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Sorry, i meant you can find the .exe in there if you wanted to use it directly without AutoMKV

Unless that meant being able to use it in an easier to work with app like VirtualDub, it's of no use to me. I certainly don't have the skills to be using it without a GUI.

Yeah , I'm a complete idiot, I wouldn't use it without either. The reason I use AutoMKV is there's a nice button which says Start Encoding which i can press and be oblivious to what the hell it's actually doing :mrgreen:

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Formerly eZ`

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Once again, wonderful thread. I enjoy reading through this and learning what I can. After the video examples I'm rather interested in x264 also. I've been using a Mp4 codec to compress my videos before but I think I would to give this a try.

MP4 is not a codec. It's a container. A container is what's used to store video and audio files in (and other types of files like subtitles). You can put a variety of video formats inside of a container.

For example, these are the codecs that MKV supports...

For video: VFW through FOURCC, RealVideo, MPEG1, MPEG2, Theora, Snow, MPEG4/ASP, MPEG4/AVC
For audio: AC3, MP1, MP2, MP3, DTS, PCM (Int), PCM (Float), TTA1, Wavpack, Vorbis, FLAC, RealAudio, AAC, MS/ACM
For subtitles: ASCII, UTF-8, SSA, ASS, USF, VobSub

So as you can see, you can basically store just about anything inside of a MKV container. MP4 has less compatibility, but it's still a container you can use to store a variety of video and audio formats in.

Still though, I am quite pleased with the result so far. Can you tell me primarily what settings I need to tweak though to get that better quality you spoke of without added file size? Am I looking at mainly dropping CRF a bit and increasing bFrames?

For more reasonable encoding options, try these:
--bframes 3 --b-pyramid --ref 4 --crf 25 --weightb --subme 7 --8x8dct

These are basically medium quality settings.

I see that the default bframes setting is 3, but there is no box in which to change it. I think it has to be done via that command line editor and I'm not sure how to use it. And what about the Advanced x264 settings I highlighted in red? Would changing any of those help add quality without increasing file size?

I'll grab AutoMKV later and see what I can come up with with it. As for the advanced options, I don't see why they're any more or less advanced than other options in x264. ;) AQ is used to give some detail to low-detail macroblocks. It basically helps eliminate banding and loss of detail in flat blocks. It does this my distributing more bits to the lower detail macroblocks, thus reducing bits from the higher detail blocks. However, a reasonable setting between 1.0 and 1.5 is perfectly acceptable to the eye and can provide some increase in quality in flat scenes.

Here's the script shown when I click open the drop down box for "Add to line:" in the command line editor, rather confusing.

You can simply type in commands separately above it, but I've yet to try actually adding any. Like I said, there's no way for me to know if I'll permanently change something. I can only assume it saves a separately profile from the default library of profiles once you edit something then click Save Profile, leaving the default library of profiles/commands intact.

Don't mess with anything in that large green box.

That Advanced Profiles Editing page looks like what you want to mess with to change options.

...no comments yet on the x264 vs Xvid vids. Did I screw up or are the results anywhere near adequate for a first go with x264/AutoMKV? I got the feeling they're not bad for using mostly default settings and given the processor power I have, which I think can also affect quality some.

I haven't checked them out just yet. When I have some time to analyze the videos I'll compare them.

The processor you have shouldn't affect the quality of the encoding. The options you encode with are mainly what affect it. The only difference is how fast you encode it or not.

Without going into too much detail, what have you actually done to your x264 compiles? If i replace the existing one that AutoMKV uses with your one, you reckon that'll work fine n dandy? I've downloaded "x264.r1114M.SSSE3.x64.imk".

That probably wouldn't work too well. The problem with using a 64-bit version of x264 is that you need a 64-bit AviSynth to feed data into it. I'm not sure if AutoMKV provides avs2yuv or not. avs2yuv is a tool that works as an intermediate between 32-bit AviSynth and 64-bit x264.

You can try it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work. ;) Grab the 32-bit build if you run into any problems. It should be interchangable with the one in AutoMKV. There hasn't been any ABI changes recently that should break compatibility.

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[quote]Without going into too much detail, what have you actually done to your x264 compiles? If i replace the existing one that AutoMKV uses with your one, you reckon that'll work fine n dandy? I've downloaded "x264.r1114M.SSSE3.x64.imk".

That probably wouldn't work too well. The problem with using a 64-bit version of x264 is that you need a 64-bit AviSynth to feed data into it. I'm not sure if AutoMKV provides avs2yuv or not. avs2yuv is a tool that works as an intermediate between 32-bit AviSynth and 64-bit x264.

You can try it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work. ;) Grab the 32-bit build if you run into any problems. It should be interchangable with the one in AutoMKV. There hasn't been any ABI changes recently that should break compatibility.

