Intel Quick Sync Encoding

[blaze077]

First of all, I'm new here so sorry if I posted in the wrong section.
So I spent yesterday trying to figure out QuickSync settings. I'm aiming for more FPS using GPU encoding however, the problem with Quick Sync is that it gives out really grainy encodes at low bitrates. I encode anime so even bitrates as low as 800 kbps look pretty neat and people prefer small encodes. I noticed that h264_QS(Quick Sync) doesn't look grainy when on high bitrates however, on low bitrates as I said is super grainy.
On the bright side, it gives me 400 FPS. o.O
The MeGUI h264 gives me about 50 FPS on First Pass and 18-23 FPS on Second Pass. I just wanna know how to make the QS Quality about the same as the normal h264 encode. I know GPU Encoding > CPU encoding but there must be some way to improve the quality because one of my friends has a gtx 980 Ti and he encodes through the NVENC Encoder and gets about the same FPS but his encodes look exactly the same as x265 encodes. He encodes x265 since Nvidia supports it whereas Intel doesn't. Part of the Intel graininess problem is probably because it doesn't use 2pass encoding.

Specs: Intel i7 3770
8 GB RAM
Intel HD 4000

If anyone is willing to help me through TeamViewer, that would be great.
Thanks for the help.

[poisondeathray]

It's simply not possible. And the the lower the bitrate range , the larger the difference in quality between software x264 encoding and QS AVC encoding

Your friend's NVEnc encodes definintely do not look the same as software x265 encodes, unless he's using much higher bitrates or very low quality x265 settings. NVEnc HEVC doesn't even use b-frames

(HEVC is supported by QS, but not on your computer, only skylake or newer)

[blaze077]

So no way at all to increase the quality?
So I used Ultra Fast x264 encoding and it went around 300 FPS and still gave me a better result than QS. I use the "Very Slow" preset in MeGUI.
Also, one of my friend who uses huge bitrates on movies, uses QS and gets a preset called "Quality" whereas I only get 2 presets: "Best Speed" and "Balanced". He gets these 3 plus the one I mentioned. Maybe because of that.

[poisondeathray]

Not much you can do , besides increasing the bitrate

QS isn't really "usable" until Haswell or newer. The quality for sandy/ivy bridge is rather low, and it actually isn't that fast as you saw in your test. x264 is actually faster and produces higher quality at that speed for those generations. But the speed and quality is faster with QS with newer chips. It gets about 50% faster each generation

A bunch of new features and rate control methods are supported in the newer ones , but you need a newer chip and need to use software that can access them such as QSVEnc (commandline)

[blaze077]

Not much you can do , besides increasing the bitrate

QS isn't really "usable" until Haswell or newer. The quality for sandy/ivy bridge is rather low, and it actually isn't that fast as you saw in your test. x264 is actually faster and produces higher quality at that speed for those generations. But the speed and quality is faster with QS with newer chips. It gets about 50% faster each generation

A bunch of new features and rate control methods are supported in the newer ones , but you need a newer chip and need to use software that can access them such as QSVEnc (commandline)

Okay, then. Guess I'll just stick to x264 encoding. Any way to make x264 faster(even an increase of 2 FPS)? If I can get that, it's good enough for me.

[johns0]

Try using vidcoder,in the default settings(tweaked a bit) it gives me about 150fps encoding 720p video.

[jagabo]

I'd put Haswell's QS quality about the same as x264 at the veryfast preset, when they're at the same bitrate. In fact, I believe Intel has said that is their goal. I haven't seen any of the GPU encoders do better than that.

[blaze077]

Thanks for the help, everybody. I guess I'll just do normal x264 encoding now.

[poisondeathray]

QS SDK actually has 7 presets:

best, higher, high, balanced(default), fast, faster, fastest

It might be the software you are using doesn't allow access to them, and/or not all features might be available on older chips . But even at the best quality, the quality is significantly lower than x264 using one of the faster presets, unless you're using high bitrate ranges (but then every encoder looks the same). Balanced is the best overall setting IMO. The quality and compression isn't improved very much at higher settings, but the speed becomes significantly slower

For GPU AVC encoding, QS is signifcantly better quality wise than NVEnc, but NVEnc is quite a bit faster on maxwell v1 or maxwell v2 cards

[blaze077]

Yeah, when I switched from HandBrake to Starxip, I got those 7 presets. I just don't know why but that guy encodes through nvenc and his encodes look the same quality. Should I try out Intel x265? Will there be a difference? I'll try it out now and post back. PMed you the link to his encode.

[sophisticles]

I have tried quick sync with sandy bridge, ivy bridge and haswell and even though it's faster than software based encoders, I still think you're better off using x264 for your avc encodes.

