Suggestions For Improving x264.exe Configuration When Encoding DVD's-BD's

[LouieChuckyMerry]

Hello, and as always thanks in advance for any help . After a decade-plus attempting to improve my favorite DVD's and Blu-ray's by ripping then shriveling them (and with MUCH help from the kind folks at VideoHelp) it dawned on me that, although I've evolved quite a bit when it comes to AviSynth filters-plugins, I've not improved one whit when it comes to the seemingly myriad x264.exe settings available. Simply, I feel my x264.exe configuration is a weak link in my process and I'm wanting to improve it. Currently a MediaInfo file from one of my encodes shows:

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High 10@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : xxx min xx s
Bit rate : xxxx kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : xx.xxx FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 10 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : x.xxx
Stream size : xxx xxB (100%)
Writing library : x264 core 165 r3222 b35605a
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=20 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / stitchable=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=81 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=50000 / vbv_bufsize=50000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

and my x264.exe configuration(s) (from MeGUI) are as follows:


[Attachment 91782 - Click to enlarge]

and


[Attachment 91783 - Click to enlarge]

and


[Attachment 91784 - Click to enlarge]

and


[Attachment 91785 - Click to enlarge]

and


[Attachment 91786 - Click to enlarge]

I've tried my best to wrap my head around the seemingly myriad combinations-permutations of x264.exe settings--change the profile and the command line changes, etc.--but it's been a struggle. Ahhh, I play my encodes on an HDTV using an HDMI cable from my laptop, in case that makes a difference. And again, thanks for any help.

P.S.--If anyone has suggestions for improvement, then including the reason(s) why would be very helpful for my understanding .

[Sharc]

If your player plays as is you can leave as is ....

Here the settings for blu-ray compliant encoding - if you need blu-ray compliance at all. You can conclude from this on your GUI settings.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211016213149/http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i-p

Some points:
- Disable 10 bit encoding
- Enable Open GOP
- Enable Blu-ray compatibility
- VBV Buffer Size 30000
- VBV Maximum Bitrate 40000

[LouieChuckyMerry]

If your player plays as is you can leave as is ....

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't improving my x264.exe configuration improve the quality of my encodes?

Here the settings for blu-ray compliant encoding - if you need blu-ray compliance at all. You can conclude from this on your GUI settings.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211016213149/http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i-p

Some points:
- Disable 10 bit encoding
- Enable Open GOP
- Enable Blu-ray compatibility
- VBV Buffer Size 30000
- VBV Maximum Bitrate 40000

Thanks for the info, but I'm simply connecting my laptop to my HDTV via an HDMI cable, so this isn't an issue.

[Sharc]

If your player plays as is you can leave as is ....

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't improving my x264.exe configuration improve the quality of my encodes?

The most immediate impact you will get from the CRF setting, labelled "Quality" in your GUI. It's now at 20. Set it to 16 and set it to 28 and see the visual difference in quality and filesize. Then choose your poison. The rest is much subject to personal preference (for example grain retention), affects encoding time and filesize (compression), and requires pixel peeping.
Btw. x264 settings have been discussed to death in the past (10...15 years ago). There is no one for all or "best" setting (always a compromise between encoding speed, visual quality and filesize aka compression), but the defaults and presets (...fast,medium,slow,very slow...) give usually very good results. Fiddling with details just calls for trouble.
For the CRF meaning etc. scroll down here
http://www.chaneru.com/Roku/HLS/X264_Settings.htm

[hello_hello]

Under the Frame Type tab in MeGUI, the GOP Calculation is set to "FPS based". That means MeGUI will adjust the maximum gop size according to the frame rate. For a 25fps source that means 250 and for a 50fps source it'd be 500 etc.
I discovered the media player in my TV doesn't like large GOPs as it'd sometimes stutter playing high frame rate video, so I changed the setting to "Fixed" and I use a maximum gop size of 250 for everything, which is the x264 default anyway.

A few more cents worth....
10 bit x264 encoding guarantees you'll only ever be ale to play the encoded video using a PC. Almost no hardware supports it.
On the other hand, 10 bit was part of the h265 spec from the get-go, so anything that'll play h265 should happily play both 8 and 10 bit h265.

