Need to compress a video so that it is 1MB/min, what encoder should I use?

[Bob2267]

I have to get some videos to 1MB/min, what software, video format and codec should I use to do this and get the best quality? I tried using OJOsoft Total Video Converter, with the 3GPP 2, "Mobile Smallest Size" format, with the framerate at 12 FPS and bitrate at 104 kbit, but there are a lot of artifacts in the video (the less movement in the video, the less artifacts and it is actually pretty good when there's little movement, but most of the videos have the camera moving about a lot).

I know it's asking for a lot, but is there a way to compress a video that has the camera moving around (as in someone carrying it and turning it and stuff) to 1MB/min with decent quality (as in low artifacts)? I know it'd have to be low resolution, but if it's possible, what's the highest resolution I could get?

Thanks.

[Baldrick]

Have you tried with h264/avc in a low resolution like 320x240 or lower? Use for example xmedia recode, vidcoder or handbrake.

[Bob2267]

Have you tried with h264/avc in a low resolution like 320x240 or lower? Use for example xmedia recode, vidcoder or handbrake.

Yes, I used H.264/AVC with OJOsoft Total Video Converter, and I used a resolution of 320x240. I have experimented with even lower resolutions, but am not very happy with the results.

Would using any of those 3 programs you just listed possibly give me better results? What file extension should I use? I try all of my tests on 3GPP2, since that seems to work best, but there may be better ones?

[Atak_Snajpera]

Have you tried ripbot264?
BTW. Don't expect miracles in 137 kbps ok!? (1024 KB / 60s = 17 KB/s * 8 = 137 kbps)

[jman98]

We've had reports that Handbrake does a poor job at low bit rates. Try ripbot264 as suggested with a resolution of 320x240 and see what you think.

[yoda313]

Why not give vcd a shot? Isn't it roughly a 1mb a min? It might not be great but you can't beat it for compatibility - virtually any software player should play vcd natively, its old enough. - mpg 1 video fyi.

[Gavino]

Why not give vcd a shot? Isn't it roughly a 1mb a min?

1152 kbps for video and 224 kbps audio.
The OP wants 1 MByte/min, which is about 130 kbps, a tenth of the total vcd rate.
Personally, I think almost anything at that rate is going to look like crap.

[Nelson37]

You reach a point when you'd be better off just putting a dot in the center of the screen.

[lordsmurf]

This isn't even a challenge.
See my attached example: 6.5 minutes at 6.3MB. Easy, easy, easy.

The biggest difference is I'm using professional software, not junky Chinese $30 warez.

..

[lordsmurf]

The previous video is actually quite complex.
However, just in case the previous sample wasn't impressive, here's one with lots of shaky amateur video.
This one is 2:08, and the MP4 is 2.05MB.

Both of these samples look perfectly fine viewed full-screen in VLC, and on a nice sized pro monitor.

To answer your question: use MainConcept Reference. Current price is $1,160 for H.264/AVC Pro codec.

MainConcept makes the best H.264 software encoder.
Everybody else reverse engineers them -- or at least tries to, with most of them done quite poorly.

..

[Bob2267]

The previous video is actually quite complex.
However, just in case the previous sample wasn't impressive, here's one with lots of shaky amateur video.
This one is 2:08, and the MP4 is 2.05MB.

Both of these samples look perfectly fine viewed full-screen in VLC, and on a nice sized pro monitor.

To answer your question: use MainConcept Reference. Current price is $1,160 for H.264/AVC Pro codec.

MainConcept makes the best H.264 software encoder.
Everybody else reverse engineers them -- or at least tries to, with most of them done quite poorly.

..

Hmm, what settings did you use? My brother is a professional video editor and has some software very similar to the one you mentioned, by the looks of some images. Do you know what settings you used to get the videos like that?

[Bob2267]

The previous video is actually quite complex.
However, just in case the previous sample wasn't impressive, here's one with lots of shaky amateur video.
This one is 2:08, and the MP4 is 2.05MB.

Both of these samples look perfectly fine viewed full-screen in VLC, and on a nice sized pro monitor.

To answer your question: use MainConcept Reference. Current price is $1,160 for H.264/AVC Pro codec.

MainConcept makes the best H.264 software encoder.
Everybody else reverse engineers them -- or at least tries to, with most of them done quite poorly.

..

Upon inspecting the software further, I think it's the same as what you're talking about, I just think it's a different version or something because some of the buttons are in different places and the icons are a bit different.

Anyway, here are the settings I used:

Codec: H.264/AVC Pro

Profile: Baseline

Mode: NTSC

Framerate: 12.5p

Width: 320px

Height: 240px

Aspect: 16:9 (this was on Square px. but I think your video was set to 16:9 so I switched to it as well)

P/Q: 9 Balanced

Bitrate: Constant

Rate: 136kbps

The preset is set to "Custom : H.264 Baseline".

