MeGUI Custom x264/AVC video profiles. [Archive]

Sharktooth

24th October 2005, 21:34

Ok, since more and more ppl is asking me how to set the x264/MeGUI options, here's the solution: Profiles.

Instructions
Install MeGUI (http://megui.sf.net/) and let the autoupdate run, it will automatically fetch the profiles from the autoupdate server or if you prefer get the profiles archive (below) and use the MeGUI Import Profiles option to import them.
Once imported you will find the profiles in the "Video Profiles" drop down list. Before starting encoding set the bitrate or quantizer (manually or thru the calculator) and adjust the inloop filter accordingly to your needs/taste: keep it 1;1 or higher for anime/toons (max 3;3) and not higher than x264 defaults (0;0) for movies.

Profiles for maximizing Quality and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (2 or more passes, SLOW encoding, High Profile)
HQ-Fast: Quality profile without using advanced R/D features.
HQ-Slow: Pretty slow but not much. Quality is near the best.
HQ-Slower: Slower than HQ-Slow but it tries to squeeze some more compression thru the use of more reference frames.
HQ-Slowest: Same as HQ-Slower with more reference frames.
HQ-Insane: All settings maxed out.

Profiles for Common Encoding (2-passes)
CE-Highprofile: Common settings using high profile options (not compatible with QuickTime)
CE-Mainprofile: Common settings using main profile options (not compatible with QuickTime)
CE-QuickTime: Common settings for QuickTime 7 compatibility.
CE-Baseline: Common settings using baseline profile options (100% compatible with QuickTime 7)

Profiles for maximizing Speed and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (1-pass)
1P-Maxspeed: Everything disabled for max encoding speed (good for live capturing).
1P-Intermediate: Intermediate settings for average speed and final quality.
1P-Goodquality: Settings for good quality with 1 pass.

Profiles for constant Quality/Quantizer (1-pass)
CQ-Lossless: Lossless encoding.
CQ-ASP_Q2_equiv: Almost the equivalent of MPEG-4 ASP Q2 encoding.
CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf): Same as above but with "constant quality" (constant rate factor).

Profiles for Anime/Toons (2 passes)
AE-Standard: 2 passes, Main Profile, standard quality.
AE-Goodquality: Slower than AE-Standard, High Profile, higher quality.
AE-Maxquality: Slowest mode with maxed out settings, best quality.

Profiles for Consoles and Portable Devices
PD-PSP: Profile for Sony PSP playback.
PD-Xbox_Hires: Profile for MS XBOX and higher than 512pixels resolution (latest XBMC is needed).
PD-Xbox_LoRes: Profile for MS XBOX and lower than 512pixels resolutions (latest XBMC is needed).
PD-iPod: Profile for iPod Video based on Arstechnica settings (http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars/6).
PD-iPod 5.5G: Profile for the new iPod 5.5G.
PD-AppleTV: Profile for the AppleTV based on Kurtnoise13's findings (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1034432#post1034432).
PD-iPhone: Profile for the iPhone based on Kurtnoise13's findings (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1034432#post1034432).
PD-Nokia N95: Profile for the new Nokia N95 cellphone (created by leowai).

Profiles for HD media
SA-HD-DVD: First EXPERIMENTAL Profile for HD-DVD.
SA-HD-DVD_Fast: Still EXPERIMENTAL, but faster Profile for HD-DVD.
SA-Blu-Ray: First EXPERIMENTAL Profile for Blu-Rays.
SA-Blu-Ray_Fast: Still EXPERIMENTAL, but faster Profile for Blu-Rays.
SA-PS3-Xbox360: Profile for PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 comatibility.
SA-PS3-Xbox360_Fast: Profile for fast encoding compatible with PlayStation 3 and Xbox360.

Profiles for DXVA compatibility
DXVA-HD-HQ: High quality profile compatible with DXVA accelerated Hi-Def decoding.
DXVA-HD-Fast: Fast encoding profile compatible with DXVA accelerated Hi-Def decoding.
DXVA-SD-HQ: High quality profile compatible with DXVA accelerated Standard-Def decoding.
DXVA-SD-Fast: Fast encoding profile compatible with DXVA accelerated Standard-Def decoding.

Download link: MeGUI-x264 Custom Video Profiles. (http://mirror05.x264.nl/Sharktooth/?dir=./MeGUI/profiles)

For questions, comments and requests ask in this thread.
Thanks goes to Sirber for suggestions for Anime profiles.

DryFire

24th October 2005, 22:59

Why did you choose -2,-2 for the deblocking filter?

Sharktooth

25th October 2005, 02:13

Coz i like sharpness, however you're free to change it accordingly to your preferences.

yaz

25th October 2005, 08:32

xxlent initiative !
thx a lot
y

Sharktooth

25th October 2005, 17:18

Added "Common Encoding" profiles.
Added "Anime Encoding" profiles.
Added "1 Pass Encoding" profiles.
suggestions are welcome.

leowai

26th October 2005, 05:32

Thanks a lot Sharktooth. This will be a very good guide line for newbies. :D

BTW, just curious whether you would add more profiles for stand alone players or not?

Such as:

1. Nero Digital Certified Player. I'm not sure whether default settings will work on these players? If x264 works on these players, what's the possible settings for Max-Quality? Can High Profile in x264 be used?

2. Sony PSP (I think some information is available from bob0r's website http://x264.nl/psp/)

Cheers.

sapient

26th October 2005, 05:49

Erm... I guess its an oversight but...
the CE-Baseline actualy uses the High Profile...

yaz

26th October 2005, 09:24

@leowai
is there any ndc player supporting avc available ? drop me some links, pls.

@sharktooth
what about including these profiles into your x264 pack(s) ?
thx a lot for your efforts !

the bests
y

leowai

26th October 2005, 10:30

@leowai
is there any ndc player supporting avc available ? drop me some links, pls.
As you can see below are the AVC profiles available from Nero Recode2:
http://www.nero.com/nerodigital/eng/AVC_profiles.html

These are the Nero Digital Certified Stand Alone Player.
http://www.nero.com/nerodigital/eng/DVD_Players_Recorder.html

[edit:]
Too bad, from the website, I can't find any of the certified players support the AVC profiles yet. They all only support Main profiles ONLY. :(

stephanV

26th October 2005, 10:32

Nero Certification is for ASP, not AVC.

Sharktooth

26th October 2005, 13:23

Erm... I guess its an oversight but...
the CE-Baseline actualy uses the High Profile...
Thanks, it got "misteriously" overwritten by another profile...
Fixed.

@leowai: there are still no Nero certified AVC SAPs. Those profiles are for ASP players.

@yaz: yes, maybe i will add them in my pack.

leowai

26th October 2005, 16:28

@leowai: there are still no Nero certified AVC SAPs. Those profiles are for ASP players.
I've overlooked for the first time. Thinking of Nero Digital Certified SAPs should play those video encoded with certified profiles (Main & AVC) in Recode2. It doesn't actually.

It's just a bit strange where there is no AVC ND certified SAP since ND (with AVC profiles) had been released for months. I mean they should at least have one, shouldn't they? :D

fight2win

26th October 2005, 17:07

thanks sharktooth!

alea35

26th October 2005, 23:37

for some reason when i use any of these profiles it creates a border around the video when played back.. i have 1280x960 source avi's which i resize with avisynth to 640x480. when i play it back theres a border around all 4 sides of the video and the video is just a sqaure in the middle. any idea?

alea35

26th October 2005, 23:39

just wondering could it be the revision of x264 of using?

ggab

27th October 2005, 08:55

great!!!!

i will try the Anime's ones :)

Sharktooth

27th October 2005, 12:51

just wondering could it be the revision of x264 of using?
no idea.

27th October 2005, 13:08

More likely a problem with the Avisynth script. Perhaps it doesn't change the pixel dimensions properly?

Rafik

27th October 2005, 13:41

Hi !
Why do use 3 B frame in HQ profiles ? 0 or 1 isn't better ? If i encode a DVD in only one CD, i think i'll have a loss of quality ... But i think it's a good choice for encoding in 2 CD or a DVD-R.
Thanks !

Manao

27th October 2005, 13:43

The more bframes, the better. They are adaptively used, so 3 bframes in a row will be used only if they can improve quality.

Rafik

27th October 2005, 13:52

Thanks, now i understand this point.
another question : when MeGUI changes the options of x.264, why it doesn't change in the main x.264 codec configuration et vice versa ? who changes who ?

Sharktooth

27th October 2005, 14:43

"x.264 codec configuration" icon, configures the VFW codec, while MeGUI uses the CLI.

Rafik

27th October 2005, 15:00

c'est aussi simple que ça !
Thanks.

Sagittaire

27th October 2005, 16:09

For questions, comments and requests ask in this thread.

add if possible level profil ...
HD standalone player become and they use specific profil and level.

Sharktooth

27th October 2005, 16:27

MeGUI-x264 still doesnt support levels :(

bond

28th October 2005, 16:47

CE-Baseline: Common settings using baseline profile options (compatible with QuickTime)
quicktime handles main profile!

Sharktooth

28th October 2005, 18:16

quicktime handles main profile!
yes, it "should"... but some features are broken. baseline will work with no doubts :P

bond

28th October 2005, 21:26

yes, it "should"... but some features are broken. baseline will work with no doubts :Pwhich ones are broken?

Doom9

29th October 2005, 11:08

thanks to both aku for the level mapping and sharktooth for taking the initiative and start a MeGUI profile selection :)

panzerino

29th October 2005, 14:18

Sharktooth,

I think, it is time now someone here to say to you-THANKS for all your efforts and for the incredible MeGUI-x264 Custom video profiles. I'm simple customer. Without these profiles I was unable to achieve until now good quality. Yesterday I use some of these profiles, and they are marvelous.
Thank you again, and do not forget how many people here appreciate deeply your efforts, knowledge and kindness to share.

QuadraQ

29th October 2005, 22:59

Are any of the above profiles usable for xbox compatible x.264 encoding? If not is there any chance that one could be added? Thanks.

hpn

30th October 2005, 02:20

Sharktooth, thanks for the profiles. They are all about 10k compressed, so just one file for download instead of 4 would be simpler :). I also guess you are planning to add the profiles to "x264 Full package" in your next build, so people just install it and have the profiles automatically. Or maybe even better, Doom9 could add them to the MeGUI x264 package for those who download the x264 Lite package and MeGUI separately.

Sharktooth

30th October 2005, 15:56

which ones are broken?
Sorry, i dont remember which ones.

Are any of the above profiles usable for xbox compatible x.264 encoding? If not is there any chance that one could be added? Thanks.
Maybe, but i'll add a specific XBOX profile ASAP.

Sharktooth, thanks for the profiles. They are all about 10k compressed, so just one file for download instead of 4 would be simpler :). I also guess you are planning to add the profiles to "x264 Full package" in your next build, so people just install it and have the profiles automatically. Or maybe even better, Doom9 could add them to the MeGUI x264 package for those who download the x264 Lite package and MeGUI separately.
You're right. I'll group them in one pack and then, when they're all ready, i'll add them to the "full" installer.

QuadraQ

30th October 2005, 21:56

Maybe, but i'll add a specific XBOX profile ASAP.

Thank you! Most appreciated.

lexor

31st October 2005, 00:54

Dunno if you need any input on this, but arstechnica has a decent (as far as I can tell) MeGUI guide for putting h264 on iPod. You could take their settings as guidelines for a profile. (it would probably be best to find someone with a video iPod though, just to check stuff works)

http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars/6

oh and just to make sure, if checkboxes are checked but are grayed out, it does mean they aren't used right? (i.e. if you choose one of the HQ profiles and then baseline and then show command line, is --analyse all --8x8dct ok in the base profile? I thought that dct stuff enables high profile)

Doom9

31st October 2005, 08:58

nice. I never thought somebody else would write a guide for a software I wrote :)

Cyberace

31st October 2005, 11:09

QuadraQ

1st November 2005, 03:11

nice. I never thought somebody else would write a guide for a software I wrote :)

BTW I know I'm not the most qualified, but if there's anyway in which I could contribute to documenting MeGUI, let me know, since I have the time and some resources to contribute.

QuadraQ

1st November 2005, 05:05

Sharktooth if you need someone to help you test the xbox profile, I have a modded xbox with the latest version of xbmc and would be happy to help.

Cyberace

1st November 2005, 11:11

Profiles for Consoles
PSP: Profile for Sony PSP playback.
XBOX: Profile for XBOX (XBMC is needed).
Coming soon...VERY nice! Can't wait to see the result of those profiles in actions (after they have been fully optimized?) :cool:Sharktooth if you need someone to help you test the xbox profile, I have a modded xbox with the latest version of xbmc and would be happy to help.
MPEG4 AVC (H.264) encoding tips for the Xbox and decoding on XBMC:

Hints: Suggest you sacrifice encoding-speed to maximize quality at low-bitrates by using 2 or more encoding passes based on AVC Main-Profile or High-Quality Profile, (aim for 700MB or lower in total-size for 2-hours of encoded-video with audio, ie a 1 CD rip). Note!; Xbox only have a 733Mhz Intel Pentium-III CPU and 64MB shared-memory!, and because of the limited resourses on the Xbox it helps disabling any features in XBMC that you do not use (like ex. Python-scripts, WebServer, FTP-server), also suggest you enable the hardware-overlays renderer, lower the video-cache leverls and disable all post-processing filters in XBMC. By the way, remember that Xbox/XBMC are very good at upscaling/upconverting low-resolutions to higher-resolutions (like ex 640x480 to 720x576, and 720x576 to 720p/1080i).

Please DO use:
- Maximum resolution of 720x576 @ 25FPS and 720x480 @ 30FPS.
- ABR (Avarage Bit-Rate) for video.
- Low Bit-Rate video (suggested maximum ABR; 1400kbit/sec).
- Crop (remove) any black-bars on widescreen movies.
- CBR (Constant Bit-Rate) for audio.
- Max 448kbit/sec LC-AAC or 256kbit/sec HE-AAC audio.
- I/P/B-Frames (though a maximum of 3 b-frames in a row).
- P-Frames (though a maximum of 2 reference frames).
- Weighted Prediction.

Please DO NOT use:
- Loop/Deblocking, (XBMC does support deblocking but it slows decoding).
- Interlaced-output, (instead convert any interlaced-input to progressive).
- Anamorphic resolutions, (instead rescale/stretch as needed during encoding).
- Loop/Deblocking; (this signifantly slows decoding).
- CABAC; brings down the bitrate by ~10-15% but slows decoding signifantly.

The jury is out on these:
- Variable Block Sizes/Macroblock Partitions; decoding not supported by XBMC yet?
- 8x8 intra prediction.
- Audio downmix mode "Stereo" (output channels); 5.1 is slower to decode than 2.0?
(Remember to normilize or use dynamic-decomression the audio during encoding!)

Links to XboxMediaCenter's forum discussions regarding ACV playback on Xbox:
Nero-Digital/x264 H.264 MPEG-4 AVC codec, is the Xbox CPU powerfull enough? (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?;act=ST;f=2;t=14956)
HOW-TO play Nero AVC (H.264) in AVI by compile MPlayer with latest FFmpeg! (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=ST;f=8;t=13786)
Nero Digital MPEG-4 AVC / H264 in .MP4 containers support (feature request) (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=ST;f=4;t=8555)

PS! XBMC currently uses FFmpeg CVS from around 4th of October 2005, does that support decoding CQM (Custom Quantization Matrix) for H.264?, if not can 'old' FFmpeg before CQM still decode MPEG4 AVC (H.264) encoded with CQM? By the way; does CQM slow down decoding?, if it does even a little then CQM should probebely be disabled for the Xbox-profile anyway?

hpn

1st November 2005, 12:56

BTW I know I'm not the most qualified, but if there's anyway in which I could contribute to documenting MeGUI, let me know, since I have the time and some resources to contribute.

[OT]
Nice guide, but allow me a friendly tip: In your future guides don't use links to fixed software versions. Now for example all readers of this high-profile online magazine will keep using x264 rev.334 (if the file is not already removed from the server) in the next months or even years. It's just better to mention the original download page (Sharktooth's or bob0r's) or at least post a disclaimer that newer versions of all tools used in the guide are most likely available.

Manao

1st November 2005, 13:41

No cabac ? No inloop ? No high profile ? Use MPEG4 ASP then, h264 won't do you any good without these tools.

hpn

1st November 2005, 13:55

It's an iPod guide and unfortunately iPod doesn't support any of the HP features:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

Quote:
Video support: H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats

Manao

1st November 2005, 14:05

hpn : sadly, iPod doesn't support any of the features of the main profile either.

hpn

1st November 2005, 14:15

Yes, baseline and simple profiles only. And don't forget the small screen and all other flaws. If everything is here right now with the first generation who would buy it again in a few months when they announce the next generation. It's called marketing :)

Sharktooth

1st November 2005, 15:13

ok, i grouped all profiles in a single archive. some have been changed (anime profiles have always UMH search, hq profiles have -2;-1 as default deblocking, some other changes i dont remember...). So, please, get the update.

Sharktooth

1st November 2005, 15:15

Sharktooth if you need someone to help you test the xbox profile, I have a modded xbox with the latest version of xbmc and would be happy to help.
yes, thanks. my xbox has the CPU mod (1.4Ghz) and im not sure if halving the clockspeed it will be exactly the same as a non-CPU-modded xbox. i'll send you a PM with the xbox profile ASAP.

QuadraQ

1st November 2005, 19:01

yes, thanks. my xbox has the CPU mod (1.4Ghz) and im not sure if halving the clockspeed it will be exactly the same as a non-CPU-modded xbox. i'll send you a PM with the xbox profile ASAP.

Now I'm envious! :) Still the xbox profile should probably target the "regular" 733 Mghz xbox chip since that's what most people have (and with the right settings can still play AVC files well). If someone is lucky enough to have the chip upgrade, they should be able to use some of the more advanced profiles instead.

Cyberace

2nd November 2005, 12:31

No cabac ? No inloop ? No high profile ? Use MPEG4 ASP then, h264 won't do you any good without these tools.if you're referring to the Xbox then I agree (as MPEG-4 ASP H.263 is much more suited for playback on 'slow' hardware), however some people now insist on using MPEG-4 AVC H.264 for their encodes no matter if the result is actually of poorer quality than a properly encoded MPEG-4 ASP H.263, (I think they probably just use MPEG-4 AVC H.264 because it is the 'latest and coolest' codec out there right now), even though their stand-alone/set-on-top player can't handle it (limiting them to playing it those videos on high-end computers). But since these early-adaptor people exist and wish to use the Xbox for playback they must restrict themselves when encoding for playback on the Xbox by not using all the bells and whistles (and thus must sacrifice quality).

PS! Personally I think people with Xboxes and other stand-alone DivX/XviD-player should keep using MPEG-4 ASP H.263 for another year or so (especially if they and the majority of their friends share videos and mostly use stand-alone DivX/XviD-players to playback those videos), ....at the very least wait until the MPEG-4 AVC H.264 decoder in FFmpeg become faster at decoding MPEG-4 AVC H.264 than it currently does, and until x264 and other MPEG-4 AVC H.264 codecs becomes more efficient at encoding video in lower bit-rate with higher quality (like how the XviD and DivX codecs have evolved over the years). The developers of the x264 codec and the H.264 decoder in FFmpeg have made loads of progress over the last year and will most likely continue doing so during the year(s) to come, optimizing it and speeding it up enough to make playback on slower machines closer by every month that passes.

Sharktooth

2nd November 2005, 15:41

a xbox with the CPU mod is able to decode h.264 HP @ SD with almost all the bells and wisthles... pretty good for a 1.4Ghz cpu...

Sirber

3rd November 2005, 00:35

to use a matrice it's only:

--cqmfile mp4_guy's_AVC_Low_Bitrate_matrix.cfg

?

Thanks!

QuadraQ

3rd November 2005, 06:28

...(I think they probably just use MPEG-4 AVC H.264 because it is the 'latest and coolest' codec out there right now)...

I know for me I just like being in on the ground floor of a codec that I think will have a much longer reach than any of the MPEG-4 ASP implementations. DivX/Xvid/Nero are great, but I don't think we'll ever really see the support for these in the broad consumer hardware, like we will for MPEG-4 AVC (eventually - good things are worth waiting for).

(Actually we might in the form of backward compatibility, but if it supports AVC, I'd rather use that than ASP)

I prefer to watch things on my TV so the the xbox is good for testing. As you said the optimization for slower processors like the xbox should improve, so I'll be able to help test that out.

OddbOd77

3rd November 2005, 07:14

Sharktooth

3rd November 2005, 15:00

to use a matrice it's only:

--cqmfile mp4_guy's_AVC_Low_Bitrate_matrix.cfg

?

Thanks!
yes or --cqm "flat"/--cqm "jvt" (presets).

Sharktooth

3rd November 2005, 15:03

Sharktooth, could I also have a copy of the XBMC profile? I've been trying for days to cook up a profile that works properly but despite the videos playing fine, when I skip backwards or forwards XBMC (CVS 2005-10-23) glitches or crashes. It doesn't happen with encodes from Nero so I must be doing something wrong.
well, i've fixed the motherboard of my old Xbox so now i have two of them to test the megui profile. gimme some time and i'll put everything online.

Sharktooth

4th November 2005, 15:20

V2: added Trellis RD to the profiles. Requires MeGUI-x264 0.2.3.0 (included in x264-Full_r362+)

pwh04

4th November 2005, 22:19

Wow - just installed 362 b today and getting almost double fps! with virtually same settings..

hpn

4th November 2005, 22:50

HQ-Insane: Same as HQ-Slowest but performs 3 passes.
Sharktooth, in the current profiles HQ-Insane has --trellis 2 while HQ-Slowest has --trellis 1, so either they are not the same as you say in the description, or HQ-Slowest should also be changed to -t 2. I would also recommend you change the profile names, even if you have to use long names (no problem even with 50 chars or so), because the current names are somewhat nondescript. Each time I start MeGUI I have to look at this thread to remind myself what profile is good for (especially when MeGUI randomizes the profiles name order in the drop-down list - I guess Doom9 should fix it). Or at least include a "readme.txt" with profile descriptions (the same as in your first post) in the .7z file.

A possible bug: when I select HQ-Insane, I see "--analyse none" in the MeGUI commandline, no matter that all macroblocks are supposed to be selected. I don't know if this is a bug in MeGUI or something wrong with the HQ-Insane profile (maybe something related to the 3-pass encode) or maybe not a bug at all.

Doom9

4th November 2005, 23:02

"--analyse none" is turbo involved? that results in analyse none even if all mb options are checked.
MeGUI randomizes the profiles name order in the drop-down listNot true.. I get a directory listing from the filesystem... they'll always be in the same order. The dropdown is sorted alphabetically on top of that, and the settings file saves the profile that was active when you quit.. it's all fully deterministic.

hpn

4th November 2005, 23:20

It's sorted alphabetically in the input tab, but for some reason in the x264 configuration dialog I see this:

http://img487.imageshack.us/img487/3086/order1jz.png

Yes "--analyse none" is only when turbo is checked. I wasn't aware until now. Shouldn't turbo be unchecked authomatically if the user selects a profile explicitly conflicting with the turbo behaviour?

Doom9

5th November 2005, 00:12

I wouldn't call unnoticeable loss of quality and a double digit speed gain conflicting with anything. And it appears the profile comes with turbo checked.
As far as the codec configuration screens go, in fact none of them has the sort flag set for the profile, so yes, they are rather at random, but they should always be in the same order nontheless.. they are in an order.. the order the profile names get when being put in a hashtable but that order is normally not humanly comprehensible unless you know which hashing algorithm is used (which I don't have any doubts could be found out). the next release will have all profile dropdowns sorted alphabetically.

hpn

5th November 2005, 00:29

the next release will have all profile dropdowns sorted alphabetically.It would be nice. Thank you.

And it appears the profile comes with turbo checked.
Now I'm a little confused.

Sharktooth

5th November 2005, 14:53

All profiles have turbo option checked. I fixed the trellis thing for Insane profile on the first post.

Doom9

5th November 2005, 15:21

turbo = --analyse none for the first pass..

Sharktooth

5th November 2005, 15:39

I upgraded the profiles for MeGUI-x264 0.2.3.1.
Profiles now include B-RDO. I also refined some profiles.

Chainmax

5th November 2005, 16:26

All profiles have turbo option checked. I fixed the trellis thing for Insane profile on the first post.

Why do that even on the "insane" and "slowest" profiles? Also, is it safe to assume that x264's AQ isn't completely mature yet since it's not enabled in any profile?

Sharktooth

5th November 2005, 16:42

Coz turbo has a so small influence on final quality it can be safely left enabled.
Also i didnt enable AQ coz its settings depends highly on the source.

redfordxx

5th November 2005, 18:47

Hi,

does anyone have an experience/recommendation which setting in x264 can be tweaked to improve decoding speed with not big quality loss? I don't care encoding speed...
I wanna do some 720p encodes and with my Athlon XP 2600+ (which doesn't seem to be overclocking-friendly) the playback is at some 90-100% processorload without audio.

How about profiles like:
Terribly-slow-encoding-but-normal-playback
Terribly-slow-encoding-but-fast-playback

Doom9

6th November 2005, 15:47

I have a suggestion with regards to the hardware dependant profiles: For hardware playback, audio also matters so it would be good to also have a corresponding audio profile.

Sharktooth

6th November 2005, 16:11

@Doom9: Well, video profiles will be included in my builds once they're all ready. Since audio encoding is not intended to be there (i mean with my x264 binaries) i think audio profiles will be a separate thing.

Hi,

does anyone have an experience/recommendation which setting in x264 can be tweaked to improve decoding speed with not big quality loss? I don't care encoding speed...
I wanna do some 720p encodes and with my Athlon XP 2600+ (which doesn't seem to be overclocking-friendly) the playback is at some 90-100% processorload without audio.

How about profiles like:
Terribly-slow-encoding-but-normal-playback
Terribly-slow-encoding-but-fast-playback
1)Try combinations of those options: Lower the reference frames, lower b-frames, disable mixed refs, disable 8x8dct, disable some Partitions.
2)If it's not enaugh disable inloop deblocking
3)If it's still not enaugh try disabling CABAC (but that will hit compression ratio quite a lot).

For what concerns profiles, i will think about them.

redfordxx

6th November 2005, 16:58

First, as I haven't been able to find any complete and up-to date doc for x264 (may be you'll advice), I don't know what do some features mean.
1)Try combinations of those options: Lower the reference frames, lower b-frames, disable mixed refs, disable 8x8dct, disable some Partitions.Reference frames means, that different motion blocks in one frame can refer to blocks in certain number of other frames, right?
What is mixed refs for?
What is 8x8dct for?
Partifitons mean this qpel search or so? I thought it's encoding time consuming only

2)If it's not enaugh disable inloop deblockingI thought this relates to encoding, so at decoding time it won't slow down

When I will test the speed, is it relevant when test in on single pass fixquant only?

Cyberace

7th November 2005, 14:51

First, as I haven't been able to find any complete and up-to date doc for x264 (may be you'll advice), I don't know what do some features mean.
Reference frames means, that different motion blocks in one frame can refer to blocks in certain number of other frames, right?
What is mixed refs for?
What is 8x8dct for?
Partifitons mean this qpel search or so? I thought it's encoding time consuming onlyThis thread answers most those questions => http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96059 ;)

[QUOTE=Sharktooth]2)If it's not enaugh disable inloop deblockingI thought this relates to encoding, so at decoding time it won't slow downinloop deblocking signifigantly slows down decoding too

bond

7th November 2005, 15:21

does anyone have an experience/recommendation which setting in x264 can be tweaked to improve decoding speed with not big quality loss? I don't care encoding speed...
I wanna do some 720p encodes and with my Athlon XP 2600+ (which doesn't seem to be overclocking-friendly) the playback is at some 90-100% processorload without audio.

How about profiles like:
Terribly-slow-encoding-but-normal-playback
Terribly-slow-encoding-but-fast-playbackdecoding speed also heavily differs between different decoders even if the same settings are used

check the stickies!

redfordxx

7th November 2005, 15:49

Bond,

I have read your explanation, referenced by Cyberace. It's nice.
I only don't understand 2 things:

Example: Multiple reference frames
when set eg to 10 it means
1) the frame can reference to frame max 10 frames before
2) the macroblocks in one frame can refer to diferrent frames within 1-10 frames before
or is that the mixed parameter?
and for B-frames similar...

Second, what is 8x8 intra prediction?

....You wanted suggestions, I post it here.

fiorettoe

8th November 2005, 09:39

When is planning the constant quality profiles?

Thank you

smok3

8th November 2005, 11:02

slightly offtopic, but when i try to construct the command line for x264, how and where can i check what profile will/did happen? (baseline, main, high?)

also how that sharktooths baseline profile looks like in command line? (can somebody using the gui copy/paste the cli please?)

(so far i have random results with x264/mp4box -> qt7 compatibility, no idea whats going on.)

Doom9

8th November 2005, 11:06

@smok3: there's no list, but you can either look at the sourcecode of MeGUI - it contains the entire logic of profile and level mapping to x264 options, or just run the software and enable commandline preview.

smok3

8th November 2005, 11:09

Doom9: ic, i kinda thought that profile will show directly on cli somehow B)

---

another slightly offtopic question: why is vfw version of x264 even made if the mp4 is to be the one?

Doom9

8th November 2005, 11:20

i kinda thought that profile will show directly on cli somehow B)No, it's a complex set of rules.. there are many ways you can screw up by writing your own commandlines because there's so much interdependency between certain options.. it goes far beyond just profiles. To the best of my knowledge, MeGUI is the only software at this point that fully implements this logic.

Sharktooth

9th November 2005, 13:18

Due to a bug in MeGUI-x264 almost 1 pass and main/baseline profiles were b0rked.
A new archive is up with fixed profiles and Portable Devices/Consoles profiles.

@doom9: the bugreport is in the main megui thread.

@all the xbox fans: please test the xbox profile and report back, thanks:)

Sharktooth

9th November 2005, 14:31

leowai

9th November 2005, 15:32

@Sharktooth,
Just a small matter. The title doesn't reflex the correct date of update. It should be "2005-11-9" rather than "2005-1-9", right?

Sharktooth

9th November 2005, 15:41

@Sharktooth,
Just a small matter. The title doesn't reflex the correct date of update. It should be "2005-11-9" rather than "2005-1-9", right?
right... :)

updated the profiles archive. V6 adds megui default settings profile.

QuadraQ

11th November 2005, 03:15

Hi Sharktooth,

I downloaded v6 of the profile pack and used the Xbox video profile in MeGUI 2.3.1b using Finding Nemo as my test. Used Low Complexity constant bitrate (128) for my AAC audio using the Nero AAC encoder.

Loaded it on to my Xbox hard drive and tried it using the 10-9-05 build of Xbox Media Center. Was unable to play the video because after the Disney and Pixar introductions (which played smooth as silk) the actual movie stuttered so bad it was unplayable. Any suggestions?

Sharktooth

11th November 2005, 03:26

yeah... i have to update the xbox profile coz not everyone will tweak their xbmc settings to have a smoother playback.

EDIT: what resolution and bitrate did you set? also, did you disable any kind of postprocessing or any other video filters?

Chainmax

11th November 2005, 03:32

Mooo... replaced 3 passes with 2 since MeGUI-x264 Automated-3-pass in conjunction with "turbo" is buggy and produces suboptimal quality...
If you prefer i can restore 3 passes... but without "fast first pass" (aka turbo).

Would configuring each of the three passes, manually queueing(sp?) them one by one and still using "turbo" produce suboptimal results too?

Sharktooth

11th November 2005, 03:39

didnt test it.

Chainmax

11th November 2005, 12:43

I just encoded a sample from Trigun this way with deblocking 0/0 and it turned out perfect, whereas using automated 3 passes it needed deblockign 2/2 to look good. I should probably conduct more tests, but I'd say that setting each pass manually avoids the issue.

Sharktooth

11th November 2005, 13:17

Ok, thanks :)
However i should wait until doom9 fixes megui.

Doom9

11th November 2005, 13:55

Would configuring each of the three passes, manually queueing(sp?) them one by one and still using "turbo" produce suboptimal results too?No.. if you configure manually, you see what you get right away.. if turbo still mucks up, just disable it before going from 3 pass first pass to 3 pass second/third pass. That way, nothing can go wrong.

BTW, you can just load the 2nd and 3rd job created by automated 3 pass, go into the x264 configuration, and make it so that turbo is disabled.. then update the job.

vendol21

15th November 2005, 10:48

Hi all.
@XBOX users
I made some tests using x264 VFW with all the nice stuff (CABAC, Deblocking Filter 16 refs, 2 bframes, 500-700 bitrate and 576, 640 res) with mp3 audio .avi format. My XBOX (recent CVS XBMC) can handle this avi with no problems at all. When i use the CLI (not Sharkstooths XBOX profile) with the same options but .mp4 and aac format XMBC freeze after 10 mins of normal playback and also cant go ff and rew.

Sharktooth

15th November 2005, 13:32

I (and the xbmc devs) dont think xbox is able to keep up with cabac and deblocking.
Even if you use 576*xxx the xbox CPU has simply not enaugh horse power. So, something went "wrong" with your VFW encode.

Sharktooth

15th November 2005, 14:09

Profiles updated.

PD-Xbox: removed weighted prediction and lowered the max b-frames from 3 to 2. Ensure you use 640*xxx resolutions and one of the latest XBMC CVS builds.

HQ-Slower: rised reference frames from 8 to 10.

helix

16th November 2005, 09:41

I keep getting over sized encodes for some reason that I've failed to find. I tried using several different profiles to see if that was the souce, and changed the bitrate, but they all seem to come out around 10Mb over each time. Here's the setup -

http://tinypic.com/ftdh5u.jpg

And here's the final encode, not at the correct size.

http://tinypic.com/ftdh88.jpg

There's no audio at all involved with this.
Just for the record, video res is: 704x400 23.976fps.

The log: As far as I can see, the bitrate is right where is should be, so it's not that. Is the container overhead factored in here, or am I missing something completly?

job job1-1 has been processed. This job is linked to the next job: job1-2
Next job job1-2 is a video job. encoder commandline:
"x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 931 --stats "E:\Documents and Settings\Phil\Desktop\Script.stats" --ref 3 --bframes 3 --weightb --analyse all --8x8dct --progress --no-psnr --output "D:\Video Encoding\Test - 300Mb aim.mkv" "E:\Documents and Settings\Phil\Desktop\Script.avs"
successfully set up video encoder and callbacks for job job1-2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job1-2

avis [info]: 704x400 @ 23.98 fps (67362 frames)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities MMX MMXEXT SSE 3DNow!
x264 [info]: slice I:626 Avg QP:21.32 size: 29991
x264 [info]: slice P:24500 Avg QP:24.21 size: 8652
x264 [info]: slice B:42236 Avg QP:25.48 size: 2280
x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 13.4% 31.2% 55.4%
x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 4.2% 8.5% 4.5% P16..4: 36.2% 11.3% 5.5% 1.3% 0.9% skip:27.7%
x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.4% 0.7% 0.4% B16..8: 31.0% 1.4% 2.3% direct: 2.6% skip:61.3%
x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:47.2% inter:34.7%
x264 [info]: ref P 84.9% 9.7% 5.4%
x264 [info]: ref B 92.6% 5.0% 2.3%
x264 [info]: kb/s:931.2

Actual bitrate after encoding without container overhead: 931.26
desired video bitrate of this job: 931 kbit/s - obtained video bitrate: 933.749626594739 kbit/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

berrinam

16th November 2005, 10:53

helix

16th November 2005, 12:26

Well it seems the final encode is actually 46:46, while MeGUI had it at 44:54? That explains the frame discrepancy, but why the wrong time?

Sharktooth

16th November 2005, 14:10

uhm... corrupted stats file?

smok3

16th November 2005, 15:14

whats the inloop filter range? i thought it is between -2 to 6 (megui seems to allow -6 to 6)

Sharktooth: whats the difference between 100% compatibility and compatibility? (talking about dogmatic quicktime)

Sharktooth

16th November 2005, 15:20

the difference is "100% compatible" is tested and works OK, while "compatible" means it's made to comply with the quicktime decoding capabilities but it is not assured to work 100% of the times.
Blame apple for that...

smok3

16th November 2005, 15:30

tnx,
another question, what is --b-rdo (used in 1P-goodquality)?
doesn't seem to work with my x264 (core:40 svn-367).

(full command line seems to be:
"x264.exe" --bitrate 1000 --ref 3 --bframes 3 --no-b-adapt --filter -2,-2 --subme 6 --b-rdo --weightb --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4 --progress --no-psnr --output "" "" )

Sharktooth

16th November 2005, 15:39

it works with MY builds of x264. other builds could not have the b-rdo patch.
it uses Rate/Distortion optimizations on B-Frames too.

smok3

16th November 2005, 15:45

right, i was using the 'wrong' compile.

Sharktooth

16th November 2005, 15:48

However you remembered me to add that info on the first post... thanks:)

QuadraQ

17th November 2005, 18:47

Hey Sharktooth,

I tried the latest version of the xbox profile (v7) along with MeGUI (Full) 0.2.3.1b and tried a backup of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Resolution 640 x 352 using Nero for audio (Low complexity profile). Still not working on my xbox, a little better but no cigar. What settings should I use in XMC to optomize performance? Also I'm using the 10-09-05 release build, should I be using a daily build?

Sharktooth

17th November 2005, 18:48

use a daily build... yours it's outdated and libavcodec is faster now also ensure postprocessing and blur are disabled.

Velocity 7

18th November 2005, 03:06

Nice work on the profiles.

Shouldn't this thread be pinned?

Sharktooth

18th November 2005, 03:21

dunno... they will be added (one day) to my x264-Full builds.

Sharktooth

18th November 2005, 14:32

Any news from the xbox front?
in the meantime i updated the profiles.
Changes: Rewritten CE profiles (added QuickTime specific profile and modified the others).
General tweaking of other profiles.

Cyberace

19th November 2005, 13:28

Any news from the xbox front?yes => http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=ST;f=2;t=14956;st=15
Sounds like if lower the resolution to half the native DVD-Video resolution (ie. 360x240 for NTSC or 360x288 for PAL) then you can enable both CABAC and Deblocking without dropping frames at playback on the Xbox, the result will look better than if the video was encoded 640x480 without CABAC and Deblocking (if the same bit-rate is used).

PS! Always remember the golden rule in video and audio transcoding; "garbage in, garbage out", meaning if the original 'input' source video/audio look/sound like crap then the 'output' result will also look/sound like crap ;) so always use the best possible input source available, (eg. if you have or can get/borrow the original DVD9 DVD-Video disc then use than instead of a DVD5 transcoded rip).

Sharktooth

19th November 2005, 15:26

uhm, i have my doubts a so low resolution will look better.
However, use those tweaks to improve your xbox AVC playback:
By Rabomil on the xbmc forum

The cache settings are really important to play AVC files without problems. These are the settings I use. But it is important to know that I'm only playing movies from dvd or harddisk. I adjusted my cache settings according to that.

Video/Audio/DVD Cache - harddisk 3072 KB
Video Cache - DVDRom 8192 KB
Audio Cache - DVDRom 512 KB
DVD Cache - DVDRom 4096 KB

ALL OTHER PARAMETERS 0 KB
Also ensure to have all services disabled (ftp, http, telnet ...).

Cyberace

20th November 2005, 17:13

Well XBMC scale low-resolution video very well to full screen without loosing too much quality, and bit-rate have a lot to do with it too, the higher resolution you use the higher bit-rate you have to use to keep the same quality; so personaly I think 360x240 H.264 video @ 1500kb/s bit-rate looks better than 720x480 H.264 video @ 1500kb/s bit-rate (with otherwise the same encoding settings) when played back on an Xbox.

Sharktooth

21st November 2005, 16:08

360x240 @1500bps is an overkill bitrate. 1500 would be enaugh high to have a dvd like 2.35:1 non-anamorphic encode at DVD (720x304) resolution.

Sharktooth

24th November 2005, 17:52

Readded 3 passes for AE-Maxquality and HQ-Insane profiles.

DeathTheSheep

24th November 2005, 18:06

360x240 H.264 video @ 1500kb/s bit-rate looks better than 720x480 H.264 video @ 1500kb/s bit-rate

It will look smoother, I can give you that-- but whether or not you'd want to sacrifice the detail of 720x480 is another story...

Try 360x240 at 600kbps. Betcha can't tell the difference ;)

Sharktooth

24th November 2005, 18:30

New version is up (v10).
New profiles added (CQ), more info on the first post.
The list is completed. If you have some idea talk now or shut up forever (j/k) :D
I need the final "compatibility" results for the PD profiles too... so if anyone wants to test them please do it now, before i add those profiles to the x264-full package.

