About VBV-Buffersize/Maxrate for BD5/9

[shon3i]

Since i started to backup my HDDVD's and BluRay's to BD-9, and after many suggestions, and documents, still have concerns about Buffer and Maxrate. I newer find information that we can't use max buffer such -vbv-buffersize 30000 and vbv-maxrate 40000 (-vbv-maxrate 35000 is used on most bluray titles), because this is not AVCHD, it is regular BD just with lower capacity. Anyway global bitrate probably newer reach 12mbps for that medium. I ask this because x264 have very unstable VBV system, and i am concerned that what I saw, with lower VBV settings, may have a negative effect on the quality

What is your opinions?

[SomeJoe]

When I make BD-9s I usually use VBV buffer and Maxrate at 18000. This corresponds to reading the DVD media at 2x.

I have not had any quality problems because the max bitrate or vbv buffer size has been lowered. My concern with BD-9 backups is the average bitrate. Movies longer than about 1:35 - 1:40 will fall below 10Mbps and I begin to notice a quality difference from the original BD under this condition. Also, on BD-9, about the only audio you have room for is DD 448kbps or DD 640kpbs, no room for 1.5 Mbps DTS or HD/lossless audio.

[turbojet]

I believe DVD5/9 max read speed is around 30 mbps (3x) but you have to calculate in the audio, subs and overhead along with the video stream.

I use 25 mbps max and 20 mbps buffer which I believe means it will use a max of 45 mbps for less than a second otherwise it will use max 25 mbps. The largest I can remember seeing is a 36 mbps burst and it played fine with 1.5 mbps DTS stream and an english sub track in a Panasonic BD30. I usually use around 3-10 mbps average video bitrate and I can't remember seeing above 20 mbps for more than a couple of frames. 40 mbps max runs the risk of possible buffer underruns from red lasers on a BD player. I haven't noticed unstable vbv in x264 in 2 pass mode.

I think it's really dependent on the average video bitrate if low vbv will hurt quality. For instance if you are doing a movie with a very complex scene with 10/10 mbps vbv with and that complex scene is only allowed to burst at 20 mbps, while it would otherwise burst at 35 mbps with looser or no vbv you may or may not notice a difference in quality.

If you are using enough bitrate for the footage with AC3 and DTS audio I'd suggest 25 mbps max and bursts up to at least 40 mbps so 15-25 mbps vbv buffer so it doesn't have much effect on x264's decision. When working with PCM and HD audio I'd lower max to 15-20 mbps just to be sure it stays below 30 mbps combined bitrate.

If the encoder (x264) acts like xvid, you might benefit from using lower vbv settings when using very low bitrate for the footage. Xvid, by default, is prone to using a considerable amount of bitrate in complex scenes which can have a bad effect if you are using very low bitrate for footage that has a few complex scenes. With no or high vbv the complex scenes will look good but it steals a lot (sometimes too much) from the rest of the video so you could end up with 5 seconds looking better while the rest of the video looks noticeably worse. With xvid another way to deal with this issue is to adjust the high scene degradation and low scene improvement settings. I haven't tested to see whether or not x264 has this issue and if it does I don't notice any settings besides vbv to resolve it.

[Dark Shikari]

When you are using very low average bitrates, if the encoder works anything like xvid, you might benefit from using low vbv settings. Xvid is prone to use a lot of bitrate in complex scenes which can have a bad effect if you are using very low bitrate for footage that has a few complex scenes. With no or high vbv the, complex scenes will look good but it steals a lot (sometimes too much) from the typical scene. If it takes too much you could have 5 seconds of video looking better while then it would while the rest of the video looks noticeably worse. With xvid another way to deal with this issue is to adjust the high scene degradation and low scene improvement settings. I haven't tested to see whether or not x264 has this issue and if it does I don't notice any settings besides vbv to resolve it.x264's VBV, unlike Xvid's, doesn't suck ;)

[shon3i]

My concern with BD-9 backups is the average bitrate. Movies longer than about 1:35 - 1:40 will fall below 10Mbps and I begin to notice a quality difference from the original BD under this conditionI don't have this problem even on Plasma "50, i realy tryed to saw difference between original BD stream and compressed BD9, it's to hard even i seat realy close to display. I always use insane settings. BD9's are fine for me, i aslo few movies in BD-5 which reach original transparency, but they have very clean picture ;)

no room for 1.5 MbpsI always use 640kbps from Lossless source if possible, because AC3 always and easy rich transparency than DTS even on 448kbps. DTS is waste of space, and quality. Too bad Blu-Ray not support AAC :( or least E-AC3 as main format. Lossless is no place for BD 5/9 agree.

