Oct5

HOW TO CONVERT 10BIT TO 8BIT

Jesus Christ will you people stop asking me how to encode 10bit to 8bit. Don’t ask me for help if this fails because it’s not supposed to fail.

1. Grab latest 8bit x264. Just go with the 32 for simplicity. You can grab one here, or use your favorite build, whatever.

2. Save it in a folder. (This guide assumes you’re using windows. x264 works on linux too, but fuck it if you use linux you can figure that shit out by yourself)

3. Make a new text file. Paste this line in:

x264 --preset veryfast --tune animation --crf 18 -o %1.8bit.mkv %1

You can change this:

veryfast – fastest, highest file size

veryslow – slowest, lowest file size

Leave the rest alone unless you know what you’re doing. (But fuck, if you knew what you were doing, why am I explaining this to you)

5. Save the text file as encode.bat

5. Move a 10bit file you want to encode into the same folder.

6. Click and drag the 10bit file onto encode.bat.

7. Holy shit something should be encoding.

8. Wait until encoding window disappears.

9. Open mkvmerge GUI (You can get that here)

10. Drag the ORIGINAL VIDEO into the input files. There should be a list of checkboxes underneath. You want to UNCHECK the V_MPEG4 (this is the 10bit video you want to throw out)

11. Now drag in the ENCODED VIDEO. It should be the same name as the ORIGINAL VIDEO except it has a .8bit.mkv at the end.

12. Name your muxed file at the bottom and hit mux (don’t forget a .mkv)

13. Congratulations you have a something in 8bit with quality loss due to reencoding and the file size is most likely larger to boot. Now ask yourself why the hell you wanted it again.

Posted by RHExcelion under Another Chapter in the Guide to World Domination, I'm not being sarcastic why would you think I'm being sarcastic | Permalink

143 Responses to “HOW TO CONVERT 10BIT TO 8BIT”

  1. Kamion says:

    Cmon guys, really? Even my Macbook Air plays 10bit (MPlayer). I just connect it to my TV via HDMI.

    Most of you probably have a Laptop anyway. With CCCP and CoreAVC even shitty Laptops play your animu. Just connect that to your TV.

  2. ling says:

    Can I enter a resizing option? Like 848×480 at the end of the command line.

  3. EMI says:

    to Kamion, what if i dont want to connect my notbook to the tv? and i just want to use my external hard drive to plays those files on my led tv? and what if i dont have laptop? and i dont want to buy one?

    • Petrushka says:

      it means u are just an idiot and retard.

      • paranoidi says:

        What are you, 12?

        Comments like these make it pretty obvious who the retard is.

        Whole 10bit thing is major inconvenience to everyone who are not using powerful PC.

        Shit, even my Samsung Galaxy S2 (a phone) plays MKV with ASS subtitles just fine as long as it is not 10bit ;P

        It can even output 1080p HDMI.

        • Petrushka says:

          >commenting on my 4-old months post

          How lame.

          >who are not using powerful PC.

          retard is retard, after all. use mplayer2 or mpc with xy-VSFilter

          • paranoidi says:

            You talk about lame, yet are incapable of understanding the content of my post. That’s just retarded :)

            Where can I find this mplayer2 which you speak of for my SG2 ? ;)

  4. a says:

    encode.bat file errors out. Does not recognize %1 as file. Seems you have to manually input actual file name.

    After encode video/audio out of sync.

  5. Jaylink says:

    Well to enjoy a load of new Anime on my popcorn A200 that doesnt support 10bit, This walktrough is a blessing.
    I played Anime and Real Life Movies trough my laptop with HDMI with and without 10bit encodes (Lav Vid , Mad VR , DVXA ectect) but all lacks the super SMOOTH video playback like a real networked mediaplayer with a nice video proccesing chip.
    So Big ThanX for this man, So far this works like a Gem. :)
    Greetz Jaylink.

  6. LOL@StupidCommie says:

    DXVA faster, size doesn’t matter, cause now HDD are cheap as hell

    • Petrushka says:

      do we care about u?

      >now HDD are cheap as hell

      fuck you. even WDC Green 1.5 TB now is 140 USD

  7. matt todd says:

    First of all, thanks for this guide.

    I appreciate your efforts to bring us the best quality possible at the most reasonable file sizes. By publising these instructions, you have enabled many of us who won’t/can’t put a PC connected to our TVs the means of being able to convert these x264 10bit files to x264 8bit ourselves.

    Computers are still much more expensive than a media player, compuetrs are also noisier, and they take up much more space. In addition, computers were designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse, not a remote control like media players are.

    x264 8bit was supposed to be the limit for consumer grade devices and 10bit limited for studio/professional use. Like I said, I appreciate why you’re pushing these limits, but you (and the other fanssubbers have) made it harder for those of us who prefer using media players. However, that’s been mitigated by publishing these instructions.

    As more fansubbing groups are moving toward exclusive 10bit releases, finding alternate groups who are still encoding in 8bit for a particular title has become much harder (soon impossible), and I’ve now started to find the need to use these instructions.

    So again, my thanks to you for publishing this.

