Best program to use to encode subtitled vid

[enrell]

Hi folks

I am quite a newbie in this whole video compression thingy.

All this while, I have been using virtualdub to encode a video file with .ass files into a .mp4 file. I am using virtualdub to english subtitled korean shows.

I was thinking, is this the best way for me to do this? What I need is a fast encoding with no loss in video/audio quality.

Please advise !!

Thank you

[Baldrick]

You will always lose quality by reconverting/hardcoding subs into the video. But if you use good settings you might not see any difference.


What settings are you using now? For fast encoding with good quality is probably xvid one pass/constant quality enough.

[enrell]

You will always lose quality by reconverting/hardcoding subs into the video. But if you use good settings you might not see any difference.


What settings are you using now? For fast encoding with good quality is probably xvid one pass/constant quality enough.

im using the x264vfw

did not adjust any settings. just did 2 passes, though the first one is the normal pass, not fast encoding

[Baldrick]

Then try one pass or constant quality encoding.

[Hoser Rob]

You cannot get one pass with the same quality as 2 pass, but if you have a CQ mode it ain't too bad. But there's definitely a difference. No question. I don't use one pass much. Depends on how much of a rush you're in or how many videos you need to encode, but I figure if you're going to archive something, why scrimp on quality?

I haven't used the tools you're describing ... I'd use vidcoder / handbrake or avidemux. But I've encoded the same input, same bitrate in both 2 pass and cq with handbrake and the 2 pass is better.

Not sure how this helps though. I'm not sure handbrake works with .ass subs. I don't think it hardcodes them really well.

Actually, for h.264 with subs I find using the .mkv container a lot more convenient. It embeds the subs in the mkv file itself.

The player support for .mkv may not be as good as for .mp4 but at this point there's no excuse for not being able to play them. If your player doesn't support mkv proplerly, or you have to install a 3rd party codec for it to work, get another player.

[manono]

You cannot get one pass with the same quality as 2 pass, but if you have a CQ mode it ain't too bad. But there's definitely a difference. No question.

Not true at all. Run a single VBR pass for whatever quality on some source. Take the final size and make a 2-pass encode from the same source for the same size. The differences between the two will be negligible.

Maybe you were talking about a single pass CBR encode but those aren't done much any more and Baldrick was obviously writing about 1-pass VBR (CQ) encoding.

But I've encoded the same input, same bitrate in both 2 pass and cq with handbrake and the 2 pass is better.

How do you make a CQ encode using bitrate? But I don't use Handbrake or the others you mentioned either. Maybe it (they) changes settings depending on the type of encode? For example, maybe it's biased towards static scenes, so they may look better in the 2-pass encode, while the more complex scenes look better in the CQ encode.