Where quick sync becomes interesting is with Skylake cpu's, because that version of quick sync supports hevc encoding and a hybrid hw/sw mode for vp9 encoding. The negative for me is that in order to use quick sync you have to use Windows, as the handful of apps that use qs are Windows only (and I would say that the only app worth looking at even on Windows is Staxrip).

I doubt that the quality of the qs hevc encoder would beat x265, and considering that AVX2 adds about 30% to encoding speed and AVX-512 is expected to add a similar amount, one could argue, and I do, that it would be wise to wait until the Skylake Xeons are available and go with one of the cheaper ones (if history is any indication they should be available in the low 200 dollar range).

But my feeling is, and I think most would agree, that if you're going to encode something either for archival or delivery purposes, that you should be more worried about achieving the highest quality encode rather than the fastest encoding speed.

[sophisticles]

Yeah, when I switched from HandBrake to Starxip, I got those 7 presets. I just don't know why but that guy encodes through nvenc and his encodes look the same quality. Should I try out Intel x265? Will there be a difference? I'll try it out now and post back. PMed you the link to his encode.

There's no such thing as "Intel x265", x265 is an open source hevc encoder that borrowed it's initial frame work from x264, though I'm sure much of it has since been rewritten.

The Intel hardware hevc encoder is only available on Skylake cpu's though there is a software based Intel hevc encoder that is the "cousin" of the hardware encoder, though it's slower but offers higher quality.

I would just stick with x265 or use one of the slower x264 presets.

[blaze077]

Yeah, when I switched from HandBrake to Starxip, I got those 7 presets. I just don't know why but that guy encodes through nvenc and his encodes look the same quality. Should I try out Intel x265? Will there be a difference? I'll try it out now and post back. PMed you the link to his encode.

There's no such thing as "Intel x265", x265 is an open source hevc encoder that borrowed it's initial frame work from x264, though I'm sure much of it has since been rewritten.

The Intel hardware hevc encoder is only available on Skylake cpu's though there is a software based Intel hevc encoder that is the "cousin" of the hardware encoder, though it's slower but offers higher quality.

I would just stick with x265 or use one of the slower x264 presets.

What's this option then - Intel H.265?

[poisondeathray]

h.265 isn't the same thing as x265. x265 is a specific software implementation of a HEVC encoder

x264 is a specific software implementation of an AVC encoder

Intel h.265 won't work on your computer. Go ahead and try

[blaze077]

h.265 isn't the same thing as x265. x265 is a specific software implementation of a HEVC encoder

x264 is a specific software implementation of an AVC encoder

Intel h.265 won't work on your computer. Go ahead and try

Yeah, i tried and no, it didn't work.
So is there no way, I can try use the Intel HEVC encdoing even with the SDKs?

[poisondeathray]

So is there no way, I can try use the Intel HEVC encdoing even with the SDKs?

Not unless you upgrade

Just because an option is there in a GUI, it doesn't mean it's actually supported. Stax apparently didn't implement an adaptive GUI where unsupported functions are greyed out

[blaze077]

So is there no way, I can try use the Intel HEVC encdoing even with the SDKs?

Not unless you upgrade

Just because an option is there in a GUI, it doesn't mean it's actually supported. Stax apparently didn't implement an adaptive GUI where unsupported functions are greyed out

I still don't get it though. Sorry.
When I read about the various SDKs released, what do they mean by HEVC support added then?
http://www.xlsoft.com/jp/products/intel/media/2014/Intel_Media_SDK_2014_HEVC_Whitepaper.pdf

[poisondeathray]

Intel has HW and SW offerings. You need the actual hardware to support HW encoding via QS. There is no free variant of Intel Media software SDK (it's very expensive)

[blaze077]

Intel has HW and SW offerings. You need the actual hardware to support HW encoding via QS. There is no free variant of Intel Media software SDK (it's very expensive)

I am currently downloading the Intel Media Server Studio to see what it's all about. Will it give me a better result?
EDIT: Never Mind. I don't understand anything. Just dll files and other software. I can't even find the software. o.O

[MaverickTse]

NVEnc's H265 support has a catch: all frames are I-frame
That was the case for CUDA SDK 7.0, not sure if that changed in SDK 7.5

Can't tell on the Skylake part, since I have no Skylake machine.

[blaze077]

NVEnc's H265 support has a catch: all frames are I-frame
That was the case for CUDA SDK 7.0, not sure if that changed in SDK 7.5

Can't tell on the Skylake part, since I have no Skylake machine.

Got it. A little off-topic but since most users in this thread said QS will not surpass or equal x264 encoding even with the Skylake architechture, I think I should buy a 4790K instead of a 6700K since the single core processing is better in 4790K. Graphics are a lot worse in 4790K compared to 6700K but I just wanna focus on x264 encoding since QS is cr*p in terms of low-bitrate encodes.
Thank you for your help everyone.