A few questions about MeGUI and H.264

[Seraphic-]

Hi,

I'm a new H.264 user and I just have a few questions:

1. How does the quicktime pro 7.1 H.264 encoder compare to what you can do with MeGUI?

2. With MeGUI, it doesn't open the audio track from a avi video that has both Audio and Video? You have to export it as a wav, then encode as mp4, then join it to the video?

3. With an encode setting of HQ-Insane, 624x432, and a ABR of 2,500, should the video still look as it does below? Note: Since i'm new to H.264 I didn't make changes other then the default ones from "HQ-Insane". (first image is the raw avi and second is h.264 at 2,500)

http://www.seraphicgate.com/3.jpghttp://www.seraphicgate.com/4.jpg

And below is what I had with RealVideo 10: (first image is the raw avi and second is rmvb at 2,500)

http://www.seraphicgate.com/raw.jpghttp://www.seraphicgate.com/rmvb.jpg

Thanks

[Dark Eiri]

3. You should use 2passes or even 3. ABR is kind of... well, it sucks , doesn't matter the codec. And 2500 is a bit high for H264 in this resolution.

The images look washed because you're using ffdshow with postprocessing to decode it ^^
Disable postprocessing, and it's done.

[Seraphic-]

I didn't list that right, it was 2-pass with a bitrate of 2,500

Also, do you mean this for ffdshow and disable postprocessing? I was also in the postprocessing tab, however, setting the strength to 0% didn't seem to help, (not familiar with doing this)

http://www.seraphicgate.com/show.jpghttp://www.seraphicgate.com/other.jpg

[check]

Well, pp is disabled, so there's no problem there.
1. the quicktime encoder can only use baseline settings (set baseline profile on the first page of the megui x264 config for an idea of those options), so it supports only a small fraction of all the features. personally I find it lacking even when comparing x264 baseline to QT baseline anyway.
2. Yes, although the alternate way is to create an .avs with the line directshowsource("path/to/file.avi") and use that.
3. play around with the deblocking setings (in particular going higher), but yes, if that's the output you are getting it's the output you are getting :P. You could try some preprocessing to improve quality, limitedsharpen perhaps?

[Seraphic-]

I don't know, maybe ffdshow is still on. I mean, I don't think h.264 video at 2,500 should look that bad.

[Manao]

Definitely use two passes, and lower the deblocking strength.You could try some preprocessing to improve quality, limitedsharpen perhapsNo. Not on such a source. The source is aliased ( video games ), limitedsharpen will make it even more aliased.

[Seraphic-]

Since you both look to be experienced with H.264 would you like a short clip v.i PM? Maybe I can get an idea of how the video should look with the correct settings.

[Manao]

Why not, but don't expect wonders. Your video is hard to encode. It's made of highly contrasted textures, which are very hard to compress.

[check]

True, limitedsharpen isn't too good an idea, I can't really think of any other filters to help too much. Maybe some contrast / saturation tweaking?
As to the image quality - I think that's about as good as you can really get without a big increase in bitrate. The blurring of the background is mostly unavoidable, you could try using adaptive quantization (it's a custom option available in sharktooth's builds, which are what meGUI uses), but I've not played with it much. Search will help here, it's brought up semi regularly.
I also remember recommended mvbob(), which I guess you're still using. Try TDeint + EEDI2 instead, the output might look a bit nicer, and it's surely faster.
edeintted = last.AssumeTFF().SeparateFields().SelectEven().EEDI2(field=-1)
TDeint(order=1,edeint=edeintted)
Finally, try "constant quanlity" mode, and try values from 16-26. Work out what the lowest value that gives acceptable results is, and use that instead of trying to fit one bitrate to a million different sources.

[Seraphic-]

No, i'm not really using MVBob anymore. Neuron2 gave me a hand and I was able to correctly align the gameplay fields using leakkerneldeint.

Manao, I gotta call it a night. I'll be able to PM you a short clip in the morning. check, did you want one too? Having the video to work with might help.

Also, what about color loss? I see that in both x264 and RV10 the colors are dimmed a fair amount. Can they be kept strong or is that something that has to go to keep the size down?

