Best Way to Encode HE-AAC audio

[TheFunkyDude]

Hello guys,

I'm new to encoding and i have few bluray disk and i am trying to convert into MP4 container and encoding video was good but when it comes to audio i'm having trouble encoding HE-AAC or HE-AACv2. I encoded using MeGUI HE-AAC 72kbps but the quality was really bad. I went through SHAANIG's encodes and his sound of HE-AAC 64 was lot better compared to my 72kbps.

Are there any encoding settings to encode audio. If yes please do tell me.

Thanks..

[Bernix]

Hi,
from my point of view is very good ABR mode with two pass. But I cant achieve it in MeGui. Dont know why -2pass (command, in extra tab) gives me error on audio stream.
Somehow in MeGui achieve this -2pass -br 72000 -he
I know it is not your question, but you can do audio separatelly in LameXP, which works with Nero very well and supports 2pass for HE aac. It is very easy to use free program.
Or ask someone how to force -2pass nero ABR mode in MeGui.
So if you want great sound give a try LameXP and mux lately together.
Bernix

[pandy]

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=AAC_encoders

[TheFunkyDude]

Hi,
from my point of view is very good ABR mode with two pass. But I cant achieve it in MeGui. Dont know why -2pass (command, in extra tab) gives me error on audio stream.
Somehow in MeGui achieve this -2pass -br 72000 -he
I know it is not your question, but you can do audio separatelly in LameXP, which works with Nero very well and supports 2pass for HE aac. It is very easy to use free program.
Or ask someone how to force -2pass nero ABR mode in MeGui.
So if you want great sound give a try LameXP and mux lately together.
Bernix

Tried LameXP too but you'll have to convert .mka to .wav, I used FFout to do that but it takes lot of time. any best way to convert mka or mp4 to wav?

[TheFunkyDude]

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=AAC_encoders

Thanks pandy,

Going through all the encoders to check.

[pandy]

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=AAC_encoders

Thanks pandy,

Going through all the encoders to check.

Not too many of them - or Apple AAC or Fraunhofer FDK (FHG offer higher quality but supporting only 6 channels).

[hello_hello]

Hi,
from my point of view is very good ABR mode with two pass. But I cant achieve it in MeGui. Dont know why -2pass (command, in extra tab) gives me error on audio stream.

From the help file (it's a text file that I assume was included with the Nero encoder).

-2pass : Enables two-pass encoding mode.
Note that two-pass more requires a physical file as input,
rather than stdin.

For 2 pass to work, MeGUI would have to know to decode the source to a wave file, then use the wave file as the input for the encoder.

By the way, the Nero help file also tells you not to specify HE or HE2.

Advanced features / troubleshooting:
-lc : Forces use of LC AAC profile (HE features disabled)
-he : Forces use of HE AAC profile (HEv2 features disabled)
-hev2 : Forces use of HEv2 AAC profile
Note that the above switches (-lc, -he, -hev2) should not be
used; optimal AAC profile is automatically determined from
quality/bitrate settings when no override is specified.

If I remember correctly, the Nero encoder is the only one that automatically chooses an AAC profile. For FDKAAC and QAAC you have to specify one if you want something other that LC-AAC (the way I remember it).

[hello_hello]

TheFunkyDude,
I assume you're encoding stereo tracks? 72k would be extremely low for multichannel audio.
Apple's encoder seem to be the best at low bitrates these days.

Although.... why do people use such low bitrates?
For a 2 hour movie 72k results in a 64MB file.
For a 2 hour movie 125k results in a 112MB file.
For a 2 hour movie 175k results in a 158MB file.

125k is roughly (according to foobar2000) the bitrate you'll have after encoding an average CD track with Nero's q0.4 VBR quality setting, and for the default q0.5 it's 175kbps, but as stereo "soundtrack audio" is usually more sparse, it'll probably end up lower.

When encoding multichannel audio, maybe there could be more of a need to keep the bitrate down, but for stereo I'd definitely prefer to steal 100kbps from the video bitrate (if it came to that) and encode the audio at a higher quality.

[TheFunkyDude]

TheFunkyDude,
I assume you're encoding stereo tracks? 72k would be extremely low for multichannel audio.
Apple's encoder seem to be the best at low bitrates these days.

Although.... why do people use such low bitrates?
For a 2 hour movie 72k results in a 64MB file.
For a 2 hour movie 125k results in a 112MB file.
For a 2 hour movie 175k results in a 158MB file.

125k is roughly (according to foobar2000) the bitrate you'll have after encoding an average CD track with Nero's q0.4 VBR quality setting, and for the default q0.5 it's 175kbps, but as stereo "soundtrack audio" is usually more sparse, it'll probably end up lower.

