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22nd July 2018, 19:30 | #1 | Link |
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Speeding up encodes of soft transfers?
I HEVC encode my bluray rips to save space on my Plex server. After some testing of various clips, I've mostly settled on crf17-18 slow for getting very high quality encodes at a file size and encode time I can live with. For older, grainier clips I usually run the video through smdegrain with light settings in avisynth to increase efficiency. I'm sure I could dig further at the settings and thoroughly test each and every source, but I'm happy enough with this in general even if it's not perfectly efficient.
However, I've noticed that encoding is extremely slow with softer sources like typical 70's and early 80's films. I was trying to encode Dog Day Afternoon (a mediocre ~22mbps VC-1 transfer) at crf18 slow and was getting only ~2.5fps. In comparison, It (2017) at crf17 slow got ~4.5fps. Usually I get 3-4fps on pre-digital films. Switching to crf18 medium, DDA encodes about 3 times faster (~7.5fps). This seems like a larger difference in speed between medium and slow compared to what I've seen on sharper transfers. Is there any particular tweak I can make to the Slow preset to speed up encoding these soft transfers? I'm guessing that just dropping to Medium is too blunt an approach and that it loses quality in other areas (like motion) that have less effect on encoding time. I've looked through the various encoder options, but I'm not technically proficient enough to identify which ones would help me. Any advice is appreciated. Explanations of what precisely a given setting does and why it helps me would be fantastic, but certainly not necessary. Thanks. Last edited by tppytel; 22nd July 2018 at 19:32. Reason: typo |
24th July 2018, 22:09 | #2 | Link |
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I would strongly recommend a faster CPU. It's not something you want to hear, as most people don't like to hear that their hardware is not sufficient, but newer, faster, is better. Sadly, you haven't let us know what your hardware is, so we can not know if your hardware truly is a limiting factor. The other option is to encode heavy grain/noisy sources as x264, as it can handle grain/noise far better than x265 can, currently.
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25th July 2018, 04:27 | #3 | Link |
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Your observation is pretty close to mine. The recommended equivalent of x264 crf 18 in x265 is crf 21, but on my tests, crf 21 medium gave me artifact on one particular scene. Raising the preset to slow fixed it, but it nearly doubled my encoding time. Lowering crf to 18 medium also fixed it with only a very small increase in encoding time.
So crf 18 medium is the better of the two. Only use slow preset if you have a very fast machine. |
25th July 2018, 19:01 | #4 | Link |
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I'm somewhat skeptical that a CRF encode would get that much slower based on content type. A soft film should have a lower average bitrate, and thus less CABAC. And trigger early exits more often. I'd guess the reported speed differential is more likely from a slower decode or preprocessing (like if you're only doing degrain on softer sources).
Differences between medium and slow that might cause bigger perf differences than quality differences * --lookahead-slices 4 instead of 8 could slow things down if you have lots of available cores. * --rect isn't likely to change quality that much, just increase bitrate some The other differences seem more likely to impact quality AND bitrate. Personally, I feel --preset slower is where HEVC starts to really strut its stuff. |
25th July 2018, 20:33 | #5 | Link | ||
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Quote:
edit: Also... Quote:
I think I'd definitely need newer hardware to go with slower. I've only got an i5-6500 Skylake. On Slow, I can set an encode running before going to bed and it will be done by the time I get home from work the next day, which is reasonably convenient. Last edited by tppytel; 25th July 2018 at 23:51. |
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27th July 2018, 06:24 | #6 | Link |
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Well with an i5, yes you are severely limited. I would say wait until the TR-2 comes out and forces Intel to change their price points. If you want to upgrade, it would be a good opportunity for you make some changes, either by going AMD, or by staying in the Intel camp. Know that if you go Ryzen, rumour is that Ryzen 2 will have up to 16 cores, or Threadripper a max of 32 (for now) and if you go Intel they are segmenting the market even more and are doing away with hyperthreading for i7's altogether with the new line of chips. Ben is of course correct though that x265 really starts to shine at slower.
It's really a tough call on what to upgrade to as your machine is perfectly fine for everything else except for encoding! Encoders always wish they had more power haha |
28th July 2018, 17:17 | #7 | Link | |
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Quote:
Also, I did a 5 minute clip from Aliens after a reboot with no other apps open in order to rule out other PC problems. The results were consistent with the above - averaged a hair over 2 fps for crf18 slow. Last edited by tppytel; 28th July 2018 at 21:29. |
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