SOS! Major x264 problem "Requested bitrate is too low. Estimated minimum x kbps"

[har-vas]

Hello all. I am facing this damn error for at least 4 months and I have tried EVERYTHING I could imagine. But this error comes up EVERY TIME at the beginning of the SECOND pass. Very strangely, the available information in the net to troubleshoot that error is too little. Another strange point is that I am facing that error with both VFW and CLI versions of x264. I have tried with good old GK, VirtualDub and derivatives, AGKP and lmx264gui. The result is always the same: The process begins, the first pass goes fine and at the beginning of the second pass, this error comes up (in VFW) or the x264.exe crashes (in CLI). I know that has nothing to do with settings, resolutions or whatever, but I want to report that I can encode normally short clips (less than 5 minutes duration). But when the film or TV capture is longer, this error comes up and I am ready to hit my head on the wall. IF SOMEONE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT THE CAUSE OF THAT ERROR, HIS HELP WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

PS: For more information about this error (at least regarding VFW), you can have a look at a thread I have opened here: http://dtsunited.20.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=8
I am describing the problem and my tries with more details.

[Sharktooth]

post your settings and also remember x264 VFW is discontinued, use a recent x264 CLI version (r600 is quite old).

[DeathTheSheep]

Did you try Sharktooth's revision 620 (perhaps with the leiming GUI)? If it fails, try the build from http://x264.nl/

...
PS. You seem familiar... ;)

[check]

ensure your video is running at the correct rate. Previous people with this issue had script with 239.76fps instead of 23.976fps and so on.

[DarkZell666]

Multithreading in old builds produced that error too,
and akupenguin recently implemented a new multithreading method (since rev. 607).

So either use 1 single thread, or +1 for using the most recent build :)

[lucassp]

I had the same problem when I used MeGUI's AVISynth Script Creator plus a DirectShow source. and this is how I managed to solve the problem: after creating the avs file with the MeGUI's AVISynth Script Creator, the AVS File looked like this:

DirectShowSource("D:\test\test.avi",fps=23980.8153477218,audio=false)

and I just replaced the "fps=23980.8153477218" with "fps=23.976" and everything worked fine :D. I hope this helps.

[har-vas]

Hi everybody and thank you all for your answers. Sorry for the delay, but I want to test before I post. OK, it seems that my problem is solved now. With few words, it is obvious to me that another program or its configuration was causing it. For more information about the process I followed, please have a look here, as I am giving more details: http://dtsunited.20.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=129#129

@Sharktooth: BTW, here are my VFW settings. I am using exactly the same in (pretty cool) LeiMing's GUI. Any comments, would be welcome (I do care for max quality). I know that VFW development is down, but if a volunteer works on that field now and then (even every 15-20 builds), I am going to take advantage of it.
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1536/4535201bt8.jpg
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/723/4535202ke0.jpg
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/6994/4535203ec8.jpg
http://img331.imageshack.us/img331/2461/4535204gc9.jpg

@DeathTheSheep: I have used Sharktooth's releases with AGKP (BTW I don't know the differences from official releases). Anyway, my problem has been solved without any change in x264 releases. I had used rev620 one day resulting in the issue I described above, but after 3 days I encoded successfully the same video with the same settings with the same rev.

@check & lucassp: I know that, I read about it. The strange is that I was not using any fps parameter in avs, since my avs was produced manually or by GKnot (not MeGUI's Avisynth Creator), but to be 100% sure I tried using it once (along with DirectShowSource function, instead of mpeg2source). Nothing, it didn't solve my problem!

@DarkZell666: To be honest, during my long troubleshooting period, I never tried to use one thread (because previously I was using 2 threads successfully). When that issue started I was having a P4 with HT and now I have an FX60, so I didn't like the idea. Now I believe that it is irrelevant anyway. Furthermore, I tried the rev620 with two threads (along with LeiMing's GUI) and I was still having problems.

[DeathTheSheep]

I hope all goes well and the problem won't recur again! Good luck.

:)