Would like better winff h.264 mp4 preset.

[Verlager]

I have been backing up my video files with Winff and h.264 *ipod* 6x9 preset. But it does too much compression, and some of the quality is lost. I'd like to have bigger target files with better quality. How could I do that? Do I edit / create a preset? Do I use a different one?

[freebird73717]

PM Gmaq and ask him to answer this post. He is very good with winff. He could probably help you with creating a preset.

I would help you myself but I am not very familiar with ffmpeg syntax.

[Verlager]

I'm hoping Gmaq'll cast an eye toward this post and favor us with an informative response.

[FulciLives]

WinFF is damn kewl but I also find some of the pre-sets lacking when it comes to newer ummm things. Specifically I'd like a h264 MP4 preset that is compatible with the PS3 and/or XboX 360 (actually I only have a PS3 but I think one pre-set can cover both).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[GMaq]

Hey Guys,

Well I'll admit that most of the H.264 presets were made with iPod specs in mind, so the bitrate caps are around 800-1000kbps also the more quality switches you put in the ffmpeg commandline the performance hit in encoding speed becomes pretty large. I dumbed some of the presets down for WinFF because users were complaining it was too slow.

What are you looking for Verlager? give me some bitrate specs and resolution sizes and I'll put something up on the WinFF forum. Fulci if I'm not mistaken the iPod Linux presets should be PS3 Compatible, there is a post on the WinFF forum about that here:
http://winff.org/forums/index.php?topic=48.0

A couple of things to note, bitrates over 1500kbps are beyond the x264 "sweet spot" and will not give much noticeable increase in Visual Quality. larger resolutions will encode slower. I have recently been experimenting with x264 "CRF" encoding which is like using a Quantizer with XviD, so far the results have been pretty impressive with 1-pass, the only downside being that the final filesize is unpredictable, in most cases the final sizes have been smaller than using a fixed bitrate.

Here is a link to one of the CRF presets, if you want better quality edit the preset in WinFF and lower the -crf value below 24, 20 should be as low as you need to go.

http://winff.org/forums/index.php?topic=109.0

[Verlager]

GMaq, would 640x480 or 720x480 be possible? I am backing up my original DVDs and a filesize per 4.37GB DVD movie shrunk to ... say, 1.2 GBs seems reasonable. I have a Q6600 comp specifically to render and transcode, so time is not a factor. I use this Intel D865PERL for daily work. I appreciate your help, btw, and I hope to learn some of this, in the fullness of time.

[GMaq]

OK,

Try these, The "CRF" one will require you to enter your own resolution and aspect ratio and is for 1-pass, try it and compare. Note that if you are using WinFF 0.41 then the x264hqfs and x264hqws are already included so you will just have to import crfgenerichq. They should all appear in the "Convert to" dropdown box in the "MP4" section.

**EDIT**
Here is the zip, I successfully imported these into a WinFF on another machine so you should be able to as well.

winffx264.zip

[FulciLives]

I'm about to buy a new computer (knock on wood) but I'm putting it off until I can afford EXACTLY what I want ... thought I was "there" but turns out I'm about $100 to $150 shy of where I should be so another couple of months and I should be able to swing it.

Until then no h264 or x264 encoding for me ... my current computer is too damn slow for it LOL

I plan on buying the E8400 with 4GB of DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM so I figure that should be fast enough

Amazing how much everything adds up since I pretty much want to start from scratch ... only re-using my monitor/keyboard/mouse and couple of HDD units. Buying everything else brand new including yet another HDD.

I figure Linux Mint 5.0 "final" should be out by the time I'm ready so I see the additional wait time as a good thing

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Verlager]

GMaq: I imported the presets you posted, but they don't show up in winff. Why is that?

FulciLives: Your new system will support faster ram, but 800 mHz ram is a bargain right now. If you throw an old HD in a new system these days, I think you'll be disappointed. I would spring for a new sata 300 so as not to bottleneck the system. But I'm sure you know that.

[GMaq]

Fulci,

The h.264 encoding speed difference with 2 core vs. 1 is quite impressive, I can only imagine what a quad can do! One thing I will mention since Mint Elyssa will be based on 8.04 LTS, In my system I was running an IDE DVD Drive and 2 SATA HDD's and there was no way that 8.04 was going to install, there are several multiple page threads on the Ubuntu forums running about this issue. I had a neighbour looking for a DVD Burner so I sold him my IDE one and bought a Lightscribe SATA one, Voila! 8.04 LiveCD will run just fine and would install, even though I'm happy with 7.10 for now.

The point is you might want to check out the Ubuntu forums for compatible motherboards or IDE chipsets before you buy, or plan on running all SATA and using your existing HDD's as USB externals, nothing more disappointing than a fast new computer that your OS won't install on!

[GMaq]

GMaq: I imported the presets you posted, but they don't show up in winff. Why is that?

FulciLives: Your new system will support faster ram, but 800 mHz ram is a bargain right now. If you throw an old HD in a new system these days, I think you'll be disappointed. I would spring for a new sata 300 so as not to bottleneck the system. But I'm sure you know that.

