What's the best h264 encoder?

[gs684]

I am currently using Premiere Pro for editing. The final output for my projects will be h264 format. I'm wondering what's the best encoder to use? Is premiere's encoder good enough? Or is there any reason to export from PP into an intermediate codec and then use another encoder for h264?

[ProWo]

Double encode means double quality loss.
This should be a good reason to emcode once only.

[jagabo]

Double encode means double quality loss.

Not if the intermediate is lossless (UT Video Codec, Lagarith, huffyuv, etc.). And losses will be very slight (maybe not even visible) with a near lossless (prores, etc.) intermediate.

I don't really know anything about Premiere Pro's h.264 encoder. But try comparing with x264 (CLI encoder of via ffmpeg).

[Mr_khyron]

The best h264 encoder for Premiere is probably Voukoder which uses x264
https://www.voukoder.org/

[lordsmurf]

I am currently using Premiere Pro for editing. The final output for my projects will be h264 format. I'm wondering what's the best encoder to use? Is premiere's encoder good enough? Or is there any reason to export from PP into an intermediate codec and then use another encoder for h264?

Which version? Last I knew (few CC versions outdated now), Premiere uses the MainConcept SDK for encoding.
It's already best.
Use it.
That's part of what you're paying Adobe for.

The best h264 encoder for Premiere is probably Voukoder which uses x264
https://www.voukoder.org/

Nah. MainConcept, then the reverse engineered x264.
x264 is definitely good, but MainConcept tends to be better in many ways that matter to distribution.

[gs684]

Which version? Last I knew (few CC versions outdated now), Premiere uses the MainConcept SDK for encoding.
It's already best.
Use it.

I'm on AP 2022.

[poisondeathray]

"Best" by what criteria ? ("quality" ? what measure ? encoding speed ? deocding speed ? compatibility? features? licensing? Advanced settings/overrides ?)

What is your project? What is your usage scenario details ? For personal use ?

If you use enough bitrate, the Adobe licensed encoder from MC can look ok.... Otherwise, not so much. At lower to mid bitrate ranges there tends to be excessivev smoothing and detail loss especially along gradients and shadow areas. There are many tests that demonstrate this, and much discussion on the Adobe forums. You should run some tests on your usage scenario.

In general, in terms of quality and features : x264 > MC SDK AVC > Adobe MC licensed AVC encoder

[gs684]

"Best" by what criteria ? ("quality" ? what measure ? encoding speed ? deocding speed ? compatibility? features? licensing? Advanced settings/overrides ?)

What is your project? What is your usage scenario details ? For personal use ?

If you use enough bitrate, the Adobe licensed encoder from MC can look ok.... Otherwise, not so much. At lower to mid bitrate ranges there tends to be excessivev smoothing and detail loss especially along gradients and shadow areas. There are many tests that demonstrate this, and much discussion on the Adobe forums. You should run some tests on your usage scenario.

In general, in terms of quality and features : x264 > MC SDK AVC > Adobe MC licensed AVC encoder

I'm trying to achieve the best possible quality and player compatibility for long-term use. Everything else doesn't concern me too much.

[poisondeathray]

I'm trying to achieve the best possible quality and player compatibility for long-term use. Everything else doesn't concern me too much.

What kind of player? hardware ? software ? What is the specific scenario ? What pixel format, bit depth ,chroma subsampling

"Best possible quality" usually means the highest bitrate possible, but conforming to level limits of maximum profile of the hardware or software target. eg. Certain devices might have certain bitrate or feature restrictions because of weaker decoder chips

The absolute best quality - is lossless encoding - but lossless AVC encoding will usually only be supported by software players. The only AVC encoder which supports lossless encoding is x264. Lossless 8bit 4:2:0 AVC is able to be hardware decoded by Nvidia, but other AVC lossless bitdepths and chroma subsampling are not

[jagabo]

Don't get all excited about x264 lossless. It will generate much larger files than you are are used to -- maybe 10x larger. It's not a "delivery" or "viewing" format.