AMVs encoded in h.264?

[rubyeye]

I'm sure this has been discussed but I've only just started reading up on this new "high-end" codec called h.264, since most of the fansub communities have begun using it. Has anybody tried to encode their AMV with this new codec? Is it possible and would there be an addition to update the A&E Tech Guide covering this method?

[Zarxrax]

Trythil has.
H.264 encoding software is still very much under developement, so any attempt at a guide would probably be outdated in a couple months.

I also don't really recomend it right now because of the higher amount of processing power required to play it back. You can get smaller and better looking files than with xvid, but you cut off a large userbase that are running older PCs.

[rubyeye]

Thanks for the recommendation. I know the processing power is extreme but I may like to try playing with it sometime in the future, just for the hell of it. For sure the software will have gone through several revisions by next year, when I can (hopefully) get around to. But anyway....

[trythil]

x264, a H.264 implementation licensed under GNU GPL, is already fairly usable: the encoder is under active development, and recent builds of ffdshow can handle it. There's other H.264 encoders, such as Nero's.

As Zarxrax said, the processing power requirements are significantly higher, but, well.

I've been throwing http://www.livejournal.com/users/trythil/247655.html around for a while. The comparisons were done with a very early revision of x264, but even then, the results were pretty impressive. It's really only gotten better.

[rubyeye]

Impressive. Thanks for the link, trythil.

[bum]

I'm guessing no and I'm screwed, but is their any chance I can play vids encoded in it on my divx certified dvd player?

[Zarxrax]

No.

[eelw]

Hi there. I've been encoding all my files to AVC/h.264 since the summer. If you want to see some samples, check out my videos at - http://eelw.filefront.com/

You will need QuickTime 7 to play them back.

[Qyot27]

The video that inthesto was pimping with the Steve Ballmer jokes is encoded with it.

The last two videos I've released (both of which were MEP tracks) were released in AVC, but unfortunately at the time I didn't know about ffdshow's abilities concerning CABAC, so neither of them have that enabled (at the time I was using Videosoft's decoder, which couldn't process it on my comp to save it's life unless CABAC was disabled).

Even though the processing power may be higher, my 1 GHz can play back AVC, if it doesn't shoot up over about 1200kbps, that is (which is great for all those Quicktime trailers that I transmux to MKV, since QT7 is terrible at decoding on my setup). Even without CABAC enabled, it can provide quality similar to current XviD encodes with a bitrate at least 200kbps lower (with comparable filtering, anyway).

With CABAC, that number dives even more. And like I said, those are capable of being played back (perceptually full-speed, no less, as long as ffdshow, VLC, or mplayer is doing the decoding and the bitrate is less than 1200kbps) on four-year-old 1GHz Celerons - I should note that I do have 256MB of RAM and I have no clue of my bus size, it was whatever it came with; it's an eMachines that my grandfather gave me a little over 2 years ago. Is there any way to check bus size?

I switched over to Sharktooth's builds a few months ago, it's up to revision 367. They're able to be downloaded from here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=89979

I stopped keeping up-to-date decoding settings available when the VFW interface switched to the one it's had now for a while, but let me see if I can copy down the settings I currently use (note, this is using the x264 VFW):

The Rate Interval settings are all at default except for the Scene Cut Threshold, which is at 100 (for completely VBR encodes, set the Bitrate variability setting at 100%; conversely, strict CBR is 0%).

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b235/qyot27/1.png

On MBs&Frames, the 8x8 Transform and all the frame searches and Intra searches are checked, 16 Max Ref. frames, no mixed refs., only 1 b-frame, and Adaptive is unchecked.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b235/qyot27/2.png

For More..., the Partition decision is set on 6 - RDO, Chroma ME is enabled, it uses a Hexagonal search and CABAC is checked. Deblocking is disabled (this is just a personal preference; I don't care all that much for those kinds of filters).

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b235/qyot27/3.png


I still haven't played around with the different types of searches, since whenever I did it before it'd crash VirtualDub. I also need to find out if encoding using the VFW with Matroska, pulling the raw .264 out, using MP4Box to place it in MP4, and then putting it back into MKV screws up the frames or whether it handles it correctly, effectively converting it from VFW to ISO-AVC (obviously, ISO-AVC being the way it's supposed to be handled natively, by both MP4 and MKV).