I haven't noticed unstable vbv in x264 in 2 pass mode.

[Information] Log
-[Information] Versions
--[NoImage] MeGUI Version : 0.3.1.1022
--[NoImage] OS : Windows XP Professional x86 SP3 (5.1.196608.2600)
--[NoImage] Framework used : 2.0 SP1 (2.0.50727.3053)
-[Information] Hardware
--[NoImage] CPU : AMD Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad-Core Processor
-[Information] Log for job1 (video, Poseidon.avs -> Poseidon.264)
--[Information] [24/03/2009 8:57:49 AM] Started handling job
--[Information] [24/03/2009 8:57:49 AM] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 1 --bitrate 10142 --stats "F:\Poseidon\Poseidon.stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --ref 4 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 3 --b-adapt 2 --weightb --direct auto --subme 7 --trellis 2 --psy-rd 1.0:0.2 --partitions none --vbv-bufsize 15000 --vbv-maxrate 15000 --me umh --threads 12 --thread-input --sar 1:1 --aud --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output NUL "F:\Poseidon\Poseidon.avs" --sar 1:1 --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --qpfile "F:\Poseidon\qpfile.txt"
--[Information] [24/03/2009 8:57:52 AM] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
---[NoImage] avis [info]: 1920x1080 @ 23.98 fps (141290 frames)
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using SAR=1/1
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast FastShuffle SSEMisalign LZCNT
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: profile Main, level 4.1
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-800055 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1284039 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-333623 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-371119 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1416239 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-305271 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-319287 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-224443 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-572943 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-533791 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-709447 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-363695 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-237509 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-41553 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-139880 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-474149 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1323967 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-807151 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1251959 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-377215 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-230759 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-227031 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-390087 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-129343 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-58495 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-705439 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-95975 bits)
---[NoImage]
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice I:15905 Avg QP:15.39 size:111916
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice P:54163 Avg QP:19.13 size: 64290
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice B:71222 Avg QP:21.21 size: 26905
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 10.7% 25.0% 47.2% 17.1%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 56.9% 0.0% 43.1%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 13.9% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 55.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip:30.8%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.8% 0.0% 0.0% B16..8: 41.1% 0.0% 0.0% direct: 9.6% skip:48.5% L0:38.9% L1:46.0% BI:15.1%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:96.1% temporal:3.9%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref P L0 75.2% 15.2% 6.4% 3.2%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref B L0 83.5% 11.7% 4.8%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: kb/s:9745.1
---[NoImage] encoded 141290 frames, 6.05 fps, 9751.13 kb/s
--[Information] [24/03/2009 3:27:16 PM] Postprocessing
--[Information] [24/03/2009 3:27:16 PM] Job completed
-[Information] Log for job2 (video, Poseidon.avs -> Poseidon.264)
--[Information] [24/03/2009 3:27:16 PM] Started handling job
--[Information] [24/03/2009 3:27:16 PM] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 10142 --stats "F:\Poseidon\Poseidon.stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --ref 4 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 3 --b-adapt 2 --weightb --direct auto --subme 9 --trellis 2 --psy-rd 1.0:0.2 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 15000 --vbv-maxrate 15000 --me tesa --threads 12 --thread-input --sar 1:1 --aud --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "F:\Poseidon\Poseidon.264" "F:\Poseidon\Poseidon.avs" --sar 1:1 --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --qpfile "F:\Poseidon\qpfile.txt"
--[Information] [24/03/2009 3:27:21 PM] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
---[NoImage] avis [info]: 1920x1080 @ 23.98 fps (141290 frames)
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using SAR=1/1
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast FastShuffle SSEMisalign LZCNT
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: profile High, level 4.1
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-800055 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1284039 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-333623 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-371119 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1416239 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-305271 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-319287 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-224443 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-572943 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-533791 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-709447 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-363695 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-237509 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-41553 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-139880 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-474149 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1323967 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-807151 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-1251959 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-377215 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-230759 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-227031 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-390087 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-129343 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-58495 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-705439 bits)
---[NoImage] x264 [warning]: VBV underflow (-95975 bits)
---[NoImage]
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice I:15905 Avg QP:15.23 size:114471
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice P:54163 Avg QP:19.48 size: 65888
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice B:71222 Avg QP:21.32 size: 29200
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 10.7% 25.0% 47.2% 17.1%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 28.7% 67.7% 3.6%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 2.5% 20.5% 0.6% P16..4: 32.2% 9.8% 3.6% 0.0% 0.0% skip:30.9%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.3% 2.6% 0.1% B16..8: 38.5% 1.4% 1.5% direct: 7.4% skip:48.2% L0:40.0% L1:41.8% BI:18.2%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:77.0% inter:58.9%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:88.0% temporal:12.0%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref P L0 79.6% 13.3% 5.1% 2.1%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref B L0 83.7% 11.7% 4.5%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: kb/s:10139.6
---[NoImage] encoded 141290 frames, 2.64 fps, 10145.76 kb/s
--[Information] Final statistics
---[NoImage] Video Bitrate Desired: 10142 kbit/s
---[NoImage] Video Bitrate Obtained (approximate): 10145 kbit/s
--[Information] [25/03/2009 6:19:29 AM] Postprocessing
--[Information] [25/03/2009 6:19:29 AM] Job completed


