AV1 picture too smooth compared with VP9

[gonzooka]

Hi there,

i am trying to encode an "old movie" with 1080P from MP4/AVC-18GB to save some space - and just for trying.

With VP9 it takes in second pass 24 hours with 4 threads, good result!

I would like to use AV1, it uses more threads
(but not all 16, Intel 12600K, hmm)
and does it in a half about.

What me annoys: AV1 is smoothing way too much.
Example: on a face I cant see the wrinkles in the eyes
anymore and beauty spots vanish a bit but obvious.

I tried AV1 with lower preset but no visible effect at all, CRF also.

How can I tune it, not to smooth? Any experiences?


Here the command line for both, AV1 and VP9:
(ffmpeg und AV1encoder are latest stable build.)

ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel warning -i input.mp4 -nostdin -strict -1 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -f yuv4mpegpipe - | SvtAv1EncApp --progress 1 -i stdin --lp 0 --tile-rows 3 --tile-columns 3 --preset 7 -q 20 --mbr 2000k --irefresh-type 2 --enable-restoration 0 --enable-dlf 0 --enable-cdef 0 --keyint 240 -b av1_libsvtav1_output.mkv

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libvpx-vp9 -b:v 2M -crf 30 -pass 2 -threads 16 -row-mt 1 -c:a copy output.webm