x264 speed-up "bug" (resolved)

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I am having a very weird bug with x264 encoder. It speeds up a piece of my video so that 5 seconds worth of it play in about 2. Does it drop frames? It probably does, I am just not sure of anything anymore. I tried 3 last builds, all with same results.

Since one picture is worth a 1000 words, here I give you a full error pack (http://tiredsun.com/junk/x264_bug.rar) (4.8 mb). Here is the list of its contents.


error.demuxed.m2v - source mpeg-2 stream.
error.d2v - index file made by DGIndex 1.5.8
error2.avs - Avisynth script that has everything commented out except mpeg2source, AviSynth version used is 2.58
error2.bat - batch file used to encode the video, has all parameters in it
x264_2pass.log - log from the 1st pass
x264_2pass.log.mbtree - MB tree from the 1st pass. just in case.
error2.mp4 - the resulting file


I used x264 32-bit rev 1602 for this one. The script reports 124 frames. The resulting mp4 opened with DSS2 in VD or VDM reports 154 frames but gets frozen on anything between 56 and 154. All source video is actually packed into first 56 frames.

I am not sure where else to report this curiosity.

upd: I removed all options from x264 and even tried crf mode -- result is pretty much the same. But revision r1376M from MeGUI encodes it okay!

[Assassinator]

Wow, you're quite late. This "bug" was all the rage like 3-4 months ago.



Cause: Sometime between r1376 and 1400, x264 changed the way it wrote MP4 files. The Haali splitter of then is bugged and didn't read these MP4s properly, therefore you would end up with massive desync whenever using the Haali splitter.

Fix: Get a newer version of the Haali splitter (http://haali.su/mkv/).





Not related, but...

1. The avs script you provided doesn't work. It uses mpeg2source on a d2v index that indexes some VOB files which were not provided with the pack.
2. Why are you encoding with --no-psy? And --slow-firstpass (when you're obviously not using other slow settings)?
3. WarpSharp(depth=128, blur=3, bump=128) <--- don't do that. Really. Really really.

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Thanks a lot for you answer and your suggestions. Do you mind some further enlightment?

Wow, you're quite late. This "bug" was all the rage like 3-4 months ago.
Slow is my middle name. Used to be Too Slow but I changed it.:)

Cause: Sometime between r1376 and 1400, x264 changed the way it wrote MP4 files. The Haali splitter of then is bugged and didn't read these MP4s properly, therefore you would end up with massive desync whenever using the Haali splitter.
So if I mux my mp4 into mkv using the "good" splitter then people with older version of it are safe to watch?


1. The avs script you provided doesn't work. It uses mpeg2source on a d2v index that indexes some VOB files which were not provided with the pack.
My mistake. I assumed that "Save project and demux video" would actually use demuxed video and didn't check the results. Instead I should have indexed demuxed video with DGIndex again.

2. Why are you encoding with --no-psy? And --slow-firstpass (when you're obviously not using other slow settings)?
Never liked psychovisuals. It's and old grudge. Even now when I compare results I looks worse to me. Maybe I'm biased.
And again, it just looks better to me with the slowpass. How else should I slow it down? (remember my middle name? :) )

3. WarpSharp(depth=128, blur=3, bump=128) <--- don't do that. Really. Really really.You mean the horrible distortions of the picture? I decided they were better than horrid lightgray outlines. I honestly searched for a better line thinner but failed. Do you have anything in mind?

[Assassinator]

So if I mux my mp4 into mkv using the "good" splitter then people with older version of it are safe to watch?

You don't mux stuff with splitters, they're for splitting (demuxing) stuff.

But yes, if you mux it to MKV, nothing should go wrong. But if you wanted an MKV in the end, I see no reason to have anything to do with MP4 involved at all. Just encode to raw h264, or directly to MKV.


Never liked psychovisuals. It's and old grudge. Even now when I compare results I looks worse to me. Maybe I'm biased.
And again, it just looks better to me with the slowpass.

According to Dark_Shikari, slow first pass gives very little quality improvement, and it costs a lot of time, you may as well spend your time on other things that actually do give decent quality boosts.

The psycho-visual stuff definitely does help, just ask anyone else here. And using --no-psy not only disables psy-rd, but every other thing related to psy all together, so if you simply dislike psyrd, just set that to 0:0.

How else should I slow it down? (remember my middle name? :) )

--preset veryslow

You mean the horrible distortions of the picture? I decided they were better than horrid lightgray outlines. I honestly searched for a better line thinner but failed. Do you have anything in mind?

Horrid lightgrey outlines? Show an example pic of what you mean?

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But if you wanted an MKV in the end, I see no reason to have anything to do with MP4 involved at all. Just encode to raw h264, or directly to MKV.
Because I need it to be playable in between. If I knew about splitter I would use something else of course. But evidence screamed "encoder" to me.

Horrid lightgrey outlines? Show an example pic of what you mean?

Here are PNG screenshots before (http://tiredsun.com/junk/14411-before.png) and after (http://tiredsun.com/junk/14411-after.png) all filters. Lines are so thick it's almost like they are out of focus.

[Assassinator]

Because I need it to be playable in between. If I knew about splitter I would use something else of course. But evidence screamed "encoder" to me.

You can make x264 encode directly to MKV.

Here are PNG screenshots before (http://tiredsun.com/junk/14411-before.png) and after (http://tiredsun.com/junk/14411-after.png) all filters. Lines are so thick it's almost like they are out of focus.

Looks vertically blurred/shifted to me...

As for fixing that, I have to admit I don't really know how to do it properly either. You can maybe try asking one of the avs gurus here, they'll probably be able to cook something up with masktools.

But I personally would just leave it rather than warpsharping (at least not that much), warpsharp(128) pretty much rapes everything else.