Recommended Bitrate and CRF for moives

[AndreL]

I been reading and posting questions on encoding
and came up with a solution to solve my question on which moves should get what bitrate or CRF for best quality while getting a low file size for more movies.

I think the main kind to worry with are
Actions - fast motion may need high bitrate
Drama - slow to now fast motion low bitrate
Cartoons - kinda like drama may need the same bit rate

What I'm trying to do is lower the 4.37 GB files down to, from what I've seen a size of 1.2-1.5. Which is a heck of a lot smaller.

Just came up with another question what about DVD and Blu-ray movies, is their a standard bit rate or CRF while still achieving a low file size. Cause as before I've seen really good movies with great res and low file size. How do they know what Bitrate or CRF to use for such great movies.

I've got Wondershare Ultimate Converter and Don't see a CRF setting does that program do every thing in bitrates


After writing this post did some googleing and found this for .
http://www.ezs3.com/public/What_bitrate_should_I_use_when_encoding_my_video_How_do_I_o...or_the_web.cfm

I want something like the table at the bottom, but for low file size and high quality video
Comments welcome

[FulciLives]

This is a loaded question.

Personally I find 720p at 4.37GB for a standard movie is sometimes OK and sometimes not OK but I hate encoding artifacts.

Pushing for such small files ... it's not possible ... without encoding artifacts.

Maybe you can live with them but I can't.

This is very individual (that is my point). No one CRF value is ever going to be right all the time with everyone (or the movie).

[AndreL]

encoding artifacts.

Whats that mean

[FulciLives]

Encoding artifacts from lousy compression

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact

[AndreL]

Are VBR good as a standard bitrate for movies does it have a range.

[sanlyn]

See Encoder Modes Explained. Try 2-pass VBR.

[Hoser Rob]

Well, you wouldn't want 1 pass VBR. It's fast encoding but the results are not good.

I've never tried wondershare or whatever it's called but I would have if it were all that highly recommended. You didn't say what output you're using specifically but if it doesn't support crf for x.264 it's not a good sign. I use handbrake with crf (they call that constant quality).

You didn't specify what these 4.37Gb files were but they sound to me like dvds shrunk to fit a single layer disc. That means they've already been reencoded once. You can't expect quality miracles if you encode them again.

Many of those higher quality encodes were probably done from a bluray source. You're just not going to get that quality from a dvd source. No way.

That article you posted isn't very complete either. A lot of those great looking encodes in a reasonable file size (which I would consider 1.8 to 2Gb for a feature length film, bluray source) used advanced h.264 encoding features. And that's just a whole new bucket of worms. Way beyond crf vs 2 pass vbr mode.

Open some of those high quality videos with mediainfo and look at the section where it tells you the encoding parameters were, though sometimes the encoder blocks that. You'll see what I mean.

[sanlyn]

The rule of thumb is this: lower bitrate = smaller file size = lower quality. That's true, with somewhat different encoding limits, whether it's DVD or BluRay. To get more video on a single disc go to BluRay or use DVD+R dual-layer for DVD. If you say, "Yeah,' but I used to get 6 to 8 hours on my VCR." True, but tape looked like poop anyway, and if you think 6 to 8 hours on tape looked "just as good" as 2 hours at SP you are visually handicapped.

For a while now I've seen one post after another from people trying to make VCR's out of their encoders and players. You do find DVD and BluRay commercial discs with lots of video crammed onto them, but they either look like poop or they've been processed with sophisticated equipment and technical expertise beyond the means of most users.

[FulciLives]

Not to mention that there was a time when a blank videotape was at least $5.00 USD (at minimum) for a quality blank tape and even then I remember sometimes spending as much as $8.00 for a high quality T-160 vs a high quality T-120

DVD were never really that expensive. I got into things somewhat early and even then they weren't more than $3.50 per disc and now they are WAY under that. You can get Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs for around $0.30 USD (or 30 cents) per disc and even Verbatim DVD+R DL discs are as low as $1.10 USD (which is a lot more than a single layer but still kinda cheap if you think about it).

Of course those prices mean buying in bulk (50 to 100 pieces at a time) on-line but still the media we use today is peanuts compared to the old days of the VCR and videotape.

[AndreL]

I think I found a solution to shrinking the file sizes of the movies I'll re encode, them, ... same file type, same ratio but just 1/3 of the ones over 5000k and 1\2 on the ones between 3000k and 5000k and for the ones under 3000k depending on what it is 18 - 2100k. any ideas on this proposed solution.

[Slipster]

What I'm trying to do is lower the 4.37 GB files down to, from what I've seen a size of 1.2-1.5. Which is a heck of a lot smaller.

I can most likely get you down to a size of 10MB per minute of source material in x264 with 2-channel audio with pretty good results if these are SD resolution files and reasonably clean looking. That's 1GB per 100 minutes of source material. You may not be satisfied with the results, but you won't know unless you try.

[Evil_Burrito]

Making high quality micro sized videos takes a lot more work than setting a bitrate, to me it is an art form that takes months to leaarn. If you are serious about learning this stuff, you should use a different encoding program. There are plenty of free programs (continue reading) to choose from and matching guides that can be found in the download section of this website.

Although this might be too much information for you but, here is a very detailed webpage about x264 options http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings.

If you don't feel like learning that much and if you are running windows use VidCoder (it uses handbrake back end) http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/. Use these settings: Profile=High, constant quality=20, denoise=weak, (with a fast multi-core cpu) preset=slower (with a slow computer use preset=slow or medium). Set "tune" to "Film" or "Animation. Last, set up fps. If your source is already progressive 23.976, use same as source fps and turn off deinterlace. If your source is 29.97 fps, select 23.976 and turn deinterlace to default (if you have a powerful cpu switch deinterlace to slow). It is safe to leave decomb and detelecine on default. If you have a really slow computer and you know the source frames are clean you can consider turning off decomb.

If you are working with high definition video and have a strong cpu go to the advanced tab and change motion estimation method=uneven-multi-hex, subpixel motion estimation=8, motion estimation range=20, adaptive direct mode=auto, adaptive b-frames=optimal.

For now, I am going to skip audio encoding. If you ask, I can give those settings to you too.

Hope that gets you started as a good encoder

btw, other good free programs are handbrake, avidemux, avisynth, me-gui, hybrid, ripbot264, avchdcoder, simple x264 launcher.

[chicken264]

i think crf 18 t0 22 are acceptable for dvd movies. If you want more quality try 16, If you feel 16 is not enough just keep the original.

[locotus]

What I'm trying to do is lower the 4.37 GB files down to, from what I've seen a size of 1.2-1.5. Which is a heck of a lot smaller.

You have to consider that all your DVDs could be 4.37GB, but not all the movies inside will fit to that.
In case all movies indeed are 4.37GB in size, then is rather possible that there are already compressed from DVD9 to DVD5, and you're going to compress them further.