Yeah it didn't work unfortunately. I'll give the 32bit version a go then ! And i'll look into this avs2yuv :)
Edit: 32bit version works fine! 8)

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Formerly eZ`

Follow me on twitter: @theg00seberry and find me on Steam

I did a few more compression tests last night on the same source clip used for the Xvid/x264 comparison, and the results were not as good as I thought they'd be.

Upon looking at your recommendations, I noticed most of the values in your list could be found in one of the 2-Pass presets. Only Subme was slightly different, 9 vs 7 I think. I also could not ascertain which of the script in the editor referred to Subme, even though copying and pasting the command line into a text file shows it clearly as Subme.

Thus I tired the 2-Pass preset called Slug, which has parameters close to you first max quality argument. Its's the highest quality 2-Pass setting with a bframes of 16. I used a target file size of 30MB. It took roughly 10 times as long to compress as the 41MB 2-Pass !Fast I used for the Xvid comparison (1 hr 15 min), but the results at 30MB size were not much better if at all then the 30MB clip I posted before.

I also tried doing 41MB target size compressions set to the default Balanced, then Better 2_Pass settings. Still, not much better if at all in image quality than the 2-Pass !fast setting. I also tried using the Constant Quality Optimized and 1-Pass high Performance settings, to see if I could get better results with 1 pass. Still not any better.

The only thing I really haven't done is try a 1 pass preset with edited settings, though I'd be skipping a couple that I don't know how to translate in the editor script, like Subme and 8x8DCT. I am fairly certain I have all but those two figured out though, of those you last mentioned anyway.

bframes is fairly obvious, listed as #

b-pyramid is listed as true

ref may be listed as #,...not sure.

crf I don't see in the script at all, though it does show on the command line when you paste it in a text file. Use CRF for AutoResize Routines is an option via checking a box in Advanced Settings though. Since the default is 20 and the command line always shows 20 for crf, I thought the two were the same, though the command line value does not change when I change the crf value where the check box is.

weightb I think is listed as true

I only see one line in the script that makes sense for Subme.
There's one string listed as #

8x8dct is another confusing one.
I thought it might be true

Well, the higher the quality settings, the more CPU it takes to produce smaller increases in quality. There's a very fine medium you can get away with.

Using the maximum quality setting is really if you just absolutely want the best quality for filesize, and not care about the amount of time it takes to encode.

I'd have to see both videos to really compare. Comparisons make all the difference if you know what you're looking for.

I'm grabbing AutoMKV right now so I'll let you know my findings.

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Well, the higher the quality settings, the more CPU it takes to produce smaller increases in quality. There's a very fine medium you can get away with.

Using the maximum quality setting is really if you just absolutely want the best quality for filesize, and not care about the amount of time it takes to encode.

I'd have to see both videos to really compare. Comparisons make all the difference if you know what you're looking for.

I'm grabbing AutoMKV right now so I'll let you know my findings.

Yeah well I was going by what you said earlier when I asked that despite my having just a single core CPU, it should not affect the quality, just the time it takes. For some reason the highest preset, taking 10 times as long, resulted in no better image quality for the same file size, or at least not much better if it was at all.

Looking forward to your recommendations and script translations after using AutoMKV a bit. All the better if you have a single core system you can test it on to equivalate my spec or set the CPU affinity to one core for the app. Sorry if that's asking too much, but I really am confused at this point.

Right now I'm downloading a terminator episode off a site in x264 to see how it compares to the usual Xvid files I download there of the same show. I still don't get why their x264 versions are nearly 3 times the size of the Xvid ones, given what you guys have said. It may be that the x264 ones are done in 720p, and I think the Xvid ones are done in 480p.

Yeah, it's possible there's different resolutions.

The higher the resolution, the higher the bitrate needed for the image to look good, thus increasing filesize. So if you're comparing a 480p video to a 720p video, the 720p filesize will definitely be larger to maintain a quality for that resolution. If you compare resolution for resolution, bitrate to bitrate, then x264 wins.

As for the differences in quality you're getting or not seeing, it really depends on AutoMKV. When I opened it up, it's a mess. There's a lot of options enabled by default that shouldn't be (IMO), and it's a complicated mess. This is why I like to do everything separate and on my own.

I'll see if I can work up a profile you can just use with AutoMKV. :)

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I'm not surprised a programmer would see it that way, but for us laymen used to having GUIs, it's a lot easier than raw hex editing. In other words we need reference points, easy to use settings boxes, and tooltips, whereas you don't. I'm wondering if part of what you meant by complicated is that they word the script differently though?

From what some here have said, AutoMKV is now the easiest way to use x264 via GUI. However if WinMenc and MeGUI are pretty much overshadowed and outdated by it now, why am I still seeing MeGUI as being the most widely used app for it in my Google searches?

I meant I find AutoMKV's interface a complicated mess.

There's no individual settings. It's all mashed together. If I were to make an interface, it would probably be just for x264 only and provide simple, easy, organized choices.

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