Betacam SP Captures H.264 Encoding

[dellsam34]

I have a Betacam SP video tape of ABC News TV station from 1997, I captured it using the Sony J-3 via SDI to the hard drive in 8 bit lossless AVI (Sample here), I then de-interlaced with QTGMC prior to encoding to H.264, First tried the script bellow but it gave me an error:

ffmpeg -i In.avi scale=w=-1:h=-1:interl=1,format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9" -flags +ildct+ilme -c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts bff=1:colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a aac -b:a 192k Out.mp4

Error:

ffmpeg version 4.1.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 8.2.1 (GCC) 20190212
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-fontconfig --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --enable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libmfx --enable-amf --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable-avisynth
  libavutil      56. 22.100 / 56. 22.100
  libavcodec     58. 35.100 / 58. 35.100
  libavformat    58. 20.100 / 58. 20.100
  libavdevice    58.  5.100 / 58.  5.100
  libavfilter     7. 40.101 /  7. 40.101
  libswscale      5.  3.100 /  5.  3.100
  libswresample   3.  3.100 /  3.  3.100
  libpostproc    55.  3.100 / 55.  3.100
[avi @ 00000181d4628800] non-interleaved AVI
Guessed Channel Layout for Input Stream #0.1 : stereo
Input #0, avi, from 'ABCnews.avi':
  Duration: 00:03:03.12, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 138425 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: huffyuv (HFYU / 0x55594648), yuv422p, 720x480, 136108 kb/s, 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 59.94 tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s24le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 48000 Hz, stereo, s32 (24 bit), 2304 kb/s
scale=w=-1:h=-1:interl=1,format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9 -flags +ildct+ilme -c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts bff=1:colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a aac -b:a 192k ABCnewsEnc.mp4: Invalid argument

Then tried a generic script which I'm not happy with:

ffmpeg -i In.avi -pix_fmt yuv420p -aspect 4:3 -b:a 192k Out.mp4

---> Sample here.

One last question, Does QTGMC works with 10bit captures?

[dellsam34]

I was able to get the script working by using the full commend from last year (credit goes to Poisondeathray):

ffmpeg -i ABCnews.avi -vf "crop=w=720:h=480:x=0:y=0,scale=w=-1:h=-1:interl=1,format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9" -flags +ildct+ilme -c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts bff=1:colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a aac -b:a 192k ABCnewsOut.mp4

I crop the extra 6 lines from the total 486 using VDub to have a visual look at the frame edges. I was trying to get rid of the cropping script in the above commend but failed, Now I use the full commend since nothing to crop anyway, the resolution is already 720x480.

Poisondeathray's enhanced script gives much better quality. The original file is 2.95GB, the sloppy script gave 29.2MB file and the enhanced script gave 260MB file, Take a look.

[dellsam34]

Okay, I was making a mistake in the script, I think it should look like this:

ffmpeg -i In.avi -vf "scale=w=-1:h=-1:interl=1,format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9" -flags +ildct+ilme -c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts bff=1:colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a aac -b:a 192k Out.mp4

[poisondeathray]

You can use avs input directly into ffmpeg (there is no need to use intermediate, but maybe you have other reasons)

After QTGMC, it's progressive now, you should encode progressive. There is no need for interlaced scaling now (you were scaling the chroma planes when going from 4:2:2 to 4:2:0, interl=1 signals ffmpeg to do that in an interlaced manner) . So discard interl=1 and the interlace flags, and bff=1

Are you wanting to encode 4:2:2 ? If so, format should be yuv422p , not yuv420p

eg. for 4:2:0 , change to yuv422p if you wanted 4:2:2

ffmpeg -i In.avi -vf "format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9"-c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a aac -b:a 192k Out.mp4

[dellsam34]

Thanks Poinsdeathray, I would like to keep 4:2:2 depends on the compatibility of the playing end and the resulting files size, I will try both and see how it goes.

[dellsam34]

For whatever reason I'm getting this error:

[NULL @ 000002901f3a8f80] Unable to find a suitable output format for 'libx264'
libx264: Invalid argument

[poisondeathray]

There should be a space , after the end quotation mark

ffmpeg -i In.avi -vf "format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9" -c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a aac -b:a 192k Out.mp4

[dellsam34]

Thanks, Besides the 4:2:2, is it a good idea to convert the original audio track from 24bit/48Khz to 16bit/48Khz instead of compressing it to 192kbps? Would 4:2:2 16bit/48Khz files be compatible with most smart devices and TV's?

[poisondeathray]

Thanks, Besides the 4:2:2, is it a good idea to convert the original audio track from 24bit/48Khz to 16bit/48Khz instead of compressing it to 192kbps?

192kbps is the bitrate ; 24bit is the the bit depth; 48Khz is the sampling rate . They can be independent parameters depending on which audio format. You used lossy AAC compression

Would 4:2:2 16bit/48Khz files be compatible with most smart devices and TV's?

4:2:2 usually not compatible for most ; but 16bit/48Khz usually is for AAC audio (and other lossy audio formats like AC3, MP3 etc...)

[dellsam34]

My question about audio was is it ok to use lossless PCM 16/48 instead of 192kbps 16/48, Sorry for the confusion. For video I must stick to 4:2:0 then.

[poisondeathray]

uncompressed PCM should play on most AV equipment, but it's less compatible on portable devices . You have to try it out

[dellsam34]

uncompressed PCM should play on most AV equipment, but it's less compatible on portable devices . You have to try it out

How do I implement that in the script? note that the original files are lossless 24/48 so I have to down convert to 16/48.

[poisondeathray]

uncompressed PCM should play on most AV equipment, but it's less compatible on portable devices . You have to try it out

How do I implement that in the script? note that the original files are lossless 24/48 so I have to down convert to 16/48.

-c:a pcm_s16le instead of -c:a aac

mkv container, or mov, or transport stream (ts, mts, m2ts) , because open source MP4 muxers do not support PCM

ffmpeg -i In.avi -vf "format=yuv420p,setsar=sar=8/9" -c:v libx264 -crf 10 -x264opts colorprim=smpte170m:transfer=smpte170m:colormatrix=smpte170m:force-cfr -c:a pcm_s16le Out.mkv