Zac et al,
What are the conditions for Encore to leave a .264 stream alone (“Don’t Transcode”)?
If you compare my PAL 576i25 H.264 stream (576i25_bff_letterbox_3.264) to the output of the CS5.5 bundled Main Concept version (576i25_bff_letterbox_MC.m4v) of the exact same footage the only difference seems to be interlaced method being “INTERLACED” vs “MBAFF” for interlaced material.
I think this a bug on Encore’s part because MBAFF & INTERLACED are legal Blu-ray modes of interlaced media.
I’m HOPING it’s not because I want this to work on CS3,4,5 and bugfix will presumably not get pushed back to older versions.
If not, what is the condition that Encore doesn’t like?
Note that Interlaced by MBAFF with NTSC (480i29.97) comes in fine.
As does Progressive 1080p24 & Interlaced 1080i29.97 footage.
It seems to only be PAL 576i25
Also, fyi, I tried Upper and Lower Field First and they both acted the same way (as they should since field order doesn't matter it just has to be defined).
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------
General
Complete name : M:\My Videos\576i25_bff_letterbox_MC.m4v
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
File size : 20.5 MiB
Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 6 000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced <<<<<<<<<<
Scan order : Bottom Field First <<<<<<<<<<
And here is my .264
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------
General
Complete name : M:\My Videos\576i25_bff_letterbox_3.264
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
File size : 20.3 MiB
Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 000 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 6 000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : MBAFF <<<<<<<<<<
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.482