Re:Ask HN: Share your FFmpeg settings for video hosting
by izacus on Wednesday July 24, 2024 @08:19AM
(#41056215)
Having profiles doesn't really change the fact that even Ampere generation encoding block at slowest profile won't come close to visual quality at same output bitrate to x264s slow+ profiles (and we're not even touching on H.265/AV1 here).
> For your comparison, are assuming that the objective is best quality, e.g. that you'd accept 10x the computation even if it gave only a 2% quality improvement?
The difference is more like 150% encoding time for half the filesize at same SSIM - depending on configuration and video type of course. And that ignores the fact that a server machine with 64-core Threadripper or equivalent can handle parallel encoding of many more videos at massively lower dollar cost than using nvenc. Especially at current GPU prices and GPU power consumption.
There's a reason why all online services are encoding in software (usually with x264 & co.) for mainstream most used profiles (that is, SD/HD, many also for 4K).
It just doesn't make sense from product quality, user experience or financial perspective. It only makes sense if you never check the results of your production.
> For your comparison, are assuming that the objective is best quality, e.g. that you'd accept 10x the computation even if it gave only a 2% quality improvement?
The difference is more like 150% encoding time for half the filesize at same SSIM - depending on configuration and video type of course. And that ignores the fact that a server machine with 64-core Threadripper or equivalent can handle parallel encoding of many more videos at massively lower dollar cost than using nvenc. Especially at current GPU prices and GPU power consumption.
There's a reason why all online services are encoding in software (usually with x264 & co.) for mainstream most used profiles (that is, SD/HD, many also for 4K).
It just doesn't make sense from product quality, user experience or financial perspective. It only makes sense if you never check the results of your production.