Low Cost Hardware for Xvid encoding

[WildParadise]

just finished 1 pass 2000kbps, great result, i'm wondering, will I get a smaller file if I do 2 pass?

[John]

you should do, but like i said before, the time scale isnt worth the extra size for me, 2 pass will be approximatly twice as long. you should get a slightly smaller file. but with that level of encoding, i doubt if you will see a difference between 1 pass or 2 passes. if you left it on a constant bit rate

[WildParadise]

I really like the 2000kbps quality. I'm gonna do more testing, 1900kbps to see quality and size (might wanna save a little bit size if quality is practically the same).

Still waiting for my 50% constant quality test and the quantizer 16 test.

Getting on a good track though.

[WildParadise]

Now that everything is testing i'm checking my "new" pc and wondering, new question, would 64 bit makes a difference?

[poisondeathray]

I doubt you can see the difference between 1900kbps and 2000kbps. However, a 100kbps difference is easily discernable at a low bitrate (like 500 vs. 600)

Don't go hoping that you will find a "magic" setting. That will only apply for this particular movie. And you probably don't want to go through hours of testing for each of your 800+ movies. You need a higher bitrate for complex action sequences, filled with explosions and colors to look normal, compared to say, a still art movie.

To put it another way, you may be "wasting space" by picking a set bitrate for some movies. I think Jagabo already suggested constant quality settings (not quantizer).

[WildParadise]

i'm currently testing, 50% constant quality and quantizer, will see the result after, it's true that an high action movie will be different so you just put me one more test If 1900 or 2000 is good for both, as you say i can test every movie so i'll go with that. If not, well, we'll see the result of my current tests.

The big reason i'm doing these test are not to find the magic quality setting, it's more to find, the best ratio between: size/time of encoding, as long as the quality remains good.

You also say the quality shouldn't be noticable, what kind of mb can I expect to win?

[jagabo]

When testing constant quality/quantizer encoding for visual quality you don't need to encode an entire movie. Everything is encoded at the same quality. So just encode a few choice sections and examine the results. See if they meet your expectations. When you've found a quantizer level you like encode an entire movie and see what the average bitrate comes out to. Encode a few different movies. You'll see they all come out to different average bitrates but all have the same quality (relative to their source).

[WildParadise]

but the final size will vary a lot too, no?

[jagabo]

average bitrate * running time = file size

[WildParadise]

that's what i mean, the average bitrate will change so the file size, i'm gonna have big disparencies.

btw for new comers, still wondering if 64 bit would makes a difference?

[poisondeathray]

According to the experts at Doom9 64-bit OS runs x264 10% faster

(I think that was with an optimized x264 version, because using the same x264 version there is no difference according to these:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=442&pgno=0
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=520)

FYI for 64-bit OS everything has to be 64-bit versions, including avisynth.

EDIT: yes the filesize should be different when using "constant quality encoding", because a simple movie with simple scenes won't need as high as a bitrate as an action packed movie. If you set a bitrate/filesize too low, the action movie will be pixellated, and the simple movie will look great; the flipside is you might wasting a lot of space on the simple movie by select too high of a bitrate/filesize.

1 size doesn't fit all. Don't go looking for the "magic" formula, each movie is different. Some might be interlaced. An anime/cartoon will need different settings than a "regular movie." Unless you want to sample and test each of your 800+ movies, just use "constant quality" encoding. If it was me, I would just pick up a few hard drives and keep perfect backups.

[jagabo]

that's what i mean, the average bitrate will change so the file size, i'm gonna have big disparencies.

What do you want -- specific file sizes or specific quality?

[Soopafresh]

I've got a lot of 64 Bit XP machines at work. They're not faster, but they are good at allocating large amounts of RAM. Getting codecs installed and running is a PITA. Quicktime doesn't work well at all in XP 64

[WildParadise]

thanks for the 64 bits info, i'll stick with 32. For the size, with quantizer let's say of 15, i can have a movie of 1h30min at 1.5gb and the other on at 2.5, which is too much difference.


I've finished my two test, constant quality is dead for me in handbrake, quality is bad for the size. Just finished quantizer 16, got 1.34gb, lame quality. Doing another test at quantizer 9 and testing an high action movie at 2100kbps 1pass.

Still gotta test handbrake versus fairuse for quality, size and time.

Getting near the end, i'm gonna need info on specific hardware at the end.

[WildParadise]

just tested high action and it's good too. Seems to be going that way. Will see tomorrow with the other test.

