Mencoder help - HD Mpeg2 to H264/AC3

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Hmm, I have no playback problems at all (mplayer & CoreAVC), and I do use pyramidal B-frames. I have no way to test on the HD extender though.

I'll do an experiment this evening: demux one of my AVI's and remux to mkv and see if the quality is any better. I mux into mkv's for DVD encodes anyway; I use AVI's for TV rips out of laziness more than anything, mencoder muxes to AVI itself.

When I was still using AVI I was actually playing around with tweaking my H.264 settings one evening and noticed that video playback was really choppy. Even on VLC. I tried converting to an MKV container instead with no change to the settings I was using and it all of a sudden was playing smooth as silk. Kind of wild that the container would make such a difference.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Kirby

So the new version of Handbrake is out today, 0.92. And it has the option to put H.264 and AC3 inside an MP4 container. Didnt think that was a supported combo? It also has some other nice options that the developmental build I was using didnt have, such as a preset for AVC+AAC5.1+AC3 inside an AVI container.

Well, I was messing around with the new Handbrake last night for a bit before going to bed and it still doesn't reverse telecine correctly. Mallrats still comes out wrong.

Other than on Mallrats the only other movie I noticed a problem on was High Fidelity. I noticed the long pan at the beginning of the movie was really choppy after being converted. I ran it through AutoMKV and had no choppiness.

Honestly, I really like Handbrake, particularly the Mac version, for it's ease of use. But they need some help with work on determining telecine frames. It would also be nice if they added support for "audio stream" pass-through rather than allowing only AC3. On movies that have DTS tracks I like to mux that track rather than the AC3. Handbrake won't let me do that.

Edit: With all my Handbrake conversions every now and then I notice a little glitch where it grabbed the wrong frame or two. I can't imagine it's that difficult to determine telecined frames. DVD player software and DVD players seem to do it rather well.

[Kirby]

I am trying my first de-telecined encoding right now. It wont be done for hours though. Hopefully it comes out good, but who knows.

I'm curious if one of you that know more than me (thats just about everyone) could look at the settings I am using and tell me if I should tweak some settings. Here is what I am using on 1080i video source (29.97 fps):

Keep framerate at 29.97
2 pass encoding
turbo first pass
average bitrate 8000
deinterlace = fast
deblock = yes
reference frames=2
b-frames=3
direct prediction=spatial
weight b frames
pyramidal b-frames
UMH motion estimation, range=16
subq=5
8x8 DCT
CABAC entropy coding
qcomp=0.65

These are all the options I have set (or specified) in handbrake, outputting a 1920x1080p file, and the autocropping usually drops 8 pixels, making it 1920x1072.

*edit* I interrupted my encoding of the movie I was converting, and it looked like crap! Movie is Quigly Down Under, recorded from HDNet Movies. The mpeg-2 file is 29.97 but it is clearly 3:2 patterned, so I tried to de-telecine it. At this point, I think I will just encode it at 29.97 instead of trying to get back to 23.976. I wonder, at a later time, is there a way to take the H.264 video portion of my MKV and de-telecine it? Or will it forever be 29.97 fps? For space optimization I would prefer to get the movie down to its proper framerate.

[lobosrul]

Kirby:

If your IVTC'ing you must set the framerate @ 24000/1001 (ie 23.976). And theres no need to de-interlace.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Kirby:

If your IVTC'ing you must set the framerate @ 24000/1001 (ie 23.976). And theres no need to de-interlace.

The settings I listed were just for 29.97 fps (video) material. When I was doing my test IVTC on Quigly, I had the output framerate set to 23.976.

Regarding the de-interlacing, was that in reference to doing IVTC, or in general for all encodes?

[btrcp2000]

Okay, I'm screaming uncle here. This has absolutely got the best of me. I have followed the directions here and dragged/dropped onto the autoencode batch file, and I just get errors (see below) Help?!