Almost on every movie :)

[rack04]

Almost on every movie :)

I have experienced the same thing with the latest x264 version on the megui update server.

[laserfan]

[VBV underflows] Almost on every movieTry using 25000 for both maxrate and bufsize and these will likely go away.

I have never seen a problem with my disks...

[Dark Shikari]

Almost on every movie :)I haven't seen such a thing in tens of thousands of hours of processing, so I suspect either miscompilation, some sort of broken user patch (nal-hrd), or user error. But if you actually think it's a bug, talk to Gabriel.

[turbojet]

Aren't those warnings just saying that vbv enforced a lower bitrate for the frame when x264 wanted to give it more?

With 10 mbps average I would imagine x264 would choose to use more than 15 mbps for more then a second at times. Higher vbv max would let x264 use the bitrate it wants to use for the frame in this case.

[ACrowley]

The Sony BDP S350 can play 1080p x264 with 25000 VBV Max Bitrate/Buffer without Problems on DVD5 and DVD9 as AVCHD
I Use 25000 VBV for all my AVCHD encodes and with a VBR Bitrate around 10Mbps for 1080p

I was a little bit unsure first because i was thinking that 17Mbps would be teh maximum. But i made dozens of 1080p Bluray to AVCHD reencodes and all are working perfectly fine with 25Mbps

[Selur]

Reading this thread and searching the net and doom9 I'm totally confused.
Some say VBV Max Bitrate/Buffer should be set to 40000 for all Profile&Level restrictions others say take e.g. for L4.0 -> VBV Buffer=31250, Max BR=25000 according to ITU and just limit L4.1 to 40000 for vbv max bitrate/buffer and then some state some numbers that worked for them.

According to http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Assets/Downloadablefile/2b_bdrom_audiovisualapplication_0305-12955-15269.pdf
(chapter 3.3)

Blu-Ray supports:
HP@4.1/4.0
and
MP@4.1/4.0/3.2/3.1/3.0
with a max bitrate of 40Mbps

So the question is:
"How to set vbv max buffer/bitrate when aiming for HP@4.0/HP@4.1/MP@4.1//MP@4.0//MP@3.2//MP@3.1//MP@3.0 ?" (according to the standards)

Cu Selur

[shon3i]

Reading this thread and searching the net and doom9 I'm totally confused.That's why i opened this topic to remove confusion which i had aslo, and still have little.

My current assumption is, if we burn movie on BD disc, max buffer should be 30000 and max rate should be 40000 and we can use lower values.
But if we burn on DVD buffer and rate must be lowered to some value, because DVD and BD have totaly different data transfer, from AVCHD specs that is max 18mbps, and i am still comfused about this since Blu-Ray and AVCHD are not same. Thats why asking did we can use full Blu-Ray specs same as we burning on BD Disc or Not.

