Ffmpeg crf bitrate " I tried using CRF 30, and the problems seems to be gone. Constant bitrate is only ffmpeg -i "D:\video\Mixer test. x264 has other encoding methods as well, but this is out of the scope here. y4m -c:v libvpx-vp9 -threads 1 -crf <crf> -cpu-used <effort> -y output. Still, the end result video has a maximum bit When you encode with CRF and no cap, FFmpeg prioritizes quality over bitrate and varies the bitrate to deliver the specified quality, which ranges from 1-51 with lower numbers delivering higher quality. mp4 -c:v copy -c:a pcm_s16le output. MOV -vf "transpose=clock,transpose=clock" -crf 18 -c:a copy out. Thanks for this answer. It utilizes FFmpeg for processing, allowing users to specify a directory containing videos and automatically convert them based on predefined criteria. mkv Following suggestions here I first added -framerate 60000/1001 to the input. Use the argument -print_format json for getting the output in JSON format. 264 would be too extreme. The posts have been split up with this, the finale putting the fasts and slows presets from both H. This phenomenon occurs invariably for all videos. So if it is higher, it will be compressed by these websites. See FFmpeg Wiki: H. if the video goes black or no motion, no bits are sent, i. mp4 -c:v hevc_nvenc -rc constqp -qp 34 -b:v 0K output. To optimize I used the-crf option but something went wrong. Please read the VP8 and VP9 guides for more info. -r 30 - Sets the framerate to 30. You can influence the quality of the output file using various options. The CRF videos were done via Handbrake using x265 10-bit, whereas everything else was done via ffmpeg using x265 or x264 8-bit. ffmpeg; h. If you use this command: ffprobe -i input. Using constant rate factor is superior (it's one of x264 modes of operation). g. It works. A similar video with 5k bitrate but 1080p res compresses seamlessly with FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. Remember that the resulting bitrate has its upper bound set at whatever you specify with -b:v. mp4 3M = 3 mbit/s, you RvidD – about why CRF lower than 16 would be necessary: first of all, there's a curve in bitrate–distortion that starts at QP/CRF 0 (completely lossless) and ends at QP/CRF In most cases (such as storing a file for archival), letting the encoder choose the proper bitrate is the constant quality or CRF-based encoding. Let's look at a few examples: Reducing video bitrate ffmpeg -i input. Complications of Measuring Bitrate. To simplify, CRF targets a quality level and the bitrate is adjusted accordingly to achieve the desired quality. For getting only the bit_rate entry, add argument -show_entries stream=bit_rate. For libvpx-vp9 I did: ffmpeg -i test_video. CRF (Constant Rate Factor) is the default quality setting for the x264 and x265 encoders. In effect, it throws time at the problem. And you can try bigger CRF values if you need smaller file size. For 1080p, I find if I have a In effect, it throws bitrate at the problem. Mahdi Ataollahi Mahdi Ataollahi. The specified -b:v 20M becomes the maximum allowed bitrate. (Even processing I'm trying to encode sample video clip or audio track with ffmpeg and libfdk_aac with variable bitrate mode-vbr 3: ffmpeg -i sample. It varies by codec implementation. Test with different CRF values (0 to 63) on a short segment on the input. Use the highest value that still gives you an acceptable quality. Encode your video using CRF (for example, you want your output to look like a CRF-18 video, so you use CRF-18); Take the average bitrate from the CRF encode and use it to encode the 1st pass of a 2-pass encode (you can discard the output In ffmpeg while encoding with libx264 i came across crf, profile and preset Whats the difference between them in terms bitrate. 265 HEVC from the fastest preset ultrafast through to veryslow with CRF values from 20 to 30. The default range is from 4 to 63, but it can be tweaked further. Then, when I encoded it into h264, ffmpeg converted it with a constant 800k bitrate As a result, the file size became 60MB. FFmpeg commands I using are the following: ffmpeg -i input. The main issue is which codecs you use. That's 28. mkv The two option for you to adjust are -crf and -preset. To facilitate the evaluation and utilisation of LCEVC as a codec, V-Nova LCEVC libraries are supported by a build of FFmpeg. Fastest hardware accelerated encode method: ffmpeg FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. Yes, I know I can run CRF, however when I want to stream to a remote location, the typical CRF results are still too high of a bitrate. With a constant quantizer (-qp in terms of ffmpeg) all frames are encoded with the same compression ratio. Can someone enlighten me? ffmpeg -i input. In this command, -c:v copy tells FFmpeg to copy the video stream as-is, and -c:a flac tells FFmpeg to encode the audio stream using the FLAC codec. If you leave out crf, the specified bitrate will just be taken as an average The -crf argument is not working. Then what the lower value CRF (0-16) encoding is good for? I have tested most of the usable CRF values (Including CRF 0). A preset is a group Also, attempting to use the same bitrate and other parameters as the input will most likely not achieve what you want. But ffmpeg has changed level of crf for 10 bit from -12, 51 to 0, 63. I'm the author of the blog post you linked. Video bitrate. 