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Old 2007-03-04, 20:28   Link #761
Kurth
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Join Date: Mar 2006
What do you people think about using a 2-Pass encode that have Quantizer Minimum 18 and Quantizer Maximum 24?

QP 18 = enough quality for our eyes
QP 24 = double compression compared to the QP 18

I downloaded the latest Manabi Straight raw from the l33t-raws torrents and encoded this file changing the resolution to 640x480 with LanczosResize and using QPMin 18, QPMax 24 and 2-Pass encode with target bitrate for a 175 MB filesize and I got this.

1st-Pass
avis [info]: 640x480 @ 23.98 fps (34884 frames)
x264 [info]: slice I:319 Avg QP:18.01 size: 24106
x264 [info]: slice P:18634 Avg QP:18.03 size: 4777
x264 [info]: slice B:15931 Avg QP:19.70 size: 1544
x264 [info]: final ratefactor: 18.00
x264 [info]: kb/s:667.0

2nd-Pass
avis [info]: 640x480 @ 23.98 fps (34884 frames)
x264 [warning]: Error: 2pass curve failed to converge
x264 [warning]: target: 913.00 kbit/s, expected: 701.69 kbit/s, avg QP: 18.0000
x264 [warning]: try reducing target bitrate or reducing qp_min (currently 18)
x264 [info]: slice I:319 Avg QP:18.00 size: 22476
x264 [info]: slice P:18634 Avg QP:18.00 size: 4377
x264 [info]: slice B:15931 Avg QP:19.67 size: 1343
x264 [info]: kb/s:605.6

It gave me the message saying that the bitrate inserted for a 175 MB is too high for the QPMin 18 compression used on this episode but I dont think this message is a problem because that is what I wanted the encode is only using the necessary bitrate and it is not wasting bitrate on quantizers less than 18.

Frame Type Statistics:

I-Frames: 319 (0,91%)
P-Frames: 18634 (53,42%)
B-Frames: 15931 (45,67%)

Frame Quality Statistics:

Q = 18: 18732 (53,70%)
Q = 19: 5200 (14,91%)
Q = 20: 10686 (30,63%)
Q = 21: 91 (0,26%)
Q = 22: 76 (0,22%)
Q = 23: 54 (0,15%)
Q = 24: 39 (0,11%)
Q = 25: 3 (0,01%)
Q = 26: 3 (0,01%)

Minimum Frame Quantizer: 18
Maximum Frame Quantizer: 26

Average I-Frame Quantizer: 18,01
Average P-Frame Quantizer: 18,03
Average B-Frame Quantizer: 19,7

99.24% of the frames have lower quantizers (18,19,20) soo that means very good quality.

Video Track 105 MB H264
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/8180/videosu3.png

Audio Track 16.9 MB AAC
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6552/audiomp6.png

Video and Audio 122 MB H264/AAC/MKV
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/514...ndaudioeo5.png

I got a 122 MB file that use only the necessary bitrate it dont waste useless bitrate on quantizers lower than 18 that our eyes dont see the difference. High quality video and audio with just 122 MB, less MBs to upload and less time to download.
I even got more encoding speed using QPMin 18 because CABAC become more fast when the frame have lower bitrate.
A QP 10 frame have really more bitrate than a frame with QP 18 soo that means really less bitrate on QP 18 soo the CABAC option is more fast on QPMin 18 than the default QPMin 10.

Using QPMin 18 will assure that the video will only use the bitrate that is really needed and using QPMax 24 will assure that the encode will only have the max of 175 MB.
If the anime is slow it will have filesize lower than 175 MB and if the anime is faster the filesize will stay at the maximun of 175 MB because the QPMax 24 will compress more to fit on the 175 MB filesize.

I think that it is a good idea to use 2-Pass encode with QPMin 18 and QPmax 24 soo we can stop making files that waste a lot of bitrate uselessly.
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Old 2007-03-04, 20:33   Link #762
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q18 is not always sufficient. In any anime with dark areas I will usually add --aq-strength 0.3 or so which pulls up average quantizers significantly in some cases. When aq is not needed, however, q18 should be fine.
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Old 2007-04-20, 07:53   Link #763
xat
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Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but it seems someone is looking into x264 encoding on the Cell processor (i.e. encoding on the PS3).

http://blog.cell.sijam.com/cell/017x264/

Hopefully in a few months I'll have a second encoding box.
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Old 2007-04-22, 17:21   Link #764
mukansa monkey
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I'm a leecher with a passing interest in the techniques that go into encoding. Just ran through this thread, have accumulated some thoughts on the issues facing the whole "bring h264 to the masses" concept. In particular, what bottlenecks do and don't play a big role (both technical and psychological).

