x265 equivalance to x264 CRF 25

[forestcull]

I'm about to embark on a long journey of re-encoding 187 BDs I have lying around in x265 to clear out some space on my archival drives.

I've already encoded everything with x264 CRF 24 over the past few years and I'd like to replicate the same quality with the new x265 encodes.

I've read that x265 CRF 28 is about the same (http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/16664/what-crf-or-settings-i-should-choose-for-h265-in-order-to-achieve-a-similiar-qua) of x265 CRF 24 and I've done some testing on a couple of of BDs to confirm (720p and 1080p) and I think, for the most part anyways, x265 CRF 28~30 doesn't look all that different from x264 CRF 24. The majority of the BDs I own are animated and the few which aren't are high motion (I like racing movies). Overall, the split is about 50/50 between 720p and 1080p sources.

Does anyone have any experience with quality comparison between x264 and x265? My subjective eye can't be trusted.

[Leo 69]

I don't know man.. If I encode a clean, sharp Blu-Ray source to x265, I can notice the difference at CRF 19 (preset very slow). I can even spot the difference at CRF 18, even with the latest release 2.0 x265 and suggested settings for "--tune-film". The codec eats some tiny details for good anyway, no matter how you tune the settings. I don't have much experience with lower CRFs as of yet.

As for x264 my sweet spot is CRF 17.2 (with a little bit customized preset placebo). I have a hard time distinguishing the source and the encode @CRF 17.2.

[forestcull]

I don't know man.. If I encode a clean, sharp Blu-Ray source to x265, I can notice the difference at CRF 19 (preset very slow). I can even spot the difference at CRF 18, even with the latest release 2.0 x265 and suggested settings for "--tune-film". The codec eats some tiny details for good anyway, no matter how you tune the settings. I don't have much experience with lower CRFs as of yet.

As for x264 my sweet spot is CRF 17.2 (with a little bit customized preset placebo). I have a hard time distinguishing the source and the encode @CRF 17.2.

yea, I get what you're saying. I'm not too picky on losing some detail during fast scenes though. I need to strike a balance between quality/size since these new encodes will be going into a seedbox.

If I was encoding purely for my own archival purposes, I'd probably go with a CRF 19-20.

[VoodooFX]

I've already encoded everything with x264 CRF 24 over the past few years and I'd like to replicate the same quality with the new x265 encodes.

x265 CRF 21.0-21.5 (for film,720p). x265 CRF 28 will look bad as hell in comparison to x264 CRF 24.

[burfadel]

There's a bit of a discussion of quality and settings in the h.265 thread, but anyways, try the following:
--output-depth 10 --rd 4 --tu-intra-depth 3 --rdoq-level 2 --early-skip --b-intra --limit-modes --aq-mode 2 --qg-size 16 --ipratio 1.38 --pbratio 1.28 --me star --max-merge 3 --weightb --bframes 6 --rc-lookahead 50 --ref 6 --psy-rdoq 1.38 --no-sao

With your choice of CRF. I have found the above to produce excellent results. If you want to try something extra, you can lower the CRF slighty for the same bitrate if you use --nr-intra 400 --nr-inter 400 (for instance, you can use a lower value like 250 for each). It is a very mild denoiser, the idea is that you do NOT use it by itself, but use it in conjunction with lowering the CRF slightly to achieve a similar bitrate. Overall I have found it can be more efficient.

[xamandre]

Sorry for the little "hijack" but
burfadel : i'm trying some encodes with rf 17-18 (movies from my untouched makemkv video source), any good advanced settings i can use for the best quality ?

[burfadel]

Pretty much what I wrote above, you can raise or lower the CRF as required. If you don't mind a much slower encode you could try using:
--rd 5 --rd-refine
replacing the --rd 4 in the previously listed setting. You should use --rd 5 and --rd-refine together. --rd-refine doesn't work below --rd 5, and --rd 5 alone isn't worth it by itself over --rd 4. Using these two settings with the suggested settings on my previous post would be nice quality wise, but slow. For quality without the slowdown I believe the settings I wrote above are ideal. This may change with future code changes, more likely with settings like SAO which seem to currently be so strong as to completely negate the intended purpose. Hence, the current recommendation to have it disabled.

[xamandre]

Will test tonight and will report back. Thanks a lot

[VoodooFX]

Sorry for the little "hijack" but
burfadel : i'm trying some encodes with rf 17-18 (movies from my untouched makemkv video source), any good advanced settings i can use for the best quality ?

I think x264 is more efficient(quality/compression ratio) at those compression ratios with film sources.

[benwaggoner]

I think x264 is more efficient(quality/compression ratio) at those compression ratios with film sources.
Since random noise is intrinsically uncompressible, how different codecs handle it is often where you'll see the biggest difference, and an area where a "better" format has less to offer.

[xamandre]

Hey benwaggoner i'm so satisfied of your settings that i'm re-enconding all my movies to x265 with those with crf 18 :) thanks a lot. Will post screenshots when i will return home from my holidays

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[benwaggoner]

Hey benwaggoner i'm so satisfied of your settings that i'm re-enconding all my movies to x265 with those with crf 18 :) thanks a lot. Will post screenshots when i will return home from my holidays
Which settings were mine :)? But glad to help, however I did.

[xamandre]

Oh sorry i meant burfandel's settings :)

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