-> Updating Status: error

** Status Message**
Stanley-TheRobbingRavenFlashlightFireflies-50308-0.Auto Encode
compress
Error
! Final video, C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\encodingBatchFiles\Stanley-TheRobbingRavenFlashlightFireflies-50308-0.Auto Encode.compress.WorkFolder\Stanley-TheRobbingRavenFlashlightFireflies-50308-0.2_auto_encode.13.handbrake_1.main.avi, doesn't exist

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Its super easy to use!

1) Download the plug-in.
2) Extract it to anywhere, doesn't need to be the SageTV folder
3) Run "profile2bat.exe", it will create a new "encodingBatchFiles" folder
4) Drag and drop any video onto a batch file and it will encode it.

I highly recommend using "Auto Encode". If you want to tweak the profiles for a more custom encode, let me know and i can walk you through that too.

[evilpenguin]

A few of the tools I use have a character limit for their input strings and that giant path...

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\encodingBatchFiles\Stanley-TheRobbingRavenFlashlightFireflies-50308-0.AutoEncode.compress.WorkFolder\Stanley-TheRobbingRavenFlashlightFireflies-50308-0.2_auto_encode.13.handbrake_1.main.avi,

Is probably messing it up. Try putting the original video somewhere closer to the root of the drive (C:\tempEncode) and drag n' dropping it from there.

[btrcp2000]

no dice, same error when moving entire video file to the c:/ drive.

i want to get this working but at this point I'm out of time. I need to fill up the medaplayer by Friday for a long car trip. can anyone suggest the quickest way to get a bunch of sage shows into a format that an archos av500 will accept (mpeg4 or avi)? It has 100g hdd, so i don't need compression comskip, or anything other than something it can use, and mpeg2 just doesn't work.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Regarding the de-interlacing, was that in reference to doing IVTC, or in general for all encodes?

Just when IVTCing.

Originally Posted by Kirby

I wonder, at a later time, is there a way to take the H.264 video portion of my MKV and de-telecine it? Or will it forever be 29.97 fps? For space optimization I would prefer to get the movie down to its proper framerate.

I have re-compressed h.264 video so that is possible. However, you will only be able to IVTC if you encoded the source as interlaced, and I don't think you did. Not even sure if thats possible with handbrake.

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

i want to get this working but at this point I'm out of time. I need to fill up the medaplayer by Friday for a long car trip. can anyone suggest the quickest way to get a bunch of sage shows into a format that an archos av500 will accept (mpeg4 or avi)? It has 100g hdd, so i don't need compression comskip, or anything other than something it can use, and mpeg2 just doesn't work.

I'm not sure what you mean by "compression comskip". I would say Nero ASP Portable Profile will almost certainly work. I think archos requires you to buy an add-on for h.264 (AVC) compression.

[btrcp2000]

lobos-

I just meant that I don't need anything other than for them to play at this point, i can live with commercials, and size isn't an issue. i just need something that will &!@#$ play so we don't have to lug the same 10 dvds all the way to Florida

are you saying that is a profile within nero or some other standalone program? if nero, which version?

thanks

[evilpenguin]

In that case, just download handbrake, its got a simple GUI that should get the job done.

http://handbrake.fr/

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Just when IVTCing.

Ok, thats what I thought.

I have re-compressed h.264 video so that is possible. However, you will only be able to IVTC if you encoded the source as interlaced, and I don't think you did. Not even sure if thats possible with handbrake.

Nope, my encodes are de-interlaced, 29.97 fps. I guess the question is at this point, should I try and find something to encode my source material that I know is film based that does IVTC correctly, or just live with the encodes being at 29.97 fps? I realize thats about a 20% increase in size (frames), but considering I am getting over a 2:1 compression and quality is still really good, I just wonder if I am trying to get too much (especially considering my one goal is a simple, single program encoding solution on my MAC).

