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Nicias
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Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Posts: 446

PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2013 1:30 pm    Post subject: ffmpeg speed/quality/size strange behaviour Reply with quote

Hello,

I'm working out transcoding settings for my video collection. Right now it is mostly just uncompressed DVD rips. I decided to look into x264 with ffmpeg. I read this http://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/x264EncodingGuide and did some trial runs with a 5 minute video clip.

If I understand it correctly, I should pick a "crf" value that is of sufficent quality, and then pick a "preset" or speed value that gives me the compression time/file size tradeoff I want. I settled on a crf of 17 (supposedly psychovisually transparent) I put together a script to check the compression time/file size of various speeds and I found something strange: Slower speeds didn't produce better compression, in fact after a point, they produced larger files.

I suppose my question is, am I doing something wrong, or is there just little to no point to the slower compression presets? Perhaps it makes more of a difference with a higher crf?

Test script:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
TEMPDIR=/var/tmp/dvd-import/
LOGFILE=speed-log.txt

for x in ultrafast superfast veryfast faster fast medium slow slower veryslow
do

echo "Starting speed=$x-mp3 encoding: " `date` >> ${LOGFILE}
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libx264 -preset $x -crf 17  -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 0 -ac 2   ${TEMPDIR}$x-17-mp3.mkv
echo "Starting speed=$x-mp3 indexing: " `date` >> ${LOGFILE}
mkvmerge -o $x-17-mp3-index.mkv --engage no_simpleblocks  ${TEMPDIR}$x-17-mp3.mkv
echo "Finished speed=$x-mp3: " `date` >> ${LOGFILE}
echo "Filesize: " `ls $x-17-mp3-index.mkv -lh | cut -d" " -f5` >> ${LOGFILE}

echo "Starting speed=$x encoding: " `date` >> ${LOGFILE}
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libx264 -preset $x -crf 17  -c:a copy  ${TEMPDIR}$x-17.mkv
echo "Starting speed=$x indexing: " `date` >> ${LOGFILE}
mkvmerge -o $x-17-index.mkv --engage no_simpleblocks  ${TEMPDIR}$x-17.mkv
echo "Finished speed=$x: " `date` >> ${LOGFILE}
echo "Filesize: " `ls $x-17-index.mkv -lh | cut -d" " -f5` >> ${LOGFILE}

done

Resulting log flie
Code:
Starting speed=ultrafast-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 19:21:45 EDT 2013
Starting speed=ultrafast-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 19:23:06 EDT 2013
Finished speed=ultrafast-mp3:  Fri May 10 19:23:13 EDT 2013
Filesize:  165M
Starting speed=ultrafast encoding:  Fri May 10 19:23:13 EDT 2013
Starting speed=ultrafast indexing:  Fri May 10 19:24:20 EDT 2013
Finished speed=ultrafast:  Fri May 10 19:24:26 EDT 2013
Filesize:  166M
Starting speed=superfast-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 19:24:26 EDT 2013
Starting speed=superfast-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 19:26:26 EDT 2013
Finished speed=superfast-mp3:  Fri May 10 19:26:31 EDT 2013
Filesize:  109M
Starting speed=superfast encoding:  Fri May 10 19:26:31 EDT 2013
Starting speed=superfast indexing:  Fri May 10 19:28:19 EDT 2013
Finished speed=superfast:  Fri May 10 19:28:23 EDT 2013
Filesize:  110M
Starting speed=veryfast-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 19:28:23 EDT 2013
Starting speed=veryfast-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 19:31:01 EDT 2013
Finished speed=veryfast-mp3:  Fri May 10 19:31:03 EDT 2013
Filesize:  51M
Starting speed=veryfast encoding:  Fri May 10 19:31:03 EDT 2013
Starting speed=veryfast indexing:  Fri May 10 19:33:28 EDT 2013
Finished speed=veryfast:  Fri May 10 19:33:31 EDT 2013
Filesize:  51M
Starting speed=faster-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 19:33:31 EDT 2013
Starting speed=faster-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 19:38:12 EDT 2013
Finished speed=faster-mp3:  Fri May 10 19:38:15 EDT 2013
Filesize:  59M
Starting speed=faster encoding:  Fri May 10 19:38:15 EDT 2013
Starting speed=faster indexing:  Fri May 10 19:42:46 EDT 2013
Finished speed=faster:  Fri May 10 19:42:48 EDT 2013
Filesize:  60M
Starting speed=fast-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 19:42:48 EDT 2013
Starting speed=fast-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 19:49:31 EDT 2013
Finished speed=fast-mp3:  Fri May 10 19:49:33 EDT 2013
Filesize:  63M
Starting speed=fast encoding:  Fri May 10 19:49:33 EDT 2013
Starting speed=fast indexing:  Fri May 10 19:56:06 EDT 2013
Finished speed=fast:  Fri May 10 19:56:08 EDT 2013
Filesize:  64M
Starting speed=medium-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 19:56:08 EDT 2013
Starting speed=medium-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 20:04:13 EDT 2013
Finished speed=medium-mp3:  Fri May 10 20:04:16 EDT 2013
Filesize:  60M
Starting speed=medium encoding:  Fri May 10 20:04:16 EDT 2013
Starting speed=medium indexing:  Fri May 10 20:12:10 EDT 2013
Finished speed=medium:  Fri May 10 20:12:12 EDT 2013
Filesize:  60M
Starting speed=slow-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 20:12:12 EDT 2013
Starting speed=slow-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 20:24:00 EDT 2013
Finished speed=slow-mp3:  Fri May 10 20:24:02 EDT 2013
Filesize:  61M
Starting speed=slow encoding:  Fri May 10 20:24:02 EDT 2013
Starting speed=slow indexing:  Fri May 10 20:35:35 EDT 2013
Finished speed=slow:  Fri May 10 20:35:38 EDT 2013
Filesize:  62M
Starting speed=slower-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 20:35:38 EDT 2013
Starting speed=slower-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 20:58:29 EDT 2013
Finished speed=slower-mp3:  Fri May 10 20:58:31 EDT 2013
Filesize:  60M
Starting speed=slower encoding:  Fri May 10 20:58:31 EDT 2013
Starting speed=slower indexing:  Fri May 10 21:21:10 EDT 2013
Finished speed=slower:  Fri May 10 21:21:12 EDT 2013
Filesize:  60M
Starting speed=veryslow-mp3 encoding:  Fri May 10 21:21:12 EDT 2013
Starting speed=veryslow-mp3 indexing:  Fri May 10 22:02:05 EDT 2013
Finished speed=veryslow-mp3:  Fri May 10 22:02:08 EDT 2013
Filesize:  53M
Starting speed=veryslow encoding:  Fri May 10 22:02:08 EDT 2013
Starting speed=veryslow indexing:  Fri May 10 22:42:53 EDT 2013
Finished speed=veryslow:  Fri May 10 22:42:55 EDT 2013
Filesize:  54M
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Maitreya
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 441

PostPosted: Wed May 15, 2013 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

DVD rips come from DVD's (duh) which at most (as i've seen) have MPEG-2 @ 8Mbit.
I guess the sweet spot for that crf is there because quality of the input is limited?
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