[laserfan]

You will, I think, find differing opinions here about this, but AFAIK a set-top player can spin a DVD disc at a maximum of 3x, meaning you can get up to 30Mbps (actually 33-something iirc) total bitrate out of it, but accounting for audio & subtitles the most video bitrate you want to attempt is 25000Kbps. One "confirmation" I have of this is Ulead's MovieFactory Plus w/HD pack, which will not accept any HD video whose bitrate exceeds 25Mbps (but WILL accept a video of 25Mbps).

I don't know about burning BD-recordables, I think you can burn at the limits of the BD standard, but IMO when talking about DVD-5 and DVD-9 thou shalt not exceed 25Mbps or you risk the player not "keeping up". I don't know what the limit is in re: x264 bitrate--I have never tried to make a video with a bitrate target >10Mbps. But with a bitrate of 10000 and bufsize and maxrate of 25000 as I've said I never have had a glitch on my stb BR disc player.

[shon3i]

I found one interesting question from user fifteen in http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1266848#post1266848

This brings up another question of mine. Why are people using bufsize settings that are quite a bit lower for bd5/bd9....I always thought bufsize was hardware related. Wouldn't that mean that the bufsize should sit at 30000 even if the maxrate might be set way lower to account for bd5/bd9 max read speed?


Exacly my point. So use max possible buffer for Blu-Ray to avoid buffer overflow/underflows and max rate for specific media such 18mbps

[Selur]

I agree that for 'bd5/bd9' it's adjusting the bitrate seems to be the right way to go. So vbv values should be profile&level dependent not media dependent.
Sad thing is the question still remains:
"How to set vbv max buffer/bitrate when aiming for HP@4.0/HP@4.1/MP@4.1/MP@4.0/MP@3.2/MP@3.1/MP@3.0 ?" (according to the standards)
atm. I use normal AVC Profile&Level Restrictions + capping of Level4.0&4.1

Cu Selur

[turbojet]

The way I understand buffer size is how much it can exceed the max bitrate for less than a second, eg. 25 mbps max, 25 mbps buffer = 50 mbps max but only for < 1 second. XviD has settings like this and are well documented.
I believe buffer has nothing to do with the ability to play on standalones but it should always be equal or less than the max bitrate.
I believe max bitrate setting has to do with playing on standalones and it should be the basis of whats playable or not.
It would be nice if someone that knows for sure what the 2 vbv settings are to pitch in, all the documentation I've seen on x264 vbv settings leaves a lot to be desired.

I read somewhere BD has a maximum read rate of 62.5 mbps.
I read DVD is 3x but conflicts (30-35 mbps) of what this really translates to in mbps.

wkipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264) lists the maximum bitrates for the levels.

[deank]

x264 wiki says:


vbv-maxrate

Default: 0

Sets the maximum bitrate in VBV mode. You should only use VBV if you have a hardware decoder that requires it. It is highly recommended, though not required, to use 2pass bitrate mode with VBV.

See also: vbv-bufsize, vbv-init
[edit] vbv-bufsize

Default: 0

Sets the maximum size of the VBV buffer. You should only use VBV if you have a hardware decoder that requires it. The buffer chosen is generally specific to the target device.

See also: vbv-maxsize, vbv-init

[turbojet]

leaves a lot to be desired
maybe dark shikari or another x264 developer can shed some light

[shon3i]

I believe buffer has nothing to do with the ability to play on standalones but it should always be equal or less than the max bitrate.I think that is not rule, and buffersize can be safetly higher than maxrate value. If you look into for example sonic scenarist you see that one of Blu-Ray profiles have such higher buffer than maxrate, but all bluray profiles have strictly buffer at 30000.

maybe dark shikari or another x264 developer can shed some light It will be nice, but many times x264 developers are showed that are not
interested when is talk about compatibility. They are will probably rewrite HRD patch and make Slice Encoding which highly recommend for Blu-Ray encoding for H264, and fix DBP issue when is used 4ref frames with b-pyramid. But they don't care about Blu-Ray :(

[Dark Shikari]

It will be nice, but many times x264 developers are showed that are not interested when is talk about compatibility.How is it our responsibility to divine the correct maxrates and bufsizes for thousands of devices that we have nothing to do with--and worse, many of which don't even have public specifications? And how do we "not care about compatibility" when we are unable to demonstrate our psychic powers?