After I finally built myself a new PC a couple of years ago I did some test encoding with the x265 encoder and as a result I've hardly used x264 since. Unfortunately x265 is a lot slower, but it does generally spit out much smaller files than x264 (for a given CRF value).

[LouieChuckyMerry]

hello_hello to the rescue again (you suggested I add "--vbv-bufsize 50000 and --vbv-maxrate 50000 to my command line about a decade ago. Ouch.) I truly hope you've been well .

Under the Frame Type tab in MeGUI, the GOP Calculation is set to "FPS based". That means MeGUI will adjust the maximum gop size according to the frame rate. For a 25fps source that means 250 and for a 50fps source it'd be 500 etc.
I discovered the media player in my TV doesn't like large GOPs as it'd sometimes stutter playing high frame rate video, so I changed the setting to "Fixed" and I use a maximum gop size of 250 for everything, which is the x264 default anyway.

I've never dealt with a source having more than 30fps, but your suggestion is preventive medicine I'll happily accept.

A few more cents worth....
10 bit x264 encoding guarantees you'll only ever be ale to play the encoded video using a PC. Almost no hardware supports it.
On the other hand, 10 bit was part of the h265 spec from the get-go, so anything that'll play h265 should happily play both 8 and 10 bit h265.

When I began my quest to improve my favorite sources fifteen years ago--ouch again--my research indicated that 10bit was the way to go. Since I still utilize a laptop-HDMI-HDTV set-up, and don't foresee that changing, hardware compatibility isn't a problem. But thanks for the thought.

After I finally built myself a new PC a couple of years ago I did some test encoding with the x265 encoder and as a result I've hardly used x264 since. Unfortunately x265 is a lot slower, but it does generally spit out much smaller files than x264 (for a given CRF value).

Nice! I pine to someday build my dream computer, but that's probably at least five years in the future (at which time I'll pester you for pointers, ha ha), and I remember a handful(plus?) of years ago you were wanting to transition from Win XP to Linux. Is that now the case? I'm still running Win 7 on a couple fifteen-plus year old ThinkPads--please stop laughing--so I'm stuck with x264 (~1.5fps encoding speed; not awesome, but functional). As for file size, that's not an issue for me. I recently rererererere-encoded--new tricks, every time--Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon from my 4K Criterion Blu-ray and, after tone mapping, downscaling, cleaning, and shriveling, wound up with a 2K encode that looks stellar (at least to my eyes) with a video bitrate of 3483 kbps.

Now a(nother) question, basically my OP: What are your thoughts on Super Tweaks to the x264.exe, such as those I see posted online? Some uploaded MediaInfo files I've seen have several dozen command line settings that, as best as I can figure, steal bits from out-of-focus areas of each frame and apply them to in-focus areas (but I certainly could be wrong). For example:

Encoding settings: cpuid=1111039 / frame-threads=5 / numa-pools=32 / wpp / no-pmode / no-pme / no-psnr / no-ssim / log-level=2 / input-csp=1 / input-res=1920x804 / interlace=0 / total-frames=202791 / level-idc=0 / high-tier=1 / uhd-bd=0 / ref=5 / no-allow-non-conformance / no-repeat-headers / annexb / no-aud / no-eob / no-eos / no-hrd / info / hash=0 / temporal-layers=0 / open-gop / min-keyint=23 / keyint=250 / gop-lookahead=0 / bframes=8 / b-adapt=2 / b-pyramid / bframe-bias=0 / rc-lookahead=80 / lookahead-slices=4 / scenecut=40 / no-hist-scenecut / radl=0 / no-splice / no-intra-refresh / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / no-rect / no-amp / max-tu-size=32 / tu-inter-depth=1 / tu-intra-depth=1 / limit-tu=0 / rdoq-level=2 / dynamic-rd=0.00 / no-ssim-rd / signhide / no-tskip / nr-intra=0 / nr-inter=0 / no-constrained-intra / no-strong-intra-smoothing / max-merge=2 / limit-refs=3 / limit-modes / me=3 / subme=3 / merange=57 / temporal-mvp / no-frame-dup / no-hme / weightp / no-weightb / no-analyze-src-pics / deblock=-3:-3 / no-sao / no-sao-non-deblock / rd=5 / selective-sao=0 / no-early-skip / no-rskip / no-fast-intra / no-tskip-fast / no-cu-lossless / no-b-intra / no-splitrd-skip / rdpenalty=0 / psy-rd=2.00 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / psy-bscale=300 / psy-pscale=256 / psy-iscale=96 / no-rd-refine / no-lossless / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rc=abr / bitrate=7500 / qcomp=0.60 / qpstep=4 / stats-write=0 / stats-read=2 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / qscale-mode=0 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30 / aq-mode=3 / no-limit-aq1 / aq-strength=1.20 / aq-strength-edge=1.20 / aq-bias-strength=1.00 / aq-bias-strength-edge=1.00 / limit-aq1-strength=1.00 / no-aq-fast-edge / cutree / cutree-strength=2.00 / cutree-minqpoffs=-69.00 / cutree-maxqpoffs=69.00 / zone-count=0 / no-strict-cbr / qg-size=32 / no-rc-grain / qpmax=69 / qpmin=0 / no-const-vbv / sar=0 / overscan=0 / videoformat=5 / range=0 / colorprim=2 / transfer=2 / colormatrix=2 / chromaloc=0 / display-window=0 / cll=0,0 / min-luma=0 / max-luma=1023 / log2-max-poc-lsb=8 / vui-timing-info / vui-hrd-info / slices=1 / no-opt-qp-pps / no-opt-ref-list-length-pps / no-multi-pass-opt-rps / scenecut-bias=0.05 / no-opt-cu-delta-qp / no-aq-motion / aq-auto=0 / no-hdr10 / no-hdr10-opt / no-dhdr10-opt / no-idr-recovery-sei / analysis-reuse-level=0 / analysis-save-reuse-level=0 / analysis-load-reuse-level=0 / scale-factor=0 / refine-intra=0 / refine-inter=0 / refine-mv=1 / refine-ctu-distortion=0 / no-limit-sao / ctu-info=0 / no-lowpass-dct / refine-analysis-type=0 / copy-pic=1 / max-ausize-factor=1.0 / no-dynamic-refine / no-single-sei / no-hevc-aq / no-svt / no-field / qp-adaptation-range=1.00 / scenecut-aware-qp=0 / conformance-window-offsets / right=0 / bottom=0 / decoder-max-rate=0 / no-vbv-live-multi-pass / no-mcstf / no-alpha / num-views=1 / format=0scc=0 / no-sbrc / no-frame-rc

This is what I'm trying to wrap my head around...

[hello_hello]

Nice! I pine to someday build my dream computer, but that's probably at least five years in the future (at which time I'll pester you for pointers, ha ha), and I remember a handful(plus?) of years ago you were wanting to transition from Win XP to Linux. Is that now the case?

Yes. I tried quite a few different ditros and settled on MX Linux. It was also the first distro I tried that came with video drivers for my AMD CPU (with built-in graphics), but I prefer it for other reasons too. The default Xfce desktop is quite XP-like (old school start menu and taskbar etc).
One of the built-in tools I've used the most is called MX Snapshot (I made a mess of my setup quite a few times early on while I was playing around). It creates an image of your setup and saves it as an ISO image. There's also a "Live USB Maker" utility that creates an installer on a USB stick, using the ISO image, which also doubles as a "live" version, so you can run your setup on any PC directly from the USB stick, or use it to re-install/install the OS on any computer too.
With a fast CPU and SSD drive it takes about 2 minutes to create the ISO image (operating system and program files without my personal files as I back them up separately), and about the same to re-install the OS from the USB stick. I still have all of the Windows programs I wanted to keep using installed. They all run pretty well in Wine, so while I have Windows 11 installed in VirtualBox in case I do need to run something on Windows, I hardly ever need to fire it up.

