★★★BEST h264 to h265 transcoder without loss of quality? ★★★

[savvyguy]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts
2. 35 (avg) - 45mbps (max) VBR 2-Pass h264 >> Archival

As H265 encoding is extremely slow in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder, I am thinking of transcoding either 1 or 2 through another 3rd party software after the output files are generated.

What would be the best software that can do it without loss in quality and with max speed?

I'm on i5 2500k @ 4.8Ghz with 16gb ram and GTX660Ti, and h265 encoding takes me 20 hours on a 5 min video in PP CC.

[Skiller]

You cannot "transcode" from H.264 to H.265. You would have to decompress and recompress (re-encode) with some quality loss.

[savvyguy]

Alright, perhaps I didn't get the definition right. what would be the best software to re-encode with minimal quality loss then?

Alternatively, is there any way to speed up h265 encoding in PP CC? I'm thinking it's abnormal to take 20 hours for a 5 min clip (minimal edits, no SFX/VFX/twixtor/NR involved at all).

[ricardouk]

i´ve used ffmpeg to test x265:

ffmpeg -threads 2  -i source.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset medium -b:v 1000k -pass 1 -an 1pass.mp4

ffmpeg -threads 2  -i source.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset medium -b:v 1000k -pass 2 -strict experimental -acodec aac -ab 128k  -af aresample=resampler=soxr -ar 44100 -ac 2 output.mkv
del 1pass.mp4

on my pc 1min takes about 20m converting a 480p clip, so im guessing it would take a lot longer to convert 4k videos, but why do you want to reencode?

theres loads of x265 guis, vidcoder, Tencoder, Simple x264/x265 Launcher etc etc

[SameSelf]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts
2. 35 (avg) - 45mbps (max) VBR 2-Pass h264 >> Archival

As H265 encoding is extremely slow in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder, I am thinking of transcoding either 1 or 2 through another 3rd party software after the output files are generated.

What would be the best software that can do it without loss in quality and with max speed?

I'm on i5 2500k @ 4.8Ghz with 16gb ram and GTX660Ti, and h265 encoding takes me 20 hours on a 5 min video in PP CC.

I am going to go out on a limb and say, welcome to the wonderful world of 4K. You are working in a bleeding edge resolution with a cutting edge encoder on a somewhat weak machine. While Skylake is nothing to get excited about, it will be a while before we can chew through 4K content at the same speeds we have grown accustomed to when chewing through HD content.

[pandy]

Next time use hearts instead stars... and maybe some flowers...

[Clockwork]

Next time use hearts instead stars... and maybe some flowers...

No way. MORE stars.

[savvyguy]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts
2. 35 (avg) - 45mbps (max) VBR 2-Pass h264 >> Archival

As H265 encoding is extremely slow in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder, I am thinking of transcoding either 1 or 2 through another 3rd party software after the output files are generated.

What would be the best software that can do it without loss in quality and with max speed?

I'm on i5 2500k @ 4.8Ghz with 16gb ram and GTX660Ti, and h265 encoding takes me 20 hours on a 5 min video in PP CC.

I am going to go out on a limb and say, welcome to the wonderful world of 4K. You are working in a bleeding edge resolution with a cutting edge encoder on a somewhat weak machine. While Skylake is nothing to get excited about, it will be a while before we can chew through 4K content at the same speeds we have grown accustomed to when chewing through HD content.

Well, not sure what's so weak about my machine, given that there hasn't been more than 20% improvement in processing speeds for the last few CPU generations (which is the same reason why I stayed on my overclocked 2500k).

Anyway, the 4K videos are from my smartphone (they're only 48mbps, and not detail-heavy like RED cameras and the likes), so I figured it wouldn't take 20 hours (maybe 2-3hours is more reasonable)?

[poisondeathray]

Well, not sure what's so weak about my machine, given that there hasn't been more than 20% improvement in processing speeds for the last few CPU generations (which is the same reason why I stayed on my overclocked 2500k).

