MeGUI x264 presets.

[Seraphic-]

2-8 pixels are not a real distortion if you use a good resizer...
however, swap subme 6 with subme 7 and we're almost there...

What re-sizer are you using?

program --pass 2 --bitrate 5000 --stats ".stats" --ref 12 --mixed-refs --bframes 12 --b-pyramid --b-rdo
--bime --weightb --direct auto --filter -1,-1 --subme 7 --trellis 2 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct
--me umh --threads auto --thread-input --progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output" "input"

With the new settings I'm getting 166FPS (turbo first pass) and 15FPS on second pass with 720x480p.

In YV12:
width mod-2
height mod-2 if video is progressive
height mod-4 if video is interlaced

Also, if not resizing and working with progressive, is it recommended to encode with mod2 for width and height? Or maybe mod4 for width and mod2 for height? (have been doing mod4 for both width and height)

[Sharktooth]

lanczos or better.
as a general rule the more you stay away from mod16 the more the problems you may encounter.

[Seraphic-]

lanczos or better.
as a general rule the more you stay away from mod16 the more the problems you may encounter.

I've been using Spline36Resize. Is mod2 for height/width okay though or stay at least mod4?

If you do make an official semi-insane here is what I had using new new settings for 1280x716p 59.94FPS:
43FPS turbo first pass and 12FPS for second pass. Which is MUCH higher then the full insane preset.

[Sharktooth]

Presets updated: V73.
Next update: more Anime/Toons presets.

[rica]

Presets updated: V73.
Next update: more Anime/Toons presets.

Shark;

we are tired of updating but you are not tired of working harder ;
dunno how to thank to you.
Congrats.

[Sharktooth]

I've been using Spline36Resize. Is mod2 for height/width okay though or stay at least mod4?

If you do make an official semi-insane here is what I had using new new settings for 1280x716p 59.94FPS:
43FPS turbo first pass and 12FPS for second pass. Which is MUCH higher then the full insane preset.
I'd say, stay at least mod4. However my suggestion is always the same, keep it mod16 as long as you can.
About the presets, i've just updated it. The new ones are called "Extra Quality" (i've made Extra Quality presets for 1 pass CRF and DXVA too).

@rica: you're welcome.

[Avenger007]

May I make a few suggestions wrt the Unrestricted profiles...

1) Const. Quality Balance:
a. Use default of --merange 16 instead of 12.
b. --trellis 1 may be appropriate instead of 0 (esp. for using psy-trellis)

2) The Extra Quality profiles are a nice idea :). For both CQ and 2-pass:
a. Use --ref 8 instead of 10
b. Use --b-frames 6 instead of 10
c. --merange 24 or 32 may be appropriate instead of 16
d. --no-fast-pskip may be appropriate

3) Insane (both CQ and 2-pass):
a. Use --merange 48 or 56 or even 64 (it's Insane :p)

4) For all CQ profiles:
a. Use --direct auto instead of spatial since it may be slightly better and there is nothing to lose.
b. Higher CRF values for profiles below Insane might be a good idea esp. since psy-rd increases bitrate significantly.

5) For all proflies: Leave default --deblock 0:0 instead of --filter -1,-1; not everyone has your blocky lovin' eyes Sharktooth :rolleyes:

[Sharktooth]

1a. uhm...
1b. ok. i just missed it. other balanced presets already have trellis 1.

2a. ok
2b. ok
2c. dunno, it will slow things down by a lot... maybe 24
2d. naaa.

3a. insane presets are already so slow they dont need a further slowdown or ppl will bitch about them

4a. --direct auto is suboptimal with 1 pass encodings.
4b. Q18 in h.264 is the mathematical equivalent of MPEG4-ASP Q2. when psy-rdo is finished and commited it will probably have a compensation for that file-size increase...

5(a). dunno, maybe.

[Avenger007]

1a. :confused: It's already there in 2-pass.

2c. Your're using --me umh so --merange 32 shouldn't be too bad.
2d. --no-fast-pskip may help when you want that Extra Quality ;)
If you want more speed then use --b-frames 3 or 4 (when using --b-adapt 2) and --ref 5 or 6

3a. Are you kidding me: --me-tesa --ref 16 --bframes 16 :rolleyes:

4a. Even if --direct auto is suboptimal (when choosing between spatial and temporal) with 1 pass encodings, that doesn't make spatial better by default (even if it's optimal) since it only has one choice -- spatial.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1166060#post1166060
4b. I don't like that answer :devil:. What does "mathematical equivalent of MPEG4-ASP Q2" have to do with anything? Are you saying it looks just as good as CRF 18? :confused:
Higher bitrate is also due to faster, less efficient settings; increasing CRF helps compensate.

