24 fps and "very fast" = STELLAR DVD rips in Handbreak

[rdeffley]

In the past, I always used - decomb/detelecine (both default) constant quality, and constant frame rate / 29.97 manual (to match NTSC) in Handbreak for my DVD rips. Also, we've obviously been told that slow encode speeds equal better quality and smaller file sizes. So I'd use "slow" (slower, very slow, and placebo are too damn slow). With that said, encodes would take FOREVER. A 42 min TV episode would take 90 mins plus. Also, even though playback was much better than "same as source" there would still be the occasional jitter during camera pans and action scenes. Finally, file sizes weren't what I'd consider small @ 500-600mbs for a SD 42 min TV episode (constant quality 20).

Recently I encoded using these settings on various sources - decomb/de-Telecine (both default) "Very Fast", constant quality, and constant frame rate/24fps manual.

1) Playback was smooth for the entire duration on every rip. No stutter of any kind.

2) The resolution was considerably sharper. It looked borderline HD like watching an upscaled DVD with a blu-ray player.

3) Very fast was lightning speed @ 75-90 fps and got the episodes done in 12-14 mins.

4) I was expecting huge file sizes because of the encode speed. However, the file sizes were TINY. Using CQ 20, 42 min episodes were 280-300mb's and the quality didn't suffer. It looked just as good as the slow presets.

[Hoser Rob]

The only frakkin' reason yo9u're getting better results with the fastest settings is because you're using the slow settings wrong.

[jman98]

Additionally you could just let your encodes run while you sleep or are away from home (ie. at work), but I am beyond being tired at pointing this obvious fact out to people who are unwilling to consider it.

[jagabo]

In the past, I always used... constant frame rate / 29.97

That is wrong for virtually all sources and explains your poor motion and lesser quality. Most movies and TV shows are shot on film and should be IVTC'd to 23.976 fps.

[loninappleton]

Then what is the correct way to use slow settings if the poster is wrong?

Also I tried the 23.976 fps on a disk and got frame dropping until I redid it with 29.97. Frame dropping here meaning there was a motion problem in playback-- herky jerky.

[manono]

Then what is the correct way to use slow settings if the poster is wrong?

The poster was dead wrong. His stuttering playback during pans was a direct result of encoding films for 29.97fps. What he attributed to other settings was just him encoding for the wrong framerate.

Also I tried the 23.976 fps on a disk and got frame dropping until I redid it with 29.97. Frame dropping here meaning there was a motion problem in playback-- herky jerky.

Well, not everything is supposed to be 23.976fps, and not everything can be handled properly by Handbrake. For an answer how about uploading a small piece from the source?

[rdeffley]

I know the general consensus is to encode MOST sources @ 23.96. But 24 fps is the only frame rate to offer completely smooth playback.

Also, I've done tests using "slow" vs "very fast" and there is maybe a 3-5% difference in quality if that. It is BARELY noticeable if at all. Considering the file sizes are even smaller than the slower speeds and the encodes are 3x as fast, I'll take a very tiny dip in quality. Also, I find it interesting that "very fast" is now the default encode setting in Handbreak. Goes to show that it isn't a bad route to go.

[hello_hello]

I know the general consensus is to encode MOST sources @ 23.96. But 24 fps is the only frame rate to offer completely smooth playback.

Movies on DVD are mostly 23.976fps. DVDs are 50.940 interlaced frames per second, or 29.970fps. If pulldown is removed you're left with a movie at 23.976fps. There's nothing Handbrake can do to correctly adjust it to 24fps. Not that it'd be necessary. All that'd do is speed it up a tad. How that'd make playback more smooth, I have no idea. If you force Handbrake to output a DVD encode at 24fps I think it'd do so by duplicating frames now and then, the output video would have more frames than the source and playback would be less smooth. To output 24fps you'd want to speed the frame rate up a little so the output video would have the same number of frames as the source, but I don't think Handbrake can do that.
(Some TVs have a film mode that may only be activated when a player is playing 24fps video, but that's to do with the TV's refresh rate being adjusted to an exact multiple of the frame rate. Film mode aside, encoding DVDs at 24fps couldn't make playback smoother)

Also, I've done tests using "slow" vs "very fast" and there is maybe a 3-5% difference in quality if that. It is BARELY noticeable if at all. Considering the file sizes are even smaller than the slower speeds and the encodes are 3x as fast, I'll take a very tiny dip in quality. Also, I find it interesting that "very fast" is now the default encode setting in Handbreak. Goes to show that it isn't a bad route to go.