QuadraQ

24th November 2005, 20:37

OK I finally had some time to download a daily build of XBMC (11-21-05) and install it. Turned off post processing in the options, and tried Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that I did previously with version 7 of the profiles and still no luck. Any ideas? Are there others settings I need to set in XBMC? I'm playing the movie of the Xbox hard drive BTW.

Sharktooth

24th November 2005, 20:42

uhm... can you check the libavcodec version of your build?

QuadraQ

24th November 2005, 21:04

how do I find it? I don't see any "libavcodec" or "libav*" files in my XBMC folder.

hpn

24th November 2005, 22:19

Profiles for maximizing Speed and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (1-pass)1P-Maxspeed: Everything disabled for max encoding speed.
Just curious. Any special reason for enabling Chroma ME and Deblock Filter in the max speed profile? They do give you about 0.6dB gain, but slows you down about 2 fps (23 to 21 for example). Because it is supposed that the size doesn't matter for this particular profile I would offer you to raise the bitrate from 1000 to 1250 and add "--nf --no-croma" and you'll get the same PSNR but 2 frames faster so it will become really max speed profile :)

btw if someone knows anything faster than
x264 -q 51 -A none -m 1 --nf --no-chroma-me --no-cabac --me dia --no-psnr -o b.mp4 b.avs

just let me know. I've been experimenting with some real time x264 captures (720x576/25fps) from my TV card lately but I'm always 4-5 frames below real time (usually using -q 18 to 24).

Sharktooth

24th November 2005, 22:34

@hpn: ok... let's disable loop and chroma ME... in the next version :)
however the bitrate is indicative and not intended to be a fixed value in the profile... :)

@QuadraQ: is it a CVS build or a modified build (Expert, Gasgiver, Pimped, etc...) ?

hpn

24th November 2005, 23:25

however the bitrate is indicative and not intended to be a fixed value in the profile... :)
Sure. However I suspect that most people using profiles tend not to change anything, including the bitrate :)

One more thing (I think I've mentioned this before). Just replace CE, 1P, AE, HQ etc in the profiles name with their long meaningful names:

example:
"CE-Baseline.xml" -> "CommonEncoding-Baseline.xml"
"AE-Standard.xml" -> "AnimeToons-Standard.xml"
etc.

I feel that until you do this, the profiles, no matter how good they are, will be simply unusable (and are now) for the casual (and not only) user. The long names may seem a little uglier in the drop-down MeGUI lists, but this is the only way to go if you really want someone to use them. The only thing that you or doom9 may need to tweak in the MeGUI code is to make both profile fields on the main form (especially) and on the x264 codec configuration form 15 pixels wider. There is enough space for it ;)

Sharktooth

25th November 2005, 04:25

well, once they get included in x264-Full package they will come with some "docs".

QuadraQ

25th November 2005, 08:13

Well I'm not sure what version I have to be honest Sharktooth. I believe it's a CVS build, I just grabbed the latest off xbins and installed it today.

Hyper Shinchan

26th November 2005, 17:47

I've downloaded your profiles yesterday and I'm using them with the latest build of megui, but why the PSP profile is baseline and isn't it main? PSP allows multilpe b-frames and reference frames (max 2 b-frames and 2 reference frames, from my tests). And it allows all the Main profile tools excluding pyramid b-frames.
I'd like that you correct this setting, because it's full of guys that claims that "psp=portable shit player" coz it has the problem of mp4 specs and limitations in fps and resolution... and maybe they don't know all the potential of psp (a setting with the 16:9 aspect ratio setted by default is good either).
Or there is a motif that you've setted the baseline profile (and no-b frames and multiple reference frames)?

Sharktooth

26th November 2005, 22:11

Sharktooth

26th November 2005, 22:34

V11 changes:
Removed Loop Filter and Chroma ME in 1P-Maxspeed profile.
Modified the PD-PSP profile to maximize the final quality.
Profiles are now included with x264-Full_r375C package.

Hyper Shinchan

26th November 2005, 23:19

I based the PSP profile on the informations i found on this forum and on the web.
So if you're absolutely sure the PSP can handle main profile with 2 b-frames and 2 refs i can modify the profile accordingly to your findings.
However my PSP died so i cant test it by myself.
Well, I'm absolutely sure that it uses Main profile, and from my tests it seems that it can handle all these tools. I've the 2.5 upgrade, so I'm not sure if it's because I have this firmware, but I don't think that it has more features than the 2.0 firmware.
P.S.: your psp died?!?! Downgrade problems?

Sharktooth

26th November 2005, 23:22

No, "hitting the ground" problems...
However now the profiles are included in the full package. There are some basic docs too (the things written in the first post of this thread).

@all: if you have your own custom profiles and you want them included (only if they're usefull and correctly working) in the x264 daily builds, please post them here. Also testing is not finished, i just included the profiles into daily builds to have a wider "battlefield".

Hyper Shinchan

26th November 2005, 23:44

Oh the good old problem! My old Game Boy had the same problem too ^_^
Yep,I'll post a good profile if I'll find a good one. Anyway a little off topic question: what is the correct 16:9 aspect ratio for a 320x240 resolution? I'm using 36:27, is it good?

Sharktooth

27th November 2005, 04:22

What's the original resolution/AR?

Sharktooth

27th November 2005, 16:35

New cache parameters for XBMC (thanks to Rabomil).
The cache settings are really important to play AVC files without problems. These are the settings I use. But it is important to know that I'm only playing movies from dvd or harddisk. I adjusted my cache settings according to that.

Video/Audio/DVD Cache - harddisk 4096 KB
Video Cache - DVDRom 7168 KB
Audio Cache - DVDRom 256 KB
DVD Cache - DVDRom 4096 KB

ALL OTHER PARAMETERS 0 KB

Hyper Shinchan

27th November 2005, 19:22

Backflip

28th November 2005, 01:40

Tried latest latest Sharktooth x264 build + PD-Xbox profile + latest XBMC, pretty much latest everything (even updated MP4box recently). The changed cache settings look to be pretty essential to get smooth playback.

- Only thing I changed in the PD-Xbox profile was to 3-pass auto.
- I queued video (640x272) and audio (128/2CH/LC-AAC (HQ)) encoding separately, then muxed both together at the end.
- I encoded a trailer with slow and fast movement (Nostalgia trailer from Star Wars Episode 3).

Before changing the cache it'd drop over 8 frames, after changing cache, no dropped frames.

Sharktooth

28th November 2005, 04:15

Oh my... this cache settings are the bitrate buffer or what else? Anyay I've tried your profile, adding also mixed refernce frames and (for me) it works. Can anyone else try this setting with yours psp?

720x576 16:9, generally. How can I apply the resolution and the A/R to my target 320x240 (i'm not expert with this A/R problem, I'm used to encoding to square pixels).
In my profile I've added the "--level 3" string to make it compliance with the Main L3 that PSP claim to be compatible. I've tried also other level and they work, but I'm not sure about the safe use of this settings.
x264 uses SAR and 16:9 is DAR. The formula for converting the aspect ratio from DAR to SAR is explained in the FAQs (Q17) in the x264 daily builds sticky thread.

@Backflip: Rabomil managed to enable cabac and loop filter with 640*xxx resolution without having frame skips. That sounds pretty interesting, dont you think?

Backflip

28th November 2005, 07:52

I just read through the XBMC forums thread about it, but wasn't it talk about needing to lower the resolution to 320x*** and then CABAC and deblocking may have been possible? Anywho I'll give it a try - 640x272 w/ CABAC and deblocking enabled.

edit - encoded @ 640x272 + CABAC and Deblock (0,0). The video is pretty much a slideshow with the audio playing at normal speed.

Cyberace

28th November 2005, 14:06

Suggestion; separate profile/profiles for '3D' CG (Computer Graphics) movies (such as ex: Madagascar)

Backflip

28th November 2005, 14:23

Sharktooth

28th November 2005, 14:31

Sharktooth

28th November 2005, 14:33

Suggestion; separate profile/profiles for '3D' CG (Computer Graphics) movies (such as ex: Madagascar)
There's not much difference (if any) from the HQ profiles.

Limobar

28th November 2005, 18:31

Dunno if it's a fair contest, but I encoded at a 336x144 the same trailer. This time I used CABAC and deblocking. I had to use a lower file size / bitrate because I kept on getting errors that suggested I should either lower bitrate or change qauntizer. Dunno how much to adjust quantizer by though :(

Clip played ok, but was clearly poorer than the other 640x272 -no CABAC -no deblocking file, but however I did use half the bitrate on the 336x144 encode.

Try using AC-3 sound instead of AAC. AAC uses quite some sources.

x264, 640x272, ac-3 (multichannel), cabac, b-frames, deblocking. It's all possible. Try my sample, with the mentioned before cache settings I use.

Rabomil aka Limobar

Sharktooth

28th November 2005, 22:21

I will split the PD-Xbox profile in PD-Xbox_Hi-res and PD-Xbox_Lo-res. "Hi-res" will be the actual one (maybe with some other tweaks).
The "Lo-res" one will have CABAC, Deblocking and other stuff enabled.

Backflip

29th November 2005, 02:51

Try using AC-3 sound instead of AAC. AAC uses quite some sources.

x264, 640x272, ac-3 (multichannel), cabac, b-frames, deblocking. It's all possible. Try my sample, with the mentioned before cache settings I use.

Rabomil aka Limobar

Gotta change to Mencoder or something for support of writing AVC with AC3 audio? I prefer to stick with Sharktooth's x264.exe at this time. Maybe I'll change container though.

edit - tried 640x272 x264 + original 2CH AC3 + CABAC + Deblocking in an MKV container. All other PD-Xbox settings unchanged.

Got 19 dropped frames.

edit2 - tried a lower bitrate encode 640x272 x264 + 128Kbps LC-AAC + CABAC + Deblocking *MP4*. No dropped frames. Bitrate average according to MeGUI's calculated was around 695 kbps.

Sharktooth

30th November 2005, 17:20

v12: updated PD-Xbox profiles.

Sharktooth

2nd December 2005, 04:43

any reports?
QT? X-box? iPod? PSP?

DarkFoon

4th December 2005, 01:27

quake74

4th December 2005, 09:52

I'm encoding some tv stuff for PSP but I have a problem with compression: during the second pass the fps starts dropping below 10fps and continues to go down. I know somebody else who had the same problem and I sent him a PM, still waiting for an answer. Now I'll trim the source and see if that helps.

berrinam

4th December 2005, 10:00

@quake74: Why is this a problem? Perhaps x264 is just having to search harder for MVs, or do other complex calculations.

quake74

4th December 2005, 10:20

@quake74: Why is this a problem? Perhaps x264 is just having to search harder for MVs, or do other complex calculations.

Well, I know encoding x264 is harder, but it cannot be 100 times harder. The speed goes below 10fps and it continues to decrease, after 1hr (for a 29 mins clip) it was telling me that 2 more hours were needed, and so I decided to abort. Anyway, doing more tests as we speak with the latest x264.

Sharktooth

5th December 2005, 14:11

right now I'm working on some TV caps for a friend with quicktime (they are mac-only)
They'll have it by monday, and hopefully will report back to me if it plays or not.
I'm using the quicktime profile, but I've made it 3-pass because I didn't think it would affect compatability. That won't affect it will it?
No it won't :)

@quake74: that behaviour is perfectly normal and below 10fps is still perfectly normal...
can you post your x264 commandline options and your system specs?

Sharktooth

5th December 2005, 15:05

V13: Updated PD-iPod profile with Level 1.3.

Sharktooth

5th December 2005, 18:52

V14: Updated CE-QuickTime profile with 5 reference frames and 1 B-Frame.

Randall

5th December 2005, 19:03

FYI QuickTime can do up to 2 B-Frames. I'm not sure why you experienced a jerky picture with more then 1 B-Frame, but I haven't experienced this problem at all yet using 2 B-Frames.

quake74

5th December 2005, 21:47

Ok, I reinstalled everything and maybe the slowdowns are gone, but I am only doing tests on trailers so it takes just 5 mins to encode them anyway (and it doesn't have time to go below 20fps).
I tested the results from megui against the ones with pspvideo9 (well, ffmpeg) using http://compression.ru/video/quality_measure/perceptual_video_quality_tool_en.html
comparing 256kbps and 384kbps for both encoders. The bframes do improve the picture: using the Madagascar (HD) trailer I can recognize the megui one but the 384 from ffmpeg is still better than the 256 from megui. I tried also with the Doom trailer, but it's a lot harder to spot the differences. The differences are visible on the psp screen as well, but you need to know where to look.

I could try increasing the bframes or using pyramid, but if somebody else confirms they do not work, I'd rather not waste my time..

puffpio

5th December 2005, 21:54

2nd pass taking 3 hours for a 30 min clip w/ x264 seems reasonable depending on your cpu speed and what settings used

a 45 min clip using sharktooth's hq-insane profile takes about 23 hours for the 2nd and 3rd pass each...12 hours on the first pass (athlon xp 3000+)... (using tdeint + ff3dfilter)
without any avisynth filters (except deinterlace) it would take abuot 3 hours on the first pass and 14-15 hours on the second and third passes each.

Sharktooth

5th December 2005, 22:00

FYI QuickTime can do up to 2 B-Frames. I'm not sure why you experienced a jerky picture with more then 1 B-Frame, but I haven't experienced this problem at all yet using 2 B-Frames.
I know, but i tried it by myself (reinstalling CrapTime 7.03) and i experienced the same "skippy" behaviour.
Maybe "Adaptive B.frames" kicked in in your encodes and limited the b.frames number...

Backflip

6th December 2005, 10:21

In terms of Xbox, it's still a little hit & miss as to what you can expect to be able to play and not.

With normal settings @ 640x272 resolution playback there were dropped frames on the encode I did, if I had enabled CABAC and Loop.. created in a x264 + 2CH AC3 *MKV* file. Keeping in mind that was for the particular Star Wars Nostalgia - slow / fast action teaser trailer. Even Limobar had the same dropped frames. However, Limobar requested I upload the Nostalgia teaser (from Star Wars Episode 3) to him so he could do other tests and report back I assumed. He's since encoded the teaser using Nero AVC with CABAC and deblocking options enabled @ 720x304 res @ 2Mbit/s. He says this plays ok on his Xbox. I can't play it without dropped frames on mine, even with adjusted Cache settings.

I was actually waiting for Limobar to give the details of his tests, but alas he hasn't replied which is disappointing. Another agenda he has perhaps. I did suggest he could post his findings because it'd be helpful, but ah well.

bond

6th December 2005, 12:21

I've noticed a few wierd things going on with Sharktooth's x264 build 381.
It seems that after about 1 hour of encoding, (on any pass without 'turbo' turned on)
the fps just begins to slow down. I'd call it a memory leak, except it isn't. Its like a processor leak, if such a thing exists.
It doesn't even matter what the source is, anime or 'real' video. Or how long it is, ~30mins or ~60 mins. Just after 1 hour of encoding (not one hour of source, mind you), the fps starts dropping from about 7 fps until it reaches something like .96 fps. It would probably drop even further if it weren't for the encode being done.
I've only noticed this problem since I upgraded to Sharktooth's build 381. The earlier one worked just fine.
Is this a known issue? (am I in the right thread?)1) this doesnt belong to this thread
2) you already posted exactly the same in the x264 dev thread (where it belongs), so no need to doublepost

striked

quake74

6th December 2005, 12:54

@darkfoon: I had the same problem (see my post above) but I'm doing tests with small samples, so maybe it's gone, or maybe not.

Need help from PSP people: I encoded the Madsagascar trailer (the happy birthday songs cracks me up everytime) with 3 ref (and 2 bframes) or using pyramid bframes, and they don't play ("This video cannot be played.") but using mixed reference (with 2ref 2bfr) or 3bf (and 2 ref) produces videos which are playabale on my PSP (firmware 2.0). Can anybody else confirm this? Or it's just they x264 does not actually uses mixed ref or 3bframes in this particular encode?

Edit: More tests (this time with the Doom trailer): I can use 3bf and mixed ref at the same time, and also 4bframes (with 2ref) works for me.

bond

6th December 2005, 13:11

Need help from PSP people: I encoded the Madsagascar trailer (the happy birthday songs cracks me up everytime) with 3 ref (and 2 bframes) or using pyramid bframes, and they don't play ("This video cannot be played.") but using mixed reference (with 2ref 2bfr) or 3bf (and 2 ref) produces videos which are playabale on my PSP (firmware 2.0). Can anybody else confirm this? Or it's just they x264 does not actually uses mixed ref or 3bframes in this particular encode?did you use sharktooth's psp profile?

quake74

6th December 2005, 13:12

did you use sharktooth's psp profile?

Yeah, his latest. I only changed the parameters I mentioned. So, when I say 3bframes, I mean auto 2pass with turbo, 256kbps, 250keyframe,2ref no mixed, 3bframes adapt no pyr, deblock filter, cabac, subpixel 6 rdo slow, weight predic, chroma me, main profile (I4x4 P4x4 P8x8 B8x8), rdo for bframes.

bond

6th December 2005, 13:14

Yeah, his latest. I only changed the parameters I mentioned.well his profile is made for ensuring that playback on the psp works. if you change the parameters you shouldnt be surprised that it suddenly doesnt work...

quake74

6th December 2005, 13:23

well his profile is made for ensuring that playback on the psp works. if you change the parameters you shouldnt be surprised that it suddenly doesnt work...

I'm not surprised that some options do not work, I am surprised that some options (like 4 bframes) DO work. If we get confirmation that this is indeed true for other psp and video as well, then sharktooth could update his profile.

Sharktooth

6th December 2005, 17:17

it's likely you had "adaptive" checked and 4 b-frames were never used.
to see if it works uncheck adaptive b-frames and re-encode with 4 b-frames.

quake74

6th December 2005, 18:35

4 b-frames doensnt work. it's likely you had "adaptive" checked and 4 b-frames were never used.

Yes, I was using the adaptive bframes (along with 2ref frames but no mixd ref)
but I still think it has 4 bframes in there. The only way I know of counting the bframes is opening the file in MPC and let ffmpeg print the frame type on the OSD and go frame by frame. I looks to me that around frame 474-477 and around 1078-1081 I have seen two sequences of 4 bframes. The file is http://rapidshare.de/files/8726733/maq10302.mp4.html

Sharktooth

6th December 2005, 18:41

quake74

6th December 2005, 19:01

remember if you use the standard b.frame bias and adaptive b.frame, x264 rarely uses more than 3 b.frames.
however i'm downloading your clip an will check it.

EDIT: Yes, the clip has indeed 4 b-frames sequences. Are you sure you do not experience frame skips during playback?
however the psnr gain moving from 3 to 4 bframes is not significative and maybe negative.

No, I'm not sure that I do not experience frame skips: the screen is small, I used changefps(29.97), and I am rather tired ;). You can download the orginal trailer from http://trailers.divx.com/Universal/Doom_HD.zip and check yourself if you want. Anyway, I'd rather have opinions from other people. Moreover, can you (or anybody else) confirm that 2refs and 3bframes with mixed refs works? (If you repaired your psp ;) )

Sharktooth

6th December 2005, 19:05

No, still unrepaired.

bond

6th December 2005, 20:45

Yes, I was using the adaptive bframes (along with 2ref frames but no mixd ref)
but I still think it has 4 bframes in there. The only way I know of counting the bframes is opening the file in MPC and let ffmpeg print the frame type on the OSD and go frame by frame. I looks to me that around frame 474-477 and around 1078-1081 I have seen two sequences of 4 bframes. The file is http://rapidshare.de/files/8726733/maq10302.mp4.htmli get jumpy playback with this sample (not very often, but its there)

sharktooth: ?

Sharktooth

6th December 2005, 21:51

@bond: my PSP is still broken so i cannot do tests for PSPs.

bond

7th December 2005, 00:09

@bond: my PSP is still broken so i cannot do tests for PSPs.i meant do you get jumpiness on your pc?

Sharktooth

7th December 2005, 00:23

oh.. i thought you were trying on a PSP :)
i didnt notice it.. but ill deeply check it later.

EDIT: does not "jump" here...

ShawnFumo

8th December 2005, 21:21

First, thanks to Sharktooth so much for these profiles! It helps so much, because of the crazy number of options the codec has. :)

A quick question to anyone on CE-Mainprofile and Quicktime. It says in the first post that CE-Mainprofile is not compatible, but I just encoded something using it and it played it in QTPlayer successfully (7.0.2). Should I be safe, or should I be worried about it not playing on Macs for instance? Mainprofile seems like better quality, so it'd be neat to be able to use that instead of CE-QT if I can.

It just seems strange to me that the profile specifically says it isn't compatible when my first try with it was fine. Maybe I just got lucky?

Shawn

Selur

9th December 2005, 11:18

maybe I overlooked it,..

Is there a table/list/.. that shows what features/settings are en-/disabled / used in the profiles? (something like a overview ?)

Cu Selur

Ps.: I know I could examine the xml files,.. a little overview would be nice.

Backflip

9th December 2005, 13:01

Ok, after further concentrated effort I can confirm the Xbox can decode atleast 720x304 resolution Nero AVC + 2CH AC3 inside an MKV file. Settings used:

(GENERAL SETTINGS)
Decision quality: High Quality (maximum)
Maximum vector range: -512 to 511.75
Maximum reference frames: 3
Maximum GOP size: 300
Maximum B-frames: 3

(ENCODING TOOLS)
CABAC: Yes
Bidirectional prediction: Yes
Macroblock partitions: No
Weighted prediction: No
Deblocking: Yes (=0)

(VISUAL ENHANCEMENTS)
Source material: Chroma optimization
Psycho-visual enhancements: Disabled

What would be the equivalent to all of these settings^ in x264? Maybe it would be possible to play the same file 720x304 resolution x264 if similar settings were used.

Additionally it is impotant to use these cache settings for smooth playback:

Video/Audio/DVD Cache - harddisk 4096 KB
Video Cache - DVDRom 8192 KB
Audio Cache - DVDRom 256 KB
DVD Cache - DVDRom 4096 KB

ALL OTHER PARAMETERS 0 KB

And also, this is very important -- enable Smoothed A/V synchronization. It is disabled by default.

Sharktooth

9th December 2005, 15:00

... almost the settings you can find in the xbox low-res profile except macroblock partitions and weighted prediction

Sharktooth

9th December 2005, 19:56

V15:
updated AE-Maxquality, CQ-ASP_Q2 (both), HQ-Insane, HQ-Slowest and PD-Xbox (both) with No Fast P Skip option.

Backflip

10th December 2005, 05:24

... almost the settings you can find in the xbox low-res profile except macroblock partitions and weighted prediction

Do you think a file I make using 720x304 minus the macroblock and weighted prediction will work on the Xbox? - edit: didn't work* :(

I digress a bit, but I've noticed my source has got deliberate grain, which looks to me is getting rather smooth and noticeably blocky in others. Deblocking doesn't have this effect does it? Interestingly I noticed in the Nero AVC encode, that Limobar did, the detail is kept in that particular part grainy part of the video. It's significantly closer to the original I believe. Both files used about the same encoding settings. - edit: jumped the gun with this comment, x264 looks fine at similar encoding settings as Nero.

*Ok, I tried again to encode at 720x304. I used PD-Xbox_LoRes, but dropped Weighted Prediction. I'm not sure where the Macroblock option is though. I also changed Minimum Quantizer to 14 to keep my bitrate at around 1950kbps+. Muxed with AC3 in an MKV after. Frame rate is like 10-17 fps and there are dropped frames on Xbox.

Sharktooth

10th December 2005, 15:03

Well, Xbox cant do miracles... :(

asdfsauce

10th December 2005, 15:44

Thanks Sharktooth, very helpful. ^^

Sharktooth

10th December 2005, 20:41

V16: fixed CQ-ASP_Q2_equiv. Had quantizer 26 instead of 18 (dont ask me why!).

Backflip

11th December 2005, 03:30

Well, Xbox cant do miracles...

That's the thing though, why is it possible to be able to play the Nero AVC material at 720x304 (with very good quality). This is my objective -- to play x264 + AC3 *MKV* at similar quality as the Nero AVC which was encoded and with a 720x304 resolution.

Sharktooth

11th December 2005, 04:49

disable all macroblock options (set to "none") and try again.

quake74

12th December 2005, 20:58

Hi Sharktooth, sorry for bothering you and I don't know how much it matters from the quality point of view, but in your latest (v16) profiles you still have "no mixed ref" and 2 bframes, but it seems to me (on three different trailers) that mixed ref and 3 bframes is safe (let's just forget about 4 bframes just to be on the safe side). I must confess that I haven't heard from anybody else. Now I'm trying with a 24mins episode of a sitcom (man x264 is slow on my pentium m 1.83ghz).

EDIT: I forgot to mention I was talking about the PSP profile.

Sharktooth

12th December 2005, 21:01

well.. adding mixed refs it will be even slower :)
however i'll update in the next version (v17).

Sharktooth

12th December 2005, 21:06

V17: updated PD-PSP profile with mixed-refs and 3-bframes.

Sharktooth

13th December 2005, 04:37

Sharktooth

13th December 2005, 17:06

V18: Removed No-Fast-PSkip from profiles coz it slows encoding and since the x264 Rev386 should fix the problem in most cases without No-Fast-PSkip.

nrx][Natas

13th December 2005, 21:29

@quake74: Good to read you can encode again.

So, i don't really know what the status of the PSP-Profile and 4 B-Frames thing is but i tested it and it works. Based Sharktooths PSP profile.

Caroliano

14th December 2005, 13:02

Acording to bond's tests (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=748863#post748863), you will make the probeskip defaut for all profiles? I still think that in the more insane profiles the nofastpskip option can remain.

Sharktooth

14th December 2005, 13:06

I was thinking the same thing...

Sharktooth

14th December 2005, 14:28

V19: Re-added no-fast-pskip for the HQ-Insane and AE-Maxquality profiles.

Sharktooth

14th December 2005, 14:32

[Natas']@quake74: Good to read you can encode again.

So, i don't really know what the status of the PSP-Profile and 4 B-Frames thing is but i tested it and it works. Based Sharktooths PSP profile.
From v17 the PSP profile has 3 b-frames and mixed references enabled.
4 b-frames is not necessary because it doesnt help rising the quality.

Chainmax

16th December 2005, 20:09

I just noticed that the AE-Maxquality profile has automated 3-pass and turbo enabled, does that mean that the issue is solved now?

Sharktooth

16th December 2005, 20:15

everything should be working.

Chainmax

16th December 2005, 20:18

Thanks for all the hard work you are putting into this :).

Chainmax

16th December 2005, 20:47

AE-MaxQuality doesn't seem to have the "no fast p-skip" option enabled in v19.

Sharktooth

16th December 2005, 21:17

yeah.. you're right... both have no-fast-pskid disabled...
i was sure as hell i updated them...

well... v19a contains the fixes.

Chainmax

16th December 2005, 23:01

I just made an encode with v19 with AE-Maxquality and deblocking 0/0, does having the no-fast-pskip option disabled affect the quality in any way on rev387?

Sharktooth

16th December 2005, 23:06

yep, but it greatly depends on the source, no-fast-pskip should fix the blue sky and similar blocking issues.

Chainmax

17th December 2005, 01:19

Nah, a clip I was encoding earlier showed some extremely erratic motion and I wanted to know if that was caused by the lack of this option. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Backflip

17th December 2005, 05:44

Interesting time I'm having encoding a short clip I have. It has some film grain, and even under the latest CQ profiles it is unpleasantly blocky, same with Insane mode. I would really like x264 to encode the grain as it looks instead of smoothing it out. Have tried loop turned off and on. The CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) encode looks very decent even compared to the Insane and other CQ ones. Maybe Lossless is the only way to make the video look good on the film grain parts.

The part that's blocky is light Blue + has film grain. Maybe it's not hooking onto that part of the video so much.

Why do they put this film grain in movies btw?

Anyhow nice work with the profile updates and MeGUI too :)

Sharktooth

17th December 2005, 15:41

Nah, a clip I was encoding earlier showed some extremely erratic motion and I wanted to know if that was caused by the lack of this option. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
extremely erratic motion? like flickering blocks?

Sharktooth

17th December 2005, 15:42

Chainmax

17th December 2005, 16:51

extremely erratic motion? like flickering blocks?

Not at all, I can't really describe it but you can download a sample encode I made here (http://www7.rapidupload.com/d.php?file=dl&filepath=5249).

Sharktooth

17th December 2005, 16:57

Is it possible to aim for a specific filesize when encoding with MeGUI?
For example: I wanna encode a transport stream to dvd size using the HQ-Insane profile and have a 250mb ac3 file...
So in the end the video filesize should be 4220mb. If possible at all where could i adjust this?
Yes, select the source and the output file. Select the profile you want to use then click on Tools -> Bitrate Calculator menu.
Go to the audio track and specify the size or the bitrate of the audio stream or even better, if you have the audio altready encoded, click on select and load the file.
The calculator will recalculate the video bitrate accordingly to the size you specified.

Sharktooth

17th December 2005, 17:28

Not at all, I can't really describe it but you can download a sample encode I made here (http://www7.rapidupload.com/d.php?file=dl&filepath=5249).
What build produced that encode? And with what settings?

Chris Benoit

18th December 2005, 10:32

Sharktooth,isn't the bitrate (1000) on your psp profile a little too much for psp too handle on avc?

Will the video run smooth,or is there any chance that it will lag?HAve you tested it?

Sharktooth

18th December 2005, 14:42

Before starting encoding set the bitrate or quantizer (manually or thru the calculator) and adjust the inloop filter accordingly to your needs/taste: keep it 1;1 or higher for anime/toons (max 3;3) and not higher than x264 defaults (0;0) for movies.
it's in the first post...

Backflip

19th December 2005, 00:05

Indeed :)

Ensure you have the latest v19a profiles... for some reason the no-fast-pskip option was disabled in insane mode.

Yip, I'm using v19a. About the only mode I haven't tried is Lossless. I really thought CQ-ASP profiles would keep the film grain on the light blue background.

Encodings are around 103MB vs original which is 108MB (4:3 music video).

Shinjite

19th December 2005, 05:08

Just to confirm, the deblocking filter, anything lower than 0 (-x) is for sharpness and anything higher than 0 is for smoothness right?

Doom9

19th December 2005, 12:50

Yup, the lower the value, the less strong the filter, the higher the value the stronger the filter. And stronger filtering means smoother output (and less detailed).

Sharktooth

19th December 2005, 15:17

Indeed :)

Yip, I'm using v19a. About the only mode I haven't tried is Lossless. I really thought CQ-ASP profiles would keep the film grain on the light blue background.

Encodings are around 103MB vs original which is 108MB (4:3 music video).
Uhm... i smell there are still some problems with low luma blocks...

Chainmax

19th December 2005, 19:45

What build produced that encode? And with what settings?

Like I said, that doesn't fit with the description you gave me of possible problems that could be caused by x264. The filterchain used in this was trying to decimate the source to 12fps and then use motion compensated FPS conversion back to 23.976fps which is likely what caused this. x264 performed flawlessly on a slightly different filterchain, so don't worry.

bdogg

21st December 2005, 21:56

Is it just me or is files.x264.nl down? I've tried for a couple of days to download the link in the first post but it just hangs...

Can anyone point me to a mirror or maybe upload the package to some free hosting provider?

Thanks!

Sharktooth

21st December 2005, 21:58

yeah, the server is down.
however the profiles are now included in my x264-full builds (sticky thread). the mirror should work...

bdogg

21st December 2005, 22:35

Ah, yes, the mirror to the full x264-full build works fine.

Thanks for the quick response, and all your contributions in general, Sharktooth! :D

CrAcKo

26th December 2005, 21:44

I have a few questions about using the profiles, how exactly do I load a video file?
I can now only open AviSynth files, I have no idea what these are either.

Will I also be able to merge with audio?

SenorKaffee

26th December 2005, 21:48

Download and install AVISynth - it´s basically a scripting engine. Documentation how to use it is included.

smok3

26th December 2005, 23:35

iam just using my old bat file and replacing the x264.exe with newer versions, would something like this still be valid:

x264 --pass 1 -B 500 --ref 1 --bframes 1 --filter -2,-2 --subme 7 --weightb --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4 --stats "%video%.stats" --progress --output NUL "%gentemplateext%"
x264 --pass 2 -B 500 --ref 1 --bframes 1 --filter -2,-2 --subme 7 --weightb --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4 --stats "%video%.stats" --progress --output "%videoext%.mp4" "%gentemplateext%"

with x264 core:42 svn-389M (built by Sharktooth) ?
(or is there a faster way getting same quality, or would you suggest something else?)

edit2: i replaced that with sharktooth's qt ce profile:

x264 --pass 1 --bitrate %bitrate% --stats "%video%.stats" --bframes 1 --subme 1 --analyse none --me dia --progress --no-psnr --output NUL "%gentemplateext%"
(should i call that 'turbo 1st pass'?)

x264 --pass 2 --bitrate %bitrate% --stats "%video%.stats" --ref 5 --bframes 1 --subme 6 --b-rdo --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4 --progress --no-psnr --output "%videoext%.mp4" "%gentemplateext%"

----

also, was there a huge quality boost with latest versions of x264.exe or am i just imagining things?

----

edit: another thing: could 'we' get a -ver switch or something that would spit out some oneliner like 'x264 core:42 svn-389M (built by Sharktooth)' ?

CrAcKo

27th December 2005, 20:39

wow things are getting too complicated for me, I think I'm better off setting the configuration manually, instead of trying to use scripts.

I think I successfully managed to encode a videoclip which duration is 1:15 minutes, and is 8.44 mb of size. The quality looks good so far...

DigitalDivide

28th December 2005, 01:19

I'm tying to figure out what profile I should be using to encode my movies. Currently I use HQ-Slower and go for a target size of between 2 - 2.2GB. I notice that the avg between rate usually varies between 2000-2500 depending on the movie. The reason I do this is to get 2 movies per DVD. I'm just wondering if I should be selecting something like a Constant Quality 1-Pass and just enter in the desired bitrate of say 2000. Would I be better off? I'm a little confused as to which would actually give me a better encoded movie? I'm assuming with the Constant Quality pass, I have no control over the filesize and would expect a filesize of over 2GB for most 2hr movies say for example Cinderella Man?

Would I see much of a difference between HQ-Slower and HQ-Slow at these file sizes?

Sharktooth

28th December 2005, 05:00

2000-2500 kbps? well, you can use xvid then...

Sharktooth

28th December 2005, 05:02

smok3

28th December 2005, 14:28

i have focused on 'Custom x264/AVC video profiles' only, sorry if thats completely ot.

DigitalDivide

29th December 2005, 21:32

2000-2500 kbps? well, you can use xvid then...

Well I like quality, and I definitely see a difference in quality between XVID and x264. So assuming I want to stick with what I now am using, would there be much of a difference between HQ Slow and HQ Slower at filesizes of approx 2GB? Right now using HQ Slower a movie takes about 18hrs to encode on my P4 2.8. If I can bring that time down but with roughly the same quality I'd be happy.

Sharktooth

30th December 2005, 05:18

There's definatly some difference but that's not so big.
HQ-Slower uses 10 reference frames, mixed references and b-rdo while HQ-Slow only 5 refs, no mixed refs and no b-rdo.
You should do a test encode and see if you're satisfied by the HQ-Slow quality.

Sharktooth

31st December 2005, 18:38

v20: Updated profiles with the new --bime x264 option.

I also moved the archive to another server.

dvbm

3rd January 2006, 17:59

hi,

been testing some x264 (latest build) with megui and QT7 (non pro) and i'am having some difficulties getting a stream working properly with QT7..

I'm testing a video only stream using CE-Baseline and the other one QT7 compatible and all QT can do is decode one frame from times to times or usually no frames at all showing a nice brown background..

Are there any other things i should take care of in order to make QT7 compatible streams ? Don't know if it comes from the encoder or muxer, i haven't updated my mp4box for a few months

thx

Sharktooth

3rd January 2006, 18:06

well... update mp4box then... :)

bond

3rd January 2006, 18:16

quicktime is a damn slow decoder, it also doesnt really work fine here (slow, choppy, crappy)

dvbm

3rd January 2006, 19:54

well... update mp4box then... :)

well note sure i'm doing any muxing with mp4box, in fact i think i don't, x264 outputs the stream packaged in mp4 transport right ?

besides my mp4box version seems to be the latest one so i don't really know what's wrong but i'll probably stop trying making h264 QT7 compatible content with x264 coz it really seem to be something hard to achieve as far as i could read..

bond

3rd January 2006, 20:02

whats your cpu? maybe your system is simply not fast enough for qt's slow decoder

i mean if you dont change any settings in sharktooths qt profile for megui things should work fine

BlackSharkfr

4th January 2006, 20:14

Hello.
I have got an IPod Video. So i tested your profile but it didn't worked (refused by ITunes)
Then i noticed in the Megui thread that the AVC level wasn't added in the command line.
So i added the command "--level 1.3" and it worked.
As long as Megui isn't updated, you should add the command to the custom commands for the IPod profile.

About Megui and AVC-level validation :
And the AVC level validator doesn't seems to work, it always wants to use level 5 and aven if you say you don't want to change the avc level, it still does it, and if you checked all macroblocks it makes the profile crash because there is a macroblock forbidden in level5 (i don't remember which one) but allowed in level 1.3.

berrinam

4th January 2006, 23:22

Then i noticed in the Megui thread that the AVC level wasn't added in the command line.
This was added in version 0.2.3.1026, from 29 Dec 2005. You probably don't have the newest build.

About Megui and AVC-level validation :
And the AVC level validator doesn't seems to work, it always wants to use level 5 and aven if you say you don't want to change the avc level, it still does it, and if you checked all macroblocks it makes the profile crash because there is a macroblock forbidden in level5 (i don't remember which one) but allowed in level 1.3.All bugs should be fixed now.

CruNcher

5th January 2006, 09:32

@berrinam
are you sure everything is ok with profiles handling now ?
for example i getting this error "P4x4 macroblocks are not allowed in level > 3 or in level 3 with B frames" if i try High Profile @ Level4 with P4x4 analyse enabled
in Sharktooths 0.2.3.1031 build that comes with x264-full 395. But in the standard you can't find that P4x4 isn't allowed with High Profile settings @ Level 4 ?

berrinam

5th January 2006, 09:59

@berrinam
are you sure everything is ok with profiles handling now ?For me, they are.
for example i getting this error "P4x4 macroblocks are not allowed in level > 3 or in level 3 with B frames"That, in itself, is not a bug. For some reason (don't ask me, ask akupenguin), that is part of the levels requirements.

in Sharktooths 0.2.3.1031 build that comes with x264-full 395. Alas, v0.2.3.1031 is a work in progress, so I don't know whether that build includes my changes.

dvbm

5th January 2006, 16:23

whats your cpu? maybe your system is simply not fast enough for qt's slow decoder

i mean if you dont change any settings in sharktooths qt profile for megui things should work fine

It's not a fast cpu, athlon xp1700 but i was only trying to encode some 720x576 pal mpeg to 720x576 h264 at 700kbps and 1000kbps..

do you really think QT player can't play that kind of file ?

well i've got my answer, the CPU just hangs at 100% when playing those encodes !! this is crazy..

but i was deceived by my first tests because the muxing is not working properly, the muxed stream lasts almost twice longer than the original audio/video files and when i hit the overtime part then QT player goes wack and won't play anything back..

Unfortunately those mux won't work in VLC either, i got no sound and the muxed stream length is also wrong..

Anyways i've got my QT playback answer that's already something..

jmk

5th January 2006, 16:35

sharktooth, i read that you don't have much time right now, but would it be possible for the next edition of your wonderful "megui custom video profiles" to add some to the "CE" part like: "best possible quality at good/high/highest speed" with two passes?
the reason i am asking is, i like the "highprofile" quality wise, but speed wise it is a real bummer on my athlon xp 2500+ (first pass ~22fps / second pass ~5 fps). so i would like to know which part of it should i deactivate to get higher speed without losing to much quality (if there even is such a part).
thank you for your profiles in the first place, though, they have helped me alot!

jmk

Sharktooth

5th January 2006, 17:33

Well, i dont think it's possible. If you want quality, speed will be low...

@berrinam: MeGUI 0.2.3.1031 is now released.

berrinam

7th January 2006, 00:07

@Sharktooth: With the addition of OneClick profiles, my intent was to create an absolute no-brainer way for creating video for iPods and the like. I've attached a set of profiles which really allow the OneClick mode to operate very simply: open the input, select playback device, and press go.

These profiles are designed for the iPod, based on the arstechnica settings, and the video profile is just the one you distribute. I've attached two different oneclick profiles, because I don't know whether the resolution should be 320x240 or 320xanything.

Could you have a look at what I've attached, and see if this sort of thing is worth continuing?

The profiles are attached and on rapidshare: http://rapidshare.de/files/10545301/iPod_OneClick.zip.html

Sharktooth

7th January 2006, 15:59

iPod Video can support MPEG4 file formats up to 480x480 at 30 frames per second.