5. Make it so #1 :p

[mozzle]

@Avenger007 and Sharktooth

Regarding 4a.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1166060#post1166060

It doesn't appear that there was any consensus of opinion on the issue of Auto vs. Spatial in CRF mode. Can we get a ruling from the Star Chamber on this one?

BTW, many thanks to Sharktooth for your unceasing effort. :thanks:

[Sharktooth]

1a. there is a mistake in that preset. me algo should be hex not umh. that's why merange is 16 in the 2pass presets.

2c. merange 32 is an insane setting and yep... it's slow. higher values are even slower and i doubt will help improving quality.

2d. no-fast-pskip is another insane setting. the improvement is so subtle it's not wort using it.

3a. nope, insane, is already too slow and merange >32 is not helping quality. Insane doesnt mean unusable...

4a. auto in 1 pass will do the wrong choices sometimes, that means it sometimes chooses temporal when spatial is better instead. since usually auto chooses more than 9 out of 10 spatial, spatial is better for 1 pass encodings. that's not gonna change.

4b. Higher bitrate is due to psy-rdo not to other settings. as i said Q18 in h.264 is the equivalent of Q2 in asp, that also means it will produce transparent quality. Also, as bitrate, CRF is variable to the user preference. it the user feels CRF 18 is too much he can rise it.

5. 0:0 and -1:-1 differencies are so minimal you wouldnt distinguish them. -1:-1 gives the extra sharpness in some details it makes it look much better.

[Sharktooth]

Presets updated: V74 (sorry... more anime/toons presets in the next update).

[Coolpplse]

5. 0:0 and -1:-1 differencies are so minimal you wouldnt distinguish them. -1:-1 gives the extra sharpness in some details it makes it look much better.

So I use CRF 23 for some MPEG2 HD1080i caps that I made cause I'm trying to save space encoding them to x264 1080i Interlaced, does setting -1/-1 to 0/0 cause x264 to raise the bitrate to acheive my CRF setting? Or should I leave it back down at -1/-1 or an even lower setting so that a lower bitrate could achieve CRF 23?

[Sharktooth]

what you said has no sense.
you specify the CRF and x264 encodes at that CRF value. period.

[Coolpplse]

what you said has no sense.
you specify the CRF and x264 encodes at that CRF value. period.

Right but does the Deblocking values influence the bits required to achieve the CRF value that I use? and if so which would be better for higher CRF values

[gav1577]

Sharktooth i have a question what are the max Recommended resolutions for xbox
high res and low res ? Thanks

[Octo-puss]

Is there really any point in mix between HQ and Insane profiles? 99% of people can't tell the difference between the two anyway, imo...

[shon3i]

Shark can you extend you Blu-Ray profiles where target is BD-5/9 i think buffers and max rate should be lowered, but i am not sure how much, because 40000 is to high for DVD speed?

[gav1577]

Shark can you extend you Blu-Ray profiles where target is BD-5/9 i think buffers and max rate should be lowered, but i am not sure how much, because 40000 is to high for DVD speed?

Just use HD AVCHD Profile Its basically the same as bluray profile
but aimed for dvd media not bluray

[shon3i]

Just use HD AVCHD Profile Its basically the same as bluray profile
but aimed for dvd media not bluray
Did this setting works on PS3?

[Avenger007]

2c. merange 32 is an insane setting and yep... it's slow. higher values are even slower and i doubt will help improving quality.

In that case --merange 24 is reasonable.
Also, people use these profiles to encode HD as well, so higher values should help.

BTW, I like the idea of linking to important posts in the first post of this thread. ;)
All long threads should do something similar or at least customize "Search this Thread" to return those posts first if they are relevant.
Eg. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1174599#post1174599 ;)

[gav1577]

Did this setting works on PS3?

Yes :)

[Sharktooth]

Is there really any point in mix between HQ and Insane profiles? 99% of people can't tell the difference between the two anyway, imo...
i made the extra quality presets for ppl that wants to use the insane presets but havent enough horse power to use them.

[Sharktooth]

Right but does the Deblocking values influence the bits required to achieve the CRF value that I use? and if so which would be better for higher CRF values
i still cant understand. you set the CRF and the encoder encodes at that CRF value...

[kumi]

I noticed that the new x264: Unrestricted 1pass Const. Quality Balanced preset results in larger filesizes than the previous version. The changed preset settings are:
Trellis 0 -> Trellis 1
Multi Hex M.E. -> Hexagon M.E.
M.E. Range 12 -> M.E. Range 16

Just curious, what are the reasons for the above changes? Was there something wrong with the previous settings?

