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I'm using x264 to encode videos for a flash video streaming site. I use -tune fastdecode, which turns off cabac and deblock, which I've heard are the features which take most cpu to decode. However, I've still had reports of jerky video playback and high cpu usage.

Heres a typical encode command:

ffmpeg -y -i $infile -c:v libx264 -crf 28 -preset slow -vprofile main -tune fastdecode -f h264 -r:v 29.970 -vf "..." $outfile

My users view the videos using flash, on all desktop OSes and a wide variety of hardware.

Which encoding options are the most cpu-intense, and what are the recommended options for 'reasonable' playback on most machines?

Cameron Martin
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    What is your specific goal for decoding? Do you have a CPU usage target? What platform? Also, about MPEG-4 (part 2) video, if you need to deliver via Flash, MPEG-4 video is not an option. – Multimedia Mike Mar 23 '12 at 06:11
  • Users use the flash plugin on a wide variety of hardware. Operating system Windows, OSX and linux. I just want to know what encoding options most affect decode speed (resource usage), and if there are any h.264 features that don't play nice with the flash decoder. – Cameron Martin Mar 23 '12 at 20:40
  • Have you tried using '-vprofile baseline'? – Sean Fujiwara Mar 27 '12 at 01:05
  • Video resoluton? Do you offer multiple resolutions (like youtube), so owners of old platforms can select a non-jerky low-res version of the same movie? – Adriaan Apr 02 '12 at 09:15

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