Handbrake has a number of it's own presets using various x264 settings. Unless it's change (I don't have the current version installed) Handbrake's "Normal" preset uses the x264 very fast speed preset. Handbrake's High Profile preset uses the default x264 settings and that includes the x264 medium speed preset. I find it equally as interesting the default x264 speed preset is medium.

[jagabo]

If you encode a normal film source with Handbrake at 24 fps instead of 23.976 fps the program will insert a duplicate frame every 1001 frames. That will cause a jerk every ~42 seconds.

One place where the difference between the veryfast and fast presets is very obvious is in grainy shots, especially dark grainy shots. Veryfast will give a lot more posterization than slow. Compare the attached clips.

[smitbret]

I know the general consensus is to encode MOST sources @ 23.96. But 24 fps is the only frame rate to offer completely smooth playback.

Also, I've done tests using "slow" vs "very fast" and there is maybe a 3-5% difference in quality if that. It is BARELY noticeable if at all. Considering the file sizes are even smaller than the slower speeds and the encodes are 3x as fast, I'll take a very tiny dip in quality. Also, I find it interesting that "very fast" is now the default encode setting in Handbreak. Goes to show that it isn't a bad route to go.

Why would there be any quality difference between slow and very fast? All else being equal, the only differences between the two should be encoding speed and the target file size. If that weren't the case, then that would defeat the whole purpose of the CQ/RF setting in the first place.

[smitbret]

If you encode a normal film source with Handbrake at 24 fps instead of 23.976 fps the program will insert a duplicate frame every 1001 frames. That will cause a jerk every ~42 seconds.

One place where the difference between the veryfast and fast presets is very obvious is in grainy shots, especially dark grainy shots. Veryfast will give a lot more posterization than slow. Compare the attached clips.

What encoder did you use?

Your file size seems backward. The Very Fast setting should have given you a larger file size than slow, not the other way around.

I am not the least bit surprised that the the Very Fast is lower quality given the lower bitrate AND less aggressive settings.

[sophisticles]

If you encode a normal film source with Handbrake at 24 fps instead of 23.976 fps the program will insert a duplicate frame every 1001 frames. That will cause a jerk every ~42 seconds.

One place where the difference between the veryfast and fast presets is very obvious is in grainy shots, especially dark grainy shots. Veryfast will give a lot more posterization than slow. Compare the attached clips.

Neither encode is what I would consider watchable, but then again Star Trek is very hard to re-encode, probably because Star Trek Blu-Rays, at least the ones I have seen use a professional grade VC-1 encoder while you guys are testing with an encoder meant for streaming and meant to be used in semi-pro environments.

x264 is well known to have issues with blacks, I hope that didn't come off the wrong way, fades and cross fades and more importantly its psychovisual enhancements while at times do a great job have a known issue of causing artifacts at the point where a high detail area meets a low detail area.

I never re-encode anything that's originally encoded with VC-1, I would only do so if I had access to an enterprise class encoder, such as Sonic's Cinevision or the CCE HD based encoders.

Currently, if I wanted to encode the highest quality Blu-Ray at a reasonable price, I would reach for Sorenson's Squeeze and use that VC-1 encoder, best quality of the reasonably priced encoders, including the free ones, by far.

Or I would just wait until the h265 encoders mature and use that in a couple of years.

But I would never do what you guys are doing.

[jagabo]

If you encode a normal film source with Handbrake at 24 fps instead of 23.976 fps the program will insert a duplicate frame every 1001 frames. That will cause a jerk every ~42 seconds.

