Reduce Blocks?

[been09]

I converted a HD BBC program Planet Earth into MPEG-4 for the PS3 and for the most part it looks amazing. The only problem is that it sometimes has blocky areas that are really visible when like half the scene has a lot going on and the other half has nothing going on.
(ex. like a lake on one side and a herd of animals on the other)

Anyway, I used the MPEG-4 AVC codec at a Constant Bit-Rate(CBR) of 4096kbps, since I wanted a high-quality conversation.

Would using a Variable Bit-Rate reduce blockiness? Or can I increase the bitrate above the defauly maximum of 4096kbps. Are there flags that would help with the blocks?

[XerXes]

Blocking is common depending on the source of the video. To reduce size of the output file the movie will be compressed frame by frame based on the amount of "Action" going on in the scene. With a still camera you wont notice these blocks because the background is being rendered in one frame over and over again while the actors or action are fully rendered. DVDs use this very same method but with a higher bit rate so you dont notice it unless you had an HD TV.

Generally you will get more blocking with "like" colors. A white or gray background will show more blocks that a very colorful one. Again this is due to the compressor attempting to save space by rendering fewer blocks for one background. Increasing your bit stream will improve this but keep in mind that the higher you go the more space you use. Going from 768 to 1024 is a 30 percent jump in space need to encode a video. When you start getting past the 1.4 gig mark, your better off doing a direct dvd rip.

Variable bit rate is very useful in movies. As a matter of fact, most movies (except for super bit) use variable bit rate to squeeze the movie and the extras onto one disc. You obviously don't need 1920kbps when viewing the credits so its but in half. Cartoons use generally use the least amount of space as there can be minutes where the background image is rendered in one frame.

The thing you need to do is experiment with small length videos to find the settings you like the most. Its all based on personal preference. Unfortunately Multi pass is not an option as of now which will take care of some of the blocking but we can only hope for the near future. Now I said blocking is common depending on the source video................

A typical divx video has already gone through a video and compressed it logicaly to find where it can save space. The background blocking you see is already there in the divx movie. Simply converting to an mp4 will not remove this blocking. Red Kawa is taking an already "blocked" source and is "blocking" it even more. It sees these non moving blocks and assumes nothing is going on. Which is probably why you seeing more blocking. So the better the source, the better the end convert will be. If your aquiring movies from the net, try looking for 1.4 GB rips. Or better yet, direct dvd rips. Compressing 1.4 to 800 MB will yield much better results that a 800 to 750 compress.

[been09]

The source video I had was very high quality 720p, it is 2.40GBs which is already compressed into an AVI file. I'm trying variable bitrate encoding with a low qscale (1-6) and am getting much better results. I don't really care about size, so its a non-issue if it uses really high bitrates for the variable encoding. All through-out the program it's has action, since it's a nature documentary it almost always has massive amounts of detail and color.

I do have a HDTV, and the blocks were very visible since there was so much detail on the screen.

Thanks, variable encoding at a higher bit-rate has noticably reduced the blocks, even in like colored areas. There are still a few when the scene goes from incredibly detailed scene to a simple scene, but it's not noticable unless your close to the TV.