ffmpeg: nvenc mit crf option - very low bitrate

Question

I bought a new computer some time ago.

I installed nvenc for ffmpeg to encode my videos with the H.264 codec. To optimize I used the

-crf option

but something went wrong.

I want to encode a full HD video with originally 6000kbits but ffmpeg encode the video with CRF to max 1800kbits. Thats really less and you can see this in the video after the encoding.

I also used

-crf 0

already but it didn't help.

What can I do to force the bitrate to at least 3000kbit but with the -crf option? I don't want to use a fixed bitrate!

Thanks for your help!

Solution

ffmpeg -y -i inputfile -c:v nvenc_h264 -b:v 1000k -minrate 500k -maxrate 5000k \
       -tier high -profile:v high -level 4.0 -preset llhq outputfile

You will be limited with what options you can use. Faster encodes yes. Quality and control? Not so much. The above example might help you a bit. The -b:v 1000k -minrate 500k -maxrate 5000k being the most important part.