So frustrated! DVD Rips -> [anything] with Quick Sync = choppy.. sometimes

[s_mack]

Hi. Sorry for my first post being a frustrated one. I've been at this forever and can't figure out what the issue is.

I have a DVD collection and I bought an Asus O!Play media player as well as an Asus Transformer Prime tablet. The intention was to rip my DVDs and convert them to a single format that will play WELL on both devices. I don't get what I'm doing wrong.

First off, I got a 2600K based system so that I could take advantage of Quick Sync so conversions wouldn't take forever. I am impressed with the speed... but the results have been crap. I finally found a setup that seems to work sometimes, but invariably there's at least some part of the movie that goes really choppy - kind of like its stuttering. I'm not being just picky - even the least videophile among us would complain.

Turning on 2-pass in DVDFab solves this issue. But turning on 2-pass negates the use of Quick Sync! The conversion then takes 2.5 times as long (plus it then feels like a HUGE waste of time and money buying a new system). I can keep QS on and solve the issue if I put the bit rate above ~10,000kpbs but that's ridiculous - the resulting files is 2-3 times the size of the DVD!! I've tried other software packages besides DVDFab, but I'd prefer to use that one AND every other one I've tried has either been the same or worse.

Is it my settings? Is it my CPU? My mobo? My player? I've very recently been leaning toward the latter - the player - since I have produced some files that play just fine on the tablet but stutter on the O!Play. But the weird thing is, I've downloaded hundreds of videos off the Internet that work just fine on the O!Play, leading me to think its the file itself and not the player.

Grrr... I don't even know where to begin.

- Steven

[hech54]

Turning on 2-pass in DVDFab solves this issue. But turning on 2-pass negates the use of Quick Sync!

So what. Then whatever this "Quick Sync" thing is sucks(at this type of work).
If you are trying to convert from the "disc in the drive" and you are having trouble....the best logical solution is to rip the disc with no compression - Movie only - one audio stream to your hard drive....then convert/compress that to a video file that this Asus O!Play media player understands.
Sorry to be so blunt but....you are just beating your head against the wall right now.

[Bjs]

Simply try encoding a sample without the use of quick sync (intel) for test on the O!Play

Secondly, use media info on one of the problematic files and post the info

At a wild guess Id check if audio is CBR and not VBR ... its harder on "fixed asset" devices than computers.

[jagabo]

I don't think the problem is Quick Sync (Intel's GPU based h.264 encoder) itself but apparently something about DVD Fab's implementation. Try using a different encoder with QS support (mediacoder?) and see if the situation improves.

But in my experience, x264 with the veryfast preset is faster and produces better quality than Quick Sync.

[s_mack]

Simply try encoding a sample without the use of quick sync (intel) for test on the O!Play

Secondly, use media info on one of the problematic files and post the info

At a wild guess Id check if audio is CBR and not VBR ... its harder on "fixed asset" devices than computers.

Thanks for the help Bjs. I was about to type, "I did try without quick sync, and it worked but it took 45 minutes"... but then now that I think about it, I'm not sure it "worked". I'll have to try again and look closely. There were no immediate or obvious artifacts... but please read my update post below.

I'm not familiar with media info so I'll get on that this morning. Thanks for the "wild guess" - it may lead somewhere, you never know!

I don't think the problem is Quick Sync (Intel's GPU based h.264 encoder) itself but apparently something about DVD Fab's implementation. Try using a different encoder with QS support (mediacoder?) and see if the situation improves.

But in my experience, x264 with the veryfast preset is faster and produces better quality than Quick Sync.

I tried pretty much all QS supported encoders with the same or worse result (as I said in my original post)

Turning on 2-pass in DVDFab solves this issue. But turning on 2-pass negates the use of Quick Sync!