    PS & FYI – the drag-and-drop thing doesn’t work with %1 — only from the command line can I get the batch file to work.

  8. DFC says:

    Been doing this for a long time. People are stupid for not knowing how to re-encode. That’s also considering that there are a lot of all-in-one re-encoding programs out there.

    Like many others, I use a hardware player. Sure, it doesn’t support 10bit, but it isn’t a problem since I utilize an old laptop (2006ish) that has no other use except as a file server. Also, it does take a while to encode, but I’m not an impatient fucker who needs everything right away.

  9. […] IRC Umstellung auf Hi10p (Encodes mit 10-bit-Farbtiefe)   Wer fleißig unsere Subs lädt, sollte mitbekommen haben, dass wir großen Wert auf moderne Encodetechniken legen. Außer in gewissen Ausnahmefällen (Coops) bieten wir bei den aktuellen Serien zum Beispiel keine XviD-Versionen mehr an. Der nächste Schritt ist nun, die Ablösung des alten 8-bit-Farbtiefe-pro-Kanal-”Standards” durch den 10-bit-”Standard” aktiv zu unterstützen, indem wir auf Hi10p-Encodes umsteigen. Dies wird u.a. alle neuen Herbstseason-Projekte von uns betreffen.   Im Klartext heißt das: kleinere Dateien, bessere Bildqualität.   Wir werden KEINE 8-bit-Alternativen anbieten, also sorgt dafür, dass ihr für unsere kommenden Releases gerüstet seid, indem ihr eure Software updatet, ansonsten werdet ihr diese nicht korrekt oder gar nicht abspielen können:   – Media Player Classic mit CCCP: ladet euch die neueste Releaseversion – SMPlayer: mplayer2-Build updaten, Details dazu in diesem Forenpost – MPC mit manuell installiertem ffdshow: aktuellen Build verwenden – CoreAVC: Version 3 unterstützt offiziell Hi10p – VLC Player: derzeit nur mit den Nighty Builds möglich – Windows Media Player, Zoom Player, RealPlayer, QuickTime, etc…: sterbt qualvoll in einem Foyer – Hardware-Player: Beschwerde-Brief an den Hersteller senden, weil die Geräte keine modernen Techniken unterstützen; Gerät anschließend verbrennen und am PC Animu schauen   » Wer mehr zur Technik erfahren möchte, wird bei Strawhat schlauer » Für alle 10-bit-läuft-bei-mir-nicht-weil-mein-PC-nur-500-Mhz-hat-Trottel gibt’s Hilfestellung zur Umkonvertierung bei Commie […]

  10. […] IRC Umstellung auf Hi10p (Encodes mit 10-bit-Farbtiefe)   Wer fleißig unsere Subs lädt, sollte mitbekommen haben, dass wir großen Wert auf moderne Encodetechniken legen. Außer in gewissen Ausnahmefällen (Coops) bieten wir bei den aktuellen Serien zum Beispiel keine XviD-Versionen mehr an. Der nächste Schritt ist nun, die Ablösung des alten 8-bit-Farbtiefe-pro-Kanal-”Standards” durch den 10-bit-”Standard” aktiv zu unterstützen, indem wir auf Hi10p-Encodes umsteigen. Dies wird u.a. alle neuen Herbstseason-Projekte von uns betreffen.   Im Klartext heißt das: kleinere Dateien, bessere Bildqualität.   Wir werden KEINE 8-bit-Alternativen anbieten, also sorgt dafür, dass ihr für unsere kommenden Releases gerüstet seid, indem ihr eure Software updatet, ansonsten werdet ihr diese nicht korrekt oder gar nicht abspielen können:   – Media Player Classic mit CCCP: ladet euch die neueste Releaseversion – SMPlayer: mplayer2-Build updaten, Details dazu in diesem Forenpost – MPC mit manuell installiertem ffdshow: aktuellen Build verwenden – CoreAVC: Version 3 unterstützt offiziell Hi10p – VLC Player: derzeit nur mit den Nighty Builds möglich – Windows Media Player, Zoom Player, RealPlayer, QuickTime, etc…: sterbt qualvoll in einem Foyer – Hardware-Player: Beschwerde-Brief an den Hersteller senden, weil die Geräte keine modernen Techniken unterstützen; Gerät anschließend verbrennen und am PC Animu schauen   » Wer mehr zur Technik erfahren möchte, wird bei Strawhat schlauer » Für alle 10-bit-läuft-bei-mir-nicht-weil-mein-PC-nur-500-Mhz-hat-Trottel gibt’s Hilfestellung zur Umkonvertierung bei Commie […]

  11. questionguy says:

    Thanks, it’s useful to know this stuff once in a while.

  12. sptor says:

    I’ve used this solution on Guilty Crown episode 3 released by Commie and got some strange results, for example 8-bit files were actually smaller than 10-bit (246 Mb 10-bit, 223 Mb 8-bit with veryfast setting and 155 Mb 8-bit with slow setting), quality deteriorated a bit, but not so much for my opinion at least at the points where I’ve checked it.

