H:264 capture/render software

I have been using Sony Vegas 9 to capture and render into MPEG-2 for one of the two stations I shoot for and all has worked quite well but there has been some talk of using high quality MPEG-4/H:264 and we want to do some test runs, I FTP the video and the H:264 will yield smaller file sizes as well which is good and since they now have the codec installed in FlipFactory (telestream) at their end I want to try it.

What I am looking for is a capture and render utility that will give me these award winning results in H:264, I have Google searched around and haven't come up with anything obvious and affordable yet, perhaps I am not searching hard enough.

We are still SD 720x480 NTSC and I tried the MP4 options in Vegas movie studio 9 and wasn't impressed with the quality.

I don't have to edit as they have editors at the station so the editing part of the software is not critical at this point.

any thoughts?

thanks
mark

[NickE]

I like the h264 codec a lot. For videos on our team website, I've been exporting them as a Mpeg2 from premiere at the resolution that I want. I then run them through HandBrake with a size entered (I use about 12-15mb for match videos. Longer Videos obviously need a larger size.). You can also just specify an average bit rate. Be sure it's doing 2 passes.

It doesn't get the integrated capture that you want, but it works pretty well. The key to getting high quality with h264 is having 2 pass encoding, I've found. The first pass analyzes the video so that the second pass can allocate the variable bit rate, giving a higher bit rate to the parts that need it while still keeping the specified average bit rate.

[Jonathan Norris]

The upgraded HandBrake verison has the newest version of the open source x264 codec, which is best H264 encoder you can get without paying $1000s. They've put some really interesting new techniques into the x264 codec that makes it so you really don't need to use 2-pass, aslong as you use Constant Quality. use a Constant Quality of about 62% (its a logarithmic scale) and you will get great results. Aslong as you don't need a constant bitrate or file size use Constant Quality, it uses some really neat math to analyize each part of the video using the history of that area of the video to determine if it needs more bitrate or not. There is some really interesting and powerful programing going on in these open source projects like x264.

Thanks for this one! This site is way more useful than Google, Google didn't bring up this Handbrake software, I've just done a bit of experimenting with it and the video quality is stunning with file sizes 70% smaller than the original. The only thing it doesn't have is direct capture from a DV/firewiwre device so i would have to capture with Sony Vegas or Virtual dub and then render but it may be well worth it.

I just turned a few 500mb files into 90mb H:264's and I can't tell the difference in quality, encoding time was not bad at all, quad core i7 CPU on my laptop ran at 100% and is providing some additional heat for my room right now actually

In Ontario Telus has launched it's new 3.5G network which means I am getting FTP upload speeds of around 500k/s from my laptop in my truck as I am uploading news video to the FTP server, of course now I want even smaller file sizes so that by the time I am finished typing up the shot list on my blackberry and send the email notification the file is already on the server.

Amazing, 2 years ago these ftp feeds took 2-4 hours and it was considered amazing to be able to send video back from wherever I was stuck in ontario covering a snowstorm as opposed to 6 hours to drive it back and now 15 min feed times seem long and I'm aiming for 1min 30sec feed times

mark

Originally Posted by NickE

I like the h264 codec a lot. For videos on our team website, I've been exporting them as a Mpeg2 from premiere at the resolution that I want. I then run them through HandBrake with a size entered (I use about 12-15mb for match videos. Longer Videos obviously need a larger size.). You can also just specify an average bit rate. Be sure it's doing 2 passes.

It doesn't get the integrated capture that you want, but it works pretty well. The key to getting high quality with h264 is having 2 pass encoding, I've found. The first pass analyzes the video so that the second pass can allocate the variable bit rate, giving a higher bit rate to the parts that need it while still keeping the specified average bit rate.

In very early practice with this I have found that converting large .avi files to H:264 yields incredible quality at smaller file sizes with this but when I take my Sony vegas mpeg-2's and render them to H:264 I can see the loss in quality quite a bit so you may want to try some capturing at .avi and render to H:264 in handbrake and see what you come up with as you are more experienced with this than I am. This is fun though, this will give me something to work on as things slow down a bit through the holidays.

mark

Originally Posted by NickE

I like the h264 codec a lot. For videos on our team website, I've been exporting them as a Mpeg2 from premiere at the resolution that I want. I then run them through HandBrake with a size entered (I use about 12-15mb for match videos. Longer Videos obviously need a larger size.). You can also just specify an average bit rate. Be sure it's doing 2 passes.

It doesn't get the integrated capture that you want, but it works pretty well. The key to getting high quality with h264 is having 2 pass encoding, I've found. The first pass analyzes the video so that the second pass can allocate the variable bit rate, giving a higher bit rate to the parts that need it while still keeping the specified average bit rate.

[NickE]

Originally Posted by Mark Rozitis

In very early practice with this I have found that converting large .avi files to H:264 yields incredible quality at smaller file sizes with this but when I take my Sony vegas mpeg-2's and render them to H:264 I can see the loss in quality quite a bit so you may want to try some capturing at .avi and render to H:264 in handbrake and see what you come up with as you are more experienced with this than I am.

I'll have to try this. Thanks!

[Jonathan Norris]

Yea handbrake is awesome and so is the x264 ecoding engine, I recomend if you are interested in this stuff to read up on all the handbrake settings in their FAQ, you can use the high profile setting for even more x264 wizardry. If you are using this for broadcast video turn CQ (constant quality) up to about 64%, at that point the Handbrake community basically agrees that it becomes transparent to the source (though you will be doubling your file size). Get a small sample file, like 2 minute video, and play around with different settings till you find something that works for your application (to warn you some of the 'high profile' settings will break compatibility with certain players).