So what. Then whatever this "Quick Sync" thing is sucks(at this type of work).
If you are trying to convert from the "disc in the drive" and you are having trouble....the best logical solution is to rip the disc with no compression - Movie only - one audio stream to your hard drive....then convert/compress that to a video file that this Asus O!Play media player understands.
Sorry to be so blunt but....you are just beating your head against the wall right now.

Sorry to be even more blunt, but if you don't know what Quick Sync is, then you're not exactly keeping up with technology and not really in a position to help, right? I don't mean for that to come off rude (or at least not any more rude than yours did ) but your post really didn't offer up anything.

There's limited info on QS still, which amazes me (wasn't it released in like '09?), but the few serious articles all say the same thing - it rocks. Not one of them says you'll end up with choppy video. So I have a problem somewhere, not QS, surely.

[s_mack]

Bit of an update:

Late last night I briefly said "screw it" to QS, threw in an Nvidia 550ti and tried again with CUDA and it was only a little slower... but still, choppy playback on the Asus O!Play. Fine on the tablet, fine on the PC.

That might lead everyone to say its obviously the O!Play... but whenever I download (virtually any format of) video files off the Internet from random people encoding however they're encoding... it works fine. In fact, I've NEVER ran into choppy playback like this even on the crappiest files. I've had FAR worse image quality, but not playback.

I tried a WHOLE BUNCH of sample files. A few worked! Yay! But then I'd do another movie on the same settings and I'd have choppy playback again. WTF?!?! But... fingers crossed... I have found ONE settings combo that so far (so far) has worked on every movie I tried, but its not that great quality. 1Mbps, h.264 codec, .mp4 container, 23.976fps, AAC audio @ 448kbps/5.1. I bumped that UP to 3Mbps, leaving all other settings the same, and the stutter comes back. Grr. I can't for the life of me figure out why that would be the case.

I also can't figure out why the exact same settings but in mkv screws it up. Prior to this frustrated experiment, I've never played anything but MKV and AVI files on the O!Play. Weird.

I'll try to get that "media info" dump on here later today.

- Steven

[s_mack]

MediaInfo dump from the Cuda attempt I made last night (I deleted all the QS files after getting mad):

General
Complete name : I:\Arthur.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 2.70 GiB
Duration : 1h 49mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 518 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-03 02:38:59
Tagged date : UTC 2012-01-03 02:48:30

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=15
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 49mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 071 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 608 Kbps
Width : 692 pixels
Height : 388 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.381
Stream size : 2.36 GiB (87%)
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-03 02:38:59
Tagged date : UTC 2012-01-03 02:48:22
Color primaries : BT.709-2, SMPTE 274M, SMPTE 296M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-2, SMPTE 170M, SMPTE 274M, SMPTE 293M, SMPTE 296M
Matrix coefficients : BT.470-4 System B, BT.470-4 System G, BT.601-4, SMPTE 170M, SMPTE 293M

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 49mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 444 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 588 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 349 MiB (13%)
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-03 02:38:59
Tagged date : UTC 2012-01-03 02:48:11

[poisondeathray]

Frame rate : 30.000 fps

If this is a theatrical movie from DVD source, that might be the cause for stuttering

A DVD source will be telecined; you would have to inverse telecine to get back the original 23.976 film rate

You're probably deinterlacing it (reducing the quality, and every 5th frame will be a repeat, causing jerky playback)

(Also look at your audio : 6ch AAC, 444kbps - you 'd be better off copying the original audio instead of re-encoding it (losing quality, wasting time) - original is probably AC3 448kbps )

[s_mack]

I was wondering that. When I first started this process, I left it at 23.976fps. That first attempt was absolutely horrible - but that was when I was using the MKV container. Since that point, I started using 30fps at someone else's suggestion (as well as Android's suggestion for "High quality playback" on the tablet) and it didn't help with MKV, but when I switched to MP4 I didn't think too much about framerates again. But then last night, as mentioned a couple of posts up, I tried a whole bunch of sample files. 1Mbps through 5Mbps, at 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97 and 30FPS (so 25 different samples). I had quite a few successes on that 2 minute sample! But then I'd try a "success" on a different file and get a problem again. As mentioned, the only one I've tried so far that I haven't had a problem with (but we're still only talking about 3 or 4 samples) is 1Mbps @ 23.976.

