Anyone good with video encoding!? :P

[Gulkeeva]

I'm looking for ways to...

1. Shrink File size
2. Keep good quality without much noticeable blocky-ness
3. Make "small red font" more "readable", I noticed decreasing quality, tends to make small red fonts near unreadable while other colored fonts tend to stay normal/less blurry.

Most my videos are probably averaging.. 13GB (fraps) for 11min

I've tried what Dezzimal suggested in the wow forums and took it a bit further.

This is what I've been doing...~!

1. Combine Videos (raw format) audio/video through vdub, (just so I won't have 3-4 3.9GB segments)

2. Using MediaCoder 7.0.4399

Format : H.264
Bit-Rate Based 1000 (11min video 120-130MB)
Bit-Rate based 1500 (11min video 160-170MB)

(Encodes faster it seems with this)
Source MeEncoder
Encoder MeEncoder

Video Summary
Profile High
Level 5.1
B-Frames 5
Subpel Refinement 7
Predictor Frames 6
Motion Est. Mode hexagonal
Motion Est. Range 16

Alpha parameter of deblocking filter -2
beta parameter of deblocking filter -1

Audio
Nero Encoder
Profile HE-AAC V2
Target Quality
Bitrate/quality 25

Container MP4
Multiplexer MP4Box




1500kbps (11min game video with decent quality 1024x768) 160-170MBish with 44hkz stereo mp3 audio Looks decent

1000kbps is 120-130MBish but has small noticeable blockage, but still looks nice for the most part.

Anyway, was wondering if anyone knows some tricks/filters to fix red lettering in a video without bloating a video to a massive size just to fix it.

Attached image of video

Spoiler: show

http://www.neko-sentai.com/images5u/1000kbps.jpg

Aiming for better quality at smaller size though for a "high motion" video
I'm sure it can be done like...

HD Demo Reel

[Darus Grey]

Well the easiest solution would be to simply change the color of the font *before* the video. Red and the human eye don't get along in many ways.

Second easiest(and by easy I mean annoying as fuck), would be to go to every scene where there's red text and increase the bit-rate for those frames only and then do multiple passes during encode, since I assume there's a lot of red text, this isn't really practical.

In terms of size...at that resolution, you're already about as small as you're going to get, I'd even say it's too small and you're probably sacrificing more quality than needed(people generally under-estimate what file size should be). Especially if you're doing 60FPS(it should be almost double of 30FPS, since it contains twice the frame data).

Though 30FPS is a great way to reduce file-size without impacting quality significantly for stuff like MMOs. Though in the end it depends on what quality and where you plan to show these anyways.

[Avanarius]

I don't know the specific technicalities regarding subsampling but:

Chroma subsampling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

definitely has something to do with your red bleeding issue.

[Gulkeeva]

Well the easiest solution would be to simply change the color of the font *before* the video. Red and the human eye don't get along in many ways.

Second easiest(and by easy I mean annoying as fuck), would be to go to every scene where there's red text and increase the bit-rate for those frames only and then do multiple passes during encode, since I assume there's a lot of red text, this isn't really practical.

In terms of size...at that resolution, you're already about as small as you're going to get, I'd even say it's too small and you're probably sacrificing more quality than needed(people generally under-estimate what file size should be). Especially if you're doing 60FPS(it should be almost double of 30FPS, since it contains twice the frame data).

Though 30FPS is a great way to reduce file-size without impacting quality significantly for stuff like MMOs. Though in the end it depends on what quality and where you plan to show these anyways.

Well.. all the game font "warnings" and such is red so... kind of hard to do! and yeah changing bitrate... to where red font is well.. that would be the entire video so sort of defeats the purpose ;/

As for video res... I've seen very high quality anime (no red bleeding, very unnoticable blockage if you can even find it) videos at 24-26min at an average 240-260min.

I'm probably close to that size, but nowhere near that quality. But that chroma issue might be it... if I can fix that, all would be good for the most part!

[Darus Grey]

Well.. all the game font "warnings" and such is red so... kind of hard to do! and yeah changing bitrate... to where red font is well.. that would be the entire video so sort of defeats the purpose ;/

As for video res... I've seen very high quality anime (no red bleeding, very unnoticable blockage if you can even find it) videos at 24-26min at an average 240-260min.

I'm probably close to that size, but nowhere near that quality. But that chroma issue might be it... if I can fix that, all would be good for the most part!

Anime isn't HD(most of the time), it's also only 24 FPS. It's also animation...which is innately forgiving when encoded because much of it is large swathes of a single color.

Resolution rises exponentially, 480= 345,600 pixels per frame, 1024= 778,240.

That's over twice, so compared to an Anime encode, you're talking double the data per frame, and double the frames(for 60fps). So before encoding, we're talking about Quadruple the data. The end result being 3-4 larger thus...is par for course. My point being that an Anime encode is a very bad measuring stick, because what you're doing isn't even in the same ball-park.

Speaking from personal experience encoding a lot of stuff I recorded in uncompressed 720p(about the same as you're trying to do), optimal quality ends up around 33-50MB per minute of footage(depending on the type, animation is a lot less than a game, and a game is less than a movie, and the frame-rate, that measure is at 60fps, 30 is about half that obviously). Also, higher frame-rates become more sensitive to compression artifacts, when you're watching at 60 or 120fps there's more frames for there to be artifacts in, and more frames the eye is seeing to notice them, so higher frame-rates should have a bump in bit-rate for that reason alone. Red Chroma bleeding is just a function of our eyes, the human eye sees red very poorly compared to other colors(light greens have a similar issue), so if you're experiencing it, it's basically an indicator to keep upping the bit-rate and mess around with the color settings until it stops.