In general that's true, but for video encoding with x264, it's more like 40-45% - have a look at the benchmarks for skylake vs. sandy bridge. It's not just frequency difference - they partly make use of new instructions like AVX,AVX2. So normalized per clock speeds are faster as well. And for HEVC , AVX,AVX2 makes a bigger difference than AVC

If you want speed, and don't care much for compression efficiency, have a look at GPU encoding. You'd need to upgrade your GPU, but a NVEnc plugin is available for Adobe, and you can use NVEncC outside of adobe (some GUIs like staxrip, hybrid are available) . On maxwell2 cards it's insanely fast for HEVC, but the quality/compression is poor, no b-frames

[SameSelf]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts
2. 35 (avg) - 45mbps (max) VBR 2-Pass h264 >> Archival

As H265 encoding is extremely slow in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder, I am thinking of transcoding either 1 or 2 through another 3rd party software after the output files are generated.

What would be the best software that can do it without loss in quality and with max speed?

I'm on i5 2500k @ 4.8Ghz with 16gb ram and GTX660Ti, and h265 encoding takes me 20 hours on a 5 min video in PP CC.

I am going to go out on a limb and say, welcome to the wonderful world of 4K. You are working in a bleeding edge resolution with a cutting edge encoder on a somewhat weak machine. While Skylake is nothing to get excited about, it will be a while before we can chew through 4K content at the same speeds we have grown accustomed to when chewing through HD content.

Well, not sure what's so weak about my machine, given that there hasn't been more than 20% improvement in processing speeds for the last few CPU generations (which is the same reason why I stayed on my overclocked 2500k).

Anyway, the 4K videos are from my smartphone (they're only 48mbps, and not detail-heavy like RED cameras and the likes), so I figured it wouldn't take 20 hours (maybe 2-3hours is more reasonable)?

I only said "somewhat weak" because you have an i5 versus an i7. But I am not saying you should upgrade.

Both the i5 and i7 have 4 physical cores, but the i7s support hyperthreading giving you 8 threads. As poisondeathray pointed out, in general Skylake does not sport much performance improvement over Sandybridge because most benchmark applications are no longer cpu bound. If you are a gamer, you are much better off saving your money for a powerful gpu in SLI or Xfire. However, properly threaded encoders like x264 are cpu bound. If you research some of the benchmarks out there, the bump between a 2600K and 6700K is 1.67x for x264 and HD content. The difference between desktop skus and the extreme skus (with 6 or 8 physical cores) is even greater; I have seen 2.5x. Thus it pays to pay attention to the benchmarks that matter because, like you, I would be quite happy to turn my 20 hour encodes into 2-3 hours. But with only a 2.5x improvement available right now, it will still take 8 hours. So back to my original statement, we are still a ways away from being able to chew through 4K content like we are accustomed to for HD content. Although if the ten core Broadwell-E are indeed a reality, it may be closer than we think, but it will cost $$$.

[racer-x]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts
2. 35 (avg) - 45mbps (max) VBR 2-Pass h264 >> Archival

As H265 encoding is extremely slow in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder, I am thinking of transcoding either 1 or 2 through another 3rd party software after the output files are generated.

What would be the best software that can do it without loss in quality and with max speed?

I'm on i5 2500k @ 4.8Ghz with 16gb ram and GTX660Ti, and h265 encoding takes me 20 hours on a 5 min video in PP CC.

You're doing it all wrong. Don't encode to avc then re-encode to hevc. Learn how to frameserve from Premiere to an external hevc encoder, or at the very least save to lossless intermediate, then encode to hevc.

