The Guide for best H.264 playback (with both SD and HD content)

[Maceart]

Problem is TheFluff, this is nothing like the migration from Xvid to H.264. This is H.264 to more retarded H.264 deviating from the norm. It's just like people who encode with 9 reference frames "because they can."

Why oh why do encoders always go for the most obscures and dumbass formats to create their videos in?

[ladholyman]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

oh boy, it's like we've entered an endless recursion of time and it's really 2005 again and people are complaining about how this newfangled h264 shit IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY ON <shitty plastic toy>
JUST USE XVID INSTEAD YOU ELITIST PRICKS, NOBODY WILL WATCH THIS H264 SHIT AND THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN QUALITY ANYWAY

It's really sort of funny that I have to go through this flamewar again after all these years. I sort of cringed when I read some of my posts from that era, because they were pretty bad, and now here comes the opportunity to do it ALL OVER AGAIN! It's like I'm in Groundhog Day and get to do it over and over and over until I have it perfect.

edit: actually ladholyman I'm p sure you were one of the fags that complained last time too, which I guess makes the entire thing double funny

edit edit: there is (still) no lack of reencoding groups, by the way

Uh, sure, call me names all you want. Make it into a flamewar for all I care. I'm only a translator.

Back in 2005 I had a Athlon 2600+ with 64 MB of ram, so of course I'd complain about not running H.264.

My point is that Hi10p does not provide enough benefit to the viewer to justify bricking of hardware acceleration. Does your thick skull not understand that?

[PositronCannon]

Originally Posted by Maceart

Why oh why do encoders always go for the most obscures and dumbass formats to create their videos in?

Eh, I dunno. I've yet to see any fansubs encoded with Snow. For the record, 10bit precision has been part of the H.264 spec since the start.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Maceart

Problem is TheFluff, this is nothing like the migration from Xvid to H.264. This is H.264 to more retarded H.264 deviating from the norm. It's just like people who encode with 9 reference frames "because they can."

Why oh why do encoders always go for the most obscures and dumbass formats to create their videos in?

Why is it nothing like the migration to H.264? It's a new format that provides significant improvements but is incompatible with old decoders. Where is the difference?

Xvid was "the norm" in 2005. The change to H.264 was made because certain people thought it wasn't a good norm. This is the same thing. Your argument seems to be "we should be using these encoding parameters because that's what we've been doing for the last five years".

Originally Posted by ladholyman

Uh, sure, call me names all you want. Make it into a flamewar for all I care. I'm only a translator.

Back in 2005 I had a Athlon 2600+ with 64 MB of ram, so of course I'd complain about not running H.264.

My point is that Hi10p does not provide enough benefit to the viewer to justify bricking of hardware acceleration. Does your thick skull not understand that?

If you are "only a translator", is it really all that clever to be basing your entire argument in a technical complaint about insignificant encoding efficiency? Have you done any compression tests?

Hardware accelerated decoding is a historical parenthesis. It wasn't available at all in 2005 (it only started to become widely used in 2008 or so) and soon enough it will be completely irrelevant (instead of only mostly irrelevant) again because of its retarded limitations.

In fact, I'd say that the best thing about 10-bit is that it is an excellent excuse for getting people to stop using hardware accelerated decoding. It's much like the Xvid to H.264 switch, where one of the best things about the switch was that it tricked people into upgrading the container from AVI to MKV.

[ladholyman]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

Why is it nothing like the migration to H.264? It's a new format that provides significant improvements but is incompatible with old decoders. Where is the difference?

Xvid was "the norm" in 2005. The change to H.264 was made because certain people thought it wasn't a good norm. This is the same thing. Your argument seems to be "we should be using these encoding parameters because that's what we've been doing for the last five years".



If you are "only a translator", is it really all that clever to be basing your entire argument in a technical complaint about insignificant encoding efficiency? Have you done any compression tests?

Hardware accelerated decoding is a historical parenthesis. It wasn't available at all in 2005 (it only started to become widely used in 2008 or so) and soon enough it will be completely irrelevant (instead of only mostly irrelevant) again because of its retarded limitations.

In fact, I'd say that the best thing about 10-bit is that it is an excellent excuse for getting people to stop using hardware accelerated decoding. It's much like the Xvid to H.264 switch, where one of the best things about the switch was that it tricked people into upgrading the container from AVI to MKV.

No, my argument is that more widespread support should occur before switching.

And "Significant improvements?" Perhaps this is where our opinions differ. You suggest that the improvements are justified in bricking a useful technology such as hardware acceleration. I do not.

[NoSanninWa]

The "groundhog day"-like situation is frustrating and funny to me.

Point the first: Encoders like playing with the latest and most interesting encoding schema. Good encoders only get good because they really like it. You should always expect a good encoder to try to make the best video that they know how.

It isn't remotely about needing to justify the difference. Personally I like seeing file size drop by a third or more, while video quality improves, but the encoders are mostly interested in the neatness of playing with a brand new toy. Be glad that they are happy since that's why they work for free.