  13. Petrooshka says:

    Buying a computer is more expensive than buying an external hard drive

    • Petrushka says:

      and improving ur brain is much better than making urself looks idiot

      and, dat name

      (¬‿¬)

    • fucking grey lettters on blue bacjground says:

      >storing every single anime he watches

      sure is shit tastes and low standards in here

      • Arnavion says:

        We’ll see who has the last laugh when SOPA’s great-great-grandchild takes down all the torrent trackers.

        j/k, I don’t save everything either.

  14. bwisett says:

    try this settings, ive been using this to convert 10bit to 8bit and works fine for me. you can adjust the crf for your preference of quality.

    x264 --preset medium --tune animation --profile high --level 4.1 --crf 16 -o %1.8bit.mkv %1 –vf resize:1280,720
    • bwisett says:

      the — change it to two – (dashes)

      Arnavion edit: FTFY. You should wrap code in a <pre> tag.

  15. Thanks4AllTheFish says:

    Thanks for the solution. Incidentally I tried it on “[UTW]_Fate_Prototype_[BD][h264-1080p_FLAC][7F4E8ADF]” (301MB) on veryslow setting and got 201MB after remuxing it with subs and audio. Only difference is slightly more banding.

  16. No dice. says:

    This elitist, condescending approach is not the way to do it. Simply tell the people how, and leave it at that. If the procedure fails, then you fail because you failed to provide proper, succinct instructions. Just because you religiously believe in the so-called benefits of 10 bit does not mean you get to be an absolute dick about it to other people: if it matters, provide a friendly (i.e. PROFANITY FREE) guide to people. Otherwise, STFU.

  17. anon says:

    offtopic: do you know how to open 10bit mkv with vitrualdubmod beside converting the whole video to 8bit?

  18. Privacy Matters says:

    just for the record:

    did some brief performance testing ONLY FOR THE VIDEO CONVERSION STEP, with an overclocked (+20% for both ram and cpu) E8400, therefore 3.6Ghz. r/w on a single 3.5 hard drive. ubuntu 11.10 x64, stock x264.

    the x264 command line is bwisett-style but with the fastest setting. I’m roughly getting 2x realtime performance during conversion(approx 50 frames per second). The input file itself is a tv-quality standard 720p (therefore, low bitrate crap). the output size is around +40% of the original, but I didn’t mux-in the audio stream.

    running again the conversion with “medium”, I’m getting something around 16fps.

    If you add the remux step, even with this “once quite fast, now middle aged” processor we are in the “unattended conversion run” zone (the atoms should be far worse); would be happy to have a “headless” batch conversion thingy available.

  19. Privacy Matters says:

    oh, by the way, muxing is fast (sorry for the banality, I’m new to these kind of things :blushes:) and this syntax seem to have worked, without any gui involved:

    mkvmerge -o muxed.mkv –no-video 10bit.mkv 8bit.mkv

    the trick is that everything is copied by default, but we subtract the 10bit video from the addition, and of course the 8bit intermediate version doesn’t have audio and subs.

  20. Privacy Matters says:

    unfortunately it turns out that my example file remuxes bad: audio is out of sync wrt the video stream.

    this is what I did (the script takes a single input file path as its parameter):

    cat minus2.sh
    #!/bin/sh

    [ “$1″ = ” ] && echo “syntax: $0 INPUT.mkv” && exit 0

    scriptname=$(basename “$0” .sh);tempfile=/tmp/temp_${scriptname}

    [ -e $tempfile ] && (echo -n “$tempfile already existing, $0 already running? giving up.\nplease remove $tempfile if no other instance is currently running\n\n.” >&2) && exit 1

    x264 –preset veryfast –tune animation –profile high –level 4.1 –crf 16 -o $tempfile “$1” –vf resize:1280,720 && mkvmerge -o “$1”.8bit.mkv –no-video “$1” $tempfile

    rm $tempfile

    again, this is a linux script, and something is off about muxing.

  21. Privacy Matters says:

    Just did the same benchmark on an Atom 230 (single core), with a standard netbook hard drive, and a 32 bit build of the same x.264 version

    fps in “very fast” mode are around 5-6 (yes, contrast this with 50 fps of the [email protected])

    thus, you’ll need almost TWO HOURS to transcode a low bitrate 720p, 22-25 minute video.

  22. Privacy Matters says:

    going back to the a/v desync problem in the merged file, I tried to redo the muxing supplying to mkvmerge (cli) the parameter –timecodes 0:file, where file contained

    # timecode format v1

    assume 23.980

    nothing apparently changed.

    need some help here, since I’m completely new to the muxing techniques

  23. Jumendez says:

    Make sure that you download the latest version of FFmpegSource if you’re going to make an avs script to not only convert 10-bit to 8-bit but also to do other things like hardsubbing if you’re going to say convert a video to play on a PSP or something. Info and etc. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127037

  24. ALex says:

    the problem i have with 10bit is not that i cant play it…wmp plays 10bit encodes perfectly..the problem is i dont know how to get them to work in a video editing program…i mean…for example..sony vegas loads the files but the way 10bit get to look there its an awfull quality

  25. None says:

    It’s just ridiculous that you really think 10bit is noticeably better than 8. Lol.