need advice concerning encoding

[Zarxrax]

crf 18 shouldn't be too tough to play on hardly any system. My eeepc with a crappy atom processor can play them. It can even almost play 720p vids.

[Scintilla]

I meant with all the crazy options that keep bitrate down. I don't know them all off the top of my head, but I'm talking about the things like B-frame pyramid and so on.

[Zarxrax]

Most options don't effect decoding speed, or only effect it slightly. Cabac is usually the biggest offender, but it gives like 10% bitrate reduction, so its generally considered mandatory unless you want to suck.

[Qyot27]

Actually, generally speaking, I've observed that even with the crazy options, as long as the bitrate doesn't spike too high playback is relatively okay. The newest builds of ffdshow can almost play back some of my own encodes on real time on my computer, which is ancient (it's an eMachines T1110 that was bought back in 2001 - 1.0 GHz Celeron Coppermine, 256 MB of RAM, 100 MHz FSB). The only exception are a couple of videos that are 60fps, but it only barely handles 60fps Xvid files at 640x352, let alone trying to do 60fps SD H.264.

But like I said, the bitrate has to be kept down. And those options help that end a lot, even if they are well past the point of diminishing returns.

For reference, this is the actual commandline I use for distro encodes (note, the videos I have on Local don't necessarily use some of these options because they were added to x264 after those videos were released, and I update x264 at every new build revision I notice on doom9):

Code: Select all

x264.exe --crf 18.0 --ref 16 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 16 --b-adapt 2 --b-pyramid --weightb --direct auto --deblock 1:1 --subme 9 --trellis 2 --partitions all  --8x8dct --scenecut 100 --threads auto --thread-input --sar 1:1 --aud --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "output.mp4" "input.avs"

The archive encode is virtually the same, except switch out hexagon for SATD ESA, deblock is disabled, an ME Range of 32 instead of 16, and --crf 10. That one would take days on a 4-minute video if I used my own comp to do it.

[Qyot27]

but it only barely handles 60fps Xvid files at 640x352

To be specific, these are heavily-compressed Xvid files that look rather crappy. The LQ Xvid version of Fate Against Will is the test vid there. WMP6.4 with ffdshow can just barely manage it, and I might see a couple jerks in the playback. Media Player Classic with the same build of ffdshow, however, jerks like crazy.

[Myouh]

Quantizer 0 doesn't seem to work on your program Zarxax.

Is there a way to make a MP4 video produced by your software readable by VirtualDubMod?

[Zarxrax]

Quantizer 0 doesn't seem to work on your program Zarxax.

Is there a way to make a MP4 video produced by your software readable by VirtualDubMod?

Hmm yea, I've noticed that. I'll get it fixed in the next version.

Virtualdubmod is mainly designed to read avi files. You can open an mp4 through avisynth using FFMPEGSource.

[Myouh]

Zarxrax,

Quantizer 1 with constant quantizer doesn't seem to be working either. (1 is the only one I tried).

wouldn't a quantizer 1 with constant quantizer give better results (in terms of image quality) than quantizer 1 with constant quality? (we don't care about the size here).

I produced a video with quantizer 1, constant quality, insane mode, I got a video a little smaller than with quantizer 1, constant quality, normal mode. is that normal?

what are the instructions to modify brightness contrast with avisynth, please?

[Myouh]

also,
I can't use a avisynth script as the input video in your software.

I receive this message: avis [error]: unsupported input format (DIB)

the file is a .avs one. what's the problem?

[SenTrix]

also,
I can't use a avisynth script as the input video in your software.

I receive this message: avis [error]: unsupported input format (DIB)

the file is a .avs one. what's the problem?

Then you need to try and opening it using AviSynth's DirectShowSource or ffmpegsource, you'll need to add ffmpegsource if you dont have it.