MeGui Bitrate Calculator

[Emp3r0r]

I've updated the bitrate calculator with:

Bits per pixel - popular in GKnot days but not extremely useful
Quality estimate - modified formula to abstract resolution (from Sagittaire (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95122)) with complexity slider


The update is a conservative implementation of my previous suggestion (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1220297&postcount=4202).

http://jvance.com/img/forum/BitrateCalc.png

This quality metric has been helpful for me in deciding resolution and bitrate based on the estimated complexity of the source material.

I do not correspond any values to quality since quality is very subjective. I personally use values between 6 and 7 for my anamorphic encodes.

Patch (http://jvance.com/files/CalcUpdate.zip)

Stand-alone App new (http://jvance.com/pages/BitrateCalc.xhtml)


I don't care if you think these metrics are useless, not everyone has time to do a proper compressibility test

[mariush]

Just a usability/accesibility issue... try to keep the window width under 800 px, for those who use Remote Desktop Connection or some kinds of KVMoIP

ex http://i44.tinypic.com/du2kz.png ... (apologies for my paint skills) about 690 x 545, good even for those 1280x600 px laptop LCD screens (well probably a bit lower height would be better)

[prOnorama]

Would be nice to have a standalone version of this bitrate calculator if possible (the bitrate calculator is the only reason I still use MeGui)

[Emp3r0r]

Sure, I can tighten up gui. Also, it shouldn't be too difficult release as a standalone app.

[Barough]

Yeah, a standalone version would be gr8. :)

[Emp3r0r]

I've tightened up the interface and improved support for unlimited audio and extras.

When we have more than 2 audio/extra the list will automatically scroll. You can easily add or remove using the the provided links.

http://jvance.com/img/forum/CalcUpdate.png

[mariush]

I don't understand how you're not bothered by that way that window looks... maybe it's just me but....

http://savedonthe.net/image/604/layout.png

[Emp3r0r]

Mariush: good feedback. I am also very meticulous about how UIs are arranged. I too wanted to add some icons and change a few other things.

Unfortunately that breaks with the style and conventions of the rest of MeGui. The framerate and file size dropdowns are built in user controls. The alignment and sizing in the Audio & Extra area is due to allowance for scrollbar:

http://jvance.com/img/forum/BitrateCalcScroll.png

The alignment was all tool assisted to be very consistent and I think your screenshot just exaggerates some of the different size inputs. Perhaps you would prefer my original prototype:

http://jvance.com/media/BitrateCalc_thumb6.png

[Emp3r0r]

http://jvance.com/img/forum/BitrateCalc2.png

Hour glass icon is to switch between hour min sec and total seconds input.

Also fixed some of the alignments.

Looking better?

edit - help button should be same size as other buttons (will fix)

[mariush]

I'd say just make small square butons like the [ ... ] on the left showing just the - icon - it should be bumped up or look like a button (or raise when use moves mouse over?) so that people know it's clickable.
I'd place the + and Add text in a button and place it below the buttons with the - sign on the left [ + Add audio track ] and on right you could add a button same width [ + Add extras... ].
Text with links don't look right all alone in the dialogue - should get rid of ? (see below) and that hyperlinked Add.
I'd also remove the ? near Q Estimate - if someone doesn't understand something, he should click on Help, right ?
Make the help button same width as cancel and apply
Going higher vertically shouldn't be much problem, as long as it's max 550-570 pixels as some laptops have resolutions like 1280x600 or 1280x720 or 13** x 768

Hourglass makes no sense there in the top corner (and should be aligned with the textbox ) - people usually associate that with the application buying busy and they may just wait for something to happen on screen or to be replaced with something - use something that suggests time, length ( http://www.helpforenglish.cz/slovni-zasoba/tvoreni-slov/image/user/time.png from Silk for example or something like http://www.thesolidrock.net/images/clock-icon.png - but I have no clue about licensing on this one, just found using Google images)


It definitely looks much better.

ps. check these too... http://findicons.com/pack/1018/pixelicious

ps2. if you're using everywhere MB, GB etc, it's kind of weird to use "bytes" in Audio size.. changing it to B would allow you to shrink the text fields a bit and make room for a small button like the [...] on the left.

ps3. Do you think people really use those up and down small arrows? I mean if they go up and down by 1 or some small measure, 99% of the time people would just type the number of hours, press tab and so on. It would probably take more time just to move the mouse exactly on the small arrows and click them and make sure you click just the right amount for the value... think about it. For audio it makes sense, if they go up and down with something like 16kbps but for hours, minutes and seconds... it's just from 0 to 59 so you can't do big jumps with arrows anyways.

