Can't get rid of macroblocks BD -> x264

[JimmyBarnes]

Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away Blu-ray

Even using a 2-pass rip @ 10500 kbps (the bitrate for CRF18.0) still get occasional macroblocks.

Maybe no one has tried ripping this particular BD but if you have had probs with persistent macroblocks with other BDs and solved them... please tell me how

TIA

[Sharc]

What is your --deblock setting? Try to increase to (1,1).
Is your source clean?

[JimmyBarnes]

What is your --deblock setting? Try to increase to (1,1).

Deblock is --deblock -1:-1 (preset Film)

Is your source clean?

Yes, no corresponding macroblocks in M2TS

Have done dozens if not hundreds of rips, used to do 720p, have recently shifted more to 1080p, but none of the other rips have had this problem.

[Sharc]

Strange. Any unusual (too restrictive) buffer settings in place?
Does the bitrate have extreme peaks at these scenes?

Maybe you want to add --deblock 1:1 after the --tune film (i.e. overwriting the value which is set by --tune film) and see if it makes a difference.

[JimmyBarnes]

Strange.
Does the bitrate have extreme peaks at these scenes?

How do I check that?

Maybe you want to add --deblock 1:1 after the --tune film (i.e. overwriting the value which is set by --tune film) and see if it makes a difference.

I will try that.

[titlis]

Does it have a lots of flim grain?
It might be the problem of the specific source that x264's normal rate control fails

you could try --tune grain which gives you relatively uniformed bit distribution across the scenes :)

[JimmyBarnes]

Does it have a lots of flim grain?

No, it's from 2012 and very clean.

I find only movies from about the early 2000s and before tend to have a lot of film grain.

[JimmyBarnes]

Strange. Any unusual (too restrictive) buffer settings in place?

Maybe you want to add --deblock 1:1 after the --tune film (i.e. overwriting the value which is set by --tune film) and see if it makes a difference.

Tried

C:\Utils\x264.exe input.avs --preset slow --tune film --deblock 1:1 --level 41 --crf20 --output "cdswa.mkv"

but still found macroblocks

[Didée]

What's the content of "input.avs"? Is it just the source filter, or is any additional filtering going on?

Also, what kind of scenes is it where you observe macroblocking? Is it where lots of action is going on, or is it in very dark scenes / image areas, or ... where?

[JimmyBarnes]

What's the content of "input.avs"? Is it just the source filter, or is any additional filtering going on?

Also, what kind of scenes is it where you observe macroblocking? Is it where lots of action is going on, or is it in very dark scenes / image areas, or ... where?

Macroblocks occur at random with no partic pattern, even in the end credits..

But I found the cause.. clearly great minds think alike. :)

Started wondering about this even before I saw your post: AVS points to the source M2TS but also contains an UnDot filter, a relic from the XviD days. Reduces film grain and decreases file size slightly and with 720p encodes never seemed to give a problem so I kept it.

With 1080p encodes (which I have only started doing a lot recently), usually one can simply crop off the top and bottom black bars and no other resizing is needed, unlike 720p which requires extensive resizing (I use Lanczos3).

I think the resizing with the 720p encodes negated any bad effect of the UnDot filter on the subsequent transcode to x264. But with 1080p, there's no discrete resizing occurring.

Anyway did an CDSWA encode to 1920x1080 (the movie's original framesize) with no UnDot filter and.. hey!.. no macroblocks or other distortions! Watched video only on 22" LCD from 40 cm on Fast Forward but this doesn't hide macroblocks etc. Other encodes with UnDot watched like this would soon show macroblocks or other distortions.

Anyway :thanks: for everyone's suggestions