[Zero1]

I'm sure this has been discussed but I've only just started reading up on this new "high-end" codec called h.264, since most of the fansub communities have begun using it. Has anybody tried to encode their AMV with this new codec? Is it possible and would there be an addition to update the A&E Tech Guide covering this method?

I have also recently remastered one of my earlier AMVs using H.264, also with AAC audio in the MP4 container. Also did some softsubs for fun, don't expect karaoke of any sort, the TTXT subtitle format is still new and I don't know all the features yet.

A shameless pimp for people wanting to check out H.264, AAC + TTXT subs in MP4 http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... hp?v=29455

As for guides, you will be mostly fine as long as you don't treat it like XviD. Though it is MPEG4, it work's in a number of different ways, and plugging the values you used to use in XviD into X264 (the name of the opensource H.264 encoder) you will probably make the encode suboptimal. I have considered a sort of "interactive" session in the #AMV IRC channel since a number of people have shown interest. I'm sure there are people who can probably teach better than myself, so I don't want to come across big headed :p
Failing that, I sort of considered doing an unofficial addition to Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides</a> that would probably get hosted on one of my groups webservers.

Encoding with X264 is a little troublesome at first for some people. There exists a VfW codec (so it allows you to put it in AVI), but I strongly, STRONGLY advise against it (it is unusual for me to use this much emphasis, so please take note). One of the main reasons being audio sync. I showed Khameleon808 the basics of it and we put it in AVI. We found that there was a frame delay, and not a fixed one. It would depend on what settings you used, how many B-frames, how many references etc. Other than that the VfW codec is not maintained as much, and all the features and fixes go directly into the CLI.

Trythil has.
H.264 encoding software is still very much under developement, so any attempt at a guide would probably be outdated in a couple months.

I also don't really recomend it right now because of the higher amount of processing power required to play it back. You can get smaller and better looking files than with xvid, but you cut off a large userbase that are running older PCs.

Yes, new features, fixes, optimistations are happening all the time, it's crazy progress. Expect a guide to be outdated (but usable) in a month or less. The current methods and switches will likely always be the same, but new options and quality modes will be added.
About CPU usage, this is a very valid and important point. Currently X264 encodes use a fair bit more CPU power to decode than XviD. Personally I have a nice fast machine, and I don't care if it eats more CPU whilst watching, since when I watch video, I don't usually multitask, the exception to that however is if I am encoding. Thats all fine for me, but remember that there are probably less tech savvy AMV viewers than there are fansub leechers. You will probably find that fansub leechers on average have more powerful hardware due to the nature of their hobby, similarly with AMV creators, they will likely have no problems watching sane H.264 encodes. Don't quote me on this, it's kind of a large generalisation for me to be making, but I don't think I am hugely wrong. So think of the fans.

Thanks for the recommendation. I know the processing power is extreme but I may like to try playing with it sometime in the future, just for the hell of it. For sure the software will have gone through several revisions by next year, when I can (hopefully) get around to. But anyway.... Smile

Heh, be warned to make sure your AMV is as perfect as perfect can be. Encoding with X264 is painfully slow using the HQ options (I'm getting 1.4fps on an Athlon64 3400+ from a Lagarith source). For normal sane encodes I would probably get 10-15FPS, but right now I've got mostly everything maxed out apart from the Exhaustive Search Algorithm.
Several revisions? Let's see. I've been using X264 for about 8 months now... I've seen around 160 revisions in that time That's a lot for sure, and bear in mind that the main X264 developer akupenguin/pengvado went on work experience with Nero for a month or two IIRC, in which time the revisions slowed down.
Between pengvado and sharktooth, I went through 5 or 6 revisions in a day when testing, it was crazy, just start an encode and a new revision is out.

x264, a H.264 implementation licensed under GNU GPL, is already fairly usable: the encoder is under active development, and recent builds of ffdshow can handle it. There's other H.264 encoders, such as Nero's.

I've been throwing http://www.livejournal.com/users/trythil/247655.html around for a while. The comparisons were done with a very early revision of x264, but even then, the results were pretty impressive. It's really only gotten better.

