Need help dealing with blocking

[drawar]

Ok, here comes another question from me

As usual, sample first: http://www.multiupload.com/XSEIB2Y90H

Here are the problem that I've encountered so far: the sparks 'rain' that mpeg2 can't encode transparently at a bitrate of ~ 7Mbit is causing blockiness, which is very nasty and annoying. Some shots referring to what I was talking about:




This could be a little off-topic, but as I don't want to create multiple threads, so I will ask it right here Can you tell me what's wrong with these frames?
Actual size:
2x upsized with Spline36Resize:

Also, I'm gonna encode the video to h264 using crf mode, what is the value of --crf xx should I choose to achieve a smooth view during playback? Hope someone will help me find a decent solution, many thanks

[manono]

If the "sparks 'rain'" are in the source like that, are you saying you expect the MPEG-2 encoder make that garbage go away? Filter it to make it more compressible, use a lower bitrate quantisation matrix, use a higher max bitrate, etc. And this 7 Mbit, is that the average bitrate, the max bitrate, are you using CBR, or what?

[drawar]

If the "sparks 'rain'" are in the source like that, are you saying you expect the MPEG-2 encoder make that garbage go away? Filter it to make it more compressible, use a lower bitrate quantisation matrix, use a higher max bitrate, etc. And this 7 Mbit, is that the average bitrate, the max bitrate, are you using CBR, or what?

No, don't get me wrong. What I really want is:
1. Find some filters that can weed out those flaws , or at least make them less annoying
2. Choose the right quantization value so that x264 can encode it smoothly without introducing more artifacts due to bitrate starvation.

As for MPEG-2, I meant the video could only be encoded transparently to MPEG-2 with an insane bitrate (that is certainly higher than 7 Mbit), or it would inevitably suffer from those nasty defects. It's h264 that I want to encode it to, not mpeg-2

[manono]

I still don't understand. Didn't you show us pictures from the untouched source? And isn't that source a DVD? If so, it already looks like crap.

As for MPEG-2, I meant the video could only be encoded transparently to MPEG-2 with an insane bitrate (that is certainly higher than 7 Mbit), or it would inevitably suffer from those nasty defects.

If the pics are from the source DVD, I don't for a minute believe it can't be reencoded without suffering worse artifacts to a final size equal to or less than that of the source. Especially since you can IVTC it to make it much more compressible. Now, removing all that mosquito noise without seriously damaging the rest of it may be close to impossible. I think it can be improved upon, but at the cost of detail.

My opinion is that the people that encoded it originally were incompetent to have let it go out looking like that. There's lots they could have done at their end to have improved the output. But most of the music video DVD producers don't give a damn and are among the worst of the worst.

[drawar]

Yep, the shots are from an untouched VOB extracted from a DVD. Though this is crap, it is still the best available out there when the master hasn't come out. Those frames merely exhibit blocking and sort of, so I think removing the mosquito noise won't make them worse. Also, I only apply the filter to those bad frames, while leaving the rest intact. Btw, filesize is not a big deal at all.