[WildParadise]

Finished with quantizer 14 that gives about the same size and the quality is off. Doing my pretty final test fairuse 2100 to compare with my handbrake 2100 by size, time and final quality. (beside the time the rest should be about the same).

[WildParadise]

finished with fairuse encoding, 5h50min on my great sempron, took 2hours on my mbp with handbrake.. near same size, i think a bit less quality on fairuse.
My final test is handbrake on my sempron to know the time, pretty sure it's gonna be around 4hours. So i'm gonna use handbrake if this is right. 2 times less on a mbp and can be 2 time less on the quad. Should be near an hour for a 2hours movie which would be awesome, entire collection in about 2 months!!

Anyone got some tips on the hardware? Just started a new thread here: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic349779.html

If you have info on final tweaking for my "template" i'm gonna use.

It's gonna be Handbrake on windows xp. MP4 H264 Video AAC audio 160kbps 48khz, one pass at 2100kbps average kbps. Filesize are gonna come out from 1.5gb to 2.1gb+, 1h30min to 2h10min (tested so far), 1h45 gave me 1.7gb.

[WildParadise]

handbrake on sempron took 3h30, gotta forget fairuse

[WildParadise]

Thanks everyone for everything, big help!!

[RabidDog]

I have never really had any problems with fairuse or autogk, except minor issues like subtitles and multi audio. If your PC keeps crashing that is a bad sign in itself, bad PSU or too hot or corrupted drivers?. I like to encode movies at approx 1500 (2 pass vbr) with generally ac3 audio (saves having to re-encode to Mp3). If you are going to encode all these movie then its def worth getting a better proc than a crummy old sempron... in time saving alone ..!If you have a multi cpu then obviously its worth checking the soft can take advantage of it.
Where are you going to store all these movies and how are you going to back them up? (gulp) I would advise either of the above programs, as the saving in space and the increase in encoding times for h264 simply isn't worth it. Also think about where in the future you might want to play these back.. h264 is not yet available on portable devices or multimedia enclosures or even standalone dvd/divx players. Both of the above encoders will allow you to stack up a weeks worth of work. Side note when your testing its best just to cut out and encode two sections of a movie eg an action sequence and a "talking head" sequence Total ten minutes.. this certainly makes any testing more bearable than continually encoding the same movie for 12 hours (think of the environment for FFs).
Divx and Xvid both equally well for me, just divx encodes faster...
See you back in 2010 when you project is finished
750x £10.00 = £7500 ... are these insured against fire,flood.earthquake,theft and borrowing?

[WildParadise]

I have never really had any problems with fairuse or autogk, except minor issues like subtitles and multi audio. If your PC keeps crashing that is a bad sign in itself, bad PSU or too hot or corrupted drivers?. I like to encode movies at approx 1500 (2 pass vbr) with generally ac3 audio (saves having to re-encode to Mp3). If you are going to encode all these movie then its def worth getting a better proc than a crummy old sempron... in time saving alone ..!If you have a multi cpu then obviously its worth checking the soft can take advantage of it.
Where are you going to store all these movies and how are you going to back them up? (gulp) I would advise either of the above programs, as the saving in space and the increase in encoding times for h264 simply isn't worth it. Also think about where in the future you might want to play these back.. h264 is not yet available on portable devices or multimedia enclosures or even standalone dvd/divx players. Both of the above encoders will allow you to stack up a weeks worth of work. Side note when your testing its best just to cut out and encode two sections of a movie eg an action sequence and a "talking head" sequence Total ten minutes.. this certainly makes any testing more bearable than continually encoding the same movie for 12 hours (think of the environment for FFs).
Divx and Xvid both equally well for me, just divx encodes faster...
See you back in 2010 when you project is finished
750x £10.00 = £7500 ... are these insured against fire,flood.earthquake,theft and borrowing?

I'm going quad since it's the best bang for the buck. For now i'm getting a seagate tb hard drive, i'll order another one in about a month, i hope price will get down. I wanted to test before inversting in the project. You can see my new hardware here: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic349779.html

I did encode everything to not have surprises.

For portability, my collection is in dvd, which is now portable anyway, still need to convert to portable devices. So.. My computer is gonna be the player.

I intend to finish in only 2 months!! Saving a pass made everything half and quad core divide it by 3 again.

The worst part is not fire flood and everything, it's borrowing, gotta run against people to get the movie back. They are insured under house coverage.

Thanks for the coments