h264enc for Linux

[kripz]

Hello,

Im new to ripping/encoding, thank god for h264 for simplifying all the commands.

My current process is this:

Use my PS3 to rip blurays to my linux server as an iso.
Mount the ISO on my windows machine.
Decrypt it using AnyDVD onto the server.
Use h264enc on my server to encode it to a smaller MKV.

This is fine when i only have one m2ts. Now im that im trying a new BD i have run into some problems.

This movie is split into multiple m2ts files.
The first audio track is not the correct one.

How do i get the job done? Also, can i get rid of windows completely or do i still need AnyDVD?

[froggy1]

Have you tried concatenating these multiple m2ts files into one big one?
For the audio track, you can select which one by saying y to the "scan for multiple audio tracks" question (needs to be enabled in the config file of h264enc)
I think you still need AnyDVD for decrypting as the new libbluray project is not done yet

[kripz]

Hey froggy1,

Been googling since my post, i read about that somewhere. Someone might find this helpful, as the files are named 00001 to 0xxxx i used

cat $(printf "000%02d.m2ts " {1..40}) > output.m2ts

Ill be trying h264enc once it's done.

[ggking7]

Sometimes the needed m2ts files aren't in sequential order though. makemkv handles this very well, including decryption.

[gongloo]

I'm getting some issues with nob_pyramid in the x264encopts with mencoder -- mencoder refuses to encode at all. Removing said option (narrowed down by process of elimination) fixes the issue. Perhaps nob_pyramid is implied in recent builds of mencoder/x264?

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by gongloo

I'm getting some issues with nob_pyramid in the x264encopts with mencoder -- mencoder refuses to encode at all. Removing said option (narrowed down by process of elimination) fixes the issue. Perhaps nob_pyramid is implied in recent builds of mencoder/x264?

B-pyramid has never been on by default, ever.

[froggy1]

Also, in very recent builds of x264 and mencoder, there's no longer a nob_pyramid option but b_pyramid=none, b_pyramid=strict and b_pyramid=normal
When mencoder exits and refuses to encode, it usually displays at the very top which option(s) is/are causing this. Since it works here with recent builds of x264 & mencoder, it must be something on your side. further, h264enc has been updated to support the new b_pyramid and nob_pyramid is no longer in h264enc so it seems you're using an older version but with new x264 & mencoder which don't have nob_pyramid anymore but use the new one

[kripz]

Froggy1 joining the files using cat appears to have worked. The issue i have now is that i keep getting the wrong audio stream. How can i found out which is the english audio? I know there is one with english but it has commentary in it.

I still have the soundless avi and full mkv created by h264enc. Can i somehow only rip the correct audio from the joined m2ts and add it to the mkv?

This might be somewhat off topic and a general ripping question.

[froggy1]

kripz,

For TS files, h264enc can't tell you which audio stream has the specific language you're looking for since mplayer doesn't report language info for such files and only DVD input supports that.

You can try each stream with mplayer (using the -aid option each time) and find out manually the ID number of the language you want, then provide it to h264enc in the "scan for multiple audio streams" option. You may need to use the lavf demuxer (mplayer file.m2ts -demuxer lavf) for it to display all audio streams in the TS and their corresponding ID numbers

And yes, you can just encode the audio stream you want and then use mkvmerge to mux it with the mkv you already have. There are various ways you can do that, like dumping the audio to a wav file first, then encode it or using a named pipe and running the audio encoder in the background while mplayer directly dumps pcm audio to the pipe the encoder is reading from (which is the way I use in h264enc too, eliminates the need to dump to a physical file first)

[gongloo]

Originally Posted by froggy1

h264enc has been updated to support the new b_pyramid and nob_pyramid is no longer in h264enc so it seems you're using an older version but with new x264 & mencoder

Quite right. I used Gentoo's package manager to install the latest available versions of the aforementioned software. I have submitted an enhancement request on the Gentoo Bug Tracker, as they do not carry h264enc past version 9.0.6. I have since upgraded to 9.0.8 (latest at time of writing) and all my issues are remedied. Thanks!