But in general, you're saying I should stick to 23.976?

[poisondeathray]

But in general, you're saying I should stick to 23.976?

A theatrical DVD release in North America will ALWAYS be 23.976 , telecined for DVD, so the frame rate will be 29.97. To get the original progressive content you have to reverse the process to get the orignal 23.976. I'm not sure what DVD Fab does, I haven't used in a few years, I only use anydvd now

If this is a PAL DVD, then there will be some other conversions going on , probably 23.976=>25 FPS conversion . Then there is other stuff you have to do

[jagabo]

Try changing the audio to 2 channel AAC at a lower bitrate.

[s_mack]

Excuse the ignorance... so then am I better off with my files outputted @ 23.976 or 29.97 for NTSC? DVDFab seems to default to the former and for the most part I was leaving it there.

jagabo - I'll try that. I'll be disappointed if that works though! The O!Play supports 5.1 (apparently)

[poisondeathray]

Excuse the ignorance... so then am I better off with my files outputted @ 23.976 or 29.97 for NTSC? DVDFab seems to default to the former and for the most part I was leaving it there.

jagabo - I'll try that. I'll be disappointed if that works though! The O!Play supports 5.1 (apparently)

If this is a film source, 23.976

I've heard 5.1 AAC can cause problems with some players, but 5.1 AC3 should work (just copy the original - no quality loss, plus conversion is faster because it's just copying, not encoding that stream)

[s_mack]

OK, I'll try that.

Can you guys suggest bitrates (both audio and video) that I should be aiming for?

[poisondeathray]

If you copy the audio, bitrate setting is irrelevant

Video bitrate maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of the original would be rough ball park (anywhere from 2-4Mb/s might be a good starting point). It's your eyes that determine what is "good enough". If it still looks poor , use a higher bitrate or better encoder (x264)

[hech54]

Sorry to be even more blunt, but if you don't know what Quick Sync is, then you're not exactly keeping up with technology and not really in a position to help, right? I don't mean for that to come off rude (or at least not any more rude than yours did ) but your post really didn't offer up anything.

Decrypting, ripping and encoding from a disc in a drive was terrible on my old computer, still useless on my quad-core, and obviously still useless on an even newer system. It has also always been faster to do it in two steps, whether it was transcoding(DVDShrink) back in the old days or re-encoding today....doing it all from the disc drive is just plain bad news. That was my point...that is what I offered up.

[s_mack]

Ok, i guess i missed your point. This isn't direct from a disk... they are ripped to my hdd 1st via AnyDVD. I didn't think i could do it in one step.

[s_mack]

Audio copy apparently isn't an option unless I go back to MKV (I had been using mp4 as I was having more success). MKV results in crappy playback on every device including my PC. Here's a mediainfo dump of a segment of a movie I just tried, in case its of any use:

General
Complete name : I:\TEST.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 243 MiB
Duration : 3mn 27s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 9 791 Kbps
Movie name : TEST.Title8.DVDRip
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-03 20:31:12
Writing application : DVDFab
Writing library : libebml v0.7.8 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Video
ID : 9
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 3mn 27s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 9 148 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 21.0 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 298 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.778
Stream size : 227 MiB (93%)
Default : No
Forced : No
Audio
ID : 10
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 3mn 27s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 11.1 MiB (5%)
Default : No
Forced : No

Notice the exceeding high video bitrate... that's just me trying higher and higher rates to see if it would fix it - it didn't. 2-pass fixes it, but again... I'm REALLY not interested in going that route since it takes WAY too long.

Could all of this somehow be caused by the fact I'm running my o/s and programs off of an SSD?

