Mercurial > mplayer.hg
view DOCS/xml/en/mencoder.xml @ 15355:ec1ad0dfbe00
Sync with 1.953: expose x264 options 'me' and 'me_range'.
author | gpoirier |
---|---|
date | Thu, 05 May 2005 19:36:03 +0000 |
parents | 4c039fa37dbf |
children | 87121d373127 |
line wrap: on
line source
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!-- $Revision$ --> <chapter id="mencoder"> <title>Encoding with <application>MEncoder</application></title> <para> For the complete list of available <application>MEncoder</application> options and examples, please see the man page. For a series of hands-on examples and detailed guides on using several encoding parameters, read the <ulink url="../../tech/encoding-tips.txt">encoding-tips</ulink> that were collected from several mailing list threads on MPlayer-users. Search the <ulink url="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">archives</ulink> for a wealth of discussions about all aspects of and problems related to encoding with <application>MEncoder</application>. </para> <sect1 id="menc-feat-mpeg4"> <title>Encoding two pass MPEG-4 ("DivX")</title> <para> The name comes from the fact that this method encodes the file <emphasis>twice</emphasis>. The first encoding (dubbed pass) creates some temporary files (<filename>*.log</filename>) with a size of few megabytes, do not delete them yet (you can delete the AVI). In the second pass, the two pass output file is created, using the bitrate data from the temporary files. The resulting file will have much better image quality. If this is the first time you heard about this, you should consult some guides available on the net. </para> <example> <title>copy audio track</title> <para> Two pass encode of a DVD to an MPEG-4 ("DivX") AVI while copying the audio track. <screen> mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -oac copy -o <replaceable>movie.avi</replaceable> mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2 -oac copy -o <replaceable>movie.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </example> <example> <title>encode audio track</title> <para> Two pass encode of a DVD to an MPEG-4 ("DivX") AVI while encoding the audio track to MP3. <screen> mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o <replaceable>movie.avi</replaceable> mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o <replaceable>movie.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </example> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-mpeg"> <title>Encoding to MPEG format</title> <para> <application>MEncoder</application> can create MPEG (MPEG-PS) format output files. It is probably useful only with <link linkend="ffmpeg"><systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem></link>'s <emphasis>mpeg1video</emphasis> codec, because players - except <application>MPlayer</application> - expect MPEG-1 video, and MPEG-1 layer 2 (MP2) audio streams in MPEG files. </para> <para> This feature is not very useful right now, aside that it probably has many bugs, but the more importantly because <application>MEncoder</application> currently cannot encode MPEG-1 layer 2 (MP2) audio, which all other players expect in MPEG files. </para> <para> To change <application>MEncoder</application>'s output file format, use the <option>-of mpeg</option> option. </para> <para> Example: <screen> mencoder -of mpeg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video -oac copy <replaceable>other_options</replaceable> <replaceable>media.avi</replaceable> -o <replaceable>output.mpg</replaceable> </screen> </para> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-rescale"> <title>Rescaling movies</title> <para> Often the need to resize movie images' size emerges. Its reasons can be many: decreasing file size, network bandwidth,etc. Most people even do rescaling when converting DVDs or SVCDs to DivX AVI. If you wish to rescale, read the <link linkend="aspect">Preserving aspect ratio</link> section. </para> <para> The scaling process is handled by the <literal>scale</literal> video filter: <option>-vf scale=<replaceable>width</replaceable>:<replaceable>height</replaceable></option>. Its quality can be set with the <option>-sws</option> option. If it is not specified, <application>MEncoder</application> will use 2: bicubic. </para> <para> Usage: <screen> mencoder <replaceable>input.mpg</replaceable> -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 -vf scale=640:480 -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-streamcopy"> <title>Stream copying</title> <para> <application>MEncoder</application> can handle input streams in two ways: <emphasis role="bold">encode</emphasis> or <emphasis role="bold">copy</emphasis> them. This section is about <emphasis role="bold">copying</emphasis>. </para> <itemizedlist> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">Video stream</emphasis> (option <option>-ovc copy</option>): nice stuff can be done :) Like, putting (not converting!) FLI or VIVO or MPEG-1 video into an AVI file! Of course only <application>MPlayer</application> can play such files :) And it probably has no real life value at all. Rationally: video stream copying can be useful for example when only the audio stream has to be encoded (like, uncompressed PCM to MP3). </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">Audio stream</emphasis> (option <option>-oac copy</option>): straightforward. It is possible to take an external audio file (MP3, WAV) and mux it into the output stream. Use the <option>-audiofile <replaceable>filename</replaceable></option> option for this. </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-enc-libavcodec"> <title>Encoding with the <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> codec family</title> <para> <link linkend="ffmpeg"><systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem></link> provides simple encoding to a lot of interesting video and audio formats. You can encode to the following codecs (more or less up to date): <informaltable frame="all"> <tgroup cols="2"> <thead> <row><entry>Codec name</entry><entry>Description</entry></row> </thead> <tbody> <row><entry>mjpeg</entry><entry> Motion JPEG </entry></row> <row><entry>ljpeg</entry><entry> Lossless JPEG </entry></row> <row><entry>h263</entry><entry> H.263 </entry></row> <row><entry>h263p</entry><entry> H.263+ </entry></row> <row><entry>mpeg4</entry><entry> ISO standard MPEG-4 (DivX 5, XVID compatible) </entry></row> <row><entry>msmpeg4</entry><entry> pre-standard MPEG-4 variant by MS, v3 (AKA DivX3) </entry></row> <row><entry>msmpeg4v2</entry><entry> pre-standard MPEG-4 by MS, v2 (used in old asf files) </entry></row> <row><entry>wmv1</entry><entry> Windows Media Video, version 1 (AKA WMV7) </entry></row> <row><entry>wmv2</entry><entry> Windows Media Video, version 2 (AKA WMV8) </entry></row> <row><entry>rv10</entry><entry> an old RealVideo codec </entry></row> <row><entry>mpeg1video</entry><entry> MPEG-1 video </entry></row> <row><entry>mpeg2video</entry><entry> MPEG-2 video </entry></row> <row><entry>huffyuv</entry><entry> lossless compression </entry></row> <row><entry>asv1</entry><entry> ASUS Video v1 </entry></row> <row><entry>asv2</entry><entry> ASUS Video v2 </entry></row> <row><entry>ffv1</entry><entry> FFmpeg's lossless video codec </entry></row> </tbody> </tgroup> </informaltable> The first column contains the codec names that should be passed after the <literal>vcodec</literal> config, like: <option>-lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4</option> </para> <informalexample> <para> An example, with MJPEG compression: <screen>mencoder dvd://2 -o title2.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -oac copy</screen> </para> </informalexample> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-enc-images"> <title>Encoding from multiple input image files (JPEG, PNG, TGA, SGI)</title> <para> <application>MEncoder</application> is capable of creating movies from one or more JPEG, PNG or TGA files. With simple framecopy it can create MJPEG (Motion JPEG), MPNG (Motion PNG) or MTGA (Motion TGA) files. </para> <orderedlist> <title>Explanation of the process:</title> <listitem><para> <application>MEncoder</application> <emphasis>decodes</emphasis> the input image(s) with <systemitem class="library">libjpeg</systemitem> (when decoding PNGs, it will use <systemitem class="library">libpng</systemitem>). </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <application>MEncoder</application> then feeds the decoded image to the chosen video compressor (DivX4, XviD, FFmpeg msmpeg4, etc.). </para></listitem> </orderedlist> <formalpara> <title>Examples</title> <para> The explanation of the <option>-mf</option> option is in the man page. <informalexample> <para> Creating an MPEG-4 file from all the JPEG files in the current directory: <screen> mencoder mf://*.jpg -mf w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=jpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </informalexample> <informalexample> <para> Creating an MPEG-4 file from some JPEG files in the current directory: <screen> mencoder mf://<replaceable>frame001.jpg,frame002.jpg</replaceable> -mf w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=jpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </informalexample> <informalexample> <para> Creating a Motion JPEG (MJPEG) file from all the JPEG files in the current directory: <screen> mencoder mf://*.jpg -mf w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=jpg -ovc copy -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </informalexample> <informalexample> <para> Creating an uncompressed file from all the PNG files in the current directory: <screen> mencoder mf:// -mf w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=png -ovc raw -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> </screen> </para> </informalexample> <note><para> Width must be integer multiple of 4, it is a limitation of the RAW RGB AVI format. </para></note> <informalexample> <para> Creating a Motion PNG (MPNG) file from all the PNG files in the current directory: <screen> mencoder mf://*.png -mf w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=png -ovc copy -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> <!-- --></screen> </para> </informalexample> <informalexample> <para> Creating a Motion TGA (MTGA) file from all the TGA files in the current directory: <screen> mencoder mf://*.tga -mf w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=tga -ovc copy -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable><!-- --></screen> </para> </informalexample> </para> </formalpara> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-extractsub"> <title>Extracting DVD subtitles to VOBsub file</title> <para> <application>MEncoder</application> is capable of extracting subtitles from a DVD into VOBsub formatted files. They consist of a pair of files ending in <filename>.idx</filename> and <filename>.sub</filename> and are usually packaged in a single <filename>.rar</filename> archive. <application>MPlayer</application> can play these with the <option>-vobsub</option> and <option>-vobsubid</option> options. </para> <para> You specify the basename (i.e without the <filename>.idx</filename> or <filename>.sub</filename> extension) of the output files with <option>-vobsubout</option> and the index for this subtitle in the resulting files with <option>-vobsuboutindex</option>. </para> <para> If the input is not from a DVD you should use <option>-ifo</option> to indicate the <filename>.ifo</filename> file needed to construct the resulting <filename>.idx</filename> file. </para> <para> If the input is not from a DVD and you do not have the <filename>.ifo</filename> file you will need to use the <option>-vobsubid</option> option to let it know what language id to put in the <filename>.idx</filename> file. </para> <para> Each run will append the running subtitle if the <filename>.idx</filename> and <filename>.sub</filename> files already exist. So you should remove any before starting. </para> <example> <title>Copying two subtitles from a DVD while doing two pass encoding</title> <screen> rm subtitles.idx subtitles.sub mencoder dvd://1 -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -vobsubout subtitles -vobsuboutindex 0 -sid 2 mencoder dvd://1 -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2 -vobsubout subtitles -vobsuboutindex 1 -sid 5<!