x264 Encoding Question

[Seraphic-]

Hi,

If one is encoding 720p (3D rendered graphic game-play), and wanted to achieve high quality, would it be recommended to use HQ-Insane with ABR (10k-15k bit-rate), Automated 3pass (10k-15k bit-rate) or Const.Quality/Const.Quantanzer (15ish?)

Size is NOT a major issue, but stupidly large files seems like it would be a waste.

Any help would be great, thanks.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Use CRF@22 with Blu-Ray profile or DXVA profile. End of story!

[Seraphic-]

Use CRF@22 with Blu-Ray profile or DXVA profile. End of story!

Hi,

Why those profiles over HQ-Insane?

Also, when you say "CRF" you mean Const.Quantanzer mode, right? Or was it Const.Quality mode?

[Dark Shikari]

Hi,

If one is encoding 720p (3D rendered graphic game-play), and wanted to achieve high quality, would it be recommended to use HQ-Insane with ABR (10k-15k bit-rate), Automated 3pass (10k-15k bit-rate) or Const.Quality/Const.Quantanzer (15ish?)

Size is NOT a major issue, but stupidly large files seems like it would be a waste.

Any help would be great, thanks.3pass is useless.

I'd do Constant Quality mode around 18. Note that with perfectly clean CGI, gameplay, animated, etc footage, more refs is very useful.

[Seraphic-]

3pass is useless.

I'd do Constant Quality mode around 18. Note that with perfectly clean CGI, gameplay, animated, etc footage, more refs is very useful.

Hi,

Would you suggest using Constant Quality 18 with HQ-Insane profile or the Blu-Ray profile or DXVA profiles Atak_Snajpera suggested?

Also, would 15 be a waste vs. 18?
Or us going lower always "better"?

Last, what is the difference between Constant Quality and Constant Quantizer?

Thanks

[Dark Shikari]

Hi,

Would you suggest using Constant Quality 18 with HQ-Insane profile or the Blu-Ray profile or DXVA profiles Atak_Snajpera suggested?I don't like the Blu-ray profile because it messes with ipratio and pbratio (which it shouldn't).
Also, would 15 be a waste vs. 18?
Or us going lower always "better"?Lower will always be better, but if you can't see the difference, its a waste.
Last, what is the difference between Constant Quality and Constant Quantizer?The latter disables AQ and should never be used except for testing purposes.

[Seraphic-]

I don't like the Blu-ray profile because it messes with ipratio and pbratio (which it shouldn't).
Lower will always be better, but if you can't see the difference, its a waste.
The latter disables AQ and should never be used except for testing purposes.

Thanks a lot for the the help.

I'll try HQ-Insane with Constant Quality 18 as a start. But I'll also try other numbers as well and see if I can see a difference.

My last question, is there any way to do a like a Two-Pass encode when using Constant Quality or is it just one pass with this mode?

[Dark Shikari]

Thanks a lot for the the help.

I'll try HQ-Insane with Constant Quality 18 as a start. But I'll also try other numbers as well and see if I can see a difference.

My last question, is there any way to do a like a Two-Pass encode when using Constant Quality or is it just one pass with this mode?Constant quality is inherently one-pass. It gives roughly equivalent quality to a twopass encode at the same bitrate.

[Seraphic-]

Have no 720p videos captures at the moment, but tried a test encode with one of the 720x480 (640x448 visible pixels) videos I had captured a few days ago.
When using HQ-Insane with Constant Quality 18, this 3:22 long video came to 69.6MB.
Which is a lot less then I thought it would be, so I'll try 15 and see how much the size goes up and if it looks any better.

Keeping in mind "perfectly clean CGI, gameplay, animated, etc footage", are there any changes that could be made to the HQ-Insane profile that would increase quality for this kind of footage? (deblocking levels?)

[Dark Shikari]

Have no 720p videos captures at the moment, but tried a test encode with one of the 720x480 (640x448 visible pixels) videos I had captured a few days ago.
When using HQ-Insane with Constant Quality 18, this 3:22 long video came to 69.6MB.
Which is a lot less then I thought it would be, so I'll try 15 and see how much the size goes up and if it looks any better.

Keeping in mind "perfectly clean CGI, gameplay, animated, etc footage", are there any changes that could be made to the HQ-Insane profile that would increase quality for this kind of footage? (deblocking levels?)If you don't care too much about encoding speed and the video has very high motion (example: a recording of a first-person shooter with fast swiveling camera motion), higher MErange can be very useful.

[Kraise]

Very informative thread, thanks.

So, if you have completely clean 720P fast-paced Game Footage, and wanted to achieve close to the best quality/size ratio, you'd use:

Profile: DXVA-HQ-INSANE (I don't have regular HQ-INSANE, Is there anyway to redownload profiles and apply them to your list?

Constant Quality 15-20

Up the "Refs"? What is this? The "number of reference frames" box?

and up the M.E. Range

Cool I'll try this now, is there any other options that could help / hurt the video? lol
Like, do I really need -deblocking? The footage is already clean with no blocks, and b-frames should be on "auto" right? Not spatial or temporal

Oh and what's the point of 2-pass if constant quality does the same thing? You can control the bitrate or something? lol

[Dark Shikari]

Up the "Refs"? What is this? The "number of reference frames" box?yes
Like, do I really need -deblocking? The footage is already clean with no blocksThe loop filter has nothing to do with how blocky the source is.and b-frames should be on "auto" right? Not spatial or temporalyes

[Ranguvar]

In-loop deblocking, along with CABAC, is one of the most visible improvements with H.264. NEVER EVER TURN IT OFF if you can help it. Sorry for the shouting, but it's massively helpful. The lowest I ever push deblocking is -1:-2. If you do like a more ASP-like look (less blur at the expense of more blocks), try stuff like -1:-1, but more should most likely not be necessary. And never ever turn it off unless you need to make video playable on ye olde abacus :p

As for passes:

1-pass: Use only if you have a very good reason - you need on-the-fly encoding AND have a bitrate ceiling, as in streaming.
2-pass: Use when you need to hit a certain size, like filling a 700MiB CD.
CQ: Use for testing.
CRF: Use for general purpose hitting a certain quality. Not really better or worse than 2-pass in terms of quality, but much faster as it's only one pass, and you 'automagically' get results tuned to a specific quality, no need to think "hmm, this video's complex so it needs more bitrate, this one is less".

[check]

Profile: DXVA-HQ-INSANE (I don't have regular HQ-INSANE, Is there anyway to redownload profiles and apply them to your list?
HQ-Insane was renamed to Unrestricted-Insane. Sharktooth now provides two versions of each of his preset: an unrestricted version and a level4.1 (ie DXVA) compliant version. The former is more efficient.