x264: extreme quality on anime!

[Sirber]

Just watched One Piece 152 in x264 @ 436kbps. I just can't believe it!!!! :D :D

[treehh]

Hiyall, I'm ripping the most popular tv cartoons S@@psons using FairUse1.2. But after reading all the good things here about RealAnime3.0.0 and x264. I want to give it a try. Cuz the Xvid result file doesn't run well on BSPlayer.

So my question here is
1) is x264 a codec/library? If so, which GUI should I use?
2) What is the typical settings for x264?

[Sirber]

1) both
1a) RealAnime, MeGUI or virtualdub
2) for anime realanime's defaults are pretty cool. gives ~85MB per file.

[Joe Fenton]

Just watched One Piece 152 in x264 @ 436kbps. I just can't believe it!!!! :D :D

Yeah, x264 (h.264 in general) is FANTASTIC for people wanting to make backups of their anime collection for playing on a home network. You can put twice as many episodes in your library with no loss in quality. Instead of flipping through racks of DVDs, I just throw them in the closet and just play an x264 encode off a harddrive.

The only negative at the moment (and it's not THAT negative) is the encoding speed... which is actually not that bad for me since I have a dual-opteron I use. :D

[ChronoCross]

while on the topic of encoding speeds. Are there any bitstream side effects to using more than one thread? I don't remember where I read it but there was a problem with the GOP when using more than 1 thread?

[Sharktooth]

Yes, there are some side effects since the frame is sliced in 2 or more parts (depending on the number of threads).
But with 2 threads the difference is usually about 0.01db...

[amango]

The first time I used x264 I was amazed about the decreasing file size I got against other codecs. But...

In my opinion x264 smooths too much (default settings). I used XVID the most time before. I always use 1 Pass-Quantizer encoding to save time. Size is not a matter for me. I really don't know what settings I should change to enhance the quality in anime. With normal settings and Quantizer 20-22 some details looks to smoothed and the picture quality and sharpness decreases.

[Sirber]

I never tryed 1-pass CQ with x264, since it kick too much a*s in ABR 3-pass.

Since size doesn't matter, why do you use x264? Why do you recompress at all?

[Caroliano]

In my opinion x264 smooths too much (default settings)
These defauts are from RealAnime or from official CLI/VFW interface? Because RealAnime seems to use +3 as defaut debloking, but the official defaut is 0. This may expain the exagerated smooth. Then set it to 0.

If not then you can try to lower the in-loop filter (deblocking) to -1 but I don't recomend this, especialy for animes. I think that that way you is only preserving more ringing and other compresion artfacts... At q22 and debloking 0 the detail preservation is fine IMHO.

[Sirber]

These defauts are from RealAnime or from official CLI/VFW interface? Because RealAnime seems to use +3 as defaut debloking, but the official defaut is 0. This may expain the exagerated smooth. Then set it to 0.

If not then you can try to lower the in-loop filter (deblocking) to -1 but I don't recomend this, especialy for animes. I think that that way you is only preserving more ringing and other compresion artfacts... At q22 and debloking 0 the detail preservation is fine IMHO.Realanime new defaults are +1 now. If you installed the final 3.0 over an old RC, the defaults didn't update. Do do so, delete all files in "/profiles/" and reload realanime.

[Caroliano]

I didn't tried the final version yet... thanks for the information.

[DarkZell666]

Hi Sirber, Hi everyone !

I just stumbled across this thread about animes, and this is what I use x264 for ! To reencode those bl**dy 220MB episodes to fit 50 of them on a single DVD !

Great news that 3pass ABR < 500kbps rocks, I'll try on some very clean HxH OVAs that I have (can't find any cleaner source than those lol). Though I don't understand something : what does 3pass do better than 2pass ?
Don't tell me that a simple bitrate reallocation can lead to such quality ? oO

Other very important question : do you resize the picture to 512*384 or is it plain 640*480 ? (sorry I don't use realanime yet I'm still using vdub + x264vfw ^_^) using 512*384 I managed to sqeeze episodes down to 100MB (90MB video + 10MB HE-AAC 64kbps audio ^^) using 2pass ABR.