Issue #1: Connection speed isn't an issue.
1. Most people who have an Internet connection have something noticeably faster than dialup (one stat I found said above 80% of residential connections are at basic DSL or better). Even at a fairly basic connection like 768/192 DSL it's quite possible to set up a few torrents one evening, let 'em run overnight, and in the morning you have a couple of shows to watch the next evening. Rinse and repeat.
2. In rural areas like where my parents live now, that have most of the households without broadband access, the people with crappy Net access simply go watch anime with one of their friends that has access. Or watch Cartoon Network. Or buy DVDs. Which brings me to the next point...
3. People who watch fansubs regularly are a highly specialized audience. Going out on a limb here, but I'd say they are disproportionately college students with access to massive university pipes, suburban/urban dwellers who are in broadband markets, technophiles who who go out of their way more than most to get a good Net connection, etc.
4. Finally, there are those folks without much money who simply can't get good Net service. If they are downloading 30Mb craptastic videos off of YouTube on old wimpy machines, then they have no use for h264 anyways (or indeed high quality encoding of any type really). They aren't of primary concern to the torrent-oriented issues facing most people on this forum.

Issue #2: Why filesize shouldn't matter so much.
Lemme start this by saying that I utterly don't get why people would care about forcing all their videos into rigidly defined size brackets. If multipass encoding produces better-looking files, I'll take it. So Ep.1 is 170Mb and Ep.2 is 195Mb, who cares? If you wanna sell people on h264 looking better (which it clearly can), don't gimp your product for the sake of having pretty-looking uniform filesizes. Also, I dont think it's hard to explain to people that your h264 file is bigger because it's the same resolution as the original "HD" raw, while your XviD is smaller mostly because it's not as nice a picture. Just be sure to make it clear on the filenames when you're releasing a version with a higher resolution so folks who care about image quality can go for the better one.

Issue #3: Processor speed is definitely a problem for many.
I think a lot of people in places like this tend to lose sight of the fact that regular upgrading is becoming increasingly unnecessary as computers become capable of doing more and more without straining. My parents have an eight-year-old computer that handles fairly well all the email/web/home office/non-polygon games they care to throw at it. Only thing it won't do is play stuff like h264... it handles youtube and most DivX playback all right. What's going to force many people to buy new machines these days is when their machine is too old to even install the latest OS upgrades... and that timeframe keeps getting longer and longer. 5 years isn't really legacy anymore. I think this is one reason why the XviD downloads continue to outpace the h264, there are an awful lot of people out there whose gear has trouble with the power needed. This bottleneck will fade out over time though... you can build a machine around a 2.16GHz C2D chip for under $500. Powerful PCs for the people!

Issue #4: Software and codecs oh my!
At this point I need to say that I have a Mac, so a) I know I'm kind of gimped by not having a true equivalent to CCCP, and b) a lot of specific names aren't going to carry over. My big issues though are more with usability in general. While it may be true that "push butan, receive XviD" is a sign of crappy encoding practice, for most users downloading software really ought to be that simple. Google codec, click link, click download, drag and drop into appropriate folder, doubleclick video and watch. Any additional steps *required* beyond that mean the maker of the codec or software in question needs to stop pawning off their alpha test as useable. God knows any player whose instructions for use involve the phrase "download additional libraries" shouldn't be touched, let alone be recommended in order to view your fansubs. Quite frankly even asking for folks to use multiple players in order to view your extra-cool-and-funky fansub creates a burden of one more piece of software that needs to be learned and updated. I really don't want to need Mplayer for a handful of files that are bursting with karaoke SFX, let alone have to compile it myself.

I'm a Mac guy, I want one piece of software that can do everything without demanding that I learn everything about it, that becomes the de facto standard because it simply works better. This seems to me to be the source of much of the difficulty surrounding shifting to h264, especially with the matroska wrapper. For things that have been around for years already, the codec and the matroska players seem like they're still in alpha/beta testing, not one solid and widepsread piece of software that cover 99.9% of all files intended for public distribution. If a viewer needs three different players and weekly updates of their codec pack in order to watch your file, that is fail.

