Megui - x264 HQ Video Encoding Guide
Megui - All you need to know and have shame to ask...
Note: A lot of people know all the stuff that i will say next. This is not for them.This is to the people that have no idea how to convert video files. Of course the other can read and learn something or help me improve this...
Well, in the next few lines i want explain to you how i convert some of my movies and tv shows to a small size file but keeping most of quality of the source.
I want to tell you that my main language is not english, so you can expect some errors when i speak. I'm sorry about that.
In the past Xvid was the reference for video encoding. It's still the reference for the Scene. But the use of x264 is increasing very much. Each day we see more and more movies encoded with x264. And i'm not talking about HD rips of Bluray wich are already very popular. I'm talking about of high quality video in a small file size. They are very useful for people that have low speed internet or dont want waste many space to save the files.
So we can see some m-HD with very high quality (1-2GB) and 300-500MB HQ re-encodes using x264. In my opinion a 700MB file encoded with this new codec it's perfect. There are already many people doing that, but they could be more...
The next question is: what we use to do this? Well, if you use Windows one of the best options ( if not the best...) is MEGUI!
In next lines i will try explain how it works and how configure it. I'm not a big expert on that, i will just show what i know. It's what i can do, don't blame me!
Megui is a free tool and you can find it in SourceForge.net:
| Code: |
| http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui |
or a link to it in Doom9 forums:
| Code: |
| http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96032 |
or just here:
| Code: |
| http://rapidshare.com/files/178813913/megui-0_3_1_1001.rar |
Doom9 is a forum about media encoding and encoders/decoders. If you have a problem its a good place to find the answer.
At the time of this tutorial the last stable version is 0.3.1.1001 (Dec 23 2008).
If you downloaded Megui now you are fine. If you dont, make sure you have the lastest release. Megui has a very good thing: it's always being updated. I want warn you: maybe you find some different things in your version. It's because updates are out almost every day.
But what needs to be updated?
Megui use a lot of tools. Video encoders (x264, xvid), audio encoders (mp3,AAC,faac), muxers (mkv,mp4,avi) and a lot of other things that must be up to date.
By default Megui will try update avery time you start it. But you can always run the updater in Options>Update or Ctrl+U.
Here is a screen. You can choose what you want update and what you dont. I advise you update everything. But in my case i just update the ones related with x264 and just forget the tools related with xvid and avi.
You may need to restart megui. Do it.
Some people have some problems updating. Check if your antivirus/firewall is not blocking megui from access to internet. And i think its not a good idea update all the tools at same time. First choose the "core" and "data", then the other things, step by step. This way you can be aware of some problems.
If you under a proxy you may need to configure megui to deal with it. Go to Options>Settings>Extra config.
If you already have Megui installed you should edit the update mirror just like they say in SF. Use the button "Configure servers..." to do it.
| Quote: |
![]() Posted By: sharx1976
Date: 2008-12-17 15:30
Summary: New auto-update mirror
We had to change the secondary update mirror.
Just go in the settings (Options -> Settings ->Extra config tab -> Configure servers) and replace both stable and development project357 mirrors in this way:
http://mewiki.project357.com/auto/stable/ with http://megui.xvidvideo.ru/auto/stable/
and
http://mewiki.project357.com/auto/ with http://megui.xvidvideo.ru/auto/
DO NOT change the main megui.org url.
The newer versions of megui (from 0.3.0.3013 on) will contain this fix but only for fresh installations. If you update using the auto-update function you have to do the changes manually as explained above. |
Now it's time to see if all tools are properly connect to megui. Go to Options>Settings>Program Paths. If you see all the path it means that the tool is installed. If you only see the name (eg. x264.exe) it means it is not installed.
However, there is an audio tool that you must install by yourself. It's Nero Digital AAC Codec (mp4). If you want small size video files you need use small size audio files. With this audio codec you can have almost the same quality in 64kbps mp4 file compared with a 128kbps mp3 file. This means same quality with half of size.
Download from Nero's official site:
| Code: |
| http://www.nero.com/eng/downloads-nerodigital-nero-aac-codec.php |
or here:
| Code: |
| http://ftp6.nero.com/tools/NeroDigitalAudio.zip |
or here:
| Code: |
| http://rapidshare.com/files/178815657/NeroDigitalAudio.rar |
The tool you need is "neroAacEnc.exe". You can use the previous screen to browse nero audio executable and associate it to megui. ...\megui\tools is a good place to put it.
