xms-888: best quality / most compatible / successfull encodes

[bwg]

ok, it had to come sooner or later...
I was intending to wait for firmware 1.2 had been out for a while (in case it contains some enhancements re compatibility) but I may as well bite the bullet now.

I'm just looking for what codecs & software people have found best quality & general success with, SPECIFICALLY in relation to playback on the xms-888, obviously:

• What mpeg4 video codec have you found best results with? (DivX, Xvid, 3ivx, etc) Qualify what gives it teh edge in your impression.
• What audio codec have you found works best / gives best balance of quality and compression? (Feel free to quote your typical bitrate, frequency and whether CBR or VBR)
• What software (freeware or purchase-worthy) have you found provides good options for different applications and good results? (name the features you consider are a high-light of the software)

Please note that this thread is NOT intended to initiate a detailed discussion of advanced encoding settings and techniques, etc. There are PLENTY of other forums and user guides out there for discussing general encoding techniques.

I realise that a lot of this is going personal opinions and preferences, that's fine. It will just be interesting to hear if there are any trends that show up as to how people using this player are encoding and what they are using.

[andw]

I generally use DVDx 2.2 (freeware), with XVID encoder.
The advantage with this, is that it does EVERYTHING.
It is pretty much a 'set and forget' program.
You can set stuff manually if you want, tell it what chapters you want / don't want.
In general though, you can specify output resolution, audio bitrate, encoder you want to use, output format (letter boxed, pan & scan, full (4:3/16:9) etc.) if you want, but once you have chosen these it will retain the settings for next time, and just set -where from -where to and hit record.
This is by far the easiest program I have used.
I've also used 'Fair Use Wizard' (also freeware), which also does everything, and some others, but find DVDx 2.2 by far the best.

[lat3ralis]

I generally use XviD (latest CVS checkouts) with DVD2AVI/Gordian Knot to prepare the AVS script and VirtualDub mod to encode. I use BeSweet for the audio. I usually use 128kbit ABR Mp3 for audio or ac3 if possible. For DVB encodes, I follow doom9's guide. I highly recommend AutoGK and Fair Use Wizard for 1-click solutions though.

lat3ralis

[davidf]

I have found that mpeg2avi is very good for MPEG4 encoding when going from DVD as it seems to use the full potential of the selected encoder(my preference is xvid). I dont compress audio I always keep the original and use nandub for remuxing. It seems that most MPEG4 interfaces like dvdx are slow and require some form of pre-processing. Mpeg2avi will read the vst.lst file produced by smartripper then encode from vob directly to avi at about 30fps on my 2400+ amd pc. SInce installing the XP media expansion pack I have been playing with the microsoft mpeg4 encoder and it is considerably faster than xvid and slightly better quality for single pass encoding. I don't bother with multipass as I never drop below 1500 for sample rate on video, 1500-1800 seems to give very good quality at single pass and is more than enough for DVD backups.

Another thing of interest is XVid with the transact cable delivered free to air TV(Transact is Canberra's local cable supplier), I am doing real-time encoding of the delivered MPeg1 stream and it works like a charm.

XVid Settings( 1.0 RC2):
single pass
unrestricted
quality 6
motion detect : by mode
chroma motion n
fast encode : on
bitrate : 1500-1800 ( allows 3 movies with AC3 to single DVDR)
all other settings default

these settings give me from 24-30 fps encoding on an AMD 2400+ with raid IDE striped(definitely an advantage) and 740mb ram

[andw]

Hi davidf, dvdx does not need preprocessing, or prior ripping, it does the full job from start to finish. (but I agree on speed, same processor as you, about 20+ frames / second)

[bwg]

Originally Posted by lat3ralis

I generally use XviD (latest CVS checkouts)

sorry lat3ralis...could you please explain what is meant by CVS checkouts? I'm a bit of a noob

[lat3ralis]

Originally Posted by bwg

sorry lat3ralis...could you please explain what is meant by CVS checkouts? I'm a bit of a noob

Sure. I'll give you a brief explanation of CVS ...