The quality is alright but there are moments in the video when it is greatly reduced (and I have it set to constant) and there are large, annoying artifacts. Did I set something wrong?

Also, I can't seem to get audio working, I had to drag the video file onto the "video #0" part of the output box thing, but when I try to drag the video file onto the audio part, it doesn't work.

[Atak_Snajpera]

To answer your question: use MainConcept Reference. Current price is $1,160 for H.264/AVC Pro codec.

MainConcept makes the best H.264 software encoder.
Everybody else reverse engineers them -- or at least tries to, with most of them done quite poorly.

You are joking right? x264 is the best video encoder available for now and it is FREE.

@Bob2267
send us source sample to www.mediafire.com and we will see what we can achive with such low bitrate limit.

Another problem is that you encode at Baseline profile. This means no cabac and other useful stuff.

[Bob2267]

To answer your question: use MainConcept Reference. Current price is $1,160 for H.264/AVC Pro codec.

MainConcept makes the best H.264 software encoder.
Everybody else reverse engineers them -- or at least tries to, with most of them done quite poorly.

You are joking right? x264 is the best video encoder available for now and it is FREE.

@Bob2267
send us source sample to www.mediafire.com and we will see what we can achive with such low bitrate limit.

Another problem is that you encode at Baseline profile. This means no cabac and other useful stuff.

Here is a sample video: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27054690/sample.mp4, but it's not on MediaFire, DropBox instead since it's more convenient (and should work just as well).

I am trying to convert real life videos but I will most likely try to convert some TV shows such as Family Guy and The Simpsons, to put on my multimedia player (small screen which is good for compression).

So what's the best quality that video can be kept at when being compressed to 1 MB/min (or in this case a bit over 500 KB, since the footage sample is only 36 seconds long)?

Note: Better quality may be achievable with that sample, the report I gave you before about the quality being bad was with an entire House episode (too big to send).

Note: I'd also like to put movies on my multimedia player, so they'll also need to be decent quality (although if you can get the dog video to decent quality, the movies should hopefully be able to converted to that size and quality with the same software). I just notice that some videos compress better than others at the same file size.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Baseline profile -> http://www.mediafire.com/?9aar6dw5cveeiso
High profile -> http://www.mediafire.com/?7c06pvi5c71wer8

Encoded in ripbot264 (x264)

[Bob2267]

Baseline profile -> http://www.mediafire.com/?9aar6dw5cveeiso
High profile -> http://www.mediafire.com/?7c06pvi5c71wer8

Encoded in ripbot264 (x264)

Remember these need to be 1MB/min, that clip is only 36 seconds long, therefore it should be a bit over half a megabyte.
Thanks anyway though.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Bob2267
Don't forget about AUDIO!!!
Video is 140 kbps but AUDIO is 64 kbps !!

[Atak_Snajpera]

Happy now?
http://www.mediafire.com/?f5d65wi1e6wj6z5

[Bob2267]

Happy now?
http://www.mediafire.com/?f5d65wi1e6wj6z5

I wasn't working with audio before (couldn't get it working), so I forgot about that. I apologize.

Thank you.

[poisondeathray]

Does your multimedia player have restrictions? (some settings used by some encoders might not be compatible with some devices)

Getting better compression involves more than picking an encoder or some settings. You should to preprocess the video for better results and improve compressibility (e.g. filter, denoise, stabilize).

[lordsmurf]

x264 is the best video encoder available for now and it is FREE.

No it's not.

Two main reasons:
1. It doesn't connect to existing NLE workflows.
2. I don't feel like using command-line, because all x264 GUIs are crap. Reference is a powerful GUI for their codecs.

Beyond that, the comparisons of x264 vs MainConcept quality is a game of benchmarks. Sort of like ATI vs nVidia, Intel vs AMD, etc. Statistics are skewed to reflect whatever point the person doing the comparison is trying to make. Whatever valid data exists is hidden underneath a layer of BS.

There are quite a few ways video could be tweaked for improvement, but my samples suffice for the test of 1MB per 1 minute, showing that quite reasonable quality (free of blocks) can easily be achieved. Streaming video happens to be the one area where I simply don't feel inclined to give away all of my secrets. At least not for free, and not in a public setting. Most people can't afford the tools, and aren't willing to read everything required anyway. With H.264 encoding in general, you can't just turn on all the codec settings/features, as it could disrupt the way the media is viewed or delivered. Too few people understand that.

I'm not anti-freeware, but most x264 supporters come across as being cheapskates that are willing to sacrifice the user experience and functional features, all while insisting x264 is a better product. I'm sorry, but no, it's not. It's more like a college dorm experiment, or a Linux server admin's idea of acceptable software, than anything found in a modern studio setup. Ignoring professionals, and looking at average home users, Amazon is already filled with negative reviews from common folks who are too stupid/lazy to figure out click-and-drag dummy-version NLEs (Premiere Elements, for example), so there's no hope at them ever using x264. At least not any version of it (i.e., GUI) that will compete with MainConcept in any meaningful way.

