Thinking Of Jumping On The MKV Bandwagon

[Tom Saurus]

I have my Hauppauge 150 set to record at 720x480 8000 cbr video and the audio at 256 kbs and 48hz. I have been using Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0 to convert the video to .divx files to play back on my Phillips 5960 Divx Player. The .divx files are in the Home Theater Profile and the bitrate is 1500 for the video with the same dimensions as the original mpeg2 file. Since I have bought a new i5 computer I have begun experimenting with the Freemake Video Converter and the mkv h.264 format. On some videos files which average about 21 minutes in length, the files that I targeted to be about 120mb in size look pretty decent on my 17 inch CRT monitor. The video bitrate for the files is around 640 kbs.

If I want the bitrate in the mkv h.264 file to give me a file on par with the original mpeg2 that equals or perhaps surpasses the .divx file what bitrate do I aim for? I phoned my computer technician today and he can put my an additional hard drive into my my i5 computer for me to begin experimenting with a Hauppauge HD PVR with component input to hopefully give me even better quality captures to start with. He also said that he can get me a media box player called "My Gica" since Future Shop doesn't carry the WD Players at their Canadian Stores. I am going to do some research on "My Gica" today and read up on what kind of files it can play. Thanks in advance for any advice when it comes to bitrates and such. I also want to ask? Is there any advantage of having the h.264 in the mkv container as opposed to the .avi container?

[dragonkeeper]

On some videos files which average about 21 minutes in length, the files that I targeted to be about 120mb in size look pretty decent on my 17 inch CRT monitor. The video bitrate for the files is around 640 kbs.

To me this seems to be a low bitrate for a 720 x 480 video file. You may start to notice artifacts and blurring when these clips are displayed on lets say a 32 inch TV,and the distortions tend to look worse as display size increases. To give you an example I've been using handbrake to convert my DVD TV episodes to MKV, the avarage file size is around 400MB for 45 minutes of video. To me this gives the best quality for file size. These are being viewed on 120" projector screen and looks just as good as the DVD.

If I want the bitrate in the mkv h.264 file to give me a file on par with the original mpeg2 that equals or perhaps surpasses the .divx file what bitrate do I aim for?

This is a subjective question, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, just as is perceived quality. Judging the amount of bitrate used in your mpeg-2 file I would think that a CFR of around 25 (guestimation) would give you a similar quality and a much smaller file size.

Is there any advantage of having the h.264 in the mkv container as opposed to the .avi container?

I'm not sure you can put h264 video in an avi container, (h264 is not part of the standard). There may be hacks to allow you to do this, but your left with a non-standard avi that I'm reasonably sure will not play in any hardware other than a PC.

[Tom Saurus]

dragonkeeper: Thank you for the information you have provided. I kept my original mpeg2 files just in case and I will up the bit rate. I have downloaded HandBrake and I will give it a try. When I use Freemake Video Converter and select the AVI Tab, I have 3 options XVID, h.264 and Mpeg4, so I assumed that h.264 was part of the AVI container. So I suppose my question should be have a h.264 in the mkv container is there an advantage to the file just being h.264?

The CFR option I don't think is available in Freemake Video Converter, so I will look for it in HandBrake. Once again thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

[dragonkeeper]

So I suppose my question should be have a h.264 in the mkv container is there an advantage to the file just being h.264?

I personally use Handbreak to convert files to mkv or mp4. I prefer the mkv container as it allows for various types of audio files and subtitle files to be stored in the container. With mp4 i beleive you limited on the options, which is of concern to me when converting DVDs to mkv or converting content i have captured with my capture card i can skip the step of converting the audio to AAC and use the AC3 audio with in the mkv container.

In my opino at this point and time mkv is the best container as it is the most flexible. With some of my rips of foreign blu-ray movies they have had as many as 6 audio tracks and 8 subtitle tracks. With the MKV container I'm able to create a file that retains each of these tracks.

When I use Freemake Video Converter and select the AVI Tab, I have 3 options XVID, h.264 and Mpeg4, so I assumed that h.264 was part of the AVI container.

No it's not part of the AVI spec but can hacked into the avi container.

The CFR option I don't think is available in Freemake Video Converter, so I will look for it in HandBrake. Once again thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

I'm not familiar with Freemake Video Converter, but in Handbrake it is called constant quality. I've been using handbrake to convert Damages to mkv sing a Constant quality setting of 19 i'm getting an average of 76 frames per second, that's 3 times real-time. Only takes about 15 min to encode an episode. And the batch process in handbrake is very simple to use.

