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Old 2009-04-14, 22:15   Link #81
Vexx
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Really, Crunchy is crayola-ing just as fast as they can.... :P

So far, my take is that it isn't a bad *idea* (their business plan) but their technical execution is pretty amateurish to want to play "professional" so far....
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Old 2009-04-14, 22:35   Link #82
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Umm that is time warner and I don't live in those areas or use that service. My cable service is unlimited downloads. If they ever change that I could always switch to another cable or DSL provider. So that article means nothing to most people.
Yes, but it is in its infancy. If it works in a few places, they'll keep expanding it. I read somewhere, that within the next year or so, the aim is to make it nationwide. If this type of trend continues, other big providers are likely to jump on the bandwagon (if it is profitable). In one way you are correct...it doesn't mean anything to most people yet, but it could be a signal of a massive change in the way internet service is sold.

I am sure some companies that rely on internet service to do business will fight the change tooth and nail.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
Why would Crunchyroll be more appealing in this situation? With streaming you have to download every time you want to watch, not just once. Hardly a good way to get around a bandwidth charge.

Also, in regards to the replies regarding my dropped frames: I wasn't watching the 720P version since I'm using a free account. I'm saying that my 2GHZ PC (that can play quite a few 720P H.264 fansubs just fine) drops frames on Crunchyroll's sub-480P H.264 stream. Either that or said stream uses quite a low frame rate.
Maybe my knowledge of computing is incomplete, but I'd have thought streaming would be alot less intensive than actually downloading a file via bit torrent or direct downloading. Most people probably don't watch things multiple times--I rarely do unless I am watching a show again with friends, though we prefer to watch it on a larger TV screen than a monitor in any case. That makes the legimate means more compelling if you'll be charged to download fansubs by the provider--though maybe we'll see less shipped over seas because there will be less word of mouth and less of a fanbase.
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Old 2009-04-14, 22:44   Link #83
SinsI
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Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
Also, in regards to the replies regarding my dropped frames: I wasn't watching the 720P version since I'm using a free account. I'm saying that my 2GHZ PC (that can play quite a few 720P H.264 fansubs just fine) drops frames on Crunchyroll's sub-480P H.264 stream. Either that or said stream uses quite a low frame rate.
It's their encoding; it doesn't matter how good your PC is.

Last edited by SinsI; 2009-04-14 at 22:48. Reason: Some numbers were wrong...
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Old 2009-04-14, 22:58   Link #84
neothe0ne
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Originally Posted by Alto-hime View Post
Interesting debate. Love the paranoia.

Other than the occasional typo, the translations I have seen have been superior to most fansubs. They had honorifics, Japanese name order, and were very well written. The only really questionable one I saw was Naruto which is the one everyone watches lol
Sorry but that's just wrong. As I posted elsewhere, even Japanese industries realize that putting surname last is the proper way to write in the English language. The video game industry has done it this way, correctly, for over 20 years - where have you ever seen "Music Composed by Uematsu Nobuo"?

Thankfully, the music industry has recently conformed as well (before it was split with surnames appearing randomly). That is now history.

Spoiler for music:



and just fyi Crunchyroll has been doing Hayate no Gotoku!! 2nd season surname last as well.
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Old 2009-04-14, 23:32   Link #85
0utf0xZer0
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Originally Posted by Vexx View Post
Really, Crunchy is crayola-ing just as fast as they can.... :P

So far, my take is that it isn't a bad *idea* (their business plan) but their technical execution is pretty amateurish to want to play "professional" so far....
Any specific things you can think of that you find problems, Vexx? I was kind of curious as to how your experiment with CR was going.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Telmah View Post
Maybe my knowledge of computing is incomplete, but I'd have thought streaming would be alot less intensive than actually downloading a file via bit torrent or direct downloading. Most people probably don't watch things multiple times--I rarely do unless I am watching a show again with friends, though we prefer to watch it on a larger TV screen than a monitor in any case. That makes the legimate means more compelling if you'll be charged to download fansubs by the provider--though maybe we'll see less shipped over seas because there will be less word of mouth and less of a fanbase.
CR's streams are H.264 based... the exact same technology used to encode a lot of modern fansubs. The streaming version is often smaller, but that's because it's more compressed, which eats into image quality. Fansubbers could also reduce file sizes if they were willing to sacrifice image quality.

