How to set up HC for best uncompromised quality?

[TheManuel]

I am trying out HC and I am hoping for it to produce quality as good as or close enough to TMPG. I put together a DVD with two versions of the same captured camcorder footage, one encoded with TMPG and the other with HC. I noticed the TMPG title to be noticeably better than HC especially by judging artifacts produced near the edges of the face of the subject of the movie among others. Before I rule out HC, I want to make sure I compared both encoders with their best foot forward.

TMPEG settings:
CBR @ 8500kbit/sec, 10bit DC precision, motion search preciesion: "highest quality"
HC settings:
VBR @ 8500kbit/sec, VBR bias = 100 (to approach CBR), 10bit DC precision, profile "best"

I am wondering if I set up HC for the best quality possible with these settings or if there is more to be gained, perhaps by means of the Constant Quantization settings?

If anybody can suggest how to set up HC for best uncompromised quality, please let me know. For me, disk space is not an issue. My main goal is optimum quality. Reduced enconding time would be nice but not if it sacrifices quality.

Thanks

Description of the the captured video:
avi file
camcorder footage
captured at 720x480 29.97fps NTSC 4:1:1
no re-sizing or filters applied

[manolito]

This is about the first time I hear that HC loses against TMPGEnc. Most people here seem to agree that HC is just as good as CCE regarding quality.

For optimum quality CBR is not a good choice. HC does not do real CBR, and trying to get close to it by choosing VBR Bias = 100 is not a good idea. Leave the bias setting at 0 or raise it to a value of about 30.

And since your source is a DV AVI file (which is interlaced), it is absolutely essential that you set up HC for interlaced encoding, and you must also select the correct field order. For Camcorder footage the field order normally is BFF, but it never hurts to check the field order of your AVI, because sometimes a capture driver could change the field order.

Cheers
manolito

[TheManuel]

Thanks for replying, Manolito.

I verified the field order and it is TFF. The source video is an analog camcorder (Hi8). I had it set to TFF on both softwares.

I will try your recommendations and do a bias of zero. Any suggestions about CQ settings or should I leave these alone for maximum quality?

[Abond]

Cq=1.000
For some reason I am not able to edit the post.
CQ=1.000

[Guest]

@The Manuel

How to set up HC for best uncompromised quality? Please read and follow forum rules, specifically, rule 12: do not ask what's best. Thank you.

[Mug Funky]

CQ with max bitrate 8500 will give you a good encode (slower though).

what sort of artefacts were you getting? i'm guessing "mosquito" ringing. all i can think of is that TMPG is receiving a slightly blurred source (due to it only accepting RGB as a source and having to convert), because usually HC will win hands down against pretty much anything (i rate it higher than CCE in my own experience, but it's close).

if you're getting mosquitoes, try a low bitrate matrix (QLB is a good choice, as i think it's built into HC).

[TheManuel]

Thanks for the answers so far.

Neuron2, maybe I should rephrase my basic question as I know quality can be subjective so I understand your point. What I am looking is to set up HC in such a way that I do not sacrifice quality for the sake of encoded file length. This can be objective. For instance a lower bit rate will produce a lower quality encoding than a higher bit rate. This setting is an easy one but I am not familiar with most of the others.

In fact to illustrate the point of subjectiness in all this, I reviewed again both encodings after a two week vacation and I am now really hard pressed to find any difference between the file encoded by TMPGEnc and the one by HC (of course, I reviewed them after I had already posted).

I am convinced that I want to stick with HC. The purpose of my post remains to make sure I set up HC with a heavy bias toward image quality.

Thanks.