Page 1 of 1
No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:36 am
by eniwetok
Back a year or two ago I started using an older version of HB to encode some DVDs to mp4. I'd tried other programs but in difficult and grainy scenes they looked blocky even at higher bitrates. I finally found that they lacked something HB had... the no fast P skip option. This allowed for the sort of dithering needed to prevent color banding and blockiness.
I just started using the latest HB and I can't find it. Has it been encorporated into another setting? Is there something new that's better?
Thanks!
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:03 am
by TedJ
no-fast-pskip is still there, there just isn't a dedicated button for it any more... you can still manually add it to the advanced options string. It was removed from the GUI's to make room more than a year ago now.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 10:14 am
by JohnAStebbins
eniwetok wrote:Back a year or two ago I started using an older version of HB to encode some DVDs to mp4. I'd tried other programs but in difficult and grainy scenes they looked blocky even at higher bitrates. I finally found that they lacked something HB had... the no fast P skip option. This allowed for the sort of dithering needed to prevent color banding and blockiness.
I just started using the latest HB and I can't find it. Has it been encorporated into another setting? Is there something new that's better?
Thanks!
I use these settings for preserving grain. Put them in the advanced x264 settings string
Code: Select all
deblock=-1,-1:aq-strength=1.1:deadzone-inter=6:deadzone-intra=6
Also, there are the settings recommended by the x264 developers for grain. Search for grain.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19426
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:09 pm
by eniwetok
TedJ wrote:It was removed from the GUI's to make room more than a year ago now.
Greetings Ted!
I liked HB for XVID so I never updated past v.9.3 until yesterday. I hope I can run both versions.
Given that No Fast P Skip is such an important setting to maintain quality, I think it should be returned. A simple checkbox can't take up that much room. It was the reason I started using HB in the first place.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 8:19 pm
by eniwetok
JohnAStebbins wrote:I use these settings for preserving grain. Put them in the advanced x264 settings string
Thanks John! I'll give it a shot.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 2:53 am
by eniwetok
JohnAStebbins wrote:Also, there are the settings recommended by the x264 developers for grain. Search for grain.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19426
So
is all I need?
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:40 am
by Deleted User 11865
Yes.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 2:59 pm
by tlindgren
eniwetok wrote:TedJ wrote:It was removed from the GUI's to make room more than a year ago now.
Given that No Fast P Skip is such an important setting to maintain quality, I think it should be returned. A simple checkbox can't take up that much room. It was the reason I started using HB in the first place.
Most people do NOT think it's important (like 99.9%+), this seems to include the x264 coders (or it would be default on) and clearly the same applies to at least some of the HandBrake coders.
So it's really "important for you and a few others", and you referenced 0.9.3. A
lot has changed with the encoder since then so your argument that it's needed in 0.9.5+ because it made a difference for you in
0.9.3 is bogus. HandBrake tries to provide a easy to use encoder, not an everything-and-the-kitchensink encoder. There ARE plenty of "EATK" encoders out there for you if you want 100+ check-boxes and if HandBrake added anything this uncommon it would yet another!
If you want to convince the Devs to bring in a "no-fast-p-skip" option you're much better of making a number of different encodings using a recent nightly build with and without this option, then publishing the result. Arguing using only anecdotal data isn't that useful to start with and when it's based on tests with 0.9.3 I suspect it's almost guaranteed to get you ignored.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:36 pm
by TedJ
Pretty much. libx264 has undergone many major improvements in both speed and quality since the version bundled with Handbrake 0.9.3 and the consensus is that no-fast-pskip very slightly improves quality at a large speed cost. As such, it's recommended in most cases to leave it at it's default of disabled.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 6:54 pm
by eniwetok
tlindgren wrote:If you want to convince the Devs to bring in a "no-fast-p-skip" option you're much better of making a number of different encodings using a recent nightly build with and without this option, then publishing the result. Arguing using only anecdotal data isn't that useful to start with and when it's based on tests with 0.9.3 I suspect it's almost guaranteed to get you ignored.
Look, I didn't even know about no P Fast Skip UNTIL I started using HB. It alone of about 5-6 h264 encoders I tried could deal with some difficult encoding situations and was able to distribute/dither gradual and grainy color drop-offs without introducing blocks or banding. Gee, that SOUNDS like a pretty important capability for a quality encoder to have. x264 is the best h264 codec out there.
The HB team didn't need any anecdotal evidence from me to put the Fast P Skip in HB in the first place, nor is adding back that tiny check box going to clog the screen. Obviously the encoder still supports it if it can be added to the script... so the real question why NOT make exploiting this important feature easy?
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:01 pm
by eniwetok
TedJ wrote:Pretty much. libx264 has undergone many major improvements in both speed and quality since the version bundled with Handbrake 0.9.3 and the consensus is that no-fast-pskip very slightly improves quality at a large speed cost. As such, it's recommended in most cases to leave it at it's default of disabled.
I don't mind the expense in speed if it can do what I want. But maybe you're right that x264 has improved since v.9.3.
I wish I had some of the original videos I tested... but they've all been converted. Maybe I'll get the original disk and find that problem scene I used in my tests. It was a scene from the original Star Trek where there was light drop off from a single light source. It was dark in one corner and the original digital conversion was pretty grainy/noisy. All the other encoders I used really botched the scene. Only HB did it right. I also used it to preserve grain on converting video from my digital camera to mp4.
Re: No Fast P Skip... where is it? Anything better?
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:52 pm
by thompson
eniwetok wrote:But maybe you're right that x264 has improved since v.9.3.
There is no maybe. It has improved. Objectively and subjectively. 0.9.3 is old and fails to take advantage of these improvements.