One place where the difference between the veryfast and fast presets is very obvious is in grainy shots, especially dark grainy shots. Veryfast will give a lot more posterization than slow. Compare the attached clips.

What encoder did you use?

x264 CLI.

Your file size seems backward. The Very Fast setting should have given you a larger file size than slow, not the other way around.

No, it's a quirk of the encoder settings. Higher subme settings deliver higher quality but they also require more bitrate. Overall, veryfast and slow usually deliver about the same file size with CRF encoding. The presets in between usually deliver larger files.

I am not the least bit surprised that the the Very Fast is lower quality given the lower bitrate AND less aggressive settings.

Of course it's no surprise. Even if you lower the CRF of the veryfast encode to get the same bitrate as the slow encode for that clip there is still a lot of posterization -- veryfast, CRF=16.85 (same bitrate as slow encoding) encoding attached.

I made the earlier post as a response to rdeffley's claim that that there's little visible (and file size) difference between veryfast and slow encodes. Though somewhat true, there are notable exceptions he should be aware of.

[jagabo]

Star Trek is very hard to re-encode, probably because Star Trek Blu-Rays, at least the ones I have seen use a professional grade VC-1 encoder

It's from a Blu-ray rip. The original codec is AVC. It was cropped and downscaled (BicubicResize in AviSynth) to 1280x544. The x264 slow encoding doesn't look much different from the source.

[smitbret]

If you encode a normal film source with Handbrake at 24 fps instead of 23.976 fps the program will insert a duplicate frame every 1001 frames. That will cause a jerk every ~42 seconds.

One place where the difference between the veryfast and fast presets is very obvious is in grainy shots, especially dark grainy shots. Veryfast will give a lot more posterization than slow. Compare the attached clips.

Neither encode is what I would consider watchable, but then again Star Trek is very hard to re-encode, probably because Star Trek Blu-Rays, at least the ones I have seen use a professional grade VC-1 encoder while you guys are testing with an encoder meant for streaming and meant to be used in semi-pro environments.

x264 is well known to have issues with blacks, I hope that didn't come off the wrong way, fades and cross fades and more importantly its psychovisual enhancements while at times do a great job have a known issue of causing artifacts at the point where a high detail area meets a low detail area.

I never re-encode anything that's originally encoded with VC-1, I would only do so if I had access to an enterprise class encoder, such as Sonic's Cinevision or the CCE HD based encoders.

Currently, if I wanted to encode the highest quality Blu-Ray at a reasonable price, I would reach for Sorenson's Squeeze and use that VC-1 encoder, best quality of the reasonably priced encoders, including the free ones, by far.

Or I would just wait until the h265 encoders mature and use that in a couple of years.

But I would never do what you guys are doing.

Seriously, I smell some trolling here. Do we need to start a new .h264 vs. VC-1 thread?

[sophisticles]

Seriously, I smell some trolling here. Do we need to start a new .h264 vs. VC-1 thread?

"Trolling"? Why is what I said "trolling"? do not confuse VC-1 with Microsoft's WMV9 Advanced Profile, which is Microsoft's version of a VC-1 codec. I'm talking about professional grade VC-1, like the one that Sorenson uses.

But if you have nothing better to do, feel free to start a "H264 vs VC-1 thread".

In response to:

It's from a Blu-ray rip. The original codec is AVC. It was cropped and downscaled (BicubicResize in AviSynth) to 1280x544. The x264 slow encoding doesn't look much different from the source.

The Star Trek Blu-ray's I own all use the VC-1 codec; which Star Trek movie is that clip from?

[rdeffley]

Right now, I'm encoding the show "Nowhere Man" (the most badass show you've never seen or heard of). Shot in the mid 90's so there is a ton of grain and artifacts. I used "very fast" on a few episodes and the end result didn't look that great. So I researched and found a good advanced settings formula (never used advanced settings before) This also lead to a slower encode preset. But even though it took a little over an hour for one episode, I have to admit that it looked FANTASTIC. So I can admit when I was wrong.

