What Hybrid settings, procedures work best?

[tobylars83]

I am going to start using Hybrid to work with output of VirtualDub. I have never used Hybrid before and have done a fair amount of reading but I would like advice and guidelines for using Hybrid to convert the AVI output to smaller MP4 files for easy sharing.
I have two Windows machines that I am using. I am using a Windows 7 machine solely for capture old tapes with VirtualDub. I have not networked it or connected to the internet. I would like to leave this machine as a dedicated capture device and take the unedited or unscrubbed AVI files and run them through VirtualDub and Hybried on a powerful Windows 10 machine that I have recently upgraded al components.
I am not sure what else you need to know about my computers so I am hoping to put together a procedure document for my use utilizing any help I can get here.

[lordsmurf]

Try this, a quick monkey-see monkey-do for settings.

The crop will be different per source.

[tobylars83]

I forgot to ask. Do I have to scrub in VirtualDub first?

Is it ok if i use Hybrid version 2023.12.02.1?

[lordsmurf]

Probably, I'd assume so. Those settings are just from my Win7 version, which is now timelocked, no more updates (though I could maybe beg and bribe selur for one, maybe).

Scrubbing -- aka quick previewing the full video in an editor/NLE, to make sure there are no issues, such as bad playbnack from the VCR, or audio sync issues, amongst others -- is always suggested after any capture. Essentially, actually. Not just suggested. Open in VirtualDub, scrub. During scrub, you may need/want to lop off extra footage (blue screen, snow, unneeded source, etc), and then stream copy save it. Then you're ready for Hybrid.

My quickie guide above doesn't address how to, what buttons to push, but that should be somewhat obvious. The + on the main page is what adds to the queue, and the Jobs tab is where you actually encode with then > play button.

[eusuntmic]

I tried lordsmurf settings, and it broke my hybrid on 2 different computers with the latest version of hybrid, did not do anything when starting the job, just an error.*
Even after restarting hybrid with default settings, I could not get the program to work anymore.*
The only thing that worked was to uninstall and reinstall hybrid, and then even lordsmurf settings worked.
Now, about some settings that I have changed and why.
If I used the profile from lordsmurf, the video would not play on Samsung TV because of the i422 setting, and for me, that is a major drawback, so I changed the AVC profile to High 5.1 8-bit i420, and now the video will play on TV and PC.
Another big problem is that the audio will not be in sync with the video (75 min video without TBC), so my solution to that was to change the container to mkv, the audio to mp3, and most importantly, the termination of the file to .avi, this will force another step, "Adding additional muxing calls, since ffmpeg can't handle raw H.264 video properly" in hybrid, and now the result is perfect syncronized sound with video, even for bad tapes without TBC.
And another sound change is that I selected normalize to -3 db, so the sound will be amplified even if the recording was recorded with lower volume.
And another simpler method for correct aspect ratio is to set input PAR 16 x 15, without any resize, and the player and TV will now display the file correctly (this works for PAL, not sure for NTSC).

[lordsmurf]

Correct, "smart" TVs are a narrow subset of spec allowances. It's not the best quality, but not much choice.

Yes, MKV is better, also my choice. The settings chosen for this OP were tailored to his needs, and that meant MP4. However, audio AAC should be much better for quality at the same bitrate. For MP3, you'd really need 384kbps to match even 160kbps AAC.

My audio is corrected in Sound Forge prior to encoding. That needs to change per-video if not corrected.

PAR is wrong, so odd. Must be a "smart' (dumb) TV issue again.

[eusuntmic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

PAR is wrong, so odd. Must be a "smart' (dumb) TV issue again.

I have seen this PAR when I loaded a DV PAL file, it's embedded , and 720 x 16/15 results in exactly 768 , and 768 x 576 is exactly 4/3, perfect ratio for PAL.
For NTSC I believe the correct numbers for PAR are 8/9 , 720 x 8/9 results in exactly 640, and 640 x 480 is exactly 4/3, again perfect for NTSC.

So this mode of display will maintain a perfect ratio even if we cut pixels from the edge, and without resizing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_aspect_ratio

says this :

By contrast, a 720 × 576 D-1 PAL image has a SAR of 720/576 = 5:4, but if displayed in a 4:3 display (DAR = 4:3) the PAR is 4/3 : 5/4 = 16:15 ≈ 1.066. This means that the pixels of the PAL picture must be "stretched" by this amount to fit on the 4:3 display.

[lordsmurf]

Non-square pixels.

[tobylars83]

I have attempted to perform the monkey see monkey do method with the screen shots of the recommended settings for Hybrid and get an error.The error is in "ERROR IN AUDIO CREATION FORMAT PCM IS NOT ALLOWED FOR MP4
I am using Hybrid version 2023.12.02.1 and the screenshots of recommended settings is Hybrid version 2020.09.18.1
There are a few other differences in the screenshots and my options in my version of Hybrid.
I printed off all of the screenshots LS posted and I have meticulously compared my screen with the screenshots.
There are few settings from the screenshots that I are not available in my version of Hybrid?
Any hybrid experts willing to help me process my first video?
Thank you

[lordsmurf]

Set to AAC, not WAV, on the audio tab.

