1080i Star Wars Transport Stream: Best x264 bit rate for near "perfect" transcoding?

[sjchmura]

Assuming you are using a HQ quant/preset....

Any recs for a 1080p bitrate to convert

1080i/AC3 HDTV -> 1080p/AAC-HE using x264 (or maybe ND)>

I was thinking 5mbit x264 high prfile with 5.1 AAC 256 VBR, insane HQ.

My dual core X2 will take like 5 days :)

[Sharktooth]

:readrule: ... expecially no. 12

[blubberbirne]

My dual core X2 will take like 5 days :)

When it takes so long, somethink is going wrong :)

[foxyshadis]

Is a 5mbit 5-day encode better than an equal quality 6mit 6-hour encode? Or a 5.5mbit 12-hour? If so, why?

Besides, the answer to all "what's a good bitrate for quality" questions is the same: use crf.

blubberbirne, try a 1080p on hq-insane, you'll see. At least it isn't 3-pass anymore.

[Morte66]

Between 4000 and 12000 kbps, depending on how complex your encoder settings are.

5000 with HQ insane will be fine for cinemascope, HQ slow will be pretty darned close (law of diminishing returns).

If you don't have a target size, use crf 24 to 18 and choose settings to trade speed vs size. Experiment on a clip (put "trim(10000,11000)" or similar in your AviSynth script) to see what quality you like.

Attached is a "bang per buck" profile at crf 22. It would also work nicely if you change it from constant quality to automated 2 pass and set the bitrate for DVD9.

It is important to ask yourself why you are doing a five day encode, when you could burn the original transport stream to three DVD5 blanks in about 45 minutes and reassemble them on your hard drive whenever you want to watch the movie. If the answer is "I love DGIndex deblocking and ColorMatrix(), which won't run in real time so I have to encode their output" then fine. Otherwise...

[foxyshadis]

If the answer is "I love IIP" then prepare for a lot more than a 5-day encode, unless you have a render farm of those X2s. xD

[sjchmura]

Thanks Morte66... Will try.

Actually I was just trying to get the 10GB source to a DVD9. IF it is split on 3 disks I know it will be a pain to easily watch in MCE 2k5

[sjchmura]

Btw, I realize that the 10000x people asking about bit rates, but my question was designed (maybe poorly written) based on alot of experimentation getting 720p down well. I have been looking at AVIsynth scripts and still unsure if any of the teclide methods will result in 24FPS and not 30FPS or "jerky" output. Also I am not sure how it would scale (in terms of bitrate) from 720p to 1080p.


THat being said another possibilty now that interlaced is supported is to play with that.

WMV9 VC1 seems sweet at about 6mbit. I am sure AVC high profile can improve upon that.

[kakomu]

Is a 5mbit 5-day encode better than an equal quality 6mit 6-hour encode? Or a 5.5mbit 12-hour? If so, why?

Besides, the answer to all "what's a good bitrate for quality" questions is the same: use crf.

blubberbirne, try a 1080p on hq-insane, you'll see. At least it isn't 3-pass anymore.
What does crf mean? I See constant quality which uses numbers that you guys were refering to, but I can't figure out what CRF means.

[foxyshadis]

"constant rate factor" which megui terms constant quality. It attempts to keep each frame to roughly the same quality by varying the quantizer (since constant quant is not constant quality; this still isn't but it's closer).

[Dark Eiri]

I would suggest 6000 kbps at HQ-Slowest Profile. It will not be THAT slow as Insane, and the quality will still be good. If you will try HQ-Insane anyway, 5000 kbps is fine.

[foxyshadis]

The bitrate reduction from Insane over Slowest isn't more than 1-3% under normal circumstances. If adding 50% encoding time could get a 16% bitrate reduction like that, everyone would recommend it, but it doesn't.

ie, the quality of HQ-Slowest at 6000 will about match the quality of HQ-Insane at 5900, not 5000, after that you're just reducing quality.