Best codecs for each format?

[glugglug]

What codecs do you guys use? I'm thinking of adjusting all the Merit values on my codecs to control what gets used for each format.

Of particular interest are MPEG-2/DVD codecs because of their use in Windows Media Center.

A list of what is the best for DivX, xvid, MPG4, AC3, and others would be good as well.

Currently I have everything possible set to use the ATI codecs for partial hardware acceleration, but I'm wondering which others have significantly higher video quality.

 

[rbV5]

I use NV DVD decoder for MPEG2 (although I just use Microsofts DVD decoder utility to designate the decoder to use for WMP (MCE) Link

I also like ffdshow for MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, Mpeg4)

 

[glugglug]

What about for encoding?

 

[xtknight]

Windows Media 9 (VC-1) for encoding HD recorded shows. MPEG 4 Part 10/AVC/H.264/whateveryouwanttocallit always turns out over-blocky for me also at a size premium compared to Windows Media. I haven't "perfected my process" for that codec. Also there is no free and easy tools for encoding H.264 yet as far as I know. XviD is always a variant of MPEG-4 like Windows Media, and it also has near unbeatable quality/byte. For me, nothing beats sticking my CATV/ATSC recordings in to Windows Media encoder, and a couple hours later I have a nice compact 300 MB file. Feed it uncompressed video if possible, or very high quality compressed video. My original recordings are about 9 gigs per hour, then I delete them after I record them. Works like a charm. For decoders, I use just about what rbV5 uses. I favored the quality of the NV MPEG-2 processor compared to Moonlight/Elecard decoders. They also have a nice property page for theater presets and Dolby sound processing that sounds awesome.

What I can say is that Microsoft makes the best front-end for their codecs. Encoding H.264 with command line interface/virtualdub, or MainConcept's buggy progress bar interface, is such a thorn in the ass, especially doing the high quality multipass encodings. If someone can suggest me a good free interface for x264 or other open-source H.264 codecs, I'd recommend that to you.

As for the merits, I wouldn't bother. Just uninstall the other codecs you may have like Moonlight, and NVIDIA's MPEG-2 decoder will automatically be selected the next time anyway. The extra codecs are just clogging up your system. Either that or disable the MPEG-2 codec in ffdshow, and you won't have a problem.

P.S. My "HD" recordings aren't really high-def once they've been fed through my S-Video input device (for recording), so yeah...but I'm fine with quality even after it's been fed through Windows Media Encoder. If I fed WME real HD I'm sure the quality would be even better and less smudgy. Garbage in garbage out...

 

[rbV5]

For encoding,

I use ATI's onboard hardware MPEG encoder on the Theatrix card and the Conexant CX23416 hardware MPEG encoder on the eHome Wonder for the analog MCE recordings and MCE transcodes the MPEG2 HDTV streams to DVR-MS from the ATI HDTV Wonder.

I've worked with WMV quite a bit and I do like the quality/compression ratio,although xvid and divx are both very good as well. The Divx HD 720p demo files are very impressive, not just from compression but also from low CPU utilization during playback. H.264 is something I'm getting interested in, but haven't worked with at all.

I like and use graphedit quite a bit as a front end for working with Directshow filters, including capture and encoding/transcoding both audio and video, and help maintain a thread Here you might want to check out.

 

[xtknight]

Cool thread, I'd love to contribute, I'm a DS geek myself. As for front-ends though, I'd hardly call graphedit intuitive (though it is compared to C++/DirectShow programming). The property pages of filters still contain all the macroblock options, etc, which is mainly what I was talking about when I was saying the interface wasn't very 'intuitive' (too complicated). I know what the majority of it is and does, but the 'sweet spots' are hard to find. Some day maybe I'll make my own easy-to-use encoding front end (I did make a TV tuning program). In any case, once x264 gains adoptance, I'm sure there will be tips/tricks on the best options to encode with. A 19Mbps HDTV stream takes up 8550MB/hour, which is just insane. Soon ATSC may put a compressed H.264 stream in the 6 MHz bandwidth instead of MPEG-2, which should deliver ~2x the quality/compresion ratio.

For my filter graphs, I use Trombettworks' Filter Configurator for the legacy VFW codecs. http://www.trombettworks.com/directshow.php

Not sure what is good for audio encoding these days? MPEG Layer 3? Vorbis? WMA? Monkey audio?

glugglug: what are you encoding? sports? news? SD or HD?

If you really want to know the specifics of the video codecs and their settings, I recommend this Texas Instruments webcast. Taught me a lot...

http://focus.ti.com/docs/training/catal...S=Webcast+NL+dmedianewsaug05vidarchive

 

[glugglug]

encoding TV shows with Windows MCE, Stargate, CSI, Smallville, Daily Show, etc. Also South Park & Aqua Teen Hunger force, but I figure anything that keeps good quality on the other shows will be overkill for the cartoons. All SD.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: glugglug
encoding TV shows with Windows MCE, Stargate, CSI, Smallville, Daily Show, etc. Also South Park & Aqua Teen Hunger force, but I figure anything that keeps good quality on the other shows will be overkill for the cartoons. All SD.

Windows Video 9/Audio 9 sounds good for you then. I wouldn't worry about H.264, it's not that much better, and more complicated. Just get Windows Media Encoder, I find it to have enough options for even picky people like myself. Windows Media Audio sounds very good to me at 160Kbps. As for other audio codecs I'm unsure. When you have raw HD streams, you might want to take a look at H.264 and Vorbis audio, supposedly better than WMA9.

 

[rbV5]

Cool thread, I'd love to contribute, I'm a DS geek myself. As for front-ends though, I'd hardly call graphedit intuitive

Please feel free to contribute we could use some more input. I like Graphedit because it has everything under one hood, and connecting the pins makes sense to me..register a filter, and you have access to it. Its definately not for everyone, but I've grown to love/hate it over the past few years. Yes, I've used the filter configurator...great tool.

I can't imagine H.264 replacing MPEG2 for ATSC transport streams, it would be nice for the bandwidth, but not so much for all the legacy equipment, wouldn't it require a complete hardware change out on the broadcast and user ends?..yikes.

 

[xtknight]

After you encode WMV9, you might want to tweak its postprocessing settings when you play it back. It should help mask the blocky effect from the video. This isn't a second-pass encode. It just tweaks your decoder.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=60756&highlight=WMV9+postprocessing

About the HD codec transitions: http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/F_Hoffner-03.09.05.shtml

Yes, they would have to change the encoder/decoder, but the RF front-end (tuner, 8VSB/QAM demodulator) will remain the same for the consumer products. At least they won't have to deal with any signal problems related to tuning up (no pun intended) the 'new' RF tech. I doubt they will ever allocate any more than 6 MHz, especially since they are talking about moving to a codec that provides twice the quality per byte.

I'm unsure of the flexibility they have per codec. I still see blocks in fast motion on my HD tuner. I do have 2 NBC subchannels, one HD and one SD 480p I believe. The bandwidth could be 14Mbps for one and 5Mbps for the other. I wonder if broadcasting stations will ever adopt zone-based encoding. If I was in control of that, I'd make the ads 0Kbps (who wouldn't?), and fast motion scenes higher because they favor it.