10 is a well accepted value. . Here, we replace the -crf parameter and use the -b:v 1000k option to set the video bitrate to 1000 Kbps. However, be aware that libx264 does not strictly control the maximum bit rate as you specified (the maximum bit rate may be well I'm trying to control the max bitrate output using ffmpeg library on android. The encoder will still drop lower than that to maintain a faster FFmpeg is a popular tool amongst video developers. file" The latest conversion ended up at 4. CRF (constant rate factor) is your quality level. According to the x264 encode documentation, in the CRF topic, it is informed that for every 6 additional points, the file size is reduced by approximately 50%. The -c:v copy option copies the video stream without re-encoding it. Last arguments: <io>-c:v libx265 -crf 23 -ac 6 -c:a aac -preset The . -b:v 3500k - Targets video bitrate to 3500k. Typically you would achieve constant quality by compressing every frame of the same type the same amount, that is, throwing away the same. Use x264 crf 23 - its default constant-quality mode- and be happy. Now this is an apples to oranges comparison. This encoding scheme have normally no real-time requirements, e. I've tweaked the bitrate some on that as well as changed the scale to a smaller size, but I don't want to have to make the videos really small (in terms of scale) to accomplish a faster encoding. First, I set bitrate like below, but it doesn't work: AVCodecContext *m_c; m_c->bit_rate = bitrate_value; Following this question I can set bitrate manually with this command: ffmpeg -i <input> -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -maxrate 2M -bufsize 4M <output> The CRF parameter and maximum rate/bufsize depends on the resolution and type of content. Have a look at https://trac. Influencing the Quality. mkv The quality is determined by the -crf, and the bitrate limit by the -b:v where the bitrate MUST be non-zero. end up settling for higher CRF values than usual as the additional settings in the x264-params string increase average bitrate for a given CRF value when compared to "-crf (18-24 usually)" i already wrote that i use values over 18, i read the FFmpeg encoding guide. 2020 color space. mp4 Constant bitrate is bad for quality. ffmpeg -i "input. To achieve fixed bit rate, you must set minrate, maxrate and b:v to the same value. Especially the libvpx encoder and -auto-alt-ref 0 part. -b:a 256k - Targets audio bitrate to 256k. e bitrate is 0 for this particular moment, then when things starts to move again, the bitrate sky rockets. e. Video data is naturally represented as variable bit rate in Youtube, Twitch, etc do not support adaptive bitrate, only constant bitrate CBR, currently ffmpeg does not support constant bitrate out of the box so you need to set multiple parameters with the bitrate you want (b:v, minrate, maxrate, ) Youtube require you to have audio in your stream; Twitch latency is doubled if there is no audio in your stream This guide focuses on the encoder libx265 which can offer around 25–50% bitrate savings compared to H. webm If instead you want to use variable quality and just specify the upper bound for the bitrate, then you need to set both b:v and crf. But I face a problem with the bitrate value. mp4 -v 0 -show_entries format=bit_rate -of compact=p=0:nk=1 >bitrate. I mostly stream via Jellyfin and do so outside my I've recently been encoding videos using FFMPEG through the Shutter Encoder GUI. Many (most?) . As for scaling, just use the scale filter like this: -vf scale=1280:-2 or -vf scale=480:-2. Note: With VP9, for -crf greater than `0`, CQ mode (see below) is generally recommend over Q for better use of bits. If average bitrate is not to your liking, drop the quality. txt This will put exactly the total bitrate into the textfile called bitrate. This is best used with two-pass encoding. But these are small details, and the difference in processing time was staggering! CRF=22/Preset=superfast took 7min 30s , where as CRF=26/Preset=slower took 3h 34min . However, be aware that libx264 does not strictly control the maximum bit rate as you specified (the maximum bit rate may be well FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. The following documentation is regenerated nightly, and corresponds to the newest FFmpeg revision. If you are using -crf with other codecs you will likely need different values for VP9. avi -c:v libxvid output. mp4 -c:v hevc_nvenc -c:a copy d3. mp4 Is it possible to get CBR with h265 ? If it isn't possible can you share some official information about it Here is a solution using FFprobe: Execute ffprobe (command line tool) as sub-process and read the content of stdout. Code: ffmpeg -i input. Command Line Tools Documentation. With two-pass you set the bit rate and Handbrake reads the video on its 1st pass to work out how best to apportion the available bit rate, on its 2nd pass, depending on the complexity of each frame. Is it possible to use crf and also set the buffersize in ffmpeg. ffmpeg -i nd750_a0040. x265 uses CRF 18 by default. Use the highest -crf value that still provides an acceptable output and the slowest -preset you have patience for. mp4. However, by adding a “cap” to CRF, you limit the data rate to that cap. 264 video encoded with libx264, while retaining the same visual quality. Use the advanced For -crf replacement from libx264 may be -cq or -qp from h264_nvenc:-crf Select the quality for constant quality mode-cq Set target quality level (0 to 51, 0 means automatic) for constant quality mode in VBR rate control-qp Constant quantization parameter rate control method (from -1 to 51) (default -1). Refer to the documentation of your specific streaming service for bitrate recommendations. VMAF is a codec-independent objective metric of comparable quality between source and output, using USC & Netflix's (and others) algorithm, which attempts to produce a model-based metric that is superior to other objective metrics such as PSNR/SSIM. mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 22 -preset:v veryfast \ -ac 2 -c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 output. when encoding/transcoding an video. Anything higher may benefit more from AAC-LC due to less That would contain the bitrates of every video stream. This has been my to-go command so far: ffmpeg -i "input. CRF typically outperforms bitrate targeting by targeting a quality, rather than a bitrate. No filler data. input video file-c:v libx264. At both CRF 24 and CRF 22, even the lowest ffmpeg. In CRF mode, a faster preset may require a higher bitrate to achieve the same CRF, or in bitrate mode, FFmpeg and VLC do not automatically downmap colors from 10 -> 8 bit when capturing pictures. txt, nothing more, nothing less. 265, since the bitrate for H. ffmpeg -i example. ffmpeg h265 comparison file size ffmpeg h265 comparison fps ffmpeg h265 ffmpeg -i input. That trick does not tell you if it has HDR10 info, but it’s a ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -maxrate 1M -bufsize 2M output. I bought a new computer some time ago. or hang out in the #ffmpeg IRC channel on Freenode. mp3 -acodec libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -ac 2 out. I want to know which is the unit that ffmpeg uses for bitrate. mp4 -c:v hevc_nvenc -rc vbr -cq 34 -qmin 34 -qmax 34 -b:v 0K output. Bitrate is specified in bits/s (unless you are using a very old ffmpeg), and 200 bps is not usable for anything, add k to get kilobits/s. The defaults for mpeg4 are not well chosen, so the target bitrate is quite low. How can I pass the same options to it? v 0 over-rides the default 2mbps bitrate as noted by Gyan -cq 1 means target quality level 1 (highest) range of 0-51. ffmpeg -y -i input. bufsize will determine how religious ffmpeg is about keeping your bitrate constant. webm Choose a higher bit rate if you want better quality. mp4 -c:v libaom-av1 -crf 30 -b:v 2000k output. ffmpeg will adjust. Transcode already compressed video to dynamic frame rate without re-encoding. In the case of ffmpeg, this is something like: ffmpeg -i <file> -vcodec libx264 -vpre slower -acodec copy <outfile> CRF. file" -c:v libx265 -crf 17 -preset veryslow -b:v 10000k -minrate 10000k -maxrate 10000k "output. ffmpeg builds a transcoding pipeline out of the components listed below. non-CQ/CRF), a good ballpark concept of a -bufsize target is to use between 1x - 2x your -maxsize bit rate (or target bit rate, depending on the codec and encoding mode). mp4 -vf mpdecimate -vsync vfr video-export-mpdecimated-without-reencoding. 264 profile. You can set the values The exponential factor I found in my tests was: 12. mp4 -vcodec libx264 -crf 30 -preset veryfast -c:a copy -s 960x540 output. This answer brought the solution to my task. NotEnoughAV1Encodes is great for AV1, I'm not savvy enough to get AV1 to grind all my CPU cores without it. Use CRF 23+ for videos in 4K. Presets are listed in x264 --help. 264 (FFMPEG + libx264) compression parameters; H. mkv I used FFmpeg with this command to convert a video: ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -x264-params opencl=true -preset veryslow -crf 19 -maxrate 7000k -profile:v high -level 4. avi. 330 10881-10881/someapp D/home FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. mp4 -c:v libvpx -crf 10 -b:v 1M -c:a libvorbis output. As a result, crf values that approximate the visual quality in those encoders will tend to be higher in SVT-AV1. mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 30 -c:a copy output_h264. 264 with H265 HEVC together. mov -movflags faststart -c:v libx264 -vf mpdecimate -vsync vfr -r 120 -preset veryslow -crf 24 screen-recording-vfr. file -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -maxrate 3M -bufsize 6M output. use H. 1 audio, 3 subtitle languages, and it looks really good, sometimes even better than the original Blu-Ray due to less blocking artifacts introduced by the AVC The default rate control for x264 (FFmpeg's default h264 implementation) is CRF. 4gb size. How do I get the bitrate information from the original video and then match the bitrate when encoding? I tried to reduce bitrate of rawvideo (I guess yuv420p) to reduce file size. Are you using two pass encoding? If you like two-pass encoding and vp9 In x264 for 10 bit crf of minus 12 (-12) is lossless and has a range from -12 to 51 while in ffmpeg it is 0 to 63. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. FFMPEG Tutorial: 2-Pass & CRF in x264 & x265. Improve this answer. That did not improve anything. Key features include setting maximum resolution, frame rate, and bitrates for both video and audio streams. mp4 This will effectively "target" -crf 23, but if the output were to exceed 1 MBit/s, the encoder would increase the CRF to prevent bitrate spikes. Consult your locally installed documentation for older versions. Slow pass of AV1 at CRF 28 (file is mislabeled, oops) saving ~65% with OK VMAF scores in my opinion. avi and I saw that the bitrate of the videos was around 1030 kb/s. YouTube or Netflix are using 2-pass or even 3-pass algorithms, where in the latter, a CRF encode for a given source determines the best bitrate at which to 2-pass encode your stream. Using CRF ensures that an average quality is preserved, independent of the original video resolution or its complexity. I would like to make sure what the word "lossless" here means. specify preset (mode) to use for conversion, where ultrafast is fastest but primitive and veryslow is slowest but most efficient-crf 18. 0 means automatic (in my case around 15mbps) 1 gives about 15mbps, 26 I gathered the following rate control algorithms are commonly used when encoding modern video formats like h264, HEVC or VP9. mp4 A veryslow pass of H264 CRF 23 saved ~25% of the size. 264), and for 4K, I recommend you switch to H. Instead of sticking to the bitrate, you can use the CRF method, which aims to maintain a constant quality throughout. mp4 -r 30 -vcodec libx264 -crf 0 output. And what happens if I specify -b:v 7000k in combination with -rc cbr? ffmpeg doesn't complain about that, it works and I don't get why. CRF is specific to certain encoders; not all of them support it. In the latter case, lower values mean better quality. I use FFmpeg to record videos from a RTSP stream (the codec is H. 264 Video Encoding Guide for more info on that. The only ideas I can come up with for CRF are doing multiple sample videos and testing the bitrate and then estimating using that for the rest of the duration of the video. Youtube and Vimeo usually reduce your bitrate to 25mbs. These parameters govern how many frames will pass before the encoder will add a key frame. 5,172 5 5 gold badges 32 32 silver badges 40 40 bronze badges. So we can estimate that: size final = (size_crf18 * (1-0. Conversely, the lower the bitrate, the lower the quality of the video, but the smaller the file size. Rate control modes. Members Online • fgt67cam Questions regarding encoding by bitrate instead of CRF It's only useful for streaming, in which case you need to respect VBV as well (which specifies a maximum bitrate over time, as well as the average bitrate). Smaller sizes for bufsize can be harmful to quality in that they don't allow enough In contrast, with CRF encoding, a single-pass encoding mode, you choose a quality target and the encoder adjusts the bitrate to achieve that quality level. The difference is how they end up at those bit rates. mov -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -b:v 1000k -vf scale =-1:720 output. The more tools, the better the quality at a given bitrate. Any still frame one would extract from the resulting video should come out to the same visual quality, regardless of how movement Note that the -qmin parameter must be set equal or lower to the CRF you're choosing. mkv When I checked the details of it, it said it has a 308k variable bitrate. Encoding with CRF and FFmpeg looks like this: ffmpeg -i input_file -crf 23 output_file. To avoid repeating what’s in a lot of forum posts, I’ll just note that “crf” defaults to 23, which seems H. Follow asked Apr 16, 2017 at 9:22. the decoder to be able to handle (b frames and CABAC for example). Complex scenes will require more bits than simple easy to compress scenes FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. For example, you can change the bitrate of the video using the -b option: -crf 23: Sets the Constant Rate Factor (0-51, where lower values are higher quality) This method allows FFmpeg to adjust the bitrate dynamically while maintaining a given quality level. mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 output. However, be aware that libx264 does not strictly control the maximum bit rate as you specified (the maximum bit rate may be well Video Compression Script: Reduce File Size. mp4 -map 0:v -vframes 1 out. Full HD clips will require a much larger bitrate (above 8 MBit/s for H. mp4 -c:v libvpx -b:v 1M -c:a libvorbis output. Lower is better, but visually not usually noticeable. Assuming -c:v h264 maps to the encoder libx264 then the default rate control method uses -crf 23, not a specific bitrate value (-b:v). This is the H. ffmpeg -i vid. resulting in good bitrate savings while retaining subjective visual quality and character. mp4" -c:v libx265 -preset medium -pass 1 -b:v 5000k -preset 5 -x265-params -strict-cbr -crf 28 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output. For the former, a bitrate of 0 has meaning, so it has to be set, although with constqp mode, it doesn't matter. mp4 However when I use the hevc_nvenc, I get a very high bitrate (about 2M), I need to have a bitrate as low as possible and keeping almost the same quality. You have asked many questions here, but I think you're overthinking it. The higher the buffer size, the higher the allowed bitrate variation. mp4 -c:v libvpx -crf 10 -b:v 20M -c:a libvorbis output. ffmpeg. The external encoding library libxvid: ffmpeg -i input. So if I have 1080p video how can I get visual lossless how much must the bitrate be when I use -crf 18 Thinking strictly of bit rate constrained encoding modes only (i. ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -maxrate 1M -bufsize 2M output. I want to compress that with H265. mkv and. avi is just a container. The script is designed to compress video files. Two-pass encoding should only be used when you need a fixed-size file, otherwise, CRF is the preferred method. That way 0 should be lossless but in some cases it is not if it somehow selects profile (like high 10 or high 422) that does not support lossless. The existing video is 2160p with 5k bitrate and 1. When setting -crf X, each frame is encoded with that target quality level X. I think normally people would use 2-pass with a set bitrate if they have a specific size they're trying to hit. Bit rate mode : Constant ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -maxrate 1M -bufsize 2M output. 264 codec-preset. ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx265 -crf 26 -preset fast -c:a aac -b:a 128k output. This allows bitrate fluctuations to maintain a target quality level. FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. The program’s operation then consists of input data chunks flowing from the sources down the pipes towards the sinks, while being transformed by the components they encounter along the way. 3 Detailed description. lower values would result in better quality, at the expense of higher file sizes. *** ### Encode video as x265 HEVC 10bit. " As the bitrate is specified in bits-per-seconds I would assume that FFmpeg will The only way to get good quality results in a single pass is to use a constant rate factor mode. Other encoders will ignore bitrate if crf/qp is set. It works fine, except for the quality because ffmpeg is using a very low bitrate. webm By default the CRF value can be from 4–63, and 10 is a good starting point. 0] in ffmpeg commandline this is done similarly. When I use the ffmpeg command line, the output bitrate is 166. szatmary Just a fair warning for others reading this; I've noticed that VBV (ffmpeg -maxrate for x264) is far more indiscriminate about what bits it throws away, than a proper 2-pass rate-controlled encode. FFmpeg, by default, sets a bitrate of 2 Mbps for nvenc. Media SDK's ICQ and LA_ICQ are the best match for this class of algorithm. For test purpose I executed this command. avi -c:v h264_qsv -crf 10 -r 50 -c:a aac -b:a 192k -ac 2 vid. Get a recent ffmpeg. The first example is a very extreme Q mode setting and is provided for illustration only. Once you hit value that produces small enough and good enough output, use that value. A common rule-of-thumb among hobbyists is to use ten times the framerate of the FFmpeg has two encoders to output MPEG-4 video. mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 29 -profile:v baseline -level: 3. 78 kbit/s. Those produce VMAF scores above 95% mean an mostly keep the 1% low over 93% (dips to 90% here and there). compare it with the maxbitrate, using smaller one to transcode. as bitrate reduction via max_rate is not uniform, but it hits the scenes that require the highest bitrate first. -ar 44100 - Sets audio sample rate to 44. “crf” causes variable bitrate, and “qp” causes a constant bitrate. Depends on the encoder. avi -c:v libvpx -pix_fmt yuva420p -crf 20 -b:v 0 -auto-alt-ref 0 output. Thats really less and you can see this in the video after the encoding. Work slower by turning on or increasing encoding features that allow the encoder to use a lower bitrate. This is what CRF (constant quality) mode is for. mkv Note that I set -maxrate 7000k to set the maximum bit rate for the video. This plot was constructed using this code by combining the "VMAF vs CRF" and "bitrate vs For the first time, the bitrate is calculated based on the resolution and crf compression ratio. Edit: I checked the file sizes given CRF 20 and CRF 30 on libx265. However, running this command on Android does not work. You're right that you might not expect this to be the case, since CRF is mainly about bitrate. But to answer your question: Yes, the command snippet you posted does exactly what you want it to do, although I would personally elimited FFmpeg as the middle man and just put these arguments in the encoder arguments. 264 video encoder used by ffmepg and, if available, is the default encoder for MP4 output. mkv I'm using ffmpeg to check the bitrate of given videos and my goal is to reduce it to half of the original bitrate. 10 Second video. Using a higher GOP via the -g ffmpeg parameter results in a more efficient encode in terms of quality per bitrate, at the cost of I am surprised by how small files are when encoded in ffmpeg with the libx264 codec in Constant Rate Factor mode equals zero (-crf 0) that, according to the documentation, is "lossless". Splitting and jointing CRF files should result in the exact same video if the key frames are the same. 18 is the CRF with very marginal quality loss, but bitrate will be probably low. nvenc uses bitrate as a parameter in its ratecontrol to set buffer size. 0 -bf 2 -coder 1 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy output. On its own, CRF is unusable for adaptive bitrate streaming, where data rates in the ladder rungs need to be limited. 18 is a good number. – I use FFMPEG (command line Input) to convert my videos to a specific output format. However, an additional constraint is applied in the encoder, depending on the bitrate set by -b:v:. ffmpeg -i input. That still did not improve anything. The crf flag ensures a variable bitrate for constant quality, if I understand the page linked below correctly. It'd take thousands of hours this way with my library - even if I automated it with an ffmpeg script. 