To make your life much easier, I created custom profiles with bluray compatible settings and exported them in a format you can use in your own copy of MeGUI.
Here is the download link:
(Note: these are new profles, updated for the latest version of MeGUI)
http://rapidshare.com/files/39641692...2010-06-07.rar
UnRAR into an empty folder, and
you should have 26 .xml files (each .xml file is a different profile). Then copy the files into this folder:
megui\allprofiles\x264
When asked if you want to overwrite files with the same names, choose "Yes".
[IMG]http://i48.*******.com/nxl4b8.jpg[/IMG]
Next time you open MeGUI,
you will see 26 new choices in the dropdown list of profiles (aka presets).
Update: When I first wrote this tutorial, there were no bluray profiles among the many that came with MeGUI, so I made up my own. Recent versions of MeGUI do include bluray profiles, but they are not very good IMHO. They are the ones that look like this:
Bluray - 2pass
Bluray - Balanced
Bluray - High Quality
etc.
These profiles are designed for HD (high definition) sources, and they don't allow for the flexibility available to improve encoding quality when using SD (standard definition, e.g. DVD) sources. Another reason they are not very good, is that the only setting that changes between the lowest- and highest-quality profiles is the crf (constant rate factor). It is better to also tweak some of the other settings to improve quality -- e.g. me, subme, trellis -- similar to the way the fast, medium, and slow presets tweak these settings. I have adapted these standard bluray profiles that come with MeGUI so that they make more sense, and give you a better spectrum of choices (quality vs. speed) when encoding HD sources.
The HD profiles, listed in order from highest to lowest quality:
Insane > Very High Quality > High Quality > Balanced > Standard
[see note below re: Bluray - 2pass profile]
SD profiles
The other custom bluray profiles,
which I created for SD material from film sources, look like this:
bluraySD-NTSC-16-9-faster-film
bluraySD-PAL-slow-film
etc.
The first one above is a profile for bluray compliance, standard def (SD), NTSC source, 16:9 anamorphic, faster preset (i.e. lower quality than slow preset), and from a film source.
The second one is also for bluray compliance, standard def, and from film, but PAL instead of NTSC, 4:3 instead of 16:9, and slow preset instead of faster preset (i.e. better quality but takes longer to encode).
The "faster" profiles will produce lower quality than the "slower" ones, but I suggest you experiment with some short clips and decide for yourself where to draw the line regarding quality vs. speed.
All of these profiles assume that you are not resizing after cropping (if any cropping is used), that your source is mod4 (width and height are multiples of the number 4), and so they will adjust the SAR (source aspect ratio) accordingly.
With x264 it is generally unnecessary to resize (which can degrade the quality) so long as you use an adequate bitrate (about 50-65% of XviD). If you do use resizing to get the proper aspect ratio, then you will need to remove "--sar xx:yy" from the custom command line. In the example below, you would simply delete the --sar 40:33 from the box under "Custom Command Line", and that line would become blank:
[IMG]http://i50.*******.com/osbe52.jpg[/IMG]
If your source is not from film (or a DVD/video that was mastered from a film source), then you can adjust three of the settings manually, but the changes are optional. See sections in next post that begin with "If your source is film..."
Saving your own custom profiles
If you want to adapt my profiles, alter any of the profiles that come with MeGUI, or just create your own from scratch (better know what you're doing though), you can. Maybe you want a profile for TV captures, or one for anime, or maybe you don't care about bluray compliance and want to create your own "unrestricted" profile. Whatever your reasons, here's how to do it
Once you have the settings you want, click on the "New" button, give your new preset a name, and then click OK. That's it.
BTW, as if things weren't confusing enough, there are two types of "presets". First, there are the internal presets built into x264 (fast, medium, slow, etc.) Then there are presets that come with MeGUI (also called "profiles", but the GUI still says "presets") and that you can invent on your own (iPod, PSP, AppleTV, etc.)
Next time you load a vid in MeGUI, you can choose the profile/preset that you invented, and you'll get the exact same settings without all the hard work. If you tweak the settings a bit for some reason, but don't want to save the new version, MeGUI will save the new settings to the scratchpad, and it will load the scratchpad settings next time you open the program.
Bluray - 2pass profile
If you are targeting a particular file size, you can use a bitrate calculator (there is one included in MeGUI) to determine the bitrate needed to give you the size you want (based on the running time, framerate, size of the audio, and any subtitles or other extras.)
When targeting a specific bitrate, you normally use 2pass mode. The first pass gathers information about which frames or sections are more complex and need higher bitrates, and the second pass uses that information to calculate the best bitrate for each frame while the vid is encoded.
The "Bluray - 2pass" profile has an arbitrary bitrate of 8000 selected as a target. This is designed for 1080p HD material, but is too high for 720p and SD material. You can adjust the bitrate to meet the target suggested by a bitrate calculator, or you can choose based on your own preferences. If you want to match the Bluray - 2pass profile's target of 8000 kbps with non-1080p material, here are the equivalent bitrates:
1080p -> 8000 kbps
720p -> 3000
PAL -> 1350
NTSC -> 1125
640x480 -> 1000
etc.