People who have Evangelion US Release, please look here!

[Awatef]

Hi,
I have the german Evangelion Release that I wanna encode to DivX. The problem is: all episodes are AWFULLY interlaced and there is no way to recover the original 24 progressive fps.

My question is:
What about the US release of Evangelion? is it only the 0:1-DVD that can't be IVTCed or all of them?

I need this precious information, 'cause I wanna encode the evangelion episodes to DivX definitely and if they aren't IVTCable, I won't have to regret having paid 150 bugs later.

Thanks in advance for your answer!

[RadicalEd]

Sad as it is, the US release is no better. The first anime I've seen that is impossible to IVTC. Makes me wonder how the heck this stuff looks okay on TV considering how screwed up it is.. anyway, I've given up trying to IVTC eva altogether and have stuck with the horrid ghosting of deinterlace.

Theres a few threads about how screwed up Eva's US release is..
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25529

no wait.. theres only one. But anyway, don't worry, you aren't missing anything with your german release.

[Awatef]

Now that you mention that thread, maven was so positive about the german release, I thought I got the best release worldwide!
Seeing the DVD now, I'm sooooo sad!

So I was hoping the US release would be better. The strange thing is: all sites I saw are talking about problems with the first 0:1 DVD, but never mention the other ones.

Are you 100% sure the other DVDs 0:2 to 0:8 are like the 0:1 DVD?

I'll die to have a properly encoded evangelion release! why have the DVD authors to be so mean??!!

[RadicalEd]

lol yea its the same with all of them, I have the second half of episode 19 encoded as a realvideo clip and thats from the 6th DVD, its the scene where Zeruel attacks and then eva 01 eats him.. O.O

[Awatef]

Well, I'm glad I asked! yogatta! :D
Seems like I'm going to make X-SVCD out of those crap DVDs, DivX won't look good anyway, ghost effects get on my nervs! Interlaced Video looks somehow smoother than blended video...

But the hope remains! there isn't a french DVD release of Evangelion yet, and as I know french anime DVDs, they are most of the time PAL speed up, so progressive clean 25fps :rolleyes:

[kastro68]

Lucky us.

Only dissapointment is that it is 4:3, not widescreen.

[Awatef]

@ kastro68
Evangelion is 4:3 not widescreen, so don't be disappointed! ;)

You have autralian Evangelion DVDs? how are they? progressive or interlaced?
I mean the german DVDs are PAL, but 100% interlaced -- no PAL speed up, some weird NTSC-PAL conversion was done :(

If the australian DVDs are progressive, I'm going to buy them right away!
Please tell me as soon as possible!

[kastro68]

The Australian NGE DVDS I watched were not interlaced at all.

The quality was as good(or better)than when it aired on TV.

However, I think the dubbed voice of Misato changed as the series progresses.

[maven]

@awatef:
all i was saying is that the german release is a good deal for the money, but it definitely has these known problems. i'm sorry if i made you jump to (wrong?) conclusions...

@kastro68:
did you just watch the australian release (where a lot of these problems are not (that) apparent) or did you actually check adjacent fields to see that they are progressive (being PAL and not needing IVTC)?

[grug2k]

The Australian DVDs are most definately interlaced, and they appear to use the same terrible masters as the R1s.

It all comes down to the source materials they're using. Instead of starting with the original film print, they have started with a video source that was already interlaced to begin with. I presume that when they made the english dub, they created a master english transfer.

This was confirmed on a page talking about Wings of Honneamise, which made reference to the Evangelion DVD. (WoH is even worse than Eva, because due to an authoring error, the stream is marked as progressive instead of interlaced.)

[nine00]

I have the american version of the evangelion series and the only one that i can seem to encode is 0:1 by IVTC'ing through TMPGEnc. I tried to do the same to the other evangelion discs, but they have an audio synching problem. I am going to try and play around with the other DVD's and see what I can do. If I get the others to work, i'll try and relay the method.

