Need a fast wmv9 encoder

[raiechun]

I used the WME9 and Nic's WMEnc (WMNicEnc.exe),
I got the quality caught up to x264 and one fifth of the speed while the motion search level was luma with true chroma and motion search range was adaptive and motion match method was adaptive and one B-frame and lookahead three frames and complexity 30.

any idea for new encoder ?

[Dark Shikari]

I got the quality caught up to x264This is doubtful.and one fifth of the speed while the motion search level was luma with true chroma and motion search range was adaptive and motion match method was adaptive and one B-frame and lookahead three frames and complexity 30.

any idea for new encoder ?There's only one consumer-level WMV encoder, and that's Microsoft's (as far as I remember). Its also notoriously slow and unoptimized, so don't expect too much out of it.

I'd suggest you drop the chroma motion search; its probably not very useful relative to the speed cost.

[roozhou]

MainConcept VC1 Pro Encoder is at least 500% faster than MS's but it is not free.

[raiechun]

This is doubtful
It just catch up but equal, 1 score point SSIM and 1dB PSNR less, especially small difference in clean and still pictures.

[Dark Shikari]

It just catch up but equal, 1 score point SSIM and 1dB PSNR less, especially small difference in clean and still pictures.
1. SSIM and PSNR are relatively useless for comparisons IMO, especially since x264 has been moving more and more towards the realm of psy optimizations.

2. "1 score point" of SSIM is meaningless. 0.98 is twice as good as 0.96 -- but 0.96 is twice as good as 0.92. So a single "point" has no absolute meaning.

3. 1db PSNR is about 20% efficiency difference, which is huge. Of course, as I said in 1), its really only the visual result that matters. If you want to do a pure PSNR contest, disable adaptive quantization in x264.

[Sagittaire]

1. SSIM and PSNR are relatively useless for comparisons IMO, especially since x264 has been moving more and more towards the realm of psy optimizations.


Only for really noisy/grainy source IMO.


any idea for new encoder ?

VC1 SDK encoder from MS produce really good quality and can be very a fast encoder.


MainConcept VC1 Pro Encoder is at least 500% faster than MS's but it is not free.

Yes but VC1 SDK encoder produce by far a better quality and it's a free encoder.

[Dark Shikari]

Only for really noisy/grainy source IMO.Well if I have a single option I can change that improves visual quality but drops PSNR by 1.5db (on a completely flawless/non-grainy source), I'm pretty sure I can safely declare PSNR useless ;)

[benwaggoner]

Expression Encoder 2 is only $199, and is based on the VC-1 Encoder SDK. It'll be faster overall than WME, and quite a lot faster on 4+ core systems (better multithreading and SSE2/3 optimizations).

There's a free 30-day trial if you want to give it a whirl to see if it's fast enough for you. If not, post the settings you're trying and we'll see if there's anywhere we can tweak.

Two things that have a pretty small quality improvement relative to speed are Full Chroma and Adaptive Motion Match. You might try Adaptive True Chroma and SAD Motion Match. Complexity 3 is also a good starting point.

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Overview.aspx?key=encoder

[benwaggoner]

Well if I have a single option I can change that improves visual quality but drops PSNR by 1.5db (on a completely flawless/non-grainy source), I'm pretty sure I can safely declare PSNR useless ;)
Wow. What option would that be?

[Dark Shikari]

Wow. What option would that be?Both adaptive quantization and psy RDO can do such a thing.

[roozhou]

Two things that have a pretty small quality improvement relative to speed are Full Chroma and Adaptive Motion Match. You might try Adaptive True Chroma and SAD Motion Match. Complexity 3 is also a good starting point.


Where is Adaptive True Chroma? I cannot find it in WMV PowerToy.

[benwaggoner]

Where is Adaptive True Chroma? I cannot find it in WMV PowerToy.
It's not in Format SDK, and hence not exposed in PowerToy. You'll need to use a VC-1 Encoder based tool like Expression Encoder to access it.

Basically it applies chroma search to the 50% of macroblocks that would most benefit.

[roozhou]

It's not in Format SDK, and hence not exposed in PowerToy. You'll need to use a VC-1 Encoder based tool like Expression Encoder to access it.

Basically it applies chroma search to the 50% of macroblocks that would most benefit.

I downloaded WMV Powertoy 1.2.1.0 and found both Adaptive True Chroma and Adaptive Integer Chroma in Motion Search Level. So are they removed in 1.2.5.0? Do you mean this feature is no longer available with a free VC1 SDK Encoder?