Re-encoding 720p help?

[max2k]

Originally Posted by jpwong

They wanted to make a 720p HD fansub into an SD fansub (I assume 480p).

But until now no one postet a resizer liner for avisynth...

[Desbreko]

Originally Posted by max2k

It would be better for him to invest his time fixing his system then trying to reencode.

This is true, but apparently he isn't interested in trying anymore.

A little over a year ago I was able to watch most 720p H.264 anime with little or no lag on my old PC with a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz, Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT, and 1 GB of RAM, using the CCCP and CoreAVC. So I'd think his should be able to handle it at least as well.

It makes me wonder if his video card is trying to do some kind of post-processing. One time a video color adjustment option in my Nvidia settings somehow got turned on and it made video playback way slower until I turned it back off.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by Desbreko

If you've got the CCCP installed and you're encoding through VirtualDub, you'd select ffdshow Video Codec, click the Configure button, and set the Encoder option to MPEG-4 to encode to Xvid.

and that causes a crash

An out-of-bounds memory access (access violation) occurred in module 'libavcodec'...
...reading address FFFFFFFF...
...while compressing frame 0 from 080a0020 to 07af0020 using codec "ffdshow Video Codec" (w32videocodecpack.cpp:696)...
...while running thread "Processing" (thread.cpp:163).

@max2k
I don't care a whole heck of alot about a little artifacting. I actually expect it since the image has to be downgraded somehow to make it play better. The file I was testing this with is actually a 704x396 .mkv in h264. Which, as I mentioned earlier, does play fine without any re-encoding, which makes it good for testing since I can compare without anything else being a factor. From what I saw of the 10-30 second bits I had re-encoded under the wrong settings, the subtitles "seemed" to work, but that really doesn't say much since it was using the wrong settings. Yes, it would be good to be able to resize things, but as I can't even get this working, it's kinda moot at the moment.

There is no "fixing" of my system. If it was a matter of "fixing" the reformat would have already done that. The only thing it actually accomplished was wasting a weekend, getting rid of a bunch of data, and requiring me to reinstall more stuff later. I have not made any unusual changes to my system, and have not altered any of the codec settings beyond what was specifically told to me. So, my system is what it is, and while I am open to suggestions on how to improve performance, I havn't heard anything other than what would seem to be guesses. In the past, I was always unable to get .mkv to play properly, it was only with more recent CCCP versions that I've been able to play lower-resolution ones.

As to that trolling remark... That wouldn't exactly make much sense in this case since I'm asking how I can re-encode to a lesser format/size using my own time and effort. If I was wanting to troll, it would make far more sense to just attack the groups who are releasing high-res files. I accept that people will want to have higher resolution videos, I accept that people will want to have softsubs, and wouldn't be asking for instructions on how to do this if I thought for a moment that groups would suddenly decide to stop doing those kinds of releases. Being hostile, or suggesting that I am lying about what I claim, just because you cannot understand how it can be, doesn't help anythng.

As best as I can tell, I don't have any post-processing options enabled, and there doesn't seem to be anywhere obvious where something like that might be listed as being enabled. But am a bit hesitant in trying to look around since I don't know where to start, and may likely lead back into the sort of situation that required me to reformat just to get things setup properly again.

[fireshark]

What have you tried already?

[crash-kun]

Formatting and reinstalling the OS doesn't help, so did you ever think that you may have a hardware problem? Maybe your clocks are set wrong and its causing your PC to not be as zippy as it should, maybe you have an old system (well obviously you do but thats beside the point). Maybe when you bought it it came with shit parts (or maybe you built it with shit parts). Looking that the CPU that you have (since most people bought it to over-clock to insane clocks) maybe you over-clocked it too much in the past and have now lost stability in your system. My point is there are WAY too many things that could be wrong to try and fix the system.

On the other hand you keep asking people to take your hand and walk you step by step though how to re-encode an HD mkv when you don't seem to do any work yourself. Flat out, its not going to happen. I know you have tried to fix your system but thats not what this is about. I like examples so here is one:

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

mkvextract lacks any sort of GUI

5 seconds + a Google search will find a GUI. I mean really, do you expect someone to do everything for you? Stop thinking that someone is going to write/give you a step by step guide for what you want to do, because when we learned how to do it, we had to figure it out. Honestly though, its pretty easy. You have already been given the information you need to re-encode, all you have to do is do some research and figure it out from there, but apparently you like to bitch and moan at people more. But thats ok I guess, because this is the internet, just don't expect anyone to help you if all you meet them with are comments like:

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

I havn't heard anything other than what would seem to be guesses.