18-28 is a sane range (for 8-bit encoding). To have a constant quality (but a variable bitrate), use the option ’-qscale n’ when ’n’ is between 1 (excellent quality) and 31 (worst quality). CRF is a technical target of quality, determined by the developers of a particular codec. The video come out very high quality and low file size. This comprehensive FFmpeg encoding comparison includes H. 1 kHz. 31 this bitrate according to the crf calculate. As was mentioned by someone else, the practical limit is that it can never give you more quality than the source but an equal limit is the settings of all the so-called "psy-optimizations", AQ, MB-TREE, PSY-RD, PSY-Trellis, Trellis, etc, that all ffmpeg -i input. Q mode bitrate : FFmpeg examples. An FFmpeg argument implementing Add this after the audio bitrate that must work. ffmpeg -i video-export-old. In detail -crf 23 - Constant Rate Factor encoding mode that adjusts the file data rate up or down to achieve a selected quality level rather than a specific data rate. mp4 -c:v libx265 -crf 30 -c:a copy output_h265. I am interested in CRF-only bitrate management (I want to avoid artifacts during demanding scenes). mp4 # CQP (Constant Quantization Parameter) ffmpeg. preferred quality level (bitrate), where 0 is lossless and 51 is worst-c:a copy $ ffmpeg -i sample. mkv FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. See here for a CRF versus Constant QP CRF is a “constant quality” encoding mode, as opposed to constant bitrate (CBR). The format option may be needed for raw input files. There are options for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Reply reply FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. So visually both will be same. aviffmpeg -b 515 new The new transcode arguments were the exact same as the last ones meaning the file/worker would most likely be stuck in an infinite transcode loop if not stopped. If -b:v 0 is used, the bitrate can vary freely Overall your approach has one big flaw: You target a bitrate when using CRF, which kinda kills the point of CRF: It targets a quality level and allocates as much bitrate as needed to hit it. Higher presets can result in a very fast encode, but will make some compromises on visual quality for a given crf value. I've two questions: Do the options -crf 0 and -qp 0 achieve the same result because for 8 bit x264 it is the same as in ffmpeg from 0 to 51, for 10 bit CRF of minus 12 is lossless or qp 0. Slower Preset increases the bitrate because it enables methods for video quality improvements, which adds to the bitrate. 264 codec. mkv" -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 28 -c:a copy -x265-params profile=main10 Double the Opus bitrate to 64 kbps, turn film grain synthesis on (the source animation has it), and use a CRF in the 40s. Your script would look something like this (but ideally you'd change bufsize as well):. So that goes against your "w/o running ffmpeg multiple times. This document describes how to use LCEVC in this specific ffmpeg -i input. Example: ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset fast -crf 24 output. Constrain the H. ; Convert the returned string to dictionary using dict = json. m4a mediainfo always shows. exe -i input. avi You can target a bitrate with -b:v. For H. High is best, but usually does not do much better than main, and is not supported by Using the same encoding settings, a non-turbo two-pass and a CRF encode are visually identical at the same bit rate. I notice in CRF sets the maxrate almost as high as the original video's bitrate, then lowers it for frames that are not as complex. Edit: See Cliff's note below if you have an MKV video instead of MP4. Higher values mean more compression, but at some point, you will notice the quality degradation. mp4 Running this command on the command line via python works absolutly fine. 264 video compression standard (eg. avi is not the main issue. 264; what does -crf mean in ffmpeg resize video file How FFmpeg -CRF works? It picks certain values for quantizing matrixes, and uses them no matter what the resulting bitrate it. mpg -q:v 1 -q:a 1 -y -c:v libx264 Setting the CRF (a constant quality mode) and a video bit rate at the same time does not make any sense. What are recommended parameters to be set instead of leaving them at their defaults? Here is what I got so far, pretty simple: ffmpeg -i in. CRF 20: 1. Unlike uncompressed video, frame sizes of encoded bitstreams are expected to vary widely. Following command works for me like a charm: ffmpeg -i input_video. Last modified 20 months ago As a result, crf values that approximate the visual quality in those encoders will tend to be higher in SVT-AV1. CRF 30: 350kb This includes setting the max bitrate to the desired average bitrate to get (something very close to) constant bitrate. Commented Dec 9, 2022 at 10:29. mp4 (FFmpeg's default h264 implementation) is CRF. I installed nvenc for ffmpeg to encode my videos with the H. To invoke it, a command of the form is needed: This makes sense to me, given a crf value you get a value of PSNR and changing the preset can decrease the bitrate but increase the time to encode. The -c:a pcm_s16le option converts the audio stream to uncompressed PCM audio with 16-bit depth and little-endian byte order. If you require a low audio bitrate, such as ≤ 32kbs/channel, then HE-AAC would be worth considering if your player or device can support HE-AAC decoding. 