H.264 Quality problems

[acro29]

Hello,
I use the x264 codec for H264 -> MP4 -> Encoded using 'x264 2pass (as final encode)' codec.
The quality is very high.

Yet when I encode AVI files...the quality realy sucks...
Mayby I am using the wrong program or something?...(VD and sometimes MeGUI).

I use Xvid for now cause it keeps the quality higher in the AVI files.
Yet i believe that mayby my settings are wrong.
If thats the case, is someone willing to provide the settings I should have.
I am encoding Anime...(it has to be 152MB for the max) and mostly the bitrate I use is between 900-1100.

Also what program do I use in order to get the *.H264 files.
I know Yamb can convert from mp4 to *.h264 but ehh...how to say this, I'm noob to all this h264 thingy (encoding as well).

Cheers ACro.

[Dark Shikari]

Hello,
I use the x264 codec for H264 -> MP4 -> Encoded using 'x264 2pass (as final encode)' codec.
The quality is very high.

Yet when I encode AVI files...the quality realy sucks...
Mayby I am using the wrong program or something?...(VD and sometimes MeGUI).

I use Xvid for now cause it keeps the quality higher in the AVI files.
Yet i believe that mayby my settings are wrong.
If thats the case, is someone willing to provide the settings I should have.
I am encoding Anime...(it has to be 152MB for the max) and mostly the bitrate I use is between 900-1100.

Also what program do I use in order to get the *.H264 files.
I know Yamb can convert from mp4 to *.h264 but ehh...how to say this, I'm noob to all this h264 thingy (encoding as well).

Cheers ACro.What encoding settings are you using?

Especially for anime, x264 tends to be vastly better than Xvid.

What do you mean you're "encoding AVI files"? H.264 isn't supposed to go in AVI files.

What do you mean by "converting from mp4 to .h264"? x264 can output directly to raw .h264 streams, and you don't need to "convert"--its muxing, not re-encoding.

[Sagekilla]

What do you mean the quality "sucks?" You're being very vague, please post a screenshot and settings so we can help you out. Does your output exhibit banding? Ringing? Artifacting of any sort? Post more information! Simply saying "the quality sucks" does not help at all.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Use PS3 profile and everything should be fine.

[acro29]

Sorry. Indeed I was very vague. T_T

My setting are the defults (as I said I dont understand very much in this whole area of encoding) so I didnt want to screw any thing so I thought that using the defults is the safest way to go.

I am using Avisynth scripts...and they wont take the *.h264 files.
While mp4 files are working fine. (tryed using the pluging. did nothing, got the same error)...thats why I had to convert to mp4 and then encode.

and how do I use the x264 then...its an exe file...using the CMD ?

Oh and what PS3 profile are you talking about? you mean in the MeGUI profiles ?

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b216/acro29/frames.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b216/acro29/ratecontrol.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b216/acro29/more.jpg

[Dark Shikari]

With anime, you're better off with lots of reference frames and B-frames, so raise those a lot. Even the max 16 reference frames can be useful with anime.

Also, update to the latest version of MeGUI if you haven't already. Other things to improve quality would be to use partition decision quality 7 (subme 7), UMH motion estimation, Chroma ME, Bidirectional ME, and B-references.

[acro29]

Oh thats right. i see now, it is working better now.
But i have another problem... Megui wont accept my files...
It want them to be mod16...while my res is 704x396... thats kinda odd. the ratio is 4:3....is there anything wrong with that?

[Dark Shikari]

Oh thats right. i see now, it is working better now.
But i have another problem... Megui wont accept my files...
It want them to be mod16...while my res is 704x396... thats kinda odd. the ratio is 4:3....is there anything wrong with that?They don't have to be mod16. There's a slight loss in compression for not being mod16, but its very small.

[acro29]

there is a 50 MB diffrence over here 0.0
But I am going to test it once again, if that is the case, then I have another problem here.

Thenx for all your help. I shall go condact experiments now.

[lexor]

there is a 50 MB diffrence over here 0.0
But I am going to test it once again, if that is the case, then I have another problem here.

Thenx for all your help. I shall go condact experiments now.

Since megui requires you load everything as avs files, you might as well throw a crop in there too. Just crop top and bottom by 6 pixels when you using the "AviSynth Script Creator" dialog. That will fix your non-mod16 problem and nothing important is likely to be lost.

[DeathTheSheep]

Actually, he was referring to the VfW (at least at first), not MeGUI. x264 goes into AVI quite well (and it's quite easy to do so for the average user, since it just takes XviD/DivX's place), and allows for real-time editing, filtering, trimming, and manipulation in VirtualDub, not to mention ease of transcoding (to or from x264).

Additionally, H264 can be converted to/from AVI in one step (Click the button in YAMB to convert from AVI or AVC2AVI to convert to AVI).

[Sharktooth]

... loosing frames ...