encoding hd recordings [Archive]

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v1rtu0s1ty

29th January 2007, 15:48

hi folks, I have 1920x1080 and 1280x720 mpg recordings recorded by mythtv. I'm on linux. I'm running out of harddisk space. I would like to encode them so that I can store them on a dvd disk, not the dvd quality which is 720x480. I really would like to keep the quality of the recording.

Can somone please share on how I can encode them, maybe x264, via ffmpeg or mencoder? I know that I have x264 compiled to both so either will work for me. I just don't know the proper parameters for a really nice encoding.

Thank you very much! :)

V7rt

29th January 2007, 16:21

v1rtu0s1ty

29th January 2007, 18:57

x264 is good if you have the CPU power (a fast Core 2 Duo or Athlon64 X2) to play H.264-encoded 720p or 1080p video. As for x264 encoding parameters, see the MPlayer/MEncoder manual page and search this forum for recommendations.

Ok, I will search the forum again for encoding. Most I've seen are Windows solution though. I will try again. :)

For the playback, my machine doesn't have any issue playing H.264 1080p files. Playback is very smooth with mplayer. I've tested this with the 1080p trailer mov files I found last year. Just in case someone is interested, http://rafb.net/p/rFJmVg99.txt

My machine is just an athlon 64+ 3000 1.6ghz on a 512 mb ram.

And also, I have recompiled my mplayer last night. I svn'd the greatest/latest bleeding edge version of it. I'm now able to play .evo containers. Playback is very smooth. However, audio is a bit delayed but no choppiness/stuttering. I've talked to them and they're still working on optimizing the decoder. :)

I will search our forum again for 264 encoding. I noticed though with the adjective you used. You only used "good" for the x264. Are there better encoding that we can use? I'm very interested.

29th January 2007, 19:29

Ok, I will search the forum again for encoding. Most I've seen are Windows solution though. I will try again. :)
You could also take a look at the MeGUI profiles and transfer the settings to MEncoder.
For the playback, my machine doesn't have any issue playing H.264 1080p files. Playback is very smooth with mplayer. I've tested this with the 1080p trailer mov files I found last year.
Well, those Apple trailers are encoded so that they are relatively easy on the CPU. With x264, you'll probably want to use settings that make decoding somewhat heavier. Also, if you are receiving 720p60/50, note that there are twice the amount of frames to decode each second than there normally is with downloadable clips. Interlaced 1080i30/25 is even more difficult to encode with good quality while still keeping the decoding requirements low.
I will search our forum again for 264 encoding. I noticed though with the adjective you used. You only used "good" for the x264. Are there better encoding that we can use? I'm very interested.
x264 is a very good choice for general purpose encoding on Linux, but each source video is different as are our requirements, so it's not easy to tell which tool would be best for you. That you have to find out yourself. Then there are the potential decoding difficulties and in some particular cases you might find that keeping the original MPEG-2 is a better option than going through the trouble of encoding it and losing a lot of the original quality while not even gaining much in disk usage. Hasn't really happened to me yet, but thought I should warn you anyway ;)

v1rtu0s1ty

29th January 2007, 19:45

you might find that keeping the original MPEG-2 is a better option than going through the trouble of encoding it and losing a lot of the original quality

That's a very good idea. But question now is, how do I transfer them to disk so they are playable by HD hardware players that I may buy in the future? I just don't want to transfer the file to the disk. Maybe, you can give me a nice solution?

Thanks!

29th January 2007, 20:39

Not really since I know almost nothing about Blu-ray/HD-DVD authoring. However, H.264 encodings are even more problematic since you need to make sure the encoding parameters are within the limits of hardware players, and even then it is currently almost impossible to create compatible streams with x264. See: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120357
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=121044