Two simple questions, plz help!

[UnD3R0aTh]

A- How much error in aspect ratio can be noticed by the eye?

B- What is the command line for x264 codec to achieve MAXIMUM QUALITY?

p.s. size is not an issue, also, i'd appreciate if you explained what each parameter does, so i can customize it a bit if necessary!

THX

[guns1inger]

A. Depends on the viewer. Some people happily watch 16:9 images stretched to fill a 4:3 screen simply because they don't like the bars. It obviously doesn't bug them much, so even moderate AR errors probably wouldn't register. With other people even 1 - 2 % would be way too much.

B. Don't know - I am happy using one of the many GUIs instead. This might get you started : Guide

[El Heggunte]

A: ±1% for *my* eyes.

B: --crf 0

C: For x264, "--crf 0" means lossless encoding.
"Transparent" encoding usually means "--crf 18",
roughly equivalent to "constant quantizer 2" in XviD.

[creamyhorror]

B. Don't know - I am happy using one of the many GUIs instead. This might get you started : Guide

That guide is massively outdated and shouldn't be used. The guide to refer to is this one from MeGUI's wiki.

B- What is the command line for x264 codec to achieve MAXIMUM QUALITY?

p.s. size is not an issue

The point of lossy compression (like H.264) is to achieve maximum quality in a given filesize. If size is not an issue, why compress at all? Just keep the original.

If you just want high bitrate efficiency (i.e. more quality in a given amount of bytes), use a preset like --slow, --slower or --veryslow (the slower, the slightly more efficient). Then, to customize the actual quality level, just add --crf X, where X = 17-18 for SD material and 18-20 for HD material. CRF determines the quality level: the lower, the higher the quality and the bigger the file.

[lordsmurf]

Quality is also determined by source noise.

[UnD3R0aTh]

ohhh, this is getting too technical! look, fairuse offers me to either specify a file size with an option to use two pass or not, or use a quantizer, and becoz i don't know what a quantizer is or what it does, i decided i'd cancel the options fairuse is offering, and specify the codec settings manually! and again, in order not to get too technical and for ease of use, i need someone to make a command line, or tell me where i can find some command line presets, so i could copy it and paste it there!

..for now, what i want is the most maximum quality possible without having to specify a target file size! what's the command line for that?

[guns1inger]

Then you want to use the quantizer. Lower values mean higher quality, with 0 being lossless. Smaller numbers also generally mean bigger files. 21 should be pretty good, with 16 being close to visually lossless in most cases.

[UnD3R0aTh]

thx, but when i set the quanizer value to 0, i noticed it only does a one pass encoding! isn't two pass encodings better?

[jagabo]

thx, but when i set the quanizer value to 0, i noticed it only does a one pass encoding! isn't two pass encodings better?

No. In constant quantizer encoding you select the quality. You always get the quality you selected but you don't know what the file size will be. In two pass encoding you select the file size. You always get the size you selected but you don't know what the quality will be.

[manono]

If you set the quantizer to anything you'll get 1-pass encoding. If you want to encode for a specific size, use 2-pass encoding. If you want to encode to a specific quality do 1-pass encoding.

And rather than asking all these really basic questions, why not read the guides to which you've been pointed so you can show you've actually done some work trying to learn some of this on your own?

[creamyhorror]

1. Stop using that crappy outdated x264vfw. Use Handbrake or something.

2. Use CRF mode at quality 17 or 18. Don't use "quantizer".

3. Go read a few guides.

[lordsmurf]

This isn't even remotely hard -- it can get much more complex.

[UnD3R0aTh]

Well, i decided now i have to read about it, hopefully there's a simple guide out there that's not too technical!

jagabo; thx, that really cleared things up..btw, i just encoded a 1:08 video with quantizer set to 0, it produced a 1.32GB file, but the quality is SUPERB, i kinda feel it's even better than the source DVD itself

..creamyhorror: what do you mean it's "crappy" and "outdated"? i tried handbrake, and the best way to describe it is that "it sucks"..do you recommend any guides?

[jagabo]

There's really not much reason to go below Q=18. Below that you get very little improvement in visual quality but the file sizes get larger and larger.

[stiltman]

A- How much error in aspect ratio can be noticed by the eye?

B- What is the command line for x264 codec to achieve MAXIMUM QUALITY?

p.s. size is not an issue, also, i'd appreciate if you explained what each parameter does, so i can customize it a bit if necessary!

THX

IMO
Don't re-encode the file(s)
Leave them in their native format.
If it's a DVD make it into an iso, or put it into a mkv wrapper without re-encoding

However if you must re-encode to H.246
In Handbrake
Panoramic = strict
Auto trimming
Quality set to 16

[jagabo]

And just to be clear, you should be using CRF mode rather than CQP mode.

[creamyhorror]

jagabo; thx, that really cleared things up..btw, i just encoded a 1:08 video with quantizer set to 0, it produced a 1.32GB file, but the quality is SUPERB, i kinda feel it's even better than the source DVD itself

A 0-quantizer video is literally the same thing as the original source, unless you did other processing in the meantime.

..creamyhorror: what do you mean it's "crappy" and "outdated"? i tried handbrake, and the best way to describe it is that "it sucks"..do you recommend any guides?

That version of x264vfw in Fairuse is from Jan 2008, more than two whole years ago. Current versions of x264 are significantly more efficient.

Handbrake sucks? Did you even try to follow the wiki or a guide?? If you really want quality, you shouldn't expect any easy one-click solutions. Go to the Handbrake wiki and follow the guide.

[UnD3R0aTh]

well, it seems in Handbreak, i can't make a file with AVI container, nor i can encode audio to Mp3, no preview for cropping, and it only supports x264... imo, handbrake is a much more one-click solution than fairuse!

