Help with encoding settings?

[lowstrife]

I'm using the preset "unrestricted 2-pass insane" preset to encode some video. The end quality is amazing, pretty much flawless, but the encode time isn't. I'm running a Q6600 @ 3.0Ghz, and it's rendering at 0.5-0.6fps. Even though the source is uncompressed 720P on a very fast 640GB harddrive, it should go be going faster than that.

Picture of source:
http://thumbnails19.imagebam.com/3532/2d643c35311405.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/2d643c35311405)

Picture of encode (7200kbps using above preset, 30fps):
http://thumbnails.imagebam.com/3532/07a8f835311404.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/07a8f835311404)

As you can see, the quality is (basically) identical. What I need help with is lowering the encode time to something more reasonable. Is there anyway I can customize something to make it better? If not, is there a particular preset that's best for video game footage?

Thanks.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

You select the "Insane" preset and then you are surprised that it's slow ???

Maybe you should start by selecting some preset that doesn't have "Insane" in its name ;)

If you want to manually tweak the x264 options, you may want to read one of the various guides first (see the link in my signature, for example).

[lowstrife]

You select the "Insane" profile and then you are surprised that it's slow ???

Maybe you should start by selecting some profile that doesn't have "Insane" in its name ;)

Well that's obvious, what I'm asking is for a profile that doesn't take... Quite so gorram' long.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Well that's obvious, what I'm asking is for a profile that doesn't take... Quite so gorram' long.

What about "Unrestricted 2-Pass HQ" or "Unrestricted 2-Pass Balanced" for example ???

(BTW: Looking at the "Insane" preset, the very first thing I'd lower is "--me tesa" to "--me umh")

[lowstrife]

What about "Unrestricted 2-Pass HQ" or "Unrestricted 2-Pass Balanced" for example ???

Ok, I'll give them a whirl. Thanks.

[Chengbin]

To massively speed up encoding time with little quality loss, change this in the Insane profile.

Turn turbo as true. Change p4x4 to false.

Change SubPelRefinement to 9 (slows it down, but increases quality)

[Sagekilla]

7200 kbps is a bit of high bitrate to be using for 720p too. It's not overtly excessive, as it seems to be enough for transparency. But, at that bitrate you should be able to lower your settings a bit for more speed.

Normally, I'd agree to use subme 9, but in this case, it'd be wise to leave subme at a lower setting -- 6 or 7 would do well. The speed loss vs quality gain isn't worth it if he's looking for higher speeds.

If you have trellis on, try turning it off if it doesn't hurt quality too much. Just do a quick encode with and without it and check if there's any benefit. Trellis can eat up quite a bit of time, mind you.

[lowstrife]

Well, lowering the bitrate would be nice, but it's not required. Thanks guys, changing those things did seem to help out.

Also, should I use CRF instead of bitrate based? Because there will be portions where there is very little movement (black screen, slow motion, etc), and there will be portions where there is high speed (falling, spinning around, etc).

[Snowknight26]

Either would be fine as they both use the same algorithm for bit allocation.

[lowstrife]

Either would be fine as they both use the same algorithm for bit allocation.

But CRF would be faster than say, 2-pass bitrate based (which is supposedly better than 1 pass).

I think I'll go with CRF and save a few hours without that 2nd pass.

[Sagekilla]

Yes, I'd recommend CRF if you don't have an exact size goal. It'll give each frame as many bits as necessary, which helps in situations where you have fast motion -and- low motion.

[Comatose]

Hey low strife :p

Try just setting ME Algorithm to Multi hex. That will give you a huge speed boost (relatively). I would leave the rest alone, they make it look good. If you start turning stuff off, it'll go from "good" to "ok".