The encoder settings in your last post are x265 settings, not x264. There's a lot more of them for x265.
I played around with x265's settings when I first started using it as the defaults tend to blur fine detail too much for me. I wouldn't try to claim I'm using the ultimate settings or anything like that, but with the CRF values and settings I'm using, for the same CRF value it's at least as good as x264 now, often a little better, and the file sizes are smaller. Mind you the x265 vs x264 differences I'm referring to are generally very minor and only something you'd see while the video is paused so you can compare frames side-by side. I'm still using the same CRF values I was using with x264. CRF 18 for standard definition, CRF 19 for HD and CRF 20 for FHD. I rarely do any 4k encoding.

[LouieChuckyMerry]

Nice! I pine to someday build my dream computer, but that's probably at least five years in the future (at which time I'll pester you for pointers, ha ha), and I remember a handful(plus?) of years ago you were wanting to transition from Win XP to Linux. Is that now the case?

Yes. I tried quite a few different ditros and settled on MX Linux. It was also the first distro I tried that came with video drivers for my AMD CPU (with built-in graphics), but I prefer it for other reasons too. The default Xfce desktop is quite XP-like (old school start menu and taskbar etc).
One of the built-in tools I've used the most is called MX Snapshot (I made a mess of my setup quite a few times early on while I was playing around). It creates an image of your setup and saves it as an ISO image. There's also a "Live USB Maker" utility that creates an installer on a USB stick, using the ISO image, which also doubles as a "live" version, so you can run your setup on any PC directly from the USB stick, or use it to re-install/install the OS on any computer too.
With a fast CPU and SSD drive it takes about 2 minutes to create the ISO image (operating system and program files without my personal files as I back them up separately), and about the same to re-install the OS from the USB stick. I still have all of the Windows programs I wanted to keep using installed. They all run pretty well in Wine, so while I have Windows 11 installed in VirtualBox in case I do need to run something on Windows, I hardly ever need to fire it up.

Thanks for that; I figure I'll have to move on from Win 7 sooner than later and this helps. Does MX Snapshot only back up the program files by default or is there a choice? And how do you back up your personal files separately? I use Clonezilla (not often enough, ha ha), and it's saved me much pain more times than I care admit. Also, is Wine part of MX Linux? I don't quite understand the last sentence above.

The encoder settings in your last post are x265 settings, not x264. There's a lot more of them for x265.
I played around with x265's settings when I first started using it as the defaults tend to blur fine detail too much for me. I wouldn't try to claim I'm using the ultimate settings or anything like that, but with the CRF values and settings I'm using, for the same CRF value it's at least as good as x264 now, often a little better, and the file sizes are smaller. Mind you the x265 vs x264 differences I'm referring to are generally very minor and only something you'd see while the video is paused so you can compare frames side-by side. I'm still using the same CRF values I was using with x264. CRF 18 for standard definition, CRF 19 for HD and CRF 20 for FHD. I rarely do any 4k encoding.

Anything you'd recommend for improving my x264 configuration? I don't own a 4K TV, but was gifted a 4K Blu-ray of Brotherhood Of The Wolf a couple years ago so I took the time to figure out how to tone map it so that I could then downscale, clean, and shrivel it per usual. Doing this, I found that I get a better result in 2K if I start with a 4K source, so I've collected other favorites in 4K when they're affordable. Plus, idle hands, ha ha.

[davexnet]

Getting into the individual x264 settings is opening a can of worms, but there are plenty of sites
that give tips and suggestions, for example:
https://silentaperture.gitlab.io/mdbook-guide/encoding/x264.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance_Adaptive_Quantization#/media/File:Parkrun_x264_with_VAQ.png
https://ffmpeg.party/guides/x264/

[LouieChuckyMerry]

Getting into the individual x264 settings is opening a can of worms, but there are plenty of sites
that give tips and suggestions, for example:
https://silentaperture.gitlab.io/mdbook-guide/encoding/x264.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance_Adaptive_Quantization#/media/File:Parkrun_x264_with_VAQ.png
https://ffmpeg.party/guides/x264/

davexnet: Thanks for your reply (and I get the can of worms; I think I mostly got lucky when I settled on my settings forever ago). Your first link is what brought me here--after my head exploded--and I'll certainly look into the other two links. Any thoughts on fiddling with the Variance AQ settings?