VBV questions

[agentusa]

I'm encoding a 720p MPEG 4 AVC file for my Apple TV using an HD-DVD source and the VAQ 0.48 version of x264.exe. After a lot of trial and error, the following settings seem to work well for me.

--crf 18 --progress --ref 3 --bframes 6 --deblock -0:0 --subme 5 --me umh --trellis 1 --threads 3 --thread-input --no-fast-pskip --no-cabac

The average bitrate falls between 6000-7000 kbps. But I'm still seeing some dropped frames and stuttering which I'm assuming is due to bitrate spikes. I know vbv-maxbitrate and vbv-bufsize can help but I have no idea what values I should use. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[ToS_Maverick]

from what i know, VBV currently does not seem to work correctly in x264. please correct me if i'm wrong!

i'd also like to have a correctly working VBV check in x264... it's not too important, i just want my streams to be level compliant ;)

[Dark Shikari]

from what i know, VBV currently does not seem to work correctly in x264. please correct me if i'm wrong!

i'd also like to have a correctly working VBV check in x264... it's not too important, i just want my streams to be level compliant ;)VBV works correctly up to a point. With the 2pass VBV patch, it should work pretty well.

[lexor]

AppleTV isn't exactly a power beast, are you sure it can pull 720p at 6.5mbps average, even if there were no large spikes?

[agentusa]

With the latest software update that came out this month, it runs surprisingly well at 6.5 mbps. I'm seeing occasional dropped frames and stuttering but overall, it's performing much better than I thought it would.

If I had known how underpowered and limited it really was a year ago, I never would have bought it. But it's been fun seeing how far I can push it.