best way for PAL 720x576 AR16:9?

[Nik]

hey all!

Is there any suggestion how to encode DVB-S SD tv videos with x264 codec?

I tried 2 ways and various x264 settings.

a) resize 16:9 to 1:1 and 720x400 lancosz3 (then I crop off 3-4 top and bottom, for some reason I don't see black borders left and right)

b) no resize, encoding it 720x576 but with PAR set to 64:45 pal 16:9

what I noticed (all other x264 codec settings kept the same):

a) of course is a bit smaller in size and framesize but seems a bit cleaner to me
b) is bigger than a) in size and frame size, letter/font outlines have an aliasing-effect, parts of the resulting video look a bit clearer though, looks like it has some more details but the aliasing effect might lower the overall quality

I also tried 2way with avg bitrate which I set to get around the filesize of my CRF video test.
I tried a bit rate of 1200 which somehow looked better than 2000 kb/s, I don't know why yet.
I also use MMVSR of 32, hadamard search with SR10, no psy trellis and no psyRDO so far

is there any suggested way to encode this video material to get best quality?

for solution a) I tried to change every x264 setting and compare the results each time

I hope this posting is not too puzzling for you ^^;

Thanks for advice!

PS: I try to get best quality but small file size, encoding to share videos on the internet.
since it all depends on the video material I don't know what numbers to name. my last encoded video was 720x394, x264, ac3, 24m:3s, 142 MB
I didn't encode anything like this using the PAR option set to 16:9, but I guess it would be around 200 MB this way.

[qwerty84]

... encoding it 720x576 but with PAR set to 64:45 pal 16:9

My advice if you choose this method :
Don't use avidemux's predefined PAR (which is 64:45 for PAL 16/9)
Use a 'Custom' PAR of 16:11.

720/576*64/45 = 1024/576
720/576*16/11 = 1047/576  The central 702 pixels contain the 16/9 picture.

You can also read this : http://community.avid.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.PostAttachments/00.00.54.02.29/BBC-_2D00_-Commissioning-_2D00_-A-Guide-to-Picture-Size.pdf

[Nik]

hey querty84

thanks for your reply
setting it to 16:11 makes it look odd though and it looks a bit more blurry IMO

there are no black borders at the side btw
I crop off 3 pix top and also bottom though to make the top and bottom borders look sharp