Some Megui Advice

[undertehker]

I realized that all my encodes are crap.

I've decided to ditch Handbrake for Megui after seeing that the aspect ratio was way off.

The problem with Megui is that there are some stuff that I don't fully understand even after spending weeks reading guides and other threads on video forums.

I was hoping to get some answers here that will help me with my goals.

 

 

Here's some of my goals and questions.

 

My goals:

Dvd releases only (I don't own a blu-ray burner and don't plan to in the near future)

Movies under 2 hours are less than a gigabyte (some exceptions may be needed).

Tv shows less than 300 megabytes per an episode.

2 channel audio (AC3 or AAC)

8bit Mkv format

Use vobsubs for now. Aegisub intimidated me with all those options as I am barely grasping how Megui works.

 

My questions:

1. CRF Quality would be between 18-21 for standard quality on handbrake. Does it apply here too?

 

 

 

 

2. Which Resize Filter? Is this only a matter of preference? I know that soft will blur the image and sharp will sharpen the edges.

 

 

 

 

3. Constant or Adaptive Bitrate when downmixing? I've read that adaptive is better but I'm still unsure.

 

 

 

 

I did have a question about aspect ratio but I figured out what went wrong with a calculator. I was using mediainfo for reference but there is no way that is correct.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for any help.

[Baal]

1. Yes
2. Depends on the source. Sharper resizers will amplify defects like ringing/halos etc. If you want somthing inbetween try spline36 or play with bicubic settings
3. I would say VBR. I compress my audio in TAudioConverter with AAC/FDKAAC @ 4/5 quality

Have you seen Komisar's builds of x264? They have improved aq-mode 3, it gives a lot better results IMO. I'm doing my AOT encode with it.

[undertehker]

Thank you very much.

I was hoping for detailed answers like these instead of "use the blah blah blah option because I use it" answers that I see everywhere.

I've never heard of TAudioConverter before, but I will take a look at it since it can't be anymore difficult than what megui uses. aha

 

As for the Komisar's build, I haven't seen that before either but I will now.

[Koby]

I don't use MeGUI for audio encoding either.

MeGUI is as it's name implies; a front-end GUI for the x264 encoder. One of the advantages of MeGUI is the use of Avisynth for filtering. Although if you're just learning how to do these things, you'd really have trouble learning how to script in Avisynth plus even getting everything you need and getting it setup properly to start with is a chore of itself.

As Baal said; Spline36 for resizing is typically your best bet. If you wanted to sharpen something, do it with a sharpen filter instead of the resizer.

The main thing to concern yourself with is fine-tuning the x264 settings. Some of the more important ones to look into are b-frames and reference frames.

[undertehker]

@Baal

Looks like I'm not ready for that x264 build yet. I tried to open both his applications (clear and kmod) without success. 

Here's a link to see what I downloaded.

http://komisar.gin.by/

@Koby

I'll set my ref frame to 5 because of what you said in the handbrake thread. I'm not sure with the b-frames yet since I only messed with the basics.

[JohnFlower]

Honestly, it will be better if you ditch megui. I found that it made learning a lot harder than doing things manually.

• Depends on source. I like to use 16-18 for DVD's. This wont net you sub 300mb files, and most will call it bloat. Better than compressed shit is all I can say.
• Depends on source. You shouldn't need a resizer for DVD's. If you do:

  upscaling: use Jinc or Lanczos.

  downscaling: use debilinear (source dependent) or Lanczos (good for most use cases).

• Don't re-encode the audio from DVD's (unless it's lossless). If re-encoding is a must, use VBR.

Edit: I would like to reiterate that dropping megui will make you learn more. Edited June 9, 2014 by JohnFlower

[Baal]

@Baal

Looks like I'm not ready for that x264 build yet. I tried to open both his applications (clear and kmod) without success. 

Here's a link to see what I downloaded.

http://komisar.gin.by/

 

You know that x264 is CLI program?