BD-Rebuilder is a demonstration of the fact that x264 works just fine with Blu-ray. The only incompatibility here is between you and the x264 project.

[Selur]

@Dark Shikari: Isn't there some sort of standard which defines what vbc values bluray hardware should support? (like the normal profile@level spec for h.264)

[Sagittaire]

Well exhaustive responce.

- With BD25 and BD50 optical disk (BD speed at 1X)
You can use max rate at 40 Mbps and max buffer at 30 Kbits for video. It's max value and lower value are compliant too.

- With BD5 and BD9 and DVD optical disk (DVD speed at 3X)
You can use max rate at 30 Mbps and max buffer at 30 Kbits for video. It's max value and lower value are compliant too.

BD5 and BD9 in practice: You must take in consideration audio and m2ts overhead when you make multiplexing and 30 Mbps for video become too high. Moreover in general case H264 stream for movie will use less than 8 Mbps for average bitrate on BD9. With this average bitrate use really high max bitrate is useless (3X average bitrate is good in general case and particulary with really large buffer like 30 Kbits). For this reason you will obtain best result for H264 at 24 Mbps for max rate and 30 Kbits for max buffer.

[shon3i]

And how do we "not care about compatibility" when we are unable to demonstrate our psychic powers?At least you can fix DBP issue, add slicing support, and HRD, improve VBV system, That things we just need nothing more. After this x264 will be complete and stable encoder.

How is it our responsibility to divine the correct maxrates and bufsizes for thousands of devices that we have nothing to do with--and worseBlu-Ray player must folow BD specs which are known mostly, nobody wants to make for all players, just for main BD specs.

For this reason you will obtain best result for H264 at 24 Mbps for max rate and 30 Kbits for max buffer. That i want to hear. Thanks :)

[Dark Shikari]

@Dark Shikari: Isn't there some sort of standard which defines what vbc values bluray hardware should support? (like the normal profile@level spec for h.264)Yes there is. It's secret.Blu-Ray player must folow BD specs which are known mostly, nobody wants to make for all players, just for main BD specs.Good thing it's public for everyone to see then? Oh, wait...

[Sagittaire]

In fact BD specification are really complex. For example if you use less than 15 Mbps for video stream you can use 2 sec for max GOP lenght. Here IMO best tradeoff setting for BD5 vs BD9.

- BD5 for 120 min movie
4 Mbps for H264 stream
384 Kbps or 448 Kbps for ac3 stream
15 Mbps for max rate with GOP at 2 sec (48 frames)
don't try to encode grain and use strong filtering for noise
use best possible profil for quality (really slow)

- BD9 for 120 min movie
8 Mbps for H264 stream
640 Kbps for ac3 stream
24 Mbps for max rate with GOP at 1 sec (24 frames)
don't try to encode fine grain and use low filtering for fine noise
use best possible profil for quality is useless here

[Atak_Snajpera]

15 Mbps for max rate with GOP at 2 sec (48 frames)

24 Mbps for max rate with GOP at 1 sec (24 frames)
Show me Blu-ray player which cannot play default key-int values (25 - 250). I use defaults in my gui and I have never had any complaints from users. Luckly hardware manufacturers are not that strict.

[fifteen]

If you look into for example sonic scenarist you see that one of Blu-Ray profiles have such higher buffer than maxrate, but all bluray profiles have strictly buffer at 30000.

I'm curious about the Sonic Scenarist Bluray profiles. Are they available somewhere? Can someone post them if not?

[turbojet]

I don't expect x264 developers to define the max vbv setting but I do expect some documentation (like xvid and various mpeg2 encoders have) on how it works exactly, for sure who ever wrote the code should know.

[Sagittaire]

Show me Blu-ray player which cannot play default key-int values (25 - 250). I use defaults in my gui and I have never had any complaints from users. Luckly hardware manufacturers are not that strict.

Well if there are max GOP length it's for good reason. Your profil will be not compliant with BD profil (impossible for example to use your profil with BD professional software like scenarist). It's like that and no possible discution here. It's the same problem with DVD GOP: large SAP majority are compatible with long GOP, anyway long GOP don't work with all SAP. If you make BD9 with long GOP then you don't make really BD structure but more "AVCHD like" structure.

