High quality x264 without bframes - no good?

[Carlsen]

Hi,

I'm new to x264. Been using Handbrake for about a year now, pretty much without using any of the advanced attributes nor high profile.

However, I've switched back to the PC (due to my MBP spending half the time at service) and started using Handbrake for windows.
For some reason my rips (in windows) tend to freeze at 'muxing 0.00%' when I use bframes, which are applied by default in the latest release of Handbrake (I think).

I really want to use a high profile to get the most out of x264 for my future rips. Will these high quality rips suffer great quality loss if I rip without bframes?
I'd like to do a comparison myself instead of posting a thread on the forums (I know how you guys feel about support ) but since I can't render a file with bframes at all, I'm kinda screwed here.

[jbrjake]

Turning off b-frames will severely reduce your compression efficiency, meaning you'll need a larger bitrate/file size to hit the same picture quality.

B-frames, especially pyramiding b-frames, are one of the best things about h.264. They give you a serious bang for your buck. I'd consider them, really, more important than any other option for achieving good compression.

[Carlsen]

Darn. Don't really know where to go from here then, since I cant encode with bframes.

But thanks alot for the info