Post your screen shots.

[tobylars83]

ATTACHED screenshots.
On the third time of of "monkey doing" I may have hit all the right buttons and settings. I will report back after the process is complete.
I do have a quesiton about how the "left right top bottom" crop numbers were determined upon.
Shot 5A has an AUDIO PROFILE of "LS 160k" i do not have any options to select from
more to follow

[lordsmurf]

I just looked at the audio tab.

This is easy fix.

Hybrid doesn't auto-change the audio encoding specs after settings have been changed. Look in the right window. Notice it reads "pcm" and "1536". To right of that window (NOT ABOVE!) is a + with arrows about an inch down, and a — an inch down more yet. Hit that — to remove the encode. Then the + do add it back, but with the proper specs now set (AAC 160kbps).

Encode away!

[tobylars83]

Ugh i have processed several videos through Hybrid. I was happy with the results. Today when I attempt to run a few more videos through it my video is stretched too wide. In the Crop/Resize tap what should i use for Target Resoltion? When I get to that tab and look it is already at 720 x 646. Should i change it to 720 x 486 or 720 x 480?
How do the rest of my setting look? I have used the same setting that were shown in LS screen shot he provided for the Monkey See Monkey Do method.
Lordsmurf how did you determine the settings for Crop?

[lordsmurf]

4:3 = 640x480, or 720x540

Crop is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of settings. If you want to crop overscan to create streaming copies, or even for masking, you must preview the video, and make changes that way. There's a preview function in the lower right, that film strip with an eyeball.

[tobylars83]

Ok where are some instructions on how to use the cropping function in the preview function ?

-- merged --

I have attached screenshots of MediaInfo results for the two files that look ok.
These results do not match the suggested settings of LS but the resulting videos look fine.

-- merged --

I have performed the Monkey See Monkey do method with the screen shots provided by Lordsmurf. I have attemped many times to save a configuration with those settings and there are several of the settings that fail to save.
On the x264 tab > Frames tab > General Frames Settings > the Maximum number of refernce frames wont stay at "5" it resets to "3"
in that same frame I cannot change the Input Lookahead to "17". When i change it manually it reverts to "21"

On the x264 tab > Rate Control in the Video Buffer Verifier section the Max Fillrate will not stay at 150000 when i save the configuration it reverts to 200000
The sidebox said the following Max fillrate (kbit/s):
(command line match: --vbv-maxrate <integer>)

Side note:
Video Buffering Verifier (VBV) is a buffering model.
Put simply, there is a buffer of a specific size (vbv-bufsize) and that buffer is filled at a specific maximum data rate (vbv-maxrate).

What x264 does with this values it to ensure that the buffer will never underflow, which means there will always be enough data left in the buffer for the decoder to decode the next frame.

If you encode content for streaming, you should set the max fillrate to the average bandwith the user has (- 20% to be on the save side) and the buffer size should be the fill rate times number of seconds which are okay for buffering.

This option does not set a maximum bit rate!

Thoughts?

[lordsmurf]

I don't know why you're getting 720x486, that's wrong for all uses, and the AR will be wrong when viewed. It needs to be 720x540 or 640x480 for the 4:3. Streaming copies should not have the storage resolution of 720x480. You may have a bug? Or wrong something set somewhere?

Other settings, no ideae off-hand, perhaps versioning differences.

You may need to ask selur about this.

[tobylars83]

So what should the setting be in Vdub for size? you told me 720 by 480
Do i capture in 720 by 480 then in Hybrid change the size to account for the black bars on the side?

[lordsmurf]

Capture is 720x480, archived lossless as 720x480, the native non-viewing resolution.

For viewing, it needs to be a 4:3, and that resize is done in Hybrid.

Part of this may be because Hybrid itself isn't really ideal for crop/mask usage.
- I do mine in Avisynth (AvsPmod for GUI), and then open the .avs file in Hybrid.
- Or I process/restore/mask in VirtualDub as a lossless intermediary (middle file), and then let Hybrid deinterlace and encode that resized file.

It's not the you can't mask/crop in Hybrid, it's just less easy, mostly due to previewer quality.

What black bars? There should be none.

[tobylars83]

When I use the settings for resizing of 640x480, or 720x540 the Hybrid video output was stretched to 16 by 9. I have attached some screenshots of my settings.

[lordsmurf]

Try output PAR 1:1.

What must be understoood that that nobody understands AR (or crop/mask, for that matter), so it gets references in different ways, sometimes even between versions of the same software. Adobe is really bad about this, probably the worst offender. So when you have AR issues, mess with the AR settings, test it.

Edit -
Okay, use 1:1 for both, or 4:3 for both. I prefer 4x3 to 1x1, so no errors are made in playback AR (well, at least try).