comparison DOCS/xml/en/encoding-guide.xml @ 21843:7e5c4075fcdf

explain how to use MEncoder to create QuickTime-compatible files Mainly based on a patch by Mark Pilgrim % pilgrim A gmail P com % Original thread: Date: Oct 19, 2006 9:50 PM Subject: [MPlayer-DOCS] Interested in contributing case studies

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24000/1001 fps progressive video, which means that we need not use an inverse
telecine filter, such as <option>pullup</option> or
<option>filmdint</option>.
</para>

<para>
Next, we want to determine the appropriate crop rectangle, so we use the
cropdetect filter:
<screen>mplayer dvd://1 -vf cropdetect</screen>
Make sure you seek to a fully filled frame (such as a bright scene), and
you will see in <application>MPlayer</application>'s console output:
<screen>crop area: X: 0..719  Y: 57..419  (-vf crop=720:362:0:58)</screen>
We then play the movie back with this filter to test its correctness:
<screen>mplayer dvd://1 -vf crop=720:362:0:58</screen>
And we see that it looks perfectly fine. Next, we ensure the width and

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<sect1 id="menc-feat-video-for-windows">
<title>
  Encoding with the <systemitem class="library">Video For Windows</systemitem>
  codec family
</title>

21843:7e5c4075fcdf

24000/1001 fps progressive video, which means that we need not use an inverse
telecine filter, such as <option>pullup</option> or
<option>filmdint</option>.
</para>

<para id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-example-crop">
Next, we want to determine the appropriate crop rectangle, so we use the
cropdetect filter:
<screen>mplayer dvd://1 -vf cropdetect</screen>
Make sure you seek to a fully filled frame (such as a bright scene,
past the opening credits and logos), and
you will see in <application>MPlayer</application>'s console output:
<screen>crop area: X: 0..719  Y: 57..419  (-vf crop=720:362:0:58)</screen>
We then play the movie back with this filter to test its correctness:
<screen>mplayer dvd://1 -vf crop=720:362:0:58</screen>
And we see that it looks perfectly fine. Next, we ensure the width and

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<sect1 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7">
<title>Using <application>MEncoder</application> to create
<application>QuickTime</application>-compatible files</title>


<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-why-use-it">
<title>Why would one want to produce <application>QuickTime</application>-compatible Files?</title>

<para>
  There are several reasons why producing
  <application>QuickTime</application>-compatible files can be desirable.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
  You want any computer illiterate to be able to watch your encode on
  any major platform (Windows, Mac OSX, Unices &hellip;).
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <application>QuickTime</application> is able to take advantage of more
  hardware and software acceleration features of Mac OSX than
  platform-independent players like <application>MPlayer</application>
  or <application>VLC</application>.
  That means that your encodes have a chance to be played smoothly by older
  G4-powered machines.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 support the next-generation codec H.264,
  which yields significantly better picture quality than previous codec
  generations (MPEG-2, MPEG-4 &hellip;).
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-constraints">
<title><application>QuickTime</application> 7 limitations</title>

<para>
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 supports H.264 video and AAC audio,
  but it does not support them muxed in AVI container format.
  However, you can use <application>MEncoder</application> to encode
  the video and audio, and then use an external program such as
  <application>mp4creator</application> (part of the
  <ulink url="http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/">MPEG4IP suite</ulink>)
  to remux the video and audio tracks into an MP4 container.
</para>

<para>
  <application>QuickTime</application>'s support for H.264 is limited,
  so you will need to drop some advanced features.
  If you encode your video with features that
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 does not support,
  <application>QuickTime</application>-based players will show you a pretty
  white screen instead of your expected video.
</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold">B-frames</emphasis>:
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 supports a maximum of 1 B-frame, i.e.
  <option>-x264encopts bframes=1</option>.  This means that
  <option>b_pyramid</option> and <option>weight_b</option> will have no
  effect, since they require <option>bframes</option> to be greater than 1.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold">Macroblocks</emphasis>:
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 does not support 8x8 DCT macroblocks.
  This option (<option>8x8dct</option>) is off by default, so just be sure
  not to explicitly enable it.  This also means that the <option>i8x8</option>
  option will have no effect, since it requires <option>8x8dct</option>.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold">Aspect ratio</emphasis>:
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 does not support SAR (sample
  aspect ratio) information in MPEG-4 files; it assumes that SAR=1.  Read
  <link linkend="menc-feat-quicktime-7-scale">the section on scaling</link>
  for a workaround.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-crop">
<title>Cropping</title>
<para>
  Suppose you want to rip your freshly bought copy of "The Chronicles of
  Narnia" Your DVD is region 1,
  which means it is NTSC.  The example below would still apply to PAL,
  except you would omit <option>-ofps 24000/1001</option> and use slightly
  different <option>crop</option> and <option>scale</option> dimensions.
</para>

