Problems with H.264 and Staxrip

[ndaher]

Hi guys, I'm at the end of my rope. I've been searching and testing for well over a week now for a program that will encode extremely high-quality H.264 .mp4 in Windows, I have an independent movie I'm submitting to an online download service similar to iTunes, so it needs to be perfect quality. I finally came across Staxrip, and so far the quality is the best yet, were it not for a few problems.

My source video is uncompressed DV .avi, 720x416 (cropped), interlaced. I'm using a resize filter, but no matter what I do the file outputted is 740x416, which of course decreases the video quality. Why is it doing this?

Not only that, but I click on edit preset for audio and put in 128kbps, AAC. The file outputs as 96kbps. And if that weren't enough, it increases the volume by 3db, thereby distoring the audio slightly. I know it's exactly 3db because I can see it in the script code. If I manually change that to 0db it does nothing.

Anyone either have any suggestions on resolving these issues, or have a better suggestion for a program? The quality here is good, but if I can't resolve these issues I wouldn't mind using something else if the quality was comparible or better. I tried MeGUI but couldn't get the input file loaded into the avisynth script, it wouldn't even see it.

Thanks for any help!

[FulciLives]

XVID4PSP and use the PS3 / XBOX 360 profile for MP4.

Use YADIF for deinterlacing.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[ndaher]

XVID4PSP seems to have decent video quality, but not great. The volume is still being boosted, however this program has a setting to adjust that. I'm not totally satisfied with this program though as it doesn't have any resizing algorithms and the quality isn't quite comparible to staxrip. If anyone still has any suggestions on the staxrip issues that would be great

[FulciLives]

When adjusting the volume in XVID4PSP you always want to make sure that the Accurate setting is set to "100" and for the Amplifing setting I use "98" myself although I suppose you could use "100" but I suspect that might be a bit overkill.

Alternatively you could normalize the audio before hand using a program like GOLDWAVE in which case you would want to normalize to a value of -3.0db to 0.0db with -1.0db being a good choice if you want to boost it a bit (0.0db might be a bit too loud).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[poisondeathray]

Regarding image quality: all the programs will give you identical quality if they use the same x264.exe version and settings/filters. They are just front ends. So to say x program gave worse results than y program, it's probably because the settings were different.

For DV converting to a format for online distribution it is paramount that you use a good deinterlacer. TempGaussMC_beta1 is probably the best, but is 10-15x slower than Yadif in mode1. Have a look at this comparison of smart bobbers below

MeGUI couldn't "see" your file because you don't have a DV decoder activated in ffdshow. It defaults to using AVISource() which uses VFW (gold icon). So you can set DV to "libavcodec" instead of "disabled"

Also, processing filters can play a huge role in the final quality. This would depend on the specific source and goals, of course.

DV aspect ratio is 4:3, so if you are using a resizing filter, you should keep square pixels and use 4:3 frame size. This is better than using an anamorphic encode either, encoded at the stream level or using container level signalling - because not all upload sites will acknowlege these methods of aspect ratio signalling and might look distorted. Using square pixels is the only way to ensure it will look correct in every case.

stockholma_0-520_q3_yadif_mvbobmod_tgmca4_tdtmm.avi

[FulciLives]

XVID4PSP has Yadif built in but I don't think it has TempGaussMC

Personally I would just use Yadif

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[ndaher]

Thanx for all the info guys, and thanks for that sample poisondeathray, that really helps! Time isn't an issue for me so I would use the TempGaussMCI deinterlacer with MeGUI, but yadif actually did a very good job in Xvid4PSP, so I'm gonna try encoding the entire movie and see how it comes out. I like the fact that this program has a 3-pass encoding mode, I've never seen that, and it should give me a great size/quality ratio.

[ndaher]

Well I encoded the entire film, and I guess I should have expected this. There are many parts in the movie that look pixelated, especially darker scenes. The sample I tested Xvid4PSP with was a very bright, outdoor scene with lots of contrast, which makes sense. Also, the darker scenes show a very noticeable interlacing, apparently yadif didn't do the trick.

Guess I'm going back to MeGUI so I can use the TempGaussMC deinterlacer, can someone tell me how to install it? I downloaded it and stuck it in the "plugins" folder in Avisynth, but it doesn't show up in MeGUI under the filters tab. Thanks again for any help here

[poisondeathray]

It's not included with any GUI. You have to edit the script manually. You can use xvid4psp, megui , ripbot or any other GUI - they all have options within the GUI to edit the script

Download the "TempGaussMC_beta1.avsi" and put it into the avisynth/plugins directory (the avsi makes it autoloading)

Make sure you deinterlace BEFORE resizing, the order is crucial

Just add this to the script

TempGaussMC_beta1()

In MeGUI, it would be "edit" tab in the script creator. In xvid4psp you access it avisynth=>edit filtering script

Warning: it's very slow, and it is a bobber (double rate)

What settings are you using (2pass? crf mode? vbv?) Pixellation shouldn't occur unless you are using extremely low bitrate or vbv buffer. There are known issues with vbv which have been partially patched in a recent x264 build (but xvid4psp is using an older x264.exe build and hasn't been updated in a while) ; if this isnt' for a device like blu-ray , you don't need a vbv buffer and can avoid these issues entirely.