Basically, CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) is a version control system. It allows multiple software developers from around the world to collaborate on one project with minimal interference. A CVS server houses a copy of the source code for a project. Developers can then checkout the latest copy of the code, work on it locally and then commit their changes to the server. Say for example 5 developers in different time zones are all working on the same source file, once they commit their changes back to the CVS server it will tell them if the file has been modified by other developers since the time that they last checked out the file. If it has, CVS will try and merge any changes that have occured on different lines. Also, CVS retains a complete history of all the source code changes that have been made over time. So if things go horribly wrong, they can rollback to a previous version of the source code (a version that is known to be stable).

The XviD project uses CVS for development. They allow anonymous (read-only) access to their CVS server, so that anyone can checkout the latest version of the source code and compile it themselves. As I pointed out earlier, when you checkout a copy of the code from CVS, you are checking out the version of the code that the developers are currently working on at that instance in time. As mentioned before, because CVS retains a complete history of changes to the code, I can checkout any version of XviD that has ever been in existance. I could for example, checkout a snapshot of the XviD source from this time last year. It's really cool stuff

So in a nutshell when I say I'm using CVS checkouts what I mean is that I'm downloading the latest version of the source code that the XviD developers are working on and compiling it myself. That way I can use the latest version of XviD beyond official releases.

I hope that kind of explains it. It is a very difficult thing to explain (for me anyway).

lat3ralis

[foultaste]

I used Xvid as my encoder of choice.

I try to encode all audio back to CBR MP3 using Lame MP3 where possible because I find its more reliable on playback with the XMS. Although I leave it as a direct stream copy if its in AC3 5ch (of course).

For all my encoding I use Virutaldubmod, it does everything that I need and can get great results. It has been modified to support VBR MP3, so if you just want to direct stream copy the existing VBR and take a chance on the XMS, you can do so without having to rewrite the header or ripping the audio out to PCM.

I use textsub filter for my hard encoding of subtitles within vdubmod (I guess this may not be required if the new firmware starts to support .srt or .sub files).

When I am unsure about a movie and how the XMS will take it, I usually just burn a CDRW first and test.

Cheers,

Foultaste.

[bwg]

looks like xvid is pretty popular so far. No mention of divx (ironic, since we usually call these players "divx" players), but I suppose it does cost money, and with a free alternative like xvid that gives equal / better results, it's a no-brainer
Davidf: Interesting point about single pass @ high bitrate. Have you ever done a direct comparison of single / multi pass encoding from the same source at these sorts of bitrates? As you state, 1 pass is probably sufficient, but just wondering if the differences would be noticeable. And also, what sort of compression ratio do you get from the original DVD source (home movies, of course ) at 1500-1800 bitrate? I have just got myself a dvd-burner, so media size isn't the issue for me that it used to be.

BTW, I was interested to see the release notes for the 0.95 beta of AutoGK from about a week ago:
0.95 beta

- fixed bug "divided by zero" after analysis step in rare cases
- audio bitrate is always 128kbps for MP3 in Auto Mode
- added support for ESS-based standalone DivX players (if selected during install then MPEG/H.263 matrixes are used instead of custom ones)- slightly tuned resizing algorithm
- added support for second subtitle stream (only when using external subs) CTRL-F10 hotkey as usual
- changed handling of errors during audio demux/transcoding (no more errors about audio being 4Gb in size)
- small internal enhancement of analysis step
- new decomb 5.1.1 included (thanks sh0dan) which solved green picture problems
Anyone noticed any problems when using the previous matrixes (or is it matrices? ) in this app? Aren't they the basis for the algorithims used when encoding?