[Sharktooth]

bigger coz of psy-trellis.
solutions: disable trellis, rise the CRF value.

[kumi]

Sounds good, thanks.

[florinandrei]

Did this setting works on PS3?

Perfectly.

If the physical media is BD, use the Blu-Ray profile.
If the physical media is DVD, use AVCHD.

[gav1577]

Sharktooth i have a question what are the max Recommended resolutions for xbox
high res and low res ? Thanks

Anyone any ideas ?

[Sharktooth]

sorry, i missed your post.
they're empirical and depends on the source too. however with the low-res preset usually below the 600 pixels... with the high res one not above 720px.
XBMC updates may have improved the situation though.

[gav1577]

sorry, i missed your post.
they're empirical and depends on the source too. however with the low-res preset usually below the 600 pixels... with the high res one not above 720px.
XBMC updates may have improved the situation though.

Thanks for the answer i will check out xbmc forums and see if anything has changed :)

EDIT: Found this link at xbmc forums for those interested http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33429&page=3

[Sharktooth]

Presets updated: V75

[Nightshiver]

What are the key differences between the new "anime/toons" presets and the earlier/old ones?

[Avenger007]

Any chance of using --merange 24 instead of 16 for Extra Quality profiles?
If it's too slow then reduce other settings like --bframes 4 instead of 6.

[Sharktooth]

it's better to keep a higher number of b-frames (expecially on anime/toons) than rise --merange from 16 to 24...

[Avenger007]

But you already have anime/toons presets (which users can tweak to there liking).
Higher --merange can potentially benefit more general sources including HD and fast motion videos.
Besides, you already have --merange 16 for Fast, Balanced and HQ but then a jump to 32 for Insane.

[Sharktooth]

What are the key differences between the new "anime/toons" presets and the earlier/old ones?
too much. if you want similar settings to the old ones use the HQ presets.
remember psy-rdo is now ENABLED.

@avenger: more b-frames are still more usefull in any case. if i had to choose, i'd prefer adding 2 b-frames (from 4 to 6) than rising --merange, unless the number of b-frames is already high. however, ill see how much it will affect the encoding speed and eventually add --merange 24 to EQ presets.

[lolent]

Thank you very much Sharktooth for all your hard work on MeGUI, x264 presets, etc...

Your work is much appreciated (at least by me :p).


PS : I hope your health/eye goes better day by day. I wish you a good recovery too.

[Sharktooth]

thanks. i am recovering but new "problems" emerge every day... it's frustrating...

[lolent]

Arf... :(


Don't discouraged, the wheel turn.
I'm sure ;)

[Logical10]

Why was psy-rdo enabled again?

[Neillithan]

Okay, I would just like to point out that the naming convention you have chosen DOES NOT WORK.

As much as I'd like to praise the amount of work that's going into the simplification of the profiles, I can't. Let me point out a couple of things that I find make these new profiles kind of crappy.

First the good. You divided them up by device. Portable, DXVA, Unrestricted. That's very nice.

The bad. Choosing the right profile is a pain in the rear to figure out. Why? Because they're not understandable by default. You have to research or look inside the profiles to figure out the minor differences. I usually just count the reference frames used and that gives me a good idea of how complex the profiles are going to be.

As of right now, you have 2 sets of DXVA profiles.

DXVA HD and DXVA SD. The problem with that is, the HD and SD are obviously abbreviations for something. HD I'm willing to guess is High definition and SD is standard definition. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

For the DXVA HD profiles, you have several different profiles to choose from.

HD-Balanced
HD-Extra Quality
HD-Fast
HD-HQ
HD-Insane

The problem with that is simple. Due to alphabetization, those are not in order. You can't tell which profiles are less or more complex right off the bat. An easy way to correct this is by using numbers, but that just adds one more variable to the naming scheme. The problem LIES within the naming scheme. By trying to make these human readable, you made matters worse. Which one is higher quality? HQ or Extra quality? They both mean the same thing to me. FAIL.

Also, if the SD profiles have more reference frames and they're meant for standard definition videos, then why the extra complexity? The average noob is gonna look at an SD profile and say "hey, this will actually make my videos higher quality. I'll use this instead." FAIL.

Not to mention, HD and SD implies that resolution is a factor. If you're going to use the HD profiles, you better have an HD resolution. But what dictates HD? Anything exceeding 640x480 or anything 1280x720 and higher? Nothing is explained here. Further research is needed. FAIL.

Want to know the biggest FAIL of all? These profiles are enforced on the stable build of MeGUI. These profiles have been changed 3-5 times (or perhaps my MeGUI is malfunctioning and is redownloading the profiles for no reason). However, the experimenting with these profiles needs to stop and we need settle for what we've got or go back to the old defaults.

