The x264 open source alternative to the H.264 Apple encoder

[David Lawrence]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for posting this. I’ve been using x264 for most of my client deliverables for about a year now and love the quality. So do my clients! Hoping to write up an article with full workflow and settings as soon as I can clear my schedule.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Jeremy Garchow]

x264 gets high praise over on Reduser all the time.

[Erik Lindahl]

x264 beats more commercial h264 encoders oddly. Apple Compressor (which I’d say is probably the worst of the pack) and Episode (which is reliant on MainConcept to some degree) give far worse results. I can highly recommend this also.

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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se

[Dave Gage]

David, Jeremy, and Erik,

Thanks for the replies. With all the success of this encoder I’m surprised I wasn’t initially able to find out more about it before I installed it. (Most the of the posts and references to it seemed to center around how to properly install and use with Windows.)

David, if you or someone can put together a comprehensive tutorial of it’s use, I think that would be a great boon to the web-video community.
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A use tip that someone may find handy is that when you go into QT 7 and select “Movie to QuickTime Movie” and then Settings: Compression Type: x264encoder, the default file extension is .MOV. Since I need .MP4 files (or .m4v) for my Flash video player (so I can use an HTML5 fallback for iPhone and iPad users as .MOV files seem oddly not so compatible with Apple mobile devices), I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t give me what I needed. But, I did find somewhere on the web that if you type in the .MP4 extension to the file name before hitting “Save”, the encoder is smart enough to create that file type. Pretty cool.

Also, I did try some of the Andy Beach tweaks in the “Options…” settings tabs, but ended up just going with the default “Component Default” preset. I did though choose the “use 3rd pass” option on the Behavior tab which hopefully gives a slight increase in the quality. The vast majority of the option choices are above my head, so I essentially just left them alone.

Dave

[Rafael Amador]

[Dave Gage] “A use tip that someone may find handy is that when you go into QT 7 and select “Movie to QuickTime Movie” and then Settings: Compression Type: x264encoder, the default file extension is .MOV. Since I need .MP4 files (or .m4v) for my Flash video player “
HndBrake can export x264 as MP4.
the only issue is that doen’t import Prores.
You need to convert it first to 10b Unc.
No generation lost but an annoying extra step.

[Dave Gage] ” I did though choose the “use 3rd pass” option on the Behavior tab which hopefully gives a slight increase in the quality.”
With QT/H264, “Multipass” already means three passes.
Seems that with this component is different.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Dave Gage]

Rafael,

[Rafael Amador] “With QT/H264, “Multipass” already means three passes.
Seems that with this component is different.”

I didn’t know that. It seems that as much or more emphasis is put on the speed of the x264 conversion as on the ultimate quality. I didn’t see much quality difference between the x264 default 2-Pass and the 3-Pass, but even the 3-Pass seems fast enough for me.

Thanks,
Dave

[Ht Davis]

Standard set is yuv422, but x264 uses both luma and chroma compression with yuv420. You need CoreVF filters to prevent this from shifting the gamma. You need to specify this in your command line. It needs to Convert and then Tag the file so it appears with proper gamma settings (a reconversion on the fly). This gives better compression of data, but lesser color quality, rather than lesser detail quality. By not compressing the detail, it is retained with few artifacts, but the color is shifted. If you use a tagging VF filter, that essentially applies a metatag filter for the luma and chroma on the fly, you get better video compression and the right color. You just have to know your settings and be able to implement them. The latest quicktime component for mac is compatible with this, but I’m not sure about the windows components.