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by bwg

BTW, I was interested to see the release notes for the 0.95 beta of AutoGK from about a week ago:
0.95 beta

- fixed bug "divided by zero" after analysis step in rare cases
- audio bitrate is always 128kbps for MP3 in Auto Mode
- added support for ESS-based standalone DivX players (if selected during install then MPEG/H.263 matrixes are used instead of custom ones)- slightly tuned resizing algorithm
- added support for second subtitle stream (only when using external subs) CTRL-F10 hotkey as usual
- changed handling of errors during audio demux/transcoding (no more errors about audio being 4Gb in size)
- small internal enhancement of analysis step
- new decomb 5.1.1 included (thanks sh0dan) which solved green picture problems
Anyone noticed any problems when using the previous matrixes (or is it matrices? ) in this app? Aren't they the basis for the algorithims used when encoding?

It's good to see that ESS issues are being looked at from an encoding perspective also, looks like a step in the right direction toward standardisation of the format which is needed if the format is to succeed beyond the hobbiest, a small step but a step none the less.

[andw]

Originally Posted by bwg

....
BTW, I was interested to see the release notes for the 0.95 beta of AutoGK from about a week ago:....

Hi bwg, I thought I would have a look at AutoGK, I have everything, except for char.dll (supposed to be from http://www.avisynth.org/users/warpenterprises/), but the link is dead.
Any ideas where to get it from now?

[bwg]

Originally Posted by andw

Hi bwg, I thought I would have a look at AutoGK, I have everything, except for char.dll (supposed to be from http://www.avisynth.org/users/warpenterprises/), but the link is dead.
Any ideas where to get it from now?

Hi. I'm not sure about char.dll - are you saying that you downloaded the autogk package and that file is missing?
Anyway, I haven't used autogk yet, I'll have to wait till I get home from work before I give it a try but I assume that if you get the stable release (0.8) and the update (0.96beta), both on this page, you should be set? Let me know if there are problems, because I want to give this package a go too. A quote from the author: "The goal of application was to achieve as good as results as with manual encoding, i.e. quality should not be compromised." and from one guinea-pig: "This is as close to a click-and-forget program as I've ever seen. And that includes Fair Use."

EDIT: I assume from the url you specified that there is a file missing from AVIsynth, or you have the wrong version? You should be able to get the latest version from here.

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by andw

Hi bwg, I thought I would have a look at AutoGK, I have everything, except for char.dll (supposed to be from http://www.avisynth.org/users/warpenterprises/), but the link is dead.
Any ideas where to get it from now?

if someone else has this running on the same operating system as yours you should be able to get a copy of the file from their system (generally in the system 32 folder) and copy it into yours.

[andw]

Hah, silly me, and here I am telling people to use stable releases.
I jumped into 0.96b with my eyes closed, and that's why none of the plugins etc. were there.
Installed the stable 0.8, then 0.96b over the top, and now it's not complaining.
Thanks BWG.

[bwg]

Originally Posted by andw

Hah, silly me, and here I am telling people to use stable releases.
I jumped into 0.96b with my eyes closed, and that's why none of the plugins etc. were there.
Installed the stable 0.8, then 0.96b over the top, and now it's not complaining.
Thanks BWG.

no probs
did you get an option on installation to specify that you want ess player support (as stated in release notes)?
I've also noted on more reading that support for xvid 1.0 in autogk has not been included yet, but is on the 2do list.

[andw]

Yes, just tried it - just did some small samples, as it is about 41C here, and my PC keeps screaming at me if I encode too much. (overheating)
Anyway, yes, you get an option on install of the beta for ESS standalone support (make sure you tick it and don't miss it).
Tried with and without ESS standalone support, very noticeable pixelating on the picture on any major screen change if it is not turned on, picture looks perfect with the support turned on (hope that makes sense, brain overheating now).
Only problem is that it outputs the 16:9 original as 16:9 (no animorphic) which would be fine, if the XMS-888 would display these on widescreen TV's properly (here's hoping for a fix sometime soon).
I tried with and without AC3 audio (options for MP3 cbr & vbr, or AC3), worked perfectly with surround sound (on AC3), and also on MP3 cbr (128k).
It does a good job.
(It automatically does 2 pass Video)
(I didn't notice any screeching on AC3, but the volume was a lot lower than the MP3 encode?!?)