JarrettH

13th January 2006, 07:45

Thanks SOOOO much sharktooth! I'd go mental if I had to research every single H264 setting. I enjoyed toying around with XviD but this is just way to comprehensive for my tastes :D

Today's accomplishments:
- ac3 ---> aac
- realizing TV is 29.97 thus i can use forced film since i won't be watching it on one

I'm still scratching my head as to why the interlacing disappears when using forced film though.:confused:
I'm going to compare HQ-Slow and HQ-Slowest tomorrow on the movie Broken Flowers, anyone see it? :0

berrinam

13th January 2006, 07:55

[Feature-promotion]
@JarrettH: Regarding interlacing and forced film, etc: Just because it is 29.97 doesn't mean you can used forced film. This only works if the source is actually film, which isn't necessarily the case. If all the interlacing disappears, that's fine, but you're lucky, in that case. If you're not sure about what to do, why don't you try using MeGUI full version (get it from sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=156112), and the AviSynth script creator now has automatic deinterlacing.
[/Feature-Promotion]

JarrettH

13th January 2006, 20:17

Ah neat thanks, I see they added that on Jan 13 (today). I'll have to update!
I forgot to input 16:9 AR last night, but fortunately I discovered the encode only took 5hrs for both passes! So I can run Slow and Slowest overnight ;)

Where is this script creator you are talking about?

berrinam

13th January 2006, 21:33

Heh, the 'they' who added it was me. No wonder I'm promoting it.

Anyway, you need the full version of MeGUI, and you go to Tools->Avisynth Script Creator.

The Link

13th January 2006, 21:41

Do I need a special avisynth plugin to use the automatic deinterlacing analyzer because when I load a movie and press the analyze button megui crashes (also happens when ticking "crop" which is probably another issue). MeGUI version is 0.2.3.2017.

berrinam

13th January 2006, 21:43

Aah, yes you do.... sorry. Download Decomb and put it in your AviSynth plugins directory: http://neuron2.net/decomb/decomb522.zip

The Link

13th January 2006, 21:49

Ah ... thanks! Works great now. Should I report the crop bug in the MeGUI bug report thread separately or is it enough that you know of it now (it should be perfectly reproducable)?

berrinam

13th January 2006, 21:50

Report it, as it isn't reproducible as you have told me. It works fine for me.

The Link

13th January 2006, 21:57

Hmm ... i just found out why you couldn't reproduce it: It seems that you have to leave the preview window open to use crop in the avisynth script generator. I didn't know that this is neccessary (i already had the crop values so i tried to simply insert these after having closed the preview window). Probably not a bug but it would be nice if cropping would also work when the peview window is closed (in the end it's jut a line in a text script that gets inserted).

berrinam

14th January 2006, 06:05

Ah ... thanks! Works great now.
I've added some handlers which should avoid this crash in version 0.2.3.2020. I've not actually been able to reproduce the crash when Decomb.dll was missing, so when a release comes out, could you see whether this still causes a crash?

Thanks

The Link

14th January 2006, 17:31

I've added some handlers which should avoid this crash in version 0.2.3.2020. I've not actually been able to reproduce the crash when Decomb.dll was missing, so when a release comes out, could you see whether this still causes a crash?

Thanks
It doesn't crash now but it would be nice if the decomb.dll warning would pop up before the analyzing process starts imho.

berrinam

14th January 2006, 23:35

It doesn't crash now but it would be nice if the decomb.dll warning would pop up before the analyzing process starts imho.
It's AviSynth's fault, though, for not giving any error messages when the dll is missing. As a result, the only indication that anything went wrong is the fact that the output log file has the words "I don't know what "a" means" in it. That's all that AviSynth says.

Anyway, I can see that it's a waste of time, but I would hope that each user would only do this once, so overall it isn't too bad.

Manao

15th January 2006, 00:12

It's AviSynth's fault, though, for not giving any error messages when the dll is missingOpen your script with virtualdub, you'll see a nice error message printed on the frame :). It's a wanted feature of frameevaluate, because it can't know, when instanciating the filters graph, what filters will be needed by frameevaluate. So it can only say that something's missing when displaying the first frame.

If you want to check whether IsDecomb exists or not, just add a line "global unused_ = IsCombed(clip, 32)" somewhere in your script.

berrinam

15th January 2006, 00:20

If you want to check whether IsDecomb exists or not, just add a line "global unused_ = IsCombed(clip, 32)" somewhere in your script.
Thanks Manao. I presume that also has very little effect on speed, being an unused clip?

JarrettH

15th January 2006, 21:39

Well the movie Broken Flowers @104min took approximately:

HQ-SLOW 950kbps 6hrs
HQ-SLOWEST 950kbps 15hrs

Using a P4 2.8GHz w/HT and OCZ 512MBx2 2-2-2
Actually I didn't finish slowest but it was at 57% so I added the remaining time to the elapsed time. I used 950kbps so that I still had room to mux the aac audio after on 1CD. I don't think I'll be using Slowest mode again:sly:
I'll try HQ-SLOWER with 1000kbps and see if I can still fit the aac on with 1CD if it compresses more as you say.:)

Manao

15th January 2006, 21:43

Thanks Manao. I presume that also has very little effect on speed, being an unused clip?Indeed, it shouldn't. But as I didn't try, I can't be totally positive :)

lexor

16th January 2006, 15:13

hey guys, does any of the profiles (qt compatibility one for example) qualify for streaming video over internet? granted I'll still need to figure out how to use the whole hint track and all that jazz for streaming, but that doesn't belong here.

I want it to be streamable, not necessarily QT compliant (since coreAVC cameout with their browser plugin), but using HQ and such for streaming bitrates isn't exaclty a good idea. So any of the profiles qualify as optimal for this use or do we need to research one more?

smok3

16th January 2006, 15:49

lexor, iam just remuxing with hint track using mp4box and seems to work fine for qt (streaming? well i call that progressive download.)

cmd could be simply:

mp4box film.mp4 -hint

JarrettH

16th January 2006, 17:51

Update:

Well the movie Broken Flowers @104min took approximately:

HQ-SLOW 950kbps 6hrs
HQ-SLOWER 1000kbps 15hrs
HQ-SLOWEST 950kbps 18hrs

I should have put 18hrs for SLOWEST because I forgot about the first pass!

@Sharktooth...Is there anything I can do using the Slow profile to increase the quality but not drastically increase the encode time? Something like under 10hrs is good.

JarrettH

18th January 2006, 04:48

I chose to bump:D

I began customizing the Slow profile after EXHAUSTIVELY reading about the settings. I stuck with Broken Flowers (106min)...

1000kbps
No Fast P-Skip: Checked
Reference Frames: 8 + mixed
ALL B-Frame options: Checked

Ran the above with Multi-Hex on a P4 3.0GHz (Prescott) 2x256MB and Hexagon on a P4 2.8GHz (Northwood) 2x512MB 2-2-2.
In summary, both would have taken too long! 13hrs for Multi-Hex and 13hrs for Hex. Both computers were getting too oversized files anyway for the audio I needed to mux.

Tonight I'll run...

1000kbps
No Fast P-Skip: Checked
Reference Frames: 5 Both Computers
ALL B-Frame options: Checked
Multi-Hex: Both Computers
Soulhunter V2 matrix <3 (on Northwood), None (on Prescott)

I suspect mixed was slowing them down. A few more (10-20) kbps in the video isn't worth an hour of encoding time to me :) So I'll find out tonight how large a time difference there is between 5 and 8 ref frames, and if 5 frames ends up being <10hrs I think it's a keeper!
950kbps is the highest I got to encoding the movie with space for the audio. I'm trying 1000kbps again to see if any of the settings + matrix help with compression.

Edit* Got some ridiculous oversize (47mb file) at 5% into the 2nd pass using 8 ref frames. Now both comps have the same settings different matrix in use. I don't know what made the original HQ-Slow profile great for file sizes, the settings will be identical soon enough. LOL
Is there something in x264 between 950kbps and 1000kbps that would cause this?

Help me!

quake74

2nd February 2006, 09:17

Hi Sharktooth, the profiles in your latest standard x264 package and the v20 on the first page of this thread are different (I looked at the psp one). Which are the newest?

bob0r

11th February 2006, 16:10

About xbox profile (i tried to post this like 4x, but 4x something messed up and it never came here)
So here it is:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=784123#post784123

Sharktooth

13th February 2006, 09:11

Profiles are a bit outdated. I'll update them as soon as i get back from the hostpital.

aichan

18th February 2006, 10:44

i would to encode CG dvd movies like ice age, finding nemo....

which profile should i take, HQ slow or AE-goodquality? is it CG movies an anime/toon source??

thx :)

Sharktooth

18th February 2006, 10:48

cg is something in "between"... you can effectively use both profiles (until i update them).

Sharktooth

26th February 2006, 15:25

v21: big update. updated many profiles with speed ups expecially for CQ-Lossless.

jackiehcs

28th February 2006, 03:28

cg is something in "between"... you can effectively use both profiles (until i update them).
In fact, there is always "CG" in anime.
Should I use 0,0 for deblocking in order to get better picture quality?

Sharktooth

28th February 2006, 14:14

well, it depends on the sharpness/smoothness you want to obtain.
try different settings on small clips and choose the values you prefer.
keep in mind anime profiles have deblocking set to 1,1 while movie profiles have deblocking set to -2,-1.

quake74

2nd March 2006, 13:22

Hi Shark, about the psp profile, did you see this message http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=755401#post755401 ? I myself canot confirm it because I have a 2.0, but maybe we could revert back to 2 ref and nobframes. Moreover the psp has very little storage, so it's more likely that people go down into the very low bitrates (200kbps and lower) and in those cases bframes could actually decrease the quality of the movie...

max-holz

2nd March 2006, 13:43

Ciao Sharktooth
I noticed that in the Rev. 21 you have changed the B-frame mode of the HQ profiles from temporal to spatial, why that?

Sharktooth

2nd March 2006, 14:20

IMHO spatial give better quality and helps a bit with blocking in dark areas.

Sharktooth

2nd March 2006, 14:28

fight2win

2nd March 2006, 15:56

[QUOTE=Sharktooth]
Download link: MeGUI-x264 Custom Video Profiles V21. (http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/megui/MeGUI-x264_generic_profiles_v21.7z)

Dude, are these profiles supported by chronocross x264 rev 445 builds?

Sharktooth

2nd March 2006, 16:00

445 is buggy

quake74

2nd March 2006, 16:09

b-frames do not decrease quality at lower bitrates... theoretically it should be exactly the other way.

Not to get started again on "The Coolness of B-Frames" but yesterday I encoded video at 128kbps and the one with 3bframes was worse than the one without (both by SSIM, and just by looking at the frames). (Out of curiosity, at 192kbps they were essentially the same, and at 256kbps the bframes win.)

fight2win

2nd March 2006, 16:14

445 is buggy
ok, can it be used with bobor's rev 449?

Sharktooth

2nd March 2006, 16:24

yes, but it does not support subme 7 (it will automatically use 6 when needed)

Chainmax

4th March 2006, 00:17

But it does work with ChronoCross's v438 (which is supposed to include all your patches), right?

By the way, does the XBOX lowres profile allow for custom matrices? I'd like to try mp4_guy's_AVC_Low_Bitrate_matrix_V2.cfg on an encode.

Sharktooth

5th March 2006, 11:17

yes and no

Chainmax

7th March 2006, 12:38

I see, time to make a suggestion to the XBMC devs then :).

Sharktooth

7th March 2006, 13:35

I see, time to make a suggestion to the XBMC devs then :).
xbox has it's own CPU limits... stick with default quantization.

Chainmax

7th March 2006, 15:40

I didn't think a custom quant matrix would put much extra decoding strain.

Sharktooth

7th March 2006, 15:46

custom quant matrix require High-Profile...

foxyshadis

7th March 2006, 15:54

You can actually decode flat-16 matrix much faster than any cq, because it's just a shift-by-4 for each coefficient, plus you have to guard against low coefficients overflowing in uber-high matrices. That's why it's part of High Profile. With an optimized decoder it probably wouldn't make a big difference overall though.

Chainmax

9th March 2006, 00:49

custom quant matrix require High-Profile...
But profiles are just a tag, what matters are the actual features used. foxyshadis's argument seems logical though (not that I know anything about the subject), do you agree with it?

Zep

11th March 2006, 08:53

yes, it "should"... but some features are broken. baseline will work with no doubts :P

Quicktime's latest h.264 encoder and h.264 decoder handle different levels. The decoder handles everything in main profile except B-Pyramid which will cause stuttering and then a buffer overflow.

Qt 7.0.5 should fix that with the new version of the decoder. (well that is what was said on the QT dev list anyway)

I use your main profile with B-Pyramid off and have never had a problem. In fact the QT decoder plays smoother and with less CPU demand than ffdshow for me.

bond

11th March 2006, 13:15

Quicktime's latest h.264 encoder and h.264 decoder handle different levels. The decoder handles everything in main profile except B-Pyramid which will cause stuttering and then a buffer overflow.the decoder doesnt handle (correctly)
- mixed references (baseline profile)
- more than 1 b-frames (main profile)
- b-references/pyramid (main profile)
- interlacing (main profile)
- 8x8dct (high profile)
- i8x8 (high profile)
- cqm (high profile)
- lossless (high profile)

and surely much more i now forgot :D

I use your main profile with B-Pyramid off and have never had a problem. In fact the QT decoder plays smoother and with less CPU demand than ffdshow for me. troll?

Zep

11th March 2006, 15:47

the decoder doesnt handle (correctly)
- mixed references (baseline profile)
- more than 1 b-frames (main profile)
- b-references/pyramid (main profile)
- interlacing (main profile)
- 8x8dct (high profile)
- i8x8 (high profile)
- cqm (high profile)
- lossless (high profile)

and surely much more i now forgot :D

troll?

You better read my post again because i said QT handles the options. I never said how or to what you consider
"(correctly)". In fact 7.0.4 on mixed references just hands off to an empty stub and play back works fine and that is
the point i was making in my post about the options. That the decoder will play back fine so to expand on that
you do not need to make 2 target encodes or 1 encode that has options turned off since only 1 main profile option
messes up play back with the current release decoder.

next you listed high profile stuff. we are talking about main profile. Are YOU trolling? You appear to be by
making your list bigger than it should be lol

As for b-frames are you kidding me? i use more than 1 b-frame ALL the time and the 7.0.4+ decoders play my encodes
back PERFECTLY and ALL b-frames are shown perfectly. This makes me think you have never even tried 2+ b-frames
in QT play back. Are using the old specs on apples site?

Anyway, If Apple sticks to the plan 7.1 will address ALL the remaining issues AND now that OSX and QT are x86 native
the performance of QT on the windows side is MUCH better and going to improve even more since the QT dev team coders
have gotten better at x86 coding and it shows already in 7.0.4+ and the current beta is very nice. PPC is history and
all efforts are going into mactel now.

Me a troll? nope. I simply stated what happens on my dev box. I'm sorry it is not what you like to hear but get used
to it since Apple is mactel now and intel has made one sweet compiler tool set for apple :)

Sharktooth

11th March 2006, 21:56

foxyshadis

11th March 2006, 22:35

Look, have you guys even installed 7.0.4 to find out?

11 January, 2006
QuickTime 7.0.4 is an important release that delivers numerous bug fixes, support for iLife '06, and H.264 performance improvements. This update is highly recommended for all QuickTime 7 users.

Whether it's all that and a bag of chips or not (ffdshow and any DS player is probably still better), it still sounds like a definite improvement over QT 7.0. There's also been a definite drop-off in "OMG QUICKTIME CAN'T PLAY MY MOVIES" threads since January.

Sharktooth

12th March 2006, 02:43

i tried 7.05.

Zep

13th March 2006, 00:32

Dude, are you kidding?
QT = CRAP and is severely limited in playback capabilities.
Bond is perfectly right on the unsupported features, i personally tested (and bond too) EVERY single option and came to his same conclusions. And dude... i dont know how the hell you MISCONFIGURED ffdshow but there's no way it's slower than QT.
Next time :serch: before posting.

"Dude" i just played an encode i did last night and it played great with 3 b-frame runs and b-pyramid off. That right there proves you wrong on the current release if you also claim 1 b-frame only. Sure you were correct back when you tested old versions but i never claimed otherswise.

"Dude" i do not know how the hell you MISCONFIGURED QT.
(see i can play that game also)

To make you happy today i did a clean install of milan's current version of ffdshow and then i went and made sure the only thing on was the H.264 option in the video decoder and i turned only the acc option on in the audio decoder JUST to make sure nothing else was conflicting from the defaults after you first install which played the same as i claimed for me in my first post. Still plays worse and still stutters now and then unlike QT or Elecard decoders. This may point to the encode having a combo of settings that ffdshow does not like that i use to make QT on Macs and PCs play fine and one variation(s) you never tried on many. I tested many many variations.

And speaking of testing you never said what version of QT you tested. At least in my posts i told you what version of QT. Also this is a QT thing. Not JUST a Windows QT thing. I test on both my G5 and my AMD dev boxes. You just saying you tested then making this global claim that "QT = CRAP" is in itself crap when you don't even bother to post the basics like what version of QT you tested. Anyway, you can't just turn one option on then another and another without turning others OFF else you never see how they all interact with each other. Furthermore, based on your post you give the impression you threw bond's name around without having any idea HOW he tested and what version of QT and if he even tested on both platforms etc...

NOTE: i have always claimed FOR ME. (read my first post again because YOU missed that) I never said it ran better as some global fact for everyone. Did you take note of that? NO you did NOT all you did was shoot from the hip with an attack and you did make global claim that "QT = CRAP" ( windows version is not as good as mac version but duh... ever use WMP on OSX? it works both ways if you know what i mean lol)

ffdshow and QT currently are moot to me anyway since I went back to using elecard decoder since it plays better than both by wide margin. On my Mac i use QT (though mplayer and VLC work fine too for most h.264 encodes)

Zep

13th March 2006, 00:55

Look, have you guys even installed 7.0.4 to find out?

Whether it's all that and a bag of chips or not (ffdshow and any DS player is probably still better), it still sounds like a definite improvement over QT 7.0. There's also been a definite drop-off in "OMG QUICKTIME CAN'T PLAY MY MOVIES" threads since January.

foxyshadis i admit 7.0 IMHO sucked arse LOL in fact IMHO 7.01 and 7.0.2 suck also. QT fans boys disagree with me but that is fine cause everyone has different needs and set ups. it wasn't until 7.0.3 that i think Apple should have released it as 7.0 but as always that is just my opinion.

yes i noticed the drop off in the "OMG QUICKTIME CAN'T PLAY MY MOVIES" threads also and not just on doom9. My guess is that 7.0.4.11 finally got most of h.264 major playback issues fixed (well not all since b-pyramid on is brutal and crashes both mac QT and Windows QT most of the time but that is what 7.0.5 is for haha)

Sharktooth

13th March 2006, 00:56

hey... read all the posts and you'll see i wrote "i tried QT 7.05" (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=798210#post798210).
Also if you bother searching the forums you can find all the tests we did (yes, me and bond and maybe others)...
also milan's latest (compiled) version of FFDSHOW is OUTDATED. Install celtic druid's or bobors's latest builds...
also, it has been proven in multiple tests that the QT AVC decoder is seriously crippled...
also if you used x264 for encoding ensure you unchecked "adaptive b-frames" before yelling QT can decode more than 1 b-frame correctly...
also, i re-tested QT 7.05 on 3 different PCs and it still owns the crown of the slowest and most crippled pseudo-AVC decoder.

EDIT: also read the AVC decoders comparison: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=99402 coz your beloved elecard decoder is one of the slowest and ffdshow outperforms it by far... but if you want the fastest avc decoder for win just look for CoreAVC...

Sharktooth

13th March 2006, 13:32

v22:
- removed subme 7 so profiles can be used with MeGUI-svn.
- updated b.frames mode to spatial for single pass profiles and auto to 2 passes profiles.
- some adjustments here and there :)

poiuy

13th March 2006, 15:53

v22:
- removed subme 7 so profiles can be used with MeGUI-svn.

Thanks.

smok3

13th March 2006, 21:09

anything new in CE quicktime ? (no, iam not trolling :D)

Sharktooth

13th March 2006, 22:48

uhm... --direct auto ?

jackiehcs

14th March 2006, 22:01

I find that encoding with "CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf)" shows better result than encoding with "AE-Maxquality" even with a bitrate 100kbps higher...

Sharktooth

14th March 2006, 22:30

we all know CRF is good... but i doubt it can be better than a higher bitrate encode...
can you post some screenshots or small clips?
however AE-Maxquality is tuned for Anime...

BoostAddict

15th March 2006, 08:15

uhm... --direct auto ?

yessir some of the profiles give me this error

bad argument: --direct auto

berrinam

15th March 2006, 08:30

Update to a newer build of x264

Sharktooth

15th March 2006, 11:18

:stupid:

jackiehcs

16th March 2006, 13:30

That's fine. The source is anime.
I just misunderstood that 3pass was always the best even comparing with CRF.

JarrettH

17th March 2006, 21:08

Hey

Insane idea...

I want to record the semi-final and final of the brier on the weekend...would it be crazy to try to record TV with x264?

berrinam

17th March 2006, 23:02

Capturing straight to x264? Yes, that is a bad idea. Probably, x264 won't keep up, and you don't have any opportunity to resize/crop unless you know what the cropping is going to be in advance. Better is to capture to something lossless like HuffYUV, then encode to x264 after filtering. There's nothing wrong with that.

Chainmax

17th March 2006, 23:52

v22:
- removed subme 7 so profiles can be used with MeGUI-svn.
- updated b.frames mode to spatial for single pass profiles and auto to 2 passes profiles.
- some adjustments here and there :)

Does that means that no profile has subme7 now? Speaking of which, can subme7 be enabled without a playback speed hit on a 512x384 encode for the XBOX?

Sharktooth

18th March 2006, 03:14

Yes, it means no profile has subme 7 coz there are no actual builds that support it (also the p8rd patch is not applicable to the actual revisions).
subme option doesnt affect playback speed.

Chainmax

18th March 2006, 04:20

Yes, it means no profile has subme 7 coz there are no actual builds that support it

Not even your last compile and Chronocross's rev438 compile? And what is the p8rd patch?

JarrettH

18th March 2006, 06:17

I don't have the disk space for 3hrs of huffyuv :/
Actually x264 wasn't too bad with the right options, still won't be using it, however.
You should try making a live TV profile sharktooth! :)

Sharktooth

18th March 2006, 15:09

Not even your last compile and Chronocross's rev438 compile? And what is the p8rd patch?
Those are pretty old. Use the new revisions instead.
the p8rd patch is the one that adds subme 7.
I don't have the disk space for 3hrs of huffyuv :/
Actually x264 wasn't too bad with the right options, still won't be using it, however.
You should try making a live TV profile sharktooth! :)
ok. in the next version there will be a new set of profiles for live encoding (you'll need a really fast CPU though).

Chainmax

20th March 2006, 20:24

Those are pretty old. Use the new revisions instead.
the p8rd patch is the one that adds subme 7.

I'd rather have a build with all your patches, p8rd included.

Sharktooth

20th March 2006, 21:22

newer builds are faster and better qualitywise...

foxyshadis

21st March 2006, 00:39

Well, Chainmax, now that subme 7 is in svn you won't have to wait long for a CC build with it. :p

Sharktooth

21st March 2006, 02:45

Updated profiles are coming...

JarrettH

21st March 2006, 03:52

:cool: :devil:

DarkFoon

21st March 2006, 04:27

I'm a little confused. are you not making builds anymore?
If not, how shall we get your profiles? (three downloads: 1. x264, 2. meGUI x264, 3. your profiles?)
gone are the days of simplicity

foxyshadis

21st March 2006, 05:11

The first post of this thread, maybe? :p Maybe if you ask CC nicely he'd be willing to bundle them.

Sharktooth

21st March 2006, 13:59

V23 (major update):
- Faster HQ profiles (all).
- Better quality for QuickTime and PSP profile.
- 3passes profiles now use 2passes (3 passes are a waste of encoding time)
- RDO lvl 2 (subme 7) is back on the slowest profiles
- Enabled 8x8dct and i8x8 in both Xbox profiles (if you have playback problems update to the latest XBMC)
- Other small changes

Sharktooth

21st March 2006, 14:06

@JarrettH: Use 1p-Maxspeed for live encoding. There is no way to create "useable" profiles for live encoding unless they're used on stellar computers...

Chainmax

21st March 2006, 14:23

Now I just have to wait until CC releases a new compile and download an all new package :). I have a few questions though:

1) Will the upcoming CC compiles have all of Sharktooth's patches?
2) How come 3-pass is now considered a waste of encoding time?
3) Will the XBOX profiles be updated to include no fast pskip and subme7?

Sharktooth

21st March 2006, 14:27

CC has already released an updated x264 build...
http://chronocrossdev.com/apps/x264/ <- updated x264
http://chronocrossdev.com/apps/megui/ <- updated MeGUI

1 - Yes
2 - Coz 3 passes are needed only when the 2nd pass misses the filesize.
3 - Only if ppl doesnt mind loosing encoding speed...

Sharktooth

21st March 2006, 14:36

I'm a little confused. are you not making builds anymore?
If not, how shall we get your profiles? (three downloads: 1. x264, 2. meGUI x264, 3. your profiles?)
gone are the days of simplicity
sorry for the delay... i missed your post...
Well, my x264 builds will be back. Don't know when but they will...
My profiles are also compatible with all x264 builds floating around, so you need only to get the latest MeGUI (if it's not already bundled with the build) and unzip the profiles in the MeGUI directory.

DarkFoon

22nd March 2006, 08:06

I can't seem to find MeGUI-x263 bundled with any x264 builds. Was x264-meGUI dropped and everybody foreced to use MeGUI?
thank you for getting back to me, though.

berrinam

22nd March 2006, 08:08

Yes, it was. It's not like full MeGUI is any worse...

Anyway, if you object to being forced, you can always try some other program, but the way it is now is much easier for us developers.

DarkFoon

22nd March 2006, 08:09

I am a fool.
I found MeGUI bundled with an x264 build (sorry for the noise)
but I seem to be having some problem with MeGUI on my encoding computer. I'll file a bug report(?) in the proper forum.
again, sorry for the noise.

Cyberace

22nd March 2006, 08:38

Will the XBOX profiles be updated to include no fast pskip and subme7?Only if ppl doesnt mind loosing encoding speed...I for one don't mind as long as it does not affect decoding speed/smoothness on the Xbox, sacrificing encoding time for quality is (almost) always worth it

Sharktooth

22nd March 2006, 13:56

Decoding is not affected by both options but encoding speed will drop seriously. You can try it by yourself modifying the profile.
However if the majoriry of xbox users wants more quality at expense of encoding speed i'll add those options in the next version.

Sharktooth

23rd March 2006, 20:10

V24:
Enabled RDO Lvl.2 and No Fast PSkip options in Xbox profiles (more quality, lower encoding speed).

thuongshoo

30th March 2006, 03:08

Hi ! I have just read a guide for x264 VFW . Thank Deadsheep !
I want to read a same doc for x264 in MEGUI . Can anyone help me ?
Thanks !

soresu

30th March 2006, 03:45

There should be a guide to MeGUI at the top of this sub-forum

thuongshoo

30th March 2006, 04:26

I don't want to use profiles . I want to adjust all .
x264 VFW guide help me all

berrinam

30th March 2006, 09:32

I don't want to use profiles . I want to adjust all .The options are mostly the same in MeGUI, but there are some renamed ones and some extra ones. However, MeGUI has a tooltip which displays for basically every option in x264. Try reading them if you want. However, you will probably find that there is already a Sharktooth profile which does what you want in the end.

Sharktooth

30th March 2006, 13:05

I don't want to use profiles . I want to adjust all .
x264 VFW guide help me all
so you're off topic...
However, you will probably find that there is already a Sharktooth profile which does what you want in the end.
exactly :)

thuongshoo

31st March 2006, 02:35

but there are some renamed ones and some extra ones. .
yes ! This make me misunderstand . I must look up dictionary again :D
so you're off topic
I really don't understand this sentence . I'm sorry ! I shouldn't post my request at this thread .
I will do "some searching " :D

DarkFoon

31st March 2006, 04:50

I really don't understand this sentence . I'm sorry ! I shouldn't post my request at this thread .
I will do "some searching " :D

what sharktooth means is that there are no profiles for VFW version (he hates VFW) and this topic thread is for the profiles used in MeGUI.

foxyshadis

31st March 2006, 08:09

Best way to do profiles for vfw is to set up your favorite config, export the registry file, and repeat. Import whatever you want for the session before you start. I've been doing that for ages with xvid, much faster than manually resetting them. (Maybe deaththesheep will upload a few, I don't have it installed.)

Sharktooth

31st March 2006, 11:41

what sharktooth means is that there are no profiles for VFW version (he hates VFW) and this topic thread is for the profiles used in MeGUI.
well, not properly. he said he wants to "adjust all" so he's off topic coz here we're discussing of profiles/presets that's exactly what he doesnt want.

tehpwner2

2nd April 2006, 06:57

Is there are way to load your profiles using virtual dub?? Can you set one of your profiles as default?

Sharktooth

2nd April 2006, 13:19

no. profiles are for MeGUI (but some other softwares added compatibility with them) and even include options that are not present in x264 VFW.
I suggest dropping virtualdub and use one of the GUI (like staxrip, megui, realanime...) for x264 encoding.
x264 VFW has several drawbacks and does not actually include all the x264 CLI options.

DarkFoon

3rd April 2006, 01:37

@tehpwner2
Switching to a GUI application like sharktooth reccomends really is easier. And if you want to edit your movie with virtualdub(mod) you can use the frame serving capabilites of Vdub to serve up your edited clip or you can edit your clip in an avisynth script and serve it to the x264 GUI (whichever you choose) like that.

tehpwner2

3rd April 2006, 11:58

Thanks friends! I am finding staxrip fairly easy to use.

Bathrone

7th April 2006, 05:15

Respect++ to Sharktooth for these profiles. Made it so easy, thanks mate.

Bathrone

9th April 2006, 07:08

Ok Sharktooth I have some more to advise on the outcomes for my XBMC testing of your PD_XBOX-HiRes profiles version 24.

During the encode, the only changes I make to your default profile is to set the number of threads to 2 for my machine and the bitrate, which I usually set around 1056kbps. I am currently using an XBMC build for 08/04/06.

640x256x25fps - plays well in all modes

704x400x25fps - drops frames with the high quality pixel shader render method. If the user changes the render method to hardware overlays, no frames are lost.

Keeping the original PAL 720x576x25fps and using MeGUI to set the SAR for anomorphic - drops frames in all modes.

Were not talking about a huge amount of dropped frames, but its enough to momentarily cause a stutter in playback.

berrinam

9th April 2006, 13:29

@Sharktooth: I'm sure you've seen my changes on the MeGUI dev thread, but it is now possible to use MeGUI to export and import profiles. It uses exactly the same directory structure (inside the archive) as yours, but with zip files as opposed to 7z. I don't know if you're interested in going back to zip format, but it would mean that they can be installed via MeGUI, and your can distribute them with CQMs.

Just letting you know.

Sharktooth

10th April 2006, 11:19

@Bathrone: full D1 anamorphic resolution encodings are pretty hard to play back on the xbox. i think keeping the current settings is better than cripple the codec to make the playback of 720x576 possible on the xbox.
it's possible future versions of XBMC will have less problems though.

@Berrinam: yeah, i saw the changes and im sorry i still havent the possibility to spend some time on coding MeGUI (or even update the profiles...). Health care is my first priority for now.

Backflip

10th April 2006, 11:38

640x256x25fps - plays well in all modes

704x400x25fps - drops frames with the high quality pixel shader render method. If the user changes the render method to hardware overlays, no frames are lost.

What sort pace is the footage at? Slow, Medium, Fast? Also, what cache settings etc do you use?

I shall try the latest Xbox profile, and see how it goes in the fast clip I have.

Chainmax

11th April 2006, 22:59

V24:
Enabled RDO Lvl.2 and No Fast PSkip options in Xbox profiles (more quality, lower encoding speed).

Cool, thanks :).

Bathrone

14th April 2006, 04:17

What sort pace is the footage at? Slow, Medium, Fast? Also, what cache settings etc do you use?

I shall try the latest Xbox profile, and see how it goes in the fast clip I have.

I have XBMC configured to reduce unnecessary loads. E.g. No post processing, no flicker filter, no smoothing. I have tested and confirmed the dropped frames over SMB as well as local HDD and DVDROM style playback. I have fiddled around with cache settings and ran debugmode for freememory display but the recent builds dont require caching changes from defaults to work with AVC playback. My setup requires a reduction in the local network cache size for 1080i playback. I have XBMX autodiscovery turned off, web server off and the ftp server off to free up enough ram - although it will run with the ftp server on following a reduction in the local network cache size.

I was advised by the XBMC Team that the upscaling is done in hardware and doesnt add to the cpu overhead for playback. I run a 720p GUI with video playback at 1080i.

Ive done lots of tests with different scenes on Sharktooth's v24 profiles and what Ive said above is the summary of the test outcomes. Were not talking about alot of dropped frames, but enough to stutter playback. The XBMC.log indicates dropped frames from mplayer.

Ive found good samples to use for testing are around 5 minutes long with a mix of high motion and low motion scenes.

@Sharktooth I hope new performance is in the works but I fear that mplayer is pretty optimised and I understand that coreavc wont be ported/stubbed. So in your judgement if you brough the PD-XBOX_HiRes profile down any further to allow full 720x576x25fps playback, there would be an unacceptable loss in compression?

Backflip

14th April 2006, 08:59

I use settings:
Video/Audio/DVD Cache - harddisk 4096 KB
Video Cache - DVDRom 8192 KB
Audio Cache - DVDRom 256 KB
DVD Cache - DVDRom 4096 KB

All others 0.

I've encoded a small music video clip, but it's x264 + 6CH AC3 *MKV* @ 704 x 384, with Xbox profile, 35MB. I like to keep the orgiinal audio. Plays fine. Yet to try x264 + LC-AAC for this particular clip though.

Bathrone

14th April 2006, 12:50

As I said, 704x400x25fps (5 minute clip mix of scenes) requires the hardware overlays not to drop frames. Your resolution is lower than this threshold.

It is not necessary to change the default cache size for AVC playback in the newest XBMC builds. Setting other aspects to zero will cause issues with video playback over SMB and so on. Some users with 1080i playback will require a reduction from the default local network video cache size to have enough free ram.

I have done tests with no audio stream to rule out that as a factor, which it isnt.

No amount of changes within the XBMC setup will enabled full PAL resolution playback using the hires profile for 720*576*25fps.

Bathrone

14th April 2006, 14:40

Here's a 21MB sample of PAL 720x576x25fps progressive footage transcoded into AVC with PD-XBOX_HiRes. Lost 21 frames with high quality pixel shader render method, on hardware overlays it still lost frames. Build is 12.04.06 CVS XBMC compile:

http://www.mytempdir.com/594462

My avi synth script:

# Set DAR in encoder to 16 : 9. The following line is for automatic signalling
global MeGUI_darx = 16
global MeGUI_dary = 9
DGDecode_mpeg2source("D:\Encoding\movies.d2v")
#Not doing anything because the source is progressive
#crop
#resize
#denoise

Command line for x264 (R498) PD-XBOX_HiRes profile (V24) with # of threads set to 2 and bitrate at 1200kbps:

C:\Program Files\x264\x264.exe --pass 2 --bitrate 1200 --stats ".stats" --no-fast-pskip --bframes 2 --b-rdo --bime --nf --no-cabac --subme 7 --analyse all --8x8dct --qpmin 18 --qcomp 0.3 --direct auto --me umh --threads 2 --thread-input --sar 16:9 --progress --no-psnr --output "D:\Encoding\movies.mp4" "D:\Encoding\movies.avs"

Sharktooth

14th April 2006, 15:22

720x576 is too much for the xbox.
use non anamorphic resolutions.
4:3 sources needs to be resized to 640*xxx.

Limobar

14th April 2006, 18:53

[...]No amount of changes within the XBMC setup will enabled full PAL resolution playback using the hires profile for 720*576*25fps.

I think it is not important to play full-dvd resolutions on the XBox for a couple of reasons:

1. The quality difference between square pixel- and anamorphic encodes is marginal. The general opinion is that, at this moment, 720x400 is the maximum the xbox can handle, using AVC/h.264. I share that opinion and think that is very good, knowing the hardware specs of the Xbox.

2. Anamorphic encoding takes 44% more pixels (720x400 versus 720x576), a lot more time to encode and a lot more MegaBytes to store (to use the same average kbits per pixel as square pixel).

3. The Xbox will put out the same resolution, whether the encode is anamorphic (720x576) or square pixel (720x400) is of non importance. Approximately 640x480 on Widescreen-tv's and 640x360 on Bigscreen-tv's.

Bathrone

14th April 2006, 23:40

Limobar

15th April 2006, 01:17

Thanks Sharktooth and Limobar. You make some good points.

Just quickly, do you disagree that resizing can be bad for quality? For example this URL: http://www.100fps.com/how_resizing_affects_quality.htm

No, I don't disagree, resizing affects the original quality, but the examples you refer to, are not comparable to the resizing we are doing with our encodes.

That site is, for the most part, showing examples of extreme bicubic upscaling. With our encodes we are mainly talking about limited lanczos downscaling. There is a difference between bicubic resizing (neutral and soft) and lanczos (sharp) resizing and there is a difference between upscaling and downscaling. Upscaling has a much bigger impact on the quality than downscaling.

I can show you, in some degree, the quality difference between 640x352 (Bigscreen resolution) with a 720x576 anamorphic source, and 640x352 with a 720x400 square pixel source.

720x400 to 640x352:
http://i2.tinypic.com/vgsl5e.jpg

720x576 to 640x352:
http://i2.tinypic.com/vgsn6g.jpg

I think the '720x576 to 640x352' has slightly more detail, but the difference is too small to worry about.

The 720x400 encode has a 1500kbit/sec avg bitrate.
The 720x576 encode has a 2160kbit/sec avg bitrate.
The difference in bitrate makes the bitrate per pixel the same.

P.S. If you're encoding for Standard Resolution tv's exclusively, it might be a wise choice to use a 640 width and do the final downscaling during the encode to achieve the best quality.

Sharktooth

20th April 2006, 14:53

I've changed the profiles archive to zip so MeGUI can directly import the profiles (File/Import Profiles) into the MeGUI installation directory.

Chainmax

20th April 2006, 16:00

...
The general opinion is that, at this moment, 720x400 is the maximum the xbox can handle, using AVC/h.264
...

But with what features enabled? I'd rather have a 512x384 encode with deblocking, a good number of reference frames and mixed references than a 720x400 encode without those.

Limobar

25th April 2006, 20:11

But with what features enabled? I'd rather have a 512x384 encode with deblocking, a good number of reference frames and mixed references than a 720x400 encode without those.

No deblocking, no CABAC and no HE-AAC. That are the Xbox-restrictions, to be able to use 720x400. This might sound ugly, but to be honest, it's not as bad as it sounds.

Deblocking is a matter of taste and only useful using low bitrates. I use average bitrates between 1 and 1,5 Mbit and prefer not to use deblocking, even if I could.

Having to use CAVLC instead of CABAC is not a choice between qualities, but a choice between efficiencies. That's the reason why I use rather high bitrates, to compensate not using CABAC.

LC-NAAC (VBR, internet, High Quality) sounds great. HE-AAC might be a little bit more efficient, but its efficiency gain is marginal.

There's no doubt in my mind. I will always pick a higher resolution/higher bitrate over a lower resolution/lower bitrate. The quality difference justifies the 10-15% larger file size. Not using deblocking, CABAC and HE-AAC does not mean the quality has to suffer. Decreasing the video resolution certainly will.

dexx

27th April 2006, 09:24

Ive just downloaded and installed MeGui on my winxp system. When i try and run MeGui is crashes out straight away saying "application failed to initialize properly". Have i missed a step?

buzzqw

27th April 2006, 12:27

.Net framework already installed ???

BHH

Sharktooth

27th April 2006, 14:17

MeGUI needs .NET framework 2.0...

check

30th April 2006, 08:13

Sorry if this was suggested before, but have you considered adding a prefix to all the profiles, like "ST-" or something? I ask because I have a number of profiles myself and your collection gets placed all over (I can never remember the two letter prefixes :P), making the list harder to read.

Sharktooth

30th April 2006, 13:56

if you dont like their names you can rename them...

Adub

30th April 2006, 17:52

Good point sharktooth. :)

foxyshadis

30th April 2006, 23:30

Only problem there is everytime you update sharktooth's build, it recopies the presets with the original names in, making the problem worse... (same for deleting unwanted presets.)