[kripz]

Ive identified the correct audio track for english, everytime i choose it, it comes out as some other language? Im playing the m2ts in MPC using FFDshow.

[froggy1]

you should use mplayer, not mpc or ffdshow to get the IDs. As I said, run mplayer with -demuxer lavf and look at the top for the audio streams. You'll get something like below (just ran it on a TS file)

[lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 1               
[lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 2               
[lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 3               
[lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 4               
[lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 5

To select the specific stream, just provide its number to the -aid param, eg mplayer file.m2ts -aid 2 -demuxer lavf

EDIT: I may need to add a variable in the config file where the user can set a specific demuxer. At present, this can only be done for mplayer in the MPLAYEROPTS variable, but not for mencoder.

[froggy1]

btw, I just tested a bit here with a TS sample containing multiple audio streams and everything seems to work here, even without explicitly forcing the lavf demuxer... see screenshot below. It finds all audio IDs and when I specify one, it encodes the correct audio language

http://www.imagebam.com/image/9100f554337230

so what you need to do is, run h264enc, answer yes to the multiple audio stream scanning option, then it'll display all found streams and in another console, run mplayer file.m2ts -aid <number_of_stream_reported_by_h264enc>. Repeat this until you find the correct one and then provide it to h264enc

[kripz]

My server does not have audio or a desktop. Any alternatives using windows to find the streams? Ive used programs such as bdinfo but seems to be incorrect.

[nm]

Use MPlayer on Windows. Here's one good build: http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/home/?page=projects

[froggy1]

ChangeLog for version 9.0.9

* Replaced a few if conditionals with case statements in the neroaac_audio_func() function
* Sed a comma at the end of resolution detection in case we're dealing with TS files. The default TS
demuxer in MPlayer has a comma at the end of the resolution info which results in errorneous behavior in the bc calculation
* Simplified the resolution detection code
* Some small cleanups

[smok3]

Originally Posted by kripz

My server does not have audio or a desktop. Any alternatives using windows to find the streams? Ive used programs such as bdinfo but seems to be incorrect.

mediainfo-cli ?

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/sl/Download

[nm]

Originally Posted by smok3

mediainfo-cli ?

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/sl/Download

Does it always give correct language identification? I'd guess you need to hear the audio to recognize the correct track reliably.

[froggy1]

ChangeLog for version 9.1.0

* Implemented a simple telecine detector for NTSC DVDs. Currently it's a dumb solution which can't
distinguish between hard telecine and interlacing but it's enough to detect soft telecine and mixed progressive/telecine
content which is more common
* Simplified the FPS detection code
* Update to all presets: added new weightp x264 option. This requires latest x264 revision from git
* Updated the preset.cfg file. Added weightp option
* Small general code improvements and cosmetics

[mrplow]

would it be possible to add a xbox1 preset for the stand alone devices? its older hardware so it can't take too much. There is also a wiki with settings which are known to work. http://xbmc.org/wiki/index.php?title..._XBMC_For_Xbox
However it would be nice to have this preset built into the program.

I've been using this preset which seems to work quite well.

frameref=":frameref=8"
mixed_refs=":mixed_refs"
bframes=":bframes=6"
b_adapt=":b_adapt=2"
b_pyramid=":b_pyramid"
weight_b=":weight_b"
subq=":subq=7"
me=":me=umh"
me_range=":me_range=32"
cabac=":nocabac"
a8x8dct=":8x8dct"
partitions=":partitions=p8x8,b8x8,i8x8,i4x4"
fast_pskip=":nofast_pskip"
keyint=":keyint=240"
keyint_min=":keyint_min=24"
qcomp=":qcomp=0.5"
ratetol=":ratetool=4.0"