Point the second: If you cannot play the videos there will always be XviD reencodes. Consequently there's no reason that it should bother you.

I just upgraded my 5 year old computer and I think it was a darn fine move. If you cannot play a hi10 encode then you are well aware that your computer is lacking. Consider this a nudge to get the upgrade you've been stalling.

Point the third: All that you can accomplish by dragging your heels is to encourage groups to put out 3 versions of their fansub instead of 2 versions. I found 2 versions annoying and I'll find 3 versions even more so. (Some groups are currently releasing three versions.) Please, let's hope that hi10 becomes the new standard to replace the other two, since it is really an unnecessary burden on the encoder. That rather sucks some of the fun out of our hobby.

You say that "more widespread support should occur before switching," but honestly since CCCP supports the encode, that's all that is really needed in the fansub world. They've done a fine job of providing the standard so that everyone can play the same videos. Perhaps that doesn't help people outside of the fansub world, but we know what will play our files.

tl;dr: Point the fourth and FINAL: If you say that increasing video quality while dropping file size by more than a third is not a significant improvement, then I don't think that anything could convince you.

[TheFluff]

nsw, bro, I like you
you can come over to my house and fuck my sister

[tyranuus]

Erk - Just realised I probably haven't posted in the best thread for this so *snip*

As a small point on the above, even though I've previously stated I like CUDA/DXVA/Hardware decoding because of the power, heat and cost savings it can make, I can't deny the benefits of 10bit as it's presented, which basically is:

tl;dr: Point the fourth and FINAL: If you say that increasing video quality while dropping file size by more than a third is not a significant improvement, then I don't think that anything could convince you.

I can understand 100% why people would still like compatible DXVA/CUDA/Hardware-compliant versions, because of the benefits, and thus 100% understand the wish for groups to release both Hi10 and 8bit versions, but I can't deny that potentially hi10 could be a very good thing for people able to play it, and completely get why fansub groups might wish to use it.

I was looking at a CG release the other day, and the 10bit version was ~12GB IIRC, the 8bit version was ~22GB, whilst the 10bit version by all accounts looks more or less identical. Thats a pretty huge saving; and if I support the idea of Ordered Chapters for potential savings, it'd be hypocritical for me not to see the benefits here!

[NoSanninWa]

I'm glad you two liked my answer. That's been stewing inside me since 2005. I'm slightly surprised that it would become so relevant again. At least the first three points have been relevant since then.

As for the fourth point, that was not nearly as clear six years ago. h264 encouraged encoders to increase the quality to DVD/BD level, or at least quite close. The result is that h264 actually increased file size. This trade-off made the improvement less obvious to some viewers. Many didn't want to download those "huge" video files. They certainly didn't want to upgrade their computer just to download the larger files when they still had the option of smaller videos that they could burn to a single DVD. (That is a reason some people prefer smaller videos.)

Now that hi10 is being used I see video files with the quality of h264 encodes and file sizes smaller than the XviD encodes. That seems like the perfect blend of both worlds. Of course it does require a decent PC to play them, but that is why people do XviD reencodes for the sake of those unfortunate souls. If people want to download those big XviD reencodes instead of upgrading their PC to play the smaller and higher quality Hi10 releases, then they do have that choice.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by tyranuus

I can understand 100% why people would still like compatible DXVA/CUDA/Hardware-compliant versions, because of the benefits, and thus 100% understand the wish for groups to release both Hi10 and 8bit versions, but I can't deny that potentially hi10 could be a very good thing for people able to play it, and completely get why fansub groups might wish to use it.

Hardware accelerated decoding isn't a benefit, it's a fucking liability (because it's buggy and has a whole bunch of retarded limitations) and mostly pointless to boot.

If your computer can't decode 30fps Hi10p h264 at 720p with a software decoder, then you either need to give it a serious virus/spyware/background process check or upgrade the hardware, because a computer that is so slow as to not manage that is seriously not fast enough for many other common tasks either.

There shouldn't be all that many computers that can't do the above-mentioned decoding in software but still has a graphics card new enough to support hardware accelerated decoding, anyway. Many of the ones that do exist have probably had their graphics cards upgraded for that very purpose, and in that case their owners deserve to suffer for their shortsightedness.

The playback policy of most fansub groups who actually care enough to have such a policy is (and has been for a long time) "officially, we support playback via CCCP; if you use anything else you're on your own", sometimes extended with MPlayer or lately even with VLC. Small plastic toys such as Popcorn Hours have never been and will never be supported. I don't really understand why people are so fond of using them anyway, since Hi10p isn't exactly the only problem they have with contemporary fansubs; the softsub support, for example, is generally terrible.

[ladholyman]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

Hardware accelerated decoding isn't a benefit, it's a fucking liability (because it's buggy and has a whole bunch of retarded limitations) and mostly pointless to boot.

If your computer can't decode 30fps Hi10p h264 at 720p with a software decoder, then you either need to give it a serious virus/spyware/background process check or upgrade the hardware, because a computer that is so slow as to not manage that is seriously not fast enough for many other common tasks either.

