A quick resume of settings for anime and some questions (make sugestions)

[OvejaNegra]

As the title says, it's my resume of the anime settings i use for enconding.
Please post your comments because i'm having some problems.

I usually try to fit 26 chapters in one 4.7 DVD
or 2 movies (with full surround audio)
or 3 / 4 movies if using only stereo audio.
My encodes usually have 704 X 480 (croped and anamorphic)
I do some light denoising for that subtle noise on most of modern anime. (vaguedenoiser).
I'm interested on aiming to 50/52 chapters for some long series.

1- Always a bit confused about this: How many MB should i put in the megui calculator: 2240 for movies and 172 for chapters? Usually i end with some unused mb on my DVDs (like 300/500 mb).

I use --deblock -0:0

2- Should i use 1:1? And if aiming to more chapters per DVD? 1:1 will help to avoid blocks?

--threads auto: I have intel DualCore. I think it's ok.
--vbv-init 0.9
3- Well, sometimes i have blocky starting on the movies. I don't really care because is just the logos, but raising this will avoid that?

--ratetol 1.0
4- Interested on this one. Most of the times, the chapters have very nice quality (quantizers from 16 -18 on "normal"scenes).
But sometimes there are scenes with sudden fast movement, or long panings, or flashing effects. This usually gives me many blocks (and quantizers of 27 -30). Raising this will allow the codec to give more br / lower quantizers to this scenes? I don't care if this breaks hardware compatibility (does it?).


--vbv-bufsize (default)
and
--vbv-maxrate (default)
5 - Just curiosity: Is there any way to allow x264 to use ALL the posible bit rate to any scene, even if that means suden bit rate peaks or high bit rate differences while trying to fit the movie/chapter to some specific size?
Being more explicative: Usually bit rate changes are restricted with buffer size and some other stuf, well, forget about that.
I'm talking about fit the video to some SIZE, NOT BIT RATE. And restrict only the maximun, minimun quantizers. Is this possible or im talking nonsense?

--qcomp 0.6

6 - What this setting does? I'm a bit confused. Should i raise it to allow more quality for the high motion scenes? Or this will miss prediction of filesize?

--cplxblur 20
and
--qblur 0.5

7 - This will help me too for the hig motion scenes or not? They control how the quantizer can fluctuate?

-no-chroma-me
8 - Of course not!! Anime has a lot of color, and using chroma for motion detection is a must.

--merange 16

9 - Should i use higer values for fast motion detection, pannings? Or higher values like 32 if encoding HDTV?

--scenecut 40
10 - I dont see any reason to change this

--me umh

11 - Esa and Tesa (sound like Moe names in spanish ) will REALLY make a difference if trying to fit 50 chapters?

--subme 9

12 - Any reason to change this?


13 - Any reason to change keyframe interval and GOP size?


--nr 0
14 - Interested on this one. This will help me to remove/ ignore in encoding the subtle noise ? or not? This is a noise filter or it changes something on the encoding process to ignore detail (it does something like the DCT filters for avisynth)?


CABAC?

15- Yes, of course

--ref 5 and
--mixed-refs

16 - Any reason to change this? more REF will make a difference to fit more chapters or not? This causes more CPU use during decode?

-trellis 0
17 - Well, as far as i know this usually is a different system of quantization. But this help or not? (in terms of quality). Should i use it or not?

--psy-rd 0.0:0.0

18 - This help with grain retention and should not be used with anime right?
BUT, it the anime has lots of added grain? Or many scenes with particles (snow, rain, dust). Should i raise the bit/rate filesize? Or enable this? I'm asking because i have one OVA of kanokon wich uses added grain (to simulate a camera) and only this helped (to preserve the artificial grain). I have another episode with lots of particles on many scenes and those scenes look very bad. This will help me or should raise the bit rate?


--no-dct-decimate

19 - Well, i remember here on this forum some people saying that this kills unnecesary detail (so it should not be used for anime). But some others says that it can degrade the anime on some scenes. Is this true? Should use it by default if i want preserve quality or it wont make any difference?
Should i not use it (that means DO dcd decimate) if i want more small files?

--no-fast-pskip

20- I remember my first encodes and the gradients on the sky and some surfaces. Should i use this or not?
This helps to small filesizes or it does not make any difference?

--qpmin 12

21- 10 or 12. No difference for me.

22- Should i touch the quantizers ratio?

23- Deadzones helps with subtle noise or not?

--aq-mode 0
24- This damage the lines on dark scenes (Checked many times)
But if i disable it, will create blocks on dark areas?

25- I use all the partitions (exept P4x4) and adaptive DCT.
Any reason to change that?

--bframes 4 + --b-adapt 2

26- Or should i use: --bframes 16 + --b-adapt 1???

Remember, this is anime, and usually i find differentes answers to this. Arent many b frames bat for Multi T?


--weightb

27- Yes or not?

--direct auto

28- Or spatial?

29- I dont see any reason to change the Bias


Well, that's all i think.

Please, remember i'm encoding anime, but well the comments about anime VS normal source are wellcome.
I'm aiming to 2 goals
A: Settings to preserve the quality and that includes scenes with high motion/paning and scenes with particles.
B: Settings for more compression and aceptable quality.

I will make a tool for batch encoding and i will make some of this settings the defaults.

I'm very interested on point 5. or something like that.

All the settings have a number mark, refer to the number to avoid unnecesary quotes.

I know that some of this stuff is very discussed, but sometimes is not aplicable to anime, and some times the info is outdated.

I will edit this post with the recomendations

sorry for my bad english and my repetitive words.

Thanks.
Thanks to the x264 developers, x264 makes my anime clear as crystal.