85% for each additional CRF point. Therefore, if your CRF is too low, and your bitrate is set to -b:v 2M, your final bitrate will be 2 MBit/s. This defines the quality of the video. CRF encoding works @OP, CRF is a bit rate control method, lower CRF values will produce, in theory, higher quality, because they use more bit rate. mp4 As I am not able to decide what exact bitrate and we never really know what bit rate will be the best for a certain video there I am using the crf flag to set the quality of the video. Share. I can see the difference between OG vs. ffmpeg: ffmpeg tool; ffmpeg-all: ffmpeg tool and FFmpeg components; You should read the manual or ffmpeg -h or both. Based on CRF Guide (Constant Rate Factor in x264, x265 and libvpx), quoting:. mkv -vf unsharp=3:3:1 -c:v libx265 -tune:v grain -crf 24 -c:a copy out. 264). 7M. I also made a 1 CD encode: at CRF 34 with film grain synthesis, 5. 1285)^(crf-18)) And isolating the Constant rate factor CRF allows the QP to go up for frames with a lot of motion or down for still frames resulting in a consistent perceived quality while keeping the compression Two-Pass: Requires a bitrate. 5x more time for a little bit better quality. mp4 -an -s 720*404 -vcodec libx264 -crf 18 -pass 1 -f mp4 -y NUL [libx264 @ 051106c0] kb/s:23. You should not use nal-hrd cbr with mp4 because the avcc format used in MP4 doesn't support filler data. Value is in bits. Use -maxrate and -bufsize to force the VBV (Video Buffer Verifier) to constrain the output bitrate: ffmpeg -i input. Long version: I'm trying to maximise (subjective) overall quality in a library of video files given a fixed total file It really depends on your upload speed. So take a screenshot with VLC or FFmpeg (ffmpeg -ss 60 -i GlassBlowing. If, however, you fix the bitrate then the CRF value is used as a target and is not fixed. See the FFmpeg H. 264 and H. Specify your own target with -b:v 2M (depending on your resolution) or even better, use constant quality with -q:v 5 (as suggested by Mulvya in the comments). Similar to x264, the x265 encoder has multiple rate What is the Constant Rate Factor? The Constant Rate Factor (CRF) is the default quality (and rate control) setting for the x264 and x265 encoders. mp4 -c:v libx265 -c:a copy d2. They also seem to How can I limit bitrate of a transcoding video in FFMPEG to keep it under a limit value? video; ffmpeg; video-streaming; transcoding; Share. Encode at CRF 28 but I Short version: Why did my total file size increase when I switched from constant quality to constrained quality at the same crf? Shouldn't this just set a maximum bitrate and thus only either do nothing or lower file size, depending on whether the maximum is hit?. Why is this happening? For SVT-AV1 I recommend preset 5(/6) at CRF 24-28. mp4 GPU's alternative for the codec is h264_nvenc. Otherwise it can't encode. Just use -crf and -preset. mp4 -crf 21 -vcodec h264 -acodec libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -ac 2 out. mkv I used 30 as CRF for testing purposes because the artifacts are more visible :) Could the loss of quality be caused by VLC and its experimental support in deconding Here graphs for all the presets and crf’s for H265 with encoding FPS, time taken to finish encoding, bitrate and end file size in kilobytes. If you set a bufsize of 64k, as per FFmpeg Wiki: Limiting the output bitrate, it will calculate its current bitrate every 64 kilobytes and adjust accordingly. Still, we get a good idea of where these show up. mp4 -vcodec h264 -crf 23 -acodec copy h264. 265 (FFMPEG + libx265) compression parameters For the quality / rate control, you want to use CRF mode in libx264 rather than a constant bitrate. Variable here means that e. I have tried multiple commands, but nothing produces an output with a clean, stable bitrate. by customizing the -b:v/-crf, -preset, -maxrate Options-b:v. Adapting an example from the x264 encoding guide: your video is 10 minutes (600 seconds) long and an output of 50 MB is desired. Because even while you try applying Note: You may have to tweak the commands and settings listed below, e. CRF + maxrate = constrained constant quality. mp4 video Video Bitrate: 10000 Kbps Video Encoder Settings: -preset medium -tune film -crf 17 I want to ask what happens under the hood when they specify both a Video bitrate and a crf value? Is the software effectively doing ffmpeg -i <input> -c:v libx264 -crf 17 -maxrate 10000K -bufsize ?? <output> FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. In this case, you want to have a You can list private options available in this encoder with ffmpeg -h encoder=libx265. For example, use -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -maxrate 4M -bufsize 4M to encode at variable bitrate with a target CRF of 2-pass target bitrate Constant Rate Factor (CRF) In this guide we are going to focus on CRF and Two-Pass encoding, as 1-pass target bitrate encoding is not recommended. i'm asking if the ffmpeg is the only valid software with a high quality encoding at low bitrate (maybe that supports commandline) I wish to transcode my few bunches of videos for archiving, and after searching the internet I came up with the following commands: # CQ (Constant Quality) ffmpeg. Go to the FFmpeg Download page and get a build there. 264 Video Encoding Guide for more info. For example: ffmpeg -i -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset veryslow . -b:v works, but I don't want to use VBR, but CBR. avi vids use older style codecs (eg XviD) which are fine, but are larger for the same quality when compared to the later generation of codecs . 