Well I haven't seen you do any work so why should I want to help? There are some very smart and very knowledgeable people that have responded to your initial post but you seem to think that you know more than they do on the subject, so maybe you should just do it yourself?

Protip: if you want people to help you, be polite, and never think that someone is just going to tell you step by step what you have to do, this isn't middle school.

/end rant

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by fireshark

What have you tried already?

Immediately after reformatting I had followed the advice in this post.

Originally Posted by Revenger1589

Vagrant0, I used to have a similar CPU, a p4 @2.66ghz which was single threaded and able to play most 720p encodes. I also have tried a 2.8ghz Pentium D that played everything I threw at it. With the correct configuration, your CPU should be enough for most anime.

Uninstall every codec and on your machine (CCCP, coreavc, divx, etc) and get the latest CCCP beta, it should come with a relatively new version of FFDshow tryouts which is almost as fast as CoreAVC, and the latest version of mpc-hc. Use mpc as your default player and select Overlay Mixer as output (don't forget to uncheck "auto-load subtitles" inside playback.) The rest should be fine out of the box to give you the best performance possible. If you still have troubles, try changing the output to VMR7 (renderless) and checking "auto-load subtitles", the internal sub rendering from mpc-hc is faster the Directvobsub.

You really should be able to play H264 720p encodes just fine.

Didn't improve anything. More recently I've tried...

CoreAVC - didn't seem to improve anything
SM player - didn't improve anything, screwed up codec and open-with registries
Turning off deblocking within h.264 codec - improved performance
Turning off subtitles, preventing VSfilter from loading - no improvement
Terminating all non-windows processes (stuff that you cannot terminate without forcing a reboot)- no improvement
Changing the cache size in haali splitter - no improvement
Changing TS packet settings in halli splitter - no improvement
Changing haali splitter/mpec to use higher priority - minor improvement
Changing screen resolution to 800x600 - minor improvement, but only on files smaller than that resolution.


CoreAVC was being properly registered and used when a h.264 file was being played. Videos tend to play better using zoom player than mpc. After putting haali splitter to use a higher priority, things are a bit smoother, and depending on part of the file, play reasonably well for a little while. During this time, the processor usage (split across both cores) starts out at around 65-72%, but as things keep playing, it starts climbing up to 100% processor usage, with the player maintaining at about 98-99%. Once it hits that point, the video starts lagging behind the audio. If I pause when it starts, wait a few seconds, and start again, things play fine for about 15-30 seconds, then start to lag behind again.

In zoomplayer, in the Video Render properties, I have all the dierectdraw options toggled off except for DDrawPrimary (did not notice any significant change in one way or another). I have "check hardware overlay limitations" checked, and nothing else. In the program options, I have smartplay enabled, am using the overlay mixer. I have the same settings in MPC.

I have 2 hard drives. One with all the system settings, core programs, and codecs, and the other that I use for storage, installing lesser programs, most media files, and pagefile (I use a constant 5gb for pagefile, non-system managed). I believe my system drive is a WD800JD-23JNA1, and my storage is a Samsung HD160JJ. Both use a Sata 2 connection. I'm using an Intel Desktop Board D865GSA. Everything else should be listed in the dxdlg.

It's not that I doubt that a system with similar specs can't play 740p fine, just that there seems to be some liming factor somewhere that is preventing me from doing it.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by crash-kun

/end rant

First off, never overclocked. Havn't fried anything, it shows as the full 2ghz being detected. Same for ram, same for videocard. Even if systems do start to break down after age, I really havn't used mine hard enough, or done anything damaging enough to make it turn to break anything. I've been specifically avoiding those things which might lead to a quicker computer death simply because I can't afford to replace anything, and as things go, most replacement parts aren't exactly easy to get since it's an older system.