I just prefix all mine with FX- and live with it. :D

Sharktooth

1st May 2006, 15:04

uhm, got it...
i'll see what i can do then...

Adub

2nd May 2006, 04:23

Righteous!

NeD tHe OnE

2nd May 2006, 10:22

Hey SharkTooth!

Can u plz help me with X.264?

I am totally new in this. Which Encoder should I use ? and where wil i get custom video profiles with settings guide !

Help!

Sharktooth

2nd May 2006, 13:16

You can start with x264 CLI with an appropriate GUI: MeGUI, StaxRip or RealAnime.
My custom video profiles are linked in the first post of this thread and are made for MeGUI (but IIRC StaxRip support them too).
MeGUI guide is sticked at the top of this board, while StaxRip has it's own Help. RealAnime is so simple it shouldnt require a guide to use it.

NeD tHe OnE

2nd May 2006, 15:11

MeGUI .. I have this .. now i didnt get ur profiles .. I mean i cant download it from the first post Dont know Y? Do u have any other link?

buzzqw

2nd May 2006, 15:38

Sharktooth profiles also already included in MkvMagic

BHH

NeD tHe OnE

2nd May 2006, 15:51

where can i get the profiles?

NeD tHe OnE

2nd May 2006, 15:55

Profiles for maximizing Quality and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (2 or more passes, SLOW encoding, High Profile)HQ-Slow: Pretty slow but not much. Quality is near the best.HQ-Slower: Slower than HQ-Slow but it tries to squeeze some more compression thru the use of more reference frames.HQ-Slowest: Same as HQ-Slower with more reference frames.HQ-Insane: All settings maxed out

where will i get this presets?

foxyshadis

2nd May 2006, 17:16

You can either update mkvmagic, or get sharktooth's builds of x264 and megui (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=89979). The site's down now, wait a few hours to try again.

NeD tHe OnE

2nd May 2006, 17:17

God Plz Help!

NeD tHe OnE

2nd May 2006, 17:30

eqm_avc_hr.cfg

jvt.cfg

mp4_guy's_AVC_Low_Bitrate_matrix.cfg

mp4_guy's_AVC_Low_Bitrate_matrix_V2.cfg

q_matrix.cfg

q_matrix2.cfg

soulhunter_v1.cfg

soulhunter_v2.cfg

What are these ? I mean when shd v use this? I mean the presets like fast, 1,2,3 CD's Slow encodin, anime etc

nurbs

2nd May 2006, 17:57

You can find descriptions of the different matrices here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96159).

NeD tHe OnE

3rd May 2006, 13:33

Ok, since more and more ppl is asking me how to set the x264/MeGUI options, here's the solution: Profiles.

Instructions
Install MeGUI (http://megui.sf.net/) and put x264.exe in the install directory.
Get the profiles archive (below) and use the MeGUI Import Profiles option to import them.
Once imported you will find the profiles in the "Video Profiles" drop down list.[/color] Before starting encoding set the bitrate or quantizer (manually or thru the calculator) and adjust the inloop filter accordingly to your needs/taste: keep it 1;1 or higher for anime/toons (max 3;3) and not higher than x264 defaults (0;0) for movies.[/i]

Profiles for maximizing Quality and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (2 or more passes, SLOW encoding, High Profile)
HQ-Slow: Pretty slow but not much. Quality is near the best.
HQ-Slower: Slower than HQ-Slow but it tries to squeeze some more compression thru the use of more reference frames.
HQ-Slowest: Same as HQ-Slower with more reference frames.
HQ-Insane: All settings maxed out.

Profiles for Common Encoding (2-passes)
CE-Highprofile: Common settings using high profile options (not compatible with QuickTime)
CE-Mainprofile: Common settings using main profile options (not compatible with QuickTime)
CE-QuickTime: Common settings for QuickTime 7 compatibility.
CE-Baseline: Common settings using baseline profile options (100% compatible with QuickTime 7)

Profiles for maximizing Speed and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (1-pass)
1P-Maxspeed: Everything disabled for max encoding speed (good for live capturing).
1P-Intermediate: Intermediate settings for average speed and final quality.
1P-Goodquality: Settings for good quality with 1 pass.

Profiles for constant Quality/Quantizer (1-pass)
CQ-Lossless: Lossless encoding.
CQ-ASP_Q2_equiv: Almost the equivalent of MPEG-4 ASP Q2 encoding.
CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf): Same as above but with "constant quality" (constant rate factor).

Profiles for Anime/Toons (2 passes)
AE-Standard: 2 passes, Main Profile, standard quality.
AE-Goodquality: Slower than AE-Standard, High Profile, higher quality.
AE-Maxquality: Slowest mode with maxed out settings, best quality.

Profiles for Consoles and Portable Devices
PD-PSP: Profile for Sony PSP playback.
PD-Xbox_Hires: Profile for MS XBOX and higher than 512pixels resolution (latest XBMC is needed).
PD-Xbox_LoRes: Profile for MS XBOX and lower than 512pixels resolutions (latest XBMC is needed).
PD-iPod: Profile for iPod Video based on Arstechnica settings (http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars/6).

Download link: MeGUI-x264 Custom Video Profiles V24. (http://files.x264.nl/Sharktooth/force.php?file=./megui/profiles/MeGUI-x264_generic_profiles_v24.zip)

For questions, comments and requests ask in this thread.
Thanks goes to Sirber for suggestions for Anime profiles.

HQ-Slow[/b][/color]: Pretty slow but not much. Quality is near the best.
HQ-Slower: Slower than HQ-Slow but it tries to squeeze some more compression thru the use of more reference frames.
HQ-Slowest: Same as HQ-Slower with more reference frames.
HQ-Insane: All settings maxed out.

I need settings and custom profiles for these PROFILES... Hey Sharktooth! Plz Help me.. Even the download link isnt working

Sharktooth

3rd May 2006, 13:37

http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/megui/MeGUI-x264_generic_profiles_v24.zip

NeD tHe OnE

3rd May 2006, 13:43

Thank You very much! Hey all those are xml files . How do u load them in the encoder? and how is your eqm_avc_hr.cfg

NeD tHe OnE

3rd May 2006, 13:48

Can you plz give me a guide to use your video profiles

Thankyou

Sharktooth

3rd May 2006, 13:50

Those are Profiles for MeGUI and other GUIs. They cant be loaded in x264 directly.
There's also a whole thread for my custom matrix and other threads with comparisons between matrices :search:

NeD tHe OnE

3rd May 2006, 13:55

How do u use profiles then? I searched ... but I didnt get the results for encodin videos for different bitrates ..

Which of ur profile and matrix is good for 3 CD's rip and 2cd's rip and single cd... PLZ! I wont BUG u again!

foxyshadis

4th May 2006, 00:46

Load one into MeGUI, and copy its commandline (from the encoder config, or the logs). Or, y'know, just use megui if you're not trying to create batch files for stuff.

As sharktooth said, look to the matrix thread for help with matrices.

NeD tHe OnE

6th May 2006, 07:33

Hey Sharktooth! I m havin problem with ur profiles.. I get this Error... For eg .. if i choose HQ - Insane .. and even if i choose any other..

"Generating jobs. Desired size: 254803968 bytes
No audio encoding. Calculating desired video bitrate directly.
Setting video bitrate for the video jobs to 698 kbit/s
Setting desired size of video to 253418496 bytes
Starting job job1-1 at 11:58:21 AM
Job is a video job. encoder commandline:
--pass 1 --bitrate 698 --stats "G:\Vidz\new\English V songs\Enigma\EniGMa - CD TRck ALLSOnGS x264.VoRbis.MatRoska.NeDtHeOnE.stats" --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --filter -2,-1 --subme 1 --analyse none --direct auto --me dia --progress --no-psnr --output NUL "G:\Vidz\new\English V songs\Enigma\EniGMa - CD TRck ALLSOnGS x264.VoRbis.MatRoska.NeDtHeOnE.avs"
successfully started encoding
Processing ended at 11:58:22 AM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job1-1

bad argument: --direct auto

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
job job1-1 has been processed. This job is linked to the next job: job1-2
Starting job job1-2 at 11:58:22 AM
Job is a video job. encoder commandline:
--pass 2 --bitrate 698 --stats "G:\Vidz\new\English V songs\Enigma\EniGMa - CD TRck ALLSOnGS x264.VoRbis.MatRoska.NeDtHeOnE.stats" --ref 16 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --filter -2,-1 --subme 7 --trellis 2 --analyse all --8x8dct --direct auto --me umh --progress --no-psnr --output "G:\Vidz\new\English V songs\Enigma\EniGMa - CD TRck ALLSOnGS x264.VoRbis.MatRoska.NeDtHeOnE.mkv" "G:\Vidz\new\English V songs\Enigma\EniGMa - CD TRck ALLSOnGS x264.VoRbis.MatRoska.NeDtHeOnE.avs"
successfully started encoding
Processing ended at 11:58:22 AM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job1-2

unknown option ("

Encoding doesnt start @ all.. But if I Use the default video profile.... Encoding works...

Does snyone know why this is happenin?

foxyshadis

6th May 2006, 09:38

God, how old is your x264? Direct auto has been in svn for months. Didn't you update from sharktooth's build sticky?

NeD tHe OnE

6th May 2006, 11:51

hey foxy shadis wre will i get d latest x264 .... ?

NeD tHe OnE

6th May 2006, 11:55

mine is r364A sharktooth build and megui 0.2.3.2116

plz give me the links 4 d latest 1s

nurbs

6th May 2006, 11:56

Have you ever tried to :readfaq: (or rather sticky (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=106189)) or to :search:?
Also you should probably :readrule: while you're at it.

NeD tHe OnE

6th May 2006, 12:03

thx i got r517 and i hope that problem will be solved

Sharktooth

8th May 2006, 13:32

wolfmac

8th May 2006, 16:49

The new profiles require MeGUI ver 0.2.3.2134

[The last version of MeGUI i can find ist 0.2.3.2132!
http://www.chronocrossdev.com/apps/megui/

Where can i get 0.2.3.2134?

Thanks
Wolfmac]

okay here:
http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/megui/MeGUI-0.2.3.2134.7z

berrinam

8th May 2006, 21:39

Beyond 0.2.3.2132, the builds are still unstable development builds. A user build should be coming soon.

Deinorius

17th May 2006, 13:48

@Sharktooth
Why do you use for AE_Standard M.E. Algorithm: multihex?
Wouldn't it be better tu use hexagonal and -subme 6? With my tests it brings better compressibility and it's much faster.

Sharktooth

17th May 2006, 14:02

hexagonal is faster but inferior to multihex expecially on anime (in terms of quality).
however i doubt that swithching from subme 5 to 6 and from multihex to hex it will be faster.

Deinorius

17th May 2006, 17:29

I did some tests about this.

Athlon XP-M 2000+, 512 MB DDR333
x264 R512; --crf 24; everything else AE_Standard

30 min Fansub; no additional filter:

Parameter Speed (%) Size (%)
hex/subme5 100 100
mhex/subme5 77 97,9
hex/subme6/rdo 92,8 95,96

DVD-Rip - 1. Crop/BicubicResize(704,384)/RemoveGrain(1), 2. only Crop, 704,560: subme6/rdo means rdo for b-frames activated.
(1 min 31 s; short Anime clip with no action)

Parameter fps kbit/s
hex/subme5 8,32 404,68
mhex/subme5 7,48 399,38
hex/subme6 7,73 398,53
hex/subme6/rdo 7,44 392,97

hex/subme5 6,04 597,80
mhex/subme5 5,48 590,63
hex/subme6 5,62 587,81
hex/subme6/rdo 5,46 578,48

So converting from a Fansub it's much faster, nearly 16 %, and it compress better.
With DVD-Rips it has nearly the same speed with activated rdo for b-frames, but it compress about 2 % better everytime.

Sharktooth

18th May 2006, 00:59

ok, next version will take that into consideration.
thanks:)

berrinam

18th May 2006, 01:27

x264 R512; --crf 24; everything else AE_Standardakupenguin has said many times that a crf value only gives a constant quality for a given group of settings, which means that you can't compare the efficiency of settings by the filesize when doing crf compression. What you need to do is a constant filesize encode (eg 2pass ABR, target bitrate) and compare PSNR (or some other quality metric).

Otherwise, you are comparing the filesize of two files which were encoded to different quality levels at different speeds -- there is no control.

Deinorius

18th May 2006, 07:34

I could do that. It would be better, but to measure better compression this way should do it.

I think, I can use for the same source the same .stats file, because settings in 1.pass are identical, right?
It would speed up tests extremely.

I will get some tests on an Opteron 144@2250 too. So we will see, how speed differs from the settings. But he will use newest Sharktooth's profile.

aguy

18th May 2006, 13:04

Hey Sharktooth,

Just wondering where you found the specs for the HD-DVD profile. I have been able to find the blu ray specs but not the hd-dvd specs in my searching.

Thanks

Sharktooth

18th May 2006, 13:13

Here and there this forum.
Im not even sure it is completely compliant, that's why i asked for testers.

@Deinorius: i thought you were using constant quant... crf is not good for that comparison.

berrinam

18th May 2006, 13:25

You can use the same first pass stats file if the settings you use for first pass are the same. Since you are testing turbo, that's probably the case.

I'm not sure how constant quant fits into all of this, but I still imagine that 2pass is the best scenario to test the efficiency of settings, because it ensures that filesizes are the same, so a visual judgement is the be-all-end-all.

Sharktooth

18th May 2006, 13:31

then you'll need PSNR or SSIM or whatever to distinguish one encode from the other...

lazyn00b

19th May 2006, 16:27

I added the first EXPERIMENTAL profile for HD-DVD compatibility.
Please advice me if there are wrong settings, it does not work or if it's just too slow...
The new profiles require MeGUI ver 0.2.3.2134.

Ben Waggoner (Microsoft) over at AVS Forum says 250 frames is too long for GOP length, but he can't tell me the exact limit because of NDA. FWIW, Apple's DVD Studio Pro docs show the GOP for HD DVD can be set from 0.5 second to 5 seconds, which would be 12 to 120 frames for film content. I am still trying to find out exact specs, so I will post back when I find them.

Mainconcept's HD DVD preset shows 2 B-frames, so maybe it is best to use 2 instead of 3 to be on the safe side.

berrinam

19th May 2006, 23:02

then you'll need PSNR or SSIM or whatever to distinguish one encode from the other...Well, if you do it by CQ, then you are using a Quant metric instead. Who knows how good that is? But with 2pass, you can resort to trusting your eyes, whereas you can't with anything else (because the filesizes aren't the same, so visual comparisons are useless).

mrkazador

22nd May 2006, 05:45

Question.....
Would HQ-Insane be good for an hd source?
Encoding time is not important to me.....

foxyshadis

22nd May 2006, 06:06

All of the HQ profiles are good and slow, Insane extremely so. "HD" isn't nearly enough of a reference, so just try a few profiles and see what you think.

Sharktooth

22nd May 2006, 14:19

v26: updated SA-HD-DVD profile.

smok3

22nd May 2006, 14:43

Sharktooth; it would be actually great if you could provide the profiles as x264 command lines as well as xml.

Sharktooth

24th May 2006, 17:04

ill see what i can do

buzzqw

24th May 2006, 18:05

@smok3

quick way: open megui, load a profile , check show command line.

BHH

Golgot13

27th May 2006, 03:07

I have HD DVD player buy in USA. When I put H264 video from x264, I have warning messages
about maximum bitrate (--vbv maxrate at 12000kps and --vbv bufsize use ) in HD DVD authoring
software (professional).
There is some pic over the maximum bitrate of HD DVD specification.

And when I play in HD DVD player (DVDR with HD DVD image), the video block when there is pics
of maximum bitrate.

The Sonic Scenarist tutorial say the GOP must be less than 0.606 second,
so 18 frame in NTSC framerate (29.97) and 15 frame in PAL framerate (25).
for AVC (H264 video) and VC1.
The number of B frame is 2 no more.
No information about MBAFF and PAFF use (I don't recommend it because
there is not lot of hardware chipset that support it).

I need to know how I can encode in CBR with MeGui (-ratetol at 0 don't work -> change at 0.1)
to test video in HD DVD player.

And we don't need to put maxbirate at 25Mbit/s because at 10Mbit/s and ABR at 8Mbit/s
the picture is beautiful (LCD Samsung 42" HD Ready).

Golgot13

berrinam

27th May 2006, 03:18

Sharktooth; it would be actually great if you could provide the profiles as x264 command lines as well as xml.

ill see what i can doI actually think this might be worth integrating into MeGUI, to extend the 'export profiles' function -- it could export them in a plain text or .bat format (couldn't be too hard).

CruNcher

28th May 2006, 03:52

Golgot13

29th May 2006, 01:05

The big problem with x264 encoder is " NAL_HRD_PARAMETER ".
In this header, somes professionnal software read information about H264 video file.
The most import information is the bitrate (there is a minimum and a maximum
to be compliant with HD DVD and BluRay compliant).

The last version of Scenarist 4 don't accept file without this header.
I must to use a older version to mux the video data. And demux (with transport stream software)
the EVO file to have good file (with the most important header: NAL, VUI,...)

I recommend to encode in CBR mode but I don't know how I can do this with MeGui
(no option in MeGui to encode in CBR ???)

Golgot13

Golgot13

29th May 2006, 01:17

Golgot13 could you please try this encode with Scenarist 4

http://rapidshare.de/files/19907080/Silent_Hill-Trailer-High_Profile-5.1-LC-AAC-8000kbps.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/19907412/Silent_Hill-Trailer-High_Profile-5.1-LC-AAC-8000kbps.part2.rar.html

thx in advance

Scenarist 4 accept mp4 container but with only video stream H264 (compliant with
HD DVD and BluRay specification, with all headers....)
AAC audio track is not compliant HD DVD/BluRay.

Golgot13

Chainmax

1st June 2006, 20:06

On the iPod profile, the "I4x4" and "P4x4" macroblock options are not greyed out but they aren't enabled either. If I enable them, will the encode still be playable on an iPod?

Sharktooth

2nd June 2006, 03:09

On the iPod profile, the "I4x4" and "P4x4" macroblock options are not greyed out but they aren't enabled either. If I enable them, will the encode still be playable on an iPod?
no...

Chainmax

2nd June 2006, 12:50

Then shouldn't they be greyed out as well?

Sharktooth

2nd June 2006, 12:54

no... ipod profile is just a MeGUI preset.. not a h.264 profile.
in megui x264 conf. window the only features that are grayed out ar the ones locked by h.264 levels and profiles.

Chainmax

2nd June 2006, 15:18

I see, thanks for the info. About the SA-HD-DVD profile, what would the resolution limits be? Also, should a 640x480 encode made with that preset be playable on a standalone?

Sharktooth

3rd June 2006, 02:31

Resolution limits are imposed by the HD-DVD specs, you should search the forum or ask to someone who exactly know the specs.

Sharktooth

4th June 2006, 14:37

V27:
- Faster CQ profiles
- Modified HD-DVD profile

Chainmax

5th June 2006, 15:42

Resolution limits are imposed by the HD-DVD specs, you should search the forum or ask to someone who exactly know the specs.

The hardware players forum still doesn't have a spec list, which is why I was basically asking you where you got them from.

W3ird_N3rd

5th June 2006, 16:19

I tried but I can't figure it out. I installed the profiles, and I keep getting an error telling me the value for SelectedIndex is not valid when I select a profile. Tried searching this thread, Google, no result..

Doesn't happen to all profiles, only to the profiles I would like to use :D. The HQ at least.

Sharktooth

5th June 2006, 16:42

Update MeGUI...:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=824894#post824894

W3ird_N3rd

5th June 2006, 17:01

I already installed the latest version from x264.nl (the full package), didn't help. I also have the latest profiles.

[edit]
Ah, so the latest full package does not include the latest MeGUI..

Beave

12th June 2006, 03:11

Just to make certain: Is the SA-HD-DVD profile now the closest to encoding 1080i material to 720p or 1080p?

In another thread I learned that using HQ settings is actually overkill for HD resolutions. What I'm trying to say is: Is this profile only trying to get as close as possible to the possible future HD-DVD standard or does it actually make sense to use this profile for the personal TS HDTV streams to 720p conversions?

My goal is to find a pretty balanced setting concidering encoding speed, quality and decoding speed for 720p and 1080p targets.

Sharktooth

12th June 2006, 13:11

The profile is experimental and was made from the info i had gathered around.
I think it "should" be compatible with HD-DVD standard (provided you use the correct resolution and FPS) but since i dont have the specs i cant be 100% sure.
If anyone has a HD-DVD player (toshiba) or a software that can test the streams for compatibility we can test if it works.

shon3i

13th June 2006, 20:22

@Sharktooth can you make some presets with AQ patch, similar AQ like ateme aq if this possible.

Sharktooth

13th June 2006, 22:20

ateme AQ is completely different from x264 AQ.
Also, AQ settings depends too much on the source to be included into a profile.

shon3i

13th June 2006, 22:50

ateme AQ is completely different from x264 AQ.
Also, AQ settings depends too much on the source to be included into a profile.
Thanks for info, too bad, because i tryed it with some very dark movie (--aq-strength 0.8 and --aq-sensitivity 1) x264 AQ makes big improvments in quality and PSNR with 700kbps, but little blur picture but is not noticable.

Can you do some profiles aimed for 1CD rips where be might need using some CQM to incrase quality in bitrate range of 600-900kbps like AutoGK settings.

PS. Nice new avatar!

Sharktooth

13th June 2006, 22:56

Usually the best quantization for that bitrates is the standard one...
However it's possible to create softer matrices that will help reduce blocking (but will kill details). At that point i prefer rising deblocking filter settings instead, even if a quant matrix maybe "could" produce better results.

P.S. Thanks:)

desta

19th June 2006, 22:36

Thanks for info, too bad, because i tryed it with some very dark movie (--aq-strength 0.8 and --aq-sensitivity 1) x264 AQ makes big improvments in quality and PSNR with 700kbps, but little blur picture but is not noticable.
I'm no expert, but I would've thought setting the sensitivity to 1 would drastically increase blocks and other artifacts?

I used "--aq-strength 0.8 and --aq-sensitivity 5" on a test encode that had a bitrate of around 1700kbps, and the output was full of blocks. When I raised the sensitivity above 10, they went.

Sharktooth

20th June 2006, 01:02

what does that have to do with my custom MeGUI profiles?

desta

20th June 2006, 01:51

I apologise for commenting about another comment that also had nothing to do with your custom MeGUI profiles...

haubrija

20th June 2006, 17:46

Chainmax

24th June 2006, 16:17

If I recall correctly, Nero can already author HD-DVDs. I don't know what codecs does it accepts as input though.

Ghim

30th July 2006, 10:02

I have two small suggestions for the PD-PSP profile:

- The PSP 2.80 firmware has added quite a few things in H264 support. The PSP can now read standard MPEG-4 containers (no more need for Atomchanger !!!), accept any framerate...
However, Sony also introduced a new check on the H.264 level set during the encoding and all files encoded in Main Profile with a level > 2.1 will be rejected. It would be nice to change the default level in the PD-PSP profile to 2.1.

-Starting with firmware 2.60, the seeking is more accurate. However, the PSP will freeze for some reason during the seeking if the file has been encoded with the PD-PSP profile. This is due to the 3 B-Frames and the 2 Reference Frames settings. Putting 1 B-Frame and 1 Reference Frame solves this issue. (see this post for more information: http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=755401#post755401)

Doom9

30th July 2006, 11:44

he PSP 2.80 firmware has added quite a few things in H264 support. The PSP can now read standard MPEG-4 containers (no more need for Atomchanger !!!), accept any framerate...Have they finally seen the light? I also noted that the filename limitation is no longer in effect.. so finally a halfway usable firmware.. the downside is that with all the new versions you can't run homebrewn software so perhaps it would make sense to have multiple profiles for different firmware revisions.

Sharktooth

31st July 2006, 02:31

v28: Updated PSP profile with Level 2.1.

Question: what's the iPod highest supported level?

elguaxo

31st July 2006, 09:45

Now HQ-Slow, Slower, Slowest, Insane have VBV Maximum Bitrate: 25000
Max local bitrate, what is that?

leiming2006

31st July 2006, 12:02

About the title:
The date is wrong.
It's July, not September.

Sharktooth

31st July 2006, 12:42

Now HQ-Slow, Slower, Slowest, Insane have VBV Maximum Bitrate: 25000
Max local bitrate, what is that?
it's the new default for all bitrate based profiles. it sets the maximum bitrate cap.

About the title:
The date is wrong.
It's July, not September.
my head was already on september... :D

Sharktooth

2nd August 2006, 13:04

v29:
Updated iPod profile (Lvl 1.3 and max bitrate 768kbps)
Some already "not-too-slow" profiles got a speed boost

Sharktooth

6th August 2006, 15:07

definatly not the right place.

Taxidermista

22nd August 2006, 16:10

Couple of questions about HD-DVD profile:

- Sonic Scenarist tech specs mention AVC (H.264) Main/High Profiles, Levels 3, 3.1, 3.2, 4, and 4.1 for h.264 assets. Should it be advisable to restrict level to 4.1 in HD-DVD profile?

- There's a few tips in Apple DVD Studio Pro 4.1 docs about h.264 assets. I don't know exactly if they are useful for the HD-DVD profile:

SD resolutions - Bitrate limits: from 0.5 Mbps to 15 Mbps
HD resolutions - Bitrate limits: from 1.5 Mbps to 29.4 Mbps
Key frame interval limits: from 0.5 sec to 5 sec (0.5 sec increments)

I'm gonna try to import some x264 video assets in Studio Pro and see what happens.

Sharktooth

23rd August 2006, 12:41

Ehr... it was already restricted to 4.1 but it seems it got somewhat mistakenly removed.
I'll fix it ASAP.
Regarding the bitrate, x264 rate control can be set to respect the maximum bitrate cap, but not the minimum.

EDIT:

V30: Restored the Level 4.1 limit in HD-DVD profile. The profile is made for HD content and may return sub-optimal results for SD.

Sharktooth

28th August 2006, 13:34

V31: Updated VBV parameters, quantization and GOP parameters in HD-DVD profile. This profile should be compatible with 25FPS encodings.

Chainmax

28th August 2006, 20:38

Are the HD-DVD profile settings still guesses or did you find some official info?

Sharktooth

29th August 2006, 14:47

Still guesses.

Chainmax

30th August 2006, 02:11

I don't understand why is it taking so long for those specs to be released. After all, HD-DVD/BluRay/AVCHD standalones are being developed right now which means specs are final, right?

Lemonadez

30th August 2006, 03:34

---------------------------
AviSynth error
---------------------------
AviSynth script error:

Script error: there is no function named "DirectShowSource"
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

Adub

30th August 2006, 03:39

I am sure that the specs must be somewhere. I will do some research this weekend and report back if I find anything.

@Lemonadez
What versions are you using of a) AviSynth and b) the Megui Profiles?
Also, make sure you have the plugin in your plugin folder, just incase you deleted it by accident or something.

Sharktooth

30th August 2006, 03:54

there are specs but not available for free

Chainmax

7th September 2006, 18:26

That sucks :(.

I recently started a thread in the AVC subforum asking what did "No DCT Decimation" do and it seems to be somewhat similar to Fast P-Skip and was advisable to enable when using Trellis. Could the highest quality profiles be modified to reflect that?

Sharktooth

7th September 2006, 18:53

Ok, ill add it to HQ-Insane, HQ-Slowest and AE-Maxquality

check

8th September 2006, 11:17

I've heard it's bad for animated content (#x264 on IRC). Some testing seems to be in order :)

Hobojobo

11th September 2006, 10:58

Hi,
what is the difference between these two profiles: cq-asp_q2_aquiv and cq-asp_asp_q2_eq(crf) ?

I guess it is the "constant rate factor". I'm good. ;)

What exactly does that mean?

I like one pass encoding and the idea of constant quality.

check

11th September 2006, 11:40

crf attempts to provide a more perceptually constant quality, whereas cq provides a constant quantizer, which is somewhat less perceptually constant but mathematically constant. crf is probably what you are looking to use - the filesize will be lower and visual quality (theoretically) identical.

Sharktooth

11th September 2006, 12:39

I've heard it's bad for animated content (#x264 on IRC). Some testing seems to be in order :)
any news?

iMaGe

14th September 2006, 02:09

Sharktooth, is there a reason why you've limited the HighRes XBOX profile's Minimum Quantizer to 18? I've been experimenting with a minimum of 10 with 1.5Mbps bitrate which plays perfectly on my regular softmodded xbox.

Sharktooth

14th September 2006, 03:07

Yes, coz sometimes (depending on the source) Q18 gives too-high bitrates resulting in dropped frames during playback.
However Q18 has excellent quality (similar to xvid Q2) and there's really no need to risk your encode wont play back correctly coz of the lower quantizer.

migrena

18th September 2006, 00:44

apple added this to video specs for ipods:
"H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile"
but i have no idea what low-complexity means

Sharktooth

18th September 2006, 12:55

They rised the max bitrate from 768 to 1.5mbps...
low complexity maybe is the apple "re-definition" of Level 1.3...

Taxidermista

18th September 2006, 13:49

They rised the max bitrate from 768 to 1.5mbps...
low complexity maybe is the apple "re-definition" of Level 1.3...

I don't think so. There are 2 different h.264 profiles and one mpeg4 sp profile:

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Maybe baseline LC profile is a new avc profile defined by Apple. :)

Sharktooth

18th September 2006, 14:01

well, dunno but i think it has something to do with their Level 1.3 and 1.5Mbps... or with Baseline+Bframes thing...

migrena

19th September 2006, 00:34

old profile with 640x480 clip wont work on ipod (tested)
is there a possibility that this may be an issue with container not codec settings? this video (http://www.eugbanana.com/EverythingApple/Movies/Cornell-640-7.1.3.mov) in mov container works but when remuxed to mp4 it wont play anymore

check

19th September 2006, 11:34

have you tried muxing to mp4 with a hint track?

Sharktooth

19th September 2006, 13:03

V32:
HQ-Insane is even more "insane"... (removed fast first pass, added no-dct-decimation)
Added iPod 5.5G profile.

migrena

20th September 2006, 01:22

have you tried muxing to mp4 with a hint track?
if you are talking about timecodes then no, i did this with yamb and there is no such option in yamb
i could remux mov to mkv and extract timecodes then but i still dont know how to mux them to mp4

ps that new profile doesnt work on 5g with 1.2 software, no idea why...

anonymez

20th September 2006, 01:36

and there is no such option in yamb

options-->general-->enable import settings :)

Sharktooth

20th September 2006, 12:41

if you are talking about timecodes then no, i did this with yamb and there is no such option in yamb
i could remux mov to mkv and extract timecodes then but i still dont know how to mux them to mp4

ps that new profile doesnt work on 5g with 1.2 software, no idea why...
EDIT: Uhm, i have no iPod to test it...

migrena

20th September 2006, 13:46

this profile is perfectly fine, it should work if apple specs were complete...
is it possible that only movies encoded with apple avc codec will play on ipod? i dont like the idea of either buying movies from itunes store or buying quicktime to export movies to ipod format

Taxidermista

24th September 2006, 14:12

Added iPod 5.5G profile.

I did a little test on my iPod 5G with firmware 1.2. I've encoded the World Trade Center HD trailer (from Apple) to a mp4 file with the new iPod 5.5G profile.

iTunes rejects this clip (that stupid tag thing (http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2006-September/045391.html)) but you can place it on the iPod with the richardsj dummie trick (http://www.ipodwizard.net/showthread.php?t=15015).

Trailer specs:

Resolution: 640x380
fps: 23.976
Video: x264 baseline profile level 3 (Sharktooth's iPod 5.5G profile)
Video bitrate: 1200 Kbps
Audio: AAC LC stereo
Audio bitrate: 128 Kbps
Length: 2:29.05
Size: 24 MB

If someone wanna try it can be downloaded from here (http://www.2shared.com/file/1624703/32225486/worldtradecentertrailerx264ipod.html).

The video plays fine on my iPod, the quality is ok but it looks better in Windows (Media Player Classic + CoreAVC). The video pixelates in some places, specially in scene transitions.

Maybe a mpeg4 sp vs h.264 @1.5Mbps challenge is in order. :)

Sharktooth

24th September 2006, 14:13

V33:
Updated HQ-Slowest with no-dct-decimate and PD-iPod 5.5G profile: disabled deblocking and all macroblock paritions (it will reduce quality but will save batteries...).

Taxidermista

24th September 2006, 14:14

V33:
Updated HQ-Slowest with no-dct-decimate and PD-iPod 5.5G profile (disabled deblocking and all macroblock paritions).

Ups, bad timing! :D

The WTC trailer is encoded with your "old" 5.5G profile.

Sharktooth

24th September 2006, 14:16

Well, the new profile will have a bit less quality but will save batteries for longer movies ;)

Adub

24th September 2006, 18:23

Should we maybe have 2 profiles then? One for battery and one for quality? I just know that some people care more about quality than battery life. Just a thought.

Sharktooth

25th September 2006, 12:20

I'll add it in the next version.

Adub

27th September 2006, 04:32

great! Thanks Sharktooth.

CubaMAN

21st October 2006, 15:47

I tried your Quicktime Profile but unfortunately playing with current Quicktime Player shows only a white frame. Audio works.

Sharktooth

22nd October 2006, 01:04

Can you be more precise on the encoding setup?

simonhowson

22nd October 2006, 14:22

Should we maybe have 2 profiles then? One for battery and one for quality? I just know that some people care more about quality than battery life. Just a thought. Does the deblocking filter make a significant difference on battery life? Have there been any tests, or is this just an expectation? Will the difference be significant, i.e. will deblocking off double the battery life?

I have a new 80 GB iPod, and so I want do tests, but I'm still figuring out exactly how to encode something properly. :o

check

22nd October 2006, 14:56

deblocking adds around 20% to CPU requirments, so I would expect disabling it to lead to a 20% boost in battery life - assuming bitrate was the same of course.

CubaMAN

22nd October 2006, 20:09

Can you be more precise on the encoding setup?

I chose your CE-Quicktime MP4 Profile ....didn't change anything and audio aac lc variable bitrate Q=0,5. Filters: deinterlace, resize, noise filter (minimal) and mpeg2 deblock. I can upload an example file if you wish.

Sharktooth

23rd October 2006, 03:56

Weird... i just did an encode and it works.
Just a question... How many FPS?

CubaMAN

23rd October 2006, 09:39

Weird... i just did an encode and it works.
Just a question... How many FPS?

PAL 25fps. If I just encode video everythings fine, but audio and video produces a white frame playing only audio. Don't really know if the mp4muxer produces a corrupt file. Is the Quicktime Version on Mac different to the version on Windows?

Sharktooth

23rd October 2006, 13:31

AFAIK no... however is your mp4box up to date?

Synergy37

23rd October 2006, 23:46

I followed the info found in this thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=880122#post880122

and I still can't get this to work. When I add it to iTunes it plays fine and then it won't transfer to the iPod because it says a bad bit rate.

Sharktooth

24th October 2006, 03:33

what bitrate did you set?

Synergy37

24th October 2006, 04:16

1000, 1112, and 700

check

24th October 2006, 11:34

have you tried something lower, like <500?

simonhowson

24th October 2006, 12:40

1000, 1112, and 700 Is it possible that the average is set below 1500, but the maximum is going over 1500? So the -Vbv maxbitrate switch should be on?

I'm using the iPod 5.5 profile and nicmp4box to mux the video and audio together, and it is working fine. The profile targets 1000 Kbps as the average for the video, but features the --vbv maxbitrate 1500 setting so the bitrate doesn't go too high.

Synergy37

24th October 2006, 22:57

I think it was becuase I was fooling around with the profiles. I'm gonna redo my profiles so they are how Sharktooth sets them and then I'll reencode tonight. Hopefully this works.

Synergy37

25th October 2006, 03:23

Alright so I tried the Shark Tooth profile at 1000 kbps and it idn't work. Now I'm trying 768 kbps and if that doesn't work I'll wait for a program with a preset profile to encode. Any other ideas?

check

25th October 2006, 10:12

From what's going on in the ipod thread it sounds like the maximum is 768kbits - try setting the vbvmaxrate to 768 and the bitrate below that.

simonhowson

25th October 2006, 11:39

Alright so I tried the Shark Tooth profile at 1000 kbps and it idn't work. Now I'm trying 768 kbps and if that doesn't work I'll wait for a program with a preset profile to encode. Any other ideas? Is it possible that you are using a width other than 640? To use the 1500 Kbps bitrate I am pretty sure the resolution must be 640 wide, it can't be anything else.

Synergy37

25th October 2006, 21:19

Yeah no settings I've been trying have worked. Can someone post a shor clip for me to download along with their settings for me to try?

CubaMAN

27th October 2006, 12:37

AFAIK no... however is your mp4box up to date?

Sorry, had problems with my internet connection. I have the version which is available via the MeGUI Update Manager. Where can I get the current version? Is there a guide which deinterlace filter to use for which source? Had a partially interlaced movie and let MeGui choose the filter but the result was ugly.

acarney

29th October 2006, 11:15

Using Sharks 5.5G profile without changing ANYTHING should work fine. I have encoded iPod videos using MeGUI with Shark's 5.5G profile output set to mp4. For audio you need to downmix to two channels and make sure it's constant bit rate 160kbps or less (I use 128kbit so try using that first) and ACC-LC setting. Mux these two files using NicMP4Box v1.0, it has a hack which will let you make 640 pixel files that work on the iPod.

Once you get the hang of working with files using those settings you can change the avg. bit rate up to 1500kbps (as far as I know, I have gone as high as 1200 and as low as 800) and I can say that auto two pass and auto three pass work.

Edit: Might I add that I also need to use NiceFPS AviSynth plugin with these files to get them to work in Quicktime or iTunes. If you're testing with a 60 second file or something you'll probably get a working file without NiceFPS but when you move onto a full size (30min, 1 hr, etc) you might run into problems, NiceFPS shouldn't slow things down and is a nice backup just in case so you don't waste encoding twice to get it working.

Lemonadez

3rd November 2006, 11:13

Which Profile that has better quality? that goes under 60MB below.

pimpMyHD

3rd November 2006, 17:54

does one of the HQ- profile could be considered as a 'lowcpu' profile ?
if no, what could be a real 'lowcpu' profile ?

sillKotscha

3rd November 2006, 19:13

what do you mean by 'lowcpu'? Do you mean you want to encode using a given profile and want to decode it with your low cpu without any hazzle?? What do you consider a low cpu?

Speaking for myself I'm used to encode using HQ-Slow -> if I follow your 'lowcpu' phrase I can say, yes, during encoding my cpu usage is really low for other threads (= really high for x264 encoding), even on idle mode BUT with CoreAVC or an up2date build of ffdshow for decoding my cpu is on average demand...

I consider my CPU (= xp2400+) quite old but still adequate even for HDTV resolutions using CoreAVC...

btw, IMO your question deosn't really belong here...

pimpMyHD

4th November 2006, 12:06

oh! sorry, i tought this term was common. When i say 'lowcpu' i mean the video need less to be decoded.
I saw this term on a site, but it is maybe just rubbish ?
I understood, reading that, that the video was encoding a way which will allow to be decoding using less cpu.
I am not a specialist at all ... so maybe i am wrong from the beginning. For exemple, if not using some features at encoding, the video should be more easy to decode ? that the way i understood it.

I think the question belong there because it is directly concerning the megui's profiles.

actually, i use the hd-dvd profile.
Thanks a lot for your answer.

Chainmax

9th November 2006, 15:20

Chainmax

9th November 2006, 15:28

...
For audio you need to downmix to two channels and make sure it's constant bit rate 160kbps or less (I use 128kbit so try using that first) and ACC-LC setting. Mux these two files using NicMP4Box v1.0, it has a hack which will let you make 640 pixel files that work on the iPod.

Will adaptive 192kbps AAC-LC not work for sure? Also, is NicMP4Box compulsory or will the latest MP4Box work as well?

...
Edit: Might I add that I also need to use NiceFPS AviSynth plugin with these files to get them to work in Quicktime or iTunes. If you're testing with a 60 second file or something you'll probably get a working file without NiceFPS but when you move onto a full size (30min, 1 hr, etc) you might run into problems, NiceFPS shouldn't slow things down and is a nice backup just in case so you don't waste encoding twice to get it working.

What kind of issues will I run into if not using NiceFPS?

simonhowson

11th November 2006, 04:40

I have a few questions about the 5.5G iPod AVC profile. First of all, I'd like to know if the 640x480 limit is a pixelcount or width/height limitation (i.é: if I can use, say, 716x416 on a 16:9 source). I'd also like to know if I can use RDO2,No-DCT-Decimation, No-Fast P-Skip, I4x4, P8x8 and B8x8 since they aren't greyed out. Lastly, can the iPod play a 15fps video encoded with these settings?

