Long time no see everyone. It's encouraging to see so many old faces still active in the scene. Congratulations on many years of service.
Some time in 2006, I pretty much left the world of fansubbing to return to my roots as a gamer. I sort of drifted around from game to game as any other gamer, but then SSF2T got a re-release in 2008 and I got into it in a big way, attending tournaments etc. Well long story short, the scene for it started to fade out with the release of SFIV, and I eventually got back into anime and started following currently airing series.
Some things have changed in that time, and some haven't. I'm pleased to see that video quality is better in general, and that 720p is now the defacto standard (much to my frustration when I can only find DVD rips). On the other hand, I'm surprised to see people still releasing 480p and ASP versions, and for lack of a better word, enraged to see people still putting H.264 and AAC in AVI. I am most pleased to see many more original series compared to cookie cutter ecchi and harem that was rampant a few years back. The overall production quality appears to have risen too.
What happened guys? I thought we educated the noobs and run out the trolls years ago?
Despite my pushing the merits of MP4 and lolstandards, I'm glad to see MKV and softsubs as the dominant force. Even though I rarely turn them off, it's somewhat reassuring to know that the option is there, and more to the point that it hasn't altered the content of the video itself.
But there's one thing that bugs me. Something I want to get off my chest. Perhaps it's because I've done very little HD encoding that I don't understand some of the problems faced (remember, you are talking to an ex-encoder who's knowledge only spans until 2006 or so).
What's going on with filesizes these days? Now before you think, "hurr u mad", that's not the case. I have 50mbps down and 2 or 3TB HDD to spare. x264 has undergone some 1300 revisions since I was active, so I know the speed and compression are far better than they were back then. At such times, 720p would average 200-250MB if memory serves correctly. That's 5 years ago. The average size these days is probably 300-400MB. What's changed?
I appreciate that over time, people will have thought, "You know, crf18 doesn't cut it anymore, let's try crf17, or crf16" etc, but given the amount of work that has gone into x264, I'd have thought that the compression gains would have somewhat offset the filesize gains from using a more favourable crf. TS sources have become more widely available, but the quality of that source, I expect has stayed much the same (standards, hardware encoders etc, maybe quarkboy can shed some light on this since he's on the inside now - congrats on that).
One thing I noticed is that the crf I'm used to seem to have changed. Could it be that people still use the same crf values but the adjustments in x264 are producing larger files for a given crf?
Or is it that new breed of encoders not know how to get the most out of x264? Are they too idle to spend time encoding and decide to go with weaker settings in order to release before others?
Or are they using weak settings to artificially bloat the file to lure leechers into downloading their bigger files assuming they are better quality?
Yes it takes me two or three minutes to download a fansub and it really shouldn't bother me as much as it does, just the encoder in me rages every time I see a file that was encoded with anything less than optimal settings.
I'll leave you with this little gem (I realise that this is not representative of the average encode, but this made me chuckle and rage at the same time).
[HiNA-Wasurenai] Hen Zemi OAD - 01 [DVD H264 720x480 AAC] [4D6E7992].mkv
Code:
cabac=1 / ref=6 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.40:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=16 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=4 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=crf / mbtree=0 / crf=17.0 / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.60
Dual core is not an excuse. I'm fairly sure we were all using more optimal settings than this (barring number of b-frames) 5 years ago. Anyone want to dig around for old command lines?
@TheFluff
I'm not sure how much involved your are with the Madoka streams/subs, but thank you so much. Absolutely love this series.