Second. The reason why I am hesitant to look around or play with settings is because A) I don't know what I'm doing, don't have the slightest idea what most of this means, and don't know all those things that you happen to. I have never encoded anything before, don't know the software, don't know the formats, and don't know what most of the settings really mean. For example, that error above, I don't know what it means, don't know why it would come up. So I ask and hope that someone can offer an answer or solution. B) I already tried what was mentioned, and before the reformat had spent a good 10-14 hours tweaking settings, testing, changing things again, testing, only resulting in making me even more confused about what I did or did not do already. Given that I don't understand what most things mean here, and am entirely new to this sort of thing, I wasn't sure what to look for. C) In not knowing anything, and in spending several hours, likely screwing up things previously in trying to figure out how to do it, I saw it much more useful to rely on the expertise of those here than to try and figure it all out on my own. Nothing I had done previously on my own had amounted to any sort of benefit. Sure, a 5 second google search would have worked, but I really didn't think of searching since often commandline tools do not have a gui, and when they do, they are usually included with the tool somewhere. Ok, my mistake. But again, a 5 second search could have turned up alot of other crap that doesn't help, or doesn't handle things in the exact way which was needed. Afterall, when I tried using the commandline tool most of the options and settings seemed to be focused around just extracting the video, with no mention of subs or .ass format files. THIS is why I asked.

Third. When you have 3-4 different people, telling you different things which conflict with eachother, require you to install god knows what, and doesn't seem to improve anything, what would you call that? I was hoping for just a single, simple, clear, concise answer, and have only gotten partials that come close, even still, I have given rep to those people since they atleast bothered to answer the question. The goal of my statements was not to discourage help, but to help prevent a situation where I have a half-dozen people telling me what they think I should do because they "think" it might help. I don't expect help from people, but I do appreciate it when offered.

[Arm]

Third. When you have 3-4 different people, telling you different things which conflict with eachother, require you to install god knows what, and doesn't seem to improve anything, what would you call that?

The problem is your system is good enough to play most 720p files fine, but for whatever reason it can't. Do not expect a silver bullet.

Tbh, it sounds like a heating issue. Make sure your fans & heatsink are working properly, or even add extra fans yourself for the sake of testing. If that doesn't help, then just download the XviD codec yourself (google.com) and follow the encoding steps on the previous page.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by Arm

The problem is your system is good enough to play most 720p files fine, but for whatever reason it can't. Do not expect a silver bullet.

Tbh, it sounds like a heating issue. Make sure your fans & heatsink are working properly, or even add extra fans yourself for the sake of testing. If that doesn't help, then just download the XviD codec yourself (google.com) and follow the encoding steps on the previous page.

It wasn't listed anywhere obvious, so I missed it. I did have the ffdshow video codec from CCCP, but when I tried using it I got an error message.

I can't confirm or deny that is is a heating issue, but doubt it since I've had an extra fan installed since I built the computer, and had actually planned things higher than what was needed for my computer, as Crash pointed out, the processor setup is one which people had overclocked extensively, and this was my original plan before I ended up losing a source of income, before overclocking seemed to be worthwhile. I could have overclocked, had enough air-flow to do it and not burn out, I just didn't. I can accept that the fans might be getting older, and maybe not working to their full potential, or that the arctic silver is not as effective as it was originally, but find it doubtful that I'm overheating. I can't seem to get speedfan to detect anything other than my hard drives, so cannot confirm. There was some light dust in the vents (cleared now), so I decided to test the computer in a more open space, with the cover off, allowing much more air-flow around the processor and videocard. There was no change in performance, nor how quickly things started to lose sync. So it probably isn't heat. I could probably confirm this by running something needlessly high in processing, for several minutes to keep things at 90% or higher heat up the system, and then right away test to see how quickly things crap out, going from the stance that if it was a heat issue, working from a warmed computer (and the room the computer is in) would cause things to crap out faster than if the computer were sitting there on idle. The same would be true in a case of watching one file right after another. Most of the time, when I watch things, it is from a near-cold state. With those files that slow down, they usually always slow down at the same points (not the file, know that for a fact), even if I have just recently restarted said file after leaving things playing for awhile. But, the idea was appreciated, atleast it reminded me to vacuum out my computer again.