Also were you aware that since you captured your video in mpeg-2 format, that if the broadcast had closed captioning the closed caption should be preserved. You can use CCExtractor to save the Closed Captioning to a subtitle file (srt or one of at least a dozen sub formats). Then use the file in you mkv as a subtitles.

[Tom Saurus]

dragonkeeper: I have installed HandBrake and given it a try. The quality of the video was not as good as I expected. The program seemed intent on cropping the video and I set it to make a 200mb file for the 21 minute video. I am going back to using Freemake Video Converter. I will use what I have learned from the information you provided though and aim for better quality video. Thank you for the information you have provided; it was kind of you to take the time to respond to my questions.

[The Mariner]

Hi Tom,

I use Freemake to transcode the .ts files my recorder makes from SD & HD DTV programs, as well as DVD rips into MKV. My profile for both is H.264 @ 750kbps, size upto 720x576, original frame rate, 2-pass encoding, MP3 @ 128kbps.

These settings meet my 'minimal acceptable' standard so using increased bitrates & resolution will give a better result at the expense of files size.

Hope this helps.

[Tom Saurus]

The Mariner: Thanks I think those settings are helpful to me. I tried an encode today at 1500 kbs and it looked really good, but it was the same size as a divx encode. I am going to try 1200 kbs and a 1000 kbs to see how those look.

[Tom Saurus]

I did a batch encode last night using Freemake Video Converter and used 1000 kbs for the bit rate for the video. I had been using the AAC codec for the audio but I switched to mp3 and noticed the audio seemed louder or more vibrant. The resulting video to my eyes and ears was just as good and even better than my divx encodes and I am quite pleased. I feel comfortable enough that I am going to delete the original mpeg2 files for these particular files soon to save some hard drive space.

The VLC Media Player can play the files and I think I will skip on getting a media player for now. A laptop with VLC Media Player on it and a HDMI output to a larger television gives me all kind of options. I was watching the Shopping Channel the other day and some of the new laptops have the capability of wirelessly sending a video signal to a gizmo hooked to a television and whatever is on your laptop is on your tv screen. I have stayed away from wireless technology because I just don't know if it is safe health wise and protecting your data is another concern.

[Tom Saurus]

I experimented again today and took a 720x480 mpeg2 file that had black bars at the top and bottom and put it into Freemake Video Converter and change the dimensions to 624 x 352. The bit rate was 1000 kbs and it was a mkv h.264. I thought that the resulting video would be out of sync with the audio and the video looks the same as if I had left the dimension the same with the exception that when I play the file on my Mom's widescreen 20 inch lcd screen via her laptop using the VLC Media Player it fills in the screen better. It doesn't fill the entire screen but it comes closer. I think if there is a flaw in the original mpeg2 it gets exaggerated in the mkv files. I notice near the top right hand corner the odd distortion and this is with videos that have not been resized as well. This distortion is not all that frequent and it is kind of like a rectangular box that is there and just as quickly gone. I can get the 720 x 480 video to fill more of the screen by choosing the 16x9 aspect ratio in the VLC Media Player video settings. I am working with standard definition video at the moment.

[Tom Saurus]

While doing some research here at the videohelp website, I read some threads discussing the playback of mkv h.264 files with VLC. It seems Media Player Classic is a better choice to play these type of files. I gave Media Player Classic a try and where the glitches were in the files that were noticable before did not show up while MPC played the files. I also ran across some instructions on how to go into the VLC settings to improve how it plays h.264 files. These settings seemed to work. I will have to change the settings for VLC on my Mom's laptop and test it on her LCD television to be sure.

[Tom Saurus]

I just tested some files using my Mom's laptop and VLC to watch some files on her LCD tv which is a 20 inch 480p TV. The files encoded at 1000kbs looked pretty good and the playback didn't have the flaws it had before. I tried another file encoded at 1500kbs and it is basically the same size in mb's as the my typical DIVX encode, and it looked quite sharp. My friend has a 26 inch monitor, and I think I will play the same file on his and see how it looks. But from my observations the file was sharper than my DIVX encodes and it looked nearly as good as a DVD file and to my way of thinking that is pretty good for a standard definition file.