It would probably be more effective to just code that when text field gets focus, the contents get automatically selected so user can type instead the new number (if empty field or escape treat as undo)

[Emp3r0r]

Small icon buttons show web hand when hover so you know they are clickable

Got rid of "?"

Text is now auto selected in NumericUpDown controls when focused

Cleaned up tab order

When changing calculate by, correspond input box gets selected

When adding/removing audio & extras, the new/prev track gets selected automatically

When switching between hours/min/secs and total seconds, the clock icon "!" changes


http://jvance.com/img/forum/BitrateCalc3.png

[mariush]

It looks great.

Now it may be considered nitpicking or you'd think I'm too obsessed/annoying about it but I still feel it's wrong to have three different styles of buttons in a single form.
You have regular buttons (help, cancel, apply), web style buttons or links (add) and mouse over/hover buttons.

Everything else is nice and clear, basic text input or text input with up/down and the drop down buttons - all except that add link which ruins it and the - "buttons".

[rogersnm]

Hey,

Good work on the calculator it looks great, however I'm having an issue compiling after I apply the patch. You added "<DependentUpon>Resources.resx</DependentUpon>" to MeGUI.csproj however that file (megui/trunk/Properties/Resources.rex) doesn't appear to exist which means the build fails. Can you upload the file?

Cheers.

[Zathor]

Delete it below the "Properties" in VS solution explorer and you can compile it.

[rogersnm]

Cheers that did the trick, I should probably do the obvious thing before asking questions next time :stupid:

[Emp3r0r]

I removed the resources file and updated the patch. Latest update includes the following:


Fix M2TS video overhead calculation
Remove accept button stealing enter key
Quality codec modifier values are now hard coded (remove download support)
More tweaks to tab order
Moved min/max complexity values from Settings.settings to settings.xml

[buzzqw]

any news about standalone executable ?

BHH

[Emp3r0r]

There is now a standalone executable available. There were many tweaks needed to separate the codebase from MeGUI. I plan to keep both versions functionally in sync.

http://jvance.com/pages/BitrateCalc.xhtml

This standalone app is beta and there are known issues:

presets not working
can't open audio and extra files
video size calculation may initially reset


I can push out updates automatically so expect an update to fix the above problems.

http://jvance.com/img/forum/BitrateCalcAlone.png

[buzzqw]

:thanks: !

BHH

[Barough]

:thanks: 4 the standalone :)

[rapscallion]

The new calculator, packed w/Megui today, seems to have a problem with DTS MA audio.
(the sa v.9 works ok)

If the extention is *.dts , when you try to open it, an error appears stating input string wrong format. If I change the extention to *.dtsma, same error but takes much longer to appear. (in both cases, the audio track size is reported correctly)

http://i45.tinypic.com/2pt3sxw.jpg
Is this a mediainfo problem or the calculator, or both ?

Edit : BTW, regular DTS works fine.

[prOnorama]

Thanks for the standalone version.

A few requests:

Ideally it would get the movie length by parsing the VTS/VOB files or the main movie .m2ts for a Blu-ray source, but I guess it needs an .avs file for that (like the internal MeGUI version (?) )

Now for the easy(?) part:

I think the filesizes for BD-9 and BD-5 are superfluous: they are the same as DVD-9 and DVD-5 size.

I'd rather see them replaced by sizes for 1/2 DVD-5 (2.19 Gb) and 1.5x DVD-5 (6.56 Gb), I use these sizes quite a lot for 720p TV episodes (1/2 DVD) and 720p movie rips from Blu-ray source.

[Emp3r0r]

@rapscallion: the MeGui calculator uses MediaInfo and it is failing on your dtsma file. I haven't checked but I guess MediaInfo doesn't support dtsma file inspection.

The standalone calculator works because it doesn't use MediaInfo. It just assumes the bitrate based on video length and audio filesize.

If this assumption is safe, I can remove the use of MediaInfo to determine the bitrate or I can fallback to this method.

@prOnorama: for calculations it needs the fps/duration or fps/framecount and for the bpp and q estimates it also needs the resolution. I'll look into using MediaInfo as MeGui does in the standalone app.

I also updated the filesizes in the standalone app as you requested.

[turbojet]

Just a few things while on the topic of file sizes.

1. DVD+R capacity is 4482.3 MB, using the preset 4482 MB often results a few bytes over that. I'd suggest 4480 MB to be safe
2. DVD-R DL capacity is 8147 MB, Current DVD-9 preset is 8152 MB. I'd suggest 8145 MB to be safe
3. The presets display in MB but custom sizes show in GB. Can custom sizes show MB as well to be more accurate and easier to understand?

Also do you have any plans to add compression checks and/or a resolution slider?

[prOnorama]

I also updated the filesizes in the standalone app as you requested.