*bouncing up and down oO*

[Sirber]

1) Well, it's better ;)

2) I keep 640x480 and it scores 85MB (436kbps x264 3-pass, 5 ref, inloop +1, 3 bframes, all the fancy stuff; 64kbps HE-AAC audio). On clean source (One Piece), I can't see a difference, but on medium source (Naruto), it x264 keeps the artefacts of xvid :D

[Synergy37]

What program is all this being done through?

[Sirber]

Well, you can use RealAnime or any other soft that support x264: MeGUI, AutoAC, VDub, etc.

[Chainmax]

Sirber, why not trying Vorbis aoTuVb4 instead of AAC? Recent 80kbps listening tests show made at Hydrogenaudio showed that Vorbis aoTuVb4 @ 80kbps sounds way better than any other codec. I'd assume the difference is even bigger at 64kbps.

[ChronoCross]

Sirber, why not trying Vorbis aoTuVb4 instead of AAC? Recent 80kbps listening tests show made at Hydrogenaudio showed that Vorbis aoTuVb4 @ 80kbps sounds way better than any other codec. I'd assume the difference is even bigger at 64kbps.

isn't it about mp4 compatibility? It's better to use aac in mp4.

[Caroliano]

isn't it about mp4 compatibility? It's better to use aac in mp4.
He uses Matroska... So no hurt in compatibility. I'd say a boost. I would like use vorbis.

And the nero encoder isn't as good as other HE-AAC encoders:

http://foobar2000.net/divers/tests/2005.09/AACHE/01/plots.png

Source: HE-AAC v.1 & v.2 comparison, Winamp vs Helix vs Nero Digital (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=36868)

[Sirber]

Wierd... Everybody tells me nero codecs are better than helix ones :confused:

Also, I use MKV (3.0) and I will use MKV in RealAnime LE too.

About vorbis, well, why? In next realanime version, I aim bellow 64kbps, like 48 and 32 with parametric stereo :D.

[Caroliano]

Yeh. The only advantage Nero has currentily is that it has the ability to code 5.1 audio when the other implementations are stick in 2ch. But Nero developers will launch soon a new version of their audio codecs. The actual is from the end of 2003, so its very out-dated.

guruboolez also was surprised:
Was it really obvious that CT implementation should be considered as better than Nero? On this board, I can't remember anyone making such test or even such assumption. Remember Sebastian Mares and his project to organize a collective listening test at 64 kbps: he considered Nero Digital and the upcoming Apple's implementation as the two most interesting ones. Most people on this board (including me) were convinced that Nero Digital is a better encoding solution (compared to CT).

[DarkZell666]

Well well well ...

is 230kbps correct ? well ... of course !! :D

I've just tried encoding naruto 131 @ 230kbps (512*384 res)
using 3pass just as Sirber suggested : it's absofactolutely INSANE o_O

that gives me 37MB video and 9MB of audio (using vorbis -q0 @ 32khz).

I encountered a wierd flaw though : at the beginning of the episode, some frames don't play (ie: the movies jumps dozens of frames, freezes and waits for the sound to catch up, and plays correctly up to the end). I guess there are 1 or 2 keyframe(s) missing at the beginning or something stupid like that ...

Note : I used the High Profile features (ie : 8x8DCT and 8x8 IntraSearch) for encoding with x264, and Nero Video Decoder filter for decoding.
I'll try with ffdshow later on. I'm encoding a MainProfile version (no 8x8DCT etc.) just to be sure. I'll post further comments about this later. (dunno if vdubmod's mkv output, haali's matroska splitter, or x264 are the cause here or what ...)

Anyway, I knew x264 was amazing, but to such extent ... wow O_O
I'll get rooting though the CLI options to get more out of it :P

[Sirber]

wasn't the minimum of Vorbis 64kbps?

[akupenguin]

Say what? Vorbis is quality-based VBR. If you encode silence you'll get 0 kbps at any settings, and a movie soundtrack at q0 can easily go below 64.

[mezzanine]

Yeh. The only advantage Nero has currentily is that it has the ability to code 5.1 audio when the other implementations are stick in 2ch. But Nero developers will launch soon a new version of their audio codecs. The actual is from the end of 2003, so its very out-dated.

guruboolez also was surprised:

FAAC encoder can do 5.1 channel audio.

