H264 vs Divx/Xvid....

[bob332]

i am using the new fairuse wizard v 2.x to encode some dvd movies to be played back via vlc on a laptop. i am going to keep the movies to 700MB. at this size will there be a noticeable difference with divx and h264?

is the x264 that comes with fair use the same as h264?

also, has anyone tried h264 content on vlc, there site says its support is experimental.

last, does h264 take more processing power than divx to decode and watch, assuming that all of the files will be the same size?

thanks in advance ;)

[DryFire]

yes
What are you talking about?
h.264 plays fine on vlc now, i don't think it supports cqm's.
yes

Lastly :readguid: :angry:

[bob332]

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html

just going by the information that is on the vlc site.....

[foxyshadis]

The documentation is always behind the actual support, the last few versions haven't had any troubles that I can think of.

Recent vlc betas support CQMs, now that ffdshow does, but they are of course less-tested betas.

Some movies show as much difference at single-cd between xvid and h264 as between DivX3 ;-) and xvid, though ymmv. But the decoding power also jumps like the original jump from indeo to divx.

[bob332]

i have been encoding a chris rock show i have on dvd to h264, and it takes forever....how does the quality compare with h264 vs divx6? is it worth the wait that the h264 takes?

running a 3GHz P4 w/1GB ram and 10krpm u320 scsi hdd

[hpn]

is it worth the wait that the h264 takes?
Sure thing :)

[Leo 69]

The quality of H.264 is much better than DivX 6 has. Besides, I don't think that it is slower than DivX. It is a quite fast and reliable codec, especially with relaxed settings ;-) Read this

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=98247

[Doom9]

Why do you not trust your own eyes? See if YOU!!! can spot the difference, not somebody else, as you're the only one that has your eyes and quality is highly subjective.

[Revgen]

Why do you not trust your own eyes? See if YOU!!! can spot the difference, not somebody else, as you're the only one that has your eyes and quality is highly subjective.

I think he wants to find that out without having to go through a long encode. That's why he's asking others. This is a hobby that requires more patience then some are willing to give. ;)

[Doom9]

well, if you're not willing to compare, then you'll never see the difference so you'll be happy with whatever you get ;) Unless he has seen something better, if you tell him divx3 low motion is the best codec there is, he'll believe it. Different people in this forum will give you different answers.. all are correct from a certain point of view. You might even be able to find scenarios where XviD beats x264, so if you only look at that scenario, the answer to your question would be "keep using XviD, it's better", whereas on a global scale that would not be true at all. And that's why this is the only forum I know of that has the "don't ask what's best" rule.. management expects that members figure that one out on their own. Think of it from this perspective: if you're able to do that properly, you're no longer a clueless n00b ;)

[uray]

i have been encoding a chris rock show i have on dvd to h264, and it takes forever....how does the quality compare with h264 vs divx6? is it worth the wait that the h264 takes?

running a 3GHz P4 w/1GB ram and 10krpm u320 scsi hdd

on my eyes... ABSOLUTELY ! it is worth..

[bob332]

i appreciate the time you took to answer my questions and i do understand the points made in your responses. when i made the first thread, i had never used h264, but had heard many good things about it. i had used divx 5, 6 a little bit, and xvid in the past but never h264.

i didn't know that h264 would take so much longer than xvid would to encode, which is of somewhat of a concern because i would like to encode a couple of movies here and their, but am not going to archive the encoded moves since i own the dvd and normally watch stuff on my ht. i don't need a encoded copy of the ~300 movies i have on dvd.

i guess i should have asked the question as more of a short term encoding/watch/delete process than a long time archive system.

my last question is - is fairuse wizard an efficient way to encode to the h264 format? is it slower than other h264 encoders? i would like to give h264 a try just for sh!ts and giggles if the encode time wasn't ~2x what xvid is. if you guys could recommend me another encoder that is more efficient i would give it a try, or if it just takes that long for h264, then i will pass on it for the time being.

thanks in advance,
bob

[foxyshadis]

If speed is a major issue then the only way you'll get performance approaching xvid is also to strip the options down to where it's only slightly better. Give it a try by using one of sharktooth's megui speed profiles, they were specifically made for that.

If you're only going to rip, watch, and dump, all you really need to do is throw as much bitrate as you can at your codec of choice, it's not like you have media space constraints in that case. xvid@2500 and x264@2000 both look amazing even with a fast encode for a full-size rip.

[charleski]

Looking at the first post, it seems bob332 wants to keep the movies to 700Mb. Does FairUse use x264 to do its h.264 encoding? If so, that's probably the fastest you'll get (x264 certainly seems faster than Nero Recode, for instance, though it's hard to be sure as Recode doesn't expose all the options).

You haven't said how much power your laptop has, h.264 needs a fair amount on the decoding side as well, though anything over 1GHz should do fine if you don't have background processes. TBH, I actually do most of my encoding on my laptop when at home - the newer P4M's large cache makes it faster than my main machine for that sort of thing.

For your application I'd have to say that sticking with xvid is probably a good idea, xvid still produces very acceptable results the size you want to handle.

[bob332]

thanks for the additional responses. the laptop in question is one of the p-ms with 1MB cache, i thinkg a 735 series @ 1.6GHz in a ibm t-42. the reason i was asking regarding cpu power is because i know when i have used different viewers (vlc, quicktime, wm10) on my home pc, a 3GHz P4 and have task manager running some will take 2-3% CPU and others will take 8%, which when on a home pc is not a big deal, but when on a laptop running on batteries it is, and this was just either divx or xvid, so if h264 takes that much more power to decode the batter life will go down equally as fast....

