Bitrate (?) Problem with x264 and Vista

[idamien]

Hi,

I´m new to this forum and to using x264 so please be patient with me.

Until a few days ago I was using x264 with MeGUI to make my HD-DVD backups... Now I bought and installed Vista Ultimate 32 Bit and can´t get MeGUI to work: when I start my queue encodes Vista displays a message saying x264.exe stopped working...

So I tried setting all my options and copying and pasting the command line options to x264 to a .bat file and it worked... not altogether though: x264 runs (first and second pass) but the resulting video seems to be encoded at a bitrate much lower than what I specified and looks really bad...

I´ve done some encodings already with these same settings on XP and all went fine but with Vista this is happening and the only clue there is, I guess, are the warnings x264.exe outputs. I´m using a AVISynth script as input and I am outputing to .mp4...

Below follows the command line for the two passes and the warnings from x264.exe:

1st PASS:
---------

"C:\Program Files\MeGUI\Tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 1 --bitrate 8000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 15 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 2 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -3,-2 --subme 7 --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9781 --vbv-maxrate 29400 --me esa --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output NUL "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Movie\The Movie - Video.avs"

2nd PASS:
---------

"C:\Program Files\MeGUI\Tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 8000 --stats ".stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 15 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 2 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -3,-2 --subme 7 --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9781 --vbv-maxrate 29400 --me esa --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Movie\The Movie - Video.mp4" "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Movie\The Movie - Video.avs"

1st PASS WARNINGS:
--------------------

x264 [warning]: threads are not yet compatible with ESA
x264 [warning]: DPB size (14100480) > level limit (12582912)

2nd PASS WARNINGS:
--------------------

x264 [warning]: threads are not yet compatible with ESA
x264 [warning]: DPB size (14100480) > level limit (12582912)
x264 [warning]: Error: 2pass curve failed to converge
x264 [warning]: target: 8000.00 kbit/s, expected: 198.33 kbit/s, avg QP: 10.0002

I´ve tried using releases 620 and 622 but the problem happens with both. Also, encoding is much faster than it was on XP. Previously I got ~2.5 FPS, now I´m getting ~12 FPS.

Can someone please help? Any information or pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Ð.Sp!dér]

Why do people keep using --me esa i'll never know... --me umh (Multihex) will do the job a whole lot faster at just about the same quality. Turbo pass and you're in business. Use trellis level 2 for a better result instead.

Vista sucks so hard it makes my tail wiggle with excitement. :) I might change my mind about it in 2-3 years though...

[idamien]

Thanks for answering.

What about the warnings?

x264 [warning]: DPB size (14100480) > level limit (12582912)
x264 [warning]: Error: 2pass curve failed to converge

Can you tell me what is wrong?

Thanks.

[idamien]

Tried encoding again with slightly different command line options:

1st PASS
--------

"C:\Program Files\MeGUI\Tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 1 --bitrate 8000 --stats "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Thing\.stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 15 --min-keyint 1 --ref 4 --mixed-refs --bframes 2 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -3,-2 --subme 7 --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9781 --vbv-maxrate 29400 --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output NUL "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Thing\The Thing - Video.avs"


2nd PASS
---------

"C:\Program Files\MeGUI\Tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 8000 --stats "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Thing\.stats" --level 4.1 --keyint 15 --min-keyint 1 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 2 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -3,-2 --subme 7 --trellis 1 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --vbv-bufsize 9781 --vbv-maxrate 29400 --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Thing\The Thing - Video.mp4" "C:\Users\Igor Ribeiro\Documents\The Thing\The Thing - Video.avs"

This time the two passes were much slower... On the first pass there were quite some warnings about vbv buffer underflow and the dpb warning:

x264 [warning]: DPB size (14100480) > level limit (12582912)

was still present on both passes. On the second pass, the curve convergence error:

x264 [warning]: Error: 2pass curve failed to converge

was no longer present and the file output was of the expected size... I played back the .mp4 output and it played just fine: good quality, colors looked right, no blocks, maybe there is some slight stuttering but I´m not sure. Notice the change in the --ref parameter from 4 to 3 between passes. This was done under Vista Ultimate 32 Bit.

Can someone please explain this to me?