Moreover 1 sec GOP is not really short GOP. In 1 sec vs 10 sec comparison you can expect less than 10% quality gain and only less than 5% in 2 sec vs 10 sec. In fact 10 sec GOP is max value and encoder will place really more keyframe in general case.

[deank]

I'll add that there is a restriction about consecutive B frames (max of 3) which is probably why, when using high frame ref. count combined with high b-frame setting and larger keyint in x264 encoding settings makes output incompatible with some BD players (like PS3).

edit: I just tested that PS3 will accept ref=4 and bframes=6 for 1920x1080p@23.976 with 12mbps... Of course I have no idea how x264 orders the bframes or if it is using "b" and "B"... at least I now know it works.

[laserfan]

Show me Blu-ray player which cannot play default key-int values (25 - 250). I use defaults in my gui and I have never had any complaints from users. Luckly hardware manufacturers are not that strict.Long GOPs work on my SAP too, but to be safe (against future players I might buy) I always encode to 24 keyint.

FWIW Atak, although I do not use RipBot264 to make my encodings, I use it for establishing my bitrates, and even with my 24 keyint and min-keyint of 1 your bitrates have never failed to get me accurate output (and Thanks for that)!

[Sagittaire]

I'll add that there is a restriction about consecutive B frames (max of 3) which is probably why, when using high frame ref. count combined with high b-frame setting and larger keyint in x264 encoding settings makes output incompatible with some BD players (like PS3).


BD profil is complex for that too:
- 3 bframe max with 4 ref max for 1080p24 at level 4.1
- 3 pyramidal bframe max with 3 ref max for 1080p24 at level 4.1

Anyway for best possible compatibility I use just 2 bframes with 4 refs

[shon3i]

In fact BD specification are really complex. For example if you use less than 15 Mbps for video stream you can use 2 sec for max GOP lenght. Here IMO best tradeoff setting for BD5 vs BD9.

- BD5 for 120 min movie
4 Mbps for H264 stream
384 Kbps or 448 Kbps for ac3 stream
15 Mbps for max rate with GOP at 2 sec (48 frames)
don't try to encode grain and use strong filtering for noise
use best possible profil for quality (really slow)

- BD9 for 120 min movie
8 Mbps for H264 stream
640 Kbps for ac3 stream
24 Mbps for max rate with GOP at 1 sec (24 frames)
don't try to encode fine grain and use low filtering for fine noise
use best possible profil for quality is useless here
Thanks Sagittaire again for recommendations, can you give example scripts about strong filtering for noise (BD5) and low filtering for fine noise (BD9)

[Selur]

Trying to sum the vbv part up:

for BD25/50:
-vbv-buffersize 30000
-vbv-maxrate 40000

reading: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=760714
The following bitrates have been reported for commercial BDs:
- audio bitrate can go up to 6912Kbps
- video bitrate can go uo to 44.05Mbps
- total bitrate can go up to 47.05Mbps
and reading: http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_speed
According to the Blu-ray Disc specification, 1x speed is defined as 36Mbps. However, as BD-ROM movies will require a 54Mbps data transfer rate the minimum speed we're expecting to see is 2x (72Mbps). see:
I'm conclude it should be save set vbv-maxrate to 54000. (40000 is to high for 1x and kind of low for 2x)
but according to: http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Assets/Downloadablefile/2b_bdrom_audiovisualapplication_0305-12955-15269.pdf section 3.3
Blu-ray has a max bitrate of 40Mbps for video. -> So there are BDs out there that are not compliant or the max rate has been set to a higher value in a later version.

for BD25/50 1x:
-vbv-buffersize 30000
-vbv-maxrate 24000 (taking 36Mbps - 7Mbps for audio = 29Mbps -> 5Mbps safety for overhead, subtitles, etc.)

for BD25/50 2x:
-vbv-buffersize 30000 (maybe higher buffer size, e.g. 40000?)
-vbv-maxrate 40000

for BD5/9 ~ DVD:
-vbv-buffersize 30000
-vbv-maxrate 24000

for CD: (blu-ray does not have to be HD ;))
-vbv-buffersize 16000
-vbv-maxrate 16000
(iirc this was recommend for VCD/SVCDs in the old days)

Any corrections, comments?