I think my biggest beef, both with sloppy encoders and with people making software, is a lack of robustness. Quality checking should involve machines with different codec versions, preferably across multiple platforms. Likewise a player has no business being offered to the public when fairly minor errors in the source material causes it to behave all sorts of erratically (like piling subtitles on top of one another, or completely losing track of timetracks). I think this problem is particularly severe with softsubs, we've got three different major versions that the various playback methods have varying levels of success with. I have softsub files that work in VLC right now... and some that I can't even open with it. I don't think it's just VLC's fault, the matroska wrapper quite frankly seems to allow too many different ways to do too many things. The folks who make Perian, OSX's closest thing to CCCP, have been months working on an update... and the delay is basically trying to find an answer to a lack of timecode enforcement with matroska. Not that I fully understand the problem, far from it, but it seems like their problem is just one more on the list of things that make matroska hard to implement because it's trying to incorporate every feature under the sun. This is particularly an issue with the many viewers who want to download a fansub and have it "just work", people will get rapidly fed up if they download 200Mb files that require a bunch of work to get 'em to play (or they end up trashing unwatched because the highly experimental new softsub method crashes their players).

On a more positive note, I'd like to say that I love h264 compared to XviD. The fundamental leap in image quality that I see is that h264 scales much more smoothly than any .avi I've ever seen is capable of. The problem I run into is that videos done at the current "HD" resolution (somewhere around 864X434? Wider than 700) are kind of small on my 1600X1200 monitor, but doubling them in size makes 'em bigger than my monitor. Making an XviD file fit to the window causes all manner of weird blocking effects that simply aren't there with h264. That's a huge difference beyond the inherent size savings to me. So I'll be downloading every mp4 and mkv I can get from now on (especially now that I found an avc1 codec for QT7 that overrides the *&*%*^ POS h264 codec that Apple provides).

Phew, longpost. thank you for your time, and keep up the good work.
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Old 2007-04-22, 18:22   Link #765
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mukansa monkey View Post
Issue #1: Connection speed isn't an issue.
1. Most people who have an Internet connection have something noticeably faster than dialup (one stat I found said above 80% of residential connections are at basic DSL or better). Even at a fairly basic connection like 768/192 DSL it's quite possible to set up a few torrents one evening, let 'em run overnight, and in the morning you have a couple of shows to watch the next evening. Rinse and repeat.
the bad thing is, either people doesn't want to turn their computer on overnight (power issue!) or the connection is slow. Here (indonesia) the connection is slow (1-30kb/s which translates to 8-240kbps) and still downloading anime.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mukansa monkey View Post
2. In rural areas like where my parents live now, that have most of the households without broadband access, the people with crappy Net access simply go watch anime with one of their friends that has access. Or watch Cartoon Network. Or buy DVDs. Which brings me to the next point...
3. People who watch fansubs regularly are a highly specialized audience. Going out on a limb here, but I'd say they are disproportionately college students with access to massive university pipes, suburban/urban dwellers who are in broadband markets, technophiles who who go out of their way more than most to get a good Net connection, etc.
being technophiles doesn't make one have good internet connection. in fact, my friend who has faster connection than me is much less technophiles than me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mukansa monkey View Post
4. Finally, there are those folks without much money who simply can't get good Net service. If they are downloading 30Mb craptastic videos off of YouTube on old wimpy machines, then they have no use for h264 anyways (or indeed high quality encoding of any type really). They aren't of primary concern to the torrent-oriented issues facing most people on this forum.
youtube is crap. and crap
Quote:
Originally Posted by mukansa monkey View Post
Issue #2: Why filesize shouldn't matter so much.
Lemme start this by saying that I utterly don't get why people would care about forcing all their videos into rigidly defined size brackets. If multipass encoding produces better-looking files, I'll take it. So Ep.1 is 170Mb and Ep.2 is 195Mb, who cares? If you wanna sell people on h264 looking better (which it clearly can), don't gimp your product for the sake of having pretty-looking uniform filesizes. Also, I dont think it's hard to explain to people that your h264 file is bigger because it's the same resolution as the original "HD" raw, while your XviD is smaller mostly because it's not as nice a picture. Just be sure to make it clear on the filenames when you're releasing a version with a higher resolution so folks who care about image quality can go for the better one.
well, that's what multi-pass for. to reach the target bitrate as close as possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mukansa monkey View Post
Issue #3: Processor speed is definitely a problem for many.
I think a lot of people in places like this tend to lose sight of the fact that regular upgrading is becoming increasingly unnecessary as computers become capable of doing more and more without straining. My parents have an eight-year-old computer that handles fairly well all the email/web/home office/non-polygon games they care to throw at it. Only thing it won't do is play stuff like h264... it handles youtube and most DivX playback all right. What's going to force many people to buy new machines these days is when their machine is too old to even install the latest OS upgrades... and that timeframe keeps getting longer and longer. 5 years isn't really legacy anymore. I think this is one reason why the XviD downloads continue to outpace the h264, there are an awful lot of people out there whose gear has trouble with the power needed. This bottleneck will fade out over time though... you can build a machine around a 2.16GHz C2D chip for under $500. Powerful PCs for the people!
actually, it's not the processor but the configuration. I'm able to play sdtv h264 with softsub smoothly on my p3 733mhz rig (except on really complex scene which slows down a bit and then back to normal). but i still find many ppl with faster processor having trouble playing them. again, it's their configuration that has problem

