Exasperated with Transcoding – What’s the Secret?

[Craig Seeman]

https://store.creativecow.net/p/64/internet_killed_the_video_star

Also Philip Hodgetts had a great eBook called Simple Encoding Recipes for the Web which seems impossible to find (apparently he’s no longer selling it on his site) but if you Google it you might find some sites have archived it. You’d want the 2009 update, not the 2007 edition.

You really need to know your source and your target. You need to know how to analyze. It’s never pushing buttons because there are many types of sources and the targets vary.

You need to know fundamentals such as deinterlacing when needed.
Data Rate times duration equals file size.
Bits per pixel impact quality. Frame size, frame rate, data rate in relation to bits per pixel.
H.264 use in various players.
The variety of H.264 implementations. They are not the same. Apple tends to be the worst. MainConcept is good. X264 can be good too. There are others as well.
CBR vs VBR and one pass, two pass, multi pass encoding.

[Brad Elliott]

Just out of curiosity what are the H264 files playing back on that requires 1080p?

Have you tried exporting ProRes422HQ from AE and then using the Compressor preset for H264?

The problem is most likely related to what is coming out of AE.

Are you able to export anything that looks correct out of AE?
Animation, Photo JPG, etc?

[Jason Brown]

I was in the same boat (sort-of)…I needed to do multiple tests and work to find the best quality for the content at the lowest file sizes. I can tell you that the 400 dollar CompressHD card revolutionized my life! Besides creating good looking transcodes…you can make several test files in minutes. So you can take their presets and if the file size is too large, just tweak it…then you can check the new file you create. h264 was a thorn in my side for many years…until I got this card, you’ll save 400 dollars worth of time in one week if you do a lot of h264 encoding.

As far as your specific issues, I’ve found what works for me by doing multiple encodes and taking notes of my settings for each one and determining what was working for what type of content. I do a lot of different stuff, soft – doc style, long dissolves, moves on photos…all the way to people standing at a podium for and hour. I can tell you that extending your GOP and reducing the bit-rate can save you a ton of file size on a podium piece, but you’ll hate the way it looks on more complicated stuff. You have to have sets of encoding settings to work with different content.

-Jason

[Craig Seeman]

Relating to Matrox CompressHD this might be worth a view
Review
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/seeman_craig/matrox_compressHD.php
Matrox H.264 Encoding Webinar
https://library.creativecow.net/scartozzi_francesco/h264-matrox-webinar/1

BTW I obviously use Matrox CompressHD (MXO2 with MAX as well) and it’s blazing fast and the quality is excellent. The codec controls have become very deep and sophisticated since I wrote that review. It might be time to do an updated version on the new features.

[Jeff Greenberg]

Sure. Can you get one of the [Andres Lopez-Ovejero] ” of the other guys’ stuff”?

Drop the h.264 into the Compressor Preset window – you’ll get their exact formula.

I suspect that something else is going on; for example, using a cluster actually worsens compression because the ‘VBR’ part is limited to the segment each cluster gets.

First try their settings and then come back and report what happened (and what they were!)

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
Come See me speak at NAB!
Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
Contact me through my Website

[Andres Lopez-ovejero]

@Craig Sheeman I did a search and not only pulled up the 2009 version but the 2010 as well. However it’s hosted on the Telestream site and is specifically for Episode, was that the one that you were referring to? It looks like a really great, straight forward overview of standards, and best practices. Looking forward to reading it.

https://www.telestream.net/pdfs/user-guides/Simple-Encoding-Recipes-2010.pdf

and i’ll check out the Compress HD review.

[Andres Lopez-ovejero]

Do you know the Times Sq area? An organization called CEMUSA,they outfitted newsstands with 2X2 55″ LCDS on the back (street facing), and one vertical 65″ on each of the sidewalk facing sides.

These silly things:
https://en.ooh-tv.com/2010/09/14/usa-first-cemusa-digital-newsstand-installed-in-september/

Everything coming out of AE looks great but i’m sure what’s happening is that i’m robbing the encoder of the ability to see what the separate elements are that make up the motion graphics. So for example AE knows when a graphic is a vector and can wait till the last second to render and encode it. When I output lossless and THEN encode, the encoder only sees a single image and encodes it as such. This in my mind is part of what is leading to the artifacting (esp. around edges). I would imagine it’s like the difference between making a collage and then taking a picture of the collage once you’ve made it.

As I mentioned i outputted lossless, zero compression, no audio. 5.6GB for 30 secs. I couldn’t even play it smoothly it was so large. do you think going ProRess in that situation would be a better option than lossless? I have not tried that route.

And yes i can make things look good out of AE sometimes. usually it’s in DVCProHD is where i get good results. it’s just that compression control options seem so LIMITED in AE (even compared to Adobe Media Encoder). So I can make things look good in AE, it’s just that I can make them look a lot better elsewhere.

[Andres Lopez-ovejero]

@ Jason Thanks for the tip about the GOP. i was under the impression that extending the GOP (and leaving it open) simply allowed the file to be compressed more and had no significant impact on the look. most of what i need to do MPEG 2 compression for is sit down interview DVDs. any suggestions on settings?

and the CompressHD. I don’t know if I do enough H.264 work to justify the speed, I don’t have a slot in the Mac Pro, and quite frankly, I resent that I have to pay more money for something I feel like I should be able to do in software.

[Craig Seeman]

There’s another version which has information for other apps as well such as Compressor, Squeeze and Adobe Media Encoder. I’m not sure why Philip Hodgetts pulled it.

[Craig Seeman]

I’m not sure your assumption are correct about AE.

You need to understand the requirements for the specific playback device being used and encode appropriately. Instead of Animation Lossless you might consider outputting Uncompressed 4:2:2 8 bit (I’m not sure 10 bit would help in this case) or Apple ProRes HQ. You’d then target based on the capacity of the targeted device’s playback ability.

I’ve output for digital signage (not animated source though) and H.264 high data rate was fine.