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-   -   Quality Discussion HD/SD (Offtopic posts from Shana II Ep 1) (http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=55802)

bayoab 2007-10-07 13:09

Quality Discussion HD/SD (Offtopic posts from Shana II Ep 1)
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1187798)
From the technical angle, Shana S2 is the cream of the Fall2007 crop so far. Especially if I look at the OP...

Some older sequences are still normal-resolution, but most of the new animation is true HD, and looking extremely detailed and sweet.

This show is gonna be fun to do :)

Too bad the show doesn't even air in HD.

http://www.mbs.jp/pgm/timetable/daily/20071011.shtml (25:25 if you don't know where to look.)

PEDOS_GRANDE 2007-10-07 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1187798)
From the technical angle, Shana S2 is the cream of the Fall2007 crop so far. Especially if I look at the OP...

Some older sequences are still normal-resolution, but most of the new animation is true HD, and looking extremely detailed and sweet.

This show is gonna be fun to do :)

Wait: this is in HD? It certainly doesnt look like it. It looks like an upscale.

Techinically, I think Gundam00 is crapping all over everything else. I watched the raw yesterday, WOW.

N-Bomb 2007-10-07 13:44

The xvid encode looks fine, but this show is definitely not in HD. You might've gotten a fake raw dude. Or maybe it was upscaled by the airing station, I dunno.

Mentar 2007-10-07 13:51

Jesus christ, so many people talking about things they don't understand. I guess they didn't even bother to download and look, they just had a peek at some sites and knew. What really matters in terms of visual quality is the quality of the master - NOT merely the final airing resolution.

Look at this frame. Does this look like an upscale to you?

http://www.earth-alliance.org/zhenta...this_in_SD.png

Okay. Now, we see how an upscale really looks like. I take this frame and reduce it to SD (640x360). Keep in mind that almost no SD encodes exist which could reach this quality level.

http://www.earth-alliance.org/zhenta...downscaled.png

And finally, we re-upsize it again

http://www.earth-alliance.org/zhenta...ized_again.png

As you see, especially if you open the frames in both tabs, is how the upscale loses definition and precision and gains a blurry edge. And this is why "fake upscales" don't really do look better. If I had the nerve, I'd pick a SD encode, upscale it, and then show how SD would look at 1280x720. Ugly.

It's true that several parts - especially those from season 1 - are only normal SD. They are INDEED upscales. However, the NEW parts are not. They have a much higher visual clarity which becomes rather obvious when watched.

If you were correct, then the xvid and the h264 should look almost the same, at least in terms of sharpness and detail. Because after all, the h264 is only a puny upscale, right? Fine. Download both and see for yourself.

And I can't believe that I was stupid enough to waste 15 minutes on doing all this.

PEDOS_GRANDE 2007-10-07 13:57

I believe SD resoltion has 480 lines, not 320. And with a slight sharpen, the difference is gone in the upsized-again image. Perhaps there's a better frame to use, there's not much detail in the one you picked in the first place.

Mentar 2007-10-07 14:06

How about you download both versions (the SD xvid and HD mkv), watch both of them, and then compare? Before you comment blindly?

If you then seriously don't see a difference (in the _new_ parts, not the repeats), then come again.

lazyasian224 2007-10-07 14:25

WOah... thats scary... theres actually a huge difference

Mentar 2007-10-07 14:33

Yes, there is.

The thing is that what REALLY counts is whether the _original anime material_ is handled as HD when it's mastered and converted to a digital representation. THAT is what "HD anime" really is, not (just) what resolution it's eventually aired in.

This is a common misconception, and doubly annoying when people start to criticize your hi-res release by claiming it's a mere upscale.

If the _original material_ is HD, then qualified encoders can graft HD quality out of the airing, even if _the airing_ is not native HD.

Original material HD ---> Station airs in HD ---> win!
Original material HD ---> Station airs in normal res ---> win! Still HD quality attainable (this is what we have)
Original material SD ---> Station airs in HD ---> Station upscale level, "better" but not full HD quality
Original material SD ---> Station airs in normal res ---> The normal lower quality.

lazyasian224 2007-10-07 14:34

ima feel like a retard but what subbing group are u from?

PEDOS_GRANDE 2007-10-07 14:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1187961)
Yes, there is.

