Need some H.264 tweaking advice..
Hi Cinners (lol) Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..? I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV? Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for? Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin! Best, Glen --
вс, 11 янв. 2026 г., 21:39 AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]>:
Hi Cinners (lol)
Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..?
I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV?
Well, h264 is complex beast but in this case you can simply edit profiles for consistence (profile=high IIRC allow bigger resolutions and more complex features), and there is save profile/load profile button in gui I never used ... Combination of lossless cutting and re-encodes turned out surprizingly complex problem, from some ffmpeg/lossless cut/avidemux discussions I have read in last year or two, some users recommended (discontinued, proprietary) videoredo6, and it was working under wine for me, I even discovered that reference h264 encoder had stereo support, unlike x264 (but sure it is very slow even with one stream). But in short at least for cinelerra-gg output you can homogenize mov/mkv/mp4 settings so they will not error out when you concat files later. Not sure if there way to force _ending_ keyframe to be at very end? Outside of setting those forced fixed keyframe intervals and adding/cutting video stream a bit so it ends at aligned number of frames? Those profiles often do not represent state of the art in tuning, but mostly what was working 'enough' at times when they were created.
Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for?
Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin!
Best, Glen
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вс, 11 янв. 2026 г., 21:39 AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]>:
Hi Cinners (lol)
Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..?
I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV? Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for?
Oh, forgot about this part! I think faststart helps if you files streamed as-is via html5 video element for example? More complex streaming schemas use bunch of fragments assembled by javascript in browser ... Lesser load on server, more on clients. Not really tried any of this, but at some point in time GPAC software/framework was only one that was able to put pcm sound inside mp4 container, alongside with h264 video. Nowadays ffmpeg should allow this too. Not sure if browsers will play this ... may be they hardwired to aac/opus as sound codecs?
Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin!
Best, Glen
-- _______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
Thanks Andrew! I should have clarified... My final project is always MP4 with 320kbps Audio, so the streaming of the final product would always be an MP4 file. I use the MOV and MKV options from Cin when I want to leave the Video as-is and further edit the WAV Audio in Ardour, when exported from Ardour the Audio only is converted to MP4 (aac) and the Video is copied as the original rendered Cin H.264 Video into MP4. I will try your advice and for now I will unify the profile and keyint options across MP4, MKV and MOV and try that first, probably faststart is extra unneeded complexity --- On 2026-01-11 14:01, Andrew Randrianasulu via Cin wrote:
вс, 11 янв. 2026 г., 21:39 AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]>:
Hi Cinners (lol)
Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..?
I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV? Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for?
Oh, forgot about this part!
I think faststart helps if you files streamed as-is via html5 video element for example? More complex streaming schemas use bunch of fragments assembled by javascript in browser ... Lesser load on server, more on clients. Not really tried any of this, but at some point in time GPAC software/framework was only one that was able to put pcm sound inside mp4 container, alongside with h264 video. Nowadays ffmpeg should allow this too. Not sure if browsers will play this ... may be they hardwired to aac/opus as sound codecs?
Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin!
Best, Glen
-- _______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
_______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
Well, so far it's working in h264.mkv! I'm rendering with this setting on a long Video right now: matroska libx264 #high profile profile=high # use framerate for 1 keyframe/sec, needed for seeks keyint_min=25 x264-params keyint=25 #faststart for streaming movflags=+faststart I'm not suggesting you change the Cin defaults, I'm just reporting that this setting works in MKV, I still need to test MP4 (I can't see why it won't work there) and MOV. Thank you for helping me understand the preset mechanism better, if I find more useful tweaks I will send them along.. Best, Glen --- On 2026-01-11 14:01, Andrew Randrianasulu via Cin wrote:
вс, 11 янв. 2026 г., 21:39 AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]>:
Hi Cinners (lol)
Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..?
I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV? Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for?
Oh, forgot about this part!
I think faststart helps if you files streamed as-is via html5 video element for example? More complex streaming schemas use bunch of fragments assembled by javascript in browser ... Lesser load on server, more on clients. Not really tried any of this, but at some point in time GPAC software/framework was only one that was able to put pcm sound inside mp4 container, alongside with h264 video. Nowadays ffmpeg should allow this too. Not sure if browsers will play this ... may be they hardwired to aac/opus as sound codecs?
Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin!
Best, Glen
-- _______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
_______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
Glen, thanks for listing the presets you use that work well for you and if you have more suggestions, please pass them along. I a going to update the h264.mkv for all in a future release. On Sun, Jan 11, 2026 at 1:24 PM AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]> wrote:
Well, so far it's working in h264.mkv! I'm rendering with this setting on a long Video right now:
matroska libx264 #high profile profile=high # use framerate for 1 keyframe/sec, needed for seeks keyint_min=25 x264-params keyint=25 #faststart for streaming movflags=+faststart
I'm not suggesting you change the Cin defaults, I'm just reporting that this setting works in MKV, I still need to test MP4 (I can't see why it won't work there) and MOV. Thank you for helping me understand the preset mechanism better, if I find more useful tweaks I will send them along..