As far as I know, the width MUST be 640, then the vertical resolution varies depending on the aspect ratio of the material.

I'm sorry I can't help you wtih those other settings, I really rely heavily on Sharktooth's profile, the only changes I make is to turn deblocking on, and to use threads 2 because I have a dual core machine.

Chainmax

13th November 2006, 17:11

I thought deblocking increased playback requirements, do those files encoded with deblocking enabled play back ok on your iPod?

By the way, I'd like to know the answers to my questions regarding vanilla 5G iPods as well, if possible.

migrena

14th November 2006, 16:13

yes, avc encoded videos with deblocking enabled at 640x480 play fine on my old 5G ipod, also 25 fps worked fine so i expect 15 fps to be playable as well (in old 1.1 firmware any fps lower than 30 was palyable)
they changed pixelcount requirement into max width and height (for avc at least)
you may find this topic (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=115917) very helpful, especially page 4

ps 5.5 and 5.0 ipods are exacly the same thing in terms of playback abilities

Chainmax

14th November 2006, 16:53

So that means for 16:9 content I'm limited to 640x360+Borders then. Thanks for the info :). As for sound, is 160kbps CBR the maximum or can I use 192kbps adaptive? And did you ever have to include NiceFPS on your scripts?

P.S: I forgot, since RDO2,No-DCT-Decimation, No-Fast P-Skip, I4x4, P8x8 and B8x8 since aren't greyed out can they be enabled?

anonymez

15th November 2006, 00:34

I for got, since RDO2,No-DCT-Decimation, No-Fast P-Skip, I4x4, P8x8 and B8x8 since aren't greyed out can they be enabled?

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=835422#post835422

migrena

15th November 2006, 13:24

As for sound, is 160kbps CBR the maximum or can I use 192kbps adaptive?
naac gave me very inaccurate results (undershot bitrate), so now i'm using faac 160kbps abr
itunes checks up only average bitrate, right? if so this is probably one of those stupid apple limitations as ipods are able to playback aac at 320kbps

Chainmax

15th November 2006, 14:39

anonymez: I can't believe I forgot that :o, thanks for reminding me :).

migrena: I will use 160kbps ABR then, thanks :).

migrena

15th November 2006, 21:49

it is always good to check actual bitrate after encoding because 161kbps abr will not transfer to ipod

TwoToad

7th December 2006, 11:05

I just upgraded my cell to one that can play *.3gp videos. Which MeGUI profile would I use? Or maybe a better question would be to ask if there are any guides or specs that one would use... I understand that 3gp is a mp4 type file (MPEG-4 SP baseline@level 0??) and supports aac audio.

I must be strange for wanting to watch videos on a 1-2 inch screen LOL!!

check

7th December 2006, 12:38

Try the baseline profile and set the vbv maxrate to 250 or so.

Atak_Snajpera

13th December 2006, 18:43

PSP profile requires update!!! Below settings which work on my PSP 3.02.

x264.exe "c:\video.avs" --pass 1 --bitrate 384 --stats ".stats" --level 2.1 --ref 2 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 5 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --trellis 1 --analyse all --me umh --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --output "c:\video.mp4" "c:\video.avs"
x264.exe "c:\video.avs" --pass 2 --bitrate 384 --stats ".stats" --level 2.1 --ref 2 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 5 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --trellis 1 --analyse all --me umh --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --output "c:\video.mp4" "c:\video.avs"

As you can see --level 2.1 is required. You can also use --analyse all and --bframes 5 :)
Very important!!! DO NOT USE -thread 2 (or more) because PSP somehow doesn't want to open movies after this.

Sharktooth

19th December 2006, 05:15

i will include the changes in the next version.
thanx.

Sharktooth

19th December 2006, 14:36

you should post that feature request in the AVC forum...
this is truly not related to megui

JarrettH

20th December 2006, 08:32

Does this mean anything?

Just caught it in the log...

x264 [warning]: VBV maxrate specified, but no bufsize.

check

20th December 2006, 10:52

nothing important unless you are working with playback systems with a small buffer (ie, a standalone player).

quake74

20th December 2006, 12:18

Sharktooth

20th December 2006, 14:32

MeGUI has a "Turbo" option...

smuthy

20th December 2006, 20:55

First of thanks to Sharktooth for his great profiles.

I wanted a constant quality factor profile like CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) but that encoded quicker on my limited hardware.

Therefore, I modified the 1P-Intermediate profile to run at a constant quality crf=21 (determined for my eyes and equipment via experiment on short clips), no other mods made to the profile.

This gives me good results at a higher encoding speed than CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf).

Hope this proves useful - if I'm wrong and this is a dumb idea please let me know.

JarrettH

20th December 2006, 21:58

Will you be using that deadzone setting in any of your HQ profiles Sharktooth? Or is it one of those subjective settings?

Sharktooth

20th December 2006, 22:05

The deadzones settings depend on the source material so i cant include them in the profiles.

Atak_Snajpera

20th December 2006, 23:43

[QUOTE=Very important!!! DO NOT USE -thread 2 (or more) because PSP somehow doesn't want to open movies after this.[/QUOTE]

It applies ONLY to old version x264.exe (before rev 610)
With lates you can use how many threads you want. :-)

By the way Is it safe to use Turbo mode in first pass? How does it work?

check

20th December 2006, 23:47

turbo will reduce the final quality by a small amount, but gives you a significant encoding boost. Make a test test encodes to compare.

Sharktooth

21st December 2006, 00:31

V34:
- Set the number of threads to 0 (auto) on all profiles by default.
- Updated the PD-PSP profile for the new 3.02 firmware.
- Some other minor changes

experttech

22nd December 2006, 19:03

Can you please tell me what video profile I can use to watch videos on my Blackberry 8100 (Pearl)

Blackberry Pearl
Supported audio formats: MP3, MIDI, AMR-NB, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
Supported video formats: MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.263

Sharktooth

22nd December 2006, 19:17

none of the included...

check

23rd December 2006, 04:04

You can try xvid with all options disabled and mp3.

sugala

24th December 2006, 12:42

Thanks a lot The searching spend so much time.

shon3i

24th December 2006, 13:05

Thanks a lot The searching spend so much time.
XviD aslo with HE-AAC+PS @ 24kbps, much better quality audio than mp3 at same filesize

SpAwN_gUy

28th December 2006, 12:05

Is it only Me... or.. I'me Getting "Error File is not a Profile for MeGUI".. for all of v34... (Latest MeGUI) .. v33 - works fine.

bananacreamandpeca

29th December 2006, 15:40

Hi, maybe a stupid question sharktooth.
But do each of your megui-profiles also come with a customized matrice inside?

(just wondering)

elguaxo

29th December 2006, 16:18

But do each of your megui-profiles also come with a customized matrice inside?

Nope. But there are a couple of nice CQMs with detailed usage descriptions here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96298) and here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=117041). And there is an older thread here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96159).

Sharktooth

29th December 2006, 16:45

Is it only Me... or.. I'me Getting "Error File is not a Profile for MeGUI".. for all of v34... (Latest MeGUI) .. v33 - works fine.
Update to the latest megui.

TwoToad

9th January 2007, 15:53

Hello Sharktooth,

The iPod 5.5G profile might need to be updated. I haven't run enough tests to make sure yet, though. It seems that iTunes wants a SAR and Level 30 (??? what the heck???) according to Nic's MP4Box. I modified your profile by setting the level to "Unrestricted", and then adding the command line options of "--sar 1:1 --level 30". This fixed a "white frame" issue I had with one movie I had, but I haven't had the time to test it out on other videos that were giving me problems...

Anyway, just a heads up. If other people want to help test this out to be sure?...

migrena

12th January 2007, 02:53

there is no need to use "--sar 1:1", also both "--level 30" and "--level 3" can be used (tested)
that profile works fine but you will need to use nic's compilation of mp4box to mux output file instead of the regular one

i dont know what is this "white frame issue", can you clarify this?

TwoToad

12th January 2007, 17:03

I do use nic's mp4box. I was just following nic's instructions in his readme file. The --level 30 makes no sense to me, because there is no AVC Baseline Level 30...

The white frames are in Apples ever-so-wonderful iTunes. Sometimes when you load a new video that you encoded with megui iPod 5.5g profile, it will show up in iTunes as a solid white frame. Then when you try to play it, the player window shows nothing (just whatever was behind the window when it opened up). Sound plays though. The video *will* copy over to the iPod and it will actually play normally. I'm not sure what Apple's issue is.

This doesn't happen to every encode, just random ones, when it feels like it =) I've tried enforcing the FPS to 23.976, encoded audio and video separate and muxed manually, and those random videos refuse to show up properly in iTunes...

Anyway, so far I've been having good luck with the --sar 1:1 and --level 30 options.

migrena

12th January 2007, 20:58

3.0=3 and cli programs dont like some characters therfore 30=3

i wont comment itunes here because i dont know how to do this in acceptable words, just dont use itunes as multimedia player, drag-and-drop your videos directly to ipod

TwoToad

15th January 2007, 17:27

Ah, nevermind... scratch out the whole --sar 1:1 and --level thingy. I still managed to encode a video that plays on the pod but not tunes...

And you are right. Tunes is pretty, but buggy as all get out.

Hobojobo

28th January 2007, 18:22

Where can I dl the previous sets of video/audio profiles?

I am running W2k and the 0.2.4.10xx versions reject to work for me so I have to downgrade.
And the lastest profiles don't like the 0.2.3.2193 meGui.

ScootyPuffJr

30th January 2007, 04:24

Sharktooth

30th January 2007, 14:32

Sharktooth

30th January 2007, 14:33

Is there any way to do constant quality recording for the iPod using x264? I like the quality but I'd like to cudt down on the file size. Enabling 2-pass in the profile didn't really seem to do anything to decrease the file size.
i think you didnt read the megui guide...
first of all you need to use the bitrate calculator (to set your desired filesize) or manually configure the profile to set your desired bitrate... obviously before encoding...
however you better :readguid:

SpAwN_gUy

30th January 2007, 15:44

Update to the latest megui.
Yep, Thanks.. worked Fine..

ScootyPuffJr

30th January 2007, 22:42

i think you didnt read the megui guide...
first of all you need to use the bitrate calculator (to set your desired filesize) or manually configure the profile to set your desired bitrate... obviously before encoding...
however you better :readguid:

Actually, I did read the guide (Berrinam's) and 2 others specific to iPod encoding, so maybe I'm just not understanding things correctly. All the guides referece ABR and setting a desired bitrate as you described above. I haven't seen any threads talking about using the Constant Quality setting, which is what I want, not a constant bitrate/filesize. I saw a couple of references to using -2pass to 'optimize' the file size, so I thought I'd try it since the documentation says that 1-pass encouding can have 'unpredictable' results on file sizes.

So I guess my actual question should have been 'Does anyone use the Constant Quality setting in MeGUI?' (especially for iPod Encoding) ... and would anyone give me pros and cons for it since I only see references to ABR in all the guides/posts?

thanks,
- spj

Hobojobo

30th January 2007, 23:47

I found a workaround.
I use megui 0.2.3.2193 to crop and set up the jobs and megui 0.2.4.xxxx (turn off avisynth preview) to do the encoding jobs.

:)
Thanks again to the devs of megui and x264.

migrena

31st January 2007, 01:20

i have the same problem but im writing scripts by hand so its not an issue, i will try TwoTad solution (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=926762#post926762) tomorrow and check what plugin may be causing troubles

@ScootyPuffJr im using lossless from time to time but thats not for ipod ;)

check

31st January 2007, 10:07

@scooty, what exactly is your problem with using cq for the ipod? It should work more or less identically to a 2pass encode as long as the bitrate doesnt' get too high.

ScootyPuffJr

1st February 2007, 08:24

@check,

I'm actually not having any problems with cq encoding so far in any of my tests - it's working really well. I was wondering if there were problems with it on the iPod only because all the posts and Guides I had seen referenced only ABR, never any cq. I am getting ready to encode a bunch of stuff, and was hoping to find out if there was some bug I havn't run across in my testing before I started (file compatability issues, etc..). It's try #2, and I'd like to avoid try #3 :D

I'm using cq's of 18-22, so I don't expect the bitrates to be too high - they were fine under ffmpeg, I just had audio sync problems with FF/IVTC'd content in ffmpeg so I switched to x264.

JarrettH

8th May 2007, 05:02

Is -2 -1 still recommended for the HQ profiles? They are the defaults still in the ones I have.

check

8th May 2007, 08:40

deblocking is heavily influenced by whether your tastes lean towards mosquito noise or smearing. Lower settings reduce smearing, but leave you with more residual crud (because the deblocker is used less), whereas higher settings do the opposite. I usually use values close to 0,0 myself, and when the final quantizers are above 20 it doesn't really make much difference anyway.

TwoToad

8th May 2007, 15:24

I don't suppose there is a PD-PSP 3.30+ profile in the works? I'm not sure what all the new firmware supports (or if it's just a resolution change).

edekba

19th May 2007, 17:54

I have a question. IN the profile PD-Xbox_Hires, is their a max bitrate?

In meGUI, i set a bitrate at about 1500kb/s i believe. However after the encoding was finished, the filesize corisponded to something like only 1000kb/s.

ie. file should've been 700mb compared to 500mb.

edekba

9th June 2007, 08:29

Is there a profile for the new Apple TV? Or do i just use the ipod profiles?

Deinorius

9th June 2007, 10:19

The Quicktime Profile up to 720p should be fine because it's Quicktime what Apple uses in AppleTV.

amix

9th June 2007, 23:20

Added "Common Encoding" profiles.
Added "Anime Encoding" profiles.
Added "1 Pass Encoding" profiles.
suggestions are welcome.

:thanks:

Hmmm...this is an older thread. Not sure how actual your offer still is. What I would like to see is a profile for different publishing tasks, like

* Webcast (very low size with maximum quality, only a face, moving sparingly, but needs details in the face, audio can be as low as 11KHz/8bit mono)
* Screencast (like Webcast, may be similare to Cartoon/Anime ?)
* and maybe something, that is best choice for later encoding into Flash Video (FLV)

Of course I can do this myself, but I know zero-nada-nothing about all the things behind the scenes and have zero experience. What I have found to be quite ok for Webcasts is a little profile I did with PSP9Video. But it may be even better if some Pro does it right. And since you asked... ;)

Also it is pretty difficult to get information on encoding for Webcasts. I asked on Usenet several times but got no reply.

With all these codecs I'd also be interested, what is the best to find being supported on the web-browsers. I guess x264 is ok, these days ? (decodable by Quicktime or WMP browser plugin ?)

outlaw55

14th June 2007, 14:35

I don't suppose there is a PD-PSP 3.30+ profile in the works? I'm not sure what all the new firmware supports (or if it's just a resolution change).
It would have to be a new one, I tried all I could to get an encode out but it wouldn't work, also the 720x480 videos use Level 3 (at least the PSP Video 9 encodes that WORK use Level 3).

EDIT: Found the problem, the PSP will not play files with b-frames at the resolution of 720x480 ;)!

michaelhill

21st June 2007, 20:08

Hey Shark,

thanks for the profiles, they helped me to learn the codec and its possibilities. I mostly use HQ slower with if needed 1 or 2 adjustments for your standard profile and it works fine, great results. Is it still not good to encode with 2 treads? My rips look crystal clear with 2 treads so i suppose it is safe to use now?

The other question i have is about the anime profiles. I use them exaclty as you provided them, only i changed the treads to 2. For movies like Cars from pixar, i used the AE good quality profile. I had a very good looking rip on 2cd's. Absolutlty stunning quality. Now i do read somewhere on this forum, forgot where exaclty, that it is advised to use one of the HQ profiles? Why is that? The results I got are good. But will i get better results with the HQ profiles?

thanks again for your work, since i discovered MeGui/x264 and your profiles I have banned xvid/divx for good from my pc.
Encoding takes long, but its worth the wait.:thanks:

SpAwN_gUy

22nd June 2007, 08:02

thanks for the profiles, they helped me to learn the codec and its possibilities. I mostly use HQ slower with if needed 1 or 2 adjustments for your standard profile and it works fine, great results. Is it still not good to encode with 2 treads? My rips look crystal clear with 2 treads so i suppose it is safe to use now?well,.. as in the source code of meGUI.. it does NOT matter.. what number of threads you use.. 'cause meGUI internally overrides (on Job addition) number of threads, determining(is it coorect in Eng ??? ) the number of Cores by using WinAPI function. and this number does NOT influences quality of the encode, just the speed. (some say in good way, some say it is not so "parralel" -> ELDER )

The other question i have is about the anime profiles. I use them exaclty as you provided them, only i changed the treads to 2. For movies like Cars from pixar, i used the AE good quality profile. I had a very good looking rip on 2cd's. Absolutlty stunning quality. Now i do read somewhere on this forum, forgot where exaclty, that it is advised to use one of the HQ profiles? Why is that? The results I got are good. But will i get better results with the HQ profiles?AE profiles are for anime .. and Pixar's Cars is NOT an Anime ... it is CG (Computer Grafix) .. so it is more like Movie (ex. Star Wars -> tons of CG = Movie)
so HQ - sutes best.. for Cars and Shreck.. and "all.the.Pixar"

anime profiles sute best for something like.. "Aladdin" ;) and "Darkwing Duck" .. oh,.. good old days of.. sorry :) .. and tons of Japanese animation (NARUTO, Howl's moving Castle, Spirited Away)

michaelhill

22nd June 2007, 12:25

thanks for your reply

I did have good encode with the anime profile for pixar's cars.
I am going to re-encode it with HQ-Slower and see if there is a anvious difference.

omf

17th July 2007, 17:55

Found the problem, the PSP will not play files with b-frames at the resolution of 720x480 ;)!

It will play 720x480 with b-frames. My PSP profile has 3 B-frames. Just turn off "B-Pyramid" and "RDO for B-frames"

Manao

17th July 2007, 18:13

Just turn off "B-Pyramid" and "RDO for B-frames"If B-RDO has an influence on PSP playback, it's a bug, and should be reported as such. But I really doubt it actually influences the playback.

omf

17th July 2007, 18:31

B-RDO is grayed-out when B-Pyramid is disabled, so I'm actually not sure if that makes a difference.

Manao

17th July 2007, 19:20

It shouldn't be disable, if it is it's a bug in MeGUI.

Spilt_milk

22nd July 2007, 00:20

what happens if i chose all of them

check

22nd July 2007, 10:46

B RDO is not dependant on B Pyramid, and this behavior is correct in MeGUI. Other related dependancies you might be confused with:
B RDO requires Subme >= 6
B RDO requires B frames >= 1
B Pyramid requires B frames >= 2

Kurtnoise

9th August 2007, 13:52

Hey,

Does anybody is interested by iPhone & Apple TV Profiles or not ?

Sharktooth

10th August 2007, 03:34

Just post them and i will add them ;)

Kurtnoise

10th August 2007, 07:42

ok...but before to summit them I've a question. I haven't checked carefully the sources, so forgive me my ignorance. Can we restrict some parameters for the end users by using profiles ? (i.e width & height, bitrate, etc...)

Sharktooth

10th August 2007, 12:32

Uhm... not properly. You can set a default bitrate in the profile but the user can always modify it (thru profile config editor or thru bitrate calculator).
Width and Height can be set in a avisynth profile but as for the bitrate, it can be changed by the user

buzzqw

10th August 2007, 12:45

the profiles bundled with automkv can set width/height and bitrate limit

BHH

Kurtnoise

16th August 2007, 10:13

Just post them and i will add them ;)
meGUI - Apple TV Profile (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L6GS3NHC)
meGUI - iPhone Profile (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I9A8U2P5)
It needs to be tested because I don't have such devices.

Uhm... not properly.
So, it needs to be tuned then. :cool: Let me play with the sources and I'll go back with something in a couple of days.

btw, here some extra infos extracted from here (http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2007/tn2188.html):

Apple TV has the ability to playback Main Profile (up to Level 3.1) H.264 progressive video with B-Frames up to 1280x720 (720p) at 24 fps and AAC-LC encoded stero audio with a maximum sampling rate of 44.1kHz.

iPhone has the ability to playback H.264 Baseline Profile (up to Level 3.0) video, up to 640x480 at 30 fps and AAC-LC encoded stereo audio with a maximum sampling rate of 48kHz. iPhone will also play movies or audio files that can play on an iPod. Note that B frames are not supported in the Baseline profile.

Furthermore, some tweakings are also needed for the muxing (thank you Apple :p) :
For AppleTV :
MP4Box -ipod -brand M4VH:1 -add myvideo.264:fps=xx -add myaudio.m4a outputfile.m4v
For iPhone :
MP4Box -ipod -brand M4VP -add myvideo.264:fps=xx -add myaudio.m4a outputfile.m4v

Sharktooth

16th August 2007, 13:10

V35:

- Added HQ-Fast (like HQ-Slow but no RDO)
- Added iPhone and AppleTV profiles by Kurtnoise13

Deckard2019

16th August 2007, 14:13

I would like to add Archos 605 (http://www.archos.com/products/gen_5/archos_605wifi/index.html?country=global&lang=en&culture=global-en&lang_temp=) profile but I'm lost with all parameters.
To start, the only thing I have is a DivXTest result (http://media.generationmp3.com/gmp3/tests/605wifi/tests-compatibilite-605.html).

As you can notice, it should support :
VID-4A test H264 Main Profil (MPEG4 AVC Main Profil + LC-AAC CBR)
VID-4C test MPEG4 AVC avec multi-bframe (MPEG4 AVC Bframe + LC-AAC CBR)
VID-4D test MPEG4 AVC avec multi-reference frame (MPEG4 AVC Reference Frame + LC-AAC CBR)
VID-4F test MPEG4 AVC avec weighted prediction (MPEG4 AVC weighted prediction + LC-AAC CBR)

CABAC, High Profile and custom matrix are not supported.

Any help to create the profile would be great. I can test it on my 605.
Thanks you !

Kurtnoise

16th August 2007, 17:32

@Sharktooh: sorry, I've made a mistake for the AppleTV & iPhone Profiles. Redownload them here (http://kurtnoise.free.fr/misc/).

@Deckard: try the PD-Archos 605 Profile (same link as above).

@foxace : try the PD-PS3 Profile (same link as above).

Deckard2019

16th August 2007, 18:39

Thank you Kurtnoise13.

One thing I don't understand in your profile is Baseline profile and no BFrames.
Main profile, BFrame and reference frame should be supported so why don't you select these parameters ?

Thx again !

Kurtnoise

16th August 2007, 19:44

It's just for some tests. Feel free to change/improve it.

JarrettH

17th August 2007, 07:08

hi sharktooth :p

I have a small change you could make to some of the profiles:

Max Keyframe Interval: 240
Min. GOP Size: 24

Since I understand these should closely match the input framerate which is PROBABLY going to be a DVD. I basically use HQ-Slower with all the Quant options and the parameters above.

Sharktooth

17th August 2007, 14:45

that is subjective. PAL = 250/25 while NTSC = 240/24 or 300/30 (depending on the source).

JarrettH

17th August 2007, 19:47

I guess it could be PAL too:D

Sharktooth

18th August 2007, 14:58

v36:

- Removed p4x4 from most of the profiles since it only hurts quality

ACrowley

19th August 2007, 14:06

v36:

- Removed p4x4 from most of the profiles since it only hurts quality

hurts Quality ? so you suggest to disable it ? Never noticed any Problems with analyze all

Sharktooth

19th August 2007, 14:07

read my previous post...

JarrettH

19th August 2007, 20:19

i thought those analyze options were only beneficial. i haven't read anywhere recommending to disable one of them.

Terranigma

19th August 2007, 21:00

i thought those analyze options were only beneficial. i haven't read anywhere recommending to disable one of them.

p4x4 doesn't hurt, it just doesn't help. At large resolutions, individual objects in the movie are bigger than 4x4 pixels, so there's no point in partitioning mvs that small. Typically it might be enabled in 0.5% of macroblocks, and improve compression by 0.1%, making it one of the worst compression-per-cpu tradeoffs.
(Original Post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1032133#post1032133))

My Test:

Test 2:
--trellis 1 --bframes 16 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8
SSIM Mean Y:09578236
PSNR Mean Y:38.914 U:41.756 V:42.604 AVG:39.734 Global 38.501 kb/s
(Final ratefactor: 24.07)
(Encode Speed: 3.51 fps)

Test 3:
--trellis 1 --bframes 16 --partitions all
SSIM Mean Y:09578077
PSNR Mean Y:38.906 U:41.752 V:42.602 AVG:39.727 Global 38.494 kb/s
(Final ratefactor: 24.07)
(Encode Speed: 3.52 fps)
(Original Post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1033570#post1033570))

JarrettH

20th August 2007, 20:00

what resolution? a dvd? :thanks:

Terranigma

21st August 2007, 01:05

what resolution? a dvd? :thanks:

Oh, it looks like I left that tidbit out. Actually, not even a dvd res. That test was made using a VGA res of 640X480; so anything above this should still hold true.

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 02:30

v37:

- HQ-Fast: Lowered the number of reference frames to 1

yukichigai

21st August 2007, 04:26

Just tried to encode a 90-minute flick using the iPhone preset. 480x208 @ 23.976fps, three passes instead of two, 450 average bitrate. No other changes made. iTunes claims the video is incompatible with the iPhone, both with and without the audio. I even made sure to manually mux the audio and video myself using mp4box.

Also, now that I think about it I was using the v35 profiles. I'll run another test with v36.

EDIT: Just did a normal automated 2pass using the default iPhone profile: same issue. I'm going to try some other stuff to make sure it's not some weird resolution problem, but as far as I can tell the iPhone profile is broken.

yukichigai

21st August 2007, 08:38

After some test renders (nothing but color bars) I've determined that the iPhone profile has some problem in it somewhere. (Not sure where) In contrast, the iPod profile run through Auto Encode produces iPhone-compliant streams with no remuxing necessary.

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 14:30

v38:

- Updated Kurtnoise13 profiles (iPhone, AppleTV, PS3 and Archos 605)
- Readded p4x4 to the PD-Xbox_LoRes profile

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 17:17

Kurtnoise are you sure PS3 supports level 4? or is it 4.1?

Kurtnoise

21st August 2007, 18:02

According to some users (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1028270#post1028270), the box supports levels up to 4.1. So,...

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 18:16

V39:

- Updated the PS3 profile with Level4.1. Also renamed it to SA-PS3 coz it's very close to BD. Subject to other changes.

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 18:35

seems PS3 supports High Profile too...

EDIT: Uhm... no

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 18:52

v40:

- Final profile for PS3. *IT WORKS*. The profile name is also changed back to PD-PS3 (BlueRay will need a separate profile). If you have updated to v39 please delete the SA-PS3 profile.

JarrettH

21st August 2007, 18:58

Oh, it looks like I left that tidbit out. Actually, not even a dvd res. That test was made using a VGA res of 640X480; so anything above this should still hold true.

Thanks Terranigma :cool:

nurbs

21st August 2007, 19:28

seems PS3 supports High Profile too...

EDIT: Uhm... no

It does. At least I8x8 and cqms work without problems.

Sharktooth

21st August 2007, 19:31

some ppl reported it doesnt work.

nurbs

21st August 2007, 19:47

This is what I normally use for PAL DVDs and it works on the PS3:

--crf 20.0 --level 3.1 --ref 3 --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --weightb --direct temporal --filter -1,-1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-maxrate 14000 --threads auto --thread-input

CQMs work as well, also better settings for subme, trellis, bime, mixed refs and so on. IIRC there is a max number of refs, but I don't know how many. It works at least up to 5 mixed refs. It won't work if the resolution of the file is higher than the level constraint, but it will play a file with level 3.1 that has p4x4 enabled. Again I only tested SD content.

Wishbringer

21st August 2007, 20:56

--crf 18 --level 4.1 --ref 8 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 16 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -2,-1 --subme 7 --trellis 2 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --me umh --merange 24 --threads auto --no-dct-decimate

I have encoded several PAL DVDs with above settings to put onto my 250GB PS3 HDD and all play fine.
For testing I upscaled to 720p and profile still works. Haven't tried 1080p.
PS3 FW 1.90

Level above 4.1 isn't recognized,
more than 8 refs results in visual errors,

Edit:
Just had a high motion, high detail scene in 1080p with above settings and it gave a crash....
Maybe too high vbv buffersize, mean overflow.

Deckard2019

21st August 2007, 21:06

It's just for some tests. Feel free to change/improve it.

I just test your profile PD-Archos605. It works fine.
I don't see a lot of differences with CE-Baseline. Could you explain me your changes ?
CE-Baseline files runs fine too.

I try to build my own profile, starting with CE-Mainprofile.
Archos 605 is supposed to handle B frames but it doesn't play smoothly.

Thank you.

ToS_Maverick

21st August 2007, 22:20

[CODE]
Edit:
Just had a high motion, high detail scene in 1080p with above settings and it gave a crash....
Maybe too high vbv buffersize, mean overflow.

don't trust x264's VBV check. IIRC Aku said, that VBV doesn't really work in CRF-mode, but correct me if i'm wrong.

Sharktooth

24th August 2007, 03:40

V41:

- h.264 High Profile for PD-PS3
- New PD-PS3-Fast
- Slightly faster HQ-Fast (lowered ME Range to 8)

TheRyuu

24th August 2007, 06:06

I'm wondering what the specific differences are for the anime/toon profiles compared to the HQ Slowest profile.

I know what the differences are, I guess I'm asking more on the side of why? And what effect do those changes have on the final resulting video?

I gather the change in deblocking settings is to prevent blocking on anime/toon sources, kinda gathered that already (same reason why you use h263 quantization with xvid, so it doesn't block).

But what do the other minor changes have on the effect of the final video. Like the change in the subpixel refinement (tried to look it up, didn't really get that great of an answer) and (I think this also changed) the increase in the number of reference frames (to 16?), and why no "no dct decimation."

Sorry to bother you with all the questions, I tried searching and reading the megui wiki, didn't really get me too far.

Thanks.

Sharktooth

24th August 2007, 12:22

more reference frames: anime and toons have lot duplicate frames and static areas.
higher inloop deblocking settings: anime and toons have lot of flat areas and high contrast between edges.
other compression settings: usually who wants to encode anime or toons content wants the smalles possible files. so in the AE-Maxquality profile i also maxed everything that rises compression (expecially subme). no dct decimation increases the bitrate and it's useless on anime and toons.

TheRyuu

24th August 2007, 20:40

timeisntreal

29th August 2007, 18:07

When are you going to add a Xbox 360 profile?

And thank you for your great work!

Attached is what I am currently using.

l3pyr

30th August 2007, 07:07

V41:

- h.264 High Profile for PD-PS3
- New PD-PS3-Fast

Quick question. When using the PS3 profiles to reencode a 1080p AVC High Profile 5.1 source, the output is corrupt on both the PS3 (blank screen) and MPC (garbled). If I simply resize to 720p using the AVS script everything is perfect. Doesn't AVC High Profile 4.1 support 1080p content? Is there something I need to specify in the profile options to make it work?

PS - I'm reencoding this content because the good ol' hex edit trick down to 4.1 didn't work, which probably reinforces my idea that 1080p may not work in a 4.1 AVC =(

-Thanks

check

30th August 2007, 10:42

Sharktooth

30th August 2007, 13:17

When are you going to add a Xbox 360 profile?

And thank you for your great work!

Attached is what I am currently using.
im waiting for attachment approval.

@l3pyr: level 4.1 supports 1080p. however x264 does not enforce level restrictions.

TheRyuu

31st August 2007, 03:30

Since your PM box is full, I'll post it here instead:

Was wondering what you though of these deblocking settings.

The source is an anime stream. In your profiles though you have the deblocking set to 1:1.

However, my personal taste likes sharp encodes, not blurry ones.
So I'm instead using -1:-2

Is there anything wrong with using those settings, like will is cause visual artifacts (I don't care about bitrate, only quality).

mp4 guy said that a trick for anime is to use a lower beta deblocking so the lines don't get destroyed (hence -1:-2).

Should I be using something closer to 0 (like 0:0? -1:-1?). I've been encoding with x264 for a while now (using megui to do it) and I'm just not sure about this. Thought I might ask an expert. :)

Thanks.

If I should like NEVER use negative deblocking settings on anime, please tell me. :)

Sharktooth

31st August 2007, 03:39

Well, all i can say is: Try it :)
Encode some frames and select the options you like more.

deeznuts

31st August 2007, 07:03

I am a total newbie and all this format stuff confuses the heck out of me, but I have used the PD-PS3 profile and it works streaming from my PC to the PS3. However, it does not play on my PC. Using Nero or WMP, it crashes it, saying "Microsoft C++ Visual Runtime Library: Runtime Error. This application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way."

Is it not made to run on the PC at all? If it can, what codec can I use? Thanks everyone for all your work.

Sharktooth

31st August 2007, 15:15

When are you going to add a Xbox 360 profile?

And thank you for your great work!

Attached is what I am currently using.

It's has the same settings as PS3 profile.

P.S.: Dont know what software you used to create the profile but it is seriously broken. Some items in the xml file have wrong names and some tags are never closed. I hope you didnt use MeGUI to create it...

l3pyr

31st August 2007, 16:04

The output resolution should not affect the x264 output being valid or not. There's no sane reason I can see why one commandline works with 720p output but not with 1080p. Do you have a strange decoder?

Using meGUI and the PD-PS3 profile, if I try to encode as 1080p @ level 4.1 the file is unplayable by the PS3 and MPC using WinDVD's AVC filter (plays, but its totally screwed up). If I simply change the level to 5.1 the output works fine w/ MPC but obviously not on the PS3.

Using ffmpeg with:

ffmpeg.exe -y -i "test.avs" -threads 2 -an -pass 1 -f mp4 -title "test" -vcodec h264 -level 41 -refs 2 -loop 1 -deblockalpha 0 -deblockbeta 0 -parti4x4 1 -partp8x8 1 -partb8x8 1 -me full -subq 6 -brdo 1 -me_range 21 -s 1920x800 -r 24000/1001 -b 8192k -bt 8192k -bufsize 20000k -maxrate 25000k -g 300 -coder 1 "test.mp4"

ffmpeg.exe -y -i "test.avs" -threads 2 -an -pass 2 -f mp4 -title "test" -vcodec h264 -level 41 -refs 2 -loop 1 -deblockalpha 0 -deblockbeta 0 -parti4x4 1 -partp8x8 1 -partb8x8 1 -me full -subq 6 -brdo 1 -me_range 21 -s 1920x800 -r 24000/1001 -b 8192k -bt 8192k -bufsize 20000k -maxrate 25000k -g 300 -coder 1 "test.mp4"

Gives me a great video that plays back perfectly on the PS3. I don't understand why one way works and one doesn't when they are both using the x264 library?

l3pyr

1st September 2007, 01:05

I'm working on a solution right now and will post when I get it. I have found the problem lies somewhere in the b-frames options used in your PS3 profile (again, the problem only materializes at 1080p quality). I am going through step by step to find whats causing it.

Edit: Problem solved. Enabled b-frame pyramid is what causes the problem. I'm not going to pretend to understand why, but I'm happy I've fixed it. I would seriously consider changing that option in your PD-PS3 profile for maximum compatibility.

Terranigma

1st September 2007, 01:25

Edit: Problem solved. Enabled b-frame pyramid is what causes the problem. I'm not going to pretend to understand why, but I'm happy I've fixed it.

Maybe because b-pyramid can cause a 2 frame decoder lag? I remember back in the early xbox (xbmc) days, b-pyramid was the culprit that caused avc streams to crash. Since it uses some b-frames as reference frames, what you could do is disable this option and increase the number of reference frames by 2 to get the same amount of reference frames if you'd of chosed the b-pyramid option. Not sure the quality would be the same though.

Sharktooth

1st September 2007, 01:46

V42:

- Playstation 3 profiles have been renamed and they now work for the Xbox360 too. The b-pyramid option was also disabled. Please delete the old PD-PS3 and PD-PS3-Fast profiles.

Terranigma

1st September 2007, 02:12

B-Pyramid/8 Reference Frames (Total=11)
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/7484/bpyramid8refkz9.png

No B-Pyramid/10 Reference Frames (Total=11)
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/2046/nopyramid10refbg9.png

Ask yourself. Is this small quality difference worth it? Worth the lag?

TheRyuu

1st September 2007, 05:54

Well, all i can say is: Try it :)
Encode some frames and select the options you like more.

Just to let you (and everyone else) know. -1:-2 does not produce a good looking video, at least to me.

I'm trying just 0:0 and I have a feeling that will work out just fine.

Also Sharktooth, are you xbox profiles tuned to the newer (faster, by about 5%, don't know if that would be enough to change the profile) version of mplayer the xbox now uses?

Ronin-7

1st September 2007, 13:12

Sharktooth just letting you know that the Xbox 360 profile is not 100% compatible it will indeed work when played from local storage like a DVD or USB stick but it wont;
* Generate a video thumbnail or display embedded cover art
* Give the total time length of the video
* Properly display anamorphic encodes
* Be playable over a network connection when streamed from a computer

In order to enable those things you must turn off Adaptive DCT support & the above will work so it might be worth giving it a separate profile from the PS3.

Sharktooth

1st September 2007, 14:09

@wizboy: not yet since my xbox 'sploded so i cant test profiles.

@ronin: disabling adaptive DCT will be a major hit for quality. sincerely, M$ should fix that...

Atak_Snajpera

1st September 2007, 14:16

I agree with Sharktooth. Let's wait for Microsoft's move

Wishbringer

1st September 2007, 14:26

... but I have used the PD-PS3 profile and it works streaming from my PC to the PS3. However, it does not play on my PC. Using Nero or WMP, it crashes it, saying "Microsoft C++ Visual Runtime Library: Runtime Error. This application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way."

What version of Nero do you use? Older than 7.10.1?
Then there is a bug in Showtime and the decode .ax filters.
See:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127706

check

1st September 2007, 14:40

@ronin: disabling adaptive DCT will be a major hit for quality. sincerely, M$ should fix that...
It may well be, but as the profile is meant to be compatible, I think you will have to grin and bear it. At least they aren't Apple ;)

Sharktooth

1st September 2007, 15:04

yep, but since there are some xbox360 media center devs on this forum i think we can manage this...

Terranigma

1st September 2007, 15:14

Also Sharktooth, are you xbox profiles tuned to the newer (faster, by about 5%, don't know if that would be enough to change the profile) version of mplayer the xbox now uses?
You and I can make some. :)
Take the HQ-Insane profile and disable various settings to see what affects the cpu the most. Try disabling B-Pyramid first to see if you can playback 480p files without frame drops.

timeisntreal

3rd September 2007, 01:32

It's has the same settings as PS3 profile.

P.S.: Dont know what software you used to create the profile but it is seriously broken. Some items in the xml file have wrong names and some tags are never closed. I hope you didnt use MeGUI to create it...

LOL Yes I did use MeGUI to make that Profile. As for the profile that I posted not streaming, It is because it is High Profile. Main and Baseline will stream from Zune and Windows Media Player but the only program that will stream High Profile to the Xbox 360 is Tversity.

What I did to make the Xbox 360 Profiles is take the CE-Baseline/CE-Main/CE-High Profiles and change these settings (if they aren't grayed out):
VBV Maximum Bitrate: From 25000 to 10000
Macroblock Option - P4x4: From Checked to Unchecked
B-Frames - B-Pyramid: From Checked to Unchecked
AVC Level: From Unrestricted to Level 4.1
AVC Profile: Needs to be set to Baseline/Main/High for which ever one you want to create.

I have also noticed that anamorphic encode do not show correctly of course I don't know if Baseline or Main Profiles change that.

-TIR

deeznuts

6th September 2007, 05:20

What version of Nero do you use? Older than 7.10.1?
Then there is a bug in Showtime and the decode .ax filters.
See:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127706

I am using an older version yes. Hmm, I'll get the new one and see. Thanks.

Weltall

8th September 2007, 08:48

Hi Sharktooth. I use RealAnime to encode my animes and series and megui for my DVD movies. I just wanted to ask you which config is better for animes, RA6's normal (I know you helped sirber with configs, and sirber helped you with some other, so I'm confused) or megui's AE-Goodquality.
Which are the differences between them (for example, I've noticed nofast_pskip is enabled on RA6 profile, I saw this on umain.pas file: "'threads=auto:b_pyramid:nofast_pskip:nopsnr:bitrate='")?
And why b-frames used in RA6 are 5 and only 3 in megui) and why P4x4 macroblock is disabled on megui? Is it disabled on RA6 too?
I have the same doubts about megui's HQ-Slower and RA movie profiles for series and movies.
Hope you understand my doubts :)

Thank you.

Sharktooth

8th September 2007, 12:38

p4x4 was recently removed coz at "useful" resolutions (512x*** and over) it will lower the quality.
i was also thinking of rising the number of b-frames and modify the p/b ratio a bit.
the no-fast-pskip is a myth from the past. once akupenguin fixed it there are almost no problems with it.
about the RA6 movie profile, i dont know what settins it uses.