Downloading off bittorrent would consume more bandwidth because you're both uploading and downloading. So if you seed to 1.0, it would essentially be equivalent to watching the same thing streaming twice (unless your ISP throttles uploads more strictly than downloads). Direct download or IRC, however, would consume the same amount of bandwidth as streaming.
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Old 2009-04-15, 01:30   Link #86
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Originally Posted by neothe0ne View Post
Sorry but that's just wrong. As I posted elsewhere, even Japanese industries realize that putting surname last is the proper way to write in the English language. The video game industry has done it this way, correctly, for over 20 years - where have you ever seen "Music Composed by Uematsu Nobuo"?
I'd agree for written works, but for subtitles of Japanese audio, the cognative-acoustic dissonance is such that keeping name order as it is spoken actually is LESS confusing for the majority of anime watchers out there.
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Old 2009-04-15, 01:54   Link #87
Vexx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
Any specific things you can think of that you find problems, Vexx? I was kind of curious as to how your experiment with CR was going.
...
CR's streams are H.264 based... the exact same technology used to encode a lot of modern fansubs. The streaming version is often smaller, but that's because it's more compressed, which eats into image quality. Fansubbers could also reduce file sizes if they were willing to sacrifice image quality.
1) Streaming IS downloading as 0utf0xZer0 says.... you're just "not getting to save it" (unless you have some form of stream capture).

2) Yeah, they're using h.264 ... but then a driver who is competent in a Volkswagen is not necessarily good at driving a Porsche. CR either fails at encoding or they're getting crappy source (haven't really dug into it) but the result is rather choppy no matter how good the computer is.

If I'm paying money for the transmission, that's really not acceptable. However, if they're mostly trying to snare the "watches it on low-quality Youtube" crowd then I'm not their target of interest (a shame since I'm very likely to *buy* DVDs of what I like).

(Using Saki as my test case comparing CR to a raw to a particular fansub)
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Old 2009-04-15, 02:50   Link #88
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Originally Posted by Vexx View Post
1) Streaming IS downloading as 0utf0xZer0 says.... you're just "not getting to save it" (unless you have some form of stream capture).

2) Yeah, they're using h.264 ... but then a driver who is competent in a Volkswagen is not necessarily good at driving a Porsche. CR either fails at encoding or they're getting crappy source (haven't really dug into it) but the result is rather choppy no matter how good the computer is.

If I'm paying money for the transmission, that's really not acceptable. However, if they're mostly trying to snare the "watches it on low-quality Youtube" crowd then I'm not their target of interest (a shame since I'm very likely to *buy* DVDs of what I like).

(Using Saki as my test case comparing CR to a raw to a particular fansub)
That's cruel of you, since Saki is by far the worst of the recent season in terms of raw quality. Try Shangri-la for an example of one that isn't so foobarred.
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Old 2009-04-15, 05:25   Link #89
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Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
CR's streams are H.264 based... the exact same technology used to encode a lot of modern fansubs. The streaming version is often smaller, but that's because it's more compressed, which eats into image quality. Fansubbers could also reduce file sizes if they were willing to sacrifice image quality.
"Lower bitrate" is probably a more accurate way to describe it than "more compressed". It doesn't always eat into visual quality as the quality vs bitrate curve isn't linear and most fansubs are aiming for a specific size and forgoing compressibility.