-- --></screen> </example> <example> <title>Copying a french subtitle from an MPEG file</title> <screen> rm subtitles.idx subtitles.sub mencoder <replaceable>movie.mpg</replaceable> -ifo <replaceable>movie.ifo</replaceable> -vobsubout subtitles -vobsuboutindex 0 -vobsuboutid fr -sid 1<!-- --></screen> </example> </sect1> <sect1 id="aspect"> <title>Preserving aspect ratio</title> <para> DVDs and SVCDs (i.e. MPEG-1/2) files contain an aspect ratio value, which describes how the player should scale the video stream, so humans will not have egg heads (ex.: 480x480 + 4:3 = 640x480). However when encoding to AVI (DivX) files, you have be aware that AVI headers do not store this value. Rescaling the movie is disgusting and time consuming, there has to be a better way! </para> <para>There is</para> <para> MPEG-4 has an unique feature: the video stream can contain its needed aspect ratio. Yes, just like MPEG-1/2 (DVD, SVCD) and H.263 files. Regretfully, there are <emphasis role="bold">no</emphasis> video players outside which support this attribute of MPEG-4, except <application>MPlayer</application>. </para> <para> This feature can be used only with <link linkend="ffmpeg"><systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem></link>'s <systemitem>mpeg4</systemitem> codec. Keep in mind: although <application>MPlayer</application> will correctly play the created file, other players will use the wrong aspect ratio. </para> <para> You seriously should crop the black bands over and below the movie image. See the man page for the usage of the <systemitem>cropdetect</systemitem> and <systemitem>crop</systemitem> filters. </para> <para> Usage <screen>mencoder <replaceable>sample-svcd.mpg</replaceable> -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:autoaspect -vf crop=714:548:0:14 -oac copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable></screen> </para> </sect1> <sect1 id="custommatrices"><title>Custom inter/intra matrices</title> <para> With this feature of <link linkend="ffmpeg"><systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem></link> you are able to set custom inter (I-frames/keyframes) and intra (P-frames/predicted frames) matrices. It is supported by many of the codecs: <systemitem>mpeg1video</systemitem> and <systemitem>mpeg2video</systemitem> are reported as working. </para> <para> A typical usage of this feature is to set the matrices preferred by the <ulink url="http://www.kvcd.net/">KVCD</ulink> specifications. </para> <para> The <emphasis role="bold">KVCD "Notch" Quantization Matrix:</emphasis> </para> <para> Intra: <screen> 8 9 12 22 26 27 29 34 9 10 14 26 27 29 34 37 12 14 18 27 29 34 37 38 22 26 27 31 36 37 38 40 26 27 29 36 39 38 40 48 27 29 34 37 38 40 48 58 29 34 37 38 40 48 58 69 34 37 38 40 48 58 69 79 </screen> Inter: <screen> 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 22 24 26 30 32 32 34 36 24 26 28 32 34 34 36 38 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 28 30 32 34 36 38 42 42 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 </screen> </para> <para> Usage: <screen> $ mencoder <replaceable>input.avi</replaceable> -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable> -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts inter_matrix=...:intra_matrix=... </screen> </para> <para> <screen> $ mencoder <replaceable>input.avi</replaceable> -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:intra_matrix=8,9,12,22,26,27,29,34,9,10,14,26,27,29,34,37, 12,14,18,27,29,34,37,38,22,26,27,31,36,37,38,40,26,27,29,36,39,38,40,48,27, 29,34,37,38,40,48,58,29,34,37,38,40,48,58,69,34,37,38,40,48,58,69,79 :inter_matrix=16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,20,22,24,26, 28,30,32,34,22,24,26,30,32,32,34,36,24,26,28,32,34,34,36,38,26,28,30,32,34, 36,38,40,28,30,32,34,36,38,42,42,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44 -oac copy -o svcd.mpg </screen> </para> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4"> <title>Making a high quality MPEG-4 ("DivX") rip of a DVD movie</title> <para> One frequently asked question is "How do I make the highest quality rip for a given size?". Another question is "How do I make the highest quality DVD rip possible? I do not care about file size, I just want the best quality." </para> <para> The latter question is perhaps at least somewhat wrongly posed. After all, if you do not care about file size, why not simply copy the entire MPEG-2 video stream from the the DVD? Sure, your AVI will end up being 5GB, give or take, but if you want the best quality and do not care about size, this is certainly your best option. </para> <para> In fact, the reason you want to transcode a DVD into MPEG-4 is specifically because you <emphasis role="bold">do</emphasis> care about file size. </para> <para> It is difficult to offer a cookbook recipe on how to create a very high quality DVD rip. There are several factors to consider, and you should understand these details or else you are likely to end up disappointed with your results. Below we will investigate some of these issues, and then have a look at an example. We assume you are using <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> to encode the video, although the theory applies to other codecs as well. </para> <para> If this seems to be too much for you, you should probably use one of the many fine frontends that are listed in the <ulink url="http://mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/projects.html#mencoder_frontends">MEncoder section</ulink> of our related projects page. That way, you should be able to achieve high quality rips without too much thinking, because most of those tools are designed to take clever decisions for you. </para> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-2pass"> <title>Constant Quantizer vs. two pass</title> <para> There are three approaches to encoding the video: constant bitrate (CBR), constant quantizer, and two pass (ABR, or average bitrate). </para> <para> In each of these modes, <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> breaks the video frame into 16x16 pixel macroblocks and then applies a quantizer to each macroblock. The lower the quantizer, the better the quality and higher the bitrate. The method <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> uses to determine which quantizer to use for a given macroblock varies and is highly tunable. (This is an extreme over-simplification of the actual process, but the basic concept is useful to understand.) </para> <para> When you specify a constant bitrate, <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> will encode the video, discarding detail as much as necessary and as little as possible in order to remain lower than the given bitrate. If you truly do not care about file size, you could as well use CBR and specify a bitrate of infinity. (In practice, this means a value high enough so that it poses no limit, like 10000Kbit.) With no real restriction on bitrate, the result is that <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> will use the lowest possible quantizer for each macroblock (as specified by <option>vqmin</option>, which is 2 by default). As soon as you specify a low enough bitrate that <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> is forced to use a higher quantizer, then you are almost certainly ruining the quality of your video. In order to avoid that, you should probably downscale your video, according to the method described later on in this guide. In general, you should avoid CBR altogether if you care about quality. </para> <para> With constant quantizer, <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> uses the same quantizer, as specified by the <option>vqscale</option> option, on every macroblock. If you want the highest quality rip possible, again ignoring bitrate, you can use <option>vqscale=2</option>. This will yield the same bitrate and PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio) as CBR with <option>vbitrate</option>=infinity and the default <option>vqmin</option> of 2. </para> <para> The problem with constant quantizing is that it uses the given quantizer whether the macroblock needs it or not. That is, it might be possible to use a higher quantizer on a macroblock without sacrificing visual quality. Why waste the bits on an unnecessarily low quantizer? Your CPU has as many cycles as there is time, but there is only so many bits on your hard disk. </para> <para> With a two pass encode, the first pass will rip the movie as though it were CBR, but it will keep a log of properties for each frame. This data is then used during the second pass in order to make intelligent decisions about which quantizers to use. During fast action or low detail scenes, higher quantizers will likely be used, and during slow moving or high detail scenes, lower quantizers will be used. </para> <para> If you use <option>vqscale=2</option>, then you are wasting bits. If you use <option>vqscale=3</option>, then you are not getting the highest quality rip. Suppose you rip a DVD at <option>vqscale=3</option>, and the result is 1800Kbit. If you do a two pass encode with <option>vbitrate=1800</option>, the resulting video will have <emphasis role="bold">higher quality</emphasis> for the <emphasis role="bold">same bitrate</emphasis>. </para> <para> Since you are now convinced that two pass is the way to go, the real question now is what bitrate to use? The answer is that there is no single answer. Ideally you want to choose a bitrate that yields the best balance between quality and file size. This is going to vary depending on the source video. </para> <para> If size does not matter, a good starting point for a very high quality rip is about 2000Kbit plus or minus 200Kbit. For fast action or high detail source video, or if you just have a very critical eye, you might decide on 2400 or 2600. For some DVDs, you might not notice a difference at 1400Kbit. It is a good idea to experiment with scenes at different bitrates to get a feel. </para> <para> If you aim at a certain size, you will have to somehow calculate the bitrate. But before that, you need to know how much space you should reserve for the audio track(s), so you should <link linkend="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-audio">rip those</link> first. You can compute the bitrate with the following equation: <systemitem>bitrate = (target_size_in_Mbytes - sound_size_in_Mbytes) * 1024 * 1024 / length_in_secs * 8 / 1000</systemitem> For instance, to squeeze a two-hour movie onto a 702MB CD, with 60MB of audio track, the video bitrate will have to be: <systemitem>(702 - 60) * 1024 * 1024 / (120*60) * 8 / 1000 = 740kbps</systemitem> </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-constraints"> <title>Constraints for efficient encoding</title> <para> Due to the nature of MPEG-type compression, there are various constraints you should follow for maximal quality. MPEG splits the video up into 16x16 squares called macroblocks, each composed of 4 8x8 blocks of luma (intensity) information and two half-resolution 8x8 chroma (color) blocks (one for red-cyan axis and the other for the blue-yellow axis). Even if your movie width and height are not multiples of 16, the encoder will use enough 16x16 macroblocks to cover the whole picture area, and the extra space will go to waste. So in the interests of maximizing quality at a fixed filesize, it is a bad idea to use dimensions that are not multiples of 16. </para> <para> Most DVDs also have some degree of black borders at the edges. Leaving these in place can hurt quality in several ways. </para> <orderedlist> <listitem> <para> MPEG-type compression is also highly dependent on frequency domain transformations, in particular the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), which is similar to the Fourier transform. This sort of encoding is efficient for representing patterns and smooth transitions, but it has a hard time with sharp edges. In order to encode them it