[Sirber]

5.1 He-aac?

[mezzanine]

5.1 He-aac?

No. AAC-LC

[DarkZell666]

btw Sirber I think you got mixed up (please forgive me if you didn't ^^) : khz and kbps aren't the same unit at all :)

32khz is the sampling rate (not the bitrate : kbps), and @ 32khz, q0 gives me something like 53kbps (< 64 hehe).

If I used the original samplerate (44,1khz) q0 would have given me rather ~64-72kbps.

[Sirber]

oh, sorry. I read "kbps" lol. My bad :D

[Caroliano]

wasn't the minimum of Vorbis 64kbps?
No. The minimum bitrate of Vorbis currently is around 10kbps @ 8KHz. In 48KHz vorbis can reach only at 32kbps using q-2. I'm using AoTuV b4 encoder but I think that the official 1.1.1 can do that as well.

Realy the minimum of Vorbis was 64kbps, but a long time ago, back in the 1.0 I think.

[Sirber]

Some years ago when I was using vorbis, Q0 = 64kbps and Q-1 = ~56kbps. Never heard of -2 :( Could you point me to a webpage with those specs? Thanks!

[Shinigami-Sama]

mmmm
AVC anime
I realy gatta get upto date,
any good place to start for intermediate h264 stuff?
I only have an hour or so free to play around here now a days :(
I'd love to make a few backups of some of my shiny dvds like mononoke hime
which is still in its plastic o_O

[DarkZell666]

About parametric stereo btw, I've just tried encoding
some rich trance songs of mine which have high output in all frequency bands : standard HE-AAC @ 48kbps sounds cleaner than PS-AAC @ 48kbps ...

PS-AAC sounds "robotic". And I can confirm that nero's HE-AAC does sound really bad compared to helix's and AAC+v2 (not FAAC in any case, FAAC doesn't seem to do any better than standard MP3 @ 64kbps lol).

Whatever, the current implementation of PS-AAC that I tried didn't sound that good at all (as I said, HE-AAC @ 48kbps was cleaner than PS-AAC).

Well, sorry if this was off topic, (I guess it is) but it was worth mentionning considering the previous chart posted by Caroliano.

Cheers, and long live h264/x264 :D

[Caroliano]

Specs? I can point you to vorbis official page (www.vorbis.com) which have the version 1.1.1 (that I think suport q-2) and for the topic about aoTuV b4 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=34915) in HA, which also have a link to Aoyumi's page. Is it enough?

I used OggdropXPd (http://www.rarewares.org/ogg.html) to make my encodes. I prefer 32kbps@32KHz, it sounds smother for me.

[Sirber]

aoTuV Beta4 [beta3 >> beta4]
# An addition and change of the code of a channel coupling processing portion. Thereby, disorder of the sound energy on hearing becomes small. And a part of additional code of beta3 which is not required has already been deleted now.
# Tuning of Masking relation and Noise Normalization. These mainly influence balance and the quantity of distortion which can be heard.
# The bit allocation by the low bit rate was devised. This is generally effective.
# Bug fix of beta3Not much "specs" :( What's the minimum bitrate at 44khz?

[Caroliano]

Ah. That kind of specs.

You can look at source code of OggdropXPd since it change perfectly the data acording to setings. As I don't know programing, I only set the -q and sample rate and see what it shows as the expected bitrate.

Warning: you must go out of the 'encoding options' window when change the sample rate because it don't update the bitrate values until then.

[Sirber]

-q -2 = ~32kbps

Maybe not the best place to ask, but could I use aoTuV with besweet? I'm thinking to use vorbis instead of nero he-aac in RealAnime LE.

[Caroliano]

I use Belight as GUI for Besweet. I changed the libvorbis.dll in the folder and all went well. So I guess yes. Maybe in audio forum you can get more informations.

And I don't know if vorbis is realy better than HE-AAC at these bitrates (<=64kbps) because I don't done a listening test yet and the listening tests in these bitrates are pretty old.

[Sirber]

I did one and vorbis scared me at 32kbps. So metallic, sounds almost mono on my 5.1 speaker set.