Best, Glen
---
On 2026-01-11 14:01, Andrew Randrianasulu via Cin wrote:
вс, 11 янв. 2026 г., 21:39 AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]>:
Hi Cinners (lol)
Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..?
I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV? Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for?
Oh, forgot about this part!
I think faststart helps if you files streamed as-is via html5 video element for example? More complex streaming schemas use bunch of fragments assembled by javascript in browser ... Lesser load on server, more on clients. Not really tried any of this, but at some point in time GPAC software/framework was only one that was able to put pcm sound inside mp4 container, alongside with h264 video. Nowadays ffmpeg should allow this too. Not sure if browsers will play this ... may be they hardwired to aac/opus as sound codecs?
Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin!
Best, Glen
-- _______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
_______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
_______________________________________________ Cin mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
Hello Phyllis! I am really no guru at all with H.264, these presets approximate what I get out of Davinci Resolve; ie High Profile, seeking and faststart (or network optimization as they call it). I've attached the presets and it's up to you and the developers if you want to use them or not. I have tested them in MP4, MKV and MOV, I have not created or modified an H.264 preset for 'qt' yet only because it works as I expect simply using the MOV container in ffmpeg. *Side note For people who may be using Avidemux to append clips together it's MP4 Muxer also does faststart by default I have noticed. Best, Glen --- On 2026-01-13 14:25, Phyllis Smith via Cin wrote:
Glen, thanks for listing the presets you use that work well for you and if you have more suggestions, please pass them along. I a going to update the h264.mkv for all in a future release.
On Sun, Jan 11, 2026 at 1:24 PM AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]> wrote:
Well, so far it's working in h264.mkv! I'm rendering with this setting on a long Video right now:
matroska libx264 #high profile profile=high # use framerate for 1 keyframe/sec, needed for seeks keyint_min=25 x264-params keyint=25 #faststart for streaming movflags=+faststart
I'm not suggesting you change the Cin defaults, I'm just reporting that this setting works in MKV, I still need to test MP4 (I can't see why it won't work there) and MOV. Thank you for helping me understand the preset mechanism better, if I find more useful tweaks I will send them along..
Best, Glen
---
On 2026-01-11 14:01, Andrew Randrianasulu via Cin wrote:
вс, 11 янв. 2026 г., 21:39 AVLinux via Cin <[email protected]>: Hi Cinners (lol)
Recently at my request you added H.264 Video codec options for MOV and MKV containers and things are working well in general, I certainly don't think further changes need to be made to Cin but for my own use and workflow I'm thinking some further H.264 tweaks might be useful..?
I don't generally don't assemble long projects in Cin itself, I prefer to make individual clips and put them together losslessly later with some ffmpeg concatenation File Actions in AV Linux, or using the 'append' feature in Avidemux or even using TMPGEnc SmartRender 6 (in Windows). As you know when you assemble clips this way they need to have the same codecs and settings in order to assemble without re-encoding and I would like to ensure that I'm able to use the H.264 Video from Cin Rendering all the way to assembling. If I look at the H.264 options in Cin the new H.264 options for MOV and MKV don't match the MP4 settings. For example MKV and MOV have 'profile=high' and H.264 in MP4 doesn't use the high profile and it has some keyint settings so when assembling I get some reported errors because the H.264 Video clips I created with MKV differ from clips I have made with MP4. I am not an H.264 guru or expert so is there any reason that I can't combine the profile=high and keyint settings and use the same H.264 settings across MP4, MKV and MOV? Lastly, I am now hosting my Videos for streaming on my own website due to numerous factors but mostly the proliferation of AI scraping by the large tech companies, is there an extra setting I should be using in the H.264 options to enhance streaming? Is this what the 'faststart' option is for?
Oh, forgot about this part!
I think faststart helps if you files streamed as-is via html5 video element for example? More complex streaming schemas use bunch of fragments assembled by javascript in browser ... Lesser load on server, more on clients. Not really tried any of this, but at some point in time GPAC software/framework was only one that was able to put pcm sound inside mp4 container, alongside with h264 video. Nowadays ffmpeg should allow this too. Not sure if browsers will play this ... may be they hardwired to aac/opus as sound codecs?
Advice appreciated! Thanks for the continued work on Cin, having also used both Davinci Resolve (on Windows) and Kdenlive over the past few years I still have the best productivity with Cin!
Best, Glen
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participants (3)
-
Andrew Randrianasulu -
info＠bandshed.net -
Phyllis Smith