How is this quality so good with such a low bitrate?!

[mmbwdpnz]

the quality of the sample I'm about to post is amazing! I don't understand how anyone could encode a file like this.

[manono]

Is an average 917 kbps especially low for 640x480 anime AVC video? It also seems to have been filtered, and that would have aided the compressibility.

[jagabo]

I don't see anything special. Animated material usually compresses much better than live footage. Especially if it hasn't gone through a noisy analog tape stage. The low noise, low detail, simple motions, and numerous duplicate frames makes it very easy to compress.

[mmbwdpnz]

I didn't know this; I always figured that any H.264 encode under 260mb would be bad compressibility wise. Learn something new everyday!

[El Heggunte]

Ha!, you've seen nothing yet

[loster]

Considering that xvid would require bit-rates of about 800-1300 kbps for that resolution its not that unexpected.

[Clockwork]

Ha!, you've seen nothing yet

AHHH! MY EYES! MY EYES!

~looks around for bleach to splash in eyes~

[DarrellS]

Although Jagabo is correct about most animated movies, some movies like Barnyard, Cars and similar movies look like crap if you encode them at lower resolutions and lower bitrates. The kinds of movies that forced us to buy quad core PCs and good graphics cards

[El Heggunte]

Ha!, you've seen nothing yet

AHHH! MY EYES! MY EYES!

~looks around for bleach to splash in eyes~

Please send your just complaints to Dark Shikari <-- clicky.

[Selur]

just for the fun of it, here's an example of some base settings I like for low bitrate for normal encodes:

x264 --pass 1 --bitrate XXX --profile high --level 5.1 --keyint infinite --bframes 16 --open-gop --b-bias 20 --direct auto --b-adapt 2 --no-mbtree --rc-lookahead 60 --ipratio 1.5 --pbratio 2 --qpstep 8 --aq-mode 2 --aq-strength 0.5 --nr 1000 

x264 --preset placebo --pass 2 --bitrate XXX --profile high --level 5.1 --keyint infinite --open-gop --b-bias 20 --no-mbtree --ipratio 1.5 --pbratio 2 --qpstep 8 --me umh --subme 9 --trellis 0 --psy-rd 1:0.0 --aq-mode 2 --aq-strength 0.5 --vbv-maxrate 300000 --vbv-bufsize 300000 --nr 1000  --non-deterministic

(depending on the target resolution, frame rate and bit rate the level can be lowered)

Cu Selur

Ps.: Sorry, just realized how old this thread ist,..