best lossy codec for 320x240 video

[videoasker]

i wanna reencode my lossless huffyuv encoded videos so they hold less space, but i cant find a suitable codec for this job. i tried xvid, divx 6.8, x264 and even on vp7 codec with different options(maximum quality set usually). they dont give good results, probably because those codecs are built for larger resolutions(best of them was x264 for me). do you know any other codecs that can give better quality for 320x240 video or do you know some codec options for these codecs so they perform better for 320x240?

[guns1inger]

They are resolution independent (within the usual DCT block size constraints), so I would suspect you may be doing something wrong somewhere along the line.

What tools were you using to do the encoding ?

[videoasker]

i always use virtualdub

and i dont use any video filters

[jagabo]

Try VirtualDub with Xvid in Single Pass Target Quantizer mode with a quantizer of 2, or 3.

[manono]

Why's it have to be 320x240? That resolution, no matter how good the quality, will always look like crap when full-screened.

[videoasker]

i've tried xvid Single Pass Target Quantizer of 1 and 2, after encoding i compare original huffyuv video and result video, there are many noticable artifacts in the result. x264 has the least noticable artifacts, but still huge quality loss

[videoasker]

i feel like there is some option in these codecs, which changes their processing method to work better on low resolutions, there are tones of options in their menus, isnt there anything that would be useful for me?

[poisondeathray]

i've tried xvid Single Pass Target Quantizer of 1 and 2, after encoding i compare original huffyuv video and result video, there are many noticable artifacts in the result. x264 has the least noticable artifacts, but still huge quality loss

You are not using the correct x264 version , you are using the vfw version in vdub. Use the proper CLI version or a front end for it if you don't want to use the command line. AVI is not a proper container for h.264 anyway and can cause issues with playback when using b-frames, and sync issues . Vdub doesn't support anything but AVI container, so either use a lossless export, or frameserve out

x264 is very configurable in terms of quality, from crappy ipod type quality all the way to lossless YV12 compression. Use a lower quantizer, higher bitrate, and higher quality settings for better compression at a certain bitrate level. If you don't understand the settings, check out the wiki
http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

The vfw version is older, and hasn't implemented the recent changes , optimizations, bug fixes, and developments., If you must use it for whatever reason, make sure you are using the most recent build (still several months old which is several 100 commits behind the CLI version)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/

[videoasker]

poisondeathray, thanks for the answer, i used megui with the latest x264 cli, it gives real good results, but megui's video cutting,editing features are not really good, do you know of any x264 cli frontend which has good video cutting,editing features??

[videoasker]

or is there a way to output avisynth script after editing in virtualdub?

[poisondeathray]

Yes you could frameserve out of vdub , there are some guides on this site and others for setting that up, or export a lossless format

most x264 gui's use avisynth in the backend , so the edits are usually done with avisynth and trim() , and most are encoders, not editors

unfortunately it's not user friendly to use , there are no good user friendly guis for avisynth, it's all done in code

the closest one that I can think of that does simple cuts editing and simple filters would be avidemux, which looks similar to the vdub interface, but uses the proper x264 builds (slightly modified libx264), which are regularly updated if you use the svn builds
http://avidemux.razorbyte.com.au/

for complex editing you could use a NLE like premiere or vegas and frameserve to MeGUI, or use a lossless export, then import to MeGUI

you can use the x264vfw version if you have to, some people have better success with it and no issues, but you have to set it up correctly (the default settings are very poor as you have probably noticed) , and it's highly recommended to swap containers from AVI afterwards if you do , afterwards, (e.g. use yamb for mp4, or mkvtoolnix for mkv, or tsmuxer for transport streams). Just be aware of the potential issues/problems, and build deficiencies. Development of this vfw branch isn't that active, because of these issues. (someone has to update and patch it to bring it up to current builds)

[jagabo]

or is there a way to output avisynth script after editing in virtualdub?

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/306504-Frameserve-from-virtualdub-to-HC#1977050

[videoasker]

thanks a lot for both answers