logo Sign In

Chouonsoku

User Group
Members
Join date
16-May-2015
Last activity
6-Dec-2020
Posts
11

Post History

Post
#900864
Topic
Info: Encoding tips and ideas
Time

madcrow said:

The flexibility argument makes sense. By the way, what sort of bitrates and options would work if I wanted to make a 720p version that fits on a DVD-9 as a “fake” (AVCHD) Bluray. I tried doing a 2 pass encode through Handbrake at 8900 kbps and while the resulting file looks great (certainly better than HD from Netflix), the resulting data doesn’t fit on a DVD after being run through tsmuxer. How low can you go before things start looking like crap? Is it possible to go down to 4000 or so and fit on a DVD-5? I’ve currently just burned the raw MKV of my 720p encode to a DL DVD, but I understand that an AVCHD-format disc might have better compatibility with hardware players.

After a certain point, going lower in bitrate while maintaining the same resolution will result in worse quality than just dropping the resolution. e.g. 480p @ 4Mbps might look better than 720p @ 4Mbps. With something as grainy as Star Wars, I’d recommend sticking to 480p resolution if you have to use a DVD-5. On DVD-9 720p should still be reasonable, you may just need to play with the bitrate a bit to get it to fit. All of this is a bit moot when using Handbrake though, which can produce some pretty terrible looking encodes. I recommend MeGUI if you need a “wizard” to help you through it.

On the topic of cropping vs. not cropping, it all comes down to how many encodes TN-1 are willing to produce. I don’t know the logistics behind their setup, but you’ve gotta keep in mind that there is more than one project to be worked on and that each additional encode adds a lot of render time. In a perfect world, I think TN-1 should offer two options:

  1. Full BD-50 format 1080p encode with any audio tracks planned.
  2. BD-25 sized 1080p MKV, cropped, with any audio tracks planned.
  3. Chotab’s Dream Sequence: 2160p, x264 encoded @ ~85-100 Mbps, cropped.

Ignore 3, I was just daydreaming a bit. 😉 Anyway, between options 1 and 2 you have a lot of your bases covered. You’ve got the disc crowd and the encode crowd happy, at least the 1080p users. The only people not covered are those that want 1080p at lower bitrate which they can transcode themselves from either 1080p release or lower resolution which works the same way. I personally think it’d be a waste of time for the team to make AVCHD format releases, 720p, etc. because if we have to pick and choose I would prefer only the highest quality offerings that the other formats can be created from at our leisure.

Post
#898929
Topic
Info: Encoding tips and ideas
Time

To make a Blu-ray compliant encode at excellent quality, these are the only settings you need. This will likely produce an encode larger than BD-25 with audio included. Note, this assumes your source material has already been converted to YV12 4:2:0.

–profile high --preset placebo --level 4.1 --bluray-compat --crf 16 --deblock -3:-3 --aq-strength 0.7 --no-mbtree

If you are aiming for BD-25 you should use 2-pass encoding instead of CRF in order to take full advantage of the space available. You can use various bitrate calculators to determine within a small margin of error what your target bitrate will need to be to hit the size constraint with any audio and subtitle tracks included. I recommend the calculator included with MeGUI as it can be configured to take into account overhead of various video and audio containers.

Post
#898789
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

You’ve completely mixed up CRF with QP encoding which is what you are describing. Two different x264 settings can drastically change output bit rate of two same CRF encodes. Also, what the hell does MPEG2 or MVC have to do with x264 encoding? You’re still reaching instead of providing actual information rather than anecdotes.

The settings used on the current 1080p essentially neuter the release. Even scene groups are required to use better quality presets these days. The motion estimation settings alone cause a huge amount of grain shift from frame to frame. There is so much more to x264 encoding than CRF values and bit rate. I already contacted TM-1 with baseline settings that would dramatically improve their video quality. I just hope they use them.

Edit: and don’t use --tune grain!! That preset is almost as old as x264 itself. It uses far too high values of --psy-rd and will introduce artifacting and increase bit rate requirements. It’s more of an artificial sharpening mechanism than anything else.

