Good codec -- Need Advice

[Bacender]

I very much liked DivX quad core encoding, however since upgrading to Vista x64, i haven't really found anything that can rival it.

All i am looking for is a basic quad core codec which is compatible with a 64 bit operating system. I would like to be able to select the codec/encoder from within regular programs, such as vDub and the like.

Full 64 bit support would be a plus, but is not necessary. All i want is decent quad core utilization.

I have looked for a while, but have not found anything decent as of yet.

All suggestions welcome.

Thanks.

[redwudz]

For VirtualDub, you might try the X.264 VFW codec. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=213809

H.264 can give you a comparable video quality at a lower bitrate than Divx/Xvid. It should work well with quad core CPUs.

[Bacender]

I installed it, but like so many other codecs, it doesn't seem to be compatible with x64... Either that, or i'm not installing it correctly.

Doesn't seem to come up in vDub or as a codec i can use:



edit: Installing 32 bit vDub seems to have worked... I can now use the codec.

So, apart from setting it to use 4 threads, are there any other optimizations i can set?

Thanks

Double edit: Haha, actually, it's fairly amazing:



Thanks for your help

[redwudz]

Yes, it should use 100% CPU on all cores. That's one thing that makes it a good choice for multiple core CPUs. If you want to try a all-in-one converter that uses it, look into FairUse Wizard. It makes it a bit easier for DVD to H.264 conversions. You should be able to use about 1/4 to 1/3 less bitrate than a equivalent Divx/XviD file. Or to put it another way, the file would be 1/4 to 1/3 smaller, depending on the settings. It works best at low bitrates. High bitrate files will be about the same quality as Divx/XviD.

[PuzZLeR]

It works best at low bitrates. High bitrate files will be about the same quality as Divx/XviD.

x264 is indeed optimized for low bitrate encoding, and it can deliver a very decent encode at crushingly low bitrates. It's actually quite impressive since other codecs would deliver mud, or one big "blockness monster", at that level.

But as I'm observing of late, and mentioned, its advantage quickly fades for every incremental bitrate increase when desiring better-than-decent quality - it suddenly starts to be no more efficient than DivX/Xvid, and even MPEG-2 from a good encoder like CCE/TMPGEnc, even beginning with a BPP of just over 0.2 with some sources.

Bacender, be careful though of discussion using the VFW version of x264 in some forums - it's actually considered sacrilegious due to AVI's lack of B-frame support. However, one person knowledgeable of containers, and MKV, mentioned that muxing in and out of an AVI isn't "lossy" with any B frames - just that AVI itself won't make better use of them within.