But I will say that I think the quality of the source material has a lot to do with it. On HD and DVD rips with more recent shows, "very fsst" has served me well. However, even though I hate the idea of it taking 60-90 mins PER EPISODE, I'm switching to advanced and slower speed from now on. It will make the good encodes look even better.

[smitbret]

Seriously, I smell some trolling here. Do we need to start a new .h264 vs. VC-1 thread?

"Trolling"? Why is what I said "trolling"? do not confuse VC-1 with Microsoft's WMV9 Advanced Profile, which is Microsoft's version of a VC-1 codec. I'm talking about professional grade VC-1, like the one that Sorenson uses.

But if you have nothing better to do, feel free to start a "H264 vs VC-1 thread".

Well, because the h264 encoder that we can use for free with Handbrake is the same freakin' encoder that Hollywood uses for AVC/h264.

If they are using VC-1 then the whole debate is simply VC-1 vs. h264.

[poisondeathray]

Well, because the h264 encoder that we can use for free with Handbrake is the same freakin' encoder that Hollywood uses for AVC/h264.

No major studio releases , and very few titles (less than a handful) have used x264 for offical BD releases . Most have use CCE-HD or the discontinued Sony Blu-Code for AVC



And no VC-1 implementation comes close to AVC, especially x264, at low bitrates. It's not even in the same ballpark. But at typical blu-ray bitrates (~25-35 Mb/s), it's difficult to see differences between anything

Sorensen uses a licensed version of the Mainconcept VC-1 SDK. It's a limited feature version than what is used in their Studio versions.

[sophisticles]

Seriously, I smell some trolling here. Do we need to start a new .h264 vs. VC-1 thread?

"Trolling"? Why is what I said "trolling"? do not confuse VC-1 with Microsoft's WMV9 Advanced Profile, which is Microsoft's version of a VC-1 codec. I'm talking about professional grade VC-1, like the one that Sorenson uses.

But if you have nothing better to do, feel free to start a "H264 vs VC-1 thread".

Well, because the h264 encoder that we can use for free with Handbrake is the same freakin' encoder that Hollywood uses for AVC/h264.

If they are using VC-1 then the whole debate is simply VC-1 vs. h264.

So you're telling me that Hollywood, every single studio, uses handbrake coupled with x264 for their Blu-Ray encodes?

So I guess Sony has discontinued Blu-Code, Sonic has discontinued Cinevision, Main Concept has discontinued their Enterprise AVC encoder, Elemental has discontinued their GPU powered AVC encoder, no one has licensed CCE HD to create their own AVC offering, Ateme is out of business and I don't own any Blu-Rays encoded with VC-1.

I guess I was wrong then

[sophisticles]

And no VC-1 implementation comes close to AVC, especially x264, at low bitrates. It's not even in the same ballpark. But at typical blu-ray bitrates (~25-35 Mb/s), it's difficult to see differences between anything
.

No encoder without some sort of filtering or psycho-visual aid is going to match x264 at low bit rates, x264 was obviously made to target low bit rate streaming scenarios, if that's what you want then you reach for x264, crank up all the analysis settings, enable all the psycho-visual stuff and you call it a night. Of course that means you have also decided that you will live with the limitations I spoke of earlier.

However, if you have a really high quality source, for instance if you had footage shot with a 4k, 5k or 6k camera, that you framed and graded in something like 3k, then used that as your source for Blu-Ray authoring, to my eyes nothing beats VC-1.

If there's interest, maybe we could do a comparison, I'm not too crazy about Tears of Steel, if someone knows of a similarly legally free movie available in losslessly compressed 4k, I would be happy to do a couple of BD compliant test encodes.

[poisondeathray]

Currently, if I wanted to encode the highest quality Blu-Ray at a reasonable price, I would reach for Sorenson's Squeeze and use that VC-1 encoder, best quality of the reasonably priced encoders, including the free ones, by far.

Or I would just wait until the h265 encoders mature and use that in a couple of years.

But I would never do what you guys are doing.

