Are there any differences in quality between ripping apps?

[ankutsa]

I'm familiar with Handbrake (mac). But I've seen people bashing it, saying that MeGUI is better or that using command line tools, Avisynth and some other things I haven't heard of produces superior quality.
Is there any truth in that? Because for me it looks like the quality is determined by the x264 encoder, which is the same everywhere, right? Assuming the same x264 settings are used in all of them of course

[jagabo]

Handbrake and Megui use the x264 encoder. Given the same processing and settings they will give the similar quality. But their x264 defaults may differ and other processing (deinterlacing, inverse telecine, noise reduction, etc.) can be different. AviSynth is a video filtering system. It doesn't encode at all. It's output is uncompressed video. You can use x264 to compress the result of that filtering though.

[Kerry56]

There are some options for X264 that are not available in Handbrake that can be used in other GUI's or in command line. For example, when I want raw H264 video to import into my Blu-ray authoring program, I use MeGUI instead of my normal program for working with X264, which is VidCoder.

But output quality depends on how good your original material is and the settings you choose in your encoder. So Handbrake is capable of producing very high quality for you for the vast majority of uses.

H264 is not the only option in Handbrake by the way. You can also use it with several other video codecs, including H265.

[ankutsa]

Hi Kerry

I thought all x264 settings are available in Handbrake, because of the "Additional Options" box, and the "Advanced Options Panel". For example I'm using "threads=1" in there to limit CPU usage.

I tried x265, but it's pretty slow. But I made some comparisons with x264 and it seems to produce better quality. At least at very low bitrates, like 700 kbps. On high bitrates I can't tell the difference.

[ankutsa]

Handbrake and Megui use the x264 encoder. Given the same processing and settings they will give the similar quality. But their x264 defaults may differ and other processing (deinterlacing, inverse telecine, noise reduction, etc.) can be different. AviSynth is a video filtering system. It doesn't encode at all. It's output is uncompressed video. You can use x264 to compress the result of that filtering though.

Well, I've seen some tutorials where it was mentioned. I think "Avidemux" too. And some command line tools. I was confused because I don't see the point of all that if you just want to encode to x264. But if you say they are used to apply filters then it probably makes sense. I guess not for movies, because why would you want to alter the original picture?

[jagabo]

I'm using "threads=1" in there to limit CPU usage.

Why do you want to limit CPU usage? If you want to leave your system usable while encoding just set Handbrake's priority to low. Tools -> Option -> Advanced -> Priority Level. You won't even know it's running in the background.

[ankutsa]

But will it still use 100% cpu? I also don't like that it's very noisy because the fan goes at full speed. With "threads=1" it's completely silent. Encoding time increases by 5-6x but I don't really care because my pc is always on and I don't need to encode stuff every day anyway

[Kerry56]

Hi Kerry

I thought all x264 settings are available in Handbrake, because of the "Additional Options" box, and the "Advanced Options Panel". For example I'm using "threads=1" in there to limit CPU usage.

I tried x265, but it's pretty slow. But I made some comparisons with x264 and it seems to produce better quality. At least at very low bitrates, like 700 kbps. On high bitrates I can't tell the difference.

If you know the commands, sure, you can add them in the Advanced section. My point was that only a certain number are available in the user interface, after that you might as well be using command line.

But if you can output to raw .h264 files in Handbrake, I haven't seen that demonstrated. The output options in the GUI for Handbrake are MKV and MP4.

[ndjamena]

Handbrake used to have a whole bunch of x264 options in the GUI. The main result of which was an endless stream of people showing up on the Handbrake forum asking for the magical settings that would give them perfect quality encodes at low bitrates as quickly as possible...

Deviating from the defaults is a waste of time in most cases, and generally to make the most of X264 settings you'd need to alter them on a case by case basis anyway (which most people really can't be bothered doing).

[jagabo]

But will it still use 100% cpu?

Yes.

I also don't like that it's very noisy because the fan goes at full speed. With "threads=1" it's completely silent.

Since noise is the issue you'll need to continue to using threads=1. Have you tried using 2 or 3... to see where the fan kicks in.

[theewizard]

Handbrake and Megui use the x264 encoder. Given the same processing and settings they will give the similar quality. But their x264 defaults may differ and other processing (deinterlacing, inverse telecine, noise reduction, etc.) can be different. AviSynth is a video filtering system. It doesn't encode at all. It's output is uncompressed video. You can use x264 to compress the result of that filtering though.

to the OP
AviSynth is a frame server...essentially it is an image manipulation processor/filter
depending on the commands aka filters invoked it will resize, denoise, color enhance, etc..
to each frame/image in a video file and then send it to the encoder, then do the next frame , until the video is completely processed

[hello_hello]

But will it still use 100% cpu? I also don't like that it's very noisy because the fan goes at full speed. With "threads=1" it's completely silent. Encoding time increases by 5-6x but I don't really care because my pc is always on and I don't need to encode stuff every day anyway

Is it the stock Intel/AMD CPU or a third party cooler?
It might be that the fan's spinning faster than it needs to. When I replaced the Intel cooler with a third party cooler in this PC the fan noise instantly became a problem. It spins a bit faster than the old fan when the MB is controlling the speed and it makes more noise anyway, but it doesn't need to be running as fast as it does when the MB's controlling the speed on it's own. SpeedFan fixed that. I don't use SpeedFan for adjusting the fan speed as such, I still let the MB do that, but I have SpeedFan set to only let it run at 90% speed all the time.... so whatever speed the MB would be running the fan at without SpeedFan, it's only ever running at 90% of that, which is enough to stop it getting noisy when the CPU is working hard and it still keeps it cool enough.
It might be worth giving SpeedFan a try. Not all MB's let it adjust the fan speed, but if nothing else, it should tell you how hot the CPU is getting.