So what x264/MeGUI settings will Adobe Encore ultimately like?

[Asterra]

Gah. Feeling the pressure now. I can't get Encore to accept any of my x264 encodes without assuming they need to be transcoded. I really, really don't want to be forced to let Encore encode my source with its oh-so-lovely MainConcept codec. That would defeat the entire purpose of this project. But that's what I'm looking at.

Exporting as .MP4 or .264 is no dice. This is using MeGUI's 1080i30 setting which specifically uses the --bluray-compat flag for x264, so I know it should work just fine.

Alternatively, I could go for a non-Encore solution. I just need to plunk this video down onto a Bluray disc and have a Bluray player play it. No menus or anything. (I'll deal with that later.) Please help!

[poisondeathray]

I've done it before in the past with encore

I just updated megui and had a look at the preset. It seems to be missing "--sar 1:1" This needs to be explicitly set for blu-ray. It seems to be missing --tff as well

You may want to review the other settings. I don' t think they are ideal for every type of encode

Never put in a container if you are going to blu-ray, always raw avc


EDIT: yep those 2 changes allow it to pass through untranscoded . Those are the critical changes. The default profile uses "medium" settings, so you have room to tweak other settings as well (but be careful not to break compliance - if you need guidelines look here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533 )

[Asterra]

Yeah, I discovered for myself the advantages of --tff, but never heard/knew about --sar 1:1. Anyway, whatever x264 spits out, Encore doesn't like, regardless of extension. I'll be taking a close look at multiAVCHD; early indications are that it is not all that picky about its H.264 sources.

[poisondeathray]

it works fine with those 2 changes; are you saying it doesn't for you?

"not that picky" isn't necessarily a good thing when authoring blu-ray

the more "professional" , the more strict you have to be for checking for compliance. Scenarist and BD verifiers are even more picky - but they have to be - to ensure compatibility on all players on a professional level. Those x264 settings when used through CLI pass several strict BD verifiers (including the Sony verifier), so they are compliant. It just seems that whoever made those megui profile omitted those 2 important details...

[Asterra]

Meh. Well I gave it this:

program --level 4.1 --bluray-compat --preset veryslow --pass 3 --bitrate 27000 --stats ".stats" --keyint 30 --open-gop --bframes 3 --ref 4 --weightp 0 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --tff --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --keyint 30 --sar 1:1 --output "output" "input"

And Encore still doesn't like the result. I went over that post of specs and don't see where Encore wouldn't like something. I am using rawavc.

[poisondeathray]

If you're using megui , be careful that it has values hardcoded in the command line for the profiles (not a very elegant way to do it)

You have --keyint 30 twice, but that shouldn't be a problem, but I would get rid of one of them

What does the log file say your command line is? or post the log file

Does x264 give any warnings? or report buffer errors? look at the log file

I just tested a sample and it worked fine.

There maybe something peculiar about your video or your avs. Are you sure the frame rate is exactly (60000,1001) coming out of premiere ? Use AssumeFPS(60000,1001) on the "60p" video before you reinterlace it

[Asterra]

What does the log file say your command line is? or post the log file

Alright, here's that:
last_encode.log

There maybe something peculiar about your video or your avs. Are you sure the frame rate is exactly (60000,1001) coming out of premiere ? Use AssumeFPS(60000,1001) on the "60p" video before you reinterlace it

There was something fishy, actually, which I noticed with MediaInfo. It was reporting a framerate of 14.985fps or somesuch. AssumeFPS fixed that and I was hoping that was the last issue, but apparently not. ;/

Edit: Actually I re-read your post and I have one final adjustment to make. Whoops.

[poisondeathray]

yes, there is something wrong with your .avs , or the video you are feeding into x264 - it's reporting 15fps

Go back to the original premiere export and open with avisynth and use info() (comment out the reinterlacing part for now)

[Asterra]

Info tells me:

Frame: 0 of 316324
Time: 00:00:00:00 of 01:27:57:338
ColorSpace: YV12
Width: 1920 pixels. Height: 1080 pixels.
Frames per second: 59.9401 (60000/1001)
FieldBased (Separated) Video: NO
Parity: Bottom Field First
Video Pitch: 1920 bytes.
Eas Audio: NO

Same exact story for the small clip I rendered off.

