MediaInfo question

[Startropic1]

On another site there have been complaints regarding a particular encoder's work. I happened to have one of his videos on hand so I examined it. Personally I couldn't really find any serious problems with it, but here's the MediaInfo log:

General
Format : Matroska
File size : 228 MiB
Duration : 27mn 9s
Overall bit rate : 1 174 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-13 09:36:50
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.2.0 ('Turn It On Again') built on Mar 4 2008 12:58:26
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Muxing mode : Container profile=Unknown@5.1
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 27mn 9s
Bit rate : 766 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 842 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 400 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.089
Stream size : 149 MiB (65%)
Title : Encoded by ZangetsuZero [http://www.demonoid.com]
Writing library : x264 core 58 svn-736M
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=4 / brdo=0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=0 / keyint=300 / keyint_min=30 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=842 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40
Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Codec ID : A_MPEG/L3
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 27mn 9s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 37.3 MiB (16%)
Language : English
Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Codec ID : A_MPEG/L3
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 27mn 9s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 37.3 MiB (16%)
Language : Japanese
Text #1
ID : 4
Format : VobSub
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used on DVDs
Language : English
Text #2
ID : 5
Format : VobSub
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used on DVDs
Language : English


I have two questions in particular:

1. What's with the bit saying "Container profile = unknown". Is there a problem there?

2. What do all the tags mean in the Encoding Settings line? I know a few of them, but go ahead and explain them all.

Any info/opinions are appreciated.

[poisondeathray]

1) no problem, this is metadata and what appears when you use mkvtoolnix. The actual video isn't L5.1, it's incorrectly flagged
2) http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

Without examining the video, the potential problems I can see if this was a dvd source is the frame rate (if it was a film source, it should be IVTCed to 23.976) . The settings used were not optimal either (old encoder build, low quality settings) , but the encode date was 2008, so I guess using an older build is expected.

Specifically, what were the complaints?

[Startropic1]

There were complaints of low quality, and buggy playback. One user said the video would not play with CCCP MPC (of which both parts are basically obsolete). It worked fine in VLC and I downloaded the newest MPC (MPC Home Cinema) and again no playback problems.

I would say the quality is not the best, but a far cry from "bad". So what should it be flagged as?

[manono]

Yeah, that's what jumped out at me also, the framerate. Is this a movie? Are we allowed to know the movie name?

[poisondeathray]

low quality - understandable, because the settings used were low quality , poor compression (low reference frames, low subme, no b-frames). And at such a lowish bitrate(filesize), you need better compression settings to keep higher quality. If you use bad settings, you have to compensate by using a higher bitrate to maintain a certain quality level

buggy playback - probably not processed correctly (what I said above about IVTCing). What were the specific complaints about playback problems?

the flag does nothing, except for certain hardware players may refuse to play it because it's flagged as L5.1. The level cutoffs are specfied in the link below. If you notice L5.1 specifies a huge bitrate, which that video obviously isn't
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC

"quality" is relative. What you see as good, picky folks might see as "bad"

[Startropic1]

Yeah, that's what jumped out at me also, the framerate. Is this a movie? Are we allowed to know the movie name?

It's an anime series, which I believe was made in widescreen. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

[poisondeathray]

Anime is another issue; the original DVD sources are often field blended and exhibit other wierd combinations. There are filters to help, but this has to be processed before encoding

Anime is highly compressible, the settings used were very poor / not optimized for anime. You probably could have used 1/2 the bitrate and got similar quality using better settings (or better quality using the same bitrate)

[Startropic1]

buggy playback - probably not processed correctly (what I said above about IVTCing). What were the specific complaints about playback problems?

One complaint was that when switching audio tracks, sometimes sound would be lost altogether and the video would have to be restarted. I didn't experience this problem myself, other than the brief second of silence that is expected when switching tracks.