Quote:
Originally Posted by mukansa monkey View Post
Issue #4: Software and codecs oh my!
At this point I need to say that I have a Mac, so a) I know I'm kind of gimped by not having a true equivalent to CCCP, and b) a lot of specific names aren't going to carry over. My big issues though are more with usability in general. While it may be true that "push butan, receive XviD" is a sign of crappy encoding practice, for most users downloading software really ought to be that simple. Google codec, click link, click download, drag and drop into appropriate folder, doubleclick video and watch. Any additional steps *required* beyond that mean the maker of the codec or software in question needs to stop pawning off their alpha test as useable. God knows any player whose instructions for use involve the phrase "download additional libraries" shouldn't be touched, let alone be recommended in order to view your fansubs. Quite frankly even asking for folks to use multiple players in order to view your extra-cool-and-funky fansub creates a burden of one more piece of software that needs to be learned and updated. I really don't want to need Mplayer for a handful of files that are bursting with karaoke SFX, let alone have to compile it myself.

I'm a Mac guy, I want one piece of software that can do everything without demanding that I learn everything about it, that becomes the de facto standard because it simply works better. This seems to me to be the source of much of the difficulty surrounding shifting to h264, especially with the matroska wrapper. For things that have been around for years already, the codec and the matroska players seem like they're still in alpha/beta testing, not one solid and widepsread piece of software that cover 99.9% of all files intended for public distribution. If a viewer needs three different players and weekly updates of their codec pack in order to watch your file, that is fail.
mplayer. except if i'm wrong, there's packaged build out there (official builds) that's able to play h264 (w/ softsubs) normally.
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Old 2007-04-23, 14:03   Link #766
Nicholi
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Just to comment on the "OSX's closest thing to CCCP". I wouldn't really say Perian is a CCCP equivalent since it is essentially adding support for only Quicktime (afaik?). CCCP is more non-player dependent at the core, though there are the recommended players which are absolutely known to work without issues. All the components in the CCCP should be usable in any DirectShow player, whereas Perian to my knowledge only works with Quicktime. Even if there were other players for Mac OS X (are there?) I'm not even sure if there is an environment they all tap into like DirectShow to use similar decoders and filters is there? Though Perian's latest news is quite interesting and they would essentially be using the same code as CCCP, stuff from FFMPEG. It would at least be a simpler thing for Mac users to use their more familiar player (Quicktime) then being forced over to something new like mplayer/VLC.

MPlayer is your best bet for everything working with just one application. The last official build, 1.0rc1, "should" have all the support required for softsubs, however I don't think it comes with fontconfig. Which would only be necessary for "complete" rendering of the subs, otherwise you get the ASS/SSA styling with positions/colors/effects (some)/etc but no the correct font. There are also the builds mostly distributed here on asuki from andiyar, who does make a complete package with everything you need. Which has been usable for MKV for years. In the end VLC's inability to implement something really just is their fault .
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Old 2007-04-24, 03:24   Link #767
emptyeighty
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Quicktime actually does provide a playback framework much like DShow.
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Old 2007-04-30, 09:25   Link #768
YourLocalGP
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Problem with encoding in AVC files - pictures per second? Mobile device problem...

I'm encoding files to put onto video Ipods. The settings I use are general portable-device-style ones, e.g. H.264 (AVC), 25fps and 320x240 for video and AAC, 80Kbps, 44.1Khz, Mono for audio. These work on Video Ipods, most Symbian phones, etc. I use Sorenson squeeze for converting.

Recently, I gave my recommended settings to a colleague using different software, to encode some similar videos. His clips will not work; Itunes won't event transfer them onto the Ipod saying that they are incompatible.