[Caroliano]

I done one also now. I agree with you that HE-AAC out performs vorbis by far at 32kbps @ 44.1KHz. I made a 32kbps @ 32KHz sample also and it sounded less metalic, better for me but far of HE-AAC yet. Not cientific or blinded comparision, only a informal and personal one.

I will try 64kbps also. Probabily vorbis will perform better than this time, but I don't know if better than HE-AAC. Let's see (or hear, your choice). :)

[Sirber]

go ahead, while we are at it :)

[Caroliano]

Well, I had trouble finding the apropriaded bitrate for nero. Streaming was 1.05MB and Normal was 2.37MB and Vorbis was 1.47MB. I will sleep now because It's late and I need to wake early tomorrow. I listened a bit to them and vorbis seens somewath better than the biggest HE-AAC... strange... I need to sleep. Tomorrow I make real tests...

[Sirber]

lol, good night.

@mod, could you split all the audio thing in a new thread? thanks!

[Caroliano]

Now I done more acurated testing. HE-AAC has some disturbing artfacts around the percursion instruments, more disturbing than the bost that vorbis give to them. But the voice was slight better coded by HE-AAC , vorbis still a bit metalic. Considering that voice is more important for video coding it was a tie between diferent bitrates. So, vorbis advantage.

I made another test, but that time with a anime soundtrack in 128kbps MP3 (in other words: transcoding). Vorbis was totaly transparent to my ears at ~58kbps (it undersized). HE-AAC had some artfacts in a laugh and generaly the "volume" was kinda higher... And HE-AAC was in a bitrate far higher than Vorbis again. It must be what guruboolez called "SBR artfacts".

And I say again: this is not an cientific or blinded comparision, only a informal and personal one. I don't have trained ears and don't even know how name the artfacts I heard. I can host this last test in any place if someone want. 23 secs per sample, less than 1mb in total.

[Sirber]

So, if I plan to use between 32kbps and 64kbps, I better stick with HE-AAC?

[Caroliano]

If you prefer bitrates closer to 32kbps HE-AAC > Vorbis. But vorbis improve faster as you high the bitrate and at 64 it is already better than HE-AAC. In the 2nd sample I tested it reached at transparency at 58kbps, for me. HE-AAC aparently never reach transparency. So is hard to say what is better, even for me. I will make 48kbps tests... ;)

Do you too.

[Sirber]

I will make some tests when I get free time, my cat poohed again in my bath :devil:

[DarkZell666]

Well, I've tested HE and PS AAS both this morning @ 16, 24, 32, and 48kbps, but this time, encoding from a commercial CD (not reencoding an MP3, which causes so much more artifacts, omg oO) :

HE and PS-AAC @ 48kbps hardly stands out from original CD, and @ 32kbps it sounds like MP3@128kbps ... in fact the "robotic" artifacts from PS-AAC didn't appear this time, and I guess they were caused by the "lossy->lossy : MP3->AAC" conversion :)

Listening very carefully, I could hardly distinguish PS-AAC and HE-AAC @ 32 and 48kbps, but PS sounds cleaner @ 24 and slightly cleaner @ 16. I am REALLY astonished by the quality achieved at so low bitrates ... O_O

500~900KB for a 4:30 song ... O_O near-cd quality ? well well well ... what else to say lol : in fact the stereo panning does lose a bit of quality but it's just about the same loss as MP3 @ 128kbps so I won't complain :D

And when I say HE and PS-AAC : I'm using AAC+v2 of course, but helix's HE-AAC shouldn't be far behind =)

[Raziel6969]

Hello,

Here there is a link, to audio discussion at low bitrates:
forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=99643&page=1&pp=20 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=99643&page=1&pp=20)
Maybe this info can be usefull! :)
Note1: I made some quick test with 1 song from orginal CD (not lossy -> lossy converssion) to AAC-HE 64kbps and AAC+V2 48kbps, and I can tell what is what all the time (AAC+V2 lose some stereo than AAC-HE, but is the better sound you can get at very low bitrate!)
Note2: I'm just a normal audio listener, i don't have 'golden ears' like the people at H.A.

Bye

[Sirber]

cool! Maybe I will add both codec to RealAnime LE...