Hero encode VP7 vs x264

[SpaceV]

Hi I just finished some test encodes on Hero (Jet Li) which
I think is one of the hardest movies I know
to encode. ( http://imdb.com/title/tt0299977/ )

The scene I used to compare visually is 35-39 minutes into the
movie. Its the fight scene between the 2 girls in red dresses
in the yellow forest with yellow leaves flying in the air everywhere.

I was shooting for about 830 for the video stream.
First I used VP7 1 pass best which took about 24 hours
(won't do that again). Then x246 wich took only 3.5 hours.
And VP7 2 pass good (I stopped after 40 min into the movie but the
encoding speed was acceptable).

In my opinion VP7 2 pass is by far the best (its almost enjoyable).
VP7 1 pass is just watchable if you dont look to closely and x264 is just so that you know whats going on in the scene (need to try 2 pass).

What I would like to know: is anyone here experimenting with that movie? What settings and codecs do you use. I think it would make an awesome benchmark movie. Is it even encodable in around 800kbps,
in my opinion its not. I am going to try 1k and 1.2K ...

Any feedback from someone who encoded it would be great. Thanks

[rushin_911]

I'm surprised you didn't test x264 with 2 passes yet - obviously that is why the VP7 2 pass encode looks the best so far:) - please conduct it and post the results...

Also please post your settings and you hardware specs so a judgement can be made regarding quality and speed (different settings -quality- and equipment-speed- probably yeild different results)

Could you post some scrren shots?

[SpaceV]

how about a challenge:

who can encode those 4 minutes in the most eye pleasing
and/or PSNR (for the graph people) way.

Maybe 3 categories: 800kbps, 1mbps and lowest possible with acceptable quality (of course this is all very subjective but we could vote)

[dragongodz]

SpaceV - as rushin_911 said, please post your settings. things like picture size and codec settings etc.

[SpaceV]

just doing x264 2 pass...

CPU AMD64@2.45ghz, 1gig DDR400, SATA HD, GF6800GT

settings/APP:
DVDx 2.3, 720x400@23.98fps, LAME@128

basically standard stuff, no tweaking.

Thats also a reason for my post, what would be the optimal
tweaking for that movie.

If you reply, I would love to know if you have seen the movie.
Its from 2002 but came out 2004 in the US and is avail @ Blockbuster.
As far as I know Quentin Tarantino brought it over because he was so amazed by it.

[Sharktooth]

I watched it 8 times...
It's a very hard movie to encode though. I never tried with x264 or VP7.

[niamh]

You beat me! I think I only saw it 7 times... The funny thing is I've actually decrypted it today...the compression test is nasty looking indeed. It doesn't help that the audio definitely requires 6 channels IMO. I might give a spin to x264 then.

(edit:typo )

[Sharktooth]

I backed up it with Recode (AVC) and the result is pleasing me. I also kept the 5.1 audio and about 1650kbits for the video (anamorphic) with default options except no resize, manual crop, 512,-512 MVs and non-adaptive deblocking strenght set to -2.

EDIT: Sorry the bitrate was 1650!

[niamh]

care to post a little sample? :)
Seems I'm going to have ~ 1600 kbps to play with.
@SpaceV: I won't bother with 800 1 CD encode,with that type of compression test result; I leave modern art to Picasso ;)

[MSlv]

I wonder if anything will look as good as a 800 MB 7-pass CCE SVCD encode (but with stereo 48kHz mp2 audio)... A friend of mine did it and (along with some brightness, contrast and hue twick) it came out incredibly good.

[SpaceV]

ok 2 pass x264 way better then 1 pass,
amazing difference. You would have to look
at sigle frames or watch it over and over
to see if VP7 is better or worse, for now I would say
they are the same, but x264 encodes much faster.

I agree with the 5.1 channel audio. What would be the
best way to compress it while keeping all channels?
Is there a way like joint stereo that only encodes the delta?

[Sharktooth]

AAC 5.1 is pretty efficient.
The Nero AAC HE encoder has very good quality and it's fast, but also FAAC if you prefer.
BTW, i'll post some screens of my encode as soon as i find it in the chaos... :)

[JnZ]

Hi,

I encoded Hero half year ago with XviD and go to 3CD rip (about 2514kbps,704x384,AC3/448+Mp3/131).

With this settings, every looks great (I always use maximum and slowest encoding settings).

So I'm very wondering, how it looks at 800kbits :D

Yes, Hero is one of the worst compresibility movie, I've ever encode...

[SpaceV]

ok, I am a lazy all in one guy (DvDx). So I have not used
any advanced script tools. I dont need perfect quality
just good is enough.

Could you please explain how I can preserve the 5.1 sound.

I have 1 .IFO and 5 VOB files.

Could I use DVDx for the video and disable sound,
then extract the AC3 from the VOBs,convert to AAC 5.1 and merge it into the AVI output from DVDx?

What apps would I use for each step?
Or do I have to do it differntly?

Thanks.

[niamh]

To put AAC in an avi you'll need avimuxGUI, and no one click ripper will let you do that .You'd have to do it manually. I've tried a 2CD XviD+AC3 and the quality turned out to be very good. If you don't want to be bothered, you can try autoGK on it. I finally haven't tested x264, and I probably won't because I can't see that it'll do better than what I have now :)

[dragongodz]

Could I use DVDx for the video and disable sound,
then extract the AC3 from the VOBs,convert to AAC 5.1 and merge it into the AVI output from DVDx?

yes but i would not reccomend using AAC in avi. you are probably better off just demuxing the AC3 and then using AvimuxGUI to mux the video and audio together.

[Sharktooth]

Originally posted by dragongodz
yes but i would not reccomend using AAC in avi.
Why not?

[dragongodz]

Why not?
because avi was not made to use AAC just as it was never made to use OGG or VBR-MP3. they are hacked in and you are never guarenteed of how well it will or wont work. i have had people that have done VBR-MP3 for example where sinc was lost part way through and then fixed itself after awhile and they wanted to know how to fix it. simple....dont frelling do it to start with.

so if SpaceV really wants multichannel audio he is better off IMHO to just use the original AC3 and save the messing around.