[Cin] Cinx - 10-bit h264 and/or h265

[Terje J Hanssen]

Hi,

Two sections pasted from the current Feature5 documentation say:

page 12
Do NOT download the LEAP 10bit version unless you use h264 (it can't 
render 8bit h264).

page 171
38. Cinx and a “Bit” of Confusion
Cinx is the exact same program as Cin. The X (x) represents the roman 
numeral 10 for 10 bit as
opposed to 8-bit standard. The third-party library used for x265 must be 
specially compiled with –bit-
depth=10 in order to produce 10 bit rendered output. This build will not 
be able to output 8-bit depth
which means you have to retain the Cin version also. Whatever build 
ffmpeg is linked to will
determine what bit depth it can output. This is why there has to be 
separate builds. The same is true
for x264 but no special build has been created for that; however the 
user can do their own build. If you
install both packages, Cin and CinX, you may get “file conflicts of same 
file name” - just continue.

Keep in mind that the regular 8-bit version works on 8-bit bytes – the 
standard word size for
computers, but the 10-bit version has to use 2 words to contain all 10 
bits so you can expect rendering
to be as much as twice as slow. There is also a 12-bit version for 
consideration but currently the results
are simply the same as 10-bit with padding to make 12-bit so it is of no 
value.


I wonder if there is a typo above on page 12 "h264" vs "x265" and "x264" 
page 171, or something I have mis-interpreted?

I have both Cin and Cinx installed on the same Leap15 and have the 
following libx installed:


zypper se -i libx26

S  | Name        | Summary                                   | Type
---+-------------+-------------------------------------------+--------
i+ | libx264-152 | A free h264/avc encoder - encoder binary  | package
i+ | libx265-151 | A free H265/HEVC encoder - encoder binary | package
i+ | libx265-165 | A free H265/HEVC encoder - encoder binary | package

------------------------

As I understand the following url, x264 supports both 8-bit and 10-bit 
H.264 encoding
https://gist.github.com/l4n9th4n9/4459997

and VLC 3.0: Hardware acceleration for H. 264/H. 265 in 8/10 Bit and 
CineForm
https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/VLC-3-0--Hardware-acceleration-for-H--264-H--265-i-14072.html

In short it seems like 10-bit h264 encoding is better for smaller file 
size and colors, also for 8-bit video sources.H
It is not a HD Blu-ray video standard, but can be decoded on a PC.
10-bit h265 is part of the UHD Blu-ray video format.


Thanks,
Terje