pretty dramatically from frame to frame. Take a sequence where this is easy to see, like a close-up of a face that goes on for a couple seconds. You'll have a crisp, detailed frame. Another good one. Then wham, a smoothed over, waxy face. Another good frame. Boom, another smooth one. Huh?

I figured this was something with the b-frames, so tried different bdeltaqp settings, and no change. Tried with no b-frames, same problem. This despite the fact that the x264 profile uses 3 b-frames.

What's odd is that it does this even with no b-frames in CQ mode. With an unconstrained bitrate, why does the encoder produce two frames that look wildly different in quality when the source frames look virtually identical to one another?

Also, the x264 frames just look sharper in general.

Personally, since I still am stuck with vc1 (my only means of watching movies on anything other than my pc monitor is the 360), I just use CQ 95. Yes, in frame-by-frame there's a very noticeable difference from x264, but in motion, I doubt you'll have anything to complain about (unless you constantly flip back and forth to an x264 version).

[Dark Eiri]

You must say that "IMO x264 is better than WMV9" and not "IMO H264 is better than VC-1".

Well, I guess that's right, then. (But by specs, H264 IS superior to VC-1, anyway, isn't it?)

From my tests, x264 at HQ-Slow (Megui profile) encodes faster and does a noticeably better job than vc1 at the same bitrate, regardless of the wmv settings. Even maxing out your wmv encode with "insane" preset and all that, while taking up to 4-5x longer than the x264 encode, is still visibly inferior in quality.

Yep, 2 pass WMV9AP did 3hours 30minutes of encoding, where x264 Slowest did on 1hour 15minutes. And x264 did really better. Maybe it's because my source is DVD content, and WMV9AP was optimized for high def sources? (Tough I don't see any sense on this)

[jubilex]

My comparisons were entirely based on HD sources.

Spec-wise, actually, I think they are very comparable and VC1 has the edge in some areas. I think we are limited by the encoder available to us (WME) rather than the codec itself.

[Dark Eiri]

Yeah, I was thinking exactly about that.
By the way, is there another VC-1 implementation besides WMV9AP that is available to public (commercially or free)? I would like to try it too.

[shaolin95]

So bringing this back up, if you had say a 4500kbps x264 file and wanted to convert it to wmv using Nic WMenc..what bitrate would be a good choice?

Regards