At the moment, I'm more inclined to think it to be some sort of buffering or caching issue, but none of the settings I found for this changed anything.

I had already given up on the "silver bullet" or "tweak something" approach, which is why this thread is titled "Re-encoding 720p help?" and not "playback help with 720p?". I've already assumed that there was just something somewhere that was keeping me from playing these files despite my system probably being able to handle them, and was more concerned with just turning the files into a format that was watchable.

[Arm]

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

It wasn't listed anywhere obvious, so I missed it. I did have the ffdshow video codec from CCCP, but when I tried using it I got an error message.

There's multiple downloads on the first page of google by searching "XviD". You can refine it even more with "XviD download".

[TheFluff]

OK, I've had enough of seeing this thread bumped with a lot of confused babbling every day. Let's get this out of the way by expanding on the solution dark shikari posted in the very first reply, which is still by far the best technical advice in the thread so far; it's a pity that nobody seemed to understand it at all.

Let us review:

Originally Posted by Dark Shikari

ffmpeg -i inputfile -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 2 -acodec libmp3lame -scodec copy -ab 128k output.mkv

That'll re-encode to MPEG-4 while copying the subs.

You can add an -s option to reduce the size if decoding is still not fast enough (e.g. -s 720x480).

Then, here is the retard's guide to using ffmpeg:
1) http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ffmpeg+windows+builds&l=1
2) click the big obvious "ffmpeg-latest" download link
3) make a folder called ffmpeg somewhere, preferably directly under your C:/ drive, and unzip the contents of the package you just downloaded to it
4) go to the start menu, hit run, type in cmd, press enter
5) navigate to the folder where you have the animu you want to transcode (*)
6) type in

"C:/ffmpeg/ffmpeg.exe" -i "animu episode 01.mkv" -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 2 -acodec libmp3lame -scodec copy -ab 128k "transcoded animu episode 01.mkv"

and press enter (you obviously need to replace the filenames and path to ffmpeg with the ones that apply to you first)
7) now you get to wait; when it's done you'll have a new mkv that is exactly like the old one except it has 128kbps CBR mp3 audio and an xvid-like video.
8) THE END

(*) If you are unfamiliar with basic commandline usage, you do this by saying

X:
cd "my animu folder/seriesname"

or somesuch, where X: is the drive letter, and the stuff after the cd is the folder name you want to go to. cd .. takes you up one level, and cd \ takes you to the root of the current drive. Google or use the windows helpfiles for more info.


PROTIPS:

• As dark shikari said, you can add -s 852x480 or another resolution of your choice before the -ab option if you want to downscale to a smaller resolution (or upscale, but that'd be really pointless).
• If you want higher audio quality you can either change -ab 128k to -ab 192k, or just change -acodec libmp3lame to -acodec copy and remove the -ab 128k option.
• If you're too lazy to type out "C:/ffmpeg/ffmpeg.exe" every time you can add the ffmpeg folder to your PATH environment variable and just say "ffmpeg" instead; you do this by right-clicking my computer -> properties -> advanced -> environment variables -> edit the PATH one and add ;C:\ffmpeg at the end (the semicolon is important).
• If you want to transcode an entire series at once you can make a batch file that does it automagically for you (google windows batch file, or search the windows help file).

[Vagrant0]

Very good, that seems to do the job. Thank you for taking the time to explain it in plain english, instead of something where someone would actually have to be familiar with this stuff to understand. Tried it on both the .mkv files I was using for testing. The first one ran into some sort of error, and didn't finish, but it turns out that there was some error with the original file, so is to be expected. Second one took less than an hour, and seemed to work perfectly. It even worked when I tried using a h.264 mp4 file and saving as a .mkv, so was exactly what I was looking for.

[SirCanealot]

I AM ABOUT TO MAKE A SERIOUS REPLY.

Still any interest in fixing the damn thing? The heating issue is true-say, make sure the CPU fan is working fine. Take the side off of your case and set a fan to blow air into it. Also, google some software to check your CPU temp. Also, when playing back a file, crtl+alt+del and use task manager to check how much CPU power you are using when playing back a video file. I was having some odd problems with a quad core only going up to 50-60%, so I had to install CoreAVC and mess around with some other stuff (like eating Jaffa Cakes until the problem solved itself).