Weltall

9th September 2007, 05:05

So you say that disable fast pskip will just make the encode slower and won't give any significant quality boost at all, is that right?

About that p4x4, what about p8x8, it doesn't have the same problem, does it? And how can I disable p4x4 on softwares like mediacoder that use a frontend to show the options?
It has an option: "Enable all macroblock type", key videoenc.x264.allapart, and they say it is recommended only with subpixel refinement >= 5, and only at low resolutions.
This should be the option I have to let disabled to have p4x4 disabled too? I think it matches with your resolution explanation. So...?

Thanks man.

P.S.: Sorry if I misspelled some words, I'm just an english starter edition :)

foxyshadis

9th September 2007, 08:34

Yes, that's the one. In extensions->other devices->x264 it's called "8x4, 4x8 and 4x4 subpartitions". Fast pskip can still cause bad decimations and blocking, in my experience, but AQ can totally fix that. It's very source dependent, some are affected by it and some not at all.

Personal opinion: Even if the 360 and PS3 profiles are the same right now, I say keep them separate. Support is bound to change and diverge, and there's always little tweaks to each, like above. The adaptive dct problem needs more splintering though; it's such a big hit in quality that it'd be better to have separate 360 and 360-streaming profiles for now.

(I hope Nintendo puts out a flash 9 for wii... then I can bug you about profiles for that, too. :p)

ggf31416

16th September 2007, 14:27

Regarding the HQ-fast profile, I think replacing UHM with HEX and adding trellis 1 gives better quality/speed than the current profile.

leowai

17th September 2007, 15:40

Hi, friends. I want to share a working x264 encoding profile for N95 users. It works with my friend's N95. The encoding parameters are not optimized for best quality as I've no N95. I leave this to those who own one and interested to optimize the profile.

For your reference, the N95 playable video clip is converted as following procedure.

01. Resize DVD video from 720x576@25fps to 320x240@25fps (30fps not tested) with Avisynth. It will have a good look in N95 if you know about DAR.

02. Encode the AviSynth Video file (*.avs) with MeGUI & x264 (rev669) using the x264 profile (PD-Nokia N95.xml) attached here. 2-pass is recommended.

03. Encode the 48KHz audio wave file into AAC using Nero Digital with following cmd
=> neroAacEnc.exe -br 48000 -if Input_Audio.wav -of "Output_Audio.m4a"
I assume you know how to get the wav audio input from your video source. :)

04. Mux the video into 3GP container using YAMB (v2.0.0.7) and MP4Box (v0.4.4). Following settings are the settings I've for the output 3GP video clip using YAMB. Make sure you have the setting in BOLD before you mux the video and audio into 3GP container. Or you will end up with a stretched video output using YAMB.

[Video]
Language: English
Brand Name: ND Mobile AVC
Track Name: Video
Pixels Aspect Ration: Custom 1:1

[Audio]
Language: English
Brand Name: ND Mobile AVC
Track Name: Audio

Alternatively, you can mux the video and audio using mp4box cmd line if you know how to do so.

Lastly, transfer the converted 3GP output file to your N95. Your N95 should play it as supported format.

Hope you will enjoy the high quality video clip encoded using x264 in your mobile devices.

rack04

17th September 2007, 15:50

Is there a profile for the latest iPod Nano with 320x240 resolution?

Atak_Snajpera

17th September 2007, 21:24

iPod Nano is compatible with IPOD profile :)

tuber99

24th September 2007, 21:28

Is anyone actually using the PD-AppleTV profile? I just updated MeGUI (0.2.5.1007) and got the latest set of profiles (v42) that included the PD-AppleTV profile. When I select the profile in MeGUI and click Config - I get the error "selected profile exceeds the AVC profile you have specified. P4x4 macroblocks are not allowed in level >3 or in level 3 with B frames."
Does this mean that no one has actually tried to use this profile? Can I volunteer as the hardware guinea pig if someone will help me figure out what I need to change to actually make a *usable* AppleTV profile?

Adub

24th September 2007, 21:39

Have you tested the profile as it is, even though it throws the error?
If so, did it work?

If not, try unchecking the P4x4 box and see if that fixes it.

Sharktooth,
As a side note, shouldn't that box be greyed out if the selected profile doesn't allow it?

tuber99

24th September 2007, 21:54

Yeah, I did because I assumed it must be a bogus error. I ended up with a stuttery, choppy video that was almost unwatchable (although iTunes let it sync with the @TV)

After that, I started experimenting with the other iPod profiles to get something working. I have a copy of QuickTimePro and I have exported to .mp4 from there, but I think it sacrifices quality for speed of encode.

I considered starting a separate thread on the topic, but are there tools that can analyze a given h.264 video stream and make a best-guess as to what encoder options have been enabled/disabled? That way, it would be very easy to take a QuickTime encoded .mp4 and figure out what encoder options it's using and which x264 options are causing it problems.

StoneRoses

25th September 2007, 06:04

I have tried iPhone profile the 480x270 (add letterbox to 320) @ 600kbps look great on the iPhone.

But in order to work you have to set AVC level to level 3 otherwise iTunes won't let you put it in the iPhone.

Thanks

Adub

25th September 2007, 08:22

Wait, Tuber99
Did you try unchecking that box like I suggested? And just to be sure, we are talking about the AppleTV, not the "Ipod", correct?
Also, make sure that your AVC level is set for 3.1. I opened up my version of the profile after you had mentioned it and I discovered that MeGUI had saved it as Unlimited after I had screwed around with it. That may be your problem.

You may also want to look at this post.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1034432#post1034432

Specifically about the muxing at the bottom.

tuber99

26th September 2007, 14:29

Thanks for the link to the other thread about MP4Box usage, that's definitely been a push in the right direction! I'm still somewhere near the bottom of the learning curve on this stuff and only being able to work on it during "free time" definitely makes it slow going...

My goal for now is to create an H.264/AAC-LC M4V using MeGUI/MP4Box that very closely matches functionality and look/feel of one that is created solely from QuickTime Pro. Currently, there are still two areas of difference that I see:

1) H.264 encoding differences. This is the issue with not knowing which MeGUI profile to use and which settings the AppleTV does not like.

2) MP4 container metadata differences. The most obvious place to see this issue is by looking at the Movie Properties in QuickTime player and comparing the QuickTime generated file with the MeGUI generated. Bitrate and some other values are showing as 'N/A' in QuickTime for the MeGUI generated files. I'm not sure if this is affecting performance/playback in any way, but it's an obvious difference.

Another tool, along with MP4Box that has been helpful is the QuickTime Atom Viewer. This makes it very easy to see the metadata changes that are made using various MP4Box parameters.

So... finally back to the original thread thought. To answer the previous question, if I use the "PD-AppleTV" profile in MeGUI, follow the error's instruction and de-select P4x4 macroblocking, encode and use the correct MP4Box muxing instructions for AppleTV, I end up with a choppy, unwatchable video on the AppleTV. From looking at some other posts, one setting that most agree is not Apple-TV compatible is the B-pyramid setting. If I leave all other settings alone and disable the B-pyramid, the video playback is much smoother and *almost* matches the playback quality of the QuickTime encoded. This is what I'm still working on.

Sorry for the long post.

Kurtnoise

26th September 2007, 15:13

First of all, thanks for the feedbacks and tests...I hope Sharktooth will look around.

2) MP4 container metadata differences. The most obvious place to see this issue is by looking at the Movie Properties in QuickTime player and comparing the QuickTime generated file with the MeGUI generated. Bitrate and some other values are showing as 'N/A' in QuickTime for the MeGUI generated files. I'm not sure if this is affecting performance/playback in any way, but it's an obvious difference.
well...you compare apples and oranges. So, this is normal you have several differences. Anyway, this doesn't rely on the playback side.

Sharktooth

26th September 2007, 16:57

ill update the profile

tuber99

26th September 2007, 19:21

sharktooth - you're free to update the profile as you see fit, but I'm fairly certain I will have other changes to it by the time I'm done...

kurtnoise13 - As far as comparing apples to oranges, I really don't think so. More like comparing fuji to gala :p Seriously, 95% of the metadata (that I've manually compared) is identical between what comes out of QuickTime export to M4V and what comes out of MP4Box using MeGUI-encoded AAC and H.264. Obviously, I can't speak to the content of the actual data streams, but I'm not sure how much that accounts for the properties differences I see in QuickTime player. That's really what I'm trying to determine.

Thanks both for the replies.

tuber99

3rd October 2007, 00:18

Just so it doesn't appear like I've totally dropped off the map, (and in case anyone else has had the same questions I have) I wanted to follow-up with this issue.

I've discovered that most of the playback issues with AppleTV (that are most annoying to me, at this point) seem to be less to do with the x264 options used to encode the h.264 stream and more with the details around how the final MP4/M4V gets muxed. I had never used handbrake before (http://handbrake.m0k.org/) and I kept hearing about AppleTV profile support, so I downloaded and gave it a try. Someone there has been doing their homework because AppleTV playback is perfect! I have posted questions on one of the Handbrake developer forums to find out if there is a way to duplicate those results using MP4Creator or MP4Box (without mods) and at this point, I think the answer is 'no'. Which leads me to my next effort, which may be to code a custom version of MP4Creator with the HandBrake-specific mux mods...

I just can't believe no one's ever run into this before...:confused: Someone please stop me and tell me they already have the tool I'm looking for.

Theliel

10th October 2007, 13:34

I have make a new profile for My iPod Touch. I dont know if work on iPhone or newers iPod classic or nano, if someone can try them on others...

Support ALL Baseline profile and Level 3 features, the only limitation are 6 ref frames, more ref frames corrupt the video.

Work perfectly with pal/ntsc

Up to PAL/NTSC resolution -> 720*576 25fps / 720*480 30fps
Baseline Profile
Level 3
Bitrate up to 10000 -> yes, 10Mb/s ->
I have set the maximun at 10mb/s but only use up to 1Mb/s for 480*320, up to 2Mb/s for 640*48, up to 4MB/s PAL content and Up to 10Mb/s only for testing purpose .
5 Reference Frames
Mixed refs
no-fast-pskip
Deblocking (-2,-1 in my case)
Subme 7
Analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4
Me UMH
No-dct-decimate

damngod

20th October 2007, 16:16

Hi,

I have a problem with the 360/PS3 profile. In fact, I doubt the profile is the cause but I need some help on this :

First, I tried both 720p and 1080p (understand, with some cropping, so it's something like 1920x... or 1280x...). 720p encodes only work on the 360 and 1080p's only work on the PS3. Otherwise it's said that the files are not compatible.

My 360 is connected in 720p to a CRT (which accept only 720p and 1080i) and the PS3 is connected in 1080p to a FullHD LCD (in the PS3 settings, 720p, 1080i and 1080p are all activated).

So what's the problem ? Is the 360 not capable of downscaling 1080p x264 encodes to 720p ? Is the PS3 not capable of upscaling 720p encodes to 1080p ? Should I need to unchecked 1080i and 1080p in the PS3 settings (can't test until tonight). Or is there something else ?

Thanks in advance.

Sharktooth

25th October 2007, 15:33

v43:
- too much changes to be listed.

morphx2

25th October 2007, 16:30

What is everyone using for HD-DVD settings? Sharktooth said he is going to remove the HD-DVD profile (which I agree with since it is taking me a looooooong time encoding it).

Anyone have any other settings or guides out there to setup MeGUI to back them up?

Thanks!

Sharktooth

25th October 2007, 18:32

actually i added another one... and faster...
keep in mind you need the nal hrd patched x264 build to have a compatible hd-dvd video stream...

sazoki

25th October 2007, 19:16

theliel,
i try u're profile for my ipod clasic 5.5, and itunes refuse it,

--pass 2 --bitrate 5000 --stats ".stats" --level 3 --ref 6 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --filter -2,-1 --no-cabac --subme 7 --analyse none --qpmin 16 --vbv-maxrate 10000 --me umh --merange 12 --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input"

Theliel

25th October 2007, 19:19

ipod classic dont equal to ipod 5.5
ipod classic is the newer ipod (80 and 160Gb), called now c"lassic". So if yo have a 5.5 you need use 5.5 profile.

sazoki

25th October 2007, 19:27

i try 5.5 profile for my ipod 80 Gb
and also not working with itunes after last ubdate 7.4.3.1

Theliel

25th October 2007, 19:34

if your ipod are a newer classic 80Gb and my profile dont work, then ipod touch and classic use different decoder and my profile are only valid for touch and maybe iphone.

Sorry then and thank for your test :)

one ask. itunes refuse to upload into your ipod?

maybe your problems are mp4 uui.
with the latest itunes you dont need uui changes anymore, but sometimes itunes refuse to load anyway
try demux your video with yamb (for example) and remuxing again. In first time compliance=standard, and second time compliance=ipod

sazoki

25th October 2007, 19:44

yes refuse to upload into ipod,
So,what the best profile in my case, other how , i try the Xvid4psp the 640ipod profile and it working good

Theliel

25th October 2007, 19:47

try demux-remux with yamb and tell me. (first with 5.5 profile, and if work, try your profile)

its very possible that Xvid4psp use a diferent muxer.
and if you need more info or problems, send me MP and talk by IM for example, and no more off topic :)

morphx2

25th October 2007, 21:26

actually i added another one... and faster...
keep in mind you need the nal hrd patched x264 build to have a compatible hd-dvd video stream...

Well, it won't be on an HD-DVD. It is just a backed up copy to play on zoomplayer if that matters for anything or if it is still the same.

So when will the new profile be out to try? :D I hope it is a lot faster too :D

And what is a nal hrd patched x264 build?

Atak_Snajpera

25th October 2007, 22:35

yes refuse to upload into ipod,
So,what the best profile in my case, other how , i try the Xvid4psp the 640ipod profile and it working good

Did you try floola (http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=WiwiHome)?

Sharktooth

25th October 2007, 22:39

Well, it won't be on an HD-DVD. It is just a backed up copy to play on zoomplayer if that matters for anything or if it is still the same.

So when will the new profile be out to try? :D I hope it is a lot faster too :D

And what is a nal hrd patched x264 build?
The dev version (0.2.6.x) has the new profiles and yes, there is a fast profile...

hrd+pulldown: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125568&highlight=x264+nal+hard

sazoki

26th October 2007, 03:14

well,thanks for help
the problem was in the mp4 muxer,i forgot to use the nic mp4 muxer with the ipod5.5 profile
it's working now
thanks

JarrettH

26th October 2007, 19:08

why do all the "Slow" profiles default using 16 b-frames now?:cool:

Sharktooth

26th October 2007, 19:11

why not?:)

morphx2

28th October 2007, 15:38

Ill let ya know how the new HD-DVD profile works; I am running it now. Seems faster at around 8 fps on 2nd pass. But that could be due to my fixing of my computer. Turned out not enough power was going throw my HTPC with a new videocard and slowed things down somewhat.

Sharktooth

28th October 2007, 16:48

the HD-DVD_Fast is definatly FASTER than the other one...

morphx2

28th October 2007, 22:47

I wanted to let you know Shark that it came out wonderful! I did not use the patched file like you said though..would that really change anything?

Sharktooth

29th October 2007, 01:20

it wont be HD-DVD compatible.
however h264info (https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=138139&package_id=225029) may come handy...

morphx2

29th October 2007, 02:39

Well, I dont need HD-DVD compatible. Just look the best in x264/mkv format to playback from my harddrive.

After watching parts of Riddick and comparing it to the HDDVD, it looks grainer in a lot of scenes instead of being sharp.

I am going to go test it via another method and compare to the 2 and see what looks better to my eye.

decayed.cell

31st October 2007, 01:46

Just an observation: I'm running iTunes 7.4.1.2 and using the stock MP4Box that comes with MeGUI, neither the PD-iPod-5G nor the PD-iPod-5.5G profile works with a 320x240 encoded clip i.e. transfer onto iPod using iTunes.

However with NicMP4Box, the PD-iPod-5G profile works but the 5.5G profile still doesn't work. 640x480 video does not work in both cases.

Taxidermista

1st November 2007, 05:04

What about a Blu-Ray profile based on the Blu-Ray HD AVC profile in Elecard Converter Studio 2.0? These are its default options:

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f391/Taxidermista/elecardblurayprofile1.png

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f391/Taxidermista/elecardblurayprofile2.png

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f391/Taxidermista/elecardblurayprofile3.png

halpern

4th November 2007, 13:10

What is the recommended profile for encoding x264 for HD TV shows?

gnutellafan

5th November 2007, 01:33

What would be the best profile for transparent encoding of HD content to the lowest possible bitrate? How about DVD content?

My goal is to transcode HD and DVD content to the lowest bitrate that still preserves as much of the original as possible while saving as much space as possible. They will be viewed on large screen high resolution HDTVs.

Its my understanding that much of the HDDVD and BR content is way over size to prevent copying. I want to bring these down to a reasonable size while preserving the HD quality for a home/private media server.

Adub

5th November 2007, 04:33

1. Don't ask what is best. Especially in this situation as it varies from source to source.

2. It varies from source to source. Try starting out with some of the HD profiles or even better the HQ profiles. They are designed to squeeze the most out of every bit in a video encode.

Also, it is arguably "impossible" to get a transparent encode while shooting for the lowest possible bitrate. However, you should run a few test runs using the HQ profiles at bitrates varying from 2000kbps or so on up to maybe 8-10k. Again, it varies with your source, plus what kind of filtering and deinterlacing you are doing.

halpern

5th November 2007, 17:44

Sharktooth,
Is there anyway you can post descriptions for the Xvid profiles that come with MeGUI? I'd be interested in learning more about them. Thank you.

Adub

5th November 2007, 22:28

You can find descriptions in the Xvid section. If it is not on the first page, then use search.

Chainmax

5th November 2007, 23:39

I have a question about the PSP profile. Can the following settings:

* Deblocking @ > 0/0
* RDO Level 2 (S.R 7)
* Trellis = 2
* No DCT Decimation
* No Fast P-Skip

be enabled and still have smooth playback?

[edit]I forgot, what about B-Pyramid, can it be enabled too?

Sharktooth

6th November 2007, 03:48

those settings do not affect the decoding complexity except for deblocking which is already enabled in the profile... so, basically, yes.

SpAwN_gUy

6th November 2007, 08:57

What is the recommended profile for encoding x264 for HD TV shows?

some info could be found here (http://www.google.com/search?hl=ru&client=opera&rls=ru&hs=IpJ&q=x264+rules+scene&btnG=%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA&lr=)... but.. but i reeeealy don't like it.. ;) ..

try something around HQ profiles or HD (i prefer HQ's..) try some search about custom martices.. and.. "start diggin' " ;)

Adub

6th November 2007, 09:24

spawn_guy, that is a weird site. It seems more for illegal dvd ripping and distribution more than anything else.

SpAwN_gUy

6th November 2007, 09:42

spawn_guy, that is a weird site. It seems more for illegal dvd ripping and distribution more than anything else. //link modified ;)
well. it has some "rules" and info about how to do it "right" .. yes, in quotes.. written by someone (i may think he or they are also here, somewhere..)
and also has.. some x264 comLines.. like some sort of "Profiles", i guess..
this site (http://nwgat.net/) also has something.. about encoding (btw,.. the first profile for HD-Encode i took from there)..
it is somehow like a "tutorial"...

sorry for my offtop.. i quit it..

i do have some questions... but not here, sorry for that..

Chainmax

6th November 2007, 10:03

Thanks for the clarification, Sharktooth :).

SpAwN_gUy, I didn't visit your link but I'm curious. Is it anthing like the old TDX rules?

SpAwN_gUy

6th November 2007, 10:21

Is it anthing like the old TDX rules?what is TDX?

anti-offtop: Sharktooth about.. "profiles"... i wonder.. do i need to ask, when i made some meGUI mod (for x264farm) (and sent code to berrrinam)... in my mod(or "add") i use x264profiles for generating comLine for x264farm..

do i need to ask you for allowance to use your profiles?
(sorry, for a stupid question, but i have not made any of profiles, or anything)

Sharktooth

6th November 2007, 17:54

you can use and abuse my profiles in any ways :)

fleon

12th November 2007, 01:31

hi sharktooth, sorry if someone have asked before but right now I have dialup so I cant search everything, can you confirm wich of your two ipod profiles: pd-ipod and pd-ipod 5.5 works better with the new ipod nano 3rd gen?

Sharktooth

12th November 2007, 14:45

eh... i really dont know coz i have no ipods to test but the 5.5 profile should be ok for the nano. do some test encodings and choose the one which is better. if someone has the ipod 3rd gen exact specs i can make a new one though.

EDIT: I just saw the nano has almost the same specs as the 5.5. So you can safely use the 5.5 profile.

fleon

12th November 2007, 16:42

So the ipod 5.5 have the same specs as the classic and also as the nano? well in any case here are the specs of the nano

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

EDIT: also I used to use Staxrip for encoding but it have old profiles and doesnt have the 5.5 profile and well, if you sharktooth actually create a new profile based of the specs above it wont have that profile, so that's why I'm changing (and least for ipod enconding) but is way too different so I dont know what to do I tried some things but I need a guide so I searched and I found this one http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/Main_Page but when i put on the part of ipod conversion guide on the part encoding video it just says No such action The action specified by the URL is not recognized by the wiki so maybe you can help me thanks

redfordxx

12th November 2007, 23:23

Hello,
I have question...
I'd like to backup my digicam videos with sort of two pass at constant quality level:
First pass on quality I decide...let's say qp=25...and then improve the quality with second pass.

In fact it should be normal two pass, only the bitrate I will learn from the cq pass... but I cannot make it using any profile am i right?

Well, related question is, how much better is the quality of the 2pass...if it is worth it..

Adub

13th November 2007, 00:49

Yeah, the wiki is down temporarily, but hopefully it will be up some time this month.

Redfordxx, there is no such thing as two pass cq. That is the very definition of CQ, "Constant Quantizer". Or CRF for constant quality. Doesn't matter, as those two forms of encoding do not have a 2 pass.

2 pass bitrate encoding is usually best used if you are shooting for a specific file size and want to squeeze as much quality out while still hitting the file size.

redfordxx

13th November 2007, 01:34

Redfordxx, there is no such thing as two pass cq. That is the very definition of CQ, "Constant Quantizer". Or CRF for constant quality. Doesn't matter, as those two forms of encoding do not have a 2 pass.
Yeah, I know. The CQ helps me only to decide the bitrate for the two pass, coz every video has different compressibility.

So let's say:
I'd run CQ compression at qp=25...it results in 1500kbit bitrate video.
Then I run 2pass @ 1500kbit

So, question is: has the second pass better quality than CQ? More and more I think about it, I think has not, has it?

But

Sharktooth

13th November 2007, 03:26

you would better run a CRF 25 pass instead of a CQ 25 pass.
however, running a 2 pass @ the same bitrate as your CQ or CRF pass is quite useless...

rack04

19th November 2007, 17:12

Which avs profile is the least processor extensive? I want to view x264 using CorePlayer on my Axim X51V. Thanks.

saint-francis

19th November 2007, 18:20

Which avs profile is the least processor extensive? I want to view x264 using CorePlayer on my Axim X51V. Thanks.

Do you mean which x264 profile?
I use the HQ insane profile and I play the movies on my x51v all the time. So you can use any you want. :)

rack04

19th November 2007, 18:51

Do you mean which x264 profile?
I use the HQ insane profile and I play the movies on my x51v all the time. So you can use any you want. :)

What bitrate and resolution are you able to play using HQ-Insane? Also, what media player do you use on your X51V?

Adub

19th November 2007, 19:25

You mean the one requiring the least amount of processing power? Try the ipod profiles, or create you own using the baseline profile with a low level, something like 2.1 or 3.1.

saint-francis

19th November 2007, 21:27

What bitrate and resolution are you able to play using HQ-Insane? Also, what media player do you use on your X51V?

I generally use crf 18 and 480p. I use coreplayer. The newer versions of coreplayer also support HE AAC nicely too.
On aximsite there are a bunch of guides for encoding to a size that is designed for the ax but I'm not about to make two copies of every movie (one for the PDA and one for the PC).

kumi

20th November 2007, 00:57

I'm trying to modify the "CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf)" profile to gain a speed up, like the boost you get going from "HQ-Slower" to "HQ-Slow". But I'm not sure which options are safe to change. I took a diff between the "HQ-Slow" profile (which has an acceptable per-pass speed for me) and the "CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf)" profile (too slow for me):

3c3
< <Name>CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf)</Name>
---
> <Name>HQ-Slow</Name>
5,6c5,6
< <EncodingMode>9</EncodingMode>
< <BitrateQuantizer>18</BitrateQuantizer>
---
> <EncodingMode>4</EncodingMode>
> <BitrateQuantizer>1000</BitrateQuantizer>
11c11
< <Turbo>false</Turbo>
---
> <Turbo>true</Turbo>
22c22
< <QuantizerCRF>18</QuantizerCRF>
---
> <QuantizerCRF>1000</QuantizerCRF>
28,29c28,29
< <MixedRefs>true</MixedRefs>
< <X264Trellis>0</X264Trellis>
---
> <MixedRefs>false</MixedRefs>
> <X264Trellis>1</X264Trellis>
33c33
< <SubPelRefinement>0</SubPelRefinement>
---
> <SubPelRefinement>5</SubPelRefinement>
36c36
< <BframePredictionMode>1</BframePredictionMode>
---
> <BframePredictionMode>3</BframePredictionMode>
40c40
< <MERange>16</MERange>
---
> <MERange>12</MERange>
60c60
< <biME>true</biME>
---
> <biME>false</biME>

Which of these options are safe to change in the "CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf)" profile? Any pointers would be most helpful, I'm a newb to x264.

Sharktooth

20th November 2007, 10:25

except turbo, quantizer and encoding mode, you can change everything else.

bguenthe

20th November 2007, 22:38

Hello,

I use MeGui to convert my recorded television movies to mpeg4 (h264). I tried the relative new archos 605 profile in combination with the nero ndaac audio profile.
It works fine for me except this:

When I move the movie forward to e.g. skip the advertisement the picture is froozen and the sound is way behind the movie. The sound is still playing and when it matches the picture all is synchronized and plays well. But I have to wait for ca. a minute for synchronizsation. I have xvid movies without this problem. Has anybody an explanation/solution for this?

Sharktooth

21st November 2007, 10:11

xvid is not h.264...
they're 2 completely different codecs.
try updating your player firmware to the latest version

fleon

21st November 2007, 19:02

It seems that a new profile for the ipod nano is needed 'cause the new nano have some video specs differences compared with the ipod 5.5 as you can see:

Ipod 5.5

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Ipod nano 3rd gen

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

they do in fact have some differences, look well..
or you can see them on the sites
http://support.apple.com/specs/ipod/iPod_Fifth_Generation_Late_2006.html

http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/specs.html

I read here that the 5.5 profile is compatible, but maybe it will be better to do a profile for the nano to take advantage of the differences between the 5.5 and the nano

Sharktooth

21st November 2007, 19:32

there's no reason to create a nano profile... it will be identical to 5.5G

Adub

21st November 2007, 19:58

Yes, there are a few subtle differences, but not enough to go an create a new profile, just modify your (fleon) 5.5gen profile to match the specs above and you should be golden.

Most of the difference is bitrate, but the Level Changes as well. No biggy.

fleon

21st November 2007, 19:59

there's no reason to create a nano profile... it will be identical to 5.5G

OH, I didnt knew that, well that's because I dont know too much about the technical video specs and everything I just assumed that because it was in some parts different a profile was needed, but hey you know way more than me so you are right
thanks for clearing that up

bguenthe

22nd November 2007, 19:38

xvid is not h.264...
they're 2 completely different codecs.
try updating your player firmware to the latest version
Hey Sharktooth,

I know that there is a difference between xvid and h264. But my question was: Has anybody an idea why I have the the problems with h264.

AkumaX

26th November 2007, 19:47

Sorry if this has been asked before; but is there a program that tells you what AVC level your *.mp4 is?

Ex: I d/l say, One Piece-200.mp4, but it doesn't play with quicktime. Obviously its using a different AVC profile, but what?
Ex2: I d/l say, Gundam 00-1.mp4. It plays in QuickTime and PSP new, but not PSP old (PSP and PS3's AVC Levels are changing), but I still want to know whether the file is Main Profile Level 3.1 or whatever. Thanks in advance!

Sharktooth

26th November 2007, 20:32

@AkumaX: :search:

@bguenthe: have you tried upgrading the firmware?

migrena

26th November 2007, 22:52

avc support in archos 605 is provided by plugin (purchased separately), unlike asp support, which is provided in normal software (according to specs on archos website). so i would blame that plugin.

orangedude

28th November 2007, 18:48

Furthermore, some tweakings are also needed for the muxing (thank you Apple :p) :
For AppleTV :
MP4Box -ipod -brand M4VH:1 -add myvideo.264:fps=xx -add myaudio.m4a outputfile.m4v
For iPhone :
MP4Box -ipod -brand M4VP -add myvideo.264:fps=xx -add myaudio.m4a outputfile.m4v

Hi, I've been having trouble getting MeGUI encoded videos to transfer to my Ipod Touch. Just wondering, does MeGUI automatically do these tweaks when muxing MP4 files under Iphone profile, or do you have to do these manually from outside MeGUI?

Kurtnoise

28th November 2007, 18:57

For the moment, you need to do this outside from MeGUI. It will be added in it soon.

orangedude

28th November 2007, 19:15

So is that the reason why videos encoded on Xvid4PSP work while the MeGUI ones do not? The muxing is the problem rather than encoding? If so, I'd really appreciate if it's added soon, thanks.

Sharktooth

28th November 2007, 19:33

yes. it's the muxing.

3r1c

29th November 2007, 03:10

are the SA-HD-DVD profiles correct?

--pass 2 --bitrate 8000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 15 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 2 --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -3,-2 --subme 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9781 --vbv-maxrate 29400 --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input"

seems to be missing required commands to produce valid hd-dvd stream such as
--vbv-init 1.0 --vbv-bufsize 14745 --mvrange 511 --nal-hrd

is threre a reason why these commands are not used when almost every other guide says they are required?
and which is right for bufsize 14745 or 9781?

has this profile been tested or is it just guess work?
ie. has been authored with scenarist (or similar tool) and burned to a disc which plays back on some hardware player.

Sharktooth

29th November 2007, 04:30

migrena

29th November 2007, 12:11

@orangedude
you can replace mp4box that comes with megui with nic's hacked one that uses "-ipod" switch as default.
http://nic.dnsalias.com/

bguenthe

2nd December 2007, 10:21

@AkumaX: :search:

@bguenthe: have you tried upgrading the firmware?

Yes, I have the latest firmware. Recently I tried Nero Recode. And for the first time I hava a h254 running on my Archos without problems. But I have to wait long for this. This peace of software is slow.

Meilo

18th December 2007, 06:45

The Xbox 360 Profiles don't use B-Pyramid. Is there some specific condition that it causes troubles for the Xbox? I've been doing a lot of encodes with them on and videos play without problems.

JarrettH

20th December 2007, 20:35

I sort of understand why you made b-frames=16 for all the HQ profiles now. I thought you just went nuts and I left my own profile at 3. I did a little looking around the other night and it turns out adaptive b-frames "allows" x264 to use up to 16 right?

Gosh x264 is getting extremely fast. I did 1st pass of Blade Runner Final Cut in 50min and 2nd pass in under 3hrs w/

Job commandline: --bitrate 1400 --stats --keyint 240 --min-keyint 24 --ref 5 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 16 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -2,-1 --subme 6 --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --sar 1:1 --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output

:eek:

Sharktooth

20th December 2007, 21:34

exactly. b frames are adaptive by default. so why not let x264 choose how many of them to put in sequence? ;)

XolocoTuxmaster

24th December 2007, 17:35

Sharktooth,

What are the PS3 profiles' x264.exe command lines?

Schrade

24th December 2007, 19:11

Sharktooth,

What are the PS3 profiles' x264.exe command lines?

PD-PS3-Xbox360:
--pass 2 --bitrate 1000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 3 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9000 --vbv-maxrate 25000 --me umh --merange 12 --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input"

PD-PS3-Xbox360_Fast:
--pass 2 --bitrate 1000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --bframes 3 --weightb --direct auto --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9000 --vbv-maxrate 25000 --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input"

You can get these command lines from meGUI itself when you select a profile and click on the "config" button.

Edit: Woops. Those are for v42, not Sharktooth's latest v43. But in any case, you can get the command lines yourself pretty easily via meGUI.

XolocoTuxmaster

24th December 2007, 19:16

Thank you very much, but that's not the answer I was looking for. I should have explained myself better.

I knew what you say, but I actually wanted to know if first pass is just the same but changing --pass 2 to --pass 1

Ranguvar

25th December 2007, 22:29

Just did a LOT of testing with the Archos 605, and found its profile can be enhanced.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1079602#post1079602

Enjoy :)

Sharktooth

26th December 2007, 04:48

@Ranguvar: will do as soon as i find some free time.

@XolocoTuxmaster: usually the commandlines used between passes are different, but only if "Turbo" is enabled. otherwise they're exactly the same (obviously except for the --pass option)

buzzqw

30th December 2007, 10:03

i would suggest to set --level to 4.1 for all profile that not need lower or bigger annex level

so.. don't change ipod profiles.. but general pourpose profile can be level 4.1 without hassle

the 5.1 requisite are far from common

BHH

Kurtnoise

30th December 2007, 10:51

doesn't make sense...unrestricted level is the way to go imo except profiles which require this feature.

buzzqw

30th December 2007, 11:38

unrestrincted level don't make sense too :rolleyes:

many user will simply encode with the profile that's "sound" (as name) better.

only after encoding they will complain about hw device not decoding videos

my suggestion is only due to fact that is much better a signaling level then not signal any level
non signaling level mean 5.1.

if you look at annex table (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264#Levels) you will see that difference between 4.1 and 5.1 are just about bitrate (over 62.5mbps) and very high resolution (over 2048x1024)

just my opinion

BHH

Kurtnoise

30th December 2007, 11:55

unrestrincted level don't make sense too :rolleyes:
it makes sense...levels restrictions are due to the hardware materials not softwares.

many user will simply encode with the profile that's "sound" (as name) better.

only after encoding they will complain about hw device not decoding videos
then, it's because the profile used is not well tuned...

my suggestion is only due to fact that is much better a signaling level then not signal any level
non signaling level mean 5.1.
contradiction...

buzzqw

30th December 2007, 22:28

yes... but 5.1 is the max level.. and is put by x264 because a level must be present

i just want to say that difference between 4.1 and 5.1 are quite insignificant for "normal" encoding.

So i would prefer to use a level well accepted by several hw device. Not segnaling it (and so let 5.1) is ignoring it

BHH

Chainmax

31st December 2007, 19:02

the profile is experimental and since the nal hrd x264 patch is experimental too, it wont work. a proper support for hd-dvds will be added when the nal hrd patch will be committed to the x264 svn.

EDIT: Just a note... --mvrange 511 is no longer necessary with latest x264 builds

Does that mean that after that patch is commited the HD-DVD profile-encodes should be playable on any standalone?

Also, I have seen a few posts in this forum that seem to point that the PSP can handle level 3. I am currently doing some encodes for my PSP and will try that for further confirmation (I also use subme7, trellis2, no dct decimation, and no fast pskip).

[edit]Mmm...modifying the AVC level in the PSP profile gives an error message saying that P4x4 is not allowed on levels higher than 3 or on level 3 itself with B-frames. What should give better quality, 2.1 with BFrames or 3 without BFrames?

valnar

31st December 2007, 22:51

Is there a spreadsheet or chart somewhere that lists all these profiles in a table so I can compare the differences between them all? 'Just curious.

Robert

Kurtnoise

1st January 2008, 15:09

Is there a spreadsheet or chart somewhere that lists all these profiles in a table so I can compare the differences between them all?
nope...but open xml files shouldn't be to hard with some text editors or something.

Ranguvar

4th January 2008, 12:22

Also, I have seen a few posts in this forum that seem to point that the PSP can handle level 3. I am currently doing some encodes for my PSP and will try that for further confirmation (I also use subme7, trellis2, no dct decimation, and no fast pskip).

[edit]Mmm...modifying the AVC level in the PSP profile gives an error message saying that P4x4 is not allowed on levels higher than 3 or on level 3 itself with B-frames. What should give better quality, 2.1 with BFrames or 3 without BFrames?

Level 3 works fine. Just disable P4x4. It helps very little compared to inreased time to encode, anyways.

FYI (just about as good as PSP supports max for most options): --pass 2 --stats .stats --bitrate 1024 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 3 --direct auto --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4 --subme 6 --me umh --b-rdo --bime --weightb --trellis 1 --threads 1

I've been using that CLI for months now on every one of my PSP encodes, and its worked every time. So I assume you don't even need the --level option. just make sure you still use an allowed resolution.

alexVS

5th January 2008, 09:25

Please, help me to understand some of the points:

1. For now there are no stand-alone players, that can play *.MP4 file (h264-AVC, AAC), encoded with x264.exe. Is that right?

2. The manual to my stand-alone player (XORO DVD player) says that it can play MP4 (nero-digital). Which profile from the first post of this thread is compatible with it?

3. Which profiles (HQ, CE, 1P, CQ) will be compatible with future players (HD-DVD, BLUE-RAY or DVD with support of h264) according to some standarts. And which of them will be played on the computer only?

Atak_Snajpera

5th January 2008, 14:27

1. For now there are no stand-alone players, that can play *.MP4 file (h264-AVC, AAC), encoded with x264.exe. Is that right?

How about PS3 :)

2. The manual to my stand-alone player (XORO DVD player) says that it can play MP4 (nero-digital). Which profile from the first post of this thread is compatible with it?

Probably PSP level 3.0 profile

3. Which profiles (HQ, CE, 1P, CQ) will be compatible with future players (HD-DVD, BLUE-RAY or DVD with support of h264) according to some standarts. And which of them will be played on the computer only?

PS3 Level 4.1 should be compatible with future players
Everything above will play only on PC (without hardware acceleration)

Chainmax

6th January 2008, 18:51

Level 3 works fine. Just disable P4x4. It helps very little compared to inreased time to encode, anyways.

FYI (just about as good as PSP supports max for most options): --pass 2 --stats .stats --bitrate 1024 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 3 --direct auto --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4 --subme 6 --me umh --b-rdo --bime --weightb --trellis 1 --threads 1

I've been using that CLI for months now on every one of my PSP encodes, and its worked every time. So I assume you don't even need the --level option. just make sure you still use an allowed resolution.

You should talk to Sharktooth and see if he could update MeGUI's PSP profile accordingly then, that would be a very nice addition.

Atak_Snajpera

6th January 2008, 21:28

--ref 3 does not work on my psp (video cannot be played). Only 2 works.

Ranguvar

7th January 2008, 13:42

--ref 3 does not work on my psp (video cannot be played). Only 2 works. *headdesks* I knew that off the top of my head, but apparently I typoed. Sorry!

Inventive Software

8th January 2008, 15:10

Can anybody recommend a profile that works with the newer PSP Slim 'n' Lite? And what H.264 level and x264 options does the PSP SnL support?

Atak_Snajpera

8th January 2008, 15:40

PSP level 3.0. You are asking strange question.

Inventive Software

8th January 2008, 15:43

Thanks. What I meant was video specs, a la iPod, but I assume Sony won't publish them. :(

alexVS

8th January 2008, 21:21

I need an advice.
When I encode video (captured as 25 interlaced FPS), to preserve smoothness of motion I encode it as 50 FPS.
For this I do separate fields and bob deinterlace.

Do I have to douple the bitrate to get the same quality of picture as deinterlaced 25p? Or I have to set some special parameters?

Logically thinking, I receive more frames (50), but the difference between frames are less, so it should take less information to encode p and b frames. Am I right?

Inventive Software

12th January 2008, 17:24

To further my question about PSP SnL profiles, what's recommended for the audio? LC or HE? Max bitrate?

Eretria-chan

12th January 2008, 21:55

I've tried messing around with trying to re-encode some H264 clips for my Archos 605, but it does not want to work!
I used the PD-Archos profile to encode but the player doesn't want to play it nevertheless.
Also tried Ranguvar's modified profile:
Just did a LOT of testing with the Archos 605, and found its profile can be enhanced.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1079602#post1079602

Enjoy :)

But it doesn't work either.
All I get is a corrupted file (as the player says, though it works 100% fine on the PC).
Anyone has any ideas why this isn't working? I have the latest firmware and the podcast plugin.

It can play some H264 clips, but not the re-encoded ones I've made from unsupported video clips I have.
Suggestions or tips would be extremely appreciated.

UPDATE:
Apparently today, the portable seems to want to play those files encoded with the profile. Weird.

