If I were mad what would be the best x264 option string?

[xeilon]

Hello,
I was wondering, since i've just found out about cqm, what would be the best x264 option string that includes all available quality increasing features. Or rather just the most quality efficient x264 option string you could think of. The time it will take is not important and nor is size, all i'm interested in is quality.

The source will be DVD and I have one MPEG. The final file should be a MP4. Compatibility is for a Mac computer through VLC or Quicktime. Also any tips on anything would be appreciated. One question, what is the best high bit-rate cqm?

I'm sorry if I missed any thing you need to know, this is my first post.

Thanks in advance.

[cvk_b]

try this thread: http://tr.im/bedlam

[xeilon]

Does me=tesa work? It shows up as 'Default (Hexagon)'.

[belloq]

Yes, the Transform Exhaustive search is an option in HB.

[royone]

If you're only interested in maximum quality, set quality to 100. All other settings are about techniques to improve the quality-filesize tradeoff. The file size will be horrendous, but the quality will be maximal.

[dynaflash]

well, yes and mostly no. 100% would be good to maintain full quality from a raw video source (which you do not likely have). From an sd dvd you would be probably looking at a max of 62% which is generally visually transparent to the dvd source.

However, the " If I were mad ..." part of the equation would certainly be satisfied if you were to try to use 100%. However a massive waste of bitrate. as far as string, then probably the old bedlam preset mentioned above.

[JackNF]

All other settings are about techniques to improve the quality-filesize tradeoff.

If this is true, and if it's generally accepted that at ~62 you get visual transparency on SD sources, if someone had a slower system with a little extra hard drive space why couldn't they accept a little bloat and speed up encoding SIGNIFICANTLY by turning off most of those bells and whistles?

Say you set motion estimation to Diamond, SubME to 1 or 2, Reference Frames to 1, no b-frames, no CABAC, and Analysis to None. If you take those settings using CQ 62, are you going to truly get the same visual quality (just at a bigger file size) as someone who turned all of those options up to their max while also using CQ 62? Or do any of these (or other) options affect relative picture quality at a given quality level?

[JohnAStebbins]

All other settings are about techniques to improve the quality-filesize tradeoff.

If this is true, and if it's generally accepted that at ~62 you get visual transparency on SD sources, if someone had a slower system with a little extra hard drive space why couldn't they accept a little bloat and speed up encoding SIGNIFICANTLY by turning off most of those bells and whistles?

You took that statement out of context. The original quote was:

If you're only interested in maximum quality, set quality to 100. All other settings are about techniques to improve the quality-filesize tradeoff. The file size will be horrendous, but the quality will be maximal.

At 100%, the files are enormous. It's not a little extra bloat. They can be several times the size of the original source material if the source is DVD. At anything less than 100%, the other settings have an affect on both quality and file size. The affect on file size is more pronounced, but settings like tesa will also marginally improve quality.

[royone]

In principle, quality 62 is quality 62, and any other settings make no visible difference. In practice, apparently it makes some small difference. However, I suspect that, for example, 62 plus any quality-improving tweaks is probably visually no better than, say, 70 with no quality-improving tweaks. So I still think that the answer, for the original poster's scenario, is to focus on the quality setting.

Stipulating "if I was mad" lets you throw a lot of things out the window. You want maximum quality? Set Q=100 and forget everything else. If you want maximum quality for a given file size (a different madness), see Bedlam.

[royone]

All other settings are about techniques to improve the quality-filesize tradeoff.

if it's generally accepted that at ~62 you get visual transparency on SD sources, if someone had a slower system with a little extra hard drive space why couldn't they accept a little bloat and speed up encoding SIGNIFICANTLY by turning off most of those bells and whistles?

You certainly could, and it's worth considering. Some bells and whistles give you more bang for the buck than others. The challenge in finding your own "best settings" is figuring out which ones are worthwhile to you in terms of saving space versus taking time to encode. The presets were designed with this in mind, and there are several options to choose from, if you're not encoding for a specific device.

[jbrjake]

If you're only interested in maximum quality, set quality to 100. All other settings are about techniques to improve the quality-filesize tradeoff.

No, they're not. This is not true. It is a gross oversimplification.

Example: Turn all partitions off. Turn all partitions on. Bitrate isn't going to really change. Encoding time will change. SSIM will change.

[xeilon]

I must say,
Thank You all, you've been extremely helpful. I've been able to create amazing files; both in file size aswell as quality one was 11gb, mind you it was a rip off blu-ray.
So now i've just to tackle my iPod Touch...