To investigate the problem, I opened the clips on a PC and looked at the given settings side-by-side. At first glance they are EXACTLY the same, including bitrate, FPS, codecs, etc . On closer inspection using G-spot Codec Analyzer, I found some differences in the video encoding settings that I don't really understand:

For both the working and non-working file, under "FRMS" ("Frame count" according to G-spot), the value is 20,897. However, the "Pics/s" (Pictures per second) (these settings are the ones I am not familiar with) in the working file is only 9.836 and in the broken file it is 25.000. Likewise, "Frames per second" (different from frame count...?!) is 9.836 in the working file and 25.000 in the broken file.

What are these settings, and could they be the reason for the broken file not working on devices but working on the PC? In the file properties on any media player I use, the FPS is always reportted as 25 in both cases.

Any help would be much appreciated!
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Old 2007-04-30, 09:57   Link #769
checkers
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please encode two small samples and upload them for our perusal.
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Old 2007-04-30, 11:48   Link #770
Quarkboy
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I suggest posting your question (and those clips) here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=115917

The people there know a lot more than the people here about h.264 encoding for Ipods.
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Old 2007-04-30, 14:18   Link #771
Zero1
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There could be a number of reasons. One of the first that springs to mind is that I think iPod videos need a custom atom (or I may be getting confused with the PSP). It may be the case that Sorenson squeeze is already putting this atom in, and the software your friend is using isn't.

Another thing is MP4 brands, or systems info. For example rewriting the file with mp4box but specifying -3gp may help, recent builds of mp4box also have an -ipod switch.

Those were requirements on old iPods, recently I encoded a bunch of LC-AAC in standard MP4 and asked people to test it for me and it worked (that's without any special iPod stuff).

What is probably more likely though is the profile and level the videos are being encoded to. Certain features won't work on iPod because they aren't implemented or are too complex for simple CPUs. iPod supposedly supports Baseline @ L1.3. This may not be a lot of help to you, but here is a list of Profiles and Levels I put together some time ago, at least it will tell you what features are and aren't supported by the Profile, and you can also see what resolutions or framerates are supported.



PSP supports Main @ L3; so it may be the case that he's using a profile for portable devices which make use of main profile features, and obviously iPod won't have it.

If you wouln't mind making the files available (eg rapidshare, yousendit, megaupload etc), I've got a few programs that give really verbose feedback so maybe I can see what's going on.
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Old 2007-05-08, 06:26   Link #772
YourLocalGP
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Hi, thanks for your responses, Zero1 in particular.

I must confess, I don't know what an Atom is. My MPEG-4 encoding experience extends to the superficial parameters such as resolution, bitrate, etc. Thanks for the Levels/Profiles table - this is interesting. What I'd like to see if where the settings that G-spot is talking about tie-in in that table.Unfortunately, I can't upload the clip as it's a piece of confidential client work, and the non-working file was encoded by my contact there and I can't really get much more information from him about it. I know this is a pretty big obstacle in getting help! but I've uploaded the two G-spot screenshots to here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DM2JELLA. If you have a look at these and see the small differences in the right-hand column (pane called 't'), are these familiar? The mouse-over descriptions are "Pictures per second - number of images per second, as stored" (for 'Pics/s'),and "Number of complete video images displayed per second" for "Frames/s". Which entries on your table do these correspond to?

There is no-where in the Squeeze encoding settings, even in 'advanced', where I can see any parameters that match these.

Thanks in advance for more help

George
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Old 2007-05-08, 11:11   Link #773
pjladyfox
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Anime, Containers, and formats oh my!

*rubs eyes* Goddess, this was a long thread to get thru and rather enjoyable if random in some spots. ^__^ Let me first start by saying each and every one of you who posted to this and/or are directly/indirectly responsible for the fansubs I snag on a frequent basis deserve a hearty thank you. To say nothing of being pretty impressed with your knowledge of video and container formats would be an understatement with some of you. Heck, I remember when my friends and I considered our Amiga 1000 with a genlock cutting-edge subtitling equipment and it is amazing to see the progress to today.

I'm hoping this is the right area to post and/or ask this but this was the one thread where everyone seemed to have a good grasp of some of the questions that I was looking to find answers for. With that said here are my questions to those of you here:

1. I know for a lot of you that the thought of making two different releases, such as one in .AVI and one in .MKV, can give cold sweats and ulcers due to the time investment involved for very little return. I used not to really pay this much mind until I started to re-encode some releases into a format my husband's PSP and/or Zune would handle. On one hand I loved the high-quality .MKV releases but on the other hand I wound up having to keep a glass of scotch nearby just to get thru some of the fustration I would encounter where things would either fail to extract or would fail to re-encode. And after reading some of the "MKV is Rox00rs! RTFM nub!" or worse I would instead wind up having to scour for .AVI or .MP4 releases just to lower the fustration level. Do you feel that the .MKV container benefits outweigh the loss of being able to easily port to different devices?