must use many more bits, or else an artifact known as ringing will appear. </para> <para> The frequency transform (DCT) takes place separately on each macroblock (actually each block), so this problem only applies when the sharp edge is inside a block. If your black borders begin exactly at multiple-of-16 pixel boundaries, this is not a problem. However, the black borders on DVDs rarely come nicely aligned, so in practice you will always need to crop to avoid this penalty. </para> </listitem> </orderedlist> <para> In addition to frequency domain transforms, MPEG-type compression uses motion vectors to represent the change from one frame to the next. Motion vectors naturally work much less efficiently for new content coming in from the edges of the picture, because it is not present in the previous frame. As long as the picture extends all the way to the edge of the encoded region, motion vectors have no problem with content moving out the edges of the picture. However, in the presence of black borders, there can be trouble: </para> <orderedlist continuation="continues"> <listitem> <para> For each macroblock, MPEG-type compression stores a vector identifying which part of the previous frame should be copied into this macroblock as a base for predicting the next frame. Only the remaining differences need to be encoded. If a macroblock spans the edge of the picture and contains part of the black border, then motion vectors from other parts of the picture will overwrite the black border. This means that lots of bits must be spent either re-blackening the border that was overwritten, or (more likely) a motion vector will not be used at all and all the changes in this macroblock will have to be coded explicitly. Either way, encoding efficiency is greatly reduced. </para> <para> Again, this problem only applies if black borders do not line up on multiple-of-16 boundaries. </para> </listitem> <listitem> <para> Finally, suppose we have a macroblock in the interior of the picture, and an object is moving into this block from near the edge of the image. MPEG-type coding cannot say "copy the part that is inside the picture but not the black border." So the black border will get copied inside too, and lots of bits will have to be spent encoding the part of the picture that is supposed to be there. </para> <para> If the picture runs all the way to the edge of the encoded area, MPEG has special optimizations to repeatedly copy the pixels at the edge of the picture when a motion vector comes from outside the encoded area. This feature becomes useless when the movie has black borders. Unlike problems 1 and 2, aligning the borders at multiples of 16 does not help here. </para> </listitem> <listitem> <para> Despite the borders being entirely black and never changing, there is at least a minimal amount of overhead involved in having more macroblocks. </para> </listitem> </orderedlist> <para> For all of these reasons, it is recommended to fully crop black borders. Further, if there is an area of noise/distortion at the edge of the picture, cropping this will improve encoding efficiency as well. Videophile purists who want to preserve the original as close as possible may object to this cropping, but unless you plan to encode at constant quantizer, the quality you gain from cropping will considerably exceed the amount of information lost at the edges. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-crop"> <title>Cropping and Scaling</title> <para> Recall from the previous section that the final picture size you encode should be a multiple of 16 (in both width and height). This can be achieved by cropping, scaling, or a combination of both. </para> <para> When cropping, there are a few guidelines that must be followed to avoid damaging your movie. The normal YUV format, 4:2:0, stores chroma (color) information subsampled, i.e. chroma is only sampled half as often in each direction as luma (intensity) information. Observe this diagram, where L indicates luma sampling points and C chroma. </para> <informaltable> <?dbhtml table-width="40%" ?> <?dbfo table-width="40%" ?> <tgroup cols="8" align="center"> <colspec colnum="1" colname="col1"/> <colspec colnum="2" colname="col2"/> <colspec colnum="3" colname="col3"/> <colspec colnum="4" colname="col4"/> <colspec colnum="5" colname="col5"/> <colspec colnum="6" colname="col6"/> <colspec colnum="7" colname="col7"/> <colspec colnum="8" colname="col8"/> <spanspec spanname="spa1-2" namest="col1" nameend="col2"/> <spanspec spanname="spa3-4" namest="col3" nameend="col4"/> <spanspec spanname="spa5-6" namest="col5" nameend="col6"/> <spanspec spanname="spa7-8" namest="col7" nameend="col8"/> <tbody> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> <row> <entry spanname="spa1-2">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa3-4">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa5-6">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa7-8">C</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> <row> <entry spanname="spa1-2">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa3-4">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa5-6">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa7-8">C</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> </tbody> </tgroup> </informaltable> <para> As you can see, rows and columns of the image naturally come in pairs. Thus your crop offsets and dimensions <emphasis>must</emphasis> be even numbers. If they are not, the chroma will no longer line up correctly with the luma. In theory, it is possible to crop with odd offsets, but it requires resampling the chroma which is potentially a lossy operation and not supported by the crop filter. </para> <para> Further, interlaced video is sampled as follows: </para> <informaltable> <?dbhtml table-width="80%" ?> <?dbfo table-width="80%" ?> <tgroup cols="16" align="center"> <colspec colnum="1" colname="col1"/> <colspec colnum="2" colname="col2"/> <colspec colnum="3" colname="col3"/> <colspec colnum="4" colname="col4"/> <colspec colnum="5" colname="col5"/> <colspec colnum="6" colname="col6"/> <colspec colnum="7" colname="col7"/> <colspec colnum="8" colname="col8"/> <colspec colnum="9" colname="col9"/> <colspec colnum="10" colname="col10"/> <colspec colnum="11" colname="col11"/> <colspec colnum="12" colname="col12"/> <colspec colnum="13" colname="col13"/> <colspec colnum="14" colname="col14"/> <colspec colnum="15" colname="col15"/> <colspec colnum="16" colname="col16"/> <spanspec spanname="spa1-2" namest="col1" nameend="col2"/> <spanspec spanname="spa3-4" namest="col3" nameend="col4"/> <spanspec spanname="spa5-6" namest="col5" nameend="col6"/> <spanspec spanname="spa7-8" namest="col7" nameend="col8"/> <spanspec spanname="spa9-10" namest="col9" nameend="col10"/> <spanspec spanname="spa11-12" namest="col11" nameend="col12"/> <spanspec spanname="spa13-14" namest="col13" nameend="col14"/> <spanspec spanname="spa15-16" namest="col15" nameend="col16"/> <tbody> <row> <entry namest="col1" nameend="col8">Top field</entry> <entry namest="col9" nameend="col16">Bottom field</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> </row> <row> <entry spanname="spa1-2">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa3-4">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa5-6">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa7-8">C</entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> </row> <row> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> </row> <row> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry spanname="spa9-10">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa11-12">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa13-14">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa15-16">C</entry> </row> <row> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> </row> <row> <entry spanname="spa1-2">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa3-4">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa5-6">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa7-8">C</entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> </row> <row> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> <row> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> </row> <row> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry spanname="spa9-10">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa11-12">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa13-14">C</entry> <entry spanname="spa15-16">C</entry> </row> <row> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry></entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> <entry>L</entry> </row> </tbody> </tgroup> </informaltable> <para> As you can see, the pattern does not repeat until after 4 lines. So for interlaced video, your y-offset and height for cropping must be multiples of 4. </para> <para> Native DVD resolution is 720x480 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL, but there is an aspect flag that specifies whether it is full-screen (4:3) or wide-screen (16:9). Many (if not most) widescreen DVDs are not strictly 16:9, and will be either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 (cinescope). This means that there will be black bands in the video that will need to be cropped out. </para> <para> <application>MPlayer</application> provides a crop detection filter that will determine the crop rectangle (<option>-vf cropdetect</option>). Run <application>MPlayer</application> with <option>-vf cropdetect</option> and it will print out the crop settings to remove the borders. You should let the movie run long enough that the whole picture area is used, in order to get accurate crop values. </para> <para> Then, test the values you get with <application>MPlayer</application>, using the command line which was printed by <option>cropdetect</option>, and adjust the rectangle as needed. The <option>rectangle</option> filter can help by allowing you to interactively position the crop rectangle over your movie. Remember to follow the above divisibility guidelines so that you do not misalign the chroma planes. </para> <para> In certain cases, scaling may be undesirable. Scaling in the vertical direction is difficult with interlaced video, and if you wish to preserve the interlacing, you should usually refrain from scaling. If you will not be scaling but you still want to use multiple-of-16 dimensions, you will have to overcrop. Do not undercrop, since black borders are very bad for encoding! </para> <para> Because MPEG-4 uses 16x16 macroblocks, you will want to make sure that each dimension of the video you are encoding is a multiple of 16 or else you will be degrading quality, especially at lower bitrates. You can do this by rounding the width and height of the crop rectangle down to the nearest multiple of 16. As stated earlier, when cropping, you will want to increase the Y offset by half the difference of the old and the new height so that the resulting video is taken from the center of the frame. And because of the way DVD video is sampled, make sure the offset is an even number. (In fact, as a rule, never use odd values for any parameter when you are cropping and scaling video.) If you are not comfortable throwing a few extra pixels away, you might prefer instead to scale the video instead. We will look at this in our example below. You can actually let the <option>cropdetect</option> filter do all of the above for you, as it has an optional <option>round</option> parameter that is equal to 16 by default. </para> <para> Also, be careful about "half black" pixels at the edges. Make sure you crop these out too, or else you will be wasting bits there that are better spent elsewhere. </para> <para> After all is said and done, you will probably end up with video whose pixels are not quite 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, but rather something close to that. You could calculate the new aspect ratio manually, but <application>MEncoder</application> offers an option for <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> called <option>autoaspect</option> that will do this for you. Absolutely do not scale this video up in order to square the pixels unless you