UPDATE2:
Grrr! It works fine on a 1 minute clip, but not the full 24 minutes!
So what's going wrong? I just don't understand.

Poopoo

13th January 2008, 15:55

Does anyone know what the perfect Xvid quality encode settings are, aiming at 700MB, and keeping the output standalone compatible ?

steveski

13th January 2008, 23:19

Poopoo

14th January 2008, 08:03

Thanks steveski ! :thanks:

Ranguvar

14th January 2008, 22:04

I've tried messing around with trying to re-encode some H264 clips for my Archos 605, but it does not want to work!
I used the PD-Archos profile to encode but the player doesn't want to play it nevertheless.
Also tried Ranguvar's modified profile:

But it doesn't work either.
All I get is a corrupted file (as the player says, though it works 100% fine on the PC).
Anyone has any ideas why this isn't working? I have the latest firmware and the podcast plugin.

It can play some H264 clips, but not the re-encoded ones I've made from unsupported video clips I have.
Suggestions or tips would be extremely appreciated.

UPDATE:
Apparently today, the portable seems to want to play those files encoded with the profile. Weird.

UPDATE2:
Grrr! It works fine on a 1 minute clip, but not the full 24 minutes!
So what's going wrong? I just don't understand.
Wow... no idea...

Mine plays everything fine.

What resolution are you using? Bitrate? Sound?

To limit # of variables, use 128kb/s CBR AAC-LC stereo audio, basic mp4box muxing, and x264 from CLI or MeGUI.

Ranguvar

14th January 2008, 22:08

Poopoo, don't use GMC or QPel.
Do a 2 pass encode, select interlacing if you haven't de-interlaced your content. If you de-interlace then use yadif.dll in your avs script and put mode=1 as a parameter which will double the framerate. Frame rate doubling has a pretty high cpu hit though but the motion is really smooth.
Also use Adaptive Quantization, Advanced Simple @ Level 5 profile and MPEG quantization (not sure if h263 is better or not).

With those settings I get nice quality compatible video and people rave about the quality. Although I personally think QPel makes it look far less pixelated.
I'm personally favouring x264 these days though as the quality is outstanding.

MPEG preserves more detail, so it's better for encoding from anything with a lot of small detail (DVDs, not bad encodes and anime/cartoons) as long as you have at least ~1300kb/s bitrate. Less than that and H.263 is better, and it almost always is with flatter sources. H.263 is also slightly faster.

I would definitely not use AQ yet though. Well actually, I need to do a test. Just heard bad things about Xvid's AQ.

I agree about GMC/QPel. Quality payoff is not worth the fact that most portables and standalones cannot deal with those.

Eretria-chan

14th January 2008, 22:19

What resolution are you using?
It's 704 x 396, just below DVD resolution.

Bitrate?
300-500 kbps I think I've done tests with, but it doesn't seem to work. I don't know if I've been consistent about it, however.

Sound?
32 kbps HE-AAC + PS.
But for the tests I typically don't add the audio since it requires extra muxing.

To limit # of variables, use 128kb/s CBR AAC-LC stereo audio, basic mp4box muxing, and x264 from CLI or MeGUI.

I encode from MeGUI with the archos profile to MP4. It's fine with a 1 minute clip but not the full 24 minutes! That's what I just don't understand.
Mkvmerge also complains about some timecode or something missing from the video stream. I don't know what it is nor how to fix it.

Inventive Software

17th January 2008, 03:33

I'm questioning the legality of the PD-PSP profile for MeGUI. The max bitrate seems too high IMO. I read that newer firmware raised the max bitrate from 768 to 2 Mbits, but I saw nothing that allowed 4 Mbits. I personally haven't tested this, so can't confirm anything.

Also, with regard to resolutions when encoding for this thing, if the native screen size is 480x272, and they've allowed 720x480 and 352x480 video sizes, what's most ideal (avoided the 'b' word) when encoding 16:9 DVDs? Bear in mind I'm still relatively new to making this stuff actually work...

Sharktooth

18th January 2008, 15:01

will fix for the next update along with archos605 and other profiles.

matrix40

23rd January 2008, 21:26

Hey question i convert a m2ts video from my The host blu ray movie. I converted the file with the hq-fast quality profile. I got the audio to line up and the quality is good. However when i play the file on my Tvix 4100 it seems like every 10 to 15 seconds the films sort of jumps or pulses. Has anyone ever had that problem before?

foxyshadis

28th January 2008, 04:36

Shark, can you please upload these fixed profiles?

Atak_Snajpera

28th January 2008, 17:40

However when i play the file on my Tvix 4100 it seems like every 10 to 15 seconds the films sort of jumps or pulses. Has anyone ever had that problem before?
Disable b-pyramid

Atak_Snajpera

28th January 2008, 17:42

I read that newer firmware raised the max bitrate from 768 to 2 Mbits, but I saw nothing that allowed 4 Mbits. I personally haven't tested this, so can't confirm anything.

You should test it first and then start complaning

Update: 4096 kbps is working smoothly on PSP

Inventive Software

29th January 2008, 03:15

You should test it first and then start complaning

Update: 4096 kbps is working smoothly on PSP

Have you read my previous posts? :p

Good to know I stand corrected. ;)

Chainmax

29th January 2008, 23:32

Was a test ever organized to see if files encoded with the HD-DVD profile were playable on an actual standalone off a DVD or HD-DVD blanks, so as to know if the profile could be pushed even further?

Glorioso

30th January 2008, 16:51

Im using the 360 profile, what audio codec should i use?

Atak_Snajpera

30th January 2008, 19:47

AAC-LC stereo

Glorioso

30th January 2008, 21:17

AAC-LC stereo

I've tried AAC-LC Stereo and MP3 Stereo and it wont open on 360 or PS3, the MP4 video only file playes fine on both... any clues?

Atak_Snajpera

30th January 2008, 21:52

Ct Aac ?

JarrettH

1st February 2008, 02:21

What info about my portable player do I need to know before I make an encode? I've got a Sony S618 Video MP3 Player that's supports AVC.:cool:

Sharktooth

3rd February 2008, 15:39

V44: Fixes fixes fixes... Improved compatibility of the PD profiles. HD-DVD profiles were updated to use the x264 NAL-HRD patch options.

WARNING: MeGUI already comes with a NAL-HRD patched x264 build. If you want to use those profiles in other applications, ensure your x264 build is patched.

kaihansen2001

3rd February 2008, 17:49

Megui just updated my x264 exe with x264-736.AQ-HRD-VBV.zip and your new v.44 profiles. Do they work together well or should i stay with previous x264 build?

Sharktooth

3rd February 2008, 18:05

knowing i put online the updates together... what do you think?

canTsTop

3rd February 2008, 19:25

hello,

i want to use Xbox360 profile, but in crf mode, is it enough to change from 2pass to crf, or i need to adjust others settings too?

thank you

Deinorius

3rd February 2008, 19:29

Nope.

Sharktooth

4th February 2008, 05:03

forget about CRF or CQ and compatibility with XBOX, PS3 and other devices.
1pass ABR should be avoided too, since the 1pass RC is not so good.

canTsTop

4th February 2008, 22:13

forget about CRF or CQ and compatibility with XBOX, PS3 and other devices.

even with SD videos? currently i use CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile, and xbox360 can play these videos, but not PS3. i want to try Xbox360/ps3 profile with crf, but i dont know is it enough to change from 2pass to crf, or i need to adjust others settings too.

JarrettH

5th February 2008, 07:16

Can you really tell a difference in bitrate on these 2" screens?

I encoded Kill Bill Vol 1 on to my Sony S618. It supports AVC with Baseline profile level 1.3 and AAC-LC audio. For mine the iPod profile seems to match so I set Keyframe Interval 240 and Min. GOP Size 24 to match the framerate and made the video bitrate 500kbps. Looks fine to me. I know you can do up to 768kbps, but is there any point?

Chainmax

5th February 2008, 15:07

Probably not. My Robot Chicken rips look pretty good at 320x240 with an average bitrate of 450kbps, even when viewed at 1024x768 on my computer monitor. And that was with previous versions (non-level 3) of the PSP profile.

Would someone be willing to try a couple of clips encoded with the HD-DVD profile and see if they play fine in either an HD-DVD or BluRay standalone? If so, I could provide some samples.

XolocoTuxmaster

5th February 2008, 16:09

I've made some 100% standard Blu-ray profiles, it would be great to include them in the pack

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1095653

Sharktooth

5th February 2008, 16:32

attachment is still not approved. please use megaupload or any other file sharing web service to share the profile.

Sharktooth

5th February 2008, 16:34

even with SD videos? currently i use CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile, and xbox360 can play these videos, but not PS3. i want to try Xbox360/ps3 profile with crf, but i dont know is it enough to change from 2pass to crf, or i need to adjust others settings too.
what's not clear in what i already said?

Exiton

6th February 2008, 03:45

Quick question from a newbie... at the same high bitrate, which would give me the closest transparency to the original source for PC playback from a high quality VC-1 source.

HQ-Slower
PD-PS3-XBOX360
SA-HD-DVD

Edited: Took out "best", thanks for the reminder...

Sharktooth

6th February 2008, 03:52

quick answer:
12) How NOT to post on this forum:

...

Do not ask "what's best" because this question cannot be answered objectively. Each and everyone has their own view about what's best in a certain area. The best is what works best for you!
:readrule:

cweb

7th February 2008, 19:45

What is a good (= at least working) profile for the nokia n73? is there any suggestions.

Atak_Snajpera

7th February 2008, 22:43

SA-HD-DVD

For compatibility use this. Quality will be the same.

Atak_Snajpera

7th February 2008, 22:46

@XolocoTuxmaster
--keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --mvrange 511
is this really neccessary. I don't use those extra settings and everything plays fine.

Sharktooth

8th February 2008, 04:37

What is a good (= at least working) profile for the nokia n73? is there any suggestions.
the n95 profile should be good as long as you stick with the 320*xxx (non anamorphic) resolution and a low FPS value (15 or so).
also if you plan to use AAC make sure you use a LC profile.
if you have performance problems (dropped frames, laggy audio etc...) i suggest you to try CorePlayer for symbian.

cweb

8th February 2008, 07:49

the n95 profile should be good as long as you stick with the 320*xxx (non anamorphic) resolution and a low FPS value (15 or so).
also if you plan to use AAC make sure you use a LC profile.
if you have performance problems (dropped frames, laggy audio etc...) i suggest you to try CorePlayer for symbian.
thanks a lot!

Deinorius

8th February 2008, 09:09

What's the DPB size?
I try to encode a level 4.1 compliant Video, but x264 tells me, that it exceeds the level limit.

I'm using this cli with StaxRip.
--crf 22 --ref 8 --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --weightb --b-rdo --bime --direct auto --filter 1:1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --subme 6 --me umh --mixed-refs --progress --threads auto --sar 33:33 --no-psnr --level 4.1 --no-ssim --thread-input --aq-strength 0.4 --aq-sensitivity 12 --vbv-maxrate 25000

XolocoTuxmaster

8th February 2008, 11:05

@Sharktooth

http://rs91.rapidshare.com/files/90096077/megui_blu-ray_profiles.zip

@Atak_Snajpera

Really? On a Blu-ray player?

Very strange...theoretically they have to be included...maybe you were lucky and x264 encoder set those parameters in a lower value...or maybe your player didn't mind to play no standard BDs...don't know... to ensure compatibility I recommend to use them

PD: That's about I-frames, for --mvrange 511 I've heard something about it's not needed newer x264 versions or something like that...haven't investigated much

Atak_Snajpera

8th February 2008, 11:17

PD: That's about I-frames, for --mvrange 511 I've heard something about it's not needed newer x264 versions or something like that...haven't investigated much

Something was fixed in rev697
https://trac.videolan.org/x264/log/trunk/

--keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --mvrange 511

I've made additional tests and It looks like that only --keyint 24 is required. Without --keyint 24 movie ends few seconds early than it should. LOL

Sharktooth

8th February 2008, 14:07

@XolocoTuxmaster: can you please upload the file to another host?
i cant get it from rapidshare.

elguaxo

8th February 2008, 14:15

@XolocoTuxmaster: can you please upload the file to another host?
i cant get it from rapidshare.

http://www.mediafire.com/?f1zgyj5mn3n or
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=49259103428493361575

Sharktooth

8th February 2008, 14:17

thanx!

XolocoTuxmaster

8th February 2008, 14:35

Something was fixed in rev697
https://trac.videolan.org/x264/log/trunk/

That's it, but it limits to 511.75 not 511...is that value 100% compatible? Haven't tried...

I've made additional tests and It looks like that only --keyint 24 is required. Without --keyint 24 movie ends few seconds early than it should. LOL

Hmm... actually the requeriment is not to have group of pixels longer than 1 sec...but --min-keyint is set to 25 by default and that can cause problems can't it?

By the way I realised that for 50i and 60i can be higher...but in a "not flagged true interlaced encoding" what would be right...25 and 30 or 50 and 60?, have never done an interlaced encoding

Sharktooth

8th February 2008, 14:46

@XolocoTuxmaster: the official link to megui is http://www.sf.net/projects/megui

XolocoTuxmaster

8th February 2008, 15:26

Ok thanks

What's the DPB size?
I try to encode a level 4.1 compliant Video, but x264 tells me, that it exceeds the level limit.

I'm using this cli with StaxRip.
--crf 22 --ref 8 --bframes 3 --b-pyramid --weightb --b-rdo --bime --direct auto --filter 1:1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --subme 6 --me umh --mixed-refs --progress --threads auto --sar 33:33 --no-psnr --level 4.1 --no-ssim --thread-input --aq-strength 0.4 --aq-sensitivity 12 --vbv-maxrate 25000

Sorry, I haven't seen your post. It's about ref frames, you can't have 8 for 4.1...max is 4 and is recommended to use 3

Deinorius

8th February 2008, 19:28

Ah, understood. MeGUI don't say anything against it. So I had no idea. Thanks for answer.

Atak_Snajpera

8th February 2008, 19:48

Do not use --b-pyramid and --sar 33:33 (should be --sar 1:1 or 4:3 or 16:9)

XolocoTuxmaster

8th February 2008, 22:54

@Sharktooth

toftrem says he used the profile and vui parameters present flag value is set to 0 instead of 1. Can you confirm this?

Schrade

8th February 2008, 23:11

forget about CRF or CQ and compatibility with XBOX, PS3 and other devices.
1pass ABR should be avoided too, since the 1pass RC is not so good.

Can you give a reason for forgetting about CRF or CQ for the PS3? I'd just like to know so I can understand what the problem with using it is.

Atak_Snajpera

8th February 2008, 23:15

Can you give a reason for forgetting about CRF or CQ for the PS3? I'd just like to know so I can understand what the problem with using it is.

There is no reason. CRF can be used as well without problems.

Sharktooth

9th February 2008, 05:10

no. a low CRF or QP value will violate the VBV for sure.
that will be even more problematic on hard to compress sources.

XolocoTuxmaster

9th February 2008, 15:01

Hey Sharktooth

toftrem says he used the profile and vui parameters present flag value is set to 0 instead of 1. Can you confirm this?

Sharktooth

9th February 2008, 16:49

you mean your blue-ray profile?
sorry i still hadnt time to look at it. ill do it ASAP.

Atak_Snajpera

10th February 2008, 00:18

no. a low CRF or QP value will violate the VBV for sure.
that will be even more problematic on hard to compress sources.

Can you give a reason for forgetting about CRF or CQ for the PS3?

Max VBV for PS3 is 25000 so even If I encode at CRF20 + AQ
(default settings) I get max bitrate always lower than 25Mbps (true 1920x1080 source)

Deinorius

10th February 2008, 12:36

Do not use --b-pyramid and --sar 33:33 (should be --sar 1:1 or 4:3 or 16:9) B-Pyramid too? In Sharktooth's PS3 Profile B-Pyramid is actived.
And I'm not so interested in using Xbox 360 as Player. Well, I don't even got any of these consoles. :devil: But a friend got these two and the Cell chip of the PS3 is more interesting for videoplayback and Sony seems to be faster by bringing out a smaller PS3. Well these are just rumors, but I'm waiting for it.

Or is there another reason not to use B-Pyramid? Maybe other SAPs like this one (http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/products/5100sh.aspx)?

Oh, StaxRip sets --sar 33:33. I can only set this correct, if I put --sar 1:1 manually into it. But is this such a difference? It's still the same.
I will see the difference, when I test it on the PS3, especially because I use PAL anamorph too (--sar 16:11... well, StaxRip uses --sar 48:33).

jamos

10th February 2008, 18:36

you mean your blue-ray profile?
sorry i still hadnt time to look at it. ill do it ASAP.

Shark with using Xolos bluray structure profiles I have noticed jerky playback. I think this is due to using a too high vbv buffer think its at 30000 compared to 9700 using the hd profile, can you look at it for us?

BTW I use the HD profiles for my mkv sources and they work excellent for BD output.

Sharktooth

11th February 2008, 14:13

i cant look at it since i haven't a blue-ray player...

matrix40

11th February 2008, 23:39

Hey i must be doing something wrong. i used the sa hd dvd fast settings and the quality looks great however my hard drive media player and mediainfo read the mkv file i made as 19. fps. My steps were (hd dvd evo)

1) after graphedit and making an avs file i open the avs in the script creator and set the crops and let it analyze this film.

2) i selected the sa hd dvd fast profile then hit que.

It took about 11 hours. i muxed the audio and video together with the megui mkv mux tool.

When i play the file i get little micro stutters in the picture

Did i do something wrong?

jamos

11th February 2008, 23:49

i cant look at it since i haven't a blue-ray player...

Doh! ok..

Atak_Snajpera

11th February 2008, 23:49

Did you convert 29.97 fps to 23.976 ?

matrix40

12th February 2008, 19:53

yes. After it does the scan and i save the avs script right before i chose the profile this is what it gives me as a script

# Set DAR in encoder to 2469 : 1000. The following line is for automatic signalling
global MeGUI_darx = 2469
global MeGUI_dary = 1000
DirectShowSource("C:\Users\Tony\Desktop\video.avs",fps=23.9759856527702,audio=false)
TDecimate(cycleR=1)
crop( 6, 136, -2, -150)

LanczosResize(1904,784) # Lanczos (Sharp)
Undot() # Minimal Noise

i then selected the sa hd dvd fast but for some reason it read as 19 fps

Atak_Snajpera

12th February 2008, 19:56

try this:
DirectShowSource("C:\Users\Tony\Desktop\video.avs",fps=23.976,convertfps=true,audio=false)
or
TDecimate()

Chainmax

13th February 2008, 23:43

Is the exclusion of No Dct Decimation and the P4x4 macroblock option in the AE-MaxQuality profile due to speed concerns or is there another reason for it?

Adub

14th February 2008, 03:40

P4x4 has been a controversial setting, sometimes resulting in a decrease in quality, but often no quality increase. So yes, it has a slight speed increase.

check

14th February 2008, 11:05

P4x4 has been a controversial setting, sometimes resulting in a decrease in qualityReally?? Can you link to a few examples, I've only seen the latter in terms of bad cases.

nurbs

14th February 2008, 12:58

I was under the impression that p4x4 tends to be left out mainly for hardware compatibility since it is not allowed for levels > 3.

I made some tests with it and was never able to spot a difference in quality on my samples.

Deckard2019

16th February 2008, 10:05

I own a PopcornHour A-100. It supports MKV but some of them don't play at all (level 5.1, insane number of ref frames, etc ...).
Explanation is here : http://www.networkedmediatank.com/viewtopic.php?p=14102#14102

So I would like to re-encode H264 video tracks to make them compliant.
I don't want to change bitrate, resolution, etc ... Only H264 format settings (mainly level and ref frames).
So first, I would like a dedicated profile. Next, I would like a typical command line to do this.

Thank you.

SpAwN_gUy

18th February 2008, 09:03

ataylor

18th February 2008, 11:02

OK, newbie moving from AutoGK to MeGUI here... just need some help with settings.

While I understand the whole "whats best" question is frowned upon here, I just need some general guidance. I'm backing up my DVD collection, and quality means more to me than space (I'm backing up to external HD). With AutoGK, I used AC3 audio with 80% target quality, and generally ended up with 1.5/1.8gb file sizes for most films, with longer ones being the mid 2gb area. I'm trying to work out which of these profiles is best for me, but am lost.

Taking into account what I was using with AutoGK, can someone recommend which of the profiles would suit me most, or at least make some suggestions as to which ones I should try.

Many thanks
Andy

Sharktooth

18th February 2008, 14:14

CRF profile. The default CRF value is 18. Consider it as a 100% quality. Rising that value will lower the quality.

jamos

20th February 2008, 22:42

Is there anything I need to change when using the hd profile for animation hd movies?

jamos

20th February 2008, 22:54

Another question if I am just transcoding a mkv using same average bitrate that a mkv was encoded at, into raw avc using bluray profile so it will play on a ps3. Do I need to choose Macroblock options? I have noticed no difference in output with them on and it takes about 4 hours shorter with them off than on.

Also looking at mediainfo I do not see them selected at all when the mkv was originally encoded so i really see no need to use them unless your doing heavy compression am I correct?

Sharktooth

21st February 2008, 14:03

Also looking at mediainfo I do not see them selected at all when the mkv was originally encoded so i really see no need to use them unless your doing heavy compression am I correct?
from what you said i suppose you didnt make that encode. in such case forum rule 6 applies.

jamos

21st February 2008, 14:52

from what you said i suppose you didnt make that encode. in such case forum rule 6 applies.

I did do the encode. They are backed up titles that i archived to mkv using 5.1 avc with 5 ref frames that I now want to set to lvl 4.1 now that I know that they are compatable to play on the ps3 with avc 4.1 with 4 or less ref. frames.. I did not use megui to encode though I use a x264 command line and did not use macroblock options. I am just wondering if macroblock are worth using with something that was not encoded with them in the first place.

Sharktooth

21st February 2008, 16:22

why not encoding from the originals? re-encoding is always bad...

jamos

21st February 2008, 18:48

why not encoding from the originals? re-encoding is always bad...

ok I will do that but that means having to rerip..:eek: thanks

Sharktooth

21st February 2008, 20:27

in any case, using partitions will help compression...

Ranguvar

21st February 2008, 21:58

Hey, Archos just updated the firmware for the 5G series. And take a look at the improvements.

Audio: Fixed compatibility with some AAC streams
Video: Fixed compatibility with H264 streams containing B-frames
Video: Fix compatibility with files encoded using FairUse
Audio/Video: Fixed compatibility with some .m4a and .mp4 files

I'm not updating, as the new updates patch a security hole that can be used to run homebrew, but perhaps someone should check out if more advanced AVC and/or Xvid can be played?

jamos

22nd February 2008, 00:24

in any case, using partitions will help compression...

It really does not make much of a difference in speed I will continue to use partitions thanks!

kristiXS

25th February 2008, 14:48

A few quick questions, as i am very new to megui and x264. I am doing the same as a few other posters in this thread were - creating extremely high quality rips for archival purposes, where a 2gb or less file size is fine, but keeping near dvd quality and a file size of 1500-1700 would be my preference.

A - in an earlier post to someone looking for a profile similiar to this situation you told them: use CRF profile. The default CRF value is 18. Consider it as a 100% quality. Rising that value will lower the quality.

It doesnt seem to be what im looking for, as im seeking a little higher quality than this put out (although it was very good!) Things in the background were blurred a bit much, although the cameras focus was quite clear, and i would like modify a profile's setting to get more quality in the background as well as maybe an even sharper picture than the profile gives if possible....

So far now ive done a few encodes with the HQ-Slow and Slower settings. Above it seems you referring to the CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile...the file size with that profile was smaller than with the HQ-Slow encode which i maybe erringly specified a 1500mb filesize for....should i have chosen profile settings rather than a filesize? should the CQ have come out smaller, as that seems odd that it would come out lower than a profile that did 2 passes and had your ABR bitrate of 1000?

So i am thinking i should modify the settings i am asking about in my next 2 questions to change the HQ-Slowest method....if by doing so it will give even better quality than the CRF method above?

Question B---------
When using the HQ-Slowest profile, and comparing it to the others...i noticed that in the Main tab of the settings dialog the bitrate for ABR is always 1000. From what understand the profiles are using 2 pass ABR/VBR encoding so this is a setting that is used (?) and therefore, would it increase quality to up this to say 1200? And is this bitrate setting having any effect if i choose a file size in the last box before you autoencode (where you choose a target size or can use profile's settings)? Im not sure if im supposed to be choosing a target size or not when using these profiles.

C---------
Also, under the Zones tab, the quantizer setting is always 26 and is not stored to profiles when changed. In one of the 4 guides I read on megui the info on that that setting states it affects quality greatly (just as quantizers in xvid do), and that setting it to 20 provided greater quality than, say 30 (the useable range it gave)....so if you change it to 20 or 23 rather than 26, will this increase quality? And why isnt this saved into profiles?

The descriptions for the min/max default quantizer settings are confusing too, because it seems lower is worse quality and higher is more quality, which goes directly against what the guide states?

frl

25th February 2008, 22:04

Hey, Archos just updated the firmware for the 5G series.....

Video: Fixed compatibility with H264 streams containing B-frames

1 B-frame now works without stuttering - any more than that and it still stutters, although not as bad as previously. I guess that's progress, of a sort ;)

Chris

Glorioso

25th February 2008, 23:31

I have one problem, i've encoded a MKV file with the PD-PS3-Xbox360_Fast profile and NDAAC-LC Miltichannel-HQ-266Kbps audio, done it with the sample and no problem, the big file, 4.7gb wont play, i get a error. I thought it was a size problem (the target file is 4.6GB) and remuxed it with a 1200mb split, the first two files, 1,2gb each, wont play either but the last one, 296mb plays fine at my 360 via TVersity, why?

foxyshadis

26th February 2008, 01:42

kristiXS

26th February 2008, 12:37

Thank you. I was lost and didnt even realize how lost i was!

I didnt quite grasp that the auto-encode settings were like using the calculator, and would override the Bitrate set in the profile, so i was choosing a filesize thinking that it would try to stay close to the bitrate in sharktooths profile AND meet the filesize (i should have realized it was just like divx and it cannot do both, but the extra choices in autoencode dialogue threw me off!)

I also now understand why the quantizer setting in the zones area is not stored in the profile, since you commented on it being a per-movie setting (i did not realize you actually had to set the zone for it to affect the movie at all, and was thinking it automatically affected the whole movie UNLESS you set up seperate zones.) I now realize that to set a quantizer for the whole movie it is done as in the profile "CQ_ASP_Q2_equiv".

Now I have only another question or 2 (for the moment!)....i see that sharktooth used Spatial B-frames in CRF encoding but Auto in all the other profiles since they are 2pass....but if using 2 pass encoding, would using Spatial still give better quality than the auto setting (and he is only using to help file size)?

If using constant QUALITY setting, sharktooth specified 18 in the profile. If i wished to make quality even better, do i raise or lower this number? (ie, 18 is high, 17 is higher quality, 16 is even higher?)

Thanks again,
Kristi

Sharktooth

26th February 2008, 15:16

"auto" automatically chooses spatial or temporal on a frame basis. for some reasons i cant remember right now, auto is not good in 1 pass encodings.

lowering the quantizer will rise the quality.

Glorioso

26th February 2008, 18:48

Ranguvar

27th February 2008, 00:49

1 B-frame now works without stuttering - any more than that and it still stutters, although not as bad as previously. I guess that's progress, of a sort ;)

Chris
LOL, yeah :D Well, 1 BVOP is definitely better than none, and by a bigger margin than 1 to 2, etc. So it's awesome for a pure software fix!

Hey, can you use 2 refs, mixed refs, and 1 BVOP? If so, to what bitrate (when using 704x400 or the like resolution)? Or if you can't, how high can you push 1 ref and 1 BVOP?

Sorry about the questions, just trying to gauge whether it's worth it, updating ;)

frl

1st March 2008, 11:08

Hey, can you use 2 refs, mixed refs, and 1 BVOP? If so, to what bitrate (when using 704x400 or the like resolution)? Or if you can't, how high can you push 1 ref and 1 BVOP?

Sorry for the slow reply, thought I subscribed to this thread but apparently didn't!

I'm using a slightly modified version of the CE-Mainprofile profile. So that has 3 refs, mixed refs and (now) 1 B. My resolutions varies between 624x352 and 720x416 (shame the Archos refuses to even try anything over 720 wide :( ). I've been using bitrates between 1000-1350. Only issue I've had so far is at 720x416 @ 1350, in one particular encode the bitrate spikes to over 7000 for a second during the credits which causes the Archos to drop frames. Still experimenting though..

Chris

tenkai

6th March 2008, 16:04

Hey guys could any1 tell me a profile which gives almost the original quality? I used Slowest profile but its really slow on my q6600, what about the SA-HDDVD profile? would it be enough? I would apriciate any tips!

Thx in advance,
tenkai

Sharktooth

6th March 2008, 16:09

read the guides. any profile can give "almost" the original quality...
it does not depends on profiles, but on bitrate/quantizer...

Sharktooth

6th March 2008, 18:50

V45:
Added Blu-Ray compatible profiles.
Added DXVA compatible profiles.
Various fixes.

rack04

6th March 2008, 19:01

V45:
Added Blu-Ray compatible profiles.
Added DXVA compatible profiles.
Various fixes.

Thank you so much for the new profiles.

tenkai

6th March 2008, 20:24

read the guides. any profile can give "almost" the original quality...
it does not depends on profiles, but on bitrate/quantizer...

so if i select sa-hddvd profile and stick to 9000-10000 avg bitrate on 1080p encodes i´m ok?

Sharktooth

6th March 2008, 21:16

depends on the source... you better read some guides and learn how video compression works...

tenkai

6th March 2008, 21:35

u got an url for a good guide?

Sharktooth

6th March 2008, 22:00

In megui click on the Help menu. select Wiki - User guides.

Kurtnoise

8th March 2008, 18:46

@Sharktooth: --sar 1:1 is duplicated with the x264 profiles which use the CustomEncoderOptions...

Sharktooth

9th March 2008, 16:05

uh??!?

Kurtnoise

9th March 2008, 16:58

[08/03/2008 19:06:13] Started handling job
[08/03/2008 19:06:13] Preprocessing
Job commandline: "C:\tmp\megui_all\trunk\megui\bin\Release\tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 1 --bitrate 8000 --stats "D:\Tor_\Script ED 2.stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --bframes 3 --direct auto --subme 1 --analyse none --ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 38000 --qcomp 0.5 --me dia --threads auto --thread-input --sar 1:1 --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output NUL "D:\Tor_\Script ED 2.avs" --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --sar 1:1
[08/03/2008 19:06:13] Encoding started
Standard output stream
Standard error stream
-avis [info]: 1920x1080 @ 23.98 fps (126 frames)
-x264 [info]: using SAR=1/1
-x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX MMXEXT SSE SSE2 SSE3 3DNow!
-x264 [info]: slice I:6 Avg QP:18.36 size:145516
-x264 [info]: slice P:32 Avg QP:19.42 size: 62645
-x264 [info]: slice B:88 Avg QP:21.06 size: 28972
-x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 28.9% 0.0% 71.1%
-x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 11.0% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 55.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip:33.8%
-x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 2.2% 0.0% 0.0% B16..8: 25.5% 0.0% 0.0% direct:14.4% skip:57.9%
-x264 [info]: final ratefactor: 21.16
-x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:1.1% temporal:98.9%
-x264 [info]: kb/s:8261.9
-encoded 126 frames, 1.84 fps, 8266.59 kb/s
[08/03/2008 19:07:23] Job completed
[08/03/2008 19:07:23] Postprocessing
-Deleting intermediate files
- Log for job4 (video, Script ED 2.avs -> Script ED 2 tttt.mp4)
[08/03/2008 19:07:23] Started handling job
[08/03/2008 19:07:23] Preprocessing
Job commandline: "C:\tmp\megui_all\trunk\megui\bin\Release\tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 8000 --stats "D:\Tor_\Script ED 2.stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 3 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 38000 --qcomp 0.5 --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --sar 1:1 --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "D:\Tor_\Script ED 2 tttt.mp4" "D:\Tor_\Script ED 2.avs" --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --sar 1:1
[08/03/2008 19:07:24] Encoding started
Standard output stream:
Standard error stream
-avis [info]: 1920x1080 @ 23.98 fps (126 frames)
-x264 [info]: using SAR=1/1
-x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX MMXEXT SSE SSE2 SSE3 3DNow!
-mp4 [info]: initial delay 524288 (scale 12570329)
-x264 [info]: slice I:6 Avg QP:18.28 size:145391
-x264 [info]: slice P:32 Avg QP:19.25 size: 53424
-x264 [info]: slice B:88 Avg QP:21.48 size: 25445
-x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 7.2% 44.3% 48.6%
-x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 1.2% 2.9% 4.1% P16..4: 36.4% 18.7% 8.3% 0.0% 0.0% skip:28.4%
-x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.2% 0.6% 1.0% B16..8: 41.3% 3.0% 5.7% direct: 2.3% skip:45.9%
-x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:40.4% inter:36.6%
-x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:13.6% temporal:86.4%
-x264 [info]: ref P 70.1% 21.1% 8.9%
-x264 [info]: ref B 77.5% 22.5%
-x264 [info]: kb/s:7339.1
-encoded 126 frames, 0.86 fps, 7343.59 kb/s
Final statistics
-Desired video bitrate: 8000 kbit/s
-Obtained video bitrate (approximate: 7344 kbit/s
[08/03/2008 19:09:51] Job completed
[08/03/2008 19:09:51] Postprocessing
-Deleting intermediate files
--[08/03/2008 19:09:51] Successfully deleted D:\Tor_\Script ED 2.stats

I meant, MeGUI uses already the --sar switch to pass the SAR value from the avisynth script...

shon3i

9th March 2008, 17:33

Sharktooth first i want to thanks for you profiles in megui, and i want to give some proposition for you.

Since we found what is max settings for DXVA and standalone compatability, did we need anymore profiles such HQ-Slow, Slowest, Insane without Level 4.1 or 3.1 and HRD?

I think is not hard to implement some code which automatilcly choose right level for resolution for selected profile. And Slower/insane profiles to use up to 4 ref-s for HD and up to 8-9 for SD.

And ofcourse make some Unrestricted profile.

I mean why to encode without these "restrictions" when quality is same. And aslo hel newbes.

Sharktooth

10th March 2008, 14:03

@kurtnoise: what profile you used? i cant find the --sar switch in any of the profiles...
EDIT: nevermind... they're the blu-ray profiles, i didnt made them but i will fix in for the next update.

@shon3i: i have completely new profiles. they will be up when the 0.3.x profiles refactor will be completed.

shon3i

10th March 2008, 16:33

Thnaks Sharktooth :)

tenkai

11th March 2008, 21:29

--level 4.1 --ref 6 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 6 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --trellis 2 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-maxrate 38000 --qcomp 0.5 --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input" --mvrange 511 --aud --nal-hrd --sar 1:1

Does this look good for a high quality hddvd encode in 1080p? I want it near the orginal but also compatible ;]

gav1577

11th March 2008, 22:35

Sharktooth

12th March 2008, 02:42

why dont you post your magic "banding removing" profile instead of just promising the moon?

gav1577

12th March 2008, 03:53

why dont you post your magic "banding removing" profile instead of just promising the moon?

Calm down Sharktooth i never said it was magic. its just what works for me. it is by no means anything special just thought it might be worth him trying it out. i am a noob two and thought i could help him out btw i understand every source is different and the profile i use are for high bitrate grainy sources only as i noticed in the other thread u are referring to the source is quite grainy and he was using
--crf 18.0 .just in my opinion when it comes to banding filters don't really make a difference and often make banding worse with the exception of adding noise or grain which sometimes works sometimes not.i am in no way trying to say i know better than anyone else because i don't.i was just trying to help the guy

here is the profile i was using for anyone who wants to give it a shot i was using the prestige.cfg for heavy grain and your matrix for light to medium http://www.mediafire.com/?zgwy5lh2jp9

tenkai

12th March 2008, 07:29

that sounds good no doubt, but i also would like to learn more about megui u know.. so i would apriciate if someone could tell me if the cmd line above blows, or what i could change to squeeze more quality.. at the mom i got like 19fps first pass and 3,6 in the snd.. the speed should be around that if possible.. i already got a q6600 @ 3,4 ghz :(

tenkai

12th March 2008, 07:31

Calm down Sharktooth i never said it was magic. its just what works for me. it is by no means anything special just thought it might be worth him trying it out. i am a noob two and thought i could help him out btw i understand every source is different and the profile i use are for high bitrate grainy sources only as i noticed in the other thread u are referring to the source is quite grainy and he was using
--crf 18.0 .just in my opinion when it comes to banding filters don't really make a difference and often make banding worse with the exception of adding noise or grain which sometimes works sometimes not.i am in no way trying to say i know better than anyone else because i don't.i was just trying to help the guy

here is the profile i was using for anyone who wants to give it a shot i was using the prestige.cfg for heavy grain and your matrix for light to medium http://www.mediafire.com/?zgwy5lh2jp9

Hey m8, u got pm´s disabled :) if u want to share the profile, upload it somewhere and pm me the link i will try it out. ty :)

gav1577

12th March 2008, 07:40

@tenkai i posted the link in my last post here it is again :rolleyes: http://www.mediafire.com/?zgwy5lh2jp9

tenkai

12th March 2008, 08:12

sorry missread it. ty

Sharktooth

12th March 2008, 13:47

Calm down Sharktooth i never said it was magic. its just what works for me. it is by no means anything special just thought it might be worth him trying it out. i am a noob two and thought i could help him out btw i understand every source is different and the profile i use are for high bitrate grainy sources only as i noticed in the other thread u are referring to the source is quite grainy and he was using
--crf 18.0 .just in my opinion when it comes to banding filters don't really make a difference and often make banding worse with the exception of adding noise or grain which sometimes works sometimes not.i am in no way trying to say i know better than anyone else because i don't.i was just trying to help the guy

here is the profile i was using for anyone who wants to give it a shot i was using the prestige.cfg for heavy grain and your matrix for light to medium http://www.mediafire.com/?zgwy5lh2jp9
well, it's the matrix making a difference. x264 tends to block/band, and sadly there's no way except AQ or CQMs to change this behaviour.
changing options (or profile in megui) makes just x264 compress less or more or makes it "respect" certain limits. just that.

rica

16th March 2008, 23:45

Hi guys,
i had some issues with interlaced HDTV encoding:

Hi guys,
I've been making some trials with megui and re-encoding h264 HDTV records into HA capable xvid mkvs or ts files.
I got the best results with DXVA HD HQ profile and automated 2pass selection.
Both progressive and interlaced source h264 files returns to HA decoding capable x264 mkvs.

But every time i have to change Cyberlink h264 decoder settings; video mode from auto to bob since decoder's auto selection doesn't recogize the video as interlaced or progressive.
If i leave video mode at auto, interlaced video doesn't make HA deinterlacing.(with "bob", it works)

Then, even i made them interlaced, "auto mode" didn't work and gave 25fps again.

Even i'm not experienced in encoder details, this profile worked for me:
http://rapidshare.com/files/100078866/DXVA-HD-HQ-interlaced.xml.html

This is for interlaced 1080i h264 HDTV broadcast re-encoding.
I will add the link here which i uploaded my encoded file with that profile. It works at 50 fps on "auto mode".

EDIT:
OK, here is the file:
http://rapidshare.com/files/100088687/Socker_out.mkv.html
(no audio)
original file was 150MB.

michaelhill

17th March 2008, 00:52

thanks shark going to try them out !

Chainmax

17th March 2008, 22:48

Can a file encoded with the Blu-Ray profile be burned into dual layer DVD and be played back as-is or does some kind of authoring have to take place?

[edit] By the way, is there enough info around to create a YouTube profile so that what one uploads there doesn't get re-encoded?

rica

20th March 2008, 02:25

Hi,
this is the profile for full HA capable interlaced SD x264 re-encodings:

http://rapidshare.com/files/100858838/DXVA-SD-HQ-interlaced.xml.html

And here is the sample file (without audio):

http://rapidshare.com/files/100829835/beyaz.mkv.html

Wakka

20th March 2008, 13:37

I started using MeGUI for AVCHD conversion, but noticed that with the Blu-ray profiles the encode tends to get a bit brighter?
What settings are best to change for that?

I noticed it with some blu-ray anime movies from the 90's I'm doing.

Thanks for setting up the profiles :)

Sharktooth

20th March 2008, 14:14

elguaxo

20th March 2008, 14:46

Sharktooth

20th March 2008, 15:00

no. you have to use a special profile for your standalone depending on the supported features (including VBV limits)

elguaxo

20th March 2008, 15:18

I see. Thanks!

Wakka

20th March 2008, 15:33

profiles or encoders do not change the brightness.
some avs filters, colorspace conversion or different renderers may affect it though.
also do not ask what's best as per forum rules (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm).

