Vidcoder preset help

[TriggerThumb]

Hi all,

I'm looking to transcode some of my dvd collection with Vidcoder.

Looking at the 'Normal' profile it seems to be defaulting to the x264 very fast preset. First of all, is this correct or should I be changing this to a slower setting to preserve quality?

I'm looking to do batch converting over night so I need the encoding speed to be fairly quick but not at the expense of any noticeable quality. If the only real issue is bloated file size then I can live with that.

Also, when i've experimented with Vidcoder in the past i've always used an RF quality of 20 but that was using the medium x264 setting. Would it be worth lowering the RF to something like 18 to compensate for the faster encoding speed?

I've also checked the latest version of Handbrake and that is also defaulting the x264 to the very fast preset.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Its been such a long time since I transcoded anything and I assume x264 encoding is more finely tuned than ever now.

[jagabo]

Veryfast, compared to say, Slow, delivers slightly lower quality. You'll see a little more posterization and slightly rougher edges on moving objects.

If you look at the file size generated by the various presets (using CRF encoding) Ultrafast and Superfast give much larger files than Veryfast. Faster, Fast, and Medium usually give slightly larger files than Veryfast. It's not until you get up to Slow, Veryslow and Placebo that you start seeing the files get a little smaller than Veryfast.

With DVD sources I usually use Slow because it only my computer about 20 minutes to convert a movie at that setting. And the small frame size will be blown up to full screen when watching on TV, so defects will be more obvious. With HD encodes you might want to use the faster presets to speed up processing. And defects won't be blown up as much when watching on TV.

[loninappleton]

If this is a general help thread on presets, I would like to know which preset used with WinXP and playback VLC as the player gives the smallest size with reasonable quality. My monitor is old style CRT and I never move it off the lowest resolution (for largest image) settings.

currently I am making a sample with just the default settings and burned in subtitle file.
The content on this sample is black and white from an old movie.

In the past Vidcoder has produced large files and a lot of heat to my cpu. Please consider this in answer.

[hello_hello]

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Its been such a long time since I transcoded anything and I assume x264 encoding is more finely tuned than ever now.

If you haven't used anamorphic encoding before it might pay to experiment a little if you're using a hardware player to see what it supports.
If you select Anamorphic "strict", (under the Picture tab) the encoded video will use the same pixel aspect ratio as the source DVD. It relies on the player resizing the video to the correct aspect ratio on playback just as it would for the original DVD. Not all hardware players support aspect ratios in MKV/MP4 files.
Anamorphic "none" resizes to square pixels (as is generally done when converting to Xvid/AVI). A modulus of 2 will give you the most accurate resizing. Checking the "keep aspect ratio" box should get Vidcoder to make sure it's right, even if you manually change the width or height.

I use the "square pixel" method so as not worry about anamorphic hardware player support. Traditionally DVDs are resized to square pixel dimensions by reducing the height (ie 720x400), but it can be done by increasing the width instead (ie 854x480 for 16:9 NTSC), which might help retain fine detail, although it'll increase the file size.

If this is a general help thread on presets, I would like to know which preset used with WinXP and playback VLC as the player gives the smallest size with reasonable quality. My monitor is old style CRT and I never move it off the lowest resolution (for largest image) settings.

Vidcoder/Handbrake's High Profile preset uses the default x264 settings, including the x264 medium speed preset (which you can change), although it defaults to a CRF value of 20, whereas I think the x264 default is 23 (lower quality). It also specifies High Profile, Level 4.1. There's probably no reason to change that unless you know you need to (ie for playback compatibility with some/older hardware players).

Like jagabo I tend to mostly use the Slow x264 speed preset, although I use Medium sometimes if I'm in more of a hurry.
There's no magic "smallest size" preset as such. CRF18 is roughly where the x264 encoder is considered to be transparent. Higher values produce lower quality and smaller file sizes. The file size is also determined by the resolution (ie how or if the video is resized). Resolution and CRF value really come down to personal preference, but even at the same CRF value and resolution the file sizes will vary quite a bit.

In the past Vidcoder has produced large files and a lot of heat to my cpu. Please consider this in answer.

Faster x264 speed presets may not push a CPU as hard, although I've never used anything faster than Medium myself so I'm not sure. As a general rule the idea is to push the CPU as hard as possible to encode in the shortest time possible, but naturally the CPU will get hot if it's running at 100% for any length of time. The x264 encoder is much better at utilising all CPU cores than Xvid.

How hot is a lot of heat? CPUs can get quite hot and it mightn't be anything to worry about. This old (dual core) PC runs on the stock CPU cooler. x264 encoding on a warm day can easily have it running at 70 degrees or more. I've literally run it like that for days without a problem. I think the core temperature at which it starts to slow itself down is around 100 or 110 degrees.

