Blu-ray compatibility check tool?

[Redsandro]

Hi,

I have a 720p video that starts with a few seconds of static red title. After about 51 frames, all of the sudden this becomes very blocky and I don't understand why.

I want the movie to be blu-ray compatible. I don't have a player, but I want to put all my video on blu-ray later. I tried both SA and Standalone presets for blu-ray but they all get the sudden blocky out of the blue. After a lot of random trying I got the title to remain static without the sudden blocky, but then fade-ins in the video became blocky. Besides, I forgot what setting did the trick. :P

Anyway, finally when I tried the "Unrestricted Insane 2pass" preset the sudden blocky was much less, but still visible.

2 questions:

Is this movie now blu-ray player compatible? I changed GOP length to 24 and minimum to 1, and bitrate to 8000k.
Is there a tool that checks if a .mp4 file is blu-ray compatible?
What setting causes the sudden blocky? I'd like to alter the SA-blu-ray preset for myself so that it's still compatible. Because using the insane just takes so darn long. :)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

How exactly did you encode that file? Or where did you get it?

[Redsandro]

Ah ofcourse I forgot to mention with the preset stuff that I was talking about the GUI MeGUI, sorry!
The source file is a lossless lagarith encoded 720p25 video.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

MeGUI uses the x264 encoder to create H.264 streams. And x264 currently can not create Blu-Ray conform streams.
The Blu-Ray specifications require the H.264 stream to be sliced, but x264 doesn't use slices any more...

BTW: It was said that "real" Blu-Ray players can handle the streams created by x264 just fine, but a compatibility validation tool would still refuse those streams!

[Redsandro]

Oops.. so MeGUI's Blu-ray presets are bogus? Or can x264 outputted files be otherwise muxed or tweaked to get BR-disk compatible results?

[rack04]

Oops.. so MeGUI's Blu-ray presets are bogus? Or can x264 outputted files be otherwise muxed or tweaked to get BR-disk compatible results?

Bogus? No

Compatible? No

Will my standalone Blu-ray play AVC streams encoded with x264? Yes

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Oops.. so MeGUI's Blu-ray presets are bogus? Or can x264 outputted files be otherwise muxed or tweaked to get BR-disk compatible results?

As explained in my previous post, x264 cannot create Blu-Ray conform streams. It's not a matter of choosing the right options. It's just not possible right now! And nope, the streams cannot be tweaked to conform to the Blu-Ray specs. But the streams produced by x264 will work in most (all?) existing Blu-Ray players anyway. Still a validation tool would refuse those streams, because a validation tool checks the streams against the specifications, not against the existing implementations of these specs. So the MeGUI Blu-Ray profiles won't give you a Blu-Ray conform stream, but a Blu-Ray "compatible" one.

Or in other words:
Blu-Ray players aren't required to accept the streams created by x264 (according to the Blu-Ray specs), but in reality they do! You cannot rely on that behavior though...

[Redsandro]

Ah I see, thanks for the clarification!

As to my other question, any idea?

Here's a visual aid. Steady for two seconds:

http://stuff.rednet.nl/rommel/trash/BDx264.png

And then all of the sudden, BAM:

http://stuff.rednet.nl/rommel/trash/BDx264b.png

[neuron2]

The source file is a lossless lagarith encoded 720p25 video. Why aren't you working from your original source material?

[Redsandro]

The original source is a composition in After Effects. I cannot frameserve After Effects directly into MeGUI. So I use lossless lagarith as output, and I use that with x264 (through MeGUI).

[neuron2]

I'm asking about your source material. What is it and where did it come from?

[Redsandro]

Titles, vector graphics etc. is all generated in After Effects.

[nm]

I have a 720p video that starts with a few seconds of static red title. After about 51 frames, all of the sudden this becomes very blocky and I don't understand why.
Could you post a sample clip (from the lossless source video) that exhibits the problem?

After a lot of random trying I got the title to remain static without the sudden blocky, but then fade-ins in the video became blocky. Besides, I forgot what setting did the trick. :P
A similar problem has been discussed here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143444

Is this movie now blu-ray player compatible? I changed GOP length to 24 and minimum to 1, and bitrate to 8000k.
1. You need VBV, which may be causing your problem in the first place. The "Unrestricted" profiles apparently don't set buffer size, so add --vbv-bufsize 40000 --vbv-maxrate 40000.
2. Keep the number of reference frames within L4.1 limits (9 for 720p).
3. --aud --nal-hrd may be also needed.

[Redsandro]

This is weird, if I encode just a small part that shows the sudden blocks in the entire movie, then the blocks won't appear?
All I can show is the above two images.

Thanks about the other explanations. Actually I don't really know what it does, but I used the values that were used in the blu-ray preset:
--vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 38000

I tried many combinations but I kind of forgot which one had better or worse because it seemed to be some sort of balance between the instant blocky and the blocky fades if you know what I mean. My last used parameters were:

--pass 2 --bitrate 8000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 3 --b-adapt 2 --weightb --direct auto --trellis 2 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 38000 --qcomp 0.5 --me umh --merange 32 --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --sar 1:1

The referenced topic indeed mentions the same (with the fades that is). Maybe I'll also let it be for the moment and see if it behaves differently.

[kemuri-_9]

--ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1

there's those bizarre ipratio and pbratio settings again...
seriously what is up with the megui profile having those...

what happens if you encode without those two particular settings?

[rack04]

What software are you using to playback?