Using PAQ to compress MP4 video

[Puza]

Hello,

I have about 300 GB of recorded gemeplay that I want to compress for cloud storage, and was wondering what would be the best way of doing that?
I'm interested in methods that have high compression ratio and PAQ seems to have a good one.

I am seeing mixed opinions on various forums. Some suggesting PAQ for MP4 compression, and some saying that MP4 can't be compressed any further.

Everything is recorded it in MP4 1080p at 10-12 Mbps, and is in chunks of files ranging from 200 to 600 MB in size.


Does anyone have any experience with compressing MP4 with PAQ, or have any alternatives that would work?
How long would it take for a single 600 MB file?
I'm ok with long compression times, as long as there is no quality loss.

My specs:

CPU:  i7-7700K @ 4.7 Ghz
GPU: GIGABYTE GTX 1070 Ti GAMING OC
RAM: 16GB DDR4 (2x8) Kingston Hyperx Fury
MOBO: Asus ROG STRIX Z270F GAMING
Cooling: Noctua NH-D15
PSU: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus 750 W 80+ Gold
HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM
HDD: 4TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM
SSD: 256 GB ADATA SU650

Thank you

[Tabloid tuesday]

it is really funny how Blizzard does this in StarcraftII you can't disable it but every game is recorded with a replay...but is this relevant to the thread, no sorry. but still all replays have everything enabled for all players (sound settings etc. playback never stutters)how do you do that? do not know what replays framerate are.

[emoticorpse]

by mp4, I'm guessing you mean x264 (if you don't know then check, because that's the important thing). You can compress it further by encoding to lower bitrate, but you would lose quality.Lower the bitrate, the lower the quality. As far as I know x264 offers the best compression for it's size, apart from maybe x265. I never even heard of PAQ. is it a codec? or a compression type like zip files?.

As far as I can tell compressing to any compressed file type like .zip wouldn't really compress any further at all. What did you use to create the videos?

[Puza]

@emoticorpse Hey man. Thank's for the reply.
I have been experimenting with lower bit rates but it didn't work for me as I would like to keep the original quality as much as possible.
PAQ is a kind of compression similar to ZIP, that is said to have some crazy results. Compressing files to 1/10th of the original size. But it also has long compression and decompression times.

I am using nvidia's recording software to record the files in 1080p at 12 Mbps. It outputs the files in MP4 format and is using the H.264 codec from what I could find online.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Origineel geplaatst door Puza:

I am using nvidia's recording software to record the files in 1080p at 12 Mbps. It outputs the files in MP4 format and is using the H.264 codec from what I could find online.

NV should have an option to change the codec used to HEVC which will be h265 for better compression... but...

GPU output will be trash in terms of space used. GPU's are quick but not very good at encoding video. Since this is the case instead of tasking the GPU with both capturing and encoding it down to a lower bitrate (which it sucks at) just instead let it capture at a higher bitrate natively with plans to shrink it down after it captured... In this case it wont matter if you go with 264 or 265 to start you can use whichever you think looks better. Though going from 264 to 265 might add some more time to the transcodes.

Then use Handbrake or the likes to deal with the files how you see fit, from changing codec (to h265) to chaning bitrate or framerate (if you dont care about the footage being @ 60fps, but it was recorded at that, you can save a good chunk of space by halving the framerate to 30). If you *really* dont care about the time you can (and should) use the sooftware transcodes (which are the defaults) instead of using the GPU. This will use the CPU for the work in analyzing and outputing the new video file, and will take some time. Potentially lots of time. But this will produce the smallest files with the least loss in quality in terms of what you can do with the video itself.

[emoticorpse]

Origineel geplaatst door Puza:

@emoticorpse Hey man. Thank's for the reply.
I have been experimenting with lower bit rates but it didn't work for me as I would like to keep the original quality as much as possible.
PAQ is a kind of compression similar to ZIP, that is said to have some crazy results. Compressing files to 1/10th of the original size. But it also has long compression and decompression times.

I am using nvidia's recording software to record the files in 1080p at 12 Mbps. It outputs the files in MP4 format and is using the H.264 codec from what I could find online.

well, I've never used the Nvidia program for recording videos so not sure how it compares but if you're still recording videos I would try OBS studio. That's what I use. I install after install I go to the video quality configuration and select "small file indistinguishable quality" setting and I don't mess with the bitrate settings. The video looks perfect to me and I do choose to use my GPU to encode. My performance takes less of a hit encoding by GPU than by CPU from what I can tell. And I do really like the encoding job done by my GPU. I actually always use it (especially because it's faster). Even when transcoding videos. To encode with my CPU would take like three times as long than as my GPU. GPU encoding makes it fly and the quality is almost identicle as far as I can tell. So I would start there and see if it helps.

Also you can try changing audio settings. Maybe change it to 128 bps audio which used to the the standard back when Napster was around. It's not that bad but 192/256 is better.