Thank you that's very convenient.

I agree with turbojet about picking a bit safer sizes for media targets, so for DVD-5 = 4480 Mb, 1.5x DVD-5 = 6720 Mb and 1/2 x DVD-5 = 2240 Mb. It's also more consistent with the size used for 1/4 DVD (1120 Mb). And easier to multiply as well.

[Emp3r0r]

I've updated the sizes as recommended in the latest standalone.

Version 1.1 also remembers the last values you've chosen (except for audio & extra). The next version should restore audio & extra as well.

I will be merging these changes back into MeGui after they stabilize. You can view the latest source code on github (http://github.com/jarrettv/BitrateCalc).

[Firex2]

hello

i just found this great tool, but unfortunately some bugs too

what is this "Complexity" Slider for? if i change it, it does nothing. the same with the Width and Height :(

An the calculation is wrong too ... it calculates around 73xx kbit/s for a 1h 36minute movie @ 24000/1001 fps (H264) MeGui and some other tools say about 9xxxkbit/s

both using profile DVD-DL and 1 gb DTS audiofile

could you fix that? :thanks:

[Emp3r0r]

what is this "Complexity" Slider for? if i change it, it does nothing. the same with the Width and Height

The complexity affects the quality estimate value. The width/height affects both the quality estimate and the BPP.

I've also created a new patch for MeGUI:

[BitrateCalculator] Add 1½ DVD target size and adjust others to safe values
[BitrateCalculator] Fix calculation accuracy by total file size and by BPP to account for constant video overhead
[BitrateCalculator] Simplify audio bitrate inspection to assume bitrate from video duration and audio file size

CalculatorFix.patch (http://jvance.com/files/CalculatorFix.zip)

[IceFiend]

I was literally just coming here to suggest MeGUI add screen resolution to the bitrate calculator as it's totally useless without it.
Looks like you've solved the problem for me :)
Thank you for your work.

[turbojet]

The sizes are less of a problem now but what about custom sizes being represented more accurately in megabytes (MB)?

A problematic example: 4.38 GB could be 4482 MB that fits a DVD5. It could also be 4485 MB that doesn't fit a DVD5.

[fantasmanegro]

Great work! thanx a lot, i was waiting for standalone calculator from megui!

PD: Please explain a little bit of Complexity Option

[Capsbackup]

Just wondering, if I select DVD or BD5 for bitrate calculation, and my goal is AVCHD, I need to remember to change the container from MKV ( default ) to .M2TS or my final size will be too big, unless I remember to change the container. :(
Can there be a preset, that when selecting DVD/BD5 or DVD/BD9 fo AVCHD that also changes the container to .M2TS for that preset? This will certainly help avoid oversizing for the forgetful, like me! :p

[Emp3r0r]

@turbojet: the presets are already defined by megabyte and they include built in headroom

@fantasmanegro: the complexity slider is a way to alter the coefficient used in the formula described here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95122). It is essentially a way for you to guess compressibility by having knowledge about your source material and how codecs work. For example, a cartoon is less complex than a music video and should be easier compress.

@capsbackup: the standalone calculator should remember your previous container choice. This is something I'll look at adding into the built-in calculator.

[turbojet]

Preset sizes are displayed in MB but custom sizes (if 1000+ MB) are displayed as GB.

[Capsbackup]

@capsbackup: the standalone calculator should remember your previous container choice. This is something I'll look at adding into the built-in calculator.

Thanks, that would be helpful if it was also included within MeGui's built-in calculator. :)

[Sharc]

Thanks for the standalone. Very handy!
Not a criticism, just a note: it appears that the the calculated video bitrate is perhaps a bit conservative for H264 in m2ts container. For example, I set the total file size to 4483.0 MB. For video + 2 x ac3/448 + 3 x sub the tool calculated the video bitrate to be 3710 kbps, resulting in approx. 3% 'undersize' or 'margin' after 2-pass encoding with x264. Encoding the video again at 3827 kbps eventually hit the target size of 4483 MiB (DVD+R SL). Anyway, it's certainly better to be on the safe side. :)

[mariush]

http://savedonthe.net/image/630/sizes.png

It's actually 4482, but the actual value used is 4480 MB: http://github.com/jarrettv/BitrateCalc/blob/master/BitrateCalc/PresetTotals.cs

[[ReX]]

http://savedonthe.net/image/630/sizes.png

It's actually 4482, but the actual value used is 4480 MB: http://github.com/jarrettv/BitrateCalc/blob/master/BitrateCalc/PresetTotals.cs

Read the thread.

[Emp3r0r]

Just wanted to chime in and say calc is working well for episode encoding that has slight variations in length.