Help and advice on encoding 'Wonderful Days'

[SoundScape]

Hello guys,

I didn't mean to start a real war about different codecs...:D I am really sorry that the original thread got out of topic, my intentions were only to seek help and advice on XviD. Anyway, thanks to all of you who took the time to post some interesting stuff, I looked at the two encodings again and I have to admit XviD looks better. I will try and tweak some settings (always according to the suggestions some of you made) and see if I get better results.

Koepi, I am really sorry that you had to close the original thread. By the way, thanks for the terrific XviD builds, keep up the good work! ;)

[Maximillius]

The whole point of closing the thread was that your title "Codec War" does nothing but start flame wars. Maybe you could have named it something more appropriate like asking for help tweaking your xvid settings to get more detail. Something less prone to people flaming.

[Ark]

..and back on topic i suggest you to redo the encoding mentioned on the original thread using qpel, vhq4, b-vhq, aq and a good matrix like 6of9 or the ones by Sharktooth.
Oh, and 2-pass encoding obviously (in case you use 6of9 do first pass at q3 setting it in the "zone" section)

That should be a substantial increase in quality (and encoding time :( ).

BTW at what bitrate ratio (low, mid, high) was you aiming for?

[Spyn]

beta versions are not optimized, sometimes bugged and are only for testing, results with a beta release don't mean anything for me.

so i had test the latest stable release : Xvid 1.0.3 and Divx 5.2.1 pro

Source is 12000 frames (10 %) of Wonderful Days (Anime) PAL, Source is free of any artifacts, noise... and has many details (this is not an anime with big ranges of same color like simpsons...)
Source is very compressive : 99% at 672*368 lanczosresize.

avs :
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\GORDIA~1\DGMPGDec\DGDecode.dll")
mpeg2source("H:\tests2\test.d2v",idct=7)
crop(4,2,712,572)
LanczosResize(672,368)

Xvid settings :
matrix : H.263
b-frames enabled at default settings
chroma optimizer enabled
use chroma motion enabled
VHQ4
quant : 2-31 2-31 2-31
trellis enabled
max I Frame intervall = 250
PP disabled

SSIM result (lumimask=true) : 90.74

Divx Settings (i'm not sure this is best settings to get the better quality...)
matrix : H.263
max keyframe intervall : 250
bidirectional encoding : adaptive multiple consecutive
Encode performance : slow
other parameters : default
PP disabled

SSIM result (lumimask=true) : 89.91

my eyes result : Xvid has less noise around the edges and seems to retain more details.

PS : Qpel and GMC are disabled for both codecs because they reduce quality for this source. AQ reduce also quality for this source.

[Manao]

> beta versions are not optimized

Wrong

> sometimes bugged

True, but hardly

> and are only for testing

Not at all, ask around the forum and see how many use a 1.1 beta, you'll see

> results with a beta release don't mean anything for me

Well, ok, but don't forget you're loosing bvhq if you don't use a 1.1 beta.

[Spyn]

Originally posted by Manao
> beta versions are not optimized

Wrong

> sometimes bugged

True, but hardly

> and are only for testing

Not at all, ask around the forum and see how many use a 1.1 beta, you'll see

> results with a beta release don't mean anything for me

Well, ok, but don't forget you're loosing bvhq if you don't use a 1.1 beta.

i got better SSIM results with 1.0.3 than with 1.1 beta1 so i do not see the interest to use version 1.1 beta1 if this is not for testing.

[Teegedeck]

What gave you the idea that it could be OK to just restart a thread that has been closed for a good reason? And with that kind of title, _again_, how could you expect that this one wouldn't be closed just as well?

The very limited approach of this 'comparison' (a single source) disqualifies it from being called so, really. Combined with the very far-reaching title it is bound to lead to flaming.

Do NOT try to circumvent the closing of a thread! In an attempt to let you get what you say you want, I'll refrain myself and just change the title of the thread. But I'm gonna close it as soon as it gets out of hand.

[SoundScape]

First things first,

Teegedeck,

I am sorry that you think I reopened a closed thread just to start a "war". And I chose the specific title in the first place because I found it to be funny, not provocative. If people think that a specific title implies EXACTLY what is says, then it is not my problem it's theirs. Everybody is responsible for what they write, therefore you should draw your attention to those who really started a war in the original thread. I accept mine and I promise not to use such a title again. No hard feeling for changing the title though :D

Ark,

I was aiming for a low bitrate (around 800kbps) just to test the performance of the 2 codecs at such bitrates where bit distribution is crucial. I'll consider your advise on the XviD settings and do another test. You mentioned that I should use a custom matrix, right? So basically you imply that I should use MPEG quantization. Wouldn't that produce a loss in overall quality since I am aiming for a low bitrate?

And one last thing concerning b-frames. If I use more than 1 b-frame in an XviD encoding, will the resulting video be playable in a standalone that supports DivX but not XviD? Are there any players that support XviD playback and hence support more than 1 b-frame? And what about QPel and GMC, are these compatible with hardware players?