x264 presets, profiles, and tuning system

[Blue_MiSfit]

Indeed. For this kind of content, allowing the usage of more b-frames is probably a very good idea also.

Derek

[gfxsky]

Originally Posted by Audionut

This is the command line i'm using for a nokia 5800.

how to use it, sir?

[lych_necross]

Originally Posted by gfxsky

how to use it, sir?

Uhh....

c:\folder\x264.exe --profile baseline --pass 2 -B 400 --level 1.3 --ref 1 --aq-mode 2 --no-mixed-refs --trellis 2 --rc-lookahead 240 --scenecut 40 --partitions all --me umh --subme 10 --keyint 240 --min-keyint 24 --psy-rd 0.0:0.0 --vbv-bufsize 1000 --vbv-maxrate 768 input output

[Rash]

Just a small question. Isn't the first post on this thread outdated?

[Chikuzen]

yes, it's outdated.
there are a lot of addions and changes that have been done.

[Rash]

Well, the truth is, I can't get a AVC High Profile out of x264. I have tried to force it using preset, not using preset but it doesn't work. Here are my lines and x264 outputs.

x264 --profile high --bitrate 264 --tune film --pass 1 -o [ommited] [ommited]
avs [info]: 480x272p 0:0 @ 5000000/208333 fps (cfr)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264 [info]: profile Main, level 2.1

x264 --profile high --bitrate 264 --preset veryslow --tune film --pass 1 -o [ommited] [ommited]
avs [info]: 480x272p 0:0 @ 5000000/208333 fps (cfr)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264 [info]: profile Main, level 2.1

x264 --profile high --bitrate 264 --preset veryslow --tune film --level 3.1 --pass 1 -o [ommited] [ommited]
avs [info]: 480x272p 0:0 @ 5000000/208333 fps (cfr)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264 [info]: profile Main, level 3.1

As you can see from the three tests I've made that I managed to get the forced level (3.1) to work. But I can't get the High profile, even when not using any presets. Can someone please help me? x264 core:112 r1834 a51816a

I have ommited the input and output files from the cmd line to make it easier to read.

[EDIT] Oh, nevermind. That was due to the fact it was on the first pass of the encode. For the second pass, x264 showed High profile on its output. Interesting that the level is displayed correctly, but the profile is displayed according to the turbo preset I suppose.

[nurbs]

First pass uses faster settings by default. 8x8dct is deactivated among other settings, so unless you use --slow-firstpass or a CQM your first pass will never be high profile. There is nothing wrong.

--level sets a flag regardless of settings used. --profile will limit features, but if no high profile features are used it will still signal main (or baseline).

[bin_ch]

Hello,
after two years, I am still wondering what do you think about bumping --bframes in --preset slower a little?
D_S said in previous post that this might be worth looking into at some point, so any news? Or is it considered a bad idea? To my personal experience, 3 is almost always too low for those slow'ish presets.
Furthermore, if I understand correctly, with the upcoming sliced lookahead, the bottleneck caused by --b-adapt 2 and many bframes can be reduced a lot, this adds another point to use more bframes IMO.

[Elvellon]

I don't know about the speed vs quality tradeoff, but certainly in my experience 5 B-frames is a common median (modal?) value.

[Dark Shikari]

Sharp graphic content, like screen captures, flash-like video games, and so forth, would probably also be hurt by --tune film in some of the same ways.

For 3D games, take it or lose it, I don't feel like it matters so much.

It's all a bit guesswork anyways.

Explanation behind --tune film: lower deblocking settings and stronger psy-trellis bias towards detail retention at the expense of graphical artifacts, especially on sharp edges. I would have liked to make x264's default more along these lines, but unfortunately there's quite a bit of real-world material where this would hurt noticeably, and I never came up with a good way for x264 to find a balance that helps both.

[Dark Shikari]

Sorry, my use of "real-world" in this case referred to non-contrived encoding situations, i.e. people encoding things for some real purpose (in contrast to "--tune film is bad on this absurd single test clip nobody cares about"). Lord Mulder is referring solely to actual videos coming out of cameras, i.e. "real life" videos.

[kypec]

You're over-complicating the tuning notation too much IMO.
grain tuning is for grainy (how more obvious this could be?) sources when you want to retain this grain in final encode, fine details are just a sort of grain for the encoder
film does refer to the nature of footage, it means that your input is regular movie with live action scenes, real actors, filmed by natural means of video recording devices. It doesn't refer to physical substance on which your video is recorded, BTW how precisely would you want to feed your celluloid reel into x264?
animation obviously refers to cartoon/hand drawn type of footage with large areas of uniform color, less fluid motion caused by repeated frames and so on...
All other types of tuning presets are pretty self-explanatory I think

[bxyhxyh]

Which tune i should use on heavy grainy anime?

[mandarinka]

None or film, IMHO.

I use no tune and default psyrdo, aq-strength=0.8.