In terms of fidelity all newer codecs are worse than x264!

[Scallywag]

Hello.

I have encoded a lot of material for testing purposes over the last few months and I am of the opinion that newer codecs were mainly developed or optimized for low to medium bit rates and work little or no more efficiently with transparent quality. Therefore VP9/AV1 and probably also H266 are not particularly suitable for me. I expect that an encoder is able to compress with almost no or little loss at "higher" bit rates. Currently x264 can do this best, followed by x265, other enocders are blurry and remove fine details.

I'm mostly talking about 1080p, and I know that newer encoders are more efficient at 4K. I also testet SVT-AV1-PSY but the problem fundamentally remains.

My rating therefore looks like this:

https://forum.doom9.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18751&d=1730991825

How do you see that?

[kurkosdr]

I wonder how much of these observations are the result of x264 and x265 being heavily tuned for psy, aka for maintaining detail (while other encoders not as much). Remember, the implementation (encoder) is just as important as the format it implements.

[Scallywag]

I wonder how much of these observations are the result of x264 and x265 being heavily tuned for psy, aka for maintaining detail (while other encoders not as much). Remember, the implementation (encoder) is just as important as the format it implements.

Of course x265 and especially x264 are very heavily tuned. But that would mean that AV1 and especially x266 (if it ever appears) cannot be used for the highest quality standards for many years to come. Therefore, I think x264 and x265 (after all patents expire) will remain significant codes for a very long time.

[Z2697]

You win some, you lose some, AV1 should be preferred for the low bitrate encoding for a long time, before VVC or AV2 make significant progress. There're HEVC encoders that outperform or at least claim to outperform x265 at low bitrate.

[Sunspark]

You need to post your image on another site and link it. This forum takes forever to never to approve images.

I agree about x264. The newer codecs do look a bit different where detail is concerned.

But even with x264, 720p looked better than 1080p if you increased the bitrate a bit.

[Z2697]

720p looked better than 1080p if you increased the bitrate a bit.

WTF :eek:

[Scallywag]

You need to post your image on another site and link it. This forum takes forever to never to approve images.

I agree about x264. The newer codecs do look a bit different where detail is concerned.

But even with x264, 720p looked better than 1080p if you increased the bitrate a bit.

You cant see my image?

How about this link:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fx264-still-better-than-x265-and-svt-av1-psy-for-high-v0-pz317xbvfjzd1.png%3Fwidth%3D1223%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1528cb68e9825f3dece9d7547a5f0a48c091e6c9

[Z2697]

I think x265 is better than x264 at near lossless as well. The deblocking is better (less blurry) either because the deblocking algorithm itself is updated or because blocks can be larger which means less block boundaries are there to be deblocked. But you can brute-force through blocking with bitrate (with deblock disabled) so, anyway.

[ksec]

Define low, medium or high bitrate. Every time we have these discussions no one actually put out the mbps rate.

[birdie]

Define low, medium or high bitrate. Every time we have these discussions no one actually put out the mbps rate.

the mbps rate makes sense only if you know the resolution, frame rate and color space. :-)

[Scallywag]

Define low, medium or high bitrate. Every time we have these discussions no one actually put out the mbps rate.

I am talking about quality at 1080p, not bitrate.

High-Fidelity = visually lossless on large screens or at magnification, also in terms of small details, only slightly differences to source
High-Quality = transparent in most cases and for most users, but lack of details. Suitable for high qulity streaming or bluray copys.
Mid-Quality = visible differences to source, but still ok to watch.
Low-Quality = only suitable on small devices or for irrelevant content

[hello_hello]

What settings were you using for the various encoders?

[Sunspark]

WTF :eek:

No, it's true. 1920x1080 is double the resolution of 1280x720 pretty much.

But when you had encodes that were 3 mbit for 720p and 4mbit for 1080p.. well.. double the resolution but not double the bitrate.. should have been 6, not 4.. so the picture, motion, etc. was softer.

We're not talking giant differences, but on a screenshot comparison where you flip back and forth, you could see the difference in hair and other stuff.

Bitrate is always king which is why so many streaming services suck now. They are starving the bitrate.

[Z2697]

No, it's true. 1920x1080 is double the resolution of 1280x720 pretty much.

But when you had encodes that were 3 mbit for 720p and 4mbit for 1080p.. well.. double the resolution but not double the bitrate.. should have been 6, not 4.. so the picture, motion, etc. was softer.

We're not talking giant differences, but on a screenshot comparison where you flip back and forth, you could see the difference in hair and other stuff.

Bitrate is always king which is why so many streaming services suck now. They are starving the bitrate.

No bitrate can surpass the low-pass filter :rolleyes:

You said "increased the bitrate a bit", but I think it'd rather be "decreased the bitrate a lot": at low enough bitrate, the advantage of lower quantization will surpass the disadvantage of low-pass filter.

Or perhaps you mean: when the birtate of 1080p encode is "only increased a bit" compared to 720p encode, and the amount of high frequency information is "overwhelming" for the bitrate, again this only applies to low enough bitrate.

The information is simply not there, completely lost, gone forever. No any obscene amount of bitrate can save you from the fact that there's no more information for it to reconstruct.