Level 4.1 ?

[vrpatilisl]

hi
I used maximum setting in handbrake /vidcoder/megui. But my dvdrip level never goes up above 3.
How to get dvdrip with level 4.1or 5.In megui there is option to get these level directly but i want these level come auto. With max. Setting
I thnk question is understandable.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Why do you want to enforce a Level higher than needed? :confused:

As explained before, your stream will come out at the lowest possible Level, that still meets all requirements for that stream.

Enforcing that the stream is flagged with a higher Level than it actually needs would only prevent the stream form playing on certain playback devices - playback devices that actually would have supported the stream.

But if you insist, you could deliberately increase the requirements of your stream, e.g. by using more references and/or by upscaling to a higher resolution, in order to actually make it require a higher Level.

(Still I don't see why you would want that)

[7ekno]

--preset placebo
or
--preset veryslow

Both should have enough ref/B-frames to bust into level 5.0 or unrestricted territory :P

7ek

[vrpatilisl]

hi
I want higher level cause i have seen that dvdrips which i feel better in quality.I tried very slow and placebo in 'DVD' still i didnt get above 3.2. I am intrested in PC playback not device specific.

[Marin85]

hi
I want higher level cause i have seen that dvdrips which i feel better in quality.I tried very slow and placebo in 'DVD' still i didnt get above 3.2. I am intrested in PC playback not device specific.
If you are using MeGUI, leave the Level option to Unrestricted/Autoguess and push the reference frames as far as 16 (max possible value). This should give you the desired effect as far as level is concerned. However, it seems to me that those dvdrips are not higher quality (compared to whatever) just because of the higher levels. There are also other settings in x264 that affect (perceived) quality significantly.

[nm]

hi
I want higher level cause i have seen that dvdrips which i feel better in quality.

There are numerous things that affect quality. Filtering and encoder settings matter especially when you target small file size. Or if the source is hard-telecined or interlaced, it needs to be dealt with properly.

Are you using CRF or bitrate-based 2-pass encoding? What CRF value or average bitrate? Other x264 settings?

What kind of DVDs are you encoding? NTSC or PAL, animation or live action? Is the video telecined (2:3 pulldown), interlaced, hybrid, ...? Is the source quality good or bad? Perhaps noisy or blocky? What filters are you using?

[Blue_MiSfit]

The level has nothing to do with the quality. If you want better quality and are already using slow settings then you need to increase bitrate...

Unless you're doing something wrong (like not handling interlacing properly etc) of course :devil:

[cacepi]

The level has nothing to do with the quality. If you want better quality and are already using slow settings then you need to increase bitrate...
...and the maximum bitrate for level 3.0 is 10 mbps, which is almost the same exact bitrate for every DVD encode out there.

Take Blue_MiSfit's advice: Unless you're field bobbing to double the framerate there is no reason to use above level 3.0 for DVD sourced material.

[hello_hello]

Why do you want to enforce a Level higher than needed? :confused:

As explained before, your stream will come out at the lowest possible Level, that still meets all requirements for that stream.

Just so I understand correctly.... when using a GUI such as MeGUI and selecting a target playback device such as Bluray, MeGUI sets the level to 4.1.
Is that enforcing a higher level than needed or does it just ensure 4.1 is the highest level used?
If it's the latter, how do you tell which level was actually used? The only reference to the level I can see when viewing encodes with MediaInfo is level 4.1.

...and the maximum bitrate for level 3.0 is 10 mbps, which is almost the same exact bitrate for every DVD encode out there.

Am I missing something or is my math bad?
Wouldn't 10mbps work out to about a 7GB file size for an average movie? Or did you mean 10mbps is almost the same exact "maximum bitrate"?

Once again MediaInfo tells me the maximum bitrate of my encodes is 40Mbps, but I assume that's the maximum allowable bitrate, not the actual maximum, given an average DVD encode for me seems to have a bitrate of around 1600kbps.

[nm]

Just so I understand correctly.... when using a GUI such as MeGUI and selecting a target playback device such as Bluray, MeGUI sets the level to 4.1.
Is that enforcing a higher level than needed or does it just ensure 4.1 is the highest level used?

It forces the level flag to 4.1. x264 prints a warning if the forced level is exceeded but doesn't say anything if the level is higher than needed.


Am I missing something or is my math bad?
Wouldn't 10mbps work out to about a 7GB file size for an average movie? Or did you mean 10mbps is almost the same exact "maximum bitrate"?

He meant that the maximum bitrate of the MPEG-2 video on DVD is 9.8 Mbps. There should be no need to exceed that when re-encoding to H.264 except maybe when bob-deinterlacing an interlaced video.

[vrpatilisl]

hi
In vidcoder I just used very slow preset and 16 ref.frame and get mkv with level 4.0.and bitrate of 4400(crf-18). source Dvd.Then what you say. I belived in more ref. Frame so good quality. Is that right. And what expert say regarding this 4400kbps and level 4.0.
Thanxs

[nm]

In vidcoder I just used very slow preset and 16 ref.frame and get mkv with level 4.0.and bitrate of 4400(crf-18).
If 4400 kbps is your final average bitrate, I'd say that it doesn't make much sense to re-encode. Your DVD probably has about the same average bitrate, so you could just keep the original video.

However, such a high bitrate at CRF 18 implies that the source is either very noisy or interlaced/telecined, and you aren't filtering it properly. You didn't answer the questions about source type. What DVD is it?

[sneaker_ger]

Level restricts the maximum bitrate and the number of reference frames according to the resolution. Level 4.0 allows for the maximum of 16 ref frames at 720x576, so that's fine. Level does not dictate any average bitrate (apart that it be lower than the maximum allowed).

[vrpatilisl]

The source dvd is PAL progressive with slight visual combing and 4:3.

[vrpatilisl]

From above my conclusion is that
level 3 .0 is okay for dvdrips no need to push upto level 4.0,but what about getting level 4.0 in autoguess/unrestricted in megui. I dont forcing anything.

[nm]

The source dvd is PAL progressive with slight visual combing and 4:3.

Are you doing anything to get rid of the combing? Things like that waste a lot of bits.

[benwaggoner]

...and the maximum bitrate for level 3.0 is 10 mbps, which is almost the same exact bitrate for every DVD encode out there.
If only it were so :).

The practical maximum bitrate for the VOB is 9.8 Mbps, which is inclusive of the video, all audio tracks, and subtitles. A Hollywood disc with a 5.1 mix, a couple of alternate languages, a commentary track, etcetera can wind up with peak video rates more like 8 Mbps. And if you throw in DTS, it gets worse.

[cacepi]

The practical maximum bitrate for the VOB is 9.8 Mbps

H.264 level 3.0 is 10 mbps, which is what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

[Vurbal]

H.264 level 3.0 is 10 mbps, which is what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

I think he understood what you meant. His point was that the practical peak bitrate for the video stream in a DVD VOB is really much lower because you have to lower it to account for audio streams as well. In fact his figure of 8,000kbps matches what I've commonly seen when I've analyzed commercial DVD bitrates.