The thing is that what REALLY counts is whether the _original anime material_ is handled as HD when it's mastered and converted to a digital representation. THAT is what "HD anime" really is, not (just) what resolution it's eventually aired in.

This is a common misconception, and doubly annoying when people start to criticize your hi-res release by claiming it's a mere upscale.

If the _original material_ is HD, then qualified encoders can graft HD quality out of the airing, even if _the airing_ is not native HD.

Original material HD ---> Station airs in HD ---> win!
Original material HD ---> Station airs in normal res ---> win! Still HD quality attainable (this is what we have)
Original material SD ---> Station airs in HD ---> Station upscale level, "better" but not full HD quality
Original material SD ---> Station airs in normal res ---> The normal lower quality.

Wait: so it was aired in SD, but yet its somehow now HD? Im confused. Whether or not its mastered for HD doesnt really matter; if it airs in 480, its 480. Sure, its a very nice-looking clean 480, but its still SD. So you used a raw of a SD broadcast and claim your subs' encode is HD? Again, i'm a little confused.

N-Bomb 2007-10-07 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1187961)
If the _original material_ is HD, then qualified encoders can graft HD quality out of the airing, even if _the airing_ is not native HD.


Look bro, I don't mean to be picky here... but how the hell do you find that missing info? Magic? The first thing anyone learns when dealing with image manipulation is that downscaling discards information, which cannot then be recovered. It doesn't matter if the original image is 720p or 1080p or 94857201p - if it's downscaled and aired in SD, and an upscaled SD is what's aired, how do you figure you can pull HD out of that?

Mentar 2007-10-07 15:09

We're getting very technical here, maybe a kind mod can move this thread to the Tech board for discussion.

For me, HD is a description of an attainable visual quality level. SD is the visual quality level we've been used to for ages - what's been airing in the past, on TV, and on DVD. HD goes significantly beyond that.

What we have in this case is a 720x480 airing of a show which has clearly been mastered in HD resolution. This is fairly rare still and results in a quality which goes WAY BEYOND what we're used to for "normal" SD releases. Why? Because of the amount of detail retained. "Normal" SD releases offer much less of this detail, they are technically _also_ aired in 720x480, but they are also _captured_ in this format, adding all scanning errors, encoding artifacts and other forms of visual degradation to the result. HD-origin releases are then _downscaled_ to 720x480, this results in a totally different visual experience, because the problems from the SD capture are generally superseded by _downsize_ of a superior-quality original.

Technically, you're right of course - you can't "reinvent" the quality lost in the downsize. But you can keep things perfectly in check in a slight upscale (line thickness, clean gradients etc) to rescue most of the visual experience. If you have a SD-captured, SD-aired source, you can't. Here, "upscales" multiply all errors you had from the SD-capture, the picture looks blurry, and sharpening it back up doesn't yield much effect.

In practical terms, what matters more for the video encoder is not the AIRING resolution, but rather the CAPTURE resolution. And in return, the raw providers choose their resolutions exactly on the visual impression, NOT on the airing resolution.

So, if you decree that a "genuine" HD in your definition is only HD-mastered, HD-aired - fine, then this release is not. But you're doing the fans a great disservice, because even you will have to admit that the visual experience is _fundamentally_ different.

PEDOS_GRANDE 2007-10-07 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1188044)
We're getting very technical here, maybe a kind mod can move this thread to the Tech board for discussion.

For me, HD is a description of an attainable visual quality level. SD is the visual quality level we've been used to for ages - what's been airing in the past, on TV, and on DVD. HD goes significantly beyond that.

What we have in this case is a 720x480 airing of a show which has clearly been mastered in HD resolution. This is fairly rare still and results in a quality which goes WAY BEYOND what we're used to for "normal" SD releases. Why? Because of the amount of detail retained. "Normal" SD releases offer much less of this detail, they are technically _also_ aired in 720x480, but they are also _captured_ in this format. HD-origin releases are then _downscaled_ to 720x480, this results in a totally different visual experience.

Technically, you're right of course - you can't "reinvent" the quality lost in the downsize. But you can keep things perfectly in check in a slight upscale (line thickness, clean gradients etc) to rescue most of the visual experience. If you have a SD-captured, SD-aired source, you can't. Here, "upscales" multiply all errors you had from the SD-capture, the picture looks blurry, and sharpening it back up doesn't yield much effect.

