x264 settings compatibility

[bradlewa]

I've been reading up on the various setting you can use to convert video to H.264 using x264. It seems that some of the 'high profile' features, things like b-pyramid, mbaff, 8x8dct, cabac, cqm are incompatible with Quicktime and older libavcodec-based decoders from 2005 and earlier. Using them when encoding video will make the file unusable by things like AppleTV.

So I guess my question is, are there any such restrictions/things to worry about with the HD media extender? Has anyone tried to play high profile files using it with the options above?

[Taddeusz]

Here is the video information portions from MediaInfo of one of my recent DVD conversions. My videos are all high profile with pretty much everything turned on. They play fine in both my client and HD100. They play fine on Placeshifter as long as you don't stop it. For some reason resuming playback doesn't work. The videos start fine from the beginning though.

Video
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 57mn
Bit rate                         : 1174 Kbps
Width                            : 720 pixels
Height                           : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16/9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Standard                         : NTSC
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Writing library                  : x264 core 60 r928M 4816918
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy_rd=1.000000 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=crf / crf=23.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=2:1.00
Language                         : English

BTW, the newer versions of x264 have excellent picture quality! Particularly at lower bitrates with AQ enabled.

[lobosrul]

Here's what mediaInfo outputs from one of my recent encodes (that works on the HD-100). It can handle just about anything really.

Video
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 24mn 3s
Bit rate                         : 1633 Kbps
Width                            : 700 pixels
Height                           : 572 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16/9
Frame rate                       : 25.000 fps
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Writing library                  : x264 core 61
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-1:-2 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy_rd=1.000000 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=crf / crf=21.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=7000 / vbv_bufsize=7000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=2:1.00

BTW it was made with RipBot264. Which I highly recommend. Its one of the few GUI's out there using psy-rdo which gives maybe a 15%-20% subjective improvement on video quality!

[Taddeusz]

Yea, AutoMKV is using psy-rdo now.

[bradlewa]

That answers it for me. Thanks guys.