Oops!

I'll put them in a zip and place them in the original post, maybe they don't translate that way (Right Click), they are really just .xml files, I can't say that I tried importing them since they were already in my WinFF, I'll get to it as soon as I can (I'm on a different computer now)

[qweac]

Hey Guys,

A couple of things to note, bitrates over 1500kbps are beyond the x264 "sweet spot" and will not give much noticeable increase in Visual Quality. larger resolutions will encode slower. I have recently been experimenting with x264 "CRF" encoding which is like using a Quantizer with XviD, so far the results have been pretty impressive with 1-pass, the only downside being that the final filesize is unpredictable, in most cases the final sizes have been smaller than using a fixed bitrate.

Here is a link to one of the CRF presets, if you want better quality edit the preset in WinFF and lower the -crf value below 24, 20 should be as low as you need to go.

http://winff.org/forums/index.php?topic=109.0

Hi! I'm pretty new to linux and have some questions. I used to convert media to my PS3 with PS3Video9 in windows. I mostly converted divx/xvid files around 700-1400mb. A 700mb file took about an hour. When I did this, they usually ended up a little bigger than the original file, and around the same quality. I've been looking for a program to do the same thing in linux. I'm experimenting on Winff now. I want a preset that converts files that the ps3 can play. And that also maintains the same quality and the same size as the original file. The way I understand you, thats what the CRF preset will do? Am I right?

Thanks!

[GMaq]

Hi qweac,

Actually CRF will not maintain the original quality and size, the difference is that it encodes based on a quality quantizer setting not a set bitrate target, The lower the value of the quantizer the better the quality and larger the filesize. This is like CQ encoding with DivX or XviD. With XviD most people use a value of "3" but with H.264 there is a larger spread from 1-51. So using a value of "20" gives a good quality to filesize ratio.

[qweac]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I think I understand what you're saying. So if I change the value to "20" the quality will be similar to the source (if the source is a typical divx/xvid movie)?

What about PS3Video9? I would LOVE to have a preset similar to the PS3 presets in PS3Video9. I would of course check them myself, but I don't have a clue about anything when it comes to video settings.

[GMaq]

Hi Again,

Well I mentioned DivX and XviD only because they are examples of the type of encoder we were talking about, It really has nothing to do with your source. Any conversion from one format to another is going to incur a "quality loss" the secret is if that loss will be noticeable on whatever we view the finished product on. If you use -crf "20" instead of -crf "24" it is going to give you better quality with loss that will probably not be as noticeable from your source, no matter if it is DVD, DivX or whatever.

I don't have a PS3 so I am not familiar with PS3Video9 or what settings need to be used, I would suggest trying the different WinFF H.264 presets and try streaming them and see if it works and evaluating the quality compared to PS3Video9.

[FulciLives]

Thanks for the comments about my new not-yet-bought-but-will-be-soon system. The 2 "old" HDD's I'm using are not that "old" in that they are both SATA II (although I have a third that is SATA I but I'll probably not be using it internally if I can find a cheap USB 2.0 SATA I capable case).

The DVD drive install issue concerns me. If I'm reading you correctly GMaq you are saying that I might not be able to install Ubuntu 8.04 using an IDE DVD drive but only from a SATA DVD drive? If so that sucks as I just bought a new Pioneer 115D DVD burner (IDE) that I was also planning on using in my new system build.

I guess I need to research this problem ... as for motherboards the one I have my eye on is the GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS4 which is an Intel based X48 motherboard. Any issues there I should be aware of?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
As for using DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM ... my choice here as you might guess is the price. The faster RAM seems very expensive and I can't imagine (perhaps I am wrong) that it would affect things all THAT much *shrug*

[GMaq]

FulciLives,

the culprit seems to be jMicron IDE controllers among others, I have an MSI Neo-K9AG-Digital 2 Mobo with an AMD 690 chipset on it that was also no go. Certain Gigabyte mobos were mentioned but I don't remember the specifics. Go to the installation forum at Ubuntu and enter "initramfs" or "busybox" and get comfy cause there's a lot to read, Hopefully your pet mobo is OK But I don't know enough specifics to say. I do know in my case the problem was solved by going SATA only.

[FulciLives]

FulciLives,

the culprit seems to be jMicron IDE controllers among others, I have an MSI Neo-K9AG-Digital 2 Mobo with an AMD 690 chipset on it that was also no go. Certain Gigabyte mobos were mentioned but I don't remember the specifics. Go to the installation forum at Ubuntu and enter "initramfs" or "busybox" and get comfy cause there's a lot to read, Hopefully your pet mobo is OK But I don't know enough specifics to say. I do know in my case the problem was solved by going SATA only.

Well my only IDE device will be a $30 DVD burner so if I have to buy an SATA DVD burner ... not the end of the world I suppose. Such things are cheap these days.

