DVDFab 9 CRF, Handbrake/Vidcoder x264 CRF

[hogger129]

Hello,

The question I have is simple. What difference is there between the output from DVDFab 9's MKV CRF 20 and the output from Handbrake on MKV CRF 20? For DVDFab, I have all "acceleration" shut off, it's only using Software encoding for all of it. I'm curious if it's doing anything differently than Handbrake would on the same settings? I am getting really quick encoding times in DVDFab too (<1hr). My hardware is an Intel i7-4790k "Devil's Canyon," 32GB of RAM, doing the encode onto the same HDD so as not to allow any latency/reading bottlenecks. Normally Handbrake would take me about 3-4x as much encoding time.

How come one is faster than the other? Is it because Handbrake has more "tuning" it's during the encode? If there was no difference, I should see approximately the same encoding time.

Thanks.

[LigH.de]

Neither DVDFab nor Handbrake are "encoders". But both may use x264, so both will probably mean the same by "CRF 20". Still, the bit rate or quality level control is not the only parameter. It is well possible that one converter GUI uses x264 with a fast set of options, and another converter GUI prefers a slower set of options instead, maybe even does more filtering before even feeding the x264 encoder with video. If you can't grab the exact command line options set of both tools, you can't compare them. Not by comparing the CRF value alone.

[Kerry56]

LigH.de has it right. DVDFab cuts corners anywhere possible to speed things up. One thing I noticed in their output is number of reference frames. They use only two, even when making a Blu-ray copy, not an MKV or MP4.

[hogger129]

Thanks for the information guys. So it seems like Handbrake/Vidcoder or BDRB is the proper way to go if I care about quality.

[jagabo]

There is a 100 fold difference in encoding speed between x264's fastest (--preset ultrafast) and slowest (--preset placebo) presets. In addition, settings can be further customized for particular purposes. So if both are using x264 the difference in speed is mostly the settings that were used. MediaInfo shows the x264 Encoding Settings if they are in the file's metadata. So you can see for yourself what settings were used.

In general, with CRF encoding the slower the preset the smaller the file. Visual quality also increases with slower presets. Ie, there's no free lunch.

[PeterNL]

In general, with CRF encoding the slower the preset the smaller the file. Visual quality also increases with slower presets. Ie, there's no free lunch.

Is that so? A smaller file means more compression so I cannot understand that this will increase visual quality?
I always thought the opposite was true...

[jagabo]

In general, with CRF encoding the slower the preset the smaller the file. Visual quality also increases with slower presets. Ie, there's no free lunch.

Is that so? A smaller file means more compression so I cannot understand that this will increase visual quality?
I always thought the opposite was true...

You would be right if everything else was equal. But at the slower settings x264 uses more of the codecs features to both increase quality and reduce the bitrate. Ie, it's not just slow for the sake of being slow. It's spending more time looking for more compression and better quality.

[PeterNL]

In general, with CRF encoding the slower the preset the smaller the file. Visual quality also increases with slower presets. Ie, there's no free lunch.

Is that so? A smaller file means more compression so I cannot understand that this will increase visual quality?
I always thought the opposite was true...

You would be right if everything else was equal. But at the slower settings x264 uses more of the codecs features to both increase quality and reduce the bitrate. Ie, it's not just slow for the sake of being slow. It's spending more time looking for more compression and better quality.

Learning every day!
Thanks Jagabo.

[hogger129]

Thanks for the help guys. I ended up settling for disc-based backup and I decided to go with BDRB. I didn't realize up until now it could back up DVD's of my family vacations as well, thought it was only for BD backup. IMO the quality is much better than with DVDFab.

[smrpix]

IMO the quality is much better than with DVDFab.

If you're actually backing up rather than converting, and with family movies you shouldn't be converting, the quality should be identical.

[theewizard]

My primary use of dfab , is to copy DVD to my hard drive backup
I have other software's for compressing encoding, if I wish to rip and store in mp4
I normally avoid mkv format for my own uses