[FFmpeg-user] Best lossless

[Lou]

On Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:19:06 -0700
Deron <deron at pagestream.org> wrote:

> On 1/31/12 1:58 AM, dE . wrote:
> > On 01/30/12 21:20, Deron wrote:
> >> What is the best lossless encoding method ffmpeg supports for 
> >> 720p/59.94fps? By best, I mean fewest problems playing and highest 
> >> compression ratio. (I know, that is still hard to measure). Someone 
> >> mentioned jpeg2000 to me (lossless mode of course), but I see little 
> >> mention of it anywhere (not just within ffmpeg).
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Deron
> > x264. It's virtually the best in everyway -- it's the fastest, it also 
> > has a lossless mode; but not sure about reliability of playback. 
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion!
> 
> I noticed that the presets (fast/max etc) are no longer in the preset 
> contrary to advice from others. Does anyone know the command line for 
> best compression using x264 lossless, or where the presets might have gone?
> 
> Deron

The presets are still available, but via libx264 and not through text
files that roughly emulated the presets.

For lossless:
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow -crf 0 output
or
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow -qp 0 output

It doesn't matter if you use crf or qp unless you are using 10-bit
x264. I'm not sure if the crf value for 10-bit x264 would be different
to achieve lossless, but I assume -qp 0 should give you lossless
regardless of 8-bit vs 10-bit.