Passing the small clip through the following interlacing code:

AviSource("try4_60pclip2_v210.avi")
AssumeTFF()
ConvertToYV12()
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4, 0, 3)
Weave()
info()

gives the same data except

Frame: 0 of 30 (originally 0 of 60)
Frames per second: 29.9700 (30000/1001) (originally 60000/1001)
FieldBased (Separated) Video: NO (mentioned because I don't know if this is supposed to be saying YES now)
Parity: Assumed Top Field First

Edit: I should mention that the fps fixes result in a proper 29.97fps in MediaInfo, but Encore still doesn't like it.

[poisondeathray]

That last one should be ok; if you want to be real sure, you can leave the assumefps in

AviSource("try4_60pclip2_v210.avi")
AssumeFPS(60000,1001)
AssumeTFF()
ConvertToYV12()
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4, 0, 3)
Weave()

[Asterra]

I'll add that there's a "Custom Command Line" in the Misc tab which has:

--level 4.1 --bframes 3 --ref 4 --slices 4 --aud --nal-hrd vbr --b-pyramid strict --min-keyint 3 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --weightp 0 --colorprim "bt709" --sar 1:1 --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709"

A few of these things are missing from the total command line it provides. It's like they disappear. Not immediately sure if any of this is unneeded, or breaking things.

[poisondeathray]

That's what I meant earlier by "hardcoded", and warned you to be careful

I usually set --min-keyint 1 , not sure why it's 3 there. It shouldn't make a difference eitherway

The only valid settings are the ones that x264 actually "sees". Those can be found in the log file

Some settings are implied, and not necessarily printed. For example --blu-ray compat will automatically set some settings, but they are not necessarily conveyed in the log file explicitly. I wouldn't worry about this unless you really want to get into the details

[Asterra]

Well then there is only one other thing I can try, and that's to use a clip that's longer than 1 second. I'm trying 4 seconds. If that fails, I'm basically going to just render with what I've got, give it to multiAVCHD, and hope that there are no complaints. I don't have time left to do two renders, and I really don't want to throw all this hard work down the MainConcept toilet.

[poisondeathray]

Are you saying it still doesn't work?

If not, post the log file

[Asterra]

Hmm.

Okay, it's possible I have been misinterpreting things. I was assuming that "untranscoded" meant that Encore felt the video needed to be transcoded before use. But when I open a clip's "transcode settings", certain videos (non-x264, for example) have a quality preset of "automatic using project settings" set by default, and other videos (painstakingly Bluray-compliant x264 clips) have "don't transcode" set by default.

Can I assume that this is Encore's way of telling me that it doesn't need to re-encode those clips?

[poisondeathray]

are you looking at the blu-ray column ? (not the dvd column?)

do you have the project settings setup properly ?

I attached a screenshot. Compliant video (pass through) will show as the circled box. Non compliant will say "untranscoded"

[Asterra]

I knew it was something stupid. Yes, DVD column. (Which actually I was assuming was a legacy misnomer.) Never even saw the scrollbar.

Whew. Seriously, man, where would I be without you? A cave?

[poisondeathray]

Haha. Just throw me in the credits for your blu-ray (joking)

It's because I've probably been there, done that, jumped through all the Adobe hoops before (and still lots of hoops to jump through unfortunately )

[BigPines]

I am having the same problem with CS5 Encore on OS X 10.7.2. It is frustrating that Encore and Premiere are so picky. I am using the following to encode a 1080p24 source for Blu-ray.

x264 --level 4.1 --bitrate 35000 --preset veryslow --keyint 24 --bframes 3 --ref 4 --weightp 1 --slices 4 --tune film --fps 24000/1001 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --sar 1:1 --pass 1 -o output.264 source.mov

Although this seems like what I need for Blu-ray compatibility, Encore still says it is going to transcode it anyway. I can't use the new --bluray-compat switch because I am on an older version of x264 so I am trying to find all the correct settings that Encore likes. Anyone see anything wrong?

