Visual artifacts in encoded videos (Win 8, Staxrip)

[D9JK]

I used to encode my Canon DSLR video clips in Windows Vista, until I recently bought a new system with Windows 8. Now the video files I encode with Staxrip (1.1.8.0) have two kinds of visual artifacts:

1) There are often short pixellated trails where motion is present (for example, a car drives by horizontally in an otherwise static scene)
2) Every now and then the screen gets a certain grayish look for about half a second - exactly like the 'emboss' filter you've seen in image editors

The videos I have previously encoded with the old system, play back fine whether in VLC Player, Media Play Classic or on my television (the TV plays back these videos, to clarify). The files encoded on the new system play back, but with the visual artifacts.

I've already tried copying the exact, working Staxrip encoding settings from the Vista computer as well, I'm not sure what to try next.

(Sorry about the attached image, I thought it would remain as a link instead displaying automatically)

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Off-topic question: does video encoding like in this case benefit much from a quad core CPU, and what relevant settings or command line options in Staxrip should I look into?

[Warperus]

Do you see any artifacts playing back Canon DSLR video clips? It might be windows 8 decoder that causes troubles.

As for quad core - yes, it helps. There is threads command line option, but its default value is considered optimal. You don't need to change anything.

[D9JK]

Thank you for the reply. Both the original and previously encoded video clips play back without any artifacts at all, only the newly encoded videos (encoded on the Win8 system) contain visual artifacts.

If it helps, here is a comparison of the original, artifact-free clip, and the same with the artifacts caused by the encoding:

Without artifacts (original) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRJ0BiVs3QY)
With artifacts (encoded) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH-QeFFoPzc)

[D9JK]

The problem persists. In Staxrip, I've tried installing and registering DivX, Xvid and ffdshow (both the discontinued and the recent version), but to no avail.

I wonder what would solve this.

[Atak_Snajpera]

What does StaxRip use for decoding? DirectShowSource or Ffms2 source? Do you also get the same artefacts after encoding in ripbot?

[D9JK]

Ffms2, according to the processing window.

RipBot seems to work well, thank you for mentioning it. No artifacts, and as with Staxrip, the file size is reduced as expected without a noticeable loss in visual quality. I still have to take a closer look at the options included, but I'm liking it already. :)

[Selur]

StaxRip might be using an older version of ffms2,...

[D9JK]

I think you were right. I examined the application folders of both programs, and simply copied the contents from RipBot's "Avisynth plugins \ ffms" folder to Staxrip's equivalent. Judging by a quick test, Staxrip now seems to encode artifact-free files as well.

Thank you for pointing me to this, it probably wouldn't have crossed my mind otherwise. :)

[manolito]

This might be of interest for all users of Windows 8. StaxRip comes with the plain vanilla stable version 2.17 of ffmpegsource which is still the recommended version. RipBot uses a much newer beta version (r700).

If version 2.17 worked under Vista for your specific input format, but doesn't work under Win8, then it is safe to assume that Win8 builds a different filter graph for this source format than Vista. And the beta version r700 of ffmpegsource implemented some changes which take care of the Win8 changes.

What does this mean for Win8 users? Are there settings or registry entries which bring back the old Vista behavior? Or should Win8 users generally update their ffmpegsource v. 2.17 to a newer beta release?



Cheers
manolito

[Atak_Snajpera]

Win8 probably works in the same way as win7. You need to first hack registry to set ffdshow as preffered video decoder (Ripbot264 does this automatically). This step was not needed in vista. However now we are talking about two different scenarios (DirectShowSource vs system independent ffms2).

StaxRip comes with the plain vanilla stable version 2.17 of ffmpegsource which is still the recommended version.
in my opinion recommended version is the newest because frame accurate seeking is less buggy in latest builds. (VC-1 is still not perfect)