There shouldn't be all that many computers that can't do the above-mentioned decoding in software but still has a graphics card new enough to support hardware accelerated decoding, anyway. Many of the ones that do exist have probably had their graphics cards upgraded for that very purpose, and in that case their owners deserve to suffer for their shortsightedness.

The playback policy of most fansub groups who actually care enough to have such a policy is (and has been for a long time) "officially, we support playback via CCCP; if you use anything else you're on your own", sometimes extended with MPlayer or lately even with VLC. Small plastic toys such as Popcorn Hours have never been and will never be supported. I don't really understand why people are so fond of using them anyway, since Hi10p isn't exactly the only problem they have with contemporary fansubs; the softsub support, for example, is generally terrible.

Not everyone has new computers, or they're on netbooks with ION or AMD Fusion. To these people, DXVA is godsend.

To assume that everyone has the equipment to run the "newest fangled thing" of encoders is condescending, in my opinion.

But I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. The correct way to go is to give people options - encode both 8bit and 10bit versions, much like groups doing both Xvid and H.264 releases. NoSanninWa made several good points covering this. Hi10p is basically trading filesize for CPU power.

[Maceart]

Yeah, now with the proliferation of tablets with integrated CPU/GPUs on a chip, hardware acceleration is even more useful than ever.

But hey, what do I know. I just want my subs to reach out to more people, hence 8bit H.264 (DXVA compatible) and Xvid AVI is still the best way to go.

[Fahd]

Originally Posted by Maceart

Yeah, now with the proliferation of tablets with integrated CPU/GPUs on a chip, hardware acceleration is even more useful than ever.

If you have enough money to buy yourself a tablet then you also have enough money to get yourself a Core i5/i7 + motherboard + RAM. (Re-)Encoding 10bit -> 8bit h.264 is not going to be a time consuming process. Or you could just download a re-encode. Or setup your own (anti-hi10p.com is available!).

Basically, it should be obvious to anyone buying a hardware accelerated device that the development of video encoding is always going to outpace hardware chips. Manufacturers are only going to make something if there's a demand for it, and currently there's no demand for 10bit h/w accelerated decoding because barely anyone is using it. Hell, even if manufacturers could keep pace, your wallet would still be outpaced; i.e. you're not going to buy a new h/w accelerated toy every time some new encoding feature comes out. We'll probably go through this whole discussion again in a couple of years time if h.265 is what it's promised to be.

[Green²]

Originally Posted by Fahd

If you have enough money to buy yourself a tablet then you also have enough money to get yourself a Core i5/i7 + motherboard + RAM.

Those HP tablets went on firesale recently; prices that ranged from $100 - $150 US. For around $135, the cheapest current 3GHz AMD dual-core platform (CPU+RAM+Motherboard) should be capable of playing back 1080p Hi10p content.

[Keitaro]

Originally Posted by Maceart

Yeah, now with the proliferation of tablets with integrated CPU/GPUs on a chip, hardware acceleration is even more useful than ever.

But hey, what do I know. I just want my subs to reach out to more people, hence 8bit H.264 (DXVA compatible) and Xvid AVI is still the best way to go.

This is why i really like fansub groups like you guys. I love the idea of groups thinking about the fans first.

I do understand why encoders want the best encodes possible. As long as 8 bit h.264 exists along side the hi10p encodes I'm all good. I don't want all fansub groups going all hi10p and completely ditching 8 bit right away. That would seriously piss a lot of people off who have low end computers or portable devices that use HW to accelerate video. Also I like to make note that cccp does play some hi10p videos just fine but its far from perfect. I get some artifacts with some videos.

[npal]

Originally Posted by Maceart

Yeah, now with the proliferation of tablets with integrated CPU/GPUs on a chip, hardware acceleration is even more useful than ever.

But hey, what do I know. I just want my subs to reach out to more people, hence 8bit H.264 (DXVA compatible) and Xvid AVI is still the best way to go.

Impossible, fansubber with sense, I didn't think there was one.

[creb]

Do we really need to exaggerate to push 10 bit? Reduce file size by a third? Really?

Maybe the encoders doing 2-3 releases are just very bad at their job, but I'm seeing more along the lines of decreases of 1/8.

That said, I don't think the originating fansubbing group needs to bend over backwards to make 3+ different encodes available. There will always be someone(s) in the community who will pick up the slack if it's just re-encoding, and we're already seeing many groups who only output 10bit now having their releases re-released in 8bit by third-party individuals. My point being, those who are unable to do 10-bit aren't going to be left in the cold.

Remember, fansubbing is entirely voluntary on people's parts. Demanding, guilt-tripping, etc, these people into doing things your way is a bit...silly. Especially when there are almost always other people willing to fill the cracks (that don't deal with translation) that any group may leave.

Lastly, I have not had a single issue with CCCP and 10bit. And, I watch a lot of anime. For those who do, are you sure you did a clean install?