Quality encoding w/ HD rip

[Eretria-chan]

A question for you.
I used MeGUI to encode an HD rip @ 2700 kbps and HQ-Fast profile.
The result was quite good. Some slight blocking here and there and some scenes were a little noisy. I don't know if it's the original source that's at fault.
I also forgot to crop (which is kindof strange, because when I looked at the preview, it didn't look like it needed cropping, plus the auto-crop just set crop to 0 on all edges).

So, would it actually help to increase the HQ-Profile to HQ-Slower or something, or is it only bitrate that will help remove the little blocking?
I'm sure some bitrate can be solved by properly cropping, but I don't know it's enough to bring more bitrate into the movie.

I don't really understand what all options for x264 actually does, so I don't know what a higher quality profile might actually help with?
The goal is simple: great quality at low bitrate, as much as possible. So any pointers on doing this would be helpful.
Oh and the resolution is 720p.

[blizard]

A question for you.
I used MeGUI to encode an HD rip @ 2700 kbps and HQ-Fast profile.
The result was quite good. Some slight blocking here and there and some scenes were a little noisy. I don't know if it's the original source that's at fault.
I also forgot to crop (which is kindof strange, because when I looked at the preview, it didn't look like it needed cropping, plus the auto-crop just set crop to 0 on all edges).

So, would it actually help to increase the HQ-Profile to HQ-Slower or something, or is it only bitrate that will help remove the little blocking?
I'm sure some bitrate can be solved by properly cropping, but I don't know it's enough to bring more bitrate into the movie.

I don't really understand what all options for x264 actually does, so I don't know what a higher quality profile might actually help with?
The goal is simple: great quality at low bitrate, as much as possible. So any pointers on doing this would be helpful.
Oh and the resolution is 720p.

You could start to read: this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96059) about what those setting are meant to do. Remember that some combination can actually contradict each other, that is why those profile where made as to simplify a way to find setting that are fit for certain cases.

Don't forget that what looks good/bad on your display might be the opposite, so we would need to know more about your hardware and which setting those work at. What video card do you use and what kind of player is involved? Is it hardware player or software? What kind of filter chain is it created during your test where you see blockiness? You could use Media Player Classic (is it a directshow based player) as it can show which filter chain that are created from "play" in menu. That is if you use your PC as player and make use WMP/MPC or other directshow based player while you have this problem.

How do you plan to use that video: Is to be showed on a HD TV at 720p (re-scaling it up or down?) screen or PC (LCD/plasma)?

I am no expert on this (HD recording and meGUI) so I expect other that know better to help your here, but it would be more of a help to add that kind of information to start with and also make at least a screen shot or cut out a video clip that can be viewed from an external site that offer hosting of those type of files. Uploading file here take time to get validated, so that is why you need to use an external site.

[Eretria-chan]

I use a Geforce 7800GT. This is being played on a software player, or more specifically, Zoom Player.
Haali Splitter -> ffdshow Audio/Video + VobSub + Zoom Player Audio Filter + VMR9.

I'm planning to show it on the TV eventually, when I can get the cables to do so. It's going to be upscaled since the TV is 1080p (Full HD). And it's an LCD.

Oh yes,
http://www.eluni.net/temp/Sample.mkv
It might be hard to spot the blocking, but if you have a big screen and look up close, it's definitely noticeable.

[Sharktooth]

i cant see black bars. it seems properly cropped to me.
the noise you see is part of the source.
so there are 2 possible solutions:
1) if you dont like the noise/grain, kill it with some good denoisers. that will rise the compressibility and will help putting bits where they're needed (possibly resolving your blocking problem)
2) rise the bitrate

IMHO using a slower profile could help too but RDO doesnt like noise...

[Eretria-chan]

But a slower profile... what exactly does it help?
About the cropping... the actual aspect ratio is 2.35:1 (1280 x ~545) and this is 16:9 (1280 x 720).

I don't know MeGUI too much, but you don't think there's a way to compress just a part of the movie, or maybe I should split the original before encoding, just to save encoding time (since it takes ~20 hours or so to encode on fast).

[Dark Shikari]

But a slower profile... what exactly does it help?Slower profiles give you fewer bits at the same quality, or better quality at the same bitrate. However, the effect is a diminishing return.

[Sharktooth]

Dark Shikari talks about "measured" quality... not perceived quality though.
Usually slower profiles enable more compression features that may result is some small (but perceivable) visual difference from the source.
Metric tests, however, are not able to spot those differences.
So, for a good quality backup, using slow settings is not always the best choice (expecially if you want to keep the movie grain).

[Dark Shikari]

Dark Shikari talks about "measured" quality... not perceived quality though.
Usually slower profiles enable more compression features that may result is some small (but perceivable) visual difference from the source.
Metric tests, however, are not able to spot those differences.
So, for a good quality backup, using slow settings is not always the best choice (expecially if you want to keep the movie grain).In my experience there are very few compression settings that change visual quality more than the bitrate change would suggest:

1. --trellis 2 can decimate fine detail. --trellis 1 has no such effect. This is because trellis 2, while increasing overall quality, is more likely to decimate flat areas, and the human eye tends to notice a decrease in quality in one place much more than an equivalent increase spread over the rest of the frame. This is the same reason why adaptive quantization helps visual quality.

2. --intra-deadzone and --inter-deadzone, by their very definition, can be used at low values to increase sharpness and grain retention at a heavy bitrate cost. Trellis is a separate algorithm, so using trellis means you can't use deadzones.

3. Adaptive quantization helps blocking in dark/flat areas.

Contrary to many repeatedly reposted but completely wrong analyses, RDO and other such options rarely have a negative effect on visual quality; in my tests, even on grainy sources, their benefit was considerable (in fact, moreso on grainy than non-grainy sources). Any decrease in visual quality at more intensive compression is more than likely misinterpeted; for example, badly estimated motion vectors can contribute a sort of "fake sharpness" to the image that wastes bits and lowers quality, but for some reason some people think looks good. This especially applies to absurdly weighted custom matrices, like Prestige.