Cu Selur

[laserfan]

Ancient thread, but there's very little solid data on this subject so... I found a program that kills my own (and others') expectations in re: bufsize and maxrate. It's the BURN-E cartoon on the WALL-E Blu-ray (00065.mpls, 20003.m2ts). I've had my x264 cmd set at 30000 and 30000. First attempt to re-encode to 10000 bitrate and these vbvs results in skipping/stuttering in my set-top BD player (BDMV-on-DVD-5) when WALL-E touches the asteroid belt about 20sec into the program. Another try w/bitrate of 8000 and vbv at 24000 (both) still skips. Finally I used jdobbs' values of --vbv-maxrate 17500 --vbv-bufsize 14500 and the re-muxed program didn't skip or stutter anymore, even though this time I upped the program bitrate to 12000.

I've been using 30000 and 30000 to make BD-5/9 discs for some time now without any problems at all, but this little PIXAR somehow fails to make it thru my BD player; a torture test indeed.

Maybe someone here who understands vbv better than I (not hard to do!) will analyze this program and explain why a BD player has so much trouble with it--I only looked at bitrates with BDInfo and it helped me not-at-all in predicting whether my re-encode/remuxes were going to work...

[shon3i]

I've been using 30000 and 30000 to make BD-5/9 discs for some time now without any problems at all, but this little PIXAR somehow fails to make it thru my BD player; a torture test indeed.Can you check stream with some VBV checker (elecard buffer analyzer for example) to see if some problem on VBV.

[laserfan]

Can you check stream with some VBV checker (elecard buffer analyzer for example) to see if some problem on VBV.I ran neuron2's VBV Checker on one of the test runs but I have no idea how to set it up or how to interpret the output. :confused:

If you don't have Wall-E Blu-ray, then rush out in a buying frenzy (a must have for anyone)! ;)

[deank]

Ancient thread, but ...

First attempt to re-encode to 10000 bitrate and these vbvs results in skipping/stuttering in my set-top BD player (BDMV-on-DVD-5) when WALL-E touches the asteroid belt about 20sec into the program. Another try w/bitrate of 8000 and vbv at 24000 (both) still skips. Finally I used jdobbs' values of --vbv-maxrate 17500 --vbv-bufsize 14500 and the re-muxed program didn't skip or stutter anymore, even though this time I upped the program bitrate to 12000.

I was getting reports from different multiAVCHD users about stuttering with DVD discs (BD5/BD9), so the final setting which works just okay for all is --vbv-maxrate 14000 --vbv-bufsize 14500.

Also: media, video resolution and level are taken into account and different values are used in some other cases.

Dean

[laserfan]

I was getting reports from different multiAVCHD users about stuttering with DVD discs (BD5/BD9), so the final setting which works just okay for all is --vbv-maxrate 14000 --vbv-bufsize 14500.

Also: media, video resolution and level are taken into account and different values are used in some other cases.Thank you for that. For the record, I was encoding at High level (4.1) and 1920x1080, and using Verbatim DVD+5 discs, and also a DVD-RW (Ritek 1x) when I realized I was making coasters.

BTW if someone eg. shon3i can spoon-feed to me what exactly to put into what box for neuron2's VBV Checker, I'd be glad to do so for each of the 4 or 5 encoding tries I made.

Incidentally, I had originally made a compilation BD-5 of BURN-E and Presto (from the WALL-E BD) and the "Partly Cloudy" PIXAR from UP, simply copying the original High Level encodings from BD to my BD-5 mix, but only BURN-E was a problem. I was surprised to find that despite their high bitrates, seemingly as high as BURN-E's, these 'toons played without stuttering or skipping (or having to re-encode them)!

[shon3i]

Can you upload some part of movie (raw .264 file) that have skipping/stuttering on your player. But from both with VBV 30/30 and one wich work normal 14/17

[laserfan]

Can you upload some part of movie (raw .264 file) that have skipping/stuttering on your player. But from both with VBV 30/30 and one wich work normal 14/17
I would really like to shon3i, but it would take hours to upload even short snips with my ISP. :(

Maybe I can try overnight...

[shon3i]

Ok, not need. Try to add to your cmd --vbv-init 0.7, just to see what is happend then, and try with --vbv-init 1. Maybe to try with some other media and or other burner.