30 thoughts on “AyumiLove Megui x264 Encoding Settings Guide”

1. Archie April 9, 2017 at 7:34 AM

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2. fumozhe March 4, 2016 at 4:55 AM

   Hi, I just stumbled upon this tutorial. I tried encoding my anime, and it worked! …. except for the subtitle. Somehow the subtitle is lost. Could u guide me how to keep the subtitle from video source?
3. Ayumilove July 17, 2013 at 7:28 AM

   Thanks Fred for sharing Megui settings and feedback! I have tested with 20+ videos on ME RANGE that it only slows down the encoding by a little but helps out in removing jagged lines. I think different shows would use different amount of b-frames. Most videos would use only 5 b-frames. Anime would be slightly more since its static picture in some scenes where the mouth only moves.
4. Fred July 16, 2013 at 3:55 AM

   From my experience, I say the sweet spot for b-frames is 11 b-frames for anime.

   [libx264 @ 0x1f945e0] consecutive B-frames: 3.9% 5.2% 7.2% 21.5% 10.1% 17.6% 4.8% 16.3% 3.0% 3.4% 1.1% 5.8%
   So 3.9% used 0 b-frames, 5.2% used 1 b-frames, etc.

   As for the merange, I feel 32 is probably a bit too high unless you have complex, fast, sudden motion.

   I really think having psy-rd at around 0.8:0.1 is really important for anime.
   “It values complexity values as close to that of the original frame as possible. Thus, it strongly biases against blurring, and for that matter, any significant loss of detail.”
   It’s been shown that people prefer a image with the same detail of complexity rather than a blurred image. So having low psy-rd values is a no-no for high quality anime encoding.

   I use the slower preset mainly just because of trellis to improve quality-per-bitrate. Also, slow is only about ~5-10% better than medium (default). Slower is only about 5% better than slow. So from medium->slower, you get less improvement vs time.

   So this is my command to encode:
   x264 –preset slower –crf 16 –tune animation –deblock -1:0 –psy-rd 0.77:0.08 –colorprim “bt709” –transfer “bt709” –colormatrix “bt709” –ref 9 –bframes 11 –opencl –partitions 8×8,b8x8,i8x8,i4x4
5. Ayumilove March 22, 2013 at 6:26 AM

   Hi Nikki, you would need to see the video source FPS with the rendered FPS. For example, if the video source plays at 25 fps but your rendered video play at 23.97 FPS, you will notice that the video moves much faster than the audio, causing it to desync (video not syncing with audio). Check the video duration if its the same as the original video. If its the opposite where the video duration is ok but the audio seems to start out 3 second faster or 3 second slower, you can adjust it within Media Player Classic to add the delay.
6. nikki March 21, 2013 at 9:51 PM

   hello, i have done the above steps but the output audio of the movie is 3 sec delay. why is it?
7. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 6:47 PM

   hye,oh! ok! thank you for the info
   i’ve tried encode but it seems from 500mb+(.vob)>.mkv it become 41mb+
   and it seems like i didn’t encode it correctly,
   you have tutorial how to encode it?
8. Ayumilove February 5, 2013 at 6:35 PM

   Hi E-one Rez, I recommend that you use VBR 0.5 max. If higher than that, might as well not encode the audio at all (use direct rip) because it will certainly bloat up the filesize while reducing the audio quality. Example: If the video file size is 100 MB, and if you only extract the audio out, it is 30 MB. After encoding, the video size is 80 MB, but when you extract the audio out, its 35 MB (+5 MB more). This is known as audio file size bloating. No matter how you encode the audio, the original audio is always far better than the encoded one. If original audio filesize is 30 MB where as the encoded audio filesize is 35MB, then do a direct rip (don’t encode audio).
9. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 11:28 AM

   it will be like this right?
   program –level 5.1 –tune film –deblock 1:1 –b-adapt 2 –qpmin 10 –qcomp 1.0 –aq-mode 2 –merange 24 –me umh –direct auto –subme 10 –trellis 2 –psy-rd 0.00:0.00 –no-mixed-refs –no-fast-pskip –output “output” “input”
10. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 9:45 AM

    ok! on the link i post,he use vbr 0.79 is that 320kbps? what is the pros and cons?
11. Ayumilove February 5, 2013 at 9:41 AM

    Hi E-one Rez, CRF23-25 will be good. Personally I use CRF25 to save hard disk space, and if the show is really good (like the ones you will rewatch it often) I’ll set it to CRF23.
12. Ayumilove February 5, 2013 at 9:39 AM

    For audio, use VBR 0.4 (equivalent to 128 kbps) which is medium quality. Going below it and you will notice weird sounds (dull sound) or the instruments not playing well. If the video is mostly dialogue (like anime) than 48 kbps (VBR 0.3) will be suitable for it but when it plays Anime OST (Official Soundtrack) it will sound terrible. If you are feeling generous with the file size, change the audio settings to (VBR 0.5, equivalent to 192kbps). Take note that you will need good headphones or speakers to hear those quality.
13. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 9:16 AM

    for audio is there anything need to change?
14. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 9:15 AM

    i follow your setting for HD +the one in the comment
    i will post the result here if i can (^-^)/
15. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 9:09 AM

    thank you so much!!+quick reply!, i learn something new today too.
    I see,but for PV that is like a sad song/slow song+PV using CRF 23-25 is good enough right?
16. Ayumilove February 5, 2013 at 8:58 AM

