Apple Prores 422 to H264 via x264

[TEB]

Hei. Does anyone know a good way of decoding Apple Prores 422 content and re-encode it to H264 with using x264 put into a mp4 container? Windows or Linux prefered.
Anyone know if any of the h264 guis support decoding/parsing that format?
Any help is apriciated! ;)


best regards TE

[poisondeathray]

QTInput("video.mov")
ConvertToYV12()

I don't think any of the common gui's include QTSource by default

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yep. QTInput works perfectly, but watch for its idiosyncrasies. I've found that ProRes movies (at least when decoded into AviSynth) sometimes have mismatched audio and video durations, and curious frame rates.

~MiSfit

[TEB]

Hi. Thx for the response. Anyone know where i can find the newest qtinput build?

[dr.schanker]

Link to the latest alpha (v.0.0.8):
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1221305#post1221305

This version has sometimes issues with detecting the correct framerate, plz read the included helpfile.
It may help to set the parameter "vfrFPS" manually, e.g.

QTInput("yourvideo.mov",color=0,quality=100,audio=true,vfrFPS=30.0)


Be sure to read the "official" thread too:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=104293

[TEB]

Awesome! Thx for all the help! ;)

[Blue_MiSfit]

I find mode=2 to be helpful occasionally. I've got lots of ProRes sources, and for some reason the default doesn't always work.

Also, audio=true seems to work perfectly, and is a good way of dumping the audio from your MOV. I get a mixture of 2ch, 5.1ch, and 7.1ch sources - sometimes with extra LT/RT downmix tracks.

A combination of GetChannel(...) and SoundOut() are extremely useful tools when working with ProRes and QuickTime in general inside AviSynth

Don't forget ConvertToYV12 at the end ;)

~MiSfit

[TEB]

Hi. Anyone got a workflow that works with audio and video including using x264 and ending up inn a mkv file?

qtinput -> Video --> X264 --> mux together keeping synch
Audio --> some audio encoder -> mux together

I used this in avisynth:
QTInput("c:\media\clips\9000000162-2.mov", audio=true)

x264 config: b1354
x264.exe --pass 1 --bitrate 1500 --profile high --preset veryslow -o test.h264 ..\test.avs
x264.exe --pass 2 --bitrate 1500 --profile high --preset veryslow -o test.h264 ..\test.avs

C:\MEDIA\APPS>x264.exe --pass 2 --bitrate 1500 --profile high --preset veryslow -o test.h264 ..\test.avs
avs [warning]: converting input clip to YV12
avs [info]: 1920x1080 @ 25.01 fps (1665 frames)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264 [info]: profile High, level 5.1
x264 [info]: frame I:16 Avg QP:24.22 size: 44487
x264 [info]: frame P:696 Avg QP:30.15 size: 10518
x264 [info]: frame B:953 Avg QP:32.46 size: 4675
x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 5.4% 38.3% 48.4% 1.9% 2.4% 1.8% 1.7% 0.0% 0.0%
x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 57.1% 38.1% 4.9%
x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 3.1% 3.7% 0.2% P16..4: 19.8% 2.6% 3.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip:67.5%
x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.3% 0.7% 0.0% B16..8: 19.9% 0.3% 0.4% direct: 0.5% skip:77.8% L0:44.0% L1:53.6% BI: 2.4%
x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:51.6% inter:85.3%
x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:82.2% temporal:17.8%
x264 [info]: coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 29.0% 43.2% 16.5% inter: 2.9% 2.3% 0.2%
x264 [info]: i16 v,h,dc,p: 31% 27% 4% 38%
x264 [info]: i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 10% 6% 7% 10% 15% 16% 13% 13% 10%
x264 [info]: i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 12% 6% 9% 9% 15% 15% 12% 10% 12%
x264 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.3%
x264 [info]: ref P L0: 45.4% 11.6% 18.2% 5.0% 3.9% 3.2% 2.8% 1.5% 1.4% 1.3% 1.1% 1.0% 0.9% 1.0% 0.9% 0.7%
x264 [info]: ref B L0: 72.0% 7.6% 5.2% 2.5% 2.2% 1.9% 1.7% 1.0% 1.0% 0.9% 0.9% 0.8% 0.7% 0.7% 0.8%


No player could read the file, vlc just pops with a black window and closes..
Any suggestions on a suitable x264 parameter setup that gives max quality given on 1500kbit and that gives a file that can be read ;)?

My raw material is this:

General
Complete name : C:\MEDIA\CLIPS\9000000162-2.mov
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 1.49 GiB
Duration : 1mn 6s
Overall bit rate : 192 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-11-06 12:16:39
Tagged date : UTC 2009-11-06 12:17:56
Writing library : Apple QuickTime

Video
ID : 2
Format : Digital Video
Codec ID : apch
Codec ID/Info : ProRes 422 HQ
Duration : 1mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 190 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Minimum frame rate : 25.000 fps
Maximum frame rate : 34.247 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 3.663
Stream size : 1.47 GiB (99%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2009-11-06 12:16:39
Tagged date : UTC 2009-11-06 12:17:56

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Format settings, Sign : Unsigned
Codec ID : in24
Duration : 1mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 2 304 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 24 bits
Stream size : 18.3 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2009-11-06 12:16:39
Tagged date : UTC 2009-11-06 12:17:56

[smok3]

TEB: 1st pass output should be some sort of null...,

i would be also interested in a free (without any intermediates) way to dump prores files to x264 (ubuntu and mac).

[Blue_MiSfit]

Well, try muxing the elementary stream, if you haven't already :) Reading elementary streams can be problematic sometimes.

I usually output to MP4, since for some reason MKV output seems to require a lot of time to seek with x264 at the moment. Remuxing the final result with audio to MKV using MKVMerge seems to fix this. I'm guessing something about indexes? Dunno... :P