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Direct download or IRC, however, would consume the same amount of bandwidth as streaming.
For the same file content, yes. However, as you said prior, streaming files are frequently smaller due to a much lower bitrate. You can typically download a streaming version of a show multiple (2-4x) times and still use less bandwidth than a fansub.
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Old 2009-04-15, 06:04   Link #90
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I saw this on ANN and it seemed relevant to the discussion. Firstly in their spring preview ANN was already doing this for free so I'm guessing that they must be getting desperate for subscriptions. (That's possibly where they got the idea from too.) I can see this blowing back up in their face when people realize what a crummy deal it is plus it takes away from the non-corporate image they try and maintain on the site.
Quote:
CR either fails at encoding or they're getting crappy source (haven't really dug into it)
The people who are *probably* the translators seem to be saying that it's the sources from TVTokyo who are still worried about pre-broadcast leaks. Apparently the Gonzo ones are better because they're less worried about leaks. Although this is all hearsay from an unreliable source.
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Old 2009-04-15, 06:23   Link #91
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Originally Posted by Ash Falls Town View Post
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pres...-to-10-percent
I saw this on ANN and it seemed relevant to the discussion. Firstly in their spring preview ANN was already doing this for free so I'm guessing that they must be getting desperate for subscriptions. (That's possibly where they got the idea from too.) I can see this blowing back up in their face when people realize what a crummy deal it is plus it takes away from the non-corporate image they try and maintain on the site.

The people who are *probably* the translators seem to be saying that it's the sources from TVTokyo who are still worried about pre-broadcast leaks. Apparently the Gonzo ones are better because they're less worried about leaks. Although this is all hearsay from an unreliable source.
Well it's pretty easy to do a little detective work yourself and come to the same conclusion. Check out the 480 or 720 streams from all the different "publishers" and you'll start to see that the quality of the video varies considerably based on the show and the publisher. If it was all CR's encoding's fault they'd all be just as bad.
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Old 2009-04-15, 14:30   Link #92
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@0utf0xZer0: Though your PC may handle other 720p files just fine, you aren't taking into account Flash. Adobe is notorious for having high memory programs and Flash isn't an exception. It'll eat up a lot of your CPU and RAM, compared to a MPC or Mplayer.

In my opinion cruncyroll should look into Silverlight, or try to optimize the Flash player.
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Old 2009-04-15, 14:58   Link #93
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Originally Posted by alamarco View Post
@0utf0xZer0: Though your PC may handle other 720p files just fine, you aren't taking into account Flash. Adobe is notorious for having high memory programs and Flash isn't an exception. It'll eat up a lot of your CPU and RAM, compared to a MPC or Mplayer.

In my opinion cruncyroll should look into Silverlight, or try to optimize the Flash player.
As I've already said above, it doesn't matter how good his PC is. Crunchyroll drastically reduces the bitrate of their files by dropping lots and lots of frames, that's why their videos look so bad if they have a little bit of movement.
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Old 2009-04-15, 15:50   Link #94
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They don't drop frames, they just don't know how to decimate, or they receive such bad sources. As was said before, this isn't the case for all of their videos, mainly just TV Tokyo properties.
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Old 2009-04-16, 15:31   Link #95
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Originally Posted by bayoab View Post
"Lower bitrate" is probably a more accurate way to describe it than "more compressed". It doesn't always eat into visual quality as the quality vs bitrate curve isn't linear and most fansubs are aiming for a specific size and forgoing compressibility.
Correct so far. However...

Quote:
For the same file content, yes. However, as you said prior, streaming files are frequently smaller due to a much lower bitrate. You can typically download a streaming version of a show multiple (2-4x) times and still use less bandwidth than a fansub.
This is highly misleading. Care to substantiate this claim in any way?

I'm pointing to the files currently under debate: CR's 720p releases. Here - according to my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong - HorribleSubs is capturing the very same video that CR is streaming, and the files end up ~270-300 megs, pretty close to what fansubs are using. And the 480p streams are also between ~150-200 megs, also in fansub range.

Of course, other LQ streams particularly in the past went really down to the cellar (in both filesize AND video quality), but the still-existing video quality gap can not be excused with mere bitrate issues anymore.

No, particularly the jerkiness is simply caused by incompetent encoding (and based on what I heard, it seems that not CR is to blame for that, but rather TV Tokyo), since they screw up IVTC. Among other things, like ramping saturation into the heavens, giving frames a near-radioactive glow in some spots. But alas...

