Why are h.264 files so big?

[martino]

Originally Posted by Shounen

Some still tend to hug these sizes 170-179mb or 222-233mb etc. That's the problem. Why can't they just encode until they see that it fits their "needs"? That's what QC also was about but got quicly dropped due to people still didnt have that "fast" CPU back then and time. I still hug my P4 it does it's job but it's just for a server now were it works minimally.

Personally I would object to ~210MB h264 encodes (taking off ~20MB for audio), for 704x400 @ 23.976 encodes (for the usual 24 minute episode). At such a high bitrate one would get quantizers around 14, which is just low. You can definitely go lower than that without hurting quality (ok, there might be some exceptions, but not that many I guess). After all these encodes are not meant to be for transparency (not talking about DVD rips, because that's a different story), but somewhere in-between. But objecting against the 175MB "standard" would be a bit silly, because some shows do require that kind of bitrate.

Originally Posted by Shounen

Because H264 is Open Source!. It does it's job way better than XviD if you don't play along with Avs and probably use your own encoder (mencoder anyone?) instead of <insert your favorite command line encoder here>. Remember, were playing with with TV Streams or similar sources. Companies have their "source". They can almost always get a better result than just using XviD, if they use any profiles, even better!

I'm a bit lost here to be honest... So standards are open source too? Or are you referring to x264, which actually is GNU GPL licensed (I guess referring to it as open source works too). And how does open source mean beta? Last time I checked my installation of Open Office and AviSynth it had no "beta" mentioned anywhere... That is unless I downloaded the unstable (aka beta) release, which I did not.

Originally Posted by Shounen

If you didn't know.... You can also encode h264 into lossless.

Actually, I did not . The point was that your paragraph there didn't make sense to me. More precisely as to why you were mixing a colorspace and above lossle... Huh? Never mind actually.

[Shounen]

I finally found myself ending posting on this forum for good.
Here's my last post and link that might be useful.

Have fun on the AS board.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by martino

There is a very big point to it, because if it was mastered in HD resolution then you do have that detail along with nice thin lines. I mean for God's sake... Are you blind? Go and do a comparison before you actually write something as stupid as this...

Being blind has a lot to do with his argument, and out of good reasons. Animators (whether producing 'HD anime' or not) use simplistic techniques to get their points across. Live-action movies are meant to portray as much detail as possible, so HD technology is there to bring the live-action movie experience a step closer to real-life. Anime is a different medium with a different goal. Contemporary anime aren't technically demanding, so the step between anime at SD resolutions and anime at HD resolutions isn't nearly as big as the step between live-action at SD and live-action at HD. The value each individual places on that step could be one of the reasons for (not) purchasing better playback and display equipment. Seriously, some people can't even tell the difference between SD and HD live-action. How are they going to between SD and HD anime then?

[Potatochobit]

You shouldnt be taking this personally, shounen.

just because someone disagrees doesnt mean they are trying to hurt your feelings.
If everyone agreed at the start, their would be no need for discussions.

as for
But why can't you just leave the CD/DVD era?

because I'm not paying 600 dollars for a piece of jewelry to sit on top of my TV. DVD/DIVx, even VCR's never costed that much. you can buy a freaking 32" HD LCDTV for 600$, why would people think paying for a video player should cost more than their TV? HD players have been around far long enough to not warrant these ridiculous prices.

How are they going to between SD and HD anime then?

it is quite sad that the current trend in anime is to do it fast and cheap at the expense of quality. I like MFI series, but they pump them out so fast that they are becoming the mcdonalds of the anime world.

even when AIR in blueray was done, only the opening was Hi-def. a bit upsetting considering the price of the series was over 300$ for the box set of 12 episodes.

on a different note: a show like one-piece being done in HD is a bit of a waste. having a few episodes of a 300+ episode series look a bit better is just a gimmick.