Alpha deblocking & Beta Deblocking

Alpha deblocking effects the overal amount of deblocking to be applied to the picture, higher values deblock more effectively, but also destroy more detail and cause the entire image to be softened. The default value of 0 is almost always sufficient to get rid of most blocking (especialy when using a cqm), but leaves the picture noticibly blurier. In general use this value should be no lower then -3 and no higher then 3. When using a cqm the authors recomended settings should be used as the default value, and shouldn't be altered by more then +/-2. Alpha Deblocking is the most important parameter in determining the overal sharpness of your encode.

Beta Deblocking is a bit more tricky to use, Beta Deblocking determines whether something in a block is a detail or not when deblocking is aplied to it. Lower values of Beta Deblocking apply less deblocking to more flat blocks with details present (but more deblocking to blocks without details), while Higher values cause more deblocking to be applied to less flat blocks with details present. Generally Beta Deblocking shouldn't be altered unless you are haveing problems with the default setting. Raising Beta deblocking is a good way to help get rid of ringing artifacts by aplying more aggressive filtering to blocks that aren't very flat. Lowering beta Deblocking is a good way to reduce the amount of DCT blocks without bluring the entire picture. A high value of beta deblocking will cause nonflat blocks to be deblocked more aggressively, while a low value will cause the opposite.