[ndaher]

I was doing 3-pass but I may lower that now that I'm using TempGaussMC, it could take a week! Thanks for the directions, I just have a few questions regarding what you said.

When you say deinterlace before resizing, does that mean I need to run the video through the program and just deinterlace, then run the outputted file through again resizing and compressing? Or what do you mean by that. Also, does it matter where that string goes in the script, or can I drop it anywhere? Finally should I disable interlacing in the program's settings, because currently it's set to Yadif, so I'm wondering if it'll put the video through both interlacing filters if I don't?

Sorry one more wrench to throw in here. This footage was actually shot in 30p on a Canon XL2, which of course is progressive and doesn't need to be de-interlaced, except that I'm pulling the video from the DVD since I don't have the source footage anymore. DVD video is interlaced, so even though I shot this in 30p I still need to de-interlace, am I right?

[poisondeathray]

I was doing 3-pass but I may lower that now that I'm using TempGaussMC, it could take a week! Thanks for the directions, I just have a few questions regarding what you said.

When you say deinterlace before resizing, does that mean I need to run the video through the program and just deinterlace, then run the outputted file through again resizing and compressing? Or what do you mean by that. Also, does it matter where that string goes in the script, or can I drop it anywhere? Finally should I disable interlacing in the program's settings, because currently it's set to Yadif, so I'm wondering if it'll put the video through both interlacing filters if I don't?

Sorry one more wrench to throw in here. This footage was actually shot in 30p on a Canon XL2, which of course is progressive and doesn't need to be de-interlaced, except that I'm pulling the video from the DVD since I don't have the source footage anymore. DVD video is interlaced, so even though I shot this in 30p I still need to de-interlace, am I right?

Which program are you referring to now?

In terms of order, I mean in the order of operations in the script. You get nasty artifacts if you do the opposite order. You don't have to run in thru several times. The source is decoded frame by frame, and each is processed by the script filters sequentially, and each processed frame is fed to the encoder. It's the order in that script that matters. The deinterlacing has to occur before resizing in the script. The script specifies the specifics for the deinterlacing and resizing, not some other part of the program. Post the script if you are unsure

If the DVD is now the source footage and is interlaced, yes you need to deinterlace if your end goal is to upload content to a streaming site. Is this a different project, or are you combining source inputs ?

[ndaher]

Sorry I'm referring to Xvid4PSP, since I can use TempGaussMC with it I figured on just sticking with that. Ok so in Xvid4PSP I went to "edit filtering script" and pasted that string in there, before the resizing script. It gives me a "there is no function named "TempGaussMC" and won't encode. I have the file in the avisynth plugin folder. Any ideas? Here's the script:

import("C:\Program Files\Winnydows\XviD4PSP5\dlls\AviSynth\functions\ AudioFunctions.avs")
import("C:\Program Files\Winnydows\XviD4PSP5\dlls\AviSynth\functions\ VideoFunctions.avs")
loadcplugin("C:\Program Files\Winnydows\XviD4PSP5\dlls\AviSynth\plugins\ya dif.dll")

DirectShowSource("F:\Book of Being H264\Bookofbeing test 5.avi", fps=29.970, convertfps=true)

TempGaussMC_beta1()
AutoYV12()
Yadif(order=1)
LanczosResize(720, 400)

[poisondeathray]

Do you have the .avsi or .avs file in the plugins directory? You can rename the extension to .avsi if you didn't download it that way

Also turn off deinterlacing, because you have yadif in the script (either turn it off or edit the script & remove that line)

[ndaher]

Ok now we have a new error. Sorry I don't mean to dump all this on you, I actually did try punching this error into google before replying, but nothing useful came up.



if I remove the TempGauss script the error message goes away (it's showing in the video preview window)

[poisondeathray]

Sorry I should have mentioned there are some mandatory pre-requisite filters

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/TempGaussMC

There are links to the required plugins on that wiki page

[ndaher]

Downloaded and copied all the neccessary dll files, still getting the same error message. You know, I hate to waste your time, and I don't think I can spend another couple days troubleshooting this, so I'm just gonna figure something quick out. I don't know what, that interlacing is totally noticeable using yadif, but I just can't spend hours and days on this. Thanks so much for all your help, it's greatly appreciated!