c:v h264_nvenc uses NVidia h264 GPU Encoder hwaccel cuvid uses NVidia CUDA GPU acceleration for decoding (also working: dxva2) Encoding high quality h264 video via GPU: ffmpeg.exe -hwaccel cuvid -i inmovie.mov -c:v h264_nvenc -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset slow -rc vbr_hq -b:v 8M -maxrate:v 10M -c:a aac -b:a 224k outmovie.mp4 Choose -b:v if you need a limitation for the bitrate and size of the video. NOTE: Use -crf if bitrate is not so important and the quality factor is more important. a aac AAC audio codec is most common for MP4 movie files crf 16 constant quality factor lower is better (good values for HD are 14-19)

tune film preset for film content (see x264 tune profiles below) preset slow preset for HQ encoding (see x264 preset profiles below) Encoding high quality h264 video with CPU only: ffmpeg.exe -i inmovie.mov -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset slow -tune film -crf 19 -c:a aac -b:a 224k outmovie.mp4

The GTX 780 Ti still encodes with 50-60fps in FullHD with the h264 hardware GPU encoder with high quality settings below – currently a graphics adapter with good good speed/cost factor would be a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080. This speed is achieved with a Quadro P4000 from NVidia when encoding 1920×1080 movies with -preset slow.

With ffmpeg and a decent GPU (like a Quadro P4000) the h265/HEVC encoder finaly gets a good speedboost with up to 90fps when encoding HD movies with the below parameter values and 200fps when using the GPU accelerated h264 encoder. Left: ffmpeg -crf / Right: Premiere Adobe Media Encoder CBR Booth are encoded with 6 Mbit average bitrate – fot the ffmpeg version, the -crf option was used and for the AME version, the CBR option was used to encode. Using the preset option delivers quality that easyily surpasses Adobe Media Encoder, especially colorbanding and macroblocks artifacts reduced significantly with ffmpeg when using the h264 codec with the -crf option.Ĭompression comparison: 700x400px 1:1 crop from a 1920×1080 sequence. NVidia GPU (at least with at least Kepler generation like GTX 6xx/7xx or higher).Source Movie File: DNxHD 4:2:2 10-bit or ProResHQ / Cineform with minimum video bitrate 185mbit movie in HD resolution or better.Prerequisites for High Quality – High Efficiency Video Encoding The commandline tool ffmpeg offers great flexibility when it comes to video and audio encoding with a great advantage: it’s free of use. I would define high quality as equal or near same quality as the original and this is the goal. High quality is always not easy to define. CUDA GPU Accelerated h264/h265/HEVC Video Encoding with ffmpeg High Quality FFMPEG Video Encoding

Ffmpeg h264 preset