<para>
  After running <option>mplayer dvd://1</option>, you follow the process
  detailed in the section <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine">How to deal
  with telecine and interlacing in NTSC DVDs</link> and discover that it is
  24000/1001 fps progressive video.  This simplifies the process somewhat,
  since you do not need to use an inverse telecine filter such as
  <option>pullup</option> or a deinterlacing filter such as
  <option>yadif</option>.
</para>

<para>
  Next, you need to crop out the black bars from the top and bottom of the
  video, as detailed in <link linkend="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-example-crop">this</link>
  previous section.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-scale">
<title>Scaling</title>

<para>
  The next step is truly heartbreaking.
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7 does not support MPEG-4 videos
  with a sample aspect ratio other than 1, so you will need to upscale
  (which wastes a lot of disk space) or downscale (which loses some
  details of the source) the video to square pixels.
  Either way you do it, this is highly inefficient, but simply can not
  be avoided if you want your video to be playable by
  <application>QuickTime</application> 7.
  <application>MEncoder</application> can apply the appropriate upscaling
  or downscaling by specifying respectively <option>-vf scale=-10:-1</option>
  or <option>-vf scale=-1:-10</option>.
  This will scale your video to the correct width for the cropped height,
  rounded to the closest multiple of 16 for optimal compression.
  Remember that if you are cropping, you should crop first, then scale:

  <screen>-vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1</screen>
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-avsync">
<title>A/V sync</title>

<para>
  Because you will be remuxing into a different container, you should
  always use the <option>harddup</option> option to ensure that duplicated
  frames are actually duplicated in the video output.  Without this option,
  <application>MEncoder</application> will simply put a marker in the video
  stream that a frame was duplicated, and rely on the client software to
  show the same frame twice.  Unfortunately, this "soft duplication" does
  not survive remuxing, so the audio would slowly lose sync with the video.
</para>

<para>
  The final filter chain looks like this:
  <screen>-vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1,harddup</screen>
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-bitrate">
<title>Bitrate</title>

<para>
  As always, the selection of bitrate is a matter the technical properties
  of the source, as explained
  <link linkend="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-resolution-bitrate">here</link>, as
  well as a matter of taste.
  This movie has a fair bit of action and lots of detail, but H.264 video
  looks good at much lower bitrates than XviD or other MPEG-4 codecs.
  After much experimentation, the author of this guide chose to encode
  this movie at 900kbps, and thought that it looked very good.
  You may decrease bitrate if you need to save more space, or increase
  it if you need to improve quality.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-example">
<title>Encoding example</title>

<para>
  You are now ready to encode the video.  Since you care about
  quality, of course you will be doing a two-pass encode.  To shave off
  some encoding time, you can specify the <option>turbo</option> option
  on the first pass; this reduces <option>subq</option> and
  <option>frameref</option> to 1.  To save some disk space, you can
  use the <option>ss</option> option to strip off the first few seconds
  of the video.  (I found that this particular movie has 32 seconds of
  credits and logos.)  <option>bframes</option> can be 0 or 1.
  The other options are documented in <link
  linkend="menc-feat-x264-encoding-options-speedvquality">Encoding with
  the <systemitem class="library">x264</systemitem> codec</link> and
  the man page.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -o /dev/null -ss 32 -ovc x264 \
-x264encopts pass=1:turbo:bitrate=900:bframes=1:\
me=umh:4x4mv:trellis=1:qp_step=4:qcomp=0.7:direct_pred=3:keyint=300 \
-vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1,harddup \
-oac faac -faacopts br=192:mpeg=4:object=1 -channels 2 -srate 48000 \
-ofps 24000/1001</screen>

  If you have multi-processor machine, you can add
  <option>threads=auto</option>.  This increases encoding speed by about
  94% per CPU core, with very little quality penalty (about 0.005dB for
  dual processor, about 0.01dB for a quad processor machine).
</para>