[davidf]

Originally Posted by bwg

Davidf: Interesting point about single pass @ high bitrate. Have you ever done a direct comparison of single / multi pass encoding from the same source at these sorts of bitrates? As you state, 1 pass is probably sufficient, but just wondering if the differences would be noticeable. And also, what sort of compression ratio do you get from the original DVD source (home movies, of course ) at 1500-1800 bitrate? I have just got myself a dvd-burner, so media size isn't the issue for me that it used to be.

At 1500-1800 I get hi-quality of about 5.5-6 hours with AC3, I played around with 2 pass and found that on a normal tv (68cm) i couldn't tell the difference for the extra 1-2 hours required for encoding. I usually aim at around the 1.3 gb mark for movies with AC3 that way I get 3/dvd I use this mainly to fit things that come in 3/4 movie series etc. Otherwise I use TMPgAuthor and DVD2One for 2 90min movies with menu to a DVD other long movies go solo on DVD's .

The main reason I try to cram things is the damn storage space for DVD's I currently have about 650 movies (95% are originals). Shelf space started running out even after I bought a sh*tload of double cases to try keeping space usage to a minimium.

This is a good profile for XVID (1.0 RC2)
Profile : Unrestricted
Quantise : H263 (if it isnt a hi motion movie - mpeg)
Adaptive : on
Motion Search : 6-ultra high
VHQ Mode : 1-Mode Decision
Chroma Motion : on
Turbo Mode : on
i-frames Interval : 250 (or 10 times the fps so 250 for pal, this gives 10 sec jumps on the quick forward with the xms)
Quantization Trellis : on

Hi motion video encodes at 23-25fps on my amd 2400+ with these settings. One thing I have noticed is that the IDE raid system has improved the encode rate by about 15% and another 5% when I went from 512 to 740 mb ram.

Microsofts MP4 V2 encoder runs at about 32fps for a slight drop in quality only really visible with hi-motion scenes but I expect that XVID will slowly catch up with that.

http://mancro.site.net.au has a sample avi if you want to have a look.

[Jack Tan]

Xvid is the way to go. Dont need to explain it. Everyone else has done so!

[buts]

Hi, guys.
I decided to reencode some of my "silent" DivX files to proper audio parameters. The main problem is resampling, i.e. say 24Khz -> 44.1, 48 Khz.
VirtualDub can't do that. At the moment the following seems to be working:
1. VirtualDub: original avi s mp3 -> avi s PCM.
2. VirtualDub: Save wav with PCM.
3. Resample uncompressed wav PCM using rate converter SSRC in two passes.
4. Encode back to avi with MP3 with A/V interleaving using VirtualDub.
However, I get a strong A/V desynchronization in the output file on PC.
Does anyone know how to resample correctly low frequency files to play them on XMS888 ?

[davidf]

Originally Posted by buts

Hi, guys.
I decided to reencode some of my "silent" DivX files to proper audio parameters. The main problem is resampling, i.e. say 24Khz -> 44.1, 48 Khz.
VirtualDub can't do that. At the moment the following seems to be working:
1. VirtualDub: original avi s mp3 -> avi s PCM.
2. VirtualDub: Save wav with PCM.
3. Resample uncompressed wav PCM using rate converter SSRC in two passes.
4. Encode back to avi with MP3 with A/V interleaving using VirtualDub.
However, I get a strong A/V desynchronization in the output file on PC.
Does anyone know how to resample correctly low frequency files to play them on XMS888 ?

When going back to raw data you sometimes get audio skew this is from 1/2-2 secs you need to set the audio sync delay in the interleave dialog usually start at about -800ms and play from there. once you get used to it you normally get the sync ok by the third attempt.