Post
#898676
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

Encoding is part of mastering of the disc, you have to compress those big movies to fit onto 50 GB with more extras than most people care about. You said Sirius Pixels was the best, I just provided 3 examples of where it failed with a very large bitrate size. I have a couple of custom Blu-ray discs mastered from DCP with x264 configured properly and the results are quite stunning compared to their retail releases. They also playback fine on a number of Blu-ray players. At the end of the day, most of those commercial encoders do not provide nearly the range of customization that x264 does, and they also aren’t updated as consistently being that they are closed source. By the way, it’s 2016. And the films I listed were on the front page of Sirius Pixels website as “excellent Blu-ray encodes” released in 2015.

Post
#898437
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

RU.08 said:

Williarob said:

You’re using a lot of words to describe what can be visualized with only a few pictures. You do so much work with this codec you’re bound to have a portfolio somewhere right? Some frame-accurate, frame-type comparisons between your sources, x264 and your commercial encoder at native resolution? Why not share those and prove your picture quality claims while sharing the settings used for both encodes instead of just rattling off numbers and bitrates and ending with “see for yourself!”

And that link you gave to their websites displays some examples of poorly mastered Blu-ray discs. Got a dark area in your film? Have some banding and blocking! Got a fast action motion sequence? You get some banding and blocking!

Jurassic World and Furious 7 have some pretty bad areas, Interstellar features banding in almost every IMAX scene, I can dig up more examples.

Source Blu-ray (encoded with Sirius PixelsTM) vs. Corrected Blocking and Banding, x264 encoded (far lower bitrates)
Jurassic World: http://someimage.com/KzHmLU0 vs. http://someimage.com/MndIkDv
Furious 7: http://someimage.com/LnmEJxd vs. http://someimage.com/1uwbTgt
Interstellar: http://someimage.com/ndPmGZj vs. http://someimage.com/LBYEEWz

Edit: Even better example, Blu-ray vs. Blu-ray. First image is Nightcrawler from the Norwegian Blu-ray vs. the US Blu-ray (encoded with Sirius Pixels). Both discs ~35 Mbps:
http://imgbox.com/w34vNBsZ vs. http://imgbox.com/vC2HbjyL
http://imgbox.com/M5Vo6Lfs vs. http://imgbox.com/nrQGv9ll
http://imgbox.com/C40t7Mzd vs. http://imgbox.com/ktwli0Tg

Post
#773701
Topic
THX 1138 "preservations" + the 'THX 1138 Italian Cut' project (Released)
Time

Hey guys, I threw together the encode on the spleen and can confirm the original .MOV files of the scan do have the Buck Rogers clip, I trimmed it from the encode as I did not have nearly as much knowledge of the source as you guys seem to! I'm very sorry about that and if anyone wants a 100% unaltered encode of the scan with the clip, reel ends and all I can do one. Just trimmed it to the movie by itself as I thought that was easier for comparison. Sorry for any confusion!!

Total Runtime (w/ Buck Rogers Clip): 01:26:23 / 124277 frames

Full Scan Runtime (NO TRIMS): 01:27:24 / 125754 frames

Post
#770579
Topic
Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released)
Time

Jetrell Fo said:

Almost looks like a planet from a fade or something .....

 Yeah! That's what I thought! And it's also just before a scene fade that is right outside of Dagobah which has a similar color palette and texture to the lens flare. Haha.

Harmy said:

Yeah, that's definitely a lens flare - always been there.

Gotcha, well thanks for the quick responses! Had a great time watching this and Star Wars v2.5.

Post
#770576
Topic
Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released)
Time

Hey Harmy, same question I posted in the wrong thread. >.<

http://www.imagebam.com/image/34253a410086635

But I guess you already answered it. So that's a lens flare there on the right? It just looked odd because I have a pretty bright screen and around the flare you can see for those few frames that it appears a sort of dark circle that doesn't have as much fine grain as the rest of the image. Almost as if it was "masked" in from another source with different details. I could be totally wrong but that's why I wanted to ask.

Post
#770537
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Hey Harmy, can you explain what's going on in this shot?

http://www.imagebam.com/image/34253a410086635

At the start of this shot you can sort of see a black circle where it looks like the planet like object was masked in, but they're inside the asteroid. Was this intentional? It's there just before the wipe to Luke flying over Dagobah. Timecode is 00:40:21.

Edit: And I checked the comparisons gallery before posting this, mainly cus I love seeing all the changes. :P