Sorry if I sound annoyed here, but I actually wouldn't mind to see CR succeed with certain changes in the service (particularly download-to-own), and it simply irritates me a great deal to see so-called "professional" work make mistakes that most encoder rookies stopped doing 4 years ago. It's a matter of "taking pride in your work".
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Old 2009-04-16, 16:45   Link #96
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Originally Posted by Mentar View Post
This is highly misleading. Care to substantiate this claim in any way?

I'm pointing to the files currently under debate: CR's 720p releases. Here - according to my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong - HorribleSubs is capturing the very same video that CR is streaming, and the files end up ~270-300 megs, pretty close to what fansubs are using. And the 480p streams are also between ~150-200 megs, also in fansub range.
I didn't realize we were being specific to CR 720p in that post and was talking about streaming files in general. I haven't been paying that close to the CR rip file size and the Gonzo DTO encodes were always oversized one pass XviD. I was more basing it on things like Youtube and Nicovideo where the official files average ~60-90mb in fmt=18/h.264. Then you have things like Kadokawa's Haruhi upload on Youtube which clocks in ~110mb and FUNi's FMA:B encode is 193mb On2 VP6 (WTFH) so it is highly dependent on the encoder.

Looking at the CR stuff, it has gone from 120mb->150mb for SD and the average SD fansub is 175-200mb now.
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Old 2009-04-16, 18:49   Link #97
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I didn't realize we were being specific to CR 720p in that post and was talking about streaming files in general. I haven't been paying that close to the CR rip file size and the Gonzo DTO encodes were always oversized one pass XviD. I was more basing it on things like Youtube and Nicovideo where the official files average ~60-90mb in fmt=18/h.264. Then you have things like Kadokawa's Haruhi upload on Youtube which clocks in ~110mb and FUNi's FMA:B encode is 193mb On2 VP6 (WTFH) so it is highly dependent on the encoder.
Well okay - if you seriously want to compare stamp-sized moving blocks (Youtube) and fansubs, then 2-4x might work out. But those are two entirely different kinds of creatures. Crunchyroll is thankfully way better than that already.

Quote:
Looking at the CR stuff, it has gone from 120mb->150mb for SD and the average SD fansub is 175-200mb now.
Well, CR's 480p is pretty consistently 150 meg now, while fansubs are around 175. But okay, let's be super-gracious in your favor and say that CR's products are around 30% smaller than their fansub equivalents. A far cry from the factor 2-4 we talked about before. And not enough to really justify the video differences with. No, the reasons for the underperforming lie elsewhere.
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Old 2009-04-16, 20:12   Link #98
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Originally Posted by SinsI View Post
As I've already said above, it doesn't matter how good his PC is. Crunchyroll drastically reduces the bitrate of their files by dropping lots and lots of frames, that's why their videos look so bad if they have a little bit of movement.
Actually, upon some testing, I think it is flash. I took a look at my CPU utilization when playing stuff back, and either the 480P or 720P sample streams would immediately send my CPU to 100% and start dropping frames - and my typical "background" CPU use is maybe 5% at most. This behaviour occured across two computers I tried (2GHZ-ish AMD CPUs, Windows XP) with multiple web browsers.

Actually, the free H.264 streams did the exact same thing with the exception of if I used IE7 on one of my test machines, in which case I was pulling maybe 40-50%. I also noticed that something about that browser on that computer broke CR's banner ads and prevented them from displaying, which may play some role.

Anyone else have this sorts of issues, or are my Flash installs really screwed up?

Regarding bandwidth caps, I think whether it would be an influencing factor on people's decisions would depend on how severe the caps are. If they're as severe as those TWC proposes it might make some people who only know how to get anime via bittorrent switch, because TWC's proposed bandwidth rates are designed to totally and utterly gauge their customers. If you're talking bandwidth caps more like what some Canadian ISPs typically use, which actually are designed to target mainly ultra high bandwidth users, then it's not going to make much difference because the typical fansub downloader won't come anywhere near the bandwidth usage of the people being targetted.
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Old 2009-04-17, 02:10   Link #99
Mentar
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Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
Actually, upon some testing, I think it is flash.
No, it is not. That is - it might very well be that local CPU shortage leads to extra problems, but the jerkiness has a different reason.