Ok, gotcha. I'll figure out why there is a difference then using x264 with another GUI.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Sharktooth

20th March 2008, 15:55

megui feeds the avs script to the encoder.
if yuo see difference in brightness it's probably due to avs script or the renderer used by your player.
ensure you use the same renderer for both the source and the encoded clip and post your avisynth script.

Wakka

20th March 2008, 16:43

Maybe the compression is too high, which causes a loss of color information.

Sharktooth

20th March 2008, 20:07

can you post a couple of screenshot?

Wakka

20th March 2008, 21:30

Sure, I'm only able to post screenshots from the encode, as VLC Player won't play the big original .m2ts files at the moment,
as the PC is buzy doing an encode :P

First one is an Encode from Perfect Blue, done in 1920x1080p, without resize or any other settings with avisynth,
bitrate about 5800 so it would fit on a dvd5 with audio (81 min movie)

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/2570/vlcsnap1645070ml7.th.jpg (http://img388.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vlcsnap1645070ml7.jpg)

Second one is from Ghost in the Shell, also done in 1920x1080p with a crop and resize, to get ride of huger then overscan borders,
using Lanczos4. Bitrate about 5200, also for dvd5 with multiple audio (82 min movie)

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/1945/vlcsnap1651043aj1.th.jpg (http://img388.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vlcsnap1651043aj1.jpg)

both saved as max quality .jpg (.png are too big for imageshack)

any input is welcome.

edit: to be honest, I'm not that sure anymore...original are also very bright sometimes, and GITS has a lot of noise.
Was able to make screenshots with PowerDVD of original .m2ts, but they seemed lighter then the VLC snapshots...weird!

arrirc

21st March 2008, 09:30

Hello sharktooth

Thanks for all the profiles.

Being a newbie I was wondering which profile I should use if I do not have much worries about the output file size. Stax was kind enough to recommend X.264/Constant Quality. But here I can see there are 3 CQ profiles, could it be possible for you to detail a little about these CQ profiles and which profile is most suitable for works like mine? I generally convert movies (not animation) to X.264 in MP4 container, with preferable video Bit Rate of about 2000 kbps.

Sharktooth

21st March 2008, 14:11

@wakka: without the original pics i cant tell anything except 5800 seems an adequate bitrate.
if there's colormatrix() filter in your .avs script try removing it.

@arric: cq-lossless is for lossless encoding. no details are lost, the encoding will look exactly like the original, but it will be way much bigger. the q2 profile is comparable to xvid constant quant 2 quality (almost visually lossless) and uses a constant h.264 quantizer of 18.
the crf profile is almost the same but it uses constant rate factor instead of constant quantizer and should end up in a more "stable" quality between frames. most users prefer CRF to CQ.
all those 3 profiles do not have bitrate restrictions. the encoder will just use the necessary bitrate. a higher quantizer (or CRF value) will lower the final bitrate though while lossless is basically quantizer 0.

arrirc

21st March 2008, 16:00

Thank you so very much sharktooth. For a 2 hr DVD movie what may be the approx. size of the output? And it should be faster, isn't it? Because all these CQ profiles use 1 pass (if I have understand it correctly).

Adub

21st March 2008, 18:30

The approximate size varies, depending on source footage and bitrate desired. Since you are using CQ it is even harder to tell. If you use CQ 23, expect anywhere from 1 to 2 gb.

Shaocaholica

21st March 2008, 20:53

I can't seem to get iTunes to put a level 3 video onto my 5.5G ipod. At least I think its a 5.5G. The last 3 chars of the serial number match those given by Apple as 5.5G. Keeping everything else the same but changing the level to 1.3 works. Changing the resolution or bitrate at level 3 doesn't help. I'm using the latest staxrip with the included 5.5G profile.

Whats going on?

arrirc

22nd March 2008, 04:16

If you use CQ 23

Which is the this CQ 23 profile? Shartooth kindly pointed me to CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile, but I could not understand the one you have mentioned. :?:

Thanks

ditche

22nd March 2008, 13:59

Select this profile, click on "Config" button and set "23,0" in the first tab. :)

arrirc

22nd March 2008, 14:42

Ok...thanks ditche :)

But what is its significance? :confused:

buzzqw

22nd March 2008, 20:33

CQ mean Constan Quality

in x264 mean "CRF" encoding

CRF encoding mean that every frame will have a Constant Rate Factor, in simply words every frame will have the same quality as the other

CRF values goes from 0 (lossless) to 51 (ultra block), where 18 is good quality, 16 very good quality, 23 medium quality, 30 not so good quality (vhs..)

so if you want an encoding that work in 1 pass, and don't want to hassle about bitrate or size, JUST want a good quality, you must specify how MUCH quality you want

the "CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf)" profile is the base, after selecting it, you must select how much quality to apply

BHH

Atak_Snajpera

22nd March 2008, 23:04

where 18 is good quality, 16 very good quality, 23 medium quality, 30 not so good quality (vhs..)

I would say 18 is insane , 22 is very good :)

PS. My opinion with default AQ

arrirc

23rd March 2008, 07:37

Atak_Snajpera

23rd March 2008, 07:47

1920x1080 with 22 will give you ~12mbps and 6mbps for 720p.

buzzqw

23rd March 2008, 08:57

I would say 18 is insane , 22 is very good :)

PS. My opinion with default AQ

i agree for AQ always on

BHH

arrirc

23rd March 2008, 13:28

Sorry for this mundane question, but what exactly is AQ and how do one turn it off/on?

Sharktooth

23rd March 2008, 14:11

--aq-strength 0 in custom commandline options to turn it off.
AQ is on by default.

~bT~

23rd March 2008, 16:53

--aq-strenght 0 in custom commandline options to turn it of.
AQ is on by default.
sorry to nitpick but it can be a prob. spelling is wrong, it should read: --aq-strength 0

arrirc

23rd March 2008, 18:03

So for newbies like me there is no need to fiddle with this AQ setting- right?
And set the CRF value to 22 to get the very good quality- right?

~bT~

23rd March 2008, 18:26

^ yeah, that should work.

arrirc

23rd March 2008, 18:27

Great ~bt~ thanks very much for your help. :)

EDIT

Hello ~bt~

As i am using staxRip, If I choose the CQ Profile as discussed above, the quality factor is already selected as 18. I have changed the Loop Filter to 0,0. Now the quality factor in this window is to be changed to 22.

Here is a screen shot:

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/8180/x264nf1.png

Hope that I have understood everything correctly.

~bT~

23rd March 2008, 18:51

^ i'm not sure if StaxRip uses the patched x264 builds mate but apart from that, settings look OK.

arrirc

23rd March 2008, 19:29

Thanks very much ~bt~, you have been really helpful. :)

arrirc

26th March 2008, 06:31

Hello

I have encoded same source twice, once using HQ Slowest profile and setting the bit rate to about 2100 kbps, and other time using CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) using 18 (the default value) as quality factor/ CRF value.

I hardly could find any difference in quality. Though the time taken was less for CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf), but the file size was about 300MB larger as the bit rate resulted in about 2300 kbps.

Now, I tried this CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile on another source with all settings at default (CRF value 18 as usual); but this time the file size was huge...4.3 GB (the source is of duration 2:36:56). What I found that in this case the same quality factor resulted in a much higher bit rate for the resultant file size- 3523 kbps.

My questions are:

Why the same CRF value resulted in a higher bit rate for one source than the other?

I would like to use CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf), but it does not give me any option to set the bit rate in Auto Encode window (the window that appears after pressing the "Auto Encode" button in MeGUI). So is there any way to determine or understand how the resultant bit rate will change with change in CRF Value? For example for my second case, CRF Value 18 resulted in 3523 kbps bit rate, but I had no way (or is there any!) to understand that before the encoding finishes. I would like to know whether there is any way to understand this beforehand or is it possible to predefine the resultant bit rate in CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile?

buzzqw

26th March 2008, 08:34

Why the same CRF value resulted in a higher bit rate for one source than the other?

since you want a fixed "quality" (18 in that case), every movie got this quality at different bitrate.
High quality for a film like Gladiator, water scenes of Save Private Ryan or flashing explosion use a bitrate different then "panic room" film, or a romantic slow film

I would like to use CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf), but it does not give me any option to set the bit rate in Auto Encode window (the window that appears after pressing the "Auto Encode" button in MeGUI)

quality is Quality! or you encode and aim for a target quality or aim for bitrate, you cannot encode in crf BUT using a bitrate... (at max you can use the VBVMaxBitrate for cap the bitrate...)

I would like to know whether there is any way to understand this beforehand or is it possible to predefine the resultant bit rate in CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile?

DDogg has made a very documented xls ... http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=11677

BHH

SpAwN_gUy

26th March 2008, 09:53

okay, my turn.. ;)
I hardly could find any difference in quality.but you did ... ;) ..

Why the same CRF value resulted in a higher bit rate for one source than the other?this is due to COMPLEXITY of the Picture. try googling about this word..
yeah, like it was said abouve - pure black picture.. has no complexity... it's just black :) ..
but if you add some circle in there - .. you'll have to discribe.. it's black.. and it has circle.. so the description is MORe complex..
and in terms of motion pictures.. it deals also with motion..

I would like to use CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf), but it does not give me any option to set the bit rate in Auto Encode window (the window that appears after pressing the "Auto Encode" button in MeGUI). So is there any way to determine or understand how the resultant bit rate will change with change in CRF Value? For example for my second case, CRF Value 18 resulted in 3523 kbps bit rate, but I had no way (or is there any!) to understand that before the encoding finishes. I would like to know whether there is any way to understand this beforehand or is it possible to predefine the resultant bit rate in CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) profile?
[/list]well.. some peaple did actually tried to ask for implementation of "test pass" (like in GKnot .... "don't ask" (c)..) to meGUI.. to encode a part of the movie (i.e. 5% .. or more) to determine the aproximite bitrate (i.e. complexity) so the would need to "tune" the picture, or the resulting file size(bitrate)..

but.. you can read more about that here.. and try to do that manually..

okay.. and.. at first try to figure out on your own.. and then.. start asking questions... 'cause now , iguess, we are trying to teach you the basics.. and you only read and don't want to think...

i'm.. like.. here for 5 years.. and i have.. just 230 posts..

arrirc

26th March 2008, 15:20

Thank you very much buzzqw :)

What I was thinking (Yes, I do think, and this is the first thing I do even though some may assume otherwise, not you buzzqw ;) ) whether there is any analytical relationship between Quality factor (CRF Value) and Bit rate, as you have for file size, duration and bit rate.

okay.. and.. at first try to figure out on your own.. and then.. start asking questions... 'cause now , iguess, we are trying to teach you the basics.. and you only read and don't want to think...

i'm.. like.. here for 5 years.. and i have.. just 230 posts..

If one does not think, one can not ask questions. I found your comments rather unfortunate. I believe that 'thinking' is good as long as it does not lead to 'assumptions' as you did, like I post here to increase my post count and I do not think. I am not really sure how you became a judge of my abilities without at all knowing me, doesn't it show your poor thinking capability? Sad, very sad..indeed.

Thanks for nothing....

buzzqw

26th March 2008, 15:46

don't take parsonally arrirc!

encoding/ripping/scripting is a long process.. and sometimes the better answer is the one you get by yourself by searching and searching... (expecially if answer is from a "normal" user as me!)

scratching head along monitors is a common action for video gurus ;)

everyone was a newby! just take your time, read and search, and FOR ANY DOUBT ASK!

and.. even if late .. Welcome to the "best" video Forum around!

BHH

Atak_Snajpera

26th March 2008, 15:56

Welcome to the "best" video Forum around! The best forum does not like word "best" :)

scratching head along monitors is a common action for video gurus
I was newbie too but I've learnt a lot during developing RipBot264

arrirc

26th March 2008, 15:57

Thanks buzzqw :)

Well as I said, I really felt bad...but let bygones be bygone. :)

May be the friendly indulgences here makes me little lazy seldom and I do not search. But believe me, I do mostly, and only when searched answers do not satisfy me I ask here.

SpAwN_gUy

26th March 2008, 16:11

expecially if answer is from a "normal" user as me! i'm not abnormal :) as "some" may've thougth :) ... i'm just sometimes Evil .. bwahahahaha

whether there is any analytical relationship between Quality factor (CRF Value) and Bit rate, as you have for file size, duration and bit rate.yes, there is :) ....

like I post here to increase my post count and I do not think.that was not the main idea of the post... the main idea (about complexity) is in the middle.

you want "filesize" - stick to bitrate.
you want "quality" - stick to CRF.
you want "quality" and "filesize" - tune either crf value (loose in quality(depends)),
or tune Picture with filters (well, it depends... you may loose or may not loose in quality),
or do a "test pass" () --> measure final ilesize and back to tuning the pic and crf. and then to "test pass".
# COMPRESSIBILITY CHECK
SelectRangeEvery(280,14)

I am not really sure how you became a judge of my abilities without at all knowing me, doesn't it show your poor thinking capability?well, you don't know me either ;)

arrirc

26th March 2008, 16:16

Hello SpAwN_gUy

Thanks for clarifying...:)

I'll keep these things surely in mind

SpAwN_gUy

26th March 2008, 16:23

Hello SpAwN_gUy
Thanks for clarifying...:)
I'll keep these things surely in mind
you're welcome..
try using "old" guides on www.doom9.org .... they are somtemies "a bit" outdated, but the show the basics..

tetsuo55

7th April 2008, 12:44

I've seen some posts about 'standalone compatibility', but this is still not very clear to me. I plan to buy in a near future a SA that seems to be popular, the Popcorn Hour A-100. The specs say it supports HP L4.1. If I use for example the current HQ-Slowest profile and change the AVC level from Unrestricted to Level 4.1, would that be enough to ensure SA compatibility?

I've seen there are also some DXVA profiles, have Standalones the same features/restrictions as DXVA graphic cards? Thanks.

no. you have to use a special profile for your standalone depending on the supported features (including VBV limits)

Sharktooth, The DXVA settings are supposed to be compatible with all in spec hardware decoders, videocards, game consoles or standalones, it shouldn't matter. Basically 1 setting for all hardware players.

Can you tell me what limitations you have found with regards to DXVA profile not working on other players besides videocards?

nhope

10th April 2008, 13:08

Thanks to the devs for their hard work.

Now that Flash supports AVC/AAC, how about a profile (or some profiles) for embedding in the Flash 9 Player for web playback? So that the video should play smoothly on "most" computers (as long as the viewer has sufficient bandwidth of course).

I'm thinking for the typical range of 480px wide vids at 500kbps up to 960px wide at 1200-2000kbps.

I would do them myself but I don't know what I'm doing, but I'd be very happy to test some profiles. I'm currently experimenting with CE-Mainprofile and CE-QuickTime for this application, depending on whether I provide a download link or not (i.e. whether the video will end up getting played in Quicktime or just the Flash Player).

Atak_Snajpera

10th April 2008, 13:48

Flash supports all profiles so I see no reason to create another profile.

nhope

10th April 2008, 14:11

Oh OK, I thought older/slower computers might choke on the HQ profiles for example, particularly at higher bitrates. Maybe I'm missing the point.

Atak_Snajpera

10th April 2008, 14:18

Bit-rate is more important than codec settings in this case

nhope

10th April 2008, 15:09

So, disregarding bandwidth, from a playability point of view do you think it would be OK to serve up an HQ-Slowest x264 for example at 960x540 1500kbps online in a Flash Player? Or is it safer to stick to something like CE-Mainprofile?

Atak_Snajpera

10th April 2008, 15:13

If you have time use HQ-Slowest. Personally I would use PS3 profile (3 refs). I see no difference between HQ-any and ps3 (ref3)

Sharktooth

10th April 2008, 15:35

hint: If you're unsure, stick with DXVA profiles ;)

nhope

10th April 2008, 21:07

Thanks. I'd quite like to provide a download link in the Flash Player, which means inevitably people are going to try and play them in Quicktime (either the browser plugin or offline player).

At 960x540 1500 kbps, DXVA-SD-HQ hangs Quicktime on my system but PD-PS3-Xbox360 plays OK (as do CE-Quicktime encodes). Perhaps if I want to cater for Quicktime then I've just got to use the Quicktime profile or is there another profile that should give higher quality and can still be played by Quicktime on most systems?

Also I've still got my change in luminance (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=136786) issue.

Atak_Snajpera

10th April 2008, 21:13

PS3 profile gives almost the highest quality. Do you have to use QuickShit ? :)

Sharktooth

11th April 2008, 03:48

nhope

11th April 2008, 03:50

I don't want to use Quicktime at all but I like to provide a download link to the original file in my Flash players if possible (so the viewer can keep and play the videos offline) and then a lot of viewer's machines will end up playing it in Quicktime whether I like it or not because sadly if it's installed it hijacks both online and offline playback of mp4.

nhope

11th April 2008, 09:04

Sharktooth, the file now plays OK in Quicktime if I disable b-pyramid in the DXVA-SD-HQ. There are other differences though from the PS3/XBOX 360 profiles so not sure how you will merge them.

Would you use the PS3/XBOX 360 profile or the DXVA-SD-HQ without b-pyramid for 960x540 @ 1500kbps predominantly for Flash playback but also Quicktime? Or something else?

Sharktooth

11th April 2008, 12:53

they're both valid. once i remove b-pyramid, since the differences are really small, i will blend the remaining settings with the PS3 profile to ensure it will work for both DXVA and PS3/X360.

Atak_Snajpera

11th April 2008, 20:50

they're both valid. once i remove b-pyramid, since the differences are really small, i will blend the remaining settings with the PS3 profile to ensure it will work for both DXVA and PS3/X360.

Good idea :)

tetsuo55

14th April 2008, 10:17

nurbs

14th April 2008, 16:44

At least up to 720p and in mp4 container I don't have any problems with b-pyramid on the ps3 either.

Sharktooth

14th April 2008, 17:41

but it does make problems with quicktime.
so, to merge all those profiles i need to kill b-pyramid (not a big loss at all).

tetsuo55

14th April 2008, 19:26

What kind of problems have you experienced with quicktime?

b-pyramids should have quite some impact with regards to compressability.

there where bugs with it but they should all be fixed in svn

Sharktooth

14th April 2008, 20:51

no. b-pyramids does not have a significative impact in compressibility.
however it's not a x264 problem... it's Craptime(tm) not supporting b-pyramid at all.

nhope

15th April 2008, 05:11

Sharktooth, ahead of your next release are you clear in your mind what settings the merged profile will have? I'm churning out 384x288 200 kbps videos for the net at the moment and want to ensure I'm encoding the highest quality that both Flash Player and Quicktime will play.

tetsuo55

15th April 2008, 11:51

Strange, peng said it would increase compressability.

anyway i have some idea's, i hope you'll want to take a look at them, i will post about it later, then please tell me what you think.

Sharktooth

15th April 2008, 13:08

Strange, peng said it would increase compressability.

anyway i have some idea's, i hope you'll want to take a look at them, i will post about it later, then please tell me what you think.
yes, it will increase a bit with a large number of b-frames.
but since we're restricted by the limits of dxva hardware i cant see b-pyramids as a big hit.

Sharktooth, ahead of your next release are you clear in your mind what settings the merged profile will have? I'm churning out 384x288 200 kbps videos for the net at the moment and want to ensure I'm encoding the highest quality that both Flash Player and Quicktime will play.
yes. it will be basically the same as DXVA profiles, without b-pyramid, with the VBV settings for PS3-X360 and with the lowest common number of b and ref frames.

nhope

16th April 2008, 11:05

yes. it will be basically the same as DXVA profiles, without b-pyramid, with the VBV settings for PS3-X360 and with the lowest common number of b and ref frames.
Here's an encode at 960x540 at 1500kbps using Sharktooth's proposed hybrid profile (http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/x264-1500kbps-hybrid.htm).

Plays nicely and buffers correctly in Flash (bufferlenth: 10 secs). Quicktime on my system plays it OK too.

What do you folk with trained eyes think? Is it a little too sharp and a little low on bitrate?

Sharktooth

16th April 2008, 12:59

bitrate could be highened a bit to help some hard to compress scenes though. the overall compressibility should be really low with that kind of stuff.
however it looks good to me for a 1500kbps encode, but i watched it on a CRT. ill watch it on a good LCD as soon as i get home.

nhope

16th April 2008, 14:59

Cheers.

The text link to download the original file was wrong until just now. It was pointing to an old 2000kbps file.

nhope

16th April 2008, 15:11

Here's one encoded at 720x540 (exactly half HDV) and stretched in playback to 960x540 by the Flash player (http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/x264-1500kbps-stretch.htm). Possibly a better way of doing it.

Edit: But wrong aspect ratio on full screen :(

jmartinr

16th April 2008, 18:24

@ nhope

See http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131095 for a possible solution for the aspect ratio in flash player.

I use this to set the dimensions of the MP4 and after that remux it with MP4Box (not necessary but I just like MP4Box more). See http://members.home.nl/jmartinr/ (my test page) for a sample of it working.

nhope

16th April 2008, 20:50

Thanks jmartinr but if you just want to stretch a video to fit the Flash Player then why not just use the flashvar

overstretch: "fit"

as I did in that example?

jmartinr

16th April 2008, 21:36

if you just want to stretch a video to fit the Flash Player then why not just use the flashvar as I did in that example?

Because in full screen it doesn't work. If your video is not anamorphic there's no problem.

If you have anamorphic video, I found this trick to be needed. I you find another way for correct full screen display of anamorphic video in flash player please let me now.

halsboss

18th April 2008, 03:03

Schrade

18th April 2008, 03:32

Mmm, is there any chance of someone posting the full X264 commandlines arising from "PD-iPod 5.5G: Profile for the new iPod 5.5G" ? (haven't megui and just wanting to try out the X264 commandline for now).

Quick cut and paste from meGUI:

--pass 2 --bitrate 1000 --stats ".stats" --level 3 --nf --no-cabac --subme 6 --partitions none --qpmin 16 --vbv-bufsize 1000 --vbv-maxrate 1500 --me umh --merange 12 --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input"

halsboss

18th April 2008, 03:46

Thanks ! With --pass 2 does that mean this is the 2nd pass's commandline. Presumably the 1st is the same except --pass 2 :)

tetsuo55

18th April 2008, 15:34

finally had some time to write this so here goes:

What we should be aiming for imho is a basic hardware compatible setting sorted by level(resolution)

One basic level 4.1 profile (HD) (1920x1080, 1280x720)
One basic level 3.1 profile (SD) (720x480, 720x576)
One basic level 2.1 profile (Portable) (320x240)

Each level should be fully compatible with all hardware solutions for their respective level, lower levels should be fully hardware compatible with any player in a higher level.

So level 4.1 does not have to work on a level 2.1 device, but the 2.1 stream should work on the level 4.1 device.

-------

Once the basic settings for all 3 profiles have been defined and are known te be working on all devices in their class (these tests should not include devices that to not conform to the h264 standard) the basic profiles can be extended.

HQ in 5 flavors
CE in all possible flavors
1p in all possible flavors
cq in all possible flavors
AE in all possible flavors

These would be duplicated for all 3 basic profiles.

so the end result would be something like this:

level 4.1 profile (HD) (1920x1080, 1280x720)

4.1-HQ-Fast
4.1-HQ-Slow
4.1-HQ-Slower
4.1-HQ-Slowest
4.1-HQ-Insane

4.1-CE-Fast
4.1-CE-Slow
4.1-CE-Slower
4.1-CE-Slowest
4.1-CE-Insane

4.1-1P-Fast
4.1-1P-Slow
4.1-1P-Slower
4.1-1P-Slowest
4.1-1P-Insane

4.1-CQ-Fast
4.1-CQ-Slow
4.1-CQ-Slower
4.1-CQ-Slowest
4.1-CQ-Insane

4.1-AE-Fast
4.1-AE-Slow
4.1-AE-Slower
4.1-AE-Slowest
4.1-AE-Insane

level 3.1 profile (SD) (720x480, 720x576)

3.1-HQ-Fast
3.1-HQ-Slow
3.1-HQ-Slower
3.1-HQ-Slowest
3.1-HQ-Insane

3.1-CE-Fast
3.1-CE-Slow
3.1-CE-Slower
3.1-CE-Slowest
3.1-CE-Insane

3.1-1P-Fast
3.1-1P-Slow
3.1-1P-Slower
3.1-1P-Slowest
3.1-1P-Insane

3.1-CQ-Fast
3.1-CQ-Slow
3.1-CQ-Slower
3.1-CQ-Slowest
3.1-CQ-Insane

3.1-AE-Fast
3.1-AE-Slow
3.1-AE-Slower
3.1-AE-Slowest
3.1-AE-Insane

level 2.1 profile (Portable) (320x240)

2.1-HQ-Fast
2.1-HQ-Slow
2.1-HQ-Slower
2.1-HQ-Slowest
2.1-HQ-Insane

2.1-CE-Fast
2.1-CE-Slow
2.1-CE-Slower
2.1-CE-Slowest
2.1-CE-Insane

2.1-1P-Fast
2.1-1P-Slow
2.1-1P-Slower
2.1-1P-Slowest
2.1-1P-Insane

2.1-CQ-Fast
2.1-CQ-Slow
2.1-CQ-Slower
2.1-CQ-Slowest
2.1-CQ-Insane

2.1-AE-Fast
2.1-AE-Slow
2.1-AE-Slower
2.1-AE-Slowest
2.1-AE-Insane

now there will always be some hardware or sofware based target devices that need a slightly different encode setting to get the most out of the hardware.

In that case the level the device is at should be taken as the basic settings, and those should be weakend to meet the requirements of that particular device (this way the stream would still be same level and upward compatible)

-----------

As you can see the main point of my idea is to get all profiles compatible with all players that support that level. This way people will never have to worry about "will this work on hard- or softwareplayer X"

Please tell me what you think or if you need more info

Sharktooth

18th April 2008, 16:15

dont worry. the next sets of profiles will be completely different from the actual ones.

shon3i

18th April 2008, 22:59

@tetsuo55, did you mean level 4.1? not 5.1, AFAIK 5.1 can't reach compactibilty with standalone or DXVA?

nhope

19th April 2008, 07:18

jmartinr

19th April 2008, 10:07

Now I'm confused. For compatibility with software players on a computer (WMP, Quicktime, VLC etc.), which of those profile "families" is in theory the one to use? DXVA? And if it is DXVA, at what resolution is it recommended to use the HD instead of SD profiles?

Summing up my experiences

WMP: if coreavc or ffdshow is installed about anything goes, if not, you don't know. Out of the box it doesn't do h264
VLC: about anything goes (except for the little quirk we found introduced by mp4creator-QTF)
Flash Player: about anything goes, AR is a pain in the ass though
QuickTime: limited, also here AR is quirky

So QuickTime is your bottleneck (I guess you're right that many people wil try to play your files in QuickTime). I have no experience encoding for QuickTime, that's why I'm interested in your results. ;)

Concerning your Vegas issue, I think you'll have to find out more about the background of the problem.

tetsuo55

20th April 2008, 15:05

@tetsuo55, did you mean level 4.1? not 5.1, AFAIK 5.1 can't reach compactibilty with standalone or DXVA?

thanks i made a typo there, i corrected my post

mpiper

24th April 2008, 04:02

Can anyone explain why the official development page for MeGUI has 0.2.6.1046 while other threads and sites list a version 0.3.0.0?

Which one is really the correct/most current one?

SpAwN_gUy

24th April 2008, 09:43

Can anyone explain why the official development page for MeGUI has 0.2.6.1046 while other threads and sites list a version 0.3.0.0?

Which one is really the correct/most current one?
0.3 - is THE developement one (with some fancy things, that can be not working ones)
0.2.6 - is THE most recent stable (i assume so..)

Cooldeep

24th April 2008, 13:52

Thanks sharktooth...nice share

pelle412

6th May 2008, 02:48

Weltall

6th May 2008, 06:07

Well guys, I dont know if this was already asked, but I'm wondering why b-frame number increased to max in HQ-Slowest and AE-Maxquality. Why???? This seems to make the result worst, I can be wrong. Before was 3, now is 16! What about M.E. Range, if I raise from 16 to 32, would I have better compressibility that could justify the speed reduction? Reference frames number above 5 is also justified? The same thing I ask for trellis. Pls answer me guys. :confused: :thanks:

Sharktooth

6th May 2008, 13:19

In the PS3 profile I'm curious about the rationale behind some of the settings:

vbv-bufsize = 9000, vbv-maxrate = 25000

Is this the max a PS3 can handle? What can happen if I increase these values? I don't have a PS3 myself to try it out, but I'm considering it.

ipratio/pbratio = 1.1

Is this for grain retention? Can't come up with any other reason. Normalizing the quality across frame types?

merange = 12

Speedup? Default seems to be 16.

qcomp = 0.5

What's wrong with the default 0.6?
your guesses are right but i dont remember why i lowered the qcomp. there is definatly a reason... but i just cant remember right now.

Well guys, I dont know if this was already asked, but I'm wondering why b-frame number increased to max in HQ-Slowest and AE-Maxquality. Why???? This seems to make the result worst, I can be wrong. Before was 3, now is 16! What about M.E. Range, if I raise from 16 to 32, would I have better compressibility that could justify the speed reduction? Reference frames number above 5 is also justified? The same thing I ask for trellis. Pls answer me guys. :confused: :thanks:
x264 is not xvid. more b-frames = more compression = more quality. also, b-fremes are dynamically placed, so it's not always 16 in a row. to tell the truth, it's hard the encoder chooses to put 16 consecutive b-frames... so, yes, you're wrong.
ME Range 32 is almost always an overkill. While a higher number of ref-frames on anime/cartoon material may improve the compression significanlty. The AE (Anime Encoding) profile has a higher number of refs on purpouse.

Weltall

6th May 2008, 20:51

Hehehe, its good to be wrong :)
That was killing me, since I couldnt understand why it suddenly changed from 3 to 16 in both profiles I use (AE for anime and HQ-Slowest for movie/tv show content). Then I dont need to use more than 5 ref frames for movie, but for anime I can use 16 without worrying :)

Anyway, one more question, HQ-Slowest shows much difference compared to HQ-Slower? Is it justified? What about trellis quantization, shoud I use it only for macroblocks or there are time that option 2 would be acceptable, even with high increase of encoding time?

That's all, thank you in advance.

Sharktooth

7th May 2008, 01:59

There is definatly an improvement in compression switching from HQ-Slower to HW-Slowest but the encoding time will rise.
Trellis 2 tends to "smooth" the picture a bit but will also help compression (a bit).
So it's a matter of taste.
I would not suggest to use trellis 2 on grainy/noisy sources (at least if you want to keep the grainy look).

Weltall

7th May 2008, 17:01

:thanks: You've enlighted me.

yesgrey

7th May 2008, 17:56

Hi,
I want to backup some MPEG2 blu-rays to H264 using x264.
In the thread comparing both encoders it appears the H264 have the same quality as MPEG2 with half the size. Should I target half the original file size or can I go a bit lower?
For example:
I have a MPEG2 file of 11GB, should I target 5.5 GB or could I go to a DVD5 size of 4.2 GB. I want to keep the original res. 1920x1080.
I am considering using the DXVA-HD-HQ profile, so I could use DXVA for playing. If I use the HQ-Insane or HQ-Slower will I get a significant better quality?

I know I could try all modes and see which is better, but each encode takes a lot of time...

Best Regards

Atak_Snajpera

7th May 2008, 18:08

If I use the HQ-Insane or HQ-Slower will I get a significant better quality?
No.
In my opinion above profiles should removed because they are not compatible with anything except software decoders like FFDShow and CoreAVC.

I have a MPEG2 file of 11GB, should I target 5.5 GB or could I go to a DVD5 size of 4.2 GB. I want to keep the original res. 1920x1080.
I would definitely resize to 1280x720. You will retain more details.

Sharktooth

8th May 2008, 21:11

most of them will be trashed in the next megui version.
the new profiles will be hardware-oriented and with clearer names. HQ-Insane will still be around (with a new name)... and it will be REALLY INSANE (a torture test for your CPU and your patience!)... and obviously not compatble with HW devices (it will be stated in the profile name).

Seraphic-

8th May 2008, 22:10

Sharktooth

9th May 2008, 13:50

actually, not too far. i and the other devs just need some time to code.

Seraphic-

9th May 2008, 19:40

actually, not too far. i and the other devs just need some time to code.

Hi Sharktooth,

Alright, I'll wait for the next version before I start full production on my videos. Sounds like it offers some improvements.

Why is it that 4:2:2 is not supported with x264? I guess it is how the codec was designed, but it unfortunate to have sacrifice 1/6 of the raw color levels. I mean, you can see a good bit of color difference in these two samples. Is there anyway to retain the true color levels?

Also, what inloop filter setting would you suggest for 480p/720p console game-play (3d rendered graphics - fast motion)? I'm using HQ-Slowest as a base (would HQ-Insane be worth the extra encode time?).

Last, can you ever use too high of a bit-rate? Is 7,500 for 480p/720p too much or is more always better if you can deal with the extra file size?

Demo 720p Capture - 100MB (http://www.temp.seraphicgate.com/DemoCapture.rar)

Thanks

Here is a another console game demo using HQ-Slowest as a base but at 10,000 bit rate.

137MB Download (http://www.temp.seraphicgate.com/DemoCapture2.rar)

pelle412

11th May 2008, 17:02

your guesses are right but i dont remember why i lowered the qcomp. there is definatly a reason... but i just cant remember right now.

Then why does the SA-Blu-Ray profile use vbv-bufsize 30000 and vbv-maxrate 38000?

11th May 2008, 22:35

Hi all. What do you think of this as a profile for video coaching dv archiving? I need it to be clear as possible and allow smooth frame stepping forwards and backwards preferably with smooth progress bar mouse dragging while paused.

Freel free to hack it up. I'm not an expert with x264 profiles.

Thanks in advance

Weltall

11th May 2008, 23:19

No.
In my opinion above profiles should removed because they are not compatible with anything except software decoders like FFDShow and CoreAVC.Really!? Which should I use, how can I know which settings I cant use, like number of b-frames or number of ref frames, m.e. range (I'm using 16), subpel ref. and everything? Could you help me pls? I want to run my files after conversion on hware. Thank you in advance, thx God I didnt delete the original files :D:D:D:D

Atak_Snajpera

12th May 2008, 00:52

HQ-DXVA profile

Weltall

12th May 2008, 18:53

Thank you! DXVA-SD-HQ has the exact same settings I used before! On this profile, b-frames number is 3 and subpel ref is 6. Can't these numbers be raised? Like 16 b-frames, subpel 7 or 16 ref frames (at least 10 for anime content)??? I presume 16 ref frames and subpel 7 are dumb then? But what about 16 b-frames? Cause Shark said is better :D

Btw, what about anime content? Should I use the same profile?

P.S.: At least my previous encodings will play, I was worried :cool:

Edit.: What about fast p-skip, can it be disabled, or shouldn't I disable this at all?

Atak_Snajpera

13th May 2008, 00:40

Don't touch ref frames! Unless you want to break compatibility with DXVA! subpel 7 is very slow so it is up to you.

Sharktooth

13th May 2008, 02:49

b-frames and ref-frames influence the hardware compatibility. so if you care about it, dont touch them.

Ittipol02

13th May 2008, 07:32

Can I use DXVA-SD-HQ profile with constant quality mode?

I have a lot short-vob files like music video, (idol)event tour, .. So I don't want to specific file size. CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf) is great but I need more compatibility.

Thanks

Dark Shikari

13th May 2008, 07:43

Hi Sharktooth,

Alright, I'll wait for the next version before I start full production on my videos. Sounds like it offers some improvements.

Why is it that 4:2:2 is not supported with x264? I guess it is how the codec was designed, but it unfortunate to have sacrifice 1/6 of the raw color levels. I mean, you can see a good bit of color difference in these two samples. Is there anyway to retain the true color levels?Color subsampling does not affect what colors can be accurately represented, only blurring on the edges of sharp objects/etc as is normally caused by color subsampling. If the colors aren't accurately represented, there's a problem in your color conversion.

x264 doesn't support other color spaces because it would take a lot of code to do so and ffmpeg (AFAIK) doesn't support it either.

Weltall

13th May 2008, 09:54

Ok, then I'll stick with 3 b-frames and 8 ref frames for both movie/tv show and anime content.

What about fast p-skip, shoud it be always enabled? Not using it would give me hw incompatibility?

:thanks::thanks::thanks:

Dark Shikari

13th May 2008, 09:57

saint-francis

13th May 2008, 14:26

most of them will be trashed in the next megui version.
the new profiles will be hardware-oriented and with clearer names.

Why the stress on the hardware compatibility? While this is nice for people with old computers, I tend to think that many of them don't have graphics cards that can support DXVA. And most of the people who do have an ATI 3870 or an 8600 GTS will probably have the processing power to make the need for DXVA trivial. And probably anyone who has the processing power to back up their movies with x264 has the processing power to play them back with FFDShow (unless we get into the realm of piracy where anyone can download a 1080p x264 video and may not have the hardware to have encoded it). Personally I have tested a 30 MB/s 1080p movie encoded with HQ Insane and my cpu usage only went to about 16%. Granted I do have a Q6600, but these days even that is becoming a little old. Soon processors will be much faster and much more affordable. So I think that many of the profiles which don't afford hardware compatibility should be left in the list. Personally there are so many restrictions in using DXVA that I will never use it. It is a cool idea though isn't it? Maybe for encoding; every last bit of help you can get there is great. But I (and and probably most of the other people who have a CPU powerful enough to actually use x264) don't need hardware acceleration. Support for stand alone players is a good thing to have for those who don't use some kind of HTPC though.

Fast P-skip is an analysis option; it doesn't affect the playability of the output stream.

How are ref frames not only an analysis option? Or maybe I should say, how do they have any bearing on playback? I thought that they were only for the encoder to seek backwards and forwards during encoding?

cweb

13th May 2008, 16:02

Why the stress on the hardware compatibility? While this is nice for people with old computers, I tend to think that many of them don't have graphics cards that can support DXVA.
Old computers? Aren't we talking devices, such as hand-helds, PDA's, mobiles here too?

saint-francis

13th May 2008, 17:07

Old computers? Aren't we talking devices, such as hand-helds, PDA's, mobiles here too?

Yes. And I address that at the end of the paragraph. But, several of the preceding posts were discussing DXVA in particular and since this topic has personal interest for me I chose to pontificate on it.

13th May 2008, 22:01

What would be a minimum gop size for the b-frame setting in the HQ insane profile?

tetsuo55

14th May 2008, 15:54

Why the stress on the hardware compatibility? While this is nice for people with old computers, I tend to think that many of them don't have graphics cards that can support DXVA. And most of the people who do have an ATI 3870 or an 8600 GTS will probably have the processing power to make the need for DXVA trivial. And probably anyone who has the processing power to back up their movies with x264 has the processing power to play them back with FFDShow (unless we get into the realm of piracy where anyone can download a 1080p x264 video and may not have the hardware to have encoded it). Personally I have tested a 30 MB/s 1080p movie encoded with HQ Insane and my cpu usage only went to about 16%. Granted I do have a Q6600, but these days even that is becoming a little old. Soon processors will be much faster and much more affordable. So I think that many of the profiles which don't afford hardware compatibility should be left in the list. Personally there are so many restrictions in using DXVA that I will never use it. It is a cool idea though isn't it? Maybe for encoding; every last bit of help you can get there is great. But I (and and probably most of the other people who have a CPU powerful enough to actually use x264) don't need hardware acceleration. Support for stand alone players is a good thing to have for those who don't use some kind of HTPC though.

How are ref frames not only an analysis option? Or maybe I should say, how do they have any bearing on playback? I thought that they were only for the encoder to seek backwards and forwards during encoding?

DXVA is being used a lot in posts, this does not mean the posts are only about pc-acceleration, the DXVA settings guarantee playback on all hardware based devices.

the fact that you can select out of spec settings for encoding a video does not mean you should, as software decoders become more and more true to the standards so does the need for videos encoded with a standard.

According to a lot of tests, going beyond the limits of hardware compatibibily have little to no effect on the percieved quality of the resulting file (with the exception of ref frames with animated low detail full hd content)

Now anyone that want's to use different setting can always manually do so, these profiles are not hardcoded into x264 with no way around them.

finally, even you're q6600 can have some minor frame-drops when it comes to high bitrate encodes that are on the edge of hardware compatibility (especially original blu-ray discs that add the overhead of decrypting), that said there are no discs out there yet that are unwatchable on a system like your's

personally i am one of those persons with a slow pc, and a dxva videocard, i eventually intend to buy a standalone player so personally i have 2 reasons to use DXVA compatible settings. As x264 is going to be the standard for a very long time there is a big chance that anyone with a fast enough pc will one day come eye to eye with a hardware decoder, it's for those moments that you'll be glad you encoded with DXVA settings.