VC-1 ? Come on, that is terrible advice

People re-encode to make backups at lower filesizes (lower bitrates) . That's what this thread is about. That's the reason for re-encoding a blu-ray in the first place. This thread is not about producing retail BD's from studio masters

It makes no difference if the original used MPEG2, VC1 or AVC . Because it decoded to uncompressed before it's recompressed

It's going to look bad with any VC-1 implementation unless you use moderately high bitrates. If you want proof , I've got plenty of it. If you were going to use VC-1, then you might as well keep the orginal 1:1 copy .

If you're talking studio encoders, high BD bitrates , yes, you touched on some of x264 weaknesses and some of the reasons why it's not used. But at lower bitrates, nobody with half a brain would use a studio encoder for low bitrate encodes. They are poor at low bitrates - they are tuned for high BD bitrates. Use the right tool for the job.

[poisondeathray]

And no VC-1 implementation comes close to AVC, especially x264, at low bitrates. It's not even in the same ballpark. But at typical blu-ray bitrates (~25-35 Mb/s), it's difficult to see differences between anything
.

No encoder without some sort of filtering or psycho-visual aid is going to match x264 at low bit rates, x264 was obviously made to target low bit rate streaming scenarios, if that's what you want then you reach for x264, crank up all the analysis settings, enable all the psycho-visual stuff and you call it a night. Of course that means you have also decided that you will live with the limitations I spoke of earlier.

However, if you have a really high quality source, for instance if you had footage shot with a 4k, 5k or 6k camera, that you framed and graded in something like 3k, then used that as your source for Blu-Ray authoring, to my eyes nothing beats VC-1.

If there's interest, maybe we could do a comparison, I'm not too crazy about Tears of Steel, if someone knows of a similarly legally free movie available in losslessly compressed 4k, I would be happy to do a couple of BD compliant test encodes.

Hint: this thread is not about producing BD compliant encodes . It's not about producing BD's. In fact, it was originally about making low bitrate backups from a DVD source. That' s why it's posted under "DVD Ripping"

You're trolling in the wrong thread again . If you want to start a BD compliant encode thread , go ahead

[sophisticles]

You're trolling in the wrong thread again . If you want to start a BD compliant encode thread , go ahead

That's the second accusation of "trolling" by as many posters, I'm starting to think that this forum is composed of members that use the label "troll" as a means to try and shut up anyone that says something they don't like.

I think it's you guys that are trolling, this thread was started by a guy that claimed that faster x264 settings within Hand Brake resulted in higher quality encodes. There was some back and forth and I added the opinion that I wouldn't be doing what the other members were talking about and invariably you guys accuse me of "trolling".

Great, do whatever you guys want, it's not my content that will suffer.

[poisondeathray]

You're trolling in the wrong thread again . If you want to start a BD compliant encode thread , go ahead

That's the second accusation of "trolling" by as many posters, I'm starting to think that this forum is composed of members that use the label "troll" as a means to try and shut up anyone that says something they don't like.

I think it's you guys that are trolling, this thread was started by a guy that claimed that faster x264 settings within Hand Brake resulted in higher quality encodes. There was some back and forth and I added the opinion that I wouldn't be doing what the other members were talking about and invariably you guys accuse me of "trolling".

Great, do whatever you guys want, it's not my content that will suffer.

I actually agree with some of your observations here about x264. Those are well known established facts.

The point is you're talking about something else - higher bitrate encoding , and for blu-ray (e.g from a studio master.) That is not the topic of this thread . Nobody said anything about blu ray authoring... Isn't that "trolling ?" . At the very least it's not on topic


If you want to talk about BD encoding, I would gladly discuss it over in another thread

You already agreed that nothing would come close to x264 at lower bitrates, didn't you ?

Take your VC-1 Star Trek BD and encode it at "typical" backup rates, ~8-12Mb/s, with typical settings , not BD restricted - Which encoder do you think will produce better results ? Which encode do you think will actually "suffer" ?

The fact is VC-1 and AVC can look good at high bitrates. Hell , even MPEG2 can look good at high bitrates



If someone doesn't want content to "suffer", they don't use VC-1 using BD profile. They would keep the original studio master, or encode with 10bit 422 , not "dumb it down" to 8bit 4:2:0

[smitbret]

You're trolling in the wrong thread again . If you want to start a BD compliant encode thread , go ahead

That's the second accusation of "trolling" by as many posters, I'm starting to think that this forum is composed of members that use the label "troll" as a means to try and shut up anyone that says something they don't like.

