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Take Encoding Up A Level (Part 2)

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1/2/2013 9:05:27 AM

Got your software? Good, now prepare to get very confused.

1.    Get graphing

Fire up GraphStudio, which is a complex bit of DirectXShow voodoo. Select ‘Graph > Insert Filter' under the default DirectShow selection, then double-click ‘Haali Media Splitter; click 'Browse' and select your video. Now repeat the process, but double-click 'ffdshow Video Decoder’. Two boxes are now displayed in the window. Use your mouse to drag a line from the file's Video pin to the FFDShow In pin.

2.    Graphs and Scripts

Graphs and Scripts

Select 'File > Save graph (.GRF)’ and name it video.grf. Now delete the two boxes and repeat the whole process, but select 'ffsshow Audio Decoder' and name the graph file audio.grf. Start AvsP, then drag the video.grf and audio.grf files to the AvsP window individually. Just before each closing bracket, add audio=false to the video line and vldeo=false to the audio.

3.    Write the script

At the start of the first line add vid=. Add aud= to the start of the second line, and on the third line add AudioDub(vid,aud). On the next line also add ConvertToYV12(), which adjusts the colour space. We're building a script here that AviSynth will run, which is why it seems like programming. Technically we just need the video, but having the audio included too can be handy.

4.    Resize me

The script can resize the video to anything you like. Add the line Spline36resize(x, y), with x being the new width and y the new height. After cropping, if the width remains 1,920 you can calculate the new height with this equation: (cropped.height/1,920) * 1,280. Round the number to the nearest whole pixel and you should have an aspect-correct image.

5.    Go GUI

Go GUI

Save the script and fire up MeGUI. This is a complex front-end for the x264 encoder. Under Encoder Settings, make sure 'x264' is set and click 'Config'. Set AVC Level as 'level 4.1', Encoding Mode as 'Const' and Quality between 18 and 21 -18 being best. Tick 'Show Advanced Setting > Analysis' and set ‘Subpixel refinement' to 08.

6.    Twiddle your thumbs

 Twiddle your thumbs

Set File Format to 'MKV' and drag your AVS script to the top AviSynth Script box. Check the video output location and name, and see the tip on p75 for how to test a short clip. Click the top 'Queue' button to encode the video, and use the bottom button to encode the audio. The video will lack audio - see the next walkthrough to fix that.

Getting in a muz

It's time to add the audio back in. Sound good?

1.    Yet another tool

MKVToolnix

Let us introduce you to MKVToolnix, which you can download and install from www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix. This tool will enable you to extract and combine all manner of streams within any number of container files. Our aim here is to take the old video's audio and then add it to the new encoded file. This is called muxing. Open the Start menu and find MKVmerge Gui

2.    Cross the streams

2. Cross the streams

The muxing process is straightforward - you just need to add the files to the input files section at the top of the sreen. As you do this, the various tracks and elements contained within them are displayed as a whole below. Once you've added the two files, deselect everything, then select the video stream from your new MKV file and the audio track from the original file.

3.    Muxing around

3. Muxing around

Enter a final output file name and location in the bottom box, then click 'Start muxing'to generate the final file. It shouldn't take long. Once it's finished, test the file and make sure the audio syncs correctly - skip near to the end of the video to check. There can be slight discrepancies, in which case you might want to use the next step and mux in the remixed audio.

4.    Using audio tracks

Despite its name, this package doesn't just handle MKV files - it's possible to add a huge range of audio tracks to the Input Files section, from AC3 and AAC to the various DTS tracks. These can then be muxed into the encoded video file. If you're taking this track from MeGUI then you can be sure that its timing is exactly the same as the encoded video track.

Just the basics

If you thought all that was complicated enough then prepare to be terrified - we haven't even scratched the surface of video encoding here! In fact, we've probably taken a couple of shortcuts to keep this tutorial as slimed down as possible.

The authoring tools used in this tutorial match those offered by professional systems. This means there's an incredible wealth of options at your fingertips, but we've provided the core standards here so you can output video at nearly the best possible quality and retain DX VA compatibility without having to mess around with settings and options too much.

For example, we skipped over the handy subject of cropping. Adding the line (0,0,-0,-0) to the AVS script crops out black bars. The numbers here refer to the number of pixels to be cropped from the left, top right and bottom. To confuse matters, the remaining number of pixels needs to be divisible by 16 without leaving a remainder, so adjust the crop amount (usually upwards) to suit if required.

We're happy to admit that this route is not by any means the fastest. In fact it's pretty darn slow, but quality is the key here not speed. If you're after speed, check out the Freemake Video Converter, which can hammer through conversions in a matter of seconds. Bizarrely, this high-end x264 encoding tool - despite supporting as many cores as you can throw at it -actually degrades the encoding quality as the number of threads increases.

If you take time to check out the sites some of these tools are taken from, you'll find out just how versatile this system is for encoding video. As long as you have the audio, video and subtitle files on your system then you'll be able to encode and mux them together at any resolution, in almost any format that takes your fancy. If the source is of a sufficiently high quality then you can be guaranteed a crystal-clear encode.

 

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