Anyway I don't know if MeGUI supports unofficial builds and I just wanted to make you aware of something like that. For kMod I use Simple x264/x265 Launcher

[Koby]

@ JohnFlower; while that may be true. I think it'll be easier for people who've never dealt with CLI / cmd line to work with a GUI, and MeGUI is probably the best GUI out there for the job at hand.

[JohnFlower]

'Easier' is not learning.

[undertehker]

@Baal

Yeah. I found that out after a few hours of reading about it. That command line stuff is too advanced for me.

Thanks anyways.

 

@JohnFlower

Do you have any software in mind? or are you suggesting that I learn how to use CLI?

 

I really liked handbrake and wished that I could use it. It lacked deinterlace options but it was still fine. The deal-breaker was that I ended up with 1.5 ratio on my widescreen movies. I feel sorry for anyone who downloaded those.

Edited June 10, 2014 by undertehker

[Koby]

'Easier' is not learning.

Making things overly complicated isn't better.

He's just learning the beginnings of h264 settings, now you're wanting to throw command line at him; when he's obviously happy with using a GUI.

Not everyone is cut out for all that, nor would they want to go through the trouble. Hence why GUI's exist in the first place. To simplify things.

[JohnFlower]

Learn CLI, then put that into a batch file.

Software: x86 Avisynth 2.6

x64 8bit x264

avs4x264mod

Software for full 10bit encoding:

x86 Avisynth 2.6

ffmpeg with 10bit hack

x64 10bit x264

avs2yuv

Edit: This assumes you have already used eac3to to split streams. I suggest remuxing your video to .mkv before sending it for encoding to avoid problems with ffmpeg/ffms2.

Edited June 10, 2014 by JohnFlower

[undertehker]

Thanks for the help.

 

I'll stick with megui for now. I'm still not comfortable with all those filters but I'll learn.

[FMA1394]

Nothing wrong with using megui. I've been encoding with megui since before it got that green logo you are so familiar with.

 

Keep doing what you are doing if you like the gui.

[Koby]

Thanks for the help.

 

I'll stick with megui for now. I'm still not comfortable with all those filters but I'll learn.

 

 

Nothing wrong with using megui. I've been encoding with megui since before it got that green logo you are so familiar with.

 

Keep doing what you are doing if you like the gui.

I use MeGUI too btw with Avisynth filtering of course.

 

Also used a trial run with multithreading a few years back, but memory leaks and crashes made that not a viable option to continue with. Though encoding on a single core is much less slower; it's more stable (or was). IDK of multithreading bugs have been worked out since or not.

 

Anyways the point is; MeGUI works, so if you want a GUI; use it. If you want to do more advanced things that only CLI offers; use that.

[Baal]

Thanks for the help.

 

I'll stick with megui for now. I'm still not comfortable with all those filters but I'll learn.

 

I recommend you create your scripts in AvsPmod and also installing "Avisynth+" over your regular Avisynth will give you faster core filters.

[Koby]

 

Thanks for the help.

 

I'll stick with megui for now. I'm still not comfortable with all those filters but I'll learn.

 

I recommend you create your scripts in AvsPmod and also installing "Avisynth+" over your regular Avisynth will give you faster core filters.

 

I create/write my scripts in notepad. huzzah.

[Baal]

 

 

Thanks for the help.

 

I'll stick with megui for now. I'm still not comfortable with all those filters but I'll learn.

 

I recommend you create your scripts in AvsPmod and also installing "Avisynth+" over your regular Avisynth will give you faster core filters.

 

I create/write my scripts in notepad. huzzah.

 

 

Yeah, I know I'm not a pro in encoding and I can't preview effects of my filtering in my head before encoding ;p but I will try hard to improve

[† L4ugh]

 

I recommend you create your scripts in AvsPmod

 

I would have to agree with this. It has built in support for some of the more common filters, and provides you with buttons and sliders for their different options. They should be located in the bottom right corner unless it's being hidden. It will also give some limited help with trouble shooting scripting errors by telling you what line is causing the error. It's really just a more advanced version of what you're using now.