I think it's you guys that are trolling, this thread was started by a guy that claimed that faster x264 settings within Hand Brake resulted in higher quality encodes. There was some back and forth and I added the opinion that I wouldn't be doing what the other members were talking about and invariably you guys accuse me of "trolling".

Great, do whatever you guys want, it's not my content that will suffer.

It's not that your info is wrong, it's just misplaced in this thread. Your contribution devolved it into yet another VC-1 vs. h264 thread.

sophisticles
"But I would never do what you guys are doing."

That's fine, but what helpful contribution can you make to this thread?

[sophisticles]

sophisticles
"But I would never do what you guys are doing."

That's fine, but what helpful contribution can you make to this thread?

You already quoted my helpful contribution. For DVD "backups", if I really want to rip a DVD to my hard drive and re-encode it for some reason, I reach for the latest 5 series build of XVID4PSP. I load up the rip, crop out any black borders, depending on how much was cropped I then resize according using one of the better resize filters (it includes about 20 of them).

If the source is telecined I would IVTC, if the source was interlaced I would use either TFM or TDeint, perhaps apply some color correction, depending on how bad the source is I may use one of the many denoise and or sharpening filters to clean up the source a bit, then I would export the whole thing most likely as a lossless.

I would then load up that lossless into a GUI that supports x265 and encode.

Alternatively, I would use Hybrid since that offer much of the same functionality of XVID4PSP but allows me to export to x265 in one go.

It really depends, I find XVID4PSP to be better than Hybrid but if you don't need to do too much you may be better off just using that in one go. The only problem is that Hybrid sometimes seems to just hang on an encoding job for no apparent reason, so 9 times out of 10 I go the XVID4PSP route, IF I really want to try and clean up and re-encode I go the XVID4PSP route.

I saw this software and roughly the same method suggested on this forum a while ago and it seems to be pretty good,

[hello_hello]

sophisticles
"But I would never do what you guys are doing."

That's fine, but what helpful contribution can you make to this thread?

You already quoted my helpful contribution. For DVD "backups", if I really want to rip a DVD to my hard drive and re-encode it for some reason, I reach for the latest 5 series build of XVID4PSP. I load up the rip, crop out any black borders, depending on how much was cropped I then resize according using one of the better resize filters (it includes about 20 of them).

But it's not something you would ever do?????

[rdeffley]

You're trolling in the wrong thread again . If you want to start a BD compliant encode thread , go ahead

That's the second accusation of "trolling" by as many posters, I'm starting to think that this forum is composed of members that use the label "troll" as a means to try and shut up anyone that says something they don't like.

I think it's you guys that are trolling, this thread was started by a guy that claimed that faster x264 settings within Hand Brake resulted in higher quality encodes.

Actually I never said that faster settings in Handbreak resulted in "higher quality" encodes. To me, this sounds like you're saying I've said that "very fast" produces better looking encodes than slower speeds. I've always admitted that "very fast" is slightly less quality. What I said is that the new default "very fast" produces encodes that still look really good with minimal quality loss (3-5%). The real question for me is, does the substantial increase in encode time justify results that are slightly better?

Now on older sources I've encoded like Nowhere Man, Silk Stalkings, The Flash, etc that were filmed on video in the mid 90's, using advanced settings and slower speeds produced noticeably better looking encodes. But as I said previously, if you have really good source material like HD or recent DVD's, "very fast" gives you a nice quality encode with minimal quality loss @ 3x the speed. I think that's why "very fast" is now the default in Handbreak as opposed to medium.

[sophisticles]

But it's not something you would ever do?????

Under normal circumstances? No. I prefer to just keep it as it is and use the software players built in filters and my video card to make the output acceptable, in the case of a less than stellar dvd. But, perhaps if I wanted to encode it for a stand alone device, then I would do as I outlined.

To each his own.