Last night I took some massive .avi's that I captured off my Sony XDCAM PDW-330 via Virtual dub from the GTR and Waterloo regional and made H:264's out of them and the files were so small yet I could not see the difference in quality.

Then I took some generic news video that I captured and rendered in Vegas movie studio 9 as mpeg-2 and rendered at H:264 and I could see the loss in quality.

Keep in mind this was first time practice and I haven't read the manual yet, definitely I will be thoroughly exploring this software more towards this weekend as things slow down for the holidays and I may even go back to hard capturing in virtual dub and rendering in H:264.

With this new 3.5G Telus network here in Ontario small files in broadcast quality is something I am really interested in now.

From a job security angle I need to perfect this, make it work perfectly every time via ftp and make it all very fast and then make it seem so complicated that they (stations) will never figure it out and of course think I am actually of some value and worth keeping for a few more months

mark

Originally Posted by NickE

I'll have to try this. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

(to warn you some of the 'high profile' settings will break compatibility with certain players).

Yes, found this out on my first try when of course I set it to 100 percent and of course the music sounded great (safety dance and hamster dance) but video would not play, I lowered settings to 70% and it played fine.

The thing I like about this from what I have seen so far is also how fast is renders, in daily news for basic operations in the field this need to be simple, work everytime and be fairly fast and I like what I've seen so far.

Now I just have to keep trying until I achieve perfect results and then that might just be my new procedure for capture and rendering video.

Ideally I could have the file sizes small enough that I could FTP all the news I shoot via the Telus 3.5G modem from the road and the stuff would be back at the station in minutes.

Already even with the mpeg-2's and this new network things have been working very well so well that the station's live sat truck operators have stopped speaking to me

mark

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by Mark Rozitis

Yes, found this out on my first try when of course I set it to 100 percent and of course the music sounded great (safety dance and hamster dance) but video would not play, I lowered settings to 70% and it played fine.

remember its a Logarithmic scale, so 100% will make the file size much bigger then the source, you shouldn't need to go above 65%.

Visual Hub is no longer supported by the developer so stick with Handbrake. You could easily make a script with the CLI (command line) version of Handbrake to convert whatever is dumped into a certain folder on your computer and re-encode it to another folder.

If you need any specific help feel free to PM me, I've helped out with the development of Handbrake a little when I have some free time (not very often these days).

[LBK Rules]

One thing to remember regarding the h264 codec is it is primarily a delivery codec. Generally speaking, it is best to capture as uncompressed as possible, preferably using a lossless codec. Where h264 is best used is on the final render for delivery, be it BluRay, YouTube, or as a downloadable file.

[Tony.Wu]

Adobe Premiere can do H:264.

Originally Posted by LBK Rules

One thing to remember regarding the h264 codec is it is primarily a delivery codec. Generally speaking, it is best to capture as uncompressed as possible, preferably using a lossless codec. Where h264 is best used is on the final render for delivery, be it BluRay, YouTube, or as a downloadable file.

So perhaps capture and save as .avi and then render to H:264 and then ftp the video out I assume?

I did some experimenting and my H:264 files ended up quite a bit larger than MPEG-2 but I am going for the highest possible quality as it's going to the TV stations.

I haven't quite figured out what will work best yet, I'm still having to render to SD as well, HD is coming maybe next year.

For me since I work in news I need something that for day to day use is quick capture, name the file, render and out it goes on the ftp. Time is critical.

The good thing is the mpeg-2's are working great so I have time to figure out the next level.

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

Yea handbrake is awesome and so is the x264 ecoding engine, I recomend if you are interested in this stuff to read up on all the handbrake settings in their FAQ, you can use the high profile setting for even more x264 wizardry. If you are using this for broadcast video turn CQ (constant quality) up to about 64%, at that point the Handbrake community basically agrees that it becomes transparent to the source (though you will be doubling your file size). Get a small sample file, like 2 minute video, and play around with different settings till you find something that works for your application (to warn you some of the 'high profile' settings will break compatibility with certain players).

Well I have been struggling with this H:264 all weekend as I am preparing test files for engineering to analyze on Monday and so far Handbrake is winning hands down in terms of good video quality in smaller file sizes, right now I am dealing with SD video which I have been capturing in Sony vegas movie studio 9 and rendering to mpeg 2, hoping the mpeg 4/H:264 will maintain same quality but with smaller file sizes as we ftp this video in from the road on Telus modems.

Tried Pinnacle Studio HD ultimate collection and streamclip and Vegas 9 but in Mpeg4 I am getting horrible results, I could be doing something wrong though, all good in mpeg 2 but once I go to mpeg 4 the end result is not even close to the quality of my raw .avi's or mpeg 2's but with Handbrake in the high profile setting I think I have something I can send to the station without being laughed at too loudly.

Then comes the HD H:264, that will be next and the challenge there will again be to have broadcast video in lengths of up to 7 min with file sizes not bigger than 300mb.

Rendering time, file size and video quality, a fine balancing act.

mark

[Jonathan Norris]

Mark, as you know by now all video encoding is a balancing act, I would say using Handbrake's high profile setting is a really good starting point even for HD encoding. There are many tools out there for measuring how close to the raw file your encode is picture wise, many developers and engineers on forums (particularly the Doom9 forum) have put a lot of effort into test x264 against comercial H264 encoders, and in most conditions it tests beter. But comparing one raw frame to an encoded frame won't tell you the whole story because alot of H264's magic juice comes with moving images.

It depends on what your station broadcasts at, you are probably broadcasting at 10-15mb/s mpeg4 720p. I would say that a 10mb/s 720p x264 encoded video would be noticeably better quality if its coming from a raw source. Heck if you are coming from a clean source I bet you could get away with a smaller bitrate, play with the constant quality setting on handbrake until you find something that is acceptable for you.