encoding dark backgrounds

[cybersharky]

Hi,

I've just started to convert my Babylon 5 dvd's(720x576 PAL 16:9), in the tests I've done so far with Megui(x264), the dark backgrounds look grainy. You can see it slightly when playing the dvd, but it looks worse in the converted file.

I've uploaded an almost 20Mb demuxed sample from first VOB, see especially from 10 seconds.

http://garyonline.net/test/sample.demuxed.rar

Any suggestions or comments? I'm hoping to convert all my B5 dvd's with x264 into as good a quality as possible.

Thanks
Gary

[CWR03]

It's quite normal to have a "grainy" look to dark or evenly-colored areas. It's an effect from any high-compression video codec.

[foxyshadis]

You can mitigate the effect by enabling dithering and high-quality rgb in the output (this is only an option for ffdshow, or madvr in mpchc or zoomplayer). Don't denoise too much or it'll look much worse.