Quick (Newbie) Question on X264

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Hi,

I've been encoding some 5 minute classic cartoons (Pink Panther) with x.264 (sharktooth's Insane profile) @ 100Mb ~2100Kbps. It's three pass and takes ages, which is fine because I get good quality.

However earlier today I tested Xvid at the same quality and same cartoon. It seems it done just as good of job as x.264 and in about 100th of the time.

So my question, is Xvid better than x.264 right now? I've seen comparisons on the net showing that 264 is way better, but I don't seem to see it right now.

Also, when x.264 is running it will only use 50% CPU usage. Anyone know what that is?

Thanks a lot

Tony

[Sharktooth]

first of all... 2100kbps is a very high bitrate for x264. You probably cant see any difference coz 2100kbps gives transparent quality for both xvid and x264.
halve the bitrate (or the filesize) and watch the results.
second, x264 uses 50% of your CPU coz you used 1 thread on a multicore or hyperthreaded CPU.
Set the threads to 2 to get full CPU utilization.

[buzzqw]

at 2100kbs both xvid/x264 can give good quality

the tradeoff between xvid and x264 is bitrate. Try with 500kbs and play the result

your pc is probaly with hyperthreading -> switch to 2 threads is x264

BHH

EDIT: 2 minute later than Shark... ;)

[Caroliano]

with x.264 (sharktooth's Insane profile) [...] It's three pass and takes ages, which is fine because I get good quality.

[...]Xvid at the same quality and same cartoon. It seems it done just as good of job as x.264 and in about 100th of the time..
If you care about the speed, don't use the Insane profile. The name says all: it is insane. Using the slow profile you already get an very good quality in an much shorter time. You can try the intermediary profiles to see wich one is the best for you in speed/quality trade-of.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Ok, thanks for all the input guys!

I understand that 2100bbps is very high however I wasn't getting transparent quality with anything lower.

I thought that HT may have been the problem, I just wasn't sure what to do about it.

Thanks a lot!

Tony

[gldblade]

Hm, 2100kbps seems unnecessarily high, especially for cartoon sequences. Are you preprocessing the source in any way (i.e. noise filtering)? Preprocessing may significantly improve things.