like to waste your hard disk space. Scaling should be done on playback, and the player will use the aspect stored in the AVI to determine the correct resolution. Unfortunately, not all players enforce this auto-scaling information, therefore you may still want to rescale. </para> <para> First, you should compute the encoded aspect ratio: <systemitem>ARc = (Wc x (ARa / PRdvd )) / Hc</systemitem> <itemizedlist> <title>where:</title> <listitem><para> Wc and Hc are the width and height of the cropped video, </para></listitem> <listitem><para> PRdvd is the pixel ratio of the DVD which is equal to 1.25=(720/576) for PAL DVDs and 1.5=(720/480) for NTSC DVDs, </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </para> <para> Then, you can compute the X and Y resolution, according to a certain Compression Quality (CQ) factor: <systemitem>ResY = INT(SQRT( 1000*Bitrate/25/ARc/CQ )/16) * 16</systemitem> <systemitem>ResX = INT( ResY * ARc / 16) * 16</systemitem> </para> <para> Okay, but what is the CQ? The CQ represents the number of bits per pixel and per frame of the encode. Roughly speaking, the greater the CQ, the less the likelihood to see encoding artifacts. However, if you have a target size for your movie (1 or 2 CDs for instance), there is a limited total number of bits that you can spend; therefore it is necessary to find a good tradeoff between compressibility and quality. </para> <para> The CQ depends both on the bitrate and the movie resolution. In order to raise the CQ, typically you would downscale the movie given that the bitrate is computed in function of the target size and the length of the movie, which are constant. A CQ below 0.18 usually ends up in a very blocky picture, because there are not enough bits to code the information of each macroblock (MPEG4, like many other codecs, groups pixels by blocks of several pixels to compress the image; if there are not enough bits, the edges of those blocks are visible). It is therefore wise to take a CQ ranging from 0.20 to 0.22 for a 1 CD rip, and 0.26-0.28 for 2 CDs. </para> <para> Please take note that the CQ is just an indicative figure, as depending on the encoded content, a CQ of 0.18 may look just fine for a Bergman, contrary to a movie such as The Matrix, which contains many high-motion scenes. On the other hand, it is worthless to raise CQ higher than 0.30 as you would be wasting bits without any noticeable quality gain. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-audio"> <title>Audio</title> <para> Audio is a much simpler problem to solve: if you care about quality, just leave it as is. Even AC3 5.1 streams are at most 448Kbit/s, and they are worth every bit. You might be tempted to transcode the audio to high quality Vorbis, but just because you do not have an A/V receiver for AC3 pass-through today does not mean you will not have one tomorrow. Future-proof your DVD rips by preserving the AC3 stream. You can keep the AC3 stream either by copying it directly into the video stream <link linkend="menc-feat-mpeg4">during the encoding</link>. You can also extract the AC3 stream in order to mux it into containers such as NUT or Matroska. <screen>mplayer <replaceable>source_file.vob</replaceable> -aid 129 -dumpaudio -dumpfile <replaceable>sound.ac3</replaceable></screen> will dump into the file <replaceable>sound.ac3</replaceable> the audio track number 129 from the file <replaceable>source_file.vob</replaceable> (NB: DVD VOB files usually use a different audio numbering, which means that the VOB audio track 129 is the 2nd audio track of the file). </para> <para> But sometimes you truly have no choice but to further compress the sound so that more bits can be spent on the video. Most people choose to compress audio with either MP3 or Vorbis audio codecs. While the latter is a very space-efficient codec, MP3 is better supported by hardware players, although this trend is changing. </para> <para> First of all, you will have to convert the DVD sound into a WAV file that the audio codec can use as input. For example: <screen>mplayer <replaceable>source_file.vob</replaceable> -ao pcm:file=<replaceable>destination_sound.wav</replaceable> -vc dummy -aid 1 -vo null</screen> will dump the second audio track from the file <replaceable>source_file.vob</replaceable> into the file <replaceable>destination_sound.wav</replaceable>. You may want to normalize the sound before encoding, as DVD audio tracks are commonly recorded at low volumes. You can use the tool <application>normalize</application> for instance, which is available in most distributions. If you are using Windows, a tool such as <application>BeSweet</application> can do the same job. You will compress in either Vorbis or MP3. For example: <screen>oggenc -q1 <replaceable>destination_sound.wav</replaceable></screen> will encode <replaceable>destination_sound.wav</replaceable> with the encoding quality 1, which is roughly equivalent to 80Kb/s, and is the minimum quality at which you should encode if you care about quality. Please note that MEncoder currently cannot mux Vorbis audio tracks into the output file because it only supports AVI and MPEG containers as an output, each of which may lead to audio/video playback synchronization problems with some players when the AVI file contain VBR audio streams such as Vorbis. Do not worry, this document will show you how you can do that with third party programs. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-interlacing"> <title>Interlacing and Telecine</title> <para> Almost all movies are shot at 24 fps. Because NTSC is 30000/1001 fps, some processing must be done to this 24 fps video to make it run at the correct NTSC framerate. The process is called 3:2 pulldown, commonly referred to as telecine (because pulldown is often applied during the telecine process), and, naively described, it works by slowing the film down to 24000/1001 fps, and repeating every fourth frame. </para> <para> No special processing, however, is done to the video for PAL DVDs, which run at 25 fps. (Technically, PAL can be telecined, called 2:2 pulldown, but this does not become an issue in practice.) The 24 fps film is simply played back at 25 fps. The result is that the movie runs slightly faster, but unless you are an alien, you probably will not notice the difference. Most PAL DVDs have pitch-corrected audio, so when they are played back at 25 fps things will sound right, even though the audio track (and hence the whole movie) has a running time that is 4% less than NTSC DVDs. </para> <para> Because the video in a PAL DVD has not been altered, you needn't worry much about frame rate. The source is 25 fps, and your rip will be 25 fps. However, if you are ripping an NTSC DVD movie, you may need to apply inverse telecine. </para> <para> For movies shot at 24 fps, the video on the NTSC DVD is either telecined 30000/1001, or else it is progressive 24000/1001 fps and intended to be telecined on-the-fly by a DVD player. On the other hand, TV series are usually only interlaced, not telecined. This is not a hard rule: some TV series are interlaced (such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer) whereas some are a mixture of progressive and interlaced (such as Angel, or 24). </para> <para> It is highly recommended that you read the section on <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine">How to deal with telecine and interlacing in NTSC DVDs</link> to learn how to handle the different possibilities. </para> <para> However, if you are mostly just ripping movies, likely you are either dealing with 24 fps progressive or telecined video, in which case you can use the <option>pullup</option> filter <option>-vf pullup,softskip</option>. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-filtering"> <title>Filtering</title> <para> In general, you want to do as little filtering as possible to the movie in order to remain close to the original DVD source. Cropping is often necessary (as described above), but do not scale the video. Although scaling down is sometimes preferred to using higher quantizers, we want to avoid both these things: remember that we decided from the start to trade bits for quality. </para> <para> Also, do not adjust gamma, contrast, brightness, etc. What looks good on your display may not look good on others. These adjustments should be done on playback only. </para> <para> One thing you might want to do, however, is pass the video through a very light denoise filter, such as <option>-vf hqdn3d=2:1:2</option>. Again, it is a matter of putting those bits to better use: why waste them encoding noise when you can just add that noise back in during playback? Increasing the parameters for <option>hqdn3d</option> will further improve compressibility, but if you increase the values too much, you risk degrading the image visibily. The suggested values above (<option>2:1:2</option>) are quite conservative; you should feel free to experiment with higher values and observe the results for yourself. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-lavc-encoding-options"> <title>Encoding options of libavcodec</title> <para> Ideally, you would probably want to be able to just tell the encoder to switch into "high quality" mode and move on. That would probably be nice, but unfortunately hard to implement as different encoding options yield different quality results depending on the source material. That is because compression depends on the visual properties of the video in question. For example, anime and live action have very different properties and thus require different options to obtain optimum encoding. The good news is that some options should never be left out, like <option>mbd=2</option>, <option>trell</option>, and <option>v4mv</option>. See below for a detailed description of common encoding options. </para> <itemizedlist> <title>Options to adjust:</title> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">vmax_b_frames</emphasis>: 1 or 2 is good, depending on the movie. Note that libavcodec does not yet support closed GOP (the option <option>cgop</option> does not currently work), so DivX5 will not be able to decode anything encoded with B-frames. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">vb_strategy=1</emphasis>: helps in high-motion scenes. Requires vmax_b_frames >= 2. On some videos, vmax_b_frames may hurt quality, but vmax_b_frames=2 along with vb_strategy=1 helps. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">dia</emphasis>: motion search range. Bigger is better and slower. Negative values are a completely different scale. Good values are -1 for a fast encode, or 2-4 for slower. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">predia</emphasis>: motion search pre-pass. Not as important as dia. Good values are 1 (default) to 4. Requires preme=2 to really be useful. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">cmp, subcmp, precmp</emphasis>: Comparison function for motion estimation. Experiment with values of 0 (default), 2 (hadamard), 3 (dct), and 6 (rate distortion). 0 is fastest, and sufficient for precmp. For cmp and subcmp, 2 is good for anime, and 3 is good for live action. 6 may or may not be slightly better, but is slow. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">last_pred</emphasis>: Number of motion predictors to take from the previous frame. 1-3 or so help at little speed cost. Higher values are slow for no extra gain. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">cbp, mv0</emphasis>: Controls the selection of macroblocks. Small speed cost for small quality gain. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">qprd</emphasis>: adaptive quantization based on the macroblock's complexity. May help or hurt depending on the video and other options. This can cause artifacts unless you set vqmax to some reasonably small value (6 is good, maybe as low as 4); vqmin=1 should also help. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">qns</emphasis>: very slow, especially when combined with qprd. This option will make the encoder minimize noise due to compression artifacts instead of making the encoded video strictly match the source. Do not use this unless you have already tweaked everything else as far as it will go and the results still are not good enough. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">vqcomp</emphasis>: Tweak ratecontrol. What values are good depends on the movie. You can safely leave this alone if you want. Reducing vqcomp puts more bits on low-complexity scenes, increasing it puts them on high-complexity scenes (default: 0.5, range: 0-1. recommended range: 0.5-0.7). </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">vlelim, vcelim</emphasis>: Sets the single coefficient elimination threshold for luminance and chroma planes. These are encoded separately in all MPEG-like algorithms. The idea behind these options is to use some good heuristics to determine when the change in a block is less than the threshold you specify, and in such a case, to just encode the block as "no change". This saves bits and perhaps speeds up encoding. vlelim=-4 and vcelim=9 seem to be good for live movies, but seem not to help with anime; when encoding animation, you should probably leave them unchanged. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">qpel</emphasis>: Quarter pixel motion estimation. MPEG-4 uses half pixel precision for its motion search by default, therefore this option comes with an overhead as more information will be stored in the encoded file. The compression gain/loss depends on the movie, but it is usually not very effective on anime. qpel always incurs a significant cost in CPU decode time (+20% in practice). </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">psnr</emphasis>: does not affect the actual encoding, but writes a log file giving the type/size/quality of each frame, and prints a summary of PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) at the end. </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> <itemizedlist> <title>Options not recommended to play with:</title> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">vme</emphasis>: The default is best. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">lumi_mask, dark_mask</emphasis>: Psychovisual adaptive quantization. You do not want to play with those options if you care about quality. Reasonable values may be effective in your case, but be warned this is very subjective. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">scplx_mask</emphasis>: Tries to prevent blocky artifacts, but postprocessing is better. </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-example"> <title>Example</title> <para> So, you have just bought your shiny new copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (widescreen edition, of course), and you want to rip this DVD so that you can add it to your Home Theatre PC. This is a region 1 DVD, so it is NTSC. The example below will still apply to PAL, except you will omit <option>-ofps 24000/1001</option> (because the output framerate is the same as the input framerate), and of course the crop dimensions will be different. </para> <para> After running <option>mplayer dvd://1</option>, we 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, which means that we needn't 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 height are a multiple of 16. The width is fine, however the height is not. Since we did not fail 7th grade math, we know that the nearest multiple of 16 lower than 362 is 352. </para> <para> We could just use <option>crop=720:352:0:58</option>, but it would be nice to take a little off the top and a little off the bottom so that we retain the center. We have shrunk the height by 10 pixels, but we do not want to increase the y-offset by 5-pixels since that is an odd number and will adversely affect quality. Instead, we will increase the y-offset by 4 pixels: <screen>mplayer dvd://1 -vf crop=720:352:0:62</screen> Another reason to shave pixels from both the top and the bottom is that we ensure we have eliminated any half-black pixels if they exist. Note that if your video is telecined, make sure the <option>pullup</option> filter (or whichever inverse telecine filter you decide to use) appears in the filter chain before you crop. If it is interlaced, deinterlace before cropping. (If you choose to preserve the interlaced video, then make sure your vertical crop offset is a multiple of 4.) </para> <para> If you are really concerned about losing those 10 pixels, you might prefer instead to scale the dimensions down to the nearest multiple of 16. The filter chain would look like: <screen>-vf crop=720:362:0:58,scale=720:352</screen> Scaling the video down like this will mean that some small amount of detail is lost, though it probably will not be perceptible. Scaling up will result in lower quality (unless you increase the bitrate). Cropping discards those pixels altogether. It is a tradeoff that you will want to consider for each circumstance. For example, if the DVD video was made for television, you might want to avoid vertical scaling, since the line sampling corresponds to the way the content was originally recorded. </para> <para> On inspection, we see that our movie has a fair bit of action and high amounts of detail, so we pick 2400Kbit for our bitrate. </para> <para> We are now ready to do the two pass encode. Pass one: <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -ofps 24000/1001 -oac copy -vf crop=720:352:0:62,hqdn3d=2:1:2 -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=2400:v4mv:mbd=2:trell:cmp=3:subcmp=3:mbcmp=3:autoaspect:vpass=1 \ -o Harry_Potter_2.avi</screen> And pass two is the same, except that we specify <option>vpass=2</option>: <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -ofps 24000/1001 -oac copy -vf crop=720:352:0:62,hqdn3d=2:1:2 -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=2400:v4mv:mbd=2:trell:cmp=3:subcmp=3:mbcmp=3:autoaspect:vpass=2 \ -o Harry_Potter_2.avi</screen> </para> <para> The options <option>v4mv:mbd=2:trell</option> will greatly increase the quality at the expense of encoding time. There is little reason to leave these options out when the primary goal is quality. The options <option>cmp=3:subcmp=3:mbcmp=3</option> select a comparison function that yields higher quality than the defaults. You might try experimenting with this parameter (refer to the man page for the possible values) as different functions can have a large impact on quality depending on the source material. For example, if you find <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> produces too much blocky artifacting, you could try selecting the experimental NSSE as comparison function via <option>*cmp=10</option>. </para> <para> For this movie, the resulting AVI will be 138 minutes long and nearly 3GB. And because you said that file size does not matter, this is a perfectly acceptable size. However, if you had wanted it smaller, you could try a lower bitrate. Increasing bitrates have diminishing returns, so while we might clearly see an improvement from 1800Kbit to 2000Kbit, it might not be so noticeable above 2000Kbit. Feel free to experiment until you are happy. </para> <para> Because we passed the source video through a denoise filter, you may want to add some of it back during playback. This, along with the <option>spp</option> post-processing filter, drastically improves the perception of quality and helps eliminate blocky artifacts in the video. With <application>MPlayer</application>'s <option>autoq</option> option, you can vary the amount of post-processing done by the spp filter depending on available CPU. Also, at this point, you may want to apply gamma and/or color correction to best suit your display. For example: <screen>mplayer Harry_Potter_2.avi -vf spp,noise=9ah:5ah,eq2=1.2 -autoq 3</screen> </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-muxing"> <title>Muxing</title> <para> Now that you have encoded your video, you will most likely want to mux it with one or more audio tracks into a movie container, such as AVI, MPEG, Matroska or NUT. <application>MEncoder</application> is currently only able to output audio and video into MPEG and AVI container formats. for example: <screen>mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -o <replaceable>output_movie.avi</replaceable> -audiofile <replaceable>input_audio.mp2</replaceable> <replaceable>input_video.avi</replaceable></screen> This would merge the video file <replaceable>input_video.avi</replaceable> and the audio file <replaceable>input_audio.mp2</replaceable> into the AVI file <replaceable>output_movie.avi</replaceable>. This command works with MPEG-1 layer I, II and III (more commonly known as MP3) audio, WAV and a few other audio formats too. </para> <para> MEncoder features experimental support for <systemitem class="library">libavformat</systemitem>, which is a library from the FFmpeg project that supports muxing and demuxing a variety of containers. For example: <screen>mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -o <replaceable>output_movie.asf</replaceable> -audiofile <replaceable>input_audio.mp2</replaceable> <replaceable>input_video.avi</replaceable> -of lavf -lavfopts format=asf</screen> This will do the same thing as the previous example, except that the output container will be ASF. Please note that this support is highly experimental (but getting better every day), and will only work if you compiled <application>MPlayer</application> with the support for <systemitem class="library">libavformat</systemitem> enabled (which means that a pre-packaged binary version will not work in most cases). </para> <sect3 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-muxing-avi-limitations"> <title>Limitations of the AVI container</title> <para> Although it is the most widely-supported container format after MPEG-1, AVI also has some major drawbacks. Perhaps the most obvious is the overhead. For each chunk of the AVI file, 24 bytes are wasted on headers and index. This translates into a little over 5 MB per hour, or 1-2.5% overhead for a 700 MB movie. This may not seem like much, but it could mean the difference between being able to use 700 kbit/sec video or 714 kbit/sec, and every bit of quality counts. </para> <para> In addition this gross inefficiency, AVI also has the following major limitations: </para> <orderedlist> <listitem> <para> Only fixed-fps content can be stored. This is particularly limiting if the original material you want to encode is mixed content, for example a mix of NTSC video and film material. Actually there are hacks that can be used to store mixed-framerate content in AVI, but they increase the (already huge) overhead fivefold or more and so are not practical. </para> </listitem> <listitem> <para> Audio in AVI files must be either constant-bitrate (CBR) or constant-framesize (i.e. all frames decode to the same number of samples). Unfortunately, the most efficient codec, Vorbis, does not meet either of these requirements. Therefore, if you plan to store your movie in AVI, you will have to use a less efficient codec such as MP3 or AC3. </para> </listitem> </orderedlist> <para> Having said all that, <application>MEncoder</application> does not currently support variable-fps output or Vorbis encoding. Therefore, you may not see these as limitations if <application>MEncoder</application> is the only tool you will be using to produce your encodes. However, it is possible to use <application>MEncoder</application> only for video encoding, and then use external tools to encode audio and mux it into another container format. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-muxing-matroska"> <title>Muxing into the Matroska container</title> <para> Matroska is a free, open standard container format, aiming to offer a lot of advanced features, which older containers like AVI cannot handle. For example, Matroska supports variable bitrate audio content (VBR), variable framerates (VFR), chapters, file attachments, error detection code (EDC) and modern A/V Codecs like "Advanced Audio Coding" (AAC), "Vorbis" or "MPEG-4 AVC" (H.264), next to nothing handled by AVI. </para> <para> The tools required to create Matroska files are collectively called <application>mkvtoolnix</application>, and are available for most Unix platforms as well as <application>Windows</application>. Because Matroska is an open standard you may find other tools that suit you better, but since mkvtoolnix is the most common, and is supported by the Matroska team itself, we will only cover its usage. </para> <para> Probably the easiest way to get started with Matroska is to use <application>MMG</application>, the graphical frontend shipped with <application>mkvtoolnix</application>, and follow the <ulink url="http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge-gui.html">guide to mkvmerge GUI (mmg)</ulink> </para> <para> You may also mux audio and video files using the command line: <screen>mkvmerge -o <replaceable>output.mkv</replaceable> <replaceable>input_video.avi</replaceable> <replaceable>input_audio1.mp3</replaceable> <replaceable>input_audio2.ac3</replaceable></screen> This would merge the video file <replaceable>input_video.avi</replaceable> and the two audio files <replaceable>input_audio1.mp3</replaceable> and <replaceable>input_audio2.ac3</replaceable> into the Matroska file <replaceable>output.mkv</replaceable>. Matroska, as mentioned earlier, is able to do much more than that, like multiple audio tracks (including fine-tuning of audio/video synchronization), chapters, subtitles, splitting, etc... Please refer to the documentation of those applications for more details. </para> </sect3> </sect2> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-x264"> <title>Encoding with the <systemitem class="library">x264</systemitem> codec</title> <para> <systemitem class="library">x264</systemitem> is a free library for encoding H264/AVC video streams. Before starting to encode, you need to <link linkend="codec-x264-encode"> set up <application>MEncoder</application> to support it</link>. </para> <sect2 id="menc-feat-x264-intro"> <title>What options should I use to get the best results?</title> <para> Please begin by reviewing the <systemitem class="library">x264</systemitem> section of <application>MPlayer</application>'s man page. This section is intended to be a supplement to the man page. </para> <orderedlist> <title>There are mainly three types of considerations when choosing encoding options:</title> <listitem><para>Trading off encoding time vs. quality</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Frame type decision options</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Ratecontrol and quantization decision options</para></listitem> </orderedlist> <para> This guide is mostly concerned with the first class of options. The other two types often have more to do with personal preferences and individual requirements. </para> <para> Before continuing, please note that this guide uses only one quality metric: global PSNR. For a brief explanation of what PSNR is, see <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSNR">the Wikipedia article on PSNR</ulink>. Global PSNR is the last PSNR number reported when you include the <option>psnr</option> option in <option>x264encopts</option>. Any time you will read a claim about PSNR, one of the assumptions behind the claim is that equal bitrates are used. </para> <para> Nearly all of this guide's comments assume you are using two pass. When comparing options, there are two major reasons for using two pass encoding. First, using two pass often gains around 1dB PSNR, which is a very big difference. Secondly, testing options by doing direct quality comparisons with 1-pass encodes is a dubious proposition because bitrate often varies significantly with each encode. It is not always easy to tell whether quality changes are due mainly to changed options, or if they mostly reflect differences in the achieved bitrate. </para> <para> Of the options which allow you to trade off speed for quality, <option>subq</option> and <option>frameref</option> are usually by far the most important. If you are interested in tweaking either speed or quality, these are the first options you should consider. </para> <para> On the speed dimension, the <option>frameref</option> and <option>subq</option> options interact with each other fairly strongly. Experience shows that, with one reference frame, <option>subq=5</option> takes about 35% more time than <option>subq=1</option>. With 6 reference frames, the penalty grows to over 60%. <option>subq</option>'s effect on PSNR seems fairly constant regardless of the number of reference frames. Typically, <option>subq=5</option> gains 0.2-0.5 dB global PSNR over <option>subq=1</option>. This is usually enough to be visible. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-x264-encoding-options"> <title>Encoding options of x264</title> <itemizedlist> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">frameref</emphasis>: <option>frameref</option> is set to 1 by default, but this should not be taken to imply that it is reasonable to set it to 1. Merely raising <option>frameref</option> to 2 gains around 0.15dB PSNR with a 5-10% speed penalty; this seems like a good tradeoff. <option>frameref=3</option> gains around 0.25dB PSNR over <option>frameref=1</option>, which should be a visible difference. <option>frameref=3</option> is around 15% slower than <option>frameref=1</option>. Unfortunately, diminishing returns set in rapidly. <option>frameref=6</option> can be expected to gain only 0.05-0.1 dB over <option>frameref=3</option> at an additional 15% speed penalty. Above <option>frameref=6</option>, the quality gains are usually very small (although you should keep in mind throughout this whole discussion that it can vary quite a lot depending on your source). In a fairly typical case, <option>frameref=12</option> will improve global PSNR by a tiny 0.02dB over <option>frameref=6</option>, at a speed cost of 15%-20%. At such high <option>frameref</option> values, the only really good thing that can be said is that increasing even further will almost certainly never <emphasis role="bold">harm</emphasis> PSNR, but the additional quality benefits are barely even measurable, let alone perceptible. </para> <note><title>Note:</title> <para> Raising <option>frameref</option> to unnecessarily high values <emphasis role="bold">can</emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">usually does</emphasis> hurt coding efficiency if you turn CABAC off. With CABAC on (the default behavior), the possibility of setting <option>frameref</option> "too high" currently seems too remote to even worry about, and in the future, optimizations may remove the possibility altogether). </para> </note> <para> If you care about speed, a reasonable compromise is to use low <option>subq</option> and <option>frameref</option> values on the first pass, and then raise them on the second pass. Typically, this has a negligible negative effect on the final quality: you will probably lose well under 0.1dB PSNR, which should be much too small of a difference to see. However, different values of <option>frameref</option> can occasionally affect frametype decision. Most likely, these are rare outlying cases, but if you want to be pretty sure, consider whether your video has either fullscreen repetitive flashing patterns or very large temporary occlusions which might force an I-frame. Adjust the first-pass <option>frameref</option> so it is large enough to contain the duration of the flashing cycle (or occlusion). For example, if the scene flashes back and forth between two images over a duration of three frames, set the first pass <option>frameref</option> to 3 or higher. This issue is probably extremely rare in live action video material, but it does sometimes come up in video game captures. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">bframes</emphasis>: The usefulness of B-frames is questionable in most other codecs you may be used to. In H.264, this has changed: there are new techniques and block types that are possible in B-frames. Usually, even a naive B-frame choice algorithm can have a significant PSNR benefit. It is also interesting to note that if you turn off the adaptive B-frame decision (<option>nob_adapt</option>), encoding with <option>bframes</option> usually speeds up encoding speed somewhat. </para> <para> With adaptive B-frame decision turned off (<option>x264encopts</option>'s <option>nob_adapt</option>), the optimal value for this setting will usually range from <option>bframes=1</option> to <option>bframes=3</option>. With adaptive B-frame decision on (the default behavior), it is probably safe to use higher values; the encoder will try to reduce the use of B-frames in scenes where they would hurt compression. </para> <para> If you are going to use <option>bframes</option> at all, consider setting the maximum number of B-frames to 2 or higher in order to take advantage of weighted prediction. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">b_adapt</emphasis>: Note: this is on by default. </para> <para> With this option enabled, the encoder will use some simple heuristics to reduce the number of B-frames used in scenes that might not benefit from them as much. You can use <option>b_bias</option> to tweak how B-frame-happy the encoder is. The speed penalty of adaptive B-frames is currently rather modest, but so is the potential quality gain. It usually does not hurt, however. Note that this only affects speed and frametype decision on the first pass. <option>b_adapt</option> and <option>b_bias</option> have no effect on subsequent passes. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">b_pyramid</emphasis>: You might as well enable this option if you are using >2 B-frames; as the man page says, you get a little quality improvement with no speed cost. Note that these videos cannot be read by libavcodec-based decoders older than about March 5, 2005. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">weight_b</emphasis>: In typical cases, there is not much gain with this option. However, in crossfades or fade-to-black scenes, weighted prediction gives rather large bitrate savings. In MPEG-4 ASP, a fade-to-black is usually best coded as a series of expensive I-frames; using weighted prediction in B-frames makes it possible to turn at least some of these into much more reasonably-sized B-frames. Encoding time cost seems to be minimal, if there is any. Also, contrary to what some people seem to guess, the decoder CPU requirements are not much affected by weighted prediction, all else being equal. </para> <para> Unfortunately, the current adaptive B-frame decision algorithm has a strong tendency to avoid B-frames during fades. Until this changes, it may be a good idea to add <option>nob_adapt</option> to your x264encopts, if you expect fades to have a significant effect in your particular video clip. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> <emphasis role="bold">deblockalpha, deblockbeta</emphasis>: This topic is going to be a bit controversial. </para> <para> H.264 defines a simple deblocking procedure on I-blocks that uses pre-set strengths and thresholds depending on the QP of the block in question. By default, high QP blocks are filtered heavily, and low QP blocks are not deblocked at all. The pre-set strengths defined by the standard are well-chosen and the odds are very good that they are PSNR-optimal for whatever video you are trying to encode. The <option>deblockalpha</option> and <option>deblockbeta</option> parameters allow you to specify offsets to the preset deblocking thresholds. </para> <para> Many people seem to think it is a good idea to lower the deblocking filter strength by large amounts (say, -3). This is however almost never a good idea, and in most cases, people who are doing this do not understand very well how deblocking works by default. </para> <para> The first and most important thing to know about the in-loop deblocking filter is that the default thresholds are almost always PSNR-optimal. In the rare cases that they are not optimal, the ideal offset is plus or minus 1. Adjusting deblocking parameters by a larger amount is almost guaranteed to hurt PSNR. Strengthening the filter will smear more details; weakening the filter will increase the appearance of blockiness. </para> <para> It is definitely a bad idea to lower the deblocking thresholds if your source is mainly low in spacial complexity (i.e., not a lot of detail or noise). The in-loop filter does a rather excellent job of concealing the artifacts that occur. If the source is high in spacial complexity, however, artifacts are less noticeable. This is because the ringing tends to look like detail or noise. Human visual perception easily notices when detail is removed, but it does not so easily notice when the noise is wrongly represented. When it comes to subjective quality, noise and detail are somewhat interchangeable. By lowering the deblocking filter strength, you are most likely increasing error by adding ringing artifacts, but the eye does not notice because it confuses the artifacts with detail. </para> <para> This <emphasis role="bold">still</emphasis> does not justify lowering the deblocking filter strength, however. You can generally get better quality noise from postprocessing. If your H.264 encodes look too blurry or smeared, try playing with <option>-vf noise</option> when you play your encoded movie. <option>-vf noise=8a:4a</option> should conceal most mild artifacting. It will almost certainly look better than the results you would have gotten just by fiddling with the deblocking filter. </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect2> </sect1> <sect1 id="menc-feat-telecine"> <title>How to deal with telecine and interlacing within NTSC DVDs</title> <sect2 id="menc-feat-telecine-intro"> <title>Introduction</title> <formalpara> <title>What is telecine?</title> <para> I suggest you visit this page if you do not understand much of what is written in this document: <ulink url="http://www.divx.com/support/guides/guide.php?gid=10">http://www.divx.com/support/guides/guide.php?gid=10</ulink> This URL links to an understandable and reasonably comprehensive description of what telecine is. </para></formalpara> <formalpara> <title>A note about the numbers.</title> <para> Many documents, including the guide linked above, refer to the fields per second value of NTSC video as 59.94 and the corresponding frames per second values as 29.97 (for telecined and interlaced) and 23.976 (for progressive). For simplicity, some documents even round these numbers to 60, 30, and 24. </para></formalpara> <para> Strictly speaking, all those numbers are approximations. Black and white NTSC video was exactly 60 fields per second, but 60000/1001 was later chosen to accomodate color data while remaining compatible with contemporary black and white televisions. Digital NTSC video (such as on a DVD) is also 60000/1001 fields per second. From this, interlaced and telecined video are derived to be 30000/1001 frames per second; progressive video is 24000/1001 frames per second. </para> <para> Older versions of the <application>MEncoder</application> documentation and many archived mailing list posts refer to 59.94, 29.97, and 23.976. All <application>MEncoder</application> documentation has been updated to use the fractional values, and you should use them too. </para> <para> <option>-ofps 23.976</option> is incorrect. <option>-ofps 24000/1001</option> should be used instead. </para> <formalpara> <title>How telecine is used.</title> <para> All video intended to be displayed on an NTSC television set must be 60000/1001 fields per second. Made-for-TV movies and shows are often filmed directly at 60000/1001 fields per second, but the majority of cinema is filmed at 24 or 24000/1001 frames per second. When cinematic movie DVDs are mastered, the video is then converted for television using a process called telecine. </para></formalpara> <para> On a DVD, the video is never actually stored as 60000/1001 fields per second. For video that was originally 60000/1001, each pair of fields is combined to form a frame, resulting in 30000/1001 frames per second. Hardware DVD players then read a flag embedded in the video stream to determine whether the odd- or even-numbered lines should form the first field. </para> <para> Usually, 24000/1001 frames per second content stays as it is when encoded for a DVD, and the DVD player must perform telecining on-the-fly. Sometimes, however, the video is telecined <emphasis>before</emphasis> being stored on the DVD; even though it was originally 24000/1001 frames per second, it becomes 60000/1001 fields per second. When it is stored on the DVD, pairs of fields are combined to form 30000/1001 frames per second. </para> <para> When looking at individual frames formed from 60000/10001 fields per second video, telecined or otherwise, interlacing is clearly visible wherever there is any motion, because one field (say, the even-numbered lines) represents a moment in time 1/(60000/1001) seconds later than the other. Playing interlaced video on a computer looks ugly both because the monitor is higher resolution and because the video is shown frame-after-frame instead of field-after-field. </para> <itemizedlist> <title>Notes:</title> <listitem><para> This section only applies to NTSC DVDs, and not PAL. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> The example <application>MEncoder</application> lines throughout the document are <emphasis role="bold">not</emphasis> intended for actual use. They are simply the bare minimum required to encode the pertaining video category. How to make good DVD rips or fine-tune <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> for maximal quality is not within the scope of this document. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> There are a couple footnotes specific to this guide, linked like this: <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[1]</link> </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident"> <title>How to tell what type of video you have</title> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-progressive"> <title>Progressive</title> <para> Progressive video was originally filmed at 24000/1001 fps, and stored on the DVD without alteration. </para> <para> When you play a progressive DVD in <application>MPlayer</application>, <application>MPlayer</application> will print the following line as soon as the movie begins to play: <screen> demux_mpg: 24000/1001 fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.</screen> From this point forward, demux_mpg should never say it finds "30000/1001 fps NTSC content." </para> <para> When you watch progressive video, you should never see any interlacing. Beware, however, because sometimes there is a tiny bit of telecine mixed in where you would not expect. I have encountered TV show DVDs that have one second of telecine at every scene change, or at seemingly random places. I once watched a DVD that had a progressive first half, and the second half was telecined. If you want to be <emphasis>really</emphasis> thorough, you can scan the entire movie: <screen>mplayer dvd://1 -nosound -vo null -benchmark</screen> Using <option>-benchmark</option> makes <application>MPlayer</application> play the movie as quickly as it possibly can; still, depending on your hardware, it can take a while. Every time demux_mpg reports a framerate change, the line immediately above will show you the time at which the change occurred. </para> <para> Sometimes progressive video on DVDs is referred to as "soft-telecine" because it is intended to be telecined by the DVD player. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-telecined"> <title>Telecined</title> <para> Telecined video was originally filmed at 24000/1001, but was telecined <emphasis>before</emphasis> it was written to the DVD. </para> <para> <application>MPlayer</application> does not (ever) report any framerate changes when it plays telecined video. </para> <para> Watching a telecined video, you will see interlacing artifacts that seem to "blink": they repeatedly appear and disappear. You can look closely at this by <orderedlist> <listitem> <screen>mplayer dvd://1</screen> </listitem> <listitem><para> Seek to a part with motion. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> Use the <keycap>.</keycap> key to step forward one frame at a time. </para></listitem> <listitem><para> Look at the pattern of interlaced-looking and progressive-looking frames. If the pattern you see is PPPII,PPPII,PPPII,... then the video is telecined. If you see some other pattern, then the video may have been telecined using some non-standard method; <application>MEncoder</application> cannot losslessly convert non-standard telecine to progressive. If you do not see any pattern at all, then it is most likely interlaced. </para></listitem> </orderedlist> </para> <para> Sometimes telecined video on DVDs is referred to as "hard-telecine". Since hard-telecine is already 60000/1001 fields per second, the DVD player plays the video without any manipulation. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-interlaced"> <title>Interlaced</title> <para> Interlaced video was originally filmed at 60000/1001 fields per second, and stored on the DVD as 30000/1001 frames per second. The interlacing effect (often called "combing") is a result of combining pairs of fields into frames. Each field is supposed to be 1/(60000/1001) seconds apart, and when they are displayed simultaneously the difference is apparent. </para> <para> As with telecined video, <application>MPlayer</application> should not ever report any framerate changes when playing interlaced content. </para> <para> When you view an interlaced video closely by frame-stepping with the <keycap>.</keycap> key, you will see that every single frame is interlaced. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-mixedpt"> <title>Mixed progressive and telecine</title> <para> All of a "mixed progressive and telecine" video was originally 24000/1001 frames per second, but some parts of it ended up being telecined. </para> <para> When <application>MPlayer</application> plays this category, it will (often repeatedly) switch back and forth between "30000/1001 fps NTSC" and "24000/1001 fps progressive NTSC". Watch the bottom of <application>MPlayer</application>'s output to see these messages. </para> <para> You should check the "30000/1001 fps NTSC" sections to make sure they are actually telecine, and not just interlaced. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-mixedpi"> <title>Mixed progressive and interlaced</title> <para> In "mixed progressive and interlaced" content, progressive and interlaced video have been spliced together. </para> <para> This category looks just like "mixed progressive and telecine", until you examine the 30000/1001 fps sections and see that they do not have the telecine pattern. </para> </sect3> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode"> <title>How to encode each category</title> <para> As I mentioned in the beginning, example <application>MEncoder</application> lines below are <emphasis role="bold">not</emphasis> meant to actually be used; they only demonstrate the minimum parameters to properly encode each category. </para> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-progressive"> <title>Progressive</title> <para> Progressive video requires no special filtering to encode. The only parameter you need to be sure to use is <option>-ofps 24000/1001</option>. Otherwise, <application>MEncoder</application> will try to encode at 30000/1001 fps and will duplicate frames. </para> <para> <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -ovc lavc -ofps 24000/1001</screen> </para> <para> It is often the case, however, that a video that looks progressive actually has very short parts of telecine mixed in. Unless you are sure, it is safest to treat the video as <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt">mixed progressive and telecine</link>. The performance loss is small <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[3]</link>. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-telecined"> <title>Telecined</title> <para> Telecine can be reversed to retrieve the original 24000/1001 content, using a process called inverse-telecine. <application>MPlayer</application> contains several filters to accomplish this; the best filter, <option>pullup</option>, is described in the <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt">mixed progressive and telecine</link> section. </para> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-interlaced"> <title>Interlaced</title> <para> For most practical cases it is not possible to retrieve a complete progressive video from interlaced content. The only way to do so without losing half of the vertical resolution is to double the framerate and try to "guess" what ought to make up the corresponding lines for each field (this has drawbacks - see method 3). </para> <orderedlist> <listitem><para> Encode the video in interlaced form. Normally, interlacing wreaks havoc with the encoder's ability to compress well, but <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> has two parameters specifically for dealing with storing interlaced video a bit better: <option> ildct</option> and <option>ilme</option>. Also, using <option>mbd=2</option> is strongly recommended <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[2] </link> because it will encode macroblocks as non-interlaced in places where there is no motion. Note that <option>-ofps</option> is NOT needed here. <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts ildct:ilme:mbd=2</screen> </para></listitem> <listitem><para> Use a deinterlacing filter before encoding. There are several of these filters available to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Consult <option>mplayer -pphelp</option> to see what is available (grep for "deint"), and search the <ulink url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design6/info.html#mailing_lists"> MPlayer mailing lists</ulink> to find many discussions about the various filters. Again, the framerate is not changing, so no <option>-ofps</option>. Also, deinterlacing should be done after cropping <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[1]</link> and before scaling. <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf pp=lb -ovc lavc</screen> </para></listitem> <listitem><para> Unfortunately, this option is buggy with <application>MEncoder</application>; it ought to work well with <application>MEncoder G2</application>, but that is not here yet. You might experience crahes. Anyway, the purpose of <option> -vf tfields</option> is to create a full frame out of each field, which makes the framerate 60000/1001. The advantage of this approach is that no data is ever lost; however, since each frame comes from only one field, the missing lines have to be interpolated somehow. There are no very good methods of generating the missing data, and so the result will look a bit similar to when using some deinterlacing filters. Generating the missing lines creates other issues, as well, simply because the amount of data doubles. So, higher encoding bitrates are required to maintain quality, and more CPU power is used for both encoding and decoding. tfields has several different options for how to create the missing lines of each frame. If you use this method, then Reference the manual, and chose whichever option looks best for your material. Note that when using <option>tfields</option> you <emphasis role="bold">have to</emphasis> specify both <option>-fps</option> and <option>-ofps</option> to be twice the framerate of your original source. <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf tfields=2 -ovc lavc -fps 60000/1001 -ofps 60000/1001</screen> </para></listitem> <listitem><para> If you plan on downscaling dramatically, you can extract and encode only one of the two fields. Of course, you will lose half the vertical resolution, but if you plan on downscaling to at most 1/2 of the original, the loss will not matter much. The result will be a progressive 30000/1001 frames per second file. The procedure is to use <option>-vf field</option>, then crop <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[1]</link> and scale appropriately. Remember that you will have to adjust the scale to compensate for the vertical resolution being halved. <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf field=0 -ovc lavc</screen> </para></listitem> </orderedlist> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt"> <title>Mixed progressive and telecine</title> <para> In order to turn mixed progressive and telecine video into entirely progressive video, the telecined parts have to be inverse-telecined. There are three ways to accomplish this, described below. Note that you should <emphasis role="bold">always</emphasis> inverse-telecine before any rescaling; unless you really know what you are doing, inverse-telecine before cropping, too <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[1]</link>. <option>-ofps 24000/1001</option> is needed here because the output video will be 24000/1001 frames per second. </para> <itemizedlist> <listitem><para> <option>-vf pullup</option> is designed to inverse-telecine telecined material while leaving progressive data alone. In order to work properly, <option>pullup</option> <emphasis role="bold">must</emphasis> be followed by the <option>softskip</option> filter or else <application>MEncoder</application> will crash. <option>pullup</option> is, however, the cleanest and most accurate method available for encoding both telecine and "mixed progressive and telecine". <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf pullup,softskip -ovc lavc -ofps 24000/1001</screen> </para> </listitem> <listitem><para> An older method is to, rather than inverse-telecine the telecined parts, telecine the non-telecined parts and then inverse-telecine the whole video. Sound confusing? softpulldown is a filter that goes through a video and makes the entire file telecined. If we follow softpulldown with either <option>detc</option> or <option>ivtc</option>, the final result will be entirely progressive. <option>-ofps 24000/1001</option> is needed. <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf softpulldown,ivtc=1 -ovc lavc -ofps 24000/1001</screen> </para> </listitem> <listitem><para> I have not used <option>-vf filmdint</option> myself, but here is what D Richard Felker III has to say: <blockquote><para>It is OK, but IMO it tries to deinterlace rather than doing inverse telecine too often (much like settop DVD players & progressive TVs) which gives ugly flickering and other artifacts. If you are going to use it, you at least need to spend some time tuning the options and watching the output first to make sure it is not messing up.</para></blockquote> </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect3> <sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpi"> <title>Mixed progressive and interlaced</title> <para> There are two options for dealing with this category, each of which is a compromise. You should decide based on the duration/location of each type. </para> <itemizedlist> <listitem><para> Treat it as progressive. The interlaced parts will look interlaced, and some of the interlaced fields will have to be dropped, resulting in a bit of uneven jumpiness. You can use a postprocessing filter if you want to, but it may slightly degrade the progressive parts. </para> <para> This option should definitely not be used if you want to eventually display the video on an interlaced device (with a TV card, for example). If you have interlaced frames in a 24000/1001 frames per second video, they will be telecined along with the progressive frames. Half of the interlaced "frames" will be displayed for three fields' duration (3/(60000/1001) seconds), resulting in a flicking "jump back in time" effect that looks quite bad. If you even attempt this, you <emphasis role="bold">must</emphasis> use a deinterlacing filter like <option>lb</option> or <option>l5</option>. </para> <para> It may also be a bad idea for progressive display, too. It will drop pairs of consecutive interlaced fields, resulting in a discontinuity that can be more visible than with the second method, which shows some progressive frames twice. 30000/1001 frames per second interlaced video is already a bit choppy because it really should be shown at 60000/1001 fields per second, so the duplicate frames do not stand out as much. </para> <para> Either way, it is best to consider your content and how you intend to display it. If your video is 90% progressive and you never intend to show it on a TV, you should favor a progressive approach. If it is only half progressive, you probably want to encode it as if it is all interlaced. </para> </listitem> <listitem><para> Treat it as interlaced. Some frames of the progressive parts will need to be duplicated, resulting in uneven jumpiness. Again, deinterlacing filters may slightly degrade the progressive parts. </para></listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect3> </sect2> <sect2 id="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes"> <title>Footnotes</title> <orderedlist> <listitem><formalpara> <title>About cropping:</title> <para> Video data on DVDs are stored in a format called YUV 4:2:0. In YUV video, luma ("brightness") and chroma ("color") are stored separately. Because the human eye is somewhat less sensitive to color than it is to brightness, in a YUV 4:2:0 picture there is only one chroma pixel for every four luma pixels. In a progressive picture, each square of four luma pixels (two on each side) has one common chroma pixel. You must crop progressive YUV 4:2:0 to even resolutions, and use even offsets. For example, <option>crop=716:380:2:26</option> is OK but <option>crop=716:380:3:26 </option> is not. </para> </formalpara> <para> When you are dealing with interlaced YUV 4:2:0, the situation is a bit more complicated. Instead of every four luma pixels in the <emphasis>frame</emphasis> sharing a chroma pixel, every four luma pixels in each <emphasis> field</emphasis> share a chroma pixel. When fields are interlaced to form a frame, each scanline is one pixel high. Now, instead of all four luma pixels being in a square, there are two pixels side-by-side, and the other two pixels are side-by-side two scanlines down. The two luma pixels in the intermediate scanline are from the other field, and so share a different chroma pixel with two luma pixels two scanlines away. All this confusion makes it necessary to have vertical crop dimensions and offsets be multiples of four. Horizontal can stay even. </para> <para> For telecined video, I recommend that cropping take place after inverse telecining. Once the video is progressive you only need to crop by even numbers. If you really want to gain the slight speedup that cropping first may offer, you must crop vertically by multiples of four or else the inverse-telecine filter will not have proper data. </para> <para> For interlaced (not telecined) video, you must always crop vertically by multiples of four unless you use <option>-vf field</option> before cropping. </para> </listitem> <listitem><formalpara> <title>About encoding parameters and quality:</title> <para> Just because I recommend <option>mbd=2</option> here does not mean it should not be used elsewhere. Along with <option>trell</option>, <option>mbd=2</option> is one of the two <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> options that increases quality the most, and you should always use at least those two unless the drop in encoding speed is prohibitive (e.g. realtime encoding). There are many other options to <systemitem class="library">libavcodec</systemitem> that increase encoding quality (and decrease encoding speed) but that is beyond the scope of this document. </para> </formalpara> </listitem> <listitem><formalpara> <title>About the performance of pullup:</title> <para> It is safe to use <option>pullup</option> (along with <option>softskip </option>) on progressive video, and is usually a good idea unless the source has been definitively verified to be entirely progressive. The performace loss is small for most cases. On a bare-minimum encode, <option>pullup</option> causes <application>MEncoder</application> to be 50% slower. Adding sound processing and advanced <option>lavcopts </option> overshadows that difference, bringing the performance decrease of using <option>pullup</option> down to 2%. </para> </formalpara> </listitem> </orderedlist> </sect2> </sect1> </chapter>