My point being again that I think you have a somewhat false conception of what the file-size/bit-rate *should* be, which is why you're not seeing the quality you want, your expectations are a little on the unrealistic side.

If you actually want to send me the video I can probably give some better advice or try a lot of encodes to see optimum quality(I have a Mac Pro(octocore!) with h.264 add-in processing unit, so I can do a lot of encodes really fast compared to most). Can PM me if you want and I'll give you a temp UN/PW for my FTP server.

[Gulkeeva]

hmm well I don't have the 'actual" avi from fraps of it anymore (that and its about 13GB)

This is the "semi large 3000kbps version"
http://www.neko-sentai.com/tmpvid/mimiron.avi

its about 270MB 11min

I re-encoded it for the 130MBish result without too much noticeable artifacting of blocks/bleeding (I can post that later when I get home to upload it)


Why I'm sure its possible to be smaller considering the quality of

HD Demo Reel

Is a 3min 30secish video at "only" 15.4MB at 720p ( 1280x720 ) which is the same resolution as my video.

That flash video is archiving better quality then what I made... for a mere 3MBish per min... for a actual video, not a game/anime is just crazy but possible apparently. I'm hoping to find some way to get close!

As for the chroma thing, I've tried several different settings available for the 2 only chroma settings i could find in mediacorder, they helped slightly. When i record a fresh new video, I'll be trying it out again instead of a re-encode to see if I get better results.

P.S.

Game won't go much over 30fps considering the massive system resource requirements of WoW (about 800MB-1GB ram playing max settings) and fraps cpu intensive usage, averaging 18-25FPS at most ingame. So I've had fraps set to about 23.97 fps because it only spikes above that with so much on screen when its like a "rest" period, but dips to 18-25ish in a action/fight sequence.

[Darus Grey]

That video is alittle misleading because it's a lot of static scenes, soon as you get people on the screen, notice the one with the large crowd, the quality drops through the floor and there's tons of artifacting. Youtube quality HD is 2000kbs as a note. Also it's entirely dependent on the medium discussed, when I speak of HD quality, the guideline I'm using it being able to play it at it's native resolution(like on an HDTV or fullscreen on a monitor) at visually lossless quality. Sacrificing quality for file-size is always a trade-off, and in the figures I mentioned above, that's about where visual lossless is, beyond that point you're trading in quality.

Anyways...if I understood you correctly, you no longer have the original? and are actually encoding another encode? Cause that is the source of the problem right there. Since Chroma shift is a problem in which the pixels physically shift causing that blur...once you've lost the source file you're not going to be able to correct it outside of some rather expensive equipment.

I DL'd your file, but since it already has a "non-editing" codec attached, I can't even open it in Color (Apple - Final Cut Studio 2 - Color) to fix it in post. At this point since you don't have the original, it's a lost battle.

Always keep your source files until the final project is done!(and I'd even keep them then...but I understand storage is a premium for some).

If you take videos in future with the same issue, you can send me the source file and I'll try to correct it in Color, and find some settings that work for easy conversion.

[Gulkeeva]

That video is alittle misleading because it's a lot of static scenes, soon as you get people on the screen, notice the one with the large crowd, the quality drops through the floor and there's tons of artifacting. Youtube quality HD is 2000kbs as a note. Also it's entirely dependent on the medium discussed, when I speak of HD quality, the guideline I'm using it being able to play it at it's native resolution(like on an HDTV or fullscreen on a monitor) at visually lossless quality. Sacrificing quality for file-size is always a trade-off, and in the figures I mentioned above, that's about where visual lossless is, beyond that point you're trading in quality.

Anyways...if I understood you correctly, you no longer have the original? and are actually encoding another encode? Cause that is the source of the problem right there. Since Chroma shift is a problem in which the pixels physically shift causing that blur...once you've lost the source file you're not going to be able to correct it outside of some rather expensive equipment.

I DL'd your file, but since it already has a "non-editing" codec attached, I can't even open it in Color (Apple - Final Cut Studio 2 - Color) to fix it in post. At this point since you don't have the original, it's a lost battle.

Always keep your source files until the final project is done!(and I'd even keep them then...but I understand storage is a premium for some).

If you take videos in future with the same issue, you can send me the source file and I'll try to correct it in Color, and find some settings that work for easy conversion.

Well, that video i linked to has only been encoded once, in H.264 through mediacoder, no other alterations/2pass etc. The "original" is 13GB, that would probably take about 3 days to upload
The "one time encoded" video (that 270MB thing) still has slight bleed effect although its not as bad as the 130MB version.

Space isn't a problem but I tend to not keep around 11min 13GB videos around for a long time

Hoping someone else uses mediacoder... to a greater degree that knows ways to fix that form of problem

[Gulkeeva]

Still looking for any possible way to correct "red bleeding" or blurring if possible through mediacorder!

I've made another video and I've gotten it to where.. its pretty decent quality nearing 1MB per min

9min 30sec at 115MB

http://www.neko-sentai.com/tmpvid/vezax.mp4

1500kbps encode
audio 44hkz stereo
1280x1024 (well close, fraps didn't encode exactly that size for some reason its 1224x984 but close enough)

it looks ok cept for the constantly moving floor blockyness sort of... but the small red fonts still basically unreadable ;/