TV Forum
I do a lot of transcoding, mostly to xvid using an avi container. I have noticed more and more tools are going to x264 for video and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. For me, the video files are bigger (by 50% or better), not quite seeing any quality improvement but worse, transcoding takes several orders of magnitude more time to process the same number of bytes.
So for the experts or even just video snobs, what is the attraction of x.264? If I am seeing as many downsides as outlined above, is it just me doing something wrong? What has your experience with it been?
Tks in advance
W
x264 when done right is a smaller filesize for a same resolution and visual quality, it scales one hell of alot better than xvid. The .mkv containers as well completely and utterly own .avi in every possible way.
The only real downside to x264 is it takes more cpu/gpu time to decode than xvid but that is to be expected.
Nagila whip
1 question is what is your processor
3 what is the resolution of you monitor
x264 if you have a decent video card will upscale to almost 720 dpi with new video cards and the new processors you will see a difference in xvid why not start using mp4 that does make a huge difference if qualtiy
UCG: I am have tried using some rather basic settings on different tools and some of the more advanced settings on HandBrakeCLI all with the same results as described above. Have only played it back on the laptop (same disc that started ripping yesterday when I started this thread is not finished even *now*) I didn't notice anything magic about the quality but have ripped a full length movie, a hgandful of shows and a few extra features with both methods and will be doing side-by-side quality comparisons later today.
Capt: I am encoding this on an Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8ghz w/2G RAM and a fast SATA drive.
My "monitor" is a 1080p HD flatpanel (not that it matter so far as I have only played one thing and it was on the laptop doing the ripping). So the size *is* supposed to be smaller. OK, will look at it from that angle.
W
whip, I thought you would know better than to thing any algorithm is going to magically make the quality better, x264 is about standardization and scalability, on a like for like against xvid you could reduce the bitrate slightly for the same quality video but thats not the point, it's reason for being is it can be used on any video type, no matter what scale and still do it's job well unlike xvid & avi.
ICG: I am not looking for anything magic, just trying to see the what makes using x264 worth the unwieldy transcoding effort, thats all. I know little to nothing about it; I use xvid pretty exclusively via ffmpeg or as a larger part of HandBrake. It seems to strike the balance between size and transcoding effort resulting video quality combined with portability. Every now and then I will try all known codecs to see if they have improved enough for daily use.
I know nothing about x264, hence this question. More and more torrents are becoming available in x264 so *someone* must like it.
So far, I am not impressed.
It's not designed to be used really in the territory of xvid (dvd-style resolutions) but at the extremes like psp/ipod & lower and 720p & up. At standard res it is a little better but not enough to justify the effort especially if your encoding off your cpu.
@whip you cpu will do the job but at the speed you are getting it is not going to go any faster unless you use blaze media or premier elements and and ucg said it is more for high resolution conversions that is why I asked when you watch them on your system if you video card upscales to 720 or 1080 I think this is where you would see the diffenence
Well guys the question became moot for my own use; after ripping this for a day I found out that the MVix units we use to display with don't like x264.
@ isnt that bitch trying to do somethng and finding out it was exercise in futility ( only well at least now no something didnt know yesterday
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