    Hi E-one Rez, The tutorial link provided is not about encoding, its more on the side dish. It just teaches you on how to clean up the video such as cropping out the black bar and applying filter, removing noise, etc. Refer to the guide above on the real video encoding. The things to change is (Tuning: Film) + (Number of BFrames: 3) + (Number of Referenced Frames: 3) + (M.E. Range: 24) + (Deblocking Strength and Threshold: 1). The reason why the number of frames is reduced is because most of the live action or PV (Promotional Video) have lots of fast action scenes. Fast action scenes means a lot of movement, screen changing constantly. Therefore, they do not benefit much from more frames. Anime on the other hand mostly have static picture where the background does not change but their mouth shape/moves changes. As a result, having more frames will reduce the size even further. CRF25 would be the one in between medium quality + medium size. CRF28 for Film just looks awful. I have encoded some Japanese live promo videos 1080p with CRF28 and it doesn’t suit my quality preferences 😀 In short, film videos (CRF Range: 23-25), Anime Videos (CRF Range (23-28) depending on the file size budget. Take note that the lower the CRF, the quality improves at the cost of increasing file size.
17. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 7:50 AM

    currently i’m using this tutorial to encode my PV(japanese Music Video)
    http://xlawsknowledges.blogspot.com/2012/04/megui-membuat-script-pada-pv.html
    http://xlawsknowledges.blogspot.com/2012/04/part-iii-proses-encode-pv.html
    i don’t know if it is a good setting or not,but if you can help improving the quality+not too big size,it would be great
18. E-one Rez February 5, 2013 at 7:26 AM

    Hye,i’m a newbie on this encoding,can you give me setting/guide for encoding PV(not Anime)? i really need to encode some PV right now,it would be great if you can help.Also the source for the pv is from DVD and .vob
19. ronald valvalin October 29, 2012 at 4:45 PM

    i already fix my problem thanks for the guide its an encode error i hit a bug in my profile settings .. last quick question which is better the 1 pass encode or the 2 pass encode?
20. ronald valvalin October 24, 2012 at 11:11 PM

    oh i see thanks for the tip… 😀
21. Ayumilove October 24, 2012 at 7:50 AM

    @Ronald Valvalin: If you set to No Target Size, it will base on the CRF or the CBR rate you have set. Example: you set it to be 400 KBPS, it will encode those videos at that rate, regardless fast or slow motion scene. By setting a Target File Size, MEGUI will auto recalculate total bitrate required for all scenes to fit in that specified file size.
22. ronald valvalin October 23, 2012 at 12:51 AM

    the original source have no black wavy lines and its in good quality yup that is how i encode my videos the “auto encode” but i didnt yet try to set my encode in No Target Size what is the difference between them? coz im encoding my anime in mini size
23. Ayumilove October 21, 2012 at 9:09 PM

    @Ronald Valvalin: Does the original source file has the strange black wavy lines? If yes, then you might want to re-download the video from another source. Could you try on a different encoding mode? There are 2 ways : one is Megui One-Click and the other is Auto-Encode. Sometimes when I’m re-encoding 10bit videos with One-Click, strange video side-effects appears, so I use Auto-Encode Mode that uses .avs file.

    If you have not used AutoEncode before, create a text file and place it at the video file location that you want to render. Type this DirectShowSource(“VideoFileName.mkv”). Save it and change the file extension to .avs Then use Megui to open this file. It will pop up a video screen that plays video without audio. Close that window and hit AutoEncode. Select container MKV or MP4 (your preference) and set No Target Size. Click Queue to proceed with the encoding. After encoding, check the results (video output) to see if this issue still persists.
24. ronald valvalin October 21, 2012 at 1:56 PM

    i downloaded the sourcefile on subgroup so it suppose to be good am i right its on 1280×720 the issue is not appearing on every scene it some kind of like fluctuating on some scene and its kind of annoying.. yup my settings is your Megui setting
25. Ayumilove October 21, 2012 at 1:07 PM

    @Ronald valvalin: I have not experience that issue before. Are you using my Megui Video encoding settings? I’ve been using the same settings as above, so it wouldn’t cause an issue. It might be your source file? Try encoding again on a different anime video to see. If it does not happen, its definitely something wrong with the video file.
26. ronald valvalin October 21, 2012 at 1:04 PM

    hey can i ask you something have you ever experience this while encoding in MEgui? http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j447/arn2devilz/vlcsnap-2012-10-16-19h07m38s3.png
27. Ayumilove October 12, 2012 at 10:17 PM

    Hi Thompson14, I’ll need to check out their video settings first and see what they did.

    BlackandWhite no Fansub uses these settings:
    cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=0 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=467 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.60

    It is quite similar to my CRF28 SD (Standard Definition) or LQ (Low Quality) video but this one uses 2 pass 460kbps. Using my settings will pull in better quality for fast motion but don’t expect too much from it unless you are using CRF25 or my HD settings.
28. thompson14 October 12, 2012 at 11:37 AM

    i have seen in for example black&white no fansub (spanish fansub) they used 10bits for their videos, and they got a really good video quality in a 90mb file, i tried to do the same video with 10bits, and i didnt get the same quality, well, it was nice, but, their video quality was superior, any idea?

    PD: sorry form my english, i tried my best 😀
29. Ayumilove August 9, 2012 at 7:58 PM

    @jinwyi:

    Your PC has good specifications. With SSD and at least 8 GB ram and 8 threads, it should not take long. For me, I’m using a low-end PC, takes me 2 hours+ though.
30. jinwyi August 9, 2012 at 11:55 AM

    I’ve encoded a video with your settings in 15 minutes… I’m wondering if I did something wrong… cause you said it should take about an hour.

    PC Specs:
    i7 930 @ 4.0ghz (HT)
    2x ATI 6870 OC @ 1100mhz (2200mhz)
    1x SSD OCZ Vertex 4
    3x 1TB Cavier Black
    6x4gb RAM 1333mhz