x264 yeah or na

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:00 pm

DJ_Izumi wrote:Has anyone tried dual video track releases? In an MKV you can have entirely seperate and paralelle video tracks so you could have an MKV containing both the h.264 and the XviD or DivX and select between which you want to view.

You can do that with MP4, too

Bakadeshi · Post by **Bakadeshi** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:03 pm

I release both H264 and Xvid versions to all my major releases, and although I go get a few "I can;t play it" quick comments, quite a few people have moved on to H264, seing as consistently I have more downloads on the H264 version than the Xvid versions on almost all my videos I dual release with, weather or not it is on Local or direct. The numbers are usually close, but so far H264 always beat out Xvid on number of downloads for me last I checked.

As for the actual question, I much prefer H264, not only do you save the 20-30% on filesize, but most times it still looks better than the Xvid while saving that space. It also handles noise and fast scene changes without overinflating the filesize much better than Xvid. Space you save is much more noticable on action and effectsy amvs than slower ones I've found.

Yes to H264, I only still release Xvid also for compatibility.

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:32 pm

I have a question...

Do you use h.264 to make your AMVs smaller than you would had you used XviD/DivX, or to make your AMVs the same size but aim for higher quality?

Me? I aim for higher quality so my files havn't gotten smaller since I adapted to h.264.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:08 am

DJ_Izumi wrote:I have a question...

Do you use h.264 to make your AMVs smaller than you would had you used XviD/DivX, or to make your AMVs the same size but aim for higher quality?

Me? I aim for higher quality so my files havn't gotten smaller since I adapted to h.264.

I generally shoot for the happy medium. If I do it to get near the same filesize I'll usually increase the resolution - where the XviD would normally be 512x384 or 512x288, the H264 will be 720x480 (with the appropriate AR flag set), or 640x352 for those widescreen videos I want to be conservative on. A lot of times I get both higher quality and better space savings.

I don't have many H264 releases to hold up as examples though, since most of them predate me really paying close attention to what I was doing.

shishlik · Post by **shishlik** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:59 pm

I like AMVs and when they look better I'm happier. I know some have problems playing it but it used to be the same for xvid. I think any decent pc from last 6 years should be able to play h264 when configured right.

Inuyasha the 3rd · Post by **Inuyasha the 3rd** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:14 pm

h.264 is great and all, the quality is great! Its like you are watching a DVD (XviD too, when you encode and filter right). I would like to move to this format but I can't get the x264 encoder to work (bunches of error messages... ugh

).

But yeah, h.264 is amazing. If you got the computer for it.

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:28 am

Well, come on, you really don't need much of a computer to do 480p h.264.

I think my Celeron M 1.3 uses only 30-40% of the CPU on average to decode 480p...

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 1:00 pm

DJ_Izumi wrote:Well, come on, you really don't need much of a computer to do 480p h.264.

I think my Celeron M 1.3 uses only 30-40% of the CPU on average to decode 480p...

Wow, my 2.26ghz struggles with it at times. A lot of it depends on the content though. Something like an episode of a low-budget anime wouldn't be very taxing on resources, while a high-motion amv would consume considerable resources.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:51 pm

Zarxrax wrote:
DJ_Izumi wrote:Well, come on, you really don't need much of a computer to do 480p h.264.

I think my Celeron M 1.3 uses only 30-40% of the CPU on average to decode 480p...
Wow, my 2.26ghz struggles with it at times. A lot of it depends on the content though. Something like an episode of a low-budget anime wouldn't be very taxing on resources, while a high-motion amv would consume considerable resources.

It also depends on whether it's ffdshow or CoreAVC being used. CoreAVC can do 480p at full speed on my 1GHz Celeron (100MHz FSB and 256MB RAM) granted the bitrate doesn't go over ~2000-2200kbps - and for High Profile, that's usually approaching or past overkill level unless the video is effects-heavy. ffdshow is catching up, though - the Nov 3rd build that was on http://x264.nl/ (it's now a Dec 11th build; I should update) can do maybe 80-90% of that speed, I'd say, just from judging it by eye.

Of course, I purposely keep my setup rather trim (I just recently upgraded to SP1 so my new hard drive's full capacity could be recognized), so I don't know how it would perform on one loaded down with a bunch more stuff like a lot of computers are now.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:53 pm

Gah, double-post.

Qyot27 wrote:It also depends on whether it's ffdshow or CoreAVC being used. CoreAVC can do 480p at full speed on my 1GHz Celeron (100MHz FSB and 256MB RAM) granted the bitrate doesn't go over ~2000-2200kbps - and for High Profile, that's usually approaching or past overkill level unless the video is effects-heavy.

I should note, that the version of CoreAVC being used is the old 0.0.0.4 alpha version.