<para>
  The second pass is the same, except that you specify the output file
  and set <option>pass=2</option>.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 <emphasis role="bold">-o narnia.avi</emphasis> -ss 32 -ovc x264 \
-x264encopts <emphasis role="bold">pass=2</emphasis>:turbo:bitrate=900:frameref=5:bframes=1:\
me=umh:4x4mv:trellis=1:qp_step=4:qcomp=0.7:direct_pred=3:keyint=300 \
-vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1,harddup \
-oac faac -faacopts br=192:mpeg=4:object=1 -channels 2 -srate 48000 \
-ofps 24000/1001</screen>
</para>

<para>
  The resulting AVI should play perfectly in
  <application>MPlayer</application>, but of course
  <application>QuickTime</application> can not play it because it does
  not support H.264 muxed in AVI.
  So the next step is to remux the video into an MP4 container.
</para>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-remux">
<title>Remuxing as MP4</title>

<para>
  There are several ways to remux AVI files to MP4.  You can use
  <application>mp4creator</application>, which is part of the
  <ulink url="http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/">MPEG4IP suite</ulink>.
</para>

<para>
  First, demux the AVI into separate audio and video streams using
  <application>MPlayer</application>.

  <screen>mplayer narnia.avi -dumpaudio -dumpfile narnia.aac
mplayer narnia.avi -dumpvideo -dumpfile narnia.h264</screen>

  The filenames are important; <application>mp4creator</application>
  requires that AAC audio streams be named <systemitem>.aac</systemitem>
  and H.264 video streams be named <systemitem>.h264</systemitem>.
</para>

<para>
  Now use <application>mp4creator</application> to create a new
  MP4 file out of the audio and video streams.

  <screen>mp4creator -create=narnia.aac narnia.mp4
mp4creator -create=narnia.h264 -rate=23.976 narnia.mp4</screen>

  Unlike the encoding step, you must specify the framerate as a
  decimal (such as 23.976), not a fraction (such as 24000/1001).
</para>

<para>
  This <systemitem>narnia.mp4</systemitem> file should now be playable
  with any <application>QuickTime</application> 7 application, such as
  <application>QuickTime Player</application> or
  <application>iTunes</application>.  If you are planning to view the
  video in a web browser with the <application>QuickTime</application>
  plugin, you should also hint the movie so that the
  <application>QuickTime</application> plugin can start playing it
  while it is still downloading.  <application>mp4creator</application>
  can create these hint tracks:

  <screen>mp4creator -hint=1 narnia.mp4
mp4creator -hint=2 narnia.mp4
mp4creator -optimize narnia.mp4</screen>

  You can check the final result to ensure that the hint tracks were
  created successfully:

  <screen>mp4creator -list narnia.mp4</screen>

  You should see a list of tracks: 1 audio, 1 video, and 2 hint tracks.

<screen>Track   Type    Info
1       audio   MPEG-4 AAC LC, 8548.714 secs, 190 kbps, 48000 Hz
2       video   H264 Main@5.1, 8549.132 secs, 899 kbps, 848x352 @ 23.976001 fps
3       hint    Payload mpeg4-generic for track 1
4       hint    Payload H264 for track 2
</screen>
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menc-feat-quicktime-7-metadata">
<title>Adding metadata tags</title>

<para>
  If you want to add tags to your video that show up in iTunes, you can use
  <ulink url="http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/">AtomicParsley</ulink>.
  
  <screen>AtomicParsley narnia.mp4 --metaEnema --title "The Chronicles of Narnia" --year 2005 --stik Movie --freefree --overWrite</screen>

  The <option>--metaEnema</option> option removes any existing metadata
  (<application>mp4creator</application> inserts its name in the 
  "encoding tool" tag), and <option>--freefree</option> reclaims the
  space from the deleted metadata.
  The <option>--stik</option> option sets the type of video (such as Movie
  or TV Show), which iTunes uses to group related video files.
  The <option>--overWrite</option> option overwrites the original file;
  without it, <application>AtomicParsley</application> creates a new
  auto-named file in the same directory and leaves the original file
  untouched.
</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>


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<sect1 id="menc-feat-video-for-windows">
<title>
  Encoding with the <systemitem class="library">Video For Windows</systemitem>
  codec family
</title>