[foxyshadis]

It sounds more like an output problem than an input one. If it's what I think it is, try Coloryuv(levels="TV->PC"), or just enable levels on playback for 16/1/235->0/255 in ffdshow. That's because different output modes (depending on the card and driver) treat the levels differently. Kind of messed up.

Remember that filter/inloop is essentially how much you blur the video in processing. Because games are so much sharper than film, the blurring is much more visible and has to be turned down more; try -3,-3 or less. (Insane's default is -2,-1.)

[Seraphic-]

Thanks foxyshadis, i'll give those a try in the morning.

I know I should be using meGUI, but here is a test video I did just now with QT7's h.264, muti-pass, 60FPS, and 2500kbps. Download Here (http://www.seraphicgate.com/test.rar) - Too bad it didn't turn out that good =(

[bond]

1. the quicktime encoder can only use baseline settings (set baseline profile on the first page of the megui x264 config for an idea of those options), so it supports only a small fraction of all the features. personally I find it lacking even when comparing x264 baseline to QT baseline anyway.qt can also encode to main profile (b-frames), but as you said it only uses very few features

for the features it uses its not so bad tough imho

[Seraphic-]

I PM'ed you guys a sample clip.

Question: Why do videos I download from quicktime trailers look so good and yet my encodes look like s***? The fields from my videos are correctly aligned so I really don't understand why they come out looking so bad.

[Manao]

Ok, so first, download sharktooth's build if you don't already have it. Secondly, use the following script : source = avisource("g:\x264_test.avi").converttoyv12()
resized = source.lanczosresize(640,448,42,16,-40,-20)
undotted = resized.undot()
return undotted.changefps(29.97)The changefps is up to you, but if you want the video to look good enough, you'll have to sacrifice some fluidity.

You seem not to like resizing, but i'd bet you'd not see the difference. The encoder slightly does, however, and a resized video is marginally easier to encode. The undot is there to get rid of some lone pixels ( you bobdeinterlaced it, didn't you ? ).

Now, the encoding settings : x264 -b 3 -A all --b-pyramid --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip -w -8 -f -4:-4 -B 2500 --pass 1 --aq-strength 1.5 --aq-sensitivity 12 --no-psnr --no-ssim -o output.mp4 input.avsFollowed byx264 -b 3 -A all --b-pyramid --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip -w -8 -f -4:-4 -B 2500 --pass 3 --aq-strength 1.5 --aq-sensitivity 12 --no-psnr --no-ssim -o output.mp4 input.avs (Only --pass 3 changed )The important part is the --aq-strength and --aq-sensitivity. They'll distribute bitrate to help flat areas ( ie, in your case, the background ). -f -4:-4 reduces the deblocking strength, but it might not be needed.

After that, what you can try is to squeeze the most out of x264. Raise the --subme to 7, add some references ( -r 4 or more ), use mixed-ref and trellis. All that will slow down encoding a lot, but might be worth it. None of that conflicts with the settings I gave.

[Seraphic-]

Thanks, i'm going to give these a try.

How did your video turn out and what was the size? Could you PM me an image image? And right now i'm using leakkerneldeint to align the fields and that also changes the fps from 29.97 to about 60. Wouldn't changing it back to 30 create issues or does it just drop every other frame?

[Manao]

-B 2500 --pass 1/3 ensures that you'll get the wanted bitrate at the end.

That's how it looks when encoded at that bitrate, with 60 fps :

http://manao4.free.fr/test-videogame.png

I'd advise you to deinterlace instead of bobdeinterlace, and to try tdeint() to deinterlace.

[Seraphic-]

Not bad at all, the background is at least visible and not full of blocks. What was the file size?

Also, i'm interested to know: Why do you recommend another deinterlacer? If you take a look at the raw avi, the fields are correctly aligned. Or is there something i'm missing?

[Manao]

What was the file sizeBitrate * duration.Why you recommend another deinterlacerThere are different way to deinterlace a video. Tdeint() uses another way that might be better suited for that video ( note the *might* ).

[Seraphic-]

Hi Manao,

Is what you listed in the correct syntax? I'm keep getting errors when trying to load the .avs file. (not sure of the correct format myself)

[Manao]

First, I'd advise you to read : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19566

We can't help you if you say "it doesn't work". Saying what is the error you get will be a lot more helpful.