x264 BD compliant "perfect" settings

[Chewtobacca]

Please don't tell me what I have to bear in mind. There is no need to inform me of how commercial encoders are made or give me a potted history of x264's development: I know all that already.

You are speculating and suggesting, whereas I am stating what I know to be the case through experience. It is pointless to compare studio-authored discs that are pressed with "home-brew" discs that are burnt. I didn't say that open GOP is inherently problematic nor that commercial discs with open GOPs cause problems; the thread title makes it clear that x264 encoding is what is under discussion.

If people do use x264, I suggest that they close GOPs and set weightp to 0 and b-pyramid to none. But people can do what they like (and usually do).

[jerryshadoe]

No offense Chewtobacca, but I'm glad that some of this info was posted in this discussion, because I learned a couple of things I was unaware of. So, actually, thanx2all of you for posting

However, without some of the detailed technical "know-how" and just based on my experience, IMHO it is BS that there is a BD "standard" spec. I'm NOT saying that there isn't actually one, supposedly, in place, but my experience and that of numerous of my friends and family members, has shown no "universal" compatibility. What I mean by this is that both factory-pressed/store-bought retail BDs and "homebrew" burnt BDs play and/or don't play on various equipment and there is never a "set" rule if it will. Have done side by side tests with two identical players next to each other, where one will play a retail/burnt BD and the other won't. This has also happened to me with various retail/burnt BD on PS3s of the same model/update, where one would play and the other wouldn't. Granted, it's happened more often with "homebrew" BDs, but I have also had issues where using MultiAVCHD to burn a BD using the same settings of same project, one disc would play and the next wouldn't and which piece of equipment will play it is a crap-shoot as well. Anyway, these are just my experiences...

On that note though, as technology and the way we watch media is changing, I care very little when a disc won't play as long as I can watch the footage using any player on my laptop and just connect it via HDMI to the HDTV. But I guess that's a little off-topic though, LOL

[Chewtobacca]

That's all fine.    It is just that people often confuse what is in spec with what plays on their players, and it's important to distinguish the two.  If something is in spec, it ought to play (and is more likely to play than if it is not), but there is no guarantee of its doing so.  Likewise, something that is out of spec might well play when theoretically it shouldn't.

My old DVD player would merrily play discs with AC-3 at 640kbps, so when converting converting BD to DVD, I would forgo recompressing the audio so that it did not exceed the maximum bitrate for DVD: 448kbps.  Was the resulting disc in spec? No. Would I release a disc like this for one of my projects?  Of course not, but it was fine for my purposes.

[Valeyard]

Well bluray was rushed to the market in an incomplete form to compete against hd-dvd. Bluray-3D for instance wasn't defined until years after the format's release, which is why manufacturers are forced to encode 2D content on releases to ensure comparability with players manufactured before the 3D spec was finalised. But we're not talking about 3D here, we're talking about GOPs and whether open-gops prevent seeking on some players. And it's not surprising that really old players might have some trouble with some things, but to me it's unthinkable that it would be impossible to seek on open-gop encoded BDs because that's something that has been done since DVD.

And IMHO it's BS to say there isn't a standard spec for BD because it was defined in 2006.

[jerryshadoe]

Agreed, there should and is a distinction between the two. It just seems to me that there was more of a "set" spec for DVD than there is for BD.

[spoRv]

Even if it's in BD specs, I'm still not 100% sure if it's better to use it, or not... according to Doom9 - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533 - it's just an optional parameter (to me, it means the encoding could be done with or without it, with apparently no problems, but we all know it's not true...); on the other hand, following x264bluray - http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i-p - they use open-gop for all encoding...

To open-gop or not to open-gop, this is the question...

I don't care if software players read perfectly the directory or the .m2ts main file, as this thread is about BD... at the end, I would like to have compliant AND compatible BD-R discs, so using open-gop or not doesn't make the difference in the compliancy, but in the compatibility...

I'm quite sure the open-gop usage is NOT the only "guilty" factor if a BD-R is not perfectly compatible with standalone players - I suspect many other factors are important: muxer and/or authoring software, BD-R disc brands and type (HTL or LTH), BD burners and players brands and/or models...

As you can see, there are A LOT of factors where we can get a compatible (that could be read by a standalone player) BD-R disc, and, unless one could try ALL the possible combinations - that will be impossible, of course - we could only base our choice using our own experience, and the one of the other members.

Last thought: as BD is getting obsolete, many people will not use it in the future, but rely just on software players... from my point of view, there is something *precious* to have a physical medium between my hands, read the cover notes, putting the disc in the player, press play, hearing the disc spinning inside the player... call me an old dinosaur; yes, I am, and I'm proud to be!

[Image: dinosaur-watching-tv-5437277.jpg]

[zoidberg]

Hi guys, are these still considered the best settings for x264?

[spoRv]

As far as I know, yes. I'm still using these for all my projects.

But maybe some others could chime in to confirm (or deny) this.

[Evit]

I decided to give a shot at DVD Architect for the authoring of my EFNY project but the program insists on re-encoding my h264 files which is a sign that they are not 100% compliant.
I found this thread where someone lists some presets to make the h264 DVDArchitect-compatible http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/37266...Encore-CS3

for - Blu-Ray film (23.976fps):
--crf 19 --bluray-compat --min-keyint 1 --b-pyramid none --tune film --weightp 0 --bframes 3 --nal-hrd vbr --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --keyint 12 --slices 4 --aud --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --sar 1:1 --fps 24000/10

Compare it to the presets I used

--bluray-compat --level 4.1 --preset slow --tune film --keyint 24 --sar 1:1 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --b-pyramid none --weightp 0 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --merange 24"

I highlighted some elements not present or different from my presets. What do you people think?

[Valeyard]

The keyint is wrong, it should be 24 for film, 25 for PAL, and 30 for NTSC video. Also, depending on the bitrate of the audio you may need to limit the max bitrate to 38000 or 37000. Here are the settings used on Deep Red 4K:

ID                             : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID                        : 1 (0x1)
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 3 frames
Codec ID                       : 27
Duration                       : 2h 7mn
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Nominal bit rate               : 35.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate               : 38.0 Mbps
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                         : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate                     : 23.976 fps
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.704
Writing library                : x264 core 142 r2479kMod dd79a61
Encoding settings              : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=0:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.00 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=1 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=1 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=14 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=1 / keyint=24 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=24 / rc=abr / mbtree=0 / bitrate=35000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.00 / qpmin=4 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=38000 / vbv_bufsize=28500 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.14 / aq=1:1.00
Color range                    : Limited
Color primaries                : BT.709
Transfer characteristics       : BT.709
Matrix coefficients            : BT.709