AutoMKV: 1080p or 720p MKV to smaller sized 720p MKV = choppy video!

[Quicky]

Hi guys,

I've been transcoding 1080p and large 720p MKV's to DVD-5 sized 720p MKV's to save hard drive space as well as make it possible to burn them onto DVD-5 discs. Unfortunately however, I seem to always get choppy video when doing this, which is especially obvious in panning shots. Converting a DVD-5 to a dvd-resolution MKV does not give choppy results. The problem lies not with playback, I believe, since the original 1080p video plays fine without chopping.

I'm using AutoMKV 0.98.4, but I had the same results with AutoMKV 0.98 (which is why I tried updating to 0.98.4).

Underneath you find the log for one of the videos that gave choppy results. The original frame rate according to the frame rate indicator of VLC is 23.976 fps.

If anyone could help me out, I would greatly appreciate it. I only just registered here, but I've solved several issues and problems already in the past half year or so by reading some of the very interesting and helpful threads here, so I'm hopeful that I'll find the help I need .

Note that I'm not including audio in the final file. This is because I want to keep the original audio as often as possible, and AutoMKV doesn't seem to like that when dealing with HD files. I just add the audio afterwards with MKVMerge. If anyone knows a solution for that as well, that'd be great, but it's not really that important since muxing it afterwards manually works quite okay.

16:45:22 0.98.4  - - - - - - - - - - - - - START JOBS - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
16:45:22 Selected Input file:     G:\Finished\video\video.mkv
16:45:22 Selected Output dir:     F:\Temp\video\temp\
16:45:22 Selected Final Name:     video
16:45:22 Selected Container type: MKV
16:45:22 Selected Encoder:        X264
16:45:22 Selected Size:           1020 / 1
16:45:22 Selected Profile:        2_Pass_Better_Quality.xml
16:45:22 Selected Resizer:        SimpleResize (neutral soft) / 1280
16:45:22 Selected Filters:        RemoveGrain(mode=2)
16:45:22 Selected Deinterlacer:   AUTO
16:45:22 Selected Field Order:    AUTO
16:45:22 Track Language 1:        NONE
16:45:22 Audio Codec 1:           Copy Original
16:45:22 Track Language 2:        NONE
16:45:22 Audio Codec 2:           Copy Original
16:45:22 Activate Anamorphic Encoding
16:45:22 
16:45:22 Extracting audio track 0 NONE with ffmpeg
16:45:23 Unable to determine movie properties , switched to DirectShowSource
16:45:54 Number of Frames:        61463
16:45:54 Framerate:               23.976044
16:45:54 Movie length in Seconds: 2564
16:45:54 Movie Width/Height:      1280/720
16:45:54 Number of Frames:        61463
16:45:54 Framerate:               23.976044
16:45:54 Movie length in Seconds: 2564
16:45:54 Movie Width/Height:      1280/720
16:57:06 Source is declared tff by a margin of 52/41.
16:57:06 Advanced Deinterlace Routines Log
16:57:06 Analyzed 257 sections of five frames
16:57:06 Found Interlace Sections:  0 0.00%
16:57:06 Found Progressive Sections:257 100.00%
16:57:06 Found Telecined Sections:  0 0.00%
16:57:06 Found Zero  Mov:  100.00%         257
16:57:06 Found One   Mov:  0.00%         0
16:57:06 Found Two   Mov:  0.00%         0
16:57:06 Found Three Mov:  0.00%         0
16:57:06 Found Four  Mov:  0.00%         0
16:57:06 Found Five  Mov:  0.00%         0
16:57:06 The Movie is declared to progressive
16:57:06 Starting  X264
16:57:06 Command Line 1' Pass X264: E:\Setup Files\Video & Burning\AutoMKV\AutoMKV0984\exe\encoder\x264.exe --pass 1 --bitrate 3329 --stats "F:\Temp\video\temp\.stats" --ref 1 --progress --keyint 250 --bframes 5 --qpmin 10 --qpmax 51 --no-psnr --filter -1,-1 --subme 2 --direct auto --vbv-bufsize 14000 --vbv-maxrate 25000 --me dia --no-ssim --level 4.0 --b-adapt 2 --b-pyramid --partitions none --threads auto --thread-input --aud --aq-mode 1 --aq-strength 1 --psy-rd 1.0:1.0  --sar 29491200:24883200  --output NUL "F:\Temp\video\temp\movie.avs"
16:57:06 Command Line 2' Pass X264: E:\Setup Files\Video & Burning\AutoMKV\AutoMKV0984\exe\encoder\x264.exe --pass 2 --bitrate 3329 --stats "F:\Temp\video\temp\.stats" --progress --keyint 250 --bframes 5 --qpmin 10 --qpmax 51 --no-psnr --mixed-refs --trellis 1 --ref 4 --filter -1,-1 --subme 6 --direct auto --vbv-bufsize 14000 --vbv-maxrate 25000 --me umh --no-ssim --level 4.0 --weightb --b-adapt 2 --b-pyramid --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i8x8 --8x8dct --threads auto --thread-input --aud --aq-mode 1 --aq-strength 1 --psy-rd 1.0:1.0  --sar 29491200:24883200  --output "F:\Temp\video\temp\movie.264" "F:\Temp\video\temp\movie.avs"
18:44:47 Finished 1' Pass X264
20:24:09 Only Movie Size:         1066878272 bytes
20:24:10 "E:\Setup Files\Video & Burning\AutoMKV\AutoMKV0984\exe\matroska\mkvmerge.exe" -o "F:\Temp\video\temp\video.mkv" --default-duration 0:24000/1001fps  --track-name -1:"video" --aspect-ratio -1:1.777778 "F:\Temp\video\temp\movie.264"  --title "Done with AutoMKV 0.98.4 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=140178 "
20:25:04 Final Muxed size:        1067427328 bytes
20:25:05 Encoding finished:       01:40:18 elapsed time
20:25:05 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
20:25:05 Script AutoCrop.log
20:25:05  
20:25:05 Crop(0,0,1280,720)
20:25:05 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
20:25:05 Script movie.avs
20:25:05  
20:25:05 #loadpluginstart
20:25:05 
20:25:05 #test1
20:25:05 
20:25:05 #importstart
20:25:05 
20:25:05 #test2
20:25:05 
20:25:05 movie = directshowsource("G:\Finished\video\video.mkv",fps=23.976044,convertfps=true,audio=false)
20:25:05 movie = isRGB(movie) ? ConvertToYV12(movie,interlaced=true) : movie
20:25:05 movie = isYUY2(movie) ? ConvertToYV12(movie,interlaced=true) : movie
20:25:05 function getOrder(clip c) { 
20:25:05 order = GetParity(c) ? 1 : 0 
20:25:05 Return order } 
20:25:05 #filter1start
20:25:05 
20:25:05 #test3
20:25:05 
20:25:05 last=movie.Crop(0,0,1280,720)
20:25:05 fixed_aspect = 1.777778
20:25:05 out_width = 1280
20:25:05 #Aspect_Error = 0.000%
20:25:05 out_height = 720
20:25:05 #resizestart
20:25:05 
20:25:05 #test4
20:25:05 
20:25:05 SimpleResize(out_width,out_height)
20:25:05 #filter2start
20:25:05 
20:25:05 #test5
20:25:05 
20:25:05 RemoveGrain(mode=2)
20:25:05  
20:25:05 - - - - - - - - - - - - FINISHED JOBS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[Baldrick]

I would try shrink it using handbrake and see if it makes any difference. It uses also x264 so you should get similar quality.