3. As some of you may or may not know (or heck even care possibly) Microsoft is slated to release the Spring Update this week which will add H.264 video support (Up to 10 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles) and MPEG-4 Part 2 video support (Up to 5 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles). Do any of you feel that by adding this support it may make things easier for future releases by widening the base of support available? Or do you feel that it provides no benefit at all?

Last edited by pjladyfox; 2007-05-08 at 11:12. Reason: grammatical errors
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Old 2007-05-08, 11:43   Link #774
emptyeighty
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox View Post
1. I know for a lot of you that the thought of making two different releases, such as one in .AVI and one in .MKV, can give cold sweats and ulcers due to the time investment involved for very little return. I used not to really pay this much mind until I started to re-encode some releases into a format my husband's PSP and/or Zune would handle. On one hand I loved the high-quality .MKV releases but on the other hand I wound up having to keep a glass of scotch nearby just to get thru some of the fustration I would encounter where things would either fail to extract or would fail to re-encode. And after reading some of the "MKV is Rox00rs! RTFM nub!" or worse I would instead wind up having to scour for .AVI or .MP4 releases just to lower the fustration level. Do you feel that the .MKV container benefits outweigh the loss of being able to easily port to different devices?
I love mkv chapters. Nothing beats being able to skip the OP/ED at the click of a button.
Now i haven't done any reencoding myself but people tell me it's easy with avisynth + directshowsource().

Quote:
3. As some of you may or may not know (or heck even care possibly) Microsoft is slated to release the Spring Update this week which will add H.264 video support (Up to 10 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles) and MPEG-4 Part 2 video support (Up to 5 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles). Do any of you feel that by adding this support it may make things easier for future releases by widening the base of support available? Or do you feel that it provides no benefit at all?
If M$ doesn't screw up and deliver what they promise this can be great for the standalone people. I'm guessing they'll use mp4, so those releases should play back by themselves. mkv is easily remuxed to mp4, so no problem there either. Couple that with the fact that there's no ASP support (hence no xvid) it will probably get some people to download h.264 releases instead of xvid. So overall this might be good for h.264 adoption.
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Old 2007-05-08, 14:29   Link #775
Quarkboy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox View Post

3. As some of you may or may not know (or heck even care possibly) Microsoft is slated to release the Spring Update this week which will add H.264 video support (Up to 10 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles) and MPEG-4 Part 2 video support (Up to 5 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles). Do any of you feel that by adding this support it may make things easier for future releases by widening the base of support available? Or do you feel that it provides no benefit at all?

Well, when I switched to h.264 in mp4 for my group more than a year ago, it was exactly for this reason.

I just didn't think that Microsoft would be the first to support it! I always figured that Sony's PS3 would be first. Right now, the PS3 only supports high profile h.264 when muxed into a .ts Blue ray type container, but with Xbox360 coming out with full mp4 support, I can only suppose that the PS3 will update to match the 360's capabilities soon.

I just hope I can afford one of those consoles one of these days to natively play my 1280x720 fansubs on them, on my awesome 1080p LCD television I don't have.
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Old 2007-05-08, 15:29   Link #776
pjladyfox
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Join Date: May 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by emptyeighty View Post
I love mkv chapters. Nothing beats being able to skip the OP/ED at the click of a button. Now i haven't done any reencoding myself but people tell me it's easy with avisynth + directshowsource().
Hmmm, that's a good point 'tho myself I tend to let it play or just FF thru it. Kind of got used to doing it especially on DVD's with their $%#@ front-loaded crap that you can not skip past. -_-

I've not tried avisynth or directshowsource before and after doing some digging I was impressed and intimidated at the same time. Impressed in all that you can do with the tool and intimidated by the level of scripting required which I have a love/hate relationship with it (read: Love the stuff you can do and hate the level of time investment needed to get something to work).