[loninappleton]

@hello_hello

As usual much to consider in your response. I will carefully read it. Here is my progress.

Since I posted the thread I've been flying without a net. I have experimented with a few things including WinFF, the gui for FFmpeg. That option for MS Compatible AVI worked for the video. I wasn't getting much response to the question so I've improvised using Win FF on the M4V produced in Handbrake to get an AVI that I could work with as you've instructed for doing audio compression and then remuxing in Virtual Dub. It's all I know. And when I finally got some video that wasn't distorted and the audio file was the same size down to the second I put the video and new audio together as we've discussed in the past.

The AVI looked kind of shakey at the beginning but it's watchable. I may have tried to "fix" the audio too much in Goldwave to get the desired effect. The more dynamic parts still come through louder where spoken word is the primary goal for late night viewing. If using the Levelator only that might be enough as it has been in previous jobs.

Handbrake, Vidcoder seem to make less heat on my two core rather than the three core system I use and encode time is pretty much the same. It is a mystery. One the two core AMD temp stays at about 50C. On my AMD 3 core Rana it runs at 100% for the whole job and the temp just climbs until I get worried and shut it down, done with job or not. My next buy will be a 65w cpu FM2 board rated at 95d. That's 30% for safety.

Vidcoder makes adding subtitles easy once you know where to look. Some of the off the shelf progs like DVDFab will drop the subtitle file and I won't know how to add it. It did not show in DVDShrink either. The output of a black and white film from 1953 came out in a really small size (preferred) using Vidcoder this time. I say this time because I have not got good control on size. It's just things I don't know. But I've used some different tools this time in the rip step.

The options are still confusing. I only started this thread because Handbrake was the prog. with which I was able to do the rip step.

[hello_hello]

I read your previous thread regarding using your process to modify the audio of the output file Handbrake created, but due to the last sentence of your opening post I never replied.

I've never used Winff.

For Handbrake I'd get it to copy the original audio (so you're not re-encoding it twice). Handbrake doesn't create an intermediate wave file as AutoGK does anyway (so re-encoding the audio with Handbrake won't help there), but if you use MKV as the output container you can easily extract the audio with MKVCleaver once HandBrake is finished. From there you can do whatever you want to it. Once you're done, open the MKV Handbrake created with MKVMergeGUI, deselect the existing audio, add the modified version, and resave it as a new MKV.

It's probably an easier process aside from the fact you'll be extracting the audio in it's original form, which might be stereo or multichannel AC3 or DTS etc. I don't know which formats Goldwave can open or whether you'd need to manually downmix any multichannel audio to stereo yourself, or whether Goldwave can do that for you.

Anyway.... as long as you get Handbrake to copy the audio and use MKV as the output container, extracting it with MKVCleaver is very easy. If you need help downmixing/converting it in order to load it into Goldwave (I assume you'd want to downmix/convert it to a wave file as it's lossless).... that's not too hard.

Are you still trying to finish up with an AVI or are you happy with h264/MKV?

[loninappleton]

I knew I was getting the silent treatment. It's a hot button issue with me. A personal quirk.

I have MKV toolnix etc and MKVmerge seems similar to what was done to replace the audio in an AVI. Is there some special knowledge to get MKVtoolnix, merge etc installed correctly... like where support programs are installed? It's possible I should just reinstall it and start over.

[hello_hello]

I use the portable version myself (no installation required). Just unzip it to a folder somewhere and run it.
"mmg.exe" is the file to run for MKVMergeGUI. I just create a shortcut to it. If you use the "installer" version I'm pretty sure it creates the shortcuts for you. There shouldn't be anything else required. MKVMergeGUI doesn't require any other programs be installed to run, although MKVCleaver needs MKVToolnix installed in order to work.

If you happen to have MeGUI still installed, you'll already have MKVToolnix/MKVMergeGUI. For me (XP) it's located here:
C:\Program Files\MeGUI\tools\mkvmerge\mmg.exe

[loninappleton]

I'm an old XP user as well. Never wanted to update to the Longhorn versions.

Recently I did the update procedure for MeGUI. There doesn't seem to have been any major revisions for 6 months.

I will review your notes and try to work up a step by step procedure. I know I never worked on the guides I said I would. Perhaps all this is still to esoteric for wide appeal. I have reverted to a paper file system with procedures on file tabs.

[loninappleton]

A new adventure. I have to increase the file size on a different item due to some glitches I noticed. I think you call it frame dropping. It's still a preset question for Vidcoder.

Vidcoder makes adding hardsubs easy. But the file size needs to be raised from a meager 153mb. I don't rightly know how this was accomplished save for the m4v file format. All this defaulted when I did my last upgrade of Vidcoder. I will come back with a sensible question in a bit after reading over things.