[s_mack]

Could all of this somehow be caused by the fact I'm running my o/s and programs off of an SSD?

Right after I typed that... I figured, "well let's rule that out!"

And I think I might be on to something.

I did a fresh install of Windows on a slow/small SATA HDD (120GB back from when 120GB was considered big), installed all the drivers for my mobo, etc, and installed DVDFab and went to work.

SUCCESS!!! Using the EXACT SAME SETTINGS as I was previously, I got no choppiness at all!

Now, logic would dictate that I haven't 100% nailed anything down. It could have been a software issue in my main Windows install or some driver issue or whatever. But it is interesting nevertheless!

Is it possible that the SSD is somehow "too fast" for this task? Seems odd.

Hmm, just thought of something. My Windows and Programs are on SSD but my video files are on a large SATA drive. Perhaps its the act of reading from a slower drive and encoding on a faster one that's the problem? I'll do a test right now... move the video file to the SSD first then encode. Report soon.

- Steven

[jagabo]

Is it possible that the SSD is somehow "too fast" for this task? Seems odd.

Extremely unlikely.

Hmm, just thought of something. My Windows and Programs are on SSD but my video files are on a large SATA drive. Perhaps its the act of reading from a slower drive and encoding on a faster one that's the problem?

Also extremely unlikely.

[s_mack]

I agree, it was unlikely... it also appears to have been the case!

As mentioned, I did the fresh install without an SSD and it worked. Then I rebooted into my SSD setup (the exact same setup I had before that was causing all the troubles) and tried encoding from the HDD source onto an HDD destination. That didn't work, so at that point I thought that wasn't it. But then... being the logical type that I am... I figured to truly test, I'd have to rule out more variables. To that end, I uninstalled DVDFab and reinstalled it, but this time on the HDD. With the program off the SDD, the problem was resolved. I used every combination of HDD/SDD for source/destination and it always worked fine.

Now, to rule out that it was just a matter of a bad DVDFab installation, I once again uninstalled the program and reinstalled it back on the SSD... and the problem was back.

I can't at all explain WHY it would be the case, but with the software running on my SSD, I get choppy playback on at least some of my devices at least some of the time. With the software running on my HDD, I have not seen choppy playback on any device yet.

Some more tests for me to do:

- Try MKV again (all test above were with MP4, which I had greater success with previously. MKV files previously wouldn't even play on the PC without issues)
- I have a second SSD so I should install Windows (etc) to it and try everything again to rule out that I had a "bad" SSD - even though I've had no other issues at all.

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that this is a DVDFab issue (with SSD), I was having crappy playback no matter what software I tried.

- Steven

[s_mack]

Oh, oddly enough - I have run into another problem now. With DVDFab installed on a drive other than my primary drive... I now can't complete a large encode. Small (8 - 10 minutes) have finished fine, but every single attempt at a full movie has had it stall part way through the process. I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times on several drives (both SSD and HDD) and it always is the case. Put it back on c: drive and its fine. I have NOT yet tried other software programs to see if THIS particular issue is a DVDFab issue.

- Steven

[hech54]

Ok, i guess i missed your point. This isn't direct from a disk... they are ripped to my hdd 1st via AnyDVD. I didn't think i could do it in one step.

Now, to rule out that it was just a matter of a bad DVDFab installation, I once again uninstalled the program and reinstalled it back on the SSD... and the problem was back.

You are decrypting/ripping the discs(EVERY disc - throughout this entire conversation/thread) with AnyDVD?
And you are using DVDFab to ONLY create MKV files....nothing else?

[s_mack]

You are decrypting/ripping the discs(EVERY disc - throughout this entire conversation/thread) with AnyDVD?
And you are using DVDFab to ONLY create MKV files....nothing else?

Yes, always with AnyDVD. No, not always MKV files. That was my intent at first, because the files I download from time to time off the web that work on that player have been MKV. But since attempting all this, I've had ZERO luck with MKV. So I moved on to .mp4 which, for some reason, I've had better luck with.