In practical terms, what matters more for the video encoder is not the AIRING resolution, but rather the CAPTURE resolution. And in return, the raw providers choose their resolutions exactly on the visual impression, NOT on the airing resolution.

So, if you decree that a "genuine" HD in your definition is only HD-mastered, HD-aired - fine, then this release is not. But you're doing the fans a great disservice, because even you will have to admit that the visual experience is _fundamentally_ different.


That's a very eloquent escape, but I'm glad you admitted you were wrong. HD this sub is not. And you really shouldn't claim it is, either. More and more fansub groups are doing this it seems over the past year or so and boy is it annoying.

You shouldnt be using a technical term with a very CLEAR definition and replacing it with your own fuzzy one. HD has one definition and one definition only.

Mentar 2007-10-07 15:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by PEDOS_GRANDE (Post 1188055)
That's a very eloquent escape, but I'm glad you admitted you were wrong. HD this sub is not. And you really shouldn't claim it is, either. More and more fansub groups are doing this it seems over the past year or so and boy is it annoying.

You shouldnt be using a technical term with a very CLEAR definition and replacing it with your own fuzzy one. HD has one definition and one definition only.

*lol*

Look, I could encode blankclip() in 1280x720 and call it HD. And I'd be perfectly right. HD is nothing more than a set of predefined resolutions. So much for your "one definition".

What is important for the viewer is not which technical processing a video went through, the viewer wants to know how the result looks. The _source_ is clearly HD. The encoded result is _also_ HD. That's what counts.

I note that you still weasel out of my question to compare the _real_ SD release (namely the XviD avi) with the h264 MKV one. The difference is noticeable for everyone. And to put it bluntly, for them, the distinction I use is much more reasonable than yours.

PEDOS_GRANDE 2007-10-07 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1188065)
*lol*

Look, I could encode blankclip() in 1280x720 and call it HD. And I'd be perfectly right. HD is nothing more than a set of predefined resolutions. So much for your "one definition".

What is important for the viewer is not which technical processing a video went through, the viewer wants to know how the result looks. The _source_ is clearly HD. The encoded result is _also_ HD. That's what counts.

I note that you still weasel out of my question to compare the _real_ SD release (namely the XviD avi) with the h264 MKV one. The difference is noticeable for everyone. And to put it bluntly, for them, the distinction I use is much more reasonable than yours.




I wasnt arguing that your "HD" sub looked better than the SD release or vice-versa. I said it wasn't HD, to which you agreed in your last post. The distinction that you use is totally WRONG. You are redefining HD to "some arbitrary level of quality to my eyes and mind" Is it that hard to admit you were wrong? I don't want to be a jerk or anything, but you keep arguing, even after you admitted as much in your post before this one.

And it DOES matter what processing an image went through. Because with a downscale, quality is lost and information is thrown out the door. It shocks me that you admit to much but still claim that HD is whatever you define it to be, some sort of "experience" percieved by the user.

relentlessflame 2007-10-07 15:46

This reminds me of Kyoto Animation's answer (on the Kanon Prelude DVD) to the question of "What's different about producing a show in HD?" The answer was, of course, "you use bigger paper". I think the real difference people will notice when comparing season one of Shana with season two is that the lines look much, much thiner now -- on the "SD" version, some are only a pixel or two wide. Same applies to the CG and so on -- there's just a lot more artwork detail there, even when broadcast at the very same resolution. That's obviously because the artists had a bigger canvas in mind when they drew/animated it.

So, for that reason, I think Mentar's right when he says the apparent difference is obvious, even to the un-trained eye (the filters used help restore some of the original detail, despite it being interpolated). But of course, those maintaining that it isn't HD are also correct. Perhaps the whole thing could be solved by simply removing the "HD" label entirely, and only putting the resolution (which, of course, is what happened).

All in all, I think it's pretty self-evident that encoders should only provide high-res encodes if the source material really warrants it (i.e. it looks significantly better than simple software scaling). I say "self-evident", but that doesn't stop countless groups from releasing ugly, blurry, no-better-than-stretching-the-player "HD" releases every week. We see the same problem with people providing super-high-res scans of really low-lpi print material -- it looks like crap, and the resolution isn't helping! This is the sort of education that I think would be most useful, rather than arguing about whether it's "HD", "quasi-HD", "True HD (tm)" or whatever. Start with "does it not look like blurry crap" first. :heh: (I suppose that's another topic, though...)