When encoding multichannel audio, maybe there could be more of a need to keep the bitrate down, but for stereo I'd definitely prefer to steal 100kbps from the video bitrate (if it came to that) and encode the audio at a higher quality.

I'm trying to encode stereo track. Is there anyway i can encode audio HE-AAC without converting AC3 or MP4 into WAV?

As encoders i have used till now only supported wav input.

[KarMa]

Foobar2000 can work directly with MP3/AC3/FLAC and so on, when converting to HE-AAC. It even filter down surround sound to stereo if you want. It supports Nero AAC codec and maybe Apple's AAC codec. Megui is also a good gui for audio encoding but might take some getting used to.

[pandy]

I'm trying to encode stereo track. Is there anyway i can encode audio HE-AAC without converting AC3 or MP4 into WAV?

As encoders i have used till now only supported wav input.

Use pipe... https://github.com/tmkk/fhgaacenc, ffmpeg can be used as frontend...

[hello_hello]

I'm trying to encode stereo track. Is there anyway i can encode audio HE-AAC without converting AC3 or MP4 into WAV?
As encoders i have used till now only supported wav input.

You're doing that with MeGUI now aren't you? I can't think of an encoder off the top of my head the doesn't support stdin (pipes).
I mostly use foobar2000 but if you're encoding the same source with the same encoder using the same settings the result shouldn't be any different anyway.

Normally you'd use a pipe (the decoded audio is sent directly to the encoder) but foobar2000 comes with a NeroAAC encoder preset for 2 pass encoding, so at least it'd make creating a temporary wave file an automatic process.

That aside, you can use any command line encoder with foobar2000, as long as you download the required files yourself (foobar2000 only comes with the encoders that can be legally included).

[hello_hello]

I'm trying to encode stereo track. Is there anyway i can encode audio HE-AAC without converting AC3 or MP4 into WAV?

As encoders i have used till now only supported wav input.

Use pipe... https://github.com/tmkk/fhgaacenc, ffmpeg can be used as frontend...

There's an updated version of FhGAAC (and nsutil.dll) in the foobar2000 encoder pack.
The main differences are it doesn't require the VC2008 runtime and it accepts 32 bit float as input (initially it converted it to 32 bit integer but that's no longer the case).
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,106494.0.html
https://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack
The encoder pack comes as an exe but you can unpack the contents with 7zip.

[Daringbaaz]

Hello, I am New in Encoding and Want to Know About Audio AAC, I Had Encoded a Movie and Audio Bit Rate at 96kbps and Audio Quality is Really Found,

Same Video I had Found a Very Well Better Quality with Audio 32kbps,


Here is Mediainfo,

General
Unique ID                                : 194863478219545543807278801647954483672 (0x9299573D2A213FE3861AADDEBFBAD9D8)
Complete name                            : C:\Users\Daringbaaz\Downloads\Video\Dabang Sarkar (2018) Bhojpuri 480p [www.Desirehub.Net] WEB-HDRip 450MB.mkv
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4
File size                                : 465 MiB
Duration                                 : 2 h 41 min
Overall bit rate                         : 404 kb/s
Movie name                               : Visit & Share www.Desirehub.Net
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-01-13 12:57:48
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v29.0.0 ('Like It Or Not') 32-bit
Writing library                          : libebml v1.3.6 + libmatroska v1.4.9

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames               : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 2 h 41 min
Bit rate                                 : 370 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 304 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.35:1
Original display aspect ratio            : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.071
Stream size                              : 426 MiB (92%)
Title                                    : DESIREHUB.NET
Writing library                          : x264 core 142 r2479 dd79a61
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=48 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=370 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=25000 / vbv_bufsize=31250 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC LC SBR
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication
Commercial name                          : HE-AAC
Format settings                          : NBC
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC-5
Duration                                 : 2 h 41 min
Bit rate                                 : 32.0 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 23.438 FPS (2048 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -105 ms

Will You Guys Please Tell Me Which Video Encoding is Used to Encode This Video :

[Anonymous5394]

There is no best way in anything. What is good for one is bad for another. You could try EZCD. It has a trial and does he-aac multi channel very well and you can normalize it too to 89db etc. I wouldn't go lower than 192kbps for he-aac 5.1, but some go lower. 72kbps setting in EZCD would give you stereo 2.0 and vbr up to 79kbps. Setting it to 80kbps then becomes constant 2.0 stereo.

[amaipaipai]

Will You Guys Please Tell Me Which Video Encoding is Used to Encode This Video :

Encoder.

Writing library                          : x264 core 142 r2479 dd79a61

Encoder settings.

Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=48 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=370 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=25000 / vbv_bufsize=31250 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00