I love those comparisons, they really show that X264 is in a different league even in it's infancy.
As Zarxrax said, the processing power requirements higher, in fact a while ago I tested and found that the average was something like 1.5x higher.

The XviD encode is on the left, the X264 on the right, they are the same video at the same bitrate.



Recently I also did some of my own insanity testing.

Here is Kamichu @ 60MB/24 mins


Here is Kamichu @ 30MB/24mins


Here is a large test of the various sizes XviD vs X264 test (88,114,172,233 MB encodes/24mins)

I'm guessing no and I'm screwed, but is their any chance I can play vids encoded in it on my divx certified dvd player?

Though .mp4 isn't mandatory for HD-DVD, H.264 is, and I would bet that AAC is also. This considered I would expect almost if not everyone to support .mp4 right off the bat. It's a simple matter of parsing the MP4, if not firmware updates are possible too.
Nero will almost certainly support MP4 file playback since they will use it to push their Nero Recode software, you know, "Make your own HD home movies and play them on your Nero/KiSS HD-DVD Player!" The more people use MP4 and the wider it's usage gets, the higher the chance of MP4 support. In fact I don't even know that it isn't a mandatory requirement anymore. The program stream will be very similar to MP4, so it could have been declared mandatory for all I know. I haven't looked into HD-DVD players much.

Hi there. I've been encoding all my files to AVC/h.264 since the summer. If you want to see some samples, check out my videos at - http://eelw.filefront.com/

You will need QuickTime 7 to play them back.

Those are .mov files... If you want to encode high quality H.264 I'd suggest using X264 or Nero Recode. You can also output to MP4 from these encoders, or in X264 MKV is also an option.



You might be wondering how to play back these spiffy H.264 + AAC in MP4 files. You need a minimum of FFDshow and Haali's media splitter.

My recommended no hassle option is the CCCP.
What is CCCP? It's not codec pack (blame movax :p). It's originally the work of a few groups who decided that they were fed up of all the playback problems people were having with OGM and MKV. It has now expanded and includes MP4 support. Their aim is to keep the pack clean and minimal, whilst supporting the most common formats.

It's a pre-configured, stripped down version of FFDshow, Haali's media filter (which now supports MP4, MKV and OGM), Media Player Classic, and Zoom Player. It also has VSfilter, which means you can view softsubs.

I'm sure you guys are familliar with the AMVapp, well consider this the AMVapp for playback.
I have recently taken to idling in their IRC channel, and I have sort of become and unofficial staff (encoding test files for stability testing etc.), so if you guys have issues drop by and I'll try and help you

Just make sure to uninstall any previous FFDshows or any of the apps I just mentioned before you install, and enjoy hassle free playback. A few of the #AMV guys will vouch for the CCCP being a good solution.

They recently opened it's own website, so getting it is even more convienient. Say Hi to me on the forums :p (I'm sorta the MP4 support guy heh, they are mostly Matroska fanatics... something about Russian lol)

Grab the latest version here at cccp-project.net


Alternatively... If you really must install things seperately for whatver reason, You can find my H.264/MP4 playback guide here
You might want to check out the registry entry if nothing else, it's pretty nice if I do say so myself It will make MP4 behave just like an AVI file, so you can double click to play, right click to add to playlists etc. MP4 file filter in the WMP open dialogue and video thumbnails in explorer.


So give it a try, install the CCCP, download my (cringeworthy, early) AMV and check out H.264+AAC+Subs in MP4 action.


Links

Information
Bond's H.264 information
Bond's MP4 FAQ

Discussion
H.264 = What the hell? An exhaustive H.264/MP4 thread I have been contributing to (check last page)

Encoding/Tools
X.264 homepage. It's updated automatically as soon as a new X.264 build is available
Sharktooth's X264 builds, usually faster and have beta patches
Rarewares AAC page for audio encoding, look out for FAAC, unless you have Nero or iTunes
Celtic_druid's MP4box compiles, it's used to mux the raw H.264 into MP4 among other things

Playback/Help
CCCP Pack homepage. CCCP installs support for for DivX/XviD+H.264 and also OGM, MKV and MP4
Zero1's H.264/MP4 Guide. This is my guide which covers H.264+AAC in MP4 only. (For advanced users)