I'll have to see about finding a GUI version to play with and see what I come up with. Still, would be nice just to have a program, paid or otherwise, that would just simply do the re-encoding and was multi-threaded. It is a dream I have. ^__^

Quote:
Originally Posted by emptyeighty View Post
If M$ doesn't screw up and deliver what they promise this can be great for the standalone people. I'm guessing they'll use mp4, so those releases should play back by themselves. mkv is easily remuxed to mp4, so no problem there either. Couple that with the fact that there's no ASP support (hence no xvid) it will probably get some people to download h.264 releases instead of xvid. So overall this might be good for h.264 adoption.
Well, we will know soon enough I guess once the update hits. Now if there was only a multi-threaded version of Transcode360 I'd be just one step closer to heaven.
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Old 2007-05-08, 15:56   Link #777
pjladyfox
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Join Date: May 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quarkboy View Post
Well, when I switched to h.264 in mp4 for my group more than a year ago, it was exactly for this reason.

I just didn't think that Microsoft would be the first to support it! I always figured that Sony's PS3 would be first. Right now, the PS3 only supports high profile h.264 when muxed into a .ts Blue ray type container, but with Xbox360 coming out with full mp4 support, I can only suppose that the PS3 will update to match the 360's capabilities soon.

I just hope I can afford one of those consoles one of these days to natively play my 1280x720 fansubs on them, on my awesome 1080p LCD television I don't have.

Trust me, you are not the only one that was surprised! I just about fell over when I saw that they were adding support for both especially considering their stance on container formats compared to their own. But, you'll not hear me complain too loudly for fear they may take it back. Overall, I really do have to give them credit for designing both the Xbox and 360 even 'tho I am pretty sure they never imagined the uses and/or hacks people would create.

Prices for HDTV's are dropping pretty quickly and it would not surprise me in the least to see them in the $500 range this time next year if not earlier. And, of course, the 360 will have a price drop sometime in the near future as well. I just wish they had released the Elite model at launch versus socking early adopters later especially considering how nice the output is IMHO.

Last edited by pjladyfox; 2007-05-08 at 15:58. Reason: hit enter too early
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Old 2007-05-08, 16:51   Link #778
emptyeighty
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox View Post
Hmmm, that's a good point 'tho myself I tend to let it play or just FF thru it. Kind of got used to doing it especially on DVD's with their $%#@ front-loaded crap that you can not skip past. -_-

I've not tried avisynth or directshowsource before and after doing some digging I was impressed and intimidated at the same time. Impressed in all that you can do with the tool and intimidated by the level of scripting required which I have a love/hate relationship with it (read: Love the stuff you can do and hate the level of time investment needed to get something to work).

I'll have to see about finding a GUI version to play with and see what I come up with. Still, would be nice just to have a program, paid or otherwise, that would just simply do the re-encoding and was multi-threaded. It is a dream I have. ^__^
Again i'm no expert, but that avs file should only need to contain directshowsource() (with convertfps=true parameter) and if you're dealing with softsubs textsub() in addition to that.

Quote:
Well, we will know soon enough I guess once the update hits. Now if there was only a multi-threaded version of Transcode360 I'd be just one step closer to heaven.
Transcode360 should be unnecessary if M$ gets it right.
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Old 2007-05-08, 18:04   Link #779
Zero1
Two bit encoder
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Age: 39
Quote:
Originally Posted by YourLocalGP
I know this is a pretty big obstacle in getting help! but I've uploaded the two G-spot screenshots to here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DM2JELLA
Thanks for the screenshots, but unfortunately they aren't much help. The only obvious difference is framerate. Now it might be that the hardware device has some kind of artificial limitation for framerates and such (thus not truly following it's designated profile/level), just like how the PSP only accepts certain framerates despite being decently capable for a portable device.

That's one theory, but GSpot doesn't give me any information as to the encoding tools used, so I can't really draw a conclusion since there are still too many variables.

However I've grabbed some software together and written a simple batch file. These programs should give me the information I need to see where they differ, but I am still working blind since I don't have an iPod or other hardware device (aside from a Series60 mobile phone and an imminent DVD player).

http://aflux.deltaanime.net/Zero1/MP4/h264parse.zip

It's anonymous and simple. Just extract this archive to a clean directory, and copy or move your two MP4 files to the same directory you just extracted to. Name them "file1.mp4" and "file2.mp4" for now (just to keep things simple) and double click the batch file (.bat) to run it. When it's done it prompts you to press Enter to continue, and you are left with a zip file containing the information I'm looking for, then just upload that zip somewhere for me to grab (megaupload works good for me as before).


Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox
*rubs eyes* Goddess, this was a long thread to get thru and rather enjoyable if random in some spots. ^__^ Let me first start by saying each and every one of you who posted to this and/or are directly/indirectly responsible for the fansubs I snag on a frequent basis deserve a hearty thank you.
Thanks, it's nice when people take the time to show their appreciation. It's something that has gone away what with bittorrent. That's what got me into fansubbing; I was so greatful for one group picking up a show that I decided I wanted to help them.


Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox
I remember when my friends and I considered our Amiga 1000 with a genlock cutting-edge subtitling equipment and it is amazing to see the progress to today
I'd love to try my hand at old school subbing just for the hell of it; but I suppose since there is no requirement for encoders for VHS bound fansubs, that my title of encoder would be reduced to "One of the many VHS copying people" ;P Sometimes things can get too big or popular for their own good, but I'd really like to take a trip back to the 80's/90's. The anime was awesome back then too.


Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox
On one hand I loved the high-quality .MKV releases but on the other hand I wound up having to keep a glass of scotch nearby just to get thru some of the fustration I would encounter where things would either fail to extract or would fail to re-encode.
The glass of Scotch raised a smile. However, I could murder some Vodka right now.


Quote:
Originally Posted by pjladyfox
3. As some of you may or may not know (or heck even care possibly) Microsoft is slated to release the Spring Update this week which will add H.264 video support (Up to 10 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles) and MPEG-4 Part 2 video support (Up to 5 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles). Do any of you feel that by adding this support it may make things easier for future releases by widening the base of support available? Or do you feel that it provides no benefit at all?
Say what? Microsoft supporting a non Microsoft format? I thought those days were over. Well this is quite interesting, just keep your fingers crossed Microsoft don't balls it up somewhere with partial support.

The guys at work are on at me to get a 360, and I was partially tempted, but £280 is a fair chunk to dish out just to own them in multiplayer shootan gaems, but with MP4 support (and of course the HD-DVD addon), it's looking tempting. In fact I'm in two minds if I should cancel my DP1600.

Great news though, it's just a shame MS don't do the right thing and get it supported by default in the next media player (or better still, just make the codecs and splitters available so it works in other players).


Quote:
Originally Posted by emptyeighty
If M$ doesn't screw up and deliver what they promise this can be great for the standalone people. I'm guessing they'll use mp4, so those releases should play back by themselves. mkv is easily remuxed to mp4, so no problem there either. Couple that with the fact that there's no ASP support (hence no xvid) it will probably get some people to download h.264 releases instead of xvid. So overall this might be good for h.264 adoption.
I'm grabbing at straws here, but I would still hope that ASP is supported despite what they say. Supporting SP and not ASP, especially when you have H.264 support is dumb; it's not like they can say CPU speed is an issue. ASP is the most common profile in MPEG-4 Visual, and pretty much every video encoded with XviD or DivX makes use of ASP features, unless they were particularly disabled.

Also I say this because what you see isn't always what you get. On paper my Series60 phone only supports SP, yet it's perfectly fine with ASP, so the decoder support is there (in as much as B-frames etc), but they only say SP.

On the other hand, pretty much every video encoded in ASP gets shoehorned into AVI, so even if they have ASP support, I wonder would it even matter?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Quarkboy
I just didn't think that Microsoft would be the first to support it! I always figured that Sony's PS3 would be first. Right now, the PS3 only supports high profile h.264 when muxed into a .ts Blue ray type container, but with Xbox360 coming out with full mp4 support, I can only suppose that the PS3 will update to match the 360's capabilities soon.
Does PS3 support high profile for sure? I was under the impression it was main profile only (which I added to the long list of Sony's failures). Also .mp4 is supported off the bat; I was talking with Koopiskeva who's Haruhi AMV "Skittles" is doing the rounds recently, and he confirms it plays fine on his PS3 (720p H.264 in MP4).

Shameless plug I guess (even though I'm no Haruhi fan, but I figured maybe some of you would be curious for one reason or another).
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/memb...o.php?v=140609
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Old 2007-05-08, 18:16   Link #780
Quarkboy
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zero1 View Post
Does PS3 support high profile for sure? I was under the impression it was main profile only (which I added to the long list of Sony's failures). Also .mp4 is supported off the bat; I was talking with Koopiskeva who's Haruhi AMV "Skittles" is doing the rounds recently, and he confirms it plays fine on his PS3 (720p H.264 in MP4).
According to this thread on doom9,
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120627&page=6

PS3 firmware 1.6 and later supports high profile h.264, but only when muxed into an .m2ts stream, of which only Nero's comericial AVCHD encoder seems to produce right now (and scenerist HD, HA!).

This means, at the least, that all high-profile decoding code has been written. All that's left is to enable it when muxed into mp4 files.

And I'm well aware that mp4 worked out of the box for the PS3, but I was talking high profile h.264, not main profile.
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