Motion search precision settings in TMPGEnc

[legionpc]

Just wondering, if I increase the setting from Normal to high or very high, will there be less/no blocks when you get fast movement on the video?

I would try myself, but my 266Mhz CPU takes a LONG time to do even a normal settings one - on high the time doubles. So I don't want to bother unless im guaranteed results.

thanks to anyone who can help

[mats.hogberg]

Yes, that's the point of motion search, I take it! But even I very seldom use it, even if I have a 1700MHz. I don't want to think about what encoding times you'll get on a 266MHz! I've tried a few times, when I've set avg bitrate extremely low (to squeeze a movie on to 1 CD). I can't tell how much of a difference it made, as I didn't do a "normal motion search" encoding of the same material.

/Mats

[legionpc]

Ok, thanks.

Anyone out there who can tell me exactly how much of a difference the jump from normal to high would make? Tommorow I'll be encoding a 45-minute video, and on normal it'll take about 7 hours. If the blockiness reduction is worth it, I'll opt for high and it'll take me 13-14 hours.

Anyone?

[Xtasy2002]

The difference is amazing, you have to trust me. When I first started doing movies, every one looked really blocky & choppy. It's because I use a low bitrate on the movies, like 2000 kbps. When I set motion search to HIGH, every movie that came out after that was 99% free of blocks.

So yes, there are 2 ways to get rid of blocks in the movie: First is to raise the bitrate to high levels, but I assume you don't have the space for that.. Second is to set motion search to high. Both work equally well. If you can live with the blocks, leave it alone. But for me the blocks ruined the video.

[BodyMaker]

Theres Virtually no picture quality difference between :-

High Quality ( slow )
Highest Quality (very slow )

And on the first one its much quicker

[legionpc]

Well, the bitrate is just the default vcd template that came with tmpgenc. So CBR 1150kbps. I believe the source video before encoding was the same - so increasing bitrate wouldn't actually help would it, since the original file was only 1150kbps.

I'll give high a go. I hope its worth it :P

[Heflink]

It also depends on the source video though.. if the file you are encoding from has a lot of motion blocks then it's not going to do much (from my experience). There is a guide here on how to improve quality.. but it's results aren't astounding.

[Saito]

if you are trying to encode dl avis then use the

Motion estimate search (fast)

you'll get a decent encoding time and not much difference in quality

[legionpc]

Ok, I finished the encode on high, and it seemed to cause some problems. Every so often the video would freeze from .5 seconds to 7 seconds. The 7 second freeze is definitely in the source file, but I can't see any other freezes in it, which makes me think something went wrong with the encode. And since I've never had problems before, and this is the first time using high, I'm suspicious

Could the use of the high setting have caused this problem?

[Fozzee]

The one below Normal .....

HIGH QUALITY (SLOW)

That is the best one. Better quality than NORMAL but much faster than HIGHEST QUALITY (VERY SLOW).


Fozzee

[davemcg37]

theres also a "soften block noise" option in tmpgenc. together with high quality you'll get the best results.

[Fozzee]

Whats the best setting for block noise??
If u select it the default is 35/35 do u leave it as that??

Fozzee

[legionpc]

If the source file has motion blocks, I assume that reencoding with a higher setting won't make a difference?

[sterno]

No. You'll never get output that's better than your input, though I suppose that you could use a noise filter to make the blocking a little less visible.

[legionpc]

How do you go about applying that filter?

[sterno]

There are a variety of blur and noise reduction filters that can be used with avisynth or virtualdub, and you would then frameserve to tmpgenc. It's possible to use them to blur the edges so that the blocks are slightly less visible, but when you blur the edges of the blocks you also blur edges in the video and blur out fine details. Usually it's not worthwhile.

[Oracle]

@legionpc

Just wondering, if I increase the setting from Normal to high or very high, will there be less/no blocks when you get fast movement on the video?

The difference in output quality from normal-high& very high is very subtle. Most of the time you will not notice the difference.
Plus to take advantage of the benifits of say Very High motion search you need to have enough available bitrate.+ a good source.

Ive noticed a lot of people are doing SVCD`s on this board eg 480x576 with average birates of around 1800-2000, they will gain almost nothing using Very High motion search, as the have no bitrate to alocate the extra data found during the motion search.


On a 266MHZ machine motion search estimate would me my only choice because of speed.[/quote]

[Saito]

On a 266MHZ machine motion search estimate would me my only choice because of speed

Yeah, as I said before, you'll get a decent encoding time with the Motion search estimate mode. I have a 600Mhz and I had bad experiences with high and higest quality, like out-of-sync audio and "fast foward"portions of video, and I bet you dont want to waste +12 hours to get that.

[BJ_M]

Motion search estimate mode seems in most cases to produce the best results - only in a few times has it not ..