Mentar 2007-10-07 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by PEDOS_GRANDE (Post 1188086)
I wasnt arguing that your "HD" sub looked better than the SD release or vice-versa. I said it wasn't HD, to which you agreed in your last post.

You don't read too well, do you? HD is only a set of resolutions. Every encode adhering to this set of resolutions is HD. A picture showing nothing but a blank black screen in 1280x720 is HD. The release in question is 1280x720 too and HD.

This is just for the definition issue. If you want to be anal (and for some silly reason you are), so can I.

Quote:

<lots of words, nothing new...>
So, to spell it out to you once more. If you (for yourself) define that with HD you mean "a source that has been animated in a HD detailgrade, mastered in HD and aired in HD", then no, this release is not HD. I even wrote so before, explicitly. What more do you want? Should I sing it to you? :)

What you now so grudgingly admit in a single sentence is that there is a huge quality difference between both versions. How would you label it then?

"SD" would be misleading.
"Station upscale" is flatly wrong.
"HD master station downscale"?

The funny thing is that in general I share the resentment of fansub groups eagerly labeling every 1280x720 encode or higher HD. The result should warrant it. But: This release DOES. It's that simple, really. And still, relatively few shows are HD-mastered. They deserved to be labeled as such.

cyth 2007-10-07 15:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentar (Post 1188065)
The _source_ is clearly HD. The encoded result is _also_ HD. That's what counts.

What counts is the end result. Let's say an HD-produced show airs on some station in HD, and the same HD-produced show airs as a downscale or however you want to call it on some other station. LOTS and LOTS of information get discarded with the second station's broadcast. Now let's say you encode those two as a fansub to your best abilities. You have no bitrate restrictions. Which video is going to win in terms of visual quality and impression?

What you're basically doing with the capture of the second broadcast is upsizing/filtering it so the end result/visual impression will look better than what 'Fullscreen Mode' in my video player would do. But hey, I bet you can do the very same with an SD source! SD sources may look crappier than HD 'downscaled to SD', but they still won't look as good as HD-produced, HD-aired.

Alizar 2007-10-07 16:03

The squabble is about what the "HV" (or HD) label means really. I'm sure MBS broadcast something at a size of 1280x720, hence the cappers nabbing it at such in most cases (also the station logos are quite, quite clear)

Beyond that it's all guesswork as to what went on behind the scenes, i.e. is it a studio upscale, a station upscale, or what? I'm sure some HD resolution masters are hiding behind the scenes, but what got handed to the station really is anyone's guess.

Mentar 2007-10-07 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toua (Post 1188107)
What counts is the end result. Let's say an HD-produced show airs on some station in HD, and the same HD-produced show airs as a downscale or however you want to call it on some other station. LOTS and LOTS of information get discarded with the second station's broadcast. Now let's say you encode those two as a fansub to your best abilities. You have no bitrate restrictions. Which video is going to win in terms of visual quality and impression?

We've been through all this, I even wrote it down. What's the point?

Of course, HD-all-the-way will look better, unless the source itself is trivial.

Quote:

What you're basically doing with the capture of the second broadcast is upsizing/filtering it so the end result/visual impression will look better than what 'Fullscreen Mode' in my video player would do. But hey, I bet you can do the very same with an SD source! SD sources may look crappier than HD 'downscaled to SD', but they still won't look as good as HD-produced, HD-aired.
Irrelevant. The difference is not between "everyone-of-the-three-steps HD" and "lower-res airing, rest all HD", but between this release and normal SD. The funny thing is that by this (frankly misleading) definition the highly expensive Air BluRay DVD set isn't HD. Many sequences are taken from normal SD captures, and visibly so.

I insist that this release offers a visual quality in the mkv version which goes way beyond what anime viewers are usually treated to, and it's way above the SD xvid (even though it's actually a downscale of the same source, resulting in a better-than-normal video). If definition purists say that this isn't what HD is, more power to them (not to say that they can kiss my hairy... :) ). In the meantime I'll keep calling it HD by _my_ category. And I can tell you, I have had no complaints in the channel about the video quality yet.


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