(Reviewing the HorribleSubs version of Hayate no Gotoku 1 under the assumption, that the video is a true 1:1 representation of the CR stream, simply muxed into a new container)

Quick theory recap: Since the original footage comes in the form of 29.97fps Interlaced, but for a smooth playback we want 23.976 fps Progressive (non-interlaced), since this is what the animation itself is created in, we need to do two things:

1) Matching the interlaced fields (to turn interlaced frames into progressive frames)

2) Decimating the resulting progressive frames (to change the framerate from 29.97 to 23.976)

This process is called IVTC (InVerse TeleCine). Here, the CR video does 1) correctly, but often fails at 2). Example:

The easiest thing is to imagine a pan from left to right. For simplicity's sake, let's assume that the pan is linear and with each frame, the picture horizontally shifts by 10 pixels.

This is how it would be done correctly: (m = live frame with movement, d = duplicate)

Code:
m  m  m  m  d      m  m  m  m  d      m  m  m  m  d      m  m  m  m  d
10    30    40     50    70    80     90   110   120    130   150   160
   20    40           60    80          100   120          140   160
Now, the correctly decimated stream would look like this: (X marking the decimated frame)

Code:
m  m  m  m  X      m  m  m  m  X      m  m  m  m  X      m  m  m  m  X
10    30           50    70           90   110          130   150   
   20    40           60    80          100   120          140   160
You see? Every remaining frame moves the picture by 10 pixels. The result is smooth. But what happens if the wrong frames are being decimated? This is exactly what happens in the CR/Horriblesubs video:

Code:
m  m  X  m  d      m  m  X  m  d      m  m  X  m  d      m  m  X  m  d
10          40     50          80     90         120    130         160
   20    40           60    80          100   120          140   160
Here, we first have the picture "jump ahead" by 10 extra pixels, and then "stop" due to the duplicate. This is what causes the jerks. (There are several other instances with other issues involved, but this is the most common one and is relatively easy to explain).

To me it seems that whoever encodes for the CR release (I've been told it's TV Tokyo themselves) doesn't apply proper decimation filters that try to identify the frame with the least movement, but rather do "blind decimation" - simply removing one frame out of the stream without looking whether or not it's the right one. This would explain the problem above, and also why every once in a while a pan is smooth (by pure luck they're decimating the right one) and the next one a jerkfest again.

Last edited by Mentar; 2009-04-17 at 02:23. Reason: Added Code-pages to improve readability
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Old 2009-04-24, 22:58   Link #100
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School Days to Be Posted on Crunchyroll This Spring

The Japanese production company Marvelous Entertainment has announced on Friday that it decided to distribute its animated works in North America on the Crunchyroll media distribution website, starting with the School Days anime this spring. The decision encompasses the titles for which Marvelous Entertainment holds the master rights. Marvelous Entertainment's announcement notes the increase in illegal video downloads, the decline in DVD sales and the overseas licensing market, and the expanding content distribution market. According to Marvelous Entertainment, there are 4.4 million registered user accounts on Crunchyroll.

Crunchyroll announced that this anime will be streamed "in enhanced definition" without video advertisements to Crunchyroll's Anime Member subscribers. The general public can view the anime at a lower streaming quality one week later, depending on regional and age restrictions.
4.4 million registered users with only 15,000 subscribers. Conversion rate is very low.

Marvelous Entertainment company other anime:

Produced series

* Megazone 23 (OVA series, 1985)
* Hoshi Neko Full House (OVA series, 1989)
* Yūgo (TV series, 2003)
* Gyagu Manga Biyori (TV series, 2005)
* Mushishi (TV series, 2005-2006)
* Bokura ga Ita (TV series, 2006)
* Gyagu Manga Biyori 2 (TV series, 2006)
* Happiness! (TV series, 2006)
* Katekyō Hitman REBORN! (TV series, 2006)
* Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo ~Yōkoso Tsugumi Ryōhe~ (TV series, 2007)
* Kenkō Zenrakei Suieibu Umishō (TV series, 2007)
* Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino- (TV series, 2008)
* Hakushaku to Yōsei (TV series, 2008)
* Tytania (TV series, 2008)
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