P.S. On a slightly unrelated note, put an "Import all" button, or bring back the ability to shift-select multiple profiles. I am not at all thrilled with clicking 30-40 times just to get every single profile.

P.P.S. This post is intended as satirical constructive criticism. If you take it any other way, then FAIL.

[Avenger007]

True, however your "constructive criticism" lacks solutions so I guess that's why it's "satirical". :cool:

There is a request for a quality slider based on the presets at the SourceForge Tracker.
Such a slider would be a facade for the presets, but of course options (check boxes) would be available corresponding to categories related to source characteristics/content (esp. since "best" quality is determined per source) and output. Eg. anime, HD, standalone compatibility, DXVA, portable, etc.
The quality slider should be based directly on Unrestricted profiles but MUST have the ability to adapt its settings based on the options checked.

Custom options or at least tool tips/advice based on rule-of-thumb for common x264 settings would help make the slider user friendly.
Like if the source has a lot of repetition then higher --ref might help or if it's mostly static then higher --bframes might help or if there is fast motion then higher --merange might help, etc., etc., etc.

Such rules-of-thumb for adjusting x264 settings could even be included on the x264 website (or vice versa) since beginners should look to that site first to gain all the experience from experts about tweaking the x264 settings to best (i.e optimal quality) suit their source while being constrained by space and time.

[Kurtnoise]

No, you fail dude...

This is not profiles but presets. I like semantic...
You can rename them whatever you want...
there are sorted in alphabetical order (the 1st letter is taken into account).
there is already a check all/none via the right click on the list :
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5673/presetimportercheckingfh2.th.png (http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=presetimportercheckingfh2.png)


So, try to be constructive instead...

[Maccara]

I hate to say it, but I was a bit shocked when I updated from the stable servers.

Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate there is work going on with the presets and welcome them myself (I can figure out from the settings what the differences are etc) - but the average user or especially a newbie will be royally screwed.

Problem no.1: no documentation whatsoever, and the existing documentation refers to old presets => what is the "Average Joe", especially someone new to MegUI, supposed to do? Select "HQ-Slower", as recommended in the linked Wiki "Basic DVD Ripping Guide"?

I'm all for revising the presets, but in my opinion the stable update servers should not be for this kind of "experimentation" when there isn't even any documentation available (and I can fully understand why there isn't documentation yet)...

[Kurtnoise]

agreed...So, instead of upgrading them (you can ignore updates you know), post your questions here and there first. I'm sure someone can help you.

Sharktooth has started some comments in his 1st post.

[Maccara]

agreed...So, instead of upgrading them (you can ignore updates you know), post your questions here and there first. I'm sure someone can help you.

Sharktooth has started some comments in his 1st post.

Yes, I know.

I upgraded them because someone who I recently recommended to try MeGUI just sent me email "this POS doesn't even give correct basic instructions to get started" [paraphrased]. :) (he had downloaded installer and of course the first thing he did was "check for updates" and downloaded everything)
(Edit: and now he found the "HQ-Slower" preset buried in the list too, as the importing didn't override everything - I'll have to check what he actually wants to achieve - probably one of the DXVA profiles would be more suitable now)

Me, I'm not bothered, as the new presets give me some tips I need to check from my own custom presets.

[Neillithan]

No, you fail dude...

This is not profiles but presets. I like semantic...
You can rename them whatever you want...
there are sorted in alphabetical order (the 1st letter is taken into account).
there is already a check all/none via the right click on the list :
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5673/presetimportercheckingfh2.th.png (http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=presetimportercheckingfh2.png)


So, try to be constructive instead...

Profiles, Presets. Same difference.

Properly named presets are for the noobs sake, not my sake. Do I really have to respond to this one? Whatever. I already said I could figure out the presets for myself. Try to understand next time. I was voicing my concerns of a general issue, not an issue for me.

I never said they "weren't" alphabetized. As a matter of fact, I said alphabetizing was a BAD thing because it does not put the presets in order from lowest to highest complexity.

Check all via right click? It isn't called MeGUI for nothing. Lets get a button for that option. If I recall, the last stable version of MeGUI at least told you that if you shift-click, you can select multiple profiles. That tip was extremely helpful.

Talk about being "constructive". You're a shining example--although I do admit, the screenshot was helpful.

[Avenger007]

If all you do is criticize without providing solutions then no one will take you seriously; so provide constructive solutions.

[Migs]

Could someone make a preset for encoding video for the Nintendo DS(with the only file extension of .DPG and no .MKV/.AVi/etc.) ? and add support for making .DPG files for the Nintendo DS as well?