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Platforms
The other-transcode.rb tool works on Windows, Linux and macOS with a variety of hardware video encoders. However, not all operating system and hardware platforms are created equal.
Testing has shown that the Nvidia NVENC video encoder produces the best quality at the fastest speeds.
The recommended configuration when using other-transcode.rb is:
- Windows
- Nvidia video card (GeForce GTX 1050 or better1)
- Intel CPU with 4th-generation Core or better / AMD Ryzen 5 or better
If a Nvidia video card is not available then using the Intel Quick Sync Video encoder is a reasonable second choice, making this the recommended configuration:
- Windows
- Intel CPU with 7th-generation Core or better2
With those configurations, transcoding to 10-bit HEVC format is possible like this for Nvidia NVENC:
other-transcode.rb --nvenc --hevc C:\Rips\Movie.mkv
And like this for Intel Quick Sync Video:
other-transcode.rb --qsv --hevc C:\Rips\Movie.mkv
Using the --hevc option with either of these encoders will automatically select 10-bit output.
HEVC encoding will be slower than using the default H.264 format, but 10-bit HEVC is superior in quality because it significantly reduces the risk of color banding.
While it's possible to use Nvidia NVENC on Linux, setup is very difficult because it requires a custom build of FFmpeg and may need special drivers.
The Linux platform also restricts tuning the quality of Intel encoders by requiring access through VAAPI, an abstract Video Acceleration API.
Apple VideoToolbox is the only hardware video encoder available on macOS. And although it can produce good quality, it's not possible to further improve that quality via tuning.
Hardware decoding to speed the processing of input video formats like VC-1 is also not possible using Apple VideoToolbox.