If x264 someday matures into a good product, that would be great. But I'm afraid many of those involved in its development will have to overcome their narcissism.

[Atak_Snajpera]

1. It doesn't connect to existing NLE workflows.

??? Have you heard about x264 VFW???

2. I don't feel like using command-line, because all x264 GUIs are crap. Reference is a powerful GUI for their codecs.

What is missing in GUIs you tested? Give a fact amigo!?

BTW you are funny with that pro-tool crap talk

[deadrats]

BTW you are funny with that pro-tool crap talk

he does have a very valid point though, the two main x264 developers do tend to be very egotistical and narcissistic, as are almost all open source developers i have ever talked to.

x264's main claim to fame is a) it's (legally) free and b) it uses lots of hand crafted assembler so that it's extremely fast with the 2 fastest presets.

the reality is however that once the quality settings are turned up it's encoding speed nose dives and it's quality doesn't really improve all that much.

honestly, in many ways x264 is over rated, it's great for the price but i seriously doubt you could find anyone that would be willing to buy it at 1000 bucks per seat license ala main concept.

[Atak_Snajpera]

the reality is however that once the quality settings are turned up it's encoding speed nose dives and it's quality doesn't really improve all that much.

Does anybody force you to choose anything above default medium preset? There is reason why presets are named as "SLOW", "VERY SLOW" or "PLACEBO". It does not necessary mean for human eyes "BETTER QUALITY" or "THE BEST QUALITY". You should compare x264 quality with MainConcept at THE same encoding speed. For example default medium preset with equivalent in MainConcept.

honestly, in many ways x264 is over rated, it's great for the price but i seriously doubt you could find anyone that would be willing to buy it at 1000 bucks per seat license ala main concept.

So Don't use it and go back to MPEG-4 ASP era or spend $$$$ for super-pro-hiper-ultra-over-priced-MainConcept-uber-encoder.

[deadrats]

Does anybody force you to choose anything above default medium preset? There is reason why presets are named as "SLOW", "VERY SLOW" or "PLACEBO". It does not necessary mean for human eyes "BETTER QUALITY" or "THE BEST QUALITY". You should compare x264 quality with MainConcept at THE same encoding speed. For example default medium preset with equivalent in MainConcept.

if the "slow", "very slow" and "placebo" settings don't correlate to "better quality" and so on then what is the point of any of the presets? clearly they are meant to denote that as encoding speed goes down at any given bit rate quality goes up.

furthermore, i have never heard anyone say that any encoder should be compared at similar encoding speeds, it's always at similar bit rates.

be that as it may, while x264 smokes main concept in encoding speed at the ultra and super fast presets, at the slower presets, when compared to similar settings in main concept, main concept is the faster encoder and by quite a bit at that.

So Don't use it and go back to MPEG-4 ASP era or spend $$$$ for super-pro-hiper-ultra-over-priced-MainConcept-uber-encoder.

i don't use it, i'm waiting to save up enough money to buy a sandy bridge based system and then i'll just use intel's hardware accelerated quick sync encoder.

[jman98]

Framerate: 12.5p

That's a really odd framerate. Anything you encode to that frame rate won't have realistic motion. Is there a good reason why you are not using 25 here?

[Bob2267]

Framerate: 12.5p

That's a really odd framerate. Anything you encode to that frame rate won't have realistic motion. Is there a good reason why you are not using 25 here?

Helps keep the quality good at low bitrates. It's acceptable in my opinion, even if it doesn't look as good as 25 FPS.

[Atak_Snajpera]

i don't use it, i'm waiting to save up enough money to buy a sandy bridge based system and then i'll just use intel's hardware accelerated quick sync encoder.

Have you seen quality tests at least? Intel's encoder is noticeable worse than x264 and MainConcept.

furthermore, i have never heard anyone say that any encoder should be compared at similar encoding speeds, it's always at similar bit rates.

Encoding speed also matters! If quality is comparable and we can save some time so who will be a winner? x264 default medium preset gives very good quality and it is not that slow on decent cpu. People use slower presets because they want to be sure that the achieve max quality. Personally I use medium preset. Don't forget that quality does not improve linearly with chosen preset. Using PLACEBO preset does not mean for example 2x better quality than medium.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Helps keep the quality good at low bitrates. It's acceptable in my opinion, even if it doesn't look as good as 25 FPS.

With decent h264 encoder you don't have to reduce fps.

[mike20021969]

With decent h264 encoder you don't have to reduce fps.

Maybe you could point him in the right direction...