What SATA DVD burner did you go with?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[GMaq]

FulciLives,

Well I am no expert on DVD burners, I've had Sony, NEC, LG, and BenQ in the past and they've all done the trick, Truth be told I don't burn a lot of discs because I usually archive direct to H.264 for my HTPC or iPod. This year (finally) I want to do my home vids to DVD with Freebirds HCEncBatchGUI so I opted for a Lightscribe unit so I can make the discs all faincy-schmaincy like with no Sticky labels, other unimportant discs of course can be burned the "old fashioned" way The Lightscribe media is pretty expensive, but so is regular media+sticky label+printer ink. I got media at www.blankmedia.ca for less than Big Box retail, but still you don't want to screw too many up!

Here's the burner (in Canuck currency) I got: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3427283&CatId=2873

Supposedly there is Lightscribe support in Linux, not sure if it works with SATA yet. I have yet to experiment with that. There's always my neglected XP boot if needed.

I don't want you or anyone else to get the wrong idea, This IDE controller issue with 8.04 is certainly not rare but most systems are OK, If you can run the LiveCD without the dreaded "initramfs busybox" issue then you should be good to go.

[qweac]

Hi Again,

Well I mentioned DivX and XviD only because they are examples of the type of encoder we were talking about, It really has nothing to do with your source. Any conversion from one format to another is going to incur a "quality loss" the secret is if that loss will be noticeable on whatever we view the finished product on. If you use -crf "20" instead of -crf "24" it is going to give you better quality with loss that will probably not be as noticeable from your source, no matter if it is DVD, DivX or whatever.

I don't have a PS3 so I am not familiar with PS3Video9 or what settings need to be used, I would suggest trying the different WinFF H.264 presets and try streaming them and see if it works and evaluating the quality compared to PS3Video9.

I've been doing some testing with the crf preset now. I tried to convert a .avi file on 700 mb with crf 20. The output file became 900mb and the quality between the two files looked identical to my eyes. Then I tested with a small input file on 50mb with pretty bad video quality. The output file became 75mb and the quality was again identical. In other words the crf thing does excactly what I want it to do! The files work on the PS3 as well!

EDIT. Another file actually went from 200mb to 75mb. The quality seemed the same on both files.

[GMaq]

OK,
I'm glad it's doing what you want, Just remember if you want smaller files change the -crf value up from 20. Also the size difference between your source and the converted file will always depend on the bitrate of your source file, DVD is high bitrate MPEG-2 so the H.264 file will seem much smaller, a DivX AVI file will start out being at a much lower bitrate so that's why it will be similar and even smaller sized than your converted H.264 file. Thanks for letting us know about the PS3 compatibility.

[qweac]

I remember. I'm actually Doing some experiments with the crf values as we speak. Thanks for your help!

[DKruskie]

I have a lite on ide dvd drive and had no problem installing Ubuntu 8.04

[GMaq]

I have a lite on ide dvd drive and had no problem installing Ubuntu 8.04

The problem seems to be the controller chips not the drives, it is not a rare issue, but obviously many people are getting it to install without problems. I installed it (8.04) without issue on my laptop, but had to go the all SATA route on my desktop.

[tekkieman]

I specifically avoided jmicron due to this issue when I purchased my last mobo and still got bit. Mepis 7.0 would not install grub properly with a mix of pata/sata drives. I replaced the pata hdds with sata, but my two burners are still pata. I haven't tried reinstalling 7.0, but PCLOS installed without issue.

To go back on-topic for a moment, I've used WinFF for xvid conversion, and it worked relatively well quality-wise, but it also did some unexpected cropping that I haven't quite figured out yet. I look forward to getting back to that project after I get out of my current .NET hell keeping my machine too wrapped up to deal with it.

[GMaq]

I specifically avoided jmicron due to this issue when I purchased my last mobo and still got bit. Mepis 7.0 would not install grub properly with a mix of pata/sata drives. I replaced the pata hdds with sata, but my two burners are still pata. I haven't tried reinstalling 7.0, but PCLOS installed without issue.

To go back on-topic for a moment, I've used WinFF for xvid conversion, and it worked relatively well quality-wise, but it also did some unexpected cropping that I haven't quite figured out yet. I look forward to getting back to that project after I get out of my current .NET hell keeping my machine too wrapped up to deal with it.

Hi Tekkie (pardon the pun)

Yes this thread has been all over the map topic wise, Funny you mention MEPIS 7, it also wouldn't install on my Desktop, same problem methinks. Which XviD preset is giving you problems? The "anamorphic" ones are the only ones with any ffmpeg command line cropping switches. they are for quick n'dirty cropping of DVD's with 2.35-2.40 Aspect Ratios. When you get your machine back from the ravages of .NET let me know and we'll see if we can sort it out.

[pitmanj]

Hi to who ever i am needing some help converting transformers on psp i am wanting to have high quality audio and music but overall a small output size. please help. if it helps i last encoded on winff with 480*270 bitrate 450 audio 128 and volume bossted 2000 so i can here it on psp loudspeaker can you help