You will use megui to encode video files. to do that you must be able to decode the source files. This means you must have the necessary codecs to open the file. I assume you already have all the codecs to open your files. If you dont here are the ones i use:
To play Xvid:
| Code: |
http://www.koepi.info/Xvid-1.2.1-04122008.exe
http://rapidshare.com/files/178818269/Xvid-1.2.1-04122008.rar
|
To play x264/AVC/H264:
| Code: |
http://www.coreavc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=59
http://rapidshare.com/files/178817262/CoreAVC_Professional_Edition_v1.8.0.0.rar
|
To play Nero AAC Audio:
| Code: |
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDshow.htm
http://rapidshare.com/files/178820678/ffdshow-rev2280-20081102.rar
|
With those tools i'm able to play all the files i need.
Now you the a tool named AviSynth. That will be the interface between the source file and our encoder.
Avisynth is a scripting language and a collection of filters for simple (and not so simple!) non-linear video editing tasks. It frameserves video to applications.
You can find it here:
| Code: |
| http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57023 |
or here:
| Code: |
| http://rapidshare.com/files/178822504/Avisynth_258.rar |
With this we are ready to start our encoding.
Soon...
Mkvtoolnix
Most of media files using x264 video codec are packed in a mkv file (Matroska).
If you want more info go here:
http://www.matroska.org/
Mkv is a video container, wich is how the data is stored in the file. Avi and mp4 are other types of video containers. Video and audio are encoded in separated jobs and in the end we need to merge both of them. Video file can be mp4 or mkv (the output of megui). Audio is usually mp4. If you want merge them in a single mkv file this tool is a great solution.
You can download it here:
| Code: |
| http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/win32/pre/mkvtoolnix-unicode-2.4.1-build20081207-44-setup.exe |
or
| Code: |
| http://rapidshare.com/files/178819534/mkvtoolnix-unicode-2.4.1-build20081207-44-setup.rar |
When you start it looks like this:
The good thing here is that you can drag&drop files. It's very useful. In "Input files:" are show the files opened. In "Tracks:" you can see what's inside of the file. In this case there is a MPEG4 track (x264) and a audio track (AAC). Using button "add" you can add more tracks to the file, as much as you want. Usually there are one video track, one or two audio tracks, and a couple of subtitle tracks ( yes, you can add subtitles to the file and they ARE NOT hardcoded).
Using button "append" you can, for example, merge a movie that was splited in two parts.
It has a lot of other options like split the output in fixed size. Do some research and you will like this!
For example, if you want split your output video in 100MB parts, you just need go to "Global" tab and check "Enable splitting..." and then choose that size in "...after this size:".
If you want create some video samples you can use this too. But the method i use isnt very good. But with this tool i dont know how to do it better...
In "Global" tab you can see the settings i use. That will create 5 files. The first four files are 1 min long. The last one has the whole video less the first 4 min. This way you have 4 samples of 1 min each. You can use one of them. And then delete the other files. This is not a good method because you need duplicate all you video and you need free space to do it.
Yamb
Yamb is the equivalent of mkvtoolnix for mp4 container. Get it here:
| Code: |
| http://yamb.unite-video.com/YambInstaller-2.0.0.8.exe |
or
| Code: |
| http://rapidshare.com/files/178812598/YambInstaller-2.0.0.8.rar |
I dont use it a lot because i think mkv is a better container, but you are free use it as much as you want. Here is just a reference to it.
Video Thumbnails Maker by Scorp
If you want create a preview of your file you can use this Video Thunbnails Maker.
Download it here:
| Code: |
| http://www.suu-design.com/downloads.html |
or here:
| Code: |
| http://rapidshare.com/files/179129685/VideoThumbnailsMaker_Setup_v1.0.1.2.rar |
Just add a file and hit Start. It supports avi, mkv and mp4 files. You just need to have the proper codecs installed to open the file.
You can configure it with a lot of options. By default it includes 5 five different sets. Test it and choose the best!
Here is an example:
END
Note: I included some Rapidshare links with at least 5MB of size. Dont use them if you dont want. You always have the other mirror. But if you will use them THANKS for support me!
The files include some video samples encoded using Megui. Check it!
Please reply to this post. Give me some feedback about it!
Link checked on Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:28 am [WBB_Linkchecker_Bot]