Edit: with CRF set to 16, it encoded a 4:09 video to 161MB MP4 file! and it ignored the display resolution i entered! o.0

jagabo: how do i know when i set the quantizer to 0 in fairuse, that it'll use CRF mode and not CQP mode?

[DarrellS]

Anyone use the DivX H264 CLI Encoder with the WhisX2 GUI? You have to join the DivX Labs Re'moulade Project to download the encoder.

[creamyhorror]

well, it seems in Handbreak, i can't make a file with AVI container, nor i can encode audio to Mp3, no preview for cropping, and it only supports x264... imo, handbrake is a much more one-click solution than fairuse!

x264 should not be put inside AVI anyway - H.264 is meant to be put in MKV and MP4. You can encode audio to MP3 in Handbrake, when you select the MKV container I believe. Handbrake doesn't have preview for cropping, true, and that's one big drawback. There's a preview render function, though.

If you want a proper "big-boy" encoder app, learn MeGUI.

Edit: with CRF set to 16, it encoded a 4:09 video to 161MB MP4 file! and it ignored the display resolution i entered! o.0

CRF 16 is very high quality, so that's not surprising. You wanted maximum quality, didn't you? Increase it to 18 if the size is too large for you. I don't know what's up with the resolution thing, but you should avoid resizing anyway unless you need it for device compatibility.

jagabo: how do i know when i set the quantizer to 0 in fairuse, that it'll use CRF mode and not CQP mode?

I doubt the quantizer setting activates CRF. CRF is already specified in the commandline in your screenshot: "--crf 18", so I think that's what gets used.

[UnD3R0aTh]

yep, i think since it's there in the command line, it's used by the program as default when quantizer is used, since both use quantizer right? but i read that, with CRF mode, it gives less bitrates to the scenes where the quality is not gonna matter to the human eyes! (nifty :P)

..anyway i did a test:

*i encoded a 16 seconds video with both CRF 0 and QP 0, identical file sizes and identical quality!

*i did the same encode with QP 16 and CRF 16, now i kinda feel there's a difference when comparing, but it's not enough to determine which one is better quality, also the CRF 16 encode has less file size (5.39MB < 6.5MB)

*and the CRF16/QP16 encode is a tiny less in quality than the CRF0/QP0 but significantly lower file size (28.2MB to 5.39MB/6.5MB)

..which reminds me, when you guyz said +/- 1% aspect error is noticeable, did you mean when you compare, or by normally watching the video? (if so, you must have a very strong eye, like an eagle or something :P)

..but i think now CRF 16 is the way to go , i might try and go lower to CRF 12 or 10 later and see how it goes!


Edit: crf 12 is almost identical to crf 0 with only 9MB file size

[jagabo]

how do i know when i set the quantizer to 0 in fairuse, that it'll use CRF mode and not CQP mode?

I don't think it matters at Q=0. Lossless is lossless.

x264 reference: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

[UnD3R0aTh]

wow, just discovered another awesome feature in fairuse , it allows the use of external codecs and VBR mp3

quick guyz, what are the latest versions of x264vfw (can i use standard x264?) and xvid codecs that you recommend (and how to install them)? also, since there's no presets for mp3 (like V0, V1, V2,..etc) what are the CBR values that correspond to these presets?

[poisondeathray]

Latest x264 vfw version can be found here http://komisar.gin.by/

This is a special one; it can export .mp4, rawavc, .mkv, .flv formats even from vdub and other programs that rely on vfw, but requires some commandline entry for this functionality (the gui hasn't been updated yet)

You can read from post 569 onwards for more information
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=98247&page=29

It's brand new and still undergoing testing , so YMMV

[UnD3R0aTh]

thank you, but which version should i choose? what's GIT? and what are "patches"?

p.s. i have a c2d processor (E4500 2.2GHZ), and running windows xp sp3 32bit

[poisondeathray]

they are labelled; use the vfw version

i don't like posting direct links, because the versions may change over time, and links may become old

http://komisar.gin.by/old/1471/x264vfw.1471kMod.generic.x86.exe

[UnD3R0aTh]

thx a lot

Edit:

old command line gives me VCM error! can someone modify it to work with the new version plz ?

--quiet --vd-hack --crf 18 --threads 2 --ref 10 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 16 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --filter -2,-1 --subme 6 --trellis 2 --analyse all --8x8dct --vbv-maxrate 25000 --me umh

also, where do dl xvid encoder (if there's a new version)?

[El Heggunte]

where do dl xvid encoder (if there's a new version)?

http://nic.dnsalias.com/xvid.html

old command line gives me VCM error! can someone modify it to work with the new version plz ?

--quiet --vd-hack --crf 18 --threads 2 --ref 10 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 16 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --filter -2,-1 --subme 6 --trellis 2 --analyse all --8x8dct --vbv-maxrate 25000 --me umh

I can only presume that neither Dark Shikari nor akupenguin (aka the "Supreme X264 Gurus" )
would like to see that command-line being applied onto a VfW-application...

[creamyhorror]

That commandline is years out of date.

Use:

--preset slow --crf 18 --filter -2,-2 --bframes 5

You can change to "--preset slower" if you want a bit more quality at the expense of more encoding time.

[UnD3R0aTh]

x264vfw [warning]: not supported option: --preset
x264vfw [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264vfw [info]: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:-2:-2 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=3 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=5 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 wpredb=1 wpredp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=16.0000 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00 pulldown=0
x264vfw [info]: profile High, level 3.0

i got this!


Edit:

why is the new version producing bigger file size at the same settings (CRF 18)?!!! does the command line above contain any parameters that makes it more efficient with file size?