[MEncoder-users] Terrible results with x264

[belcampo]

Joseph Miller wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Cumiskey
> <jason.cumiskey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have just started using x264 to encode my dvds.  I am going for
>> quality, not speed.  I am basing my -x264encopts off of the
>> recommendations from
>> http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-x264.html
>>
>> Here are the commands I issue (I am using 2 pass encode):
>> mencoder -dvd-device /dev/dvd1 dvd://1 -alang eng -aid 128 -oac mp3lame
>> -lameopts cbr:br=128:vol=7 -vf
>> pullup,softskip,crop=704:480:10:0,hqdn3d=2:1:2,harddup -ovc x264
>> -x264encopts
>> pass=1:bitrate=1400:subq=1:partitions=all:8x8dct:me=umh:frameref=1:bframes=3:b_pyramid=normal:weight_b:threads=auto -o movie.h264
>>
>> # Pass 2
>> mencoder -dvd-device /dev/dvd1 dvd://1 -alang eng -aid 128 -oac mp3lame
>> -lameopts cbr:br=128:vol=7 -vf
>> pullup,softskip,crop=704:480:10:0,hqdn3d=2:1:2,harddup -ovc x264
>> -x264encopts
>> pass=2:bitrate=1400:subq=6:partitions=all:8x8dct:me=umh:frameref=6:bframes=3:b_pyramid=normal:weight_b:threads=auto -o movie.h264
>>
>>
>> On pass 2, I change subq to 6 and frameref to 6 (as recommended in the
>> docs link above to speed up 1st pass and have higher quality for 2nd
>> pass).Can anyone see anything obviously wrong in my command chain?  The
>> resulting video is heavily pixelated and mplayer shows a bitrate of
>> 0kbps.
>>
FYI. multi-pass does NOT add any quality, it's only usefull when you 
have a hard-limit of size to obey. If you need to put the result on a 
cd/usb-stick/DVD or something like that, then you can get max-quality 
given a fixed size.
If that is not the case use a qp=16-26 for very good to very acceptable 
quality. You can leave out the bitrate when you choose Quality instead 
of Size.
> 
> My experience has been that the bitrate option either doesn't work
> very well, or I don't know how to use it.  Use qp=20 or so and you'll
> get good quality.  I have just started using the presets as well and
> preset=placebo gives very nice results.  Something like
> qp=20:preset=placebo:pass=1 then switching to pass=3 for 2nd encoding
> gives nice results and decent filesize.  I'm assuming that
> preset=[veryslow|slower|slow] would probably also give good results.
> 
> -Joseph
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