New with several questions (Handbrake mostly)

[QuantumRand]

Hello all. First post, so I hope this is in the right place and that my questions aren't too mundane.

I recently got a Blu-Ray drive and started building a Blu-Ray collection; however, the bundled player software (PowerDVD) doesn't detect my HDTV as an HDCP compatible device, despite the fact that it's connected via HDMI (which requires HDCP compliance as far as I understand it). This isn't my main question, but if anyone knows of anyway to fix this, please let me know.

As an alternative, I've started using MakeMKV (both to stream from the disk and rip it). Streaming from the disk is a cumbersome process to say the least, so I prefer to backup my disks to my NAS and play them from there.

I use Handbrake to compress them, and this is where I have a handful of (what I'm sure are noobish) questions.

First of all, I prefer to downconvert to 720p for most of my movies, and I haven't really seen a whole lot of suggestions on good Handbrake settings for the purpose of shrinking 1080p Blu-Rays to 720p ~5GB files.

CRF converting seems to be the way to go, as long as I can get the quality tuned right to get the output size I want (I'd rather not spend a ton of time on 2-pass encoding). All the suggestions I've found say 18-20 is "transparent" in quality, but I think the end results look rather awful until the 16-17 range. Is it just that I have a pickier eye for detail, or are there settings that can further enhance the quality for an 18-20 RF?

I'm also curious about the rc-lookahead variable. What exactly does it do? I figure it allows you to use more RAM to achieve either a better compression or faster encode, but I haven't seen any difference when messing with it. What exactly does it affect?

I've managed to find settings I'm mostly happy with (though I'm eager for additional input), but in the case of Thor, I'm having a lot of trouble. In the night-sky scenes, I'm getting awful banding (I think that's what you call it), and even with an RF setting of 13, it still shows up rather strongly on my TV. Here is a screenshot of it: http://quantumrand.net/misc/Thor%20Quality.png

I thought the No DCT-Decimate box would fix it, but it didn't. How can I get rid of that ugly mess without ending up with some 15GB file?

Also, here is a screenshot of the settings I typically use: http://quantumrand.net/misc/Handbrake%20settings.png

Any suggestions for settings I should change?

Thanks :)

[golagoda]

I'd suggest reading/participating in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=163880) as it's very similar.

Other than that, I'd recommend not using handbrake and using x264 by itself, or at the very least using a nightly build of handbrake or avidemux if you really want a GUI - the latest normal version of handbrake is from over a year ago and due to this obviously uses old software, including old x264 versions.

[QuantumRand]

I'd suggest reading/participating in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=163880) as it's very similar.

Other than that, I'd recommend not using handbrake and using x264 by itself, or at the very least using a nightly build of handbrake or avidemux if you really want a GUI - the latest normal version of handbrake is from over a year ago and due to this obviously uses old software, including old x264 versions.

Thanks. I actually saw that thread recently, but it seemed like a slightly different issue at first. I've since read it a bit closer.

I'll see about grabbing one of the nightlies as well (or perhaps MeGUI?). I'm still learning about the x.264 encoder, so I think I should stick with a GUI for the time being.

I'm still curious about the rc-lookahead setting though. Is it a value of Frames or seconds to look ahead, or neither? And is it supposed to speed up encoding or will it increase compression?

[hello_hello]

QuantumRand,
I replied to your questions here in the thread golagoda linked to to keep the topic in one place.

[hello_hello]

PS For your question regarding rc-lookahead, have a look here: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings#rc-lookahead
Pretty much all x264's settings are listed on that page. http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

I'd have to read it myself to try to understand it better but I've got to head out the door. Maybe if it's not clear after looking at the Wiki page (which would be understandable) someone else who understands the various settings better than I do may be able to explain.

[QuantumRand]

PS For your question regarding rc-lookahead, have a look here: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings#rc-lookahead
Pretty much all x264's settings are listed on that page. http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

I'd have to read it myself to try to understand it better but I've got to head out the door. Maybe if it's not clear after looking at the Wiki page (which would be understandable) someone else who understands the various settings better than I do may be able to explain.

So from what I understand, rc-lookahead uses more RAM to look up to 250 frames ahead in order to more efficiently choose B-frames and increase compression? And because it has to sort through more frames, it's slower, yes?

[hello_hello]

I'll admit I don't fully understand it. Maybe I'm having a dumb day but I can't get my head around it.

I'd say yes, the larger the rc-lookahead value, the more it'll slow the encode but potentially increase the quality. It also seems to be effected by VBV settings (which relate to a playback device's playback buffer, not so much the amount of RAM used when encoding, if that's what you were getting at) but I don't fully understand the formula.

I did look at MeGUI's options and I can tell you the x264 rc-lookahead defaults for the various x264 speed presets.
Ultra fast = 0 (no MB-tree)
Super Fast = 0 (no MB-tree)
Very fast = 10
Faster = 20
Fast = 30
Medium = 40
Slow = 50
Slower = 60
Very Slow = 60
Placebo = 60

I'd take it from the above, values over 60 don't offer any real quality improvement. Once again, I think for most of us sticking to x264's own speed presets and leaving the rest alone is probably a good idea.

This is what MeGUI has to say about MB-tree, as rc-lookahead obviously relates to it.

"It tracks the propagation of information from past blocks to future blocks across motion vectors. It could be described as localizing qcomp to act on individual blocks instead of whole scenes. Thus instead of lowering quality in high complexity scenes, it'll only lower quality on the complex part of the scene, while for example a static background will remain high quality."

I think I kind of get it, but not enough to explain it properly. Maybe an x264 expert will come along, but until then I might leave you to draw your own conclusions from the above. I'm still trying to.
If you get your head around it, feel free to explain it to me. ;)