[MEncoder-users] intermittent encoding/playback problems with ffvhuff/huffyuv

[Eric Wescott]

I have a significant amount (~50 hours) of HDV footage that I am 
performing an inverse telecine on before I edit the footage. I've 
decided to use huffy as x264 lossless is simply to slow to edit with. 
However, I've run into a few strange problems with huffy that I hope you 
guys can help me with.

First, here are the methods I've been using to encode my video.

mencoder Tape004-0045.m2t -fps 30000/1001 -vf 
pullup,softskip,harddup,scale=1920:1080 -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 
-x264encopts qp=0 -demuxer lavf -oac pcm -o Tape004-0045.h264.avi

mencoder Tape004-0045.m2t  -fps 30000/1001 -vf 
pullup,softskip,harddup,scale=1920:1080 -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc lavc 
-lavcopts vcodec=ffvhuff:aspect=16/9 -demuxer lavf -oac pcm -o 
Tape004-0045.ffvhuff.avi

mencoder Tape004-0045.m2t  -fps 30000/1001 -vf 
pullup,softskip,harddup,scale=1920:1080 -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc lavc 
-lavcopts vcodec=huffyuv:pred=2:format=422P:vstrict=-1 -demuxer lavf 
-oac pcm -o Tape004-0045.huffyuv.avi


Now, there are two main problems. The first problem is artifacts during 
the encoding process. x264 doesn't have these issues but both ffvhuff 
and huffyuv do. It's not in every clip.. I'd say maybe 5-10% have this 
issue. You can see a visual example from the following link.

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/wescott/mencoder/shot0001.png

The strange thing is generally (but not always) when huffyuv produces 
this artifact ffvhuff doesn't. I've been flip flopping between the two 
but there are cases where both produce the artifact. However, the 
ffvhuff ones tend to be smaller is size and not last the entire duration 
of the clip.


The other problem is playback in Quicktime (via Perian) doesn't always 
work. Again, it's another flip flop scenerio where the ffvhuff may play 
but the huffyuv won't. Again, sometimes both versions don't play. The 
x264 version always seems to work but again because of performance 
issues it's less than the ideal format to use. Here is a link to a test 
clip that produces both of these problems.

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/wescott/mencoder/Tape004-0045.m2t

In this instance using the above method to produce an ffvhuff encoded 
file doesn't play in Quicktime/Perian (but does in MPlayer) but the 
huffyuv version plays via both.

Any suggestions?
Thanks
Eric Wescott