I guess I could always keep a copy of the source file, in case Handbrake ever fixes their IVTC process. Most of my encoding will be done on captures from channels like HDNet and HD Theater, so most of it is video based 29.97 fps.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

lobos-

I just meant that I don't need anything other than for them to play at this point, i can live with commercials, and size isn't an issue. i just need something that will &!@#$ play so we don't have to lug the same 10 dvds all the way to Florida

are you saying that is a profile within nero or some other standalone program? if nero, which version?

thanks

I was suggesting you use nero's encoder (latest verstion), which will indeed not remove commercials (even with an edl cut list).

This software: http://www.digital-digest.com/softwa...P_history.html specifically mentions Archos so I'm thinking it should work.

Let me know how it goes I was thinking of buying an Archos this summer for a trip.

Kirby: to me the problem with not IVTC'ing isn't the size of the output file, its that it looks s"tuttery". Your getting a 1:1:1:2 frame pattern output.

I always thought ffmpegx was the holy grail for mac encoding. But then I don't have a mac. http://homepage.mac.com/major4/

[Kirby]

When I IVTC'd 'Quigly Down Under', it was jerky beyond all belief. I did a frame by frame view of the source, and it was clearly 3:2. Enocding it with the specs I detailed previously in this thread (not IVTC) playback was silky smooth.

Now is this because I am outputting my video from the HD Extender in 1080i mode (1080P wont sync with my Denon AVR)? My Denon is not upconverting at this point (I disabled the option) but my TV is. My TV is a Sony A3000, 120hz 1080p display. So maybe the Sony is making it look that good? I can try running an IVTC'd version from the extender directly to my TV in 1080p mode and see how that is.

As for ffmpegX, it is good, but I cant get the program to pass through AC3 audio. In every preset I tried, it ALWAYS gave me a 2.0 AAC audio stream. I could get AAC 5.1 from my AC3 5.1. But since AAC 5.1 isnt an option for the Extender, its useless for me.

At this point, I am losing faith that a MAC 6.3 beta is coming soon, so maybe I will just convert back to a windows server, and give it enough cpu (dual core) to do encodings as well, and either use EP's video tools, or find another windows encoding solution. Its just nice having all my stuff running on my quad core Mac (less noise, heat, power consumption, etc than running 2 systems).

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by Kirby

When I IVTC'd 'Quigly Down Under', it was jerky beyond all belief. I did a frame by frame view of the source, and it was clearly 3:2. Enocding it with the specs I detailed previously in this thread (not IVTC) playback was silky smooth.

Now is this because I am outputting my video from the HD Extender in 1080i mode (1080P wont sync with my Denon AVR)? My Denon is not upconverting at this point (I disabled the option) but my TV is. My TV is a Sony A3000, 120hz 1080p display. So maybe the Sony is making it look that good? I can try running an IVTC'd version from the extender directly to my TV in 1080p mode and see how that is.

As for ffmpegX, it is good, but I cant get the program to pass through AC3 audio. In every preset I tried, it ALWAYS gave me a 2.0 AAC audio stream. I could get AAC 5.1 from my AC3 5.1. But since AAC 5.1 isnt an option for the Extender, its useless for me.

At this point, I am losing faith that a MAC 6.3 beta is coming soon, so maybe I will just convert back to a windows server, and give it enough cpu (dual core) to do encodings as well, and either use EP's video tools, or find another windows encoding solution. Its just nice having all my stuff running on my quad core Mac (less noise, heat, power consumption, etc than running 2 systems).

Kirby: the source is going to be a 3:2 pattern, however going from 30i(60 fields/sec) to 30p screws it up. An IVTC should be a 1:1:1:1 pattern.

If your going back to windows then be a bit patient. I'll be releasing my own encoding system (java code & menus in SageMC) sometime in early march. As long as your happy with 2-pass h.264 I believe it does everything. Cropping, Scaling, IVTC or deinterlace, AC3, AAC 5.1, AAC 2.0 audio. Encoding by bitrate or filesize. Multiple audio streams from DVD, subititles (but only hardcoded in).