Thanks,

Mike

[poisondeathray]

Just upgrade to a newer build

Depending on how old your build is, some of the switches and commands are different and might not be available

For example, you might need to add --aud --nal-hrd vbr , which are available in older builds for a few years, but are automatically enabled by --blu-ray compat


But some things are not available in older builds, that --blu-ray compat enables

1) min-CR + level 4.1 hack
2) Special b-pyramid SEI
3) B-frames cannot reference frames outside their minigop
4) Open-GOP keyframe interval hack

#4 might not apply to you, if you have a build before open GOP was added

[BigPines]

Thank you for your prompt response. You were right...adding --aud --nal-hdr vbr did the trick.

I agree that I should upgrade to a new x264 build but I couldn't find current binaries for OS X. I compiled my own of the latest build but it had some kind of problem reading some files like Quicktime Animation which is what I use for my archival video so I am stuck with my old version for now.

Thanks again. You are a genius!

Mike

P.S. In case it may help someone else, What I ended up using that worked was:

x264 --level 4.1 --bitrate 35000 --preset veryslow --keyint 24 --bframes 3 --ref 4 --weightp 1 --slices 4 --tune film --fps 24000/1001 --aud --nal-hrd vbr --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --sar 1:1 --pass 1 -o output.264 source.mov

[poisondeathray]

Are you using it through quicktime component or separate binary?

Those compiled with ffmpegsource should be able to read QT Animation

Here are some links to fairly recent ones, which should have --blu-ray compat

for OSX
http://wipple.m25.coreserver.jp/?category_name=x264

And for encoding through quicktime
http://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mycometg3/

[BigPines]

Wow, thanks! I'll try them out and report back.

I guess that was my problem. I just compiled the regular x264. So these binaries are combined with ffmpeg? How do I combine them? Is there a separate branch for that? Maybe I could just get that source and compile it myself in the future. Sorry but I don't know much about this.

How do I know if I want the L-SMASH patched version in the link you provided? Could you give me a description of what that adds and if I would want it or need it?

Mike

[poisondeathray]

L-SMASH is like GPAC for mp4 container , but more stable. It won't affect you because you are going to rawavc for blu-ray

I should mention I haven't used these, as I am rarely on a Mac these days, but I've heard others used them successfully

The binaries in the first link are compiled with ffmpegsource, which is actually a plugin for avisynth based on ffmpeg - it can read basically anything like ffmpeg

I don't know how to compile this on a mac either, but check in at doom9 forums, there are a bunch that do know

[BigPines]

Maybe I'll just use the L-SMASH version so I have the extra option.

For anyone else following this, I have confirmed these OS X binaries do seem to read Quicktime Animation uncompressed, they accept the --bluray-compat switch and they do export Encore Blu-ray compliant 1080p24 video with the following settings/switches:

x264 --bitrate 35000 --preset veryslow --tune film --bluray-compat --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --fps 24000/1001 --keyint 24 --open-gop --slices 4 --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --sar 1:1 --pass 1 -o output.264 source.mov

Thank you poisondeathray. You have been extremely helpful.

Mike

[poisondeathray]

Another cool thing is ffmpeg can decode and encode prores now, so you can fed a prores file directly to x264 if it's been compiled with recent ffmpeg. It was added around November, so those precompiled builds in that 1st link might not have it yet

[BigPines]

Oh, I nearly forgot. I had previously tried the x264Encoder Quicktime plug-in you provided a link to. It is very cool and I wish I could use it because it would save me one step in my encoding process. However, The GUI is a bit confusing to me and some of the settings seem to interact in a non-intuitive way. As a result, I was unable to get Encore blu-ray compliant video using it. You don't happen to know what the correct settings for this are do you?

As a side note, I previously attempted to contact the developer to ask them to create a text box that would allow the operator to pass in a custom set of switches that would override the GUI. I haven't heard from them yet but if they agree, this would be a very powerful tool indeed as we could do direct x264 exports with unlimited flexibility from any application that uses Quicktime (Premier, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, iPhoto, etc.).

Mike

[poisondeathray]

not sure about the quicktime component, sorry

I would imagine it would be checking the correct boxes & matching the options

[BigPines]

Thanks anyway. Yeah, unfortunately the options in the UI don't represent a direct translation to the CLI. Some of the options don't mean anything to me and in my research I have found some of the options change multiple x264 settings. Some switches are used by default no matter what you select so it is very difficult to control. The source is available so I may have to open it up and see if I can create a version that will do what I want.

Mike