Speed, Quality, File-Size - Pick Two

[Shibblet]

This has been said before, but I ultimately believe it to be true. Anyone who encodes video knows that these three items are what we all seek.

Speed, Quality, and File Size.

Personally, I say you get to pick two of the three.

• Speed and Quality are available with NVEnc and QSV, but the file size is a larger

• Quality and File Size are available with x264/5 Software encoder, when using the slow settings.

• File Size and Speed are available with NVEnc, QSV, and Software, at the expense of video quality.

I prefer File Size and Quality. I can set my PC up to do an encode, and go to work (or bed), get up in the morning and I have a couple of my Blu-Ray's encoded.

[Philipp-Brazzers]

File Size and Quality.

And the best program in my opinion is handbrake. If not the most beautiful. And unfortunately also slowly. But as I have set everything. I note no loss of quality for an uncompressed 4K Blu Ray. But I'm gone 30 hours... (HEVC,10BIT,MP4.14,500 KBps)

[nhyone]

There is an asterisk for speed, quality and file size when it comes to video encoding.

It is not as simple as pick two of the three.

It is well-known that you can choose overly slow/insane settings that do very little or nothing for quality nor file size.

[Dietmar]

I don't know much about all those detailed settings in video formats possible in Handbrake, but I have always been looking for recommended settings which do at least KEEP the quality of the source file. I use handbrake to convert a mkv-file into mp4 in order to enable my (limited ...) bluray player to display the subtitles contained in the mkv-file. The source file is about 25 GB. I use H.264 with 30fps, RF18 constant quality etc., which are the standard settings preset by handbrake. But - the resulting file size is only about 5 GB. How can that be? I wonder if H.264 is really that effective? The video quality seems to be good, but I merely can't believe that.

For my purposes handbrake has too many possible settings I would like a recommendation for x, y and z to receive a good video quality. I don't care about file size because after watching I delete the video. And I don't care too much about speed, because as Shibblet wrote, I start converting and go to bed.

Best, Dietmar

[mduell]

The #1 reason for the difference is size is different priorities. The disk author has no reason not to use the maximum bitrate.

The recommendation for good video quality would be the HQ 1080p preset.

[nhyone]

The source file is about 25 GB. I use H.264 with 30fps, RF18 constant quality etc., which are the standard settings preset by handbrake. But - the resulting file size is only about 5 GB. How can that be?

If the source file is from Blu-ray, it is only lightly compressed.

Unfortunately, you cannot tell beforehand if a file is lightly or optimally compressed.

[Deleted User 13735]

MediaInfo will give you the bits per pixel, which will reflect relative compression ratio.

[nhyone]

MediaInfo will give you the bits per pixel, which will reflect relative compression ratio.

Yes, but it does not tell us if we are able to compress the file further.

For example, the 25 GB file could be compressed to 5 GB. But it could also be that it remained around 25 GB after re-encoding.