FFmpeg h264 preset crf comparison 2020 pt4 (totals)

This comprehensive FFmpeg encoding comparison includes H.264 and H.265 HEVC from the fastest preset ultrafast through to veryslow with CRF values from 20 to 30.

The posts will be split up with a finale putting the fasts and slows presets from both H.264 with HEVC together.

H.264 totals, avg and summary

This post is part 4 (part 1, 2, 3) which is the totals, averages and summary for all the presets for H.264 with CRF values 20 through to 30.

The server

An Intel Xeon E-2246G CPU 6 cores, 12 threads at 3.60GHz boosted to 4.80GHz with 32GB of ram and SSD disk running Ubuntu 18.04.

CPU model            : Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2246G CPU @ 3.60GHz
Number of cores      : 12
CPU frequency        : 4200.984 MHz
Total size of Disk   : 877.5 GB (25.1 GB Used)
Total amount of Mem  : 32068 MB (365 MB Used)
Total amount of Swap : 1951 MB (0 MB Used)
System uptime        : 1 days, 4 hour 47 min
Load average         : 0.00, 0.00, 1.19
OS                   : Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Arch                 : x86_64 (64 Bit)
Kernel               : 4.15.0-72-generic
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I/O speed(1st run)   : 438 MB/s
I/O speed(2nd run)   : 440 MB/s
I/O speed(3rd run)   : 440 MB/s
Average I/O speed    : 439.3 MB/s

The Xeon E-2246G is a very recently released CPU (Q2 2019). FFmpeg version 3.4.6.

The source media

Thanks to jell.yfish.us the source media file for the H.264 testing was this file here. At 4k resolution (3840×2160) 29.97 fps, 30 seconds long, 250Mbps bitrate and a file size of 895MB.

This file was chosen because of its size, a large resolution with a very beefy bitrate. This is especially relevant for when I do the HEVC H.265 testing with a 400Mbps 10 bit 4k video file.

Results

Here are all the presets and crf values with encoding FPS, bitrate, seconds and end file size:

The difference compared to the preset and crf above:

Adding the size with seconds and size with seconds and encoded bitrate:

All presets average FPS

All presets average bitrate

All presets seconds to complete

All presets average file size

All crf average FPS

 

All crf average bitrate

All crf average seconds

All crf average file size

Up next (part 5) is the beginning of the H.265 HEVC FFmpeg preset and crf comparison.