5 Mbps straight from a source file. The problem I am facing is when I try to pass a constant bit rate(700 kbps) to FFMPEG, the result is an output video with a different bit rate(say 1000 kbps). jpg) and if it looks washed out, that means it’s using the expected bt. webm The CRF value can be set within [4 ; 63], 4 being the best quality. 0 -s 640x480 -strict experimental -c:a aac -ac 1 -ar 22050 -ab 48k -movflags faststart -maxrate 200k -bufsize 2000k output. – There’s a *lot* of info on command-line ffmpeg usage, with details on controlling quality for x264 encoding. I want to encode a full HD video with originally 6000kbits but ffmpeg encode the video with CRF to max 1800kbits. Putting it all together, we can convert the sample. Also I didn't change anything based on I-frames. So if it is higher, it will be compressed by these CRF 17/18 means, every pixel of the frame will be either determined by its own data or determined from the previous frame if they are identical. CRF values range from 0 to 51, with lower numbers delivering higher quality scores. I encoded a 1080P Blu-Ray movie using "CRF 0". Use -crf 20 -b:v 0 Skip the two passes. Why is this happening ? I don't think it is a bandwidth issue given that I am on localhost. mp4 ffmpeg -i sample. 264 use CRF. You want either of those, exclusively. Use the slowest preset you have patience for. mp4 --crf Quality-based VBR (0-51, 0=lossless) [23. ffmpeg -i screen-recording. You should experiment with different CRF values to see what works for your content. mp4 -c:v libx265 -crf 28 If there is no CRF, it might not even have been encoded with a particular CRF value. (CRF) instead of a bitrate-based measure? – Southpaw1496. This ensures the best audio quality possible. So what crf would be ideal? I tried 26, but the final output had a lot of judder from dropped frames I guess. mp4 -c:v libaom-av1 -minrate 500k -b:v 2000k -maxrate 2500k output. mp4 The original ffmpeg invocation was this: ffmpeg -i input. ffmpeg -threads "4" -i "$2" -c:v libx264 \ -bufsize 30000k -maxrate Use the -crf option instead when encoding with libx264. Streaming nowadays is done a little more cleverly. Improve this question. ffmpeg -i abcd1. I retained -framerate and added -r 60000/1001 to the output. In most cases (such as storing a file for archival), letting the encoder choose the proper bitrate is the constant quality or CRF-based encoding. name of the package to install-i in. You can typically get a tight encoding by using the H. -g (in ffmpeg) or keyint (in SvtAv1EncApp). Two-Pass: Requires a bitrate. crf achieves constant bitrate while qp has constant quantization. mp4 -s 720x480 -c:v libx264 -preset slower \ -crf 17 -c:a copy -y output. From my FFmpeg cheatsheet: *** CRF 20-23 for most 1080p videos is enough. Example: ffmpeg -i input -codec:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 24 -codec:a copy output. There are several problems with your command line: You are using constant rate factor, crf = 22, while still trying to limit the bitrate using -b 200. mp4 This example uses AAC audio at 128 kBit/s. codecx264) and aac compression for audio. loads(data). You can set the values between 0 and 51, where :. Here is the command I am using. Follow answered Feb 12, 2020 at 16:45. Desired (Pixelated) ffmpeg -y -i input -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -minrate 1M -maxrate 2M -bufsize 2M output. At what preset is that then? And what is the visually lossless crf value for the slow preset? Below is the snippet from the h264 docs (similar for h265): “The range of the CRF scale is 0–51, where 0 is lossless (for 8 bit only, for 10 bit use -qp 0), 23 is the default, and 51 is worst quality possible. mov -c:v libvpx -b:v 1900K -maxrate 1900K -minrate 1900K output. You cannot reliably reconstruct the rate control method or encoding parameters from the This is the "target bitrate". A much better (but also, trickier, and more expensive) approach is to encode the entire video using CRF, and then re-encode the offending peaking segments using 2-pass with bitrate-target. So I was convinced my goal is achievable. A lower value is a higher quality. ; Get the bitrate from the ffmpeg -i data2. Using a higher GOP via the -g ffmpeg parameter results in a more efficient encode in terms of quality per bitrate, at the cost of seeking performance. 09-13 11:06:28. You can also specify a minimum and maximum bitrate instead of a quality target: ffmpeg -i input. Use a constant quality target and limit the bitrate only to catch spikes. Fixing this by setting a maxrate works for both modes, CRF and 2pass-with-target-bitrate encoding. mp4 High-Efficiency AAC. ffmpeg -i data2. I've been using CRF as a quality indicator, since I don't care about filesize as long as it is encoded as efficiently as possible. org/wiki/Encode/VP9 for more information. mp4 Adjust the CRF value to change output quality. Example: Creating a live stream with limited bit rate In this case, you want to have a live stream with more/less constant bit rate (using the option -b:v ), to be able to control the bandwidth used. The easiest way to get the bitrate of a video in proper format is to use FFMPEG's utility ffprobe $ ffprobe -v quiet -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=bit_rate -of ffmpeg -i input. zyenbifloahvkyqcyslhttyjrxgfbdrjcwtuwxzbgiquz