And on that note...

- Try MKV again (all test above were with MP4, which I had greater success with previously. MKV files previously wouldn't even play on the PC without issues)

Failure. MKV is still giving me crap playback even on the PC. To be clear, I don't mean MKV in general. Downloaded MKV files are fine. Its the ones I'm producing myself that aren't playing. Every second or so, it has a huge jitter.

So I'm not sure I'm out of the woods - although if I can get mp4 working consistently I suppose I don't care.

- Steven

[s_mack]

Oh, oddly enough - I have run into another problem now. With DVDFab installed on a drive other than my primary drive... I now can't complete a large encode. Small (8 - 10 minutes) have finished fine, but every single attempt at a full movie has had it stall part way through the process. I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times on several drives (both SSD and HDD) and it always is the case. Put it back on c: drive and its fine. I have NOT yet tried other software programs to see if THIS particular issue is a DVDFab issue.

- Steven

This problem was solved by lowering audio bitrate. I have no idea why any bitrate was fine when installed on the primary drive and NOT fine installed on a secondary drive... but whatever, it doesn't really matter to me.

[s_mack]

Sweet! I did 17 full length movies as a batch conversion from DVD rips to MP4 (3Mbps, Dolby Prologic @192) and check... it... out! Just shy of 1 hour 8 minutes. That's for all 17! That's short of 4 minutes per movie! And the best news (for me) is that they're all fine!

I still haven't figured out what's wrong with my MKV settings, but this suits my needs just fine. They play perfectly on the pc, Asus O!Play, and Asus Transformer Prime tablet.



- Steven

[s_mack]

In case its of any interest... here's a mediainfo dump for one of the 17 movies mentioned above:

General
Complete name : F:\mp4\How to Train Your Dragon\How to Train Your Dragon.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 2.18 GiB
Duration : 1h 37mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 184 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-04 08:10:35
Tagged date : UTC 2012-01-04 08:13:59
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=24
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 37mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 020 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 12.0 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 310 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Minimum frame rate : 23.974 fps
Maximum frame rate : 23.981 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.564
Stream size : 2.06 GiB (95%)
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-04 08:10:35
Tagged date : UTC 2012-01-04 08:13:45
Color primaries : BT.709-2, SMPTE 274M, SMPTE 296M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-2, SMPTE 170M, SMPTE 274M, SMPTE 293M, SMPTE 296M
Matrix coefficients : BT.470-4 System B, BT.470-4 System G, BT.601-4, SMPTE 170M, SMPTE 293M
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 37mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 160 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 224 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 112 MiB (5%)
Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-04 08:10:35
Tagged date : UTC 2012-01-04 08:13:44

[jagabo]

Mod2 frame size? Many decoders will have problems with that. I'd stick with mod4 at least. mod8 or mod16 would be even better.

Try constant frame rate too.

[s_mack]

Re: Mod2/4/8/16... I don't know what that means or how to set it.

Re: constant framerate... I tried finding an option for that in DVDFab but I don't see one. I choose the framerate, and I chose 23.976. So where the "variable" comes from, I have no idea.

I sure wish handbrake would support Quick Sync!

- Steven

[jagabo]

mod2/4/8/16: the largest power of 2 the frame size is divisible by to give an integer result. 310 is mod2 (310/2=155, 310/4=77.5, 310/8=38.75...). High compression codecs all break the picture down into 16x16 and 8x8 (and sometimes 4x8 or 8x4) pixel blocks so they work best with mod8 and mod16 frame sizes. Some encoders and decoders won't work with mod2 frame sizes. 720x304 (mod16) would have been a better frame size. Or 720x312 (mod8).

I don't know anything about DVDFab's encoder. I only use it for ripping. So I can't tell you if there's a way to force a constant frame rate. But variable frame rate could be a problem with some players.