This is an old revision of the document!


x264

h264 levels

DVDs max out at high 3.1. You don't need 3.2 on DVDs because that is the first level that accepts 720p.

Blu-ray at high 4.1. You can go higher if you want, it's your preference. :)

h264 levels: comparison

  • “Main” adds
    • CABAC Entropy Coding (link)
    • Interlaced Coding (PicAFF, MBAFF)
    • B slices
  • “High” adds
    • 4:0:0 Monochrome
    • 8×8 vs 4×4 Transform Adaptivity
    • Quantization Scaling Matrices
    • Separate Cb and Cr QP control

mtune

Keep it simple (for DVDs): use film or animation. For old movies or sources that have artifacts already, use grain or you risk making it even worse.

Choosing a preset

Short answer: just use medium, and tweak settings somewhere else.

Choose the preset that you can stand waiting for. :)

Two-pass encoding

Use a two-pass encode if you want to meet a specific filesize or constant bitrate.

preset comparison gains

  • medium to slow, 5 to 10% quality gain
  • slow to slower, 5%
  • slower to veryslow, 3%
  • veryslow to placebo, 1%

Animation

“All of this combines to make animation at first glance deceptively easy–but in reality quite difficult–to encode.” So true!

His tests on x264

x264 (r1206)
Video format: H.264/AVC High Profile
Settings: –preset placebo –tune ssim –rc-lookahead 250, two-pass

Note: Don't use animation tune on CGI.

motion estimation comparison

See this forum post on an excellent visual comparison between mostion estimation settings.

For quick reference, here's what the x264 presets use:

  • diamond (dia): ultrafast, superfast
  • hexagon (hex): veryfast, faster, fast, medium
  • uneven multi-hexagon (umh): slow, slower, veryslow
  • exhaustive (tesa): placebo

Navigation