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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

X264 vs. H264...

Alexander Mejia said:
This is correct. H.264 is a (very) complicated standard that has multiple levels of compliant files. x.264 is an h.264 encoder that is highly optimized for good visual quality to the human eye at lower bitrates. In other words it's a very efficient encoder.

Quicktime also has an h.264 encoder built in that also produces h.264 compliant files, but it's optimization is very poor in comparison to x264. Keep in mind that the data being generated are both compatible h.264 streams, but one is done a lot better. Imagine 2 people, one with really good handwriting, and college doctoral writing skills, and another with poor handwriting skills and is as proficent as a 5th grader. They can both produce sentances that humans can read, but one is going to produce a better result.
Click to expand...

He's talking about licensing here I believe, not quality.
 
Alexander Mejia said:
Imagine 2 people, one with really good handwriting, and college doctoral writing skills, and another with poor handwriting skills and is as proficent as a 5th grader. They can both produce sentances that humans can read, but one is going to produce a better result.
Click to expand...

Invariably the 5th grader in my experience, who doesn't feel the need to use long complicated words when a shorter and easier one exists, oh what was that about good compression again ? :)
 
James T Mather said:
Is the milky blacks in h264 what you're talking about. If so try the following :
Render a QuickTime/h.264 file,

open it up in QuickTime and select “Show Movie Properties.”

Highlight the video track then click on the “Visual Settings” tab.
Towards the bottom left you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down menu beside it.
Select “Blend” from the menu then set the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%.
Choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down menu and close the properties window and finally “Save.".

The film should have proper gamma now.

Hope this helps.
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Unfortunately you lose the hinting this way and the movie won't play back until it has been fully downloaded.

The only way I got correct gamma was to export it form Avid on Windows with the correct video level settings. (I don't remember which one but there are only two options). But then the Quicktime H.264 looked right.

Regards
Simon
 
So is there a good recipe for taking an FCP timeline that's based in Prores 4444 and exporting a great x264?
 
Shawn Nelson said:
So is there a good recipe for taking an FCP timeline that's based in Prores 4444 and exporting a great x264?
Click to expand...

These commands should give you good starting point if you're using the command line version. You can get rid of the --bluray-compat and other Blu-Ray switches. And don't use the fake interlacing for 25 or 30 fps if you're not going to Blu-Ray.

I'm not sure if x264 can take a ProRes file so you may have to render out your timeline uncompressed.
 
Kieran Kunhya said:
Red have also inquired on our mailing list about licensing x264 commercially in their products.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...module?

Kieran, do you have a guide to settings inside the X264 encoding engine. I have done some research and experimented to see the results. But perhaps a more comprehensive guide on bit rates, B-Frames, trellis, etc exists somewhere. Ultimately, I suppose we are all after the holy grail, which is to replicate our original master as much as possible in a more efficient container for web distribution. Rarely is it very satisfying, as there are obviously compromises that have to be made, but alas we have to experiment and find the best options. I've been having to cobble details from various sources, so if a comprehensive doc exists, please do let us know. Thanks!
 
I wish I was knowledgable enough about codecs, compression and this sort of technology to make a meaningful contribution to this discussion. The one thing I will say is that with the immense demand for video on the web -- and how fast it's growing -- it probably behooves Red to invest in this area somehow, to ensure that their footage is displayed properly. I know this is probably obvious, and already been said. Just more and more it's occurring to me that sometimes if you want something done right, you must do it yourself. As much as I love Apple, and others -- they haven't solved the problem :)
 
There's something amazing going on with x264 compression, especially in the ripping scene.
I've seen a 720p movie ripped from BluRay, of over 90min in length, and the file size was roughly only 1.5GB !!
The quality is simply staggering, considering the video's average bitrate is a measly 1600kbps.
 
There's something amazing going on with x264 compression, especially in the ripping scene.
I've seen a 720p movie ripped from BluRay, of over 90min in length, and the file size was roughly only 1.5GB !!
The quality is simply staggering, considering the video's average bitrate is a measly 1600kbps.
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Hmmm...module?

Kieran, do you have a guide to settings inside the X264 encoding engine. I have done some research and experimented to see the results. But perhaps a more comprehensive guide on bit rates, B-Frames, trellis, etc exists somewhere. Ultimately, I suppose we are all after the holy grail, which is to replicate our original master as much as possible in a more efficient container for web distribution. Rarely is it very satisfying, as there are obviously compromises that have to be made, but alas we have to experiment and find the best options. I've been having to cobble details from various sources, so if a comprehensive doc exists, please do let us know. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'd recommend just using the presets and tunes.
 
I've been encoding my videos in x264 for 2 years, and I can't recommend it enough. Here's methods I personally prefer for playback of these codecs, and prefered methods for encoding in this format if you're interested in getting the most control over your encode. If anybody is interested in a step-by-step tutorial of how to encode, I'd be happy to cook one up.

For PC users:

I would actually recommend using Media Player Classic with codecs rather than using VLC. Much more efficient.

There's a package that exists which contains all of this in one download. It's called K-lite codec package.

http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

All versions will support x264 in MKV and MP4 containers, and will come with the player.

For Mac users:

I would recommend installing Perian, which is a plug-in that will allow you to playback X264 files in Quicktime pro.

http://perian.org/


Encoding solutions for x264:

One thing I would recommend straight off the bat is to use CRF rather than VBR bitrate, unless you need to hit an exact file size. It's much more effecient.

PC:

I would highly recommend MeGUI. It's pretty user freindly and you have all the x264 controls. Great interface.

MAC:

As far as I know, the only Mac solutions that gives you all x264 controls is if you use FFMPEG paired with the x264 codec. Inconvenient? Yes, because there's no interface and it's all typing. However, once you cook up a command line, you can always just copy/paste it for future use.

Here's X264 vs H264 test. This was only shot with a DSLR camera (I know, I know... not up to your standards... but I'm a cheap college student)

http://www.filefront.com/17649288/TheLetter_1080p_x264.mkv/

vs

http://www.gamefront.com/files/17649367/TheLetter_1080p_h264.mov/

I am extremely dissapointed with the H264 performance, and the performance of all other high compression codecs other than X264 for that matter. It's a shame that X264 isn't more supported.
 
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Hey guys,

I've been trying to get x264 to work with Premiere Pro CS5.5 via the x64 x264vwf package and having no joy at all. Does any body have a workflow for this? It would be extremely nice if I didn't need to spit out an intermediate encode before doing an x264 encode in MeGUI or something similar.
 
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