[pandy]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts

Why such strange assumption? CBR is not better at all... if you willing to keep highest quality and bitrate is irrelevant (such approach for YT is fair as YT recompress your video by own encoder with own parameters), Go for fixed Qp - something like Qp=8 - 12 can be considered as perceptively lossless and also it is faster as encoder is not forced to make so many encoding decisions - this create pure VBR video but it is not a problem for offline work and uploading video to YT is purely offline type of work.
Side to this i share concerns that encoding to H.264 and later reencoding this to H.265 is double waste of the: quality and time.
Follow advise and use streamserver or intermediate lossless codec - probably your signal flow will be faster and product with higher quality.

[KarMa]

Next time use hearts instead stars... and maybe some flowers...

No way. MORE stars.

Needs more cowbell

[savvyguy]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts
2. 35 (avg) - 45mbps (max) VBR 2-Pass h264 >> Archival

As H265 encoding is extremely slow in Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder, I am thinking of transcoding either 1 or 2 through another 3rd party software after the output files are generated.

What would be the best software that can do it without loss in quality and with max speed?

I'm on i5 2500k @ 4.8Ghz with 16gb ram and GTX660Ti, and h265 encoding takes me 20 hours on a 5 min video in PP CC.

You're doing it all wrong. Don't encode to avc then re-encode to hevc. Learn how to frameserve from Premiere to an external hevc encoder, or at the very least save to lossless intermediate, then encode to hevc.

as mentioned, the reason why I encode twice is because I thought Adobe Media Encoder is abnormally slow, so perhaps a 3rd party hevc encoder could do it better.

[savvyguy]

Hi guys,

I typically edit videos in Premiere Pro CC and convert 2 versions:

1. 100mbps CBR 4k >> upload to YouTube to prevent compression artifacts

Why such strange assumption? CBR is not better at all... if you willing to keep highest quality and bitrate is irrelevant (such approach for YT is fair as YT recompress your video by own encoder with own parameters), Go for fixed Qp - something like Qp=8 - 12 can be considered as perceptively lossless and also it is faster as encoder is not forced to make so many encoding decisions - this create pure VBR video but it is not a problem for offline work and uploading video to YT is purely offline type of work.

Sorry, may I know where I can find this "Qp" setting in Adobe Premiere Pro CC export dialog? I used CBR not because it is the best quality, but because it encodes way faster than 2-pass VBR. Would the method you mentioned create VBR video at fast rates like CBR?

[SameSelf]

I only use 2-pass VBR when authoring a DVD or Bluray where bitrate limits plus file size are paramount concerns. When encoding for the PC or Web, I use 1-pass CBR because, like you said, it is much faster and neither bitrate nor filesize play a signficant role. To say that the quality of CBR is better than VBR, I am not so sure because the bitrate for Bluray is pretty generous.

As an Adobe user, I avoid using the embedded MainConcept encoder in AME because it is a crippled version of MainConcept's full fledged stand-alone version which costs around $500. Similar to what is mentioned above, I use two workflows:

1. For CBR encodes: Frameserve out of PPro using Debugmode Frameserver to an Avisynth signpost then encode using x264 cli (x264 natively supports Avisynth scripts). I frameserve as YUY2 because that is the colorspace I edit in (more precisely, my footage is YUY2) and simply insert a ConvertYV12() line into the signpost script. Most of my footage is actually dynamically linked from AE. Bottomline, I avoid any generational losses and wasting time doing transcodes for editing unless my system gets bogged down and I need a proxy or I want to de-interlace. The x264 cli is multi-threaded, and you avoid the overhead required by GUIs.

2. For VBR encodes: I export from PPro to a lossless intermediate using utvideo. Then once the lossless intermediate is written out, feed this file to x264 cli for the 2-pass VBR encode. This avoids having to frameserve out of PPro twice due to the second pass. Very often I have heavy effects on my timelines (NR, Color Correction, etc.) and processing the effects is the bottleneck. Writing out a lossless intermediate is the equivalent of frameserving once followed by the much faster 2-pass VBR encode on the lossless intermediate.

In conclusion, it is worth spending time learning how to do this if, for no other reason, you get the benefit of upgrading from AME to the much better x264 encoder.