Lagarith to X264

[Eva-Unit01]

First off all, I was wondering if the CCCP comes with the most updated h264 codec? because when I go into video compression in virtualdubmod, all i see for the ffdshow encoder options are mpeg 4, h263, h263+ and h261 but no x264 or h264. Is h264 just called mpeg 4 or does cccp just have an outdated version of ffdshow?

Now for my main question. I have tried encoding a Berserk trailer in AVI [lagarith] and ivtc'd. Whenever i try to encode it to h264 [i chose mpeg 4 in vdm and x264 in any video converter] it suffers from excrutiating blurring and noise during fast motion sequences. The quality loss is so great when encoding to h264, that the same file encoded with Xvid seems to have better video quality and knowing that h264 is supposed to be better, that seems odd. Any advice?

[poisondeathray]

What settings used? If you use low quality settings, guess what, you will get low quality video

x264 in vdub isn't accessed through ffdshow, you need x264vfw
http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/

But it's not up to date on development, because AVI can be problematic container for h.264 and b-frames. It's recommended to use the CLI version which has recent updates. You can access it with modern GUI's like ripbot264, megui, xvid4psp, handbrake, a few others

Did you IVTC it properly ? Blurring can be from bad IVTC blends as well as bad encoding settings (like low bitrate). i.e. are these artifacts in the lagarith version?

[Eva-Unit01]

What settings determine the filesize of the avi? Basically, what settings in the vfw will allow the encoded h.264 video to have the highest possible quality and smallest possible file size? I encoded a 2:42 minute long video with the highest possible h.264 quality [the meter was set all the way to the left in vfw] and the file size was ~200 mb, while a lower quality Xvid encode was around 20 mb. Also every fansub anime release i've seen using x264 had each 22 minute episode at full quality at only 200-300 mb. What settings in the vfw need to be changed so that the file encoded with h.264 can have a file around 20 mb?

[poisondeathray]

What settings determine the filesize of the avi?

filesize = bitrate x running time . This is a universal truth to all video, regardless of codec

The slider you are using is either the quantizer, or crf value depending on what mode you are using if it's the vfw GUI you are referring to. You need 2 pass mode for an exact bitrate or filesize (or use ABR or CBR mode, which is not recommended). This slider runs independent of the other settings like reference frames, b-frames, search algorithms etc...

You need to understand what the settings do , it's quite a big topic.
http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

Again, I would stay away from x264vfw in vdub/vdubmod , and use x264cli instead. There are quite a few improvements in the newer versions. Moreover, the vfw default settings are set to just about the lowest quality possible (independent of the slider) , so be careful

--preset placebo in the non vfw version maxes out all settings, but the tradeoff is about 50x slower, it's not worth it. Use --preset slower, and higher number of b-frames on anime, reduced AQ and psy settings and it would be a better tradeoff for traditional anime

Encoding settings are just part of the equation. If you use mediainfo on the other fansub files, you can determine what encoding settings were used, but this doesn't indicate what pre-filtering was used (e.g. avisynth filtering), which is often plays a large part in anime (often more important than encoding settings, depending on the source). Noisy edges with macroblocks and rough animation is harder to compress , than filtered and smooth animation