[foxyshadis]

Oh yes, if you want to watch off yonder somewhere, avc will definitely cause battery drain from processor use faster. (You might want to test how much, I have an old 715 so my results would be different.) My CPU fan never goes on for xvid but always for h264. >.> Turning post-processing off helps too, and that can't be done at all for avc.

[Caroliano]

The title of your topic is a bit wrong. You are comparing a standard to two codecs. The correct would or say: "h.264/MPEG4 AVC vs MPEG4 ASP" or "x264 vs Xvid/Divx".

And yes. The decode of AVC content takes much more (2~3 times more I think) for decode than ASP.

[bob332]

ok, just out of curiosity i encoded a movie into x264 using fairuse, but it has some lines in it, going straight down and there is some heavy pixelation. from the parts that are ok, i would say that this encoded format does look very close to the original dvd though, even at 700MB total file size. cpu usage was ~15% with vlc.

what can i do to fix the lines? is it fairuse that is causing the lines?

[charleski]

It probably is fairuse. I had a look at their page, but they're pretty cryptic as to what h.264 encoder they use.

[bob332]

in the program it states x264....

[charleski]

Hmmm. I downloaded their trial to take a look, and yes, it does say 'x264' in the options window, though there are no x264 files in the package. I opened the main program with a hex editor and there's a version of x264vfw.dll which appears to be statically linked into the program - svn285M, which is a recent, but not the latest build. It looks like it tries to load an external x264 dll if it can (going on the message strings in the code, though the line for that is missing from the .ini file), so you can try downloading the latest build of x264, then right-click on the .inf file in the package and click Install. Or you could just trying using MeGUI, which also has a one-click mode if you don't want to get bothered with the internals.
[edit] Bah, i see it now: in 'Expert' mode there's a check-box for using the internal x264.

[bob332]

Hmmm. I downloaded their trial to take a look, and yes, it does say 'x264' in the options window, though there are no x264 files in the package. I opened the main program with a hex editor and there's a version of x264vfw.dll which appears to be statically linked into the program - svn285M, which is a recent, but not the latest build. It looks like it tries to load an external x264 dll if it can (going on the message strings in the code, though the line for that is missing from the .ini file), so you can try downloading the latest build of x264, then right-click on the .inf file in the package and click Install. Or you could just trying using MeGUI, which also has a one-click mode if you don't want to get bothered with the internals.
[edit] Bah, i see it now: in 'Expert' mode there's a check-box for using the internal x264.

thanks for helping this noooob out ;) should i still try the newest version of x264? and i have the demo 700MB version of fair use, not the full one.

[charleski]

I'd try MeGUI, if only because you're more likely to get support for it in this forum :).

[bob332]

i will look into it. i think i need the cli of x264, megui and avisynth?? man, i was trying the easy way, but i know i will learn more this way...

[charleski]

You need:
x264 full package (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=610495#post610495)
Avisynth (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57023)
DGMPGDec (http://www.doom9.org/software.htm) (scroll down to Decoders - contains DGIndex)
.NET Framework (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&DisplayLang=en)

[bob332]

You need:
x264 full package (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=610495#post610495)
Avisynth (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57023)
DGMPGDec (http://www.doom9.org/software.htm) (scroll down to Decoders - contains DGIndex)
.NET Framework (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&DisplayLang=en)

thanks, could the reason be that encoding got f*cked up was because i was using the computer for a little bit while encoding? just simple web stuff, nothing hardcare...

[charleski]

No, that should have nothing to do with it unless you have some rogue program writing into random memory addresses.

[bob332]

No, that should have nothing to do with it unless you have some rogue program writing into random memory addresses.

at least not that i am aware of....

now i have avi synth since i use dvd-rb, i am assuming that will work...and i also have .net framework

so all i need now is x264 full package and dgmpdgec (which i have no idea what it is but will read about it)

thanks for the assistance :)

[bob332]

what is the best tutorial to do this? also, can i supply the video in a iso format or does it need the vobs, ifos, etc?

[bob332]

one quick question - i just looked and i was not using the latest version of vlc. unfortunately i already deleted the x264 file so before i reencode do you think that the fairuse file could have been good but the player was the issue?

[charleski]

Well that is possible, I don't know much about the history of h264 support in VLC. Check your recycle bin for the file, heh.
TBH, I have a number of players installed simply so I can check if an issue is playback or encoder related. OpenSource h.264 support has only really taken off over the past year and isn't fully mature yet.

[bob332]

Well that is possible, I don't know much about the history of h264 support in VLC. Check your recycle bin for the file, heh.
TBH, I have a number of players installed simply so I can check if an issue is playback or encoder related. OpenSource h.264 support has only really taken off over the past year and isn't fully mature yet.

it is gone, before i even thought about it i had emptied it out. i guess i can just re-encode it tonight while i sleep. 1h30min movie=~4hrs encode...

doing dust to glory since i have that already in xvid and has many fast paced areas with dust, so there are a lot of shots with gradients so i can see the difference. i was going to test it out with gladiator, but even the dvd has artifacts on it on a regular tv...

[bob332]

it appears to have been the player. after i updated vlc to the newest .8.2 version i re-encoded last night and must say it does look very good. very close to dvd, even on a computer monitor. too bad it takes about 15%cpu compared to xvid, but i am sure as soon as the format matures a bit more cpu utilization will come down. thanks for all the help :)

[charleski]

what is the best tutorial to do this? also, can i supply the video in a iso format or does it need the vobs, ifos, etc?I'm not sure if there's a tutorial write-up for MeGUI around yet, but it's pretty straightforward. Run meGUI and go to the Tools menu. Click on settings and enter all the paths needed, then click on Tools->One Click Encoder(tm), point the video input to your vobs and fill in the rest of the fields, tick the 'and close' box, press QUEUE, go to the Queue tab on the main form and press 'Start'.