[Zalbar]

I had IVTC troubles with Perfect Blue. The IVTC was such that there was interlaced artifacts even in most of the progressive frames - as splotchy ghosts and static. Horrifying. Fixing required using Tmpgenc under manual IVTC and selecting the cleanest frames in the worst parts of the film. If there was no clean frame to select (very rare) then a doubling filter would be applied using the prevailing field. Grueling long work but I got to learn all about IVTC and sequences while doing it. I imagine the same thing could be done to evangelion... and then TMPGENC's project file could be posted online to help others.

[maven]

amount of work you're talking about...
2h perfect blue (probably less) <-> 24 / 26 * 22 minutes of eva...

also, my anamorphic PAL (german) release *EDIT* of perfect blue *EDIT* looked fine on first glance, but i didn't bother checking in detail... (but yes, i did have a look in DVD2AVI)

[RadicalEd]

The IVTC was such that there was interlaced artifacts even in most of the progressive frames - as splotchy ghosts and static. Horrifying.

Perfect Blue is scary to IVTC and watch o.o

[DJ Bobo]

Seems like Awatef has really found the sweat pot for IVTC2.2
I tested his new settings (thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21403&pagenumber=2 )
and they work really well on the NTSC evangelion opening that I've become from shu.

This was the AVS I used:

...
ivtc(44,11,95)
FieldDeinterlace(blend=false)
...

The IVTC was IMHO almost perfect.
As I don't have Evangelion, may be RadicalEd can test this on a whole episode and may be Zalbar with Perfect Blue.

[RadicalEd]

Will do monday, I'm interested that it worked with the op. I don't have access to a dvd-rom at my dads so it has to wait till the weekend is over :/

I've been meaning to test that but I haven't had time to rip eva recently, anyway it will be interesting indeed...

[Dreassica]

He could try it, but because he has the PAL version, his output will be at 20FPS after the IVTC. Sure, he can speed it upt back to 24 but he will get choppy playback, because of the missing frames.

[DJ Bobo]

@ Dreassica
RadicalEd has the US version -> NTSC
I don't know any PAL video which is IVTCable (if you don't get a proper PAL speeded up video, you can throw the DVD through the window!)

[EDIT]
AS for the AVS parameters, you may really get rid of FieldDeinterlace completely, since interlaced lines provide really slightly smoother motion.

You may call it luck in the unluck: I ripped yesterday the first Trigun DVD. Look how bitchy the studios can be at times:
*Episode1: 96% Film (!) -> Forced Film and all was fine
*Episode2: EXACTLY like Evangelion. And it was for me the opportunity to test the settings on a whole episode. In point of view of Motion:
without FieldDeinterlace: best motion but interlace artifacts visible (they aren't that bad after all)
with FD(): second best motion, of course no interlace artifacts, ghosting quite visible
with FD(blend=false): worst motion, of course no interlace artifacts, ghosting nearly not visible, picture seems to dance (the most) somehow :D
At the end, I decided to rip using ivtc(44,11,95) alone (I havn't used FieldDeinterlace at all).
* Episode3&4: proper telecining, absolutely fantastic picture & motion using ivtc(44,11,95) alone.
Note that those episodes are on the same DVD!!!

[Fireye]

Originally posted by Awatef
problems with the first 0:1 DVD, but never mention the other ones.
Are you 100% sure the other DVDs 0:2 to 0:8 are like the 0:1 DVD?
[/B]

0:1 was produced by a different authoring company then the other dvd's (0:2-0:8). The company that produced 0:1 digitally post-processed the film to remove the scene-change jitters, amoung other things. Also, ALL the dvd's use the dub masters, which have english text inserted in different places... which means that it might not be possible to convert to 24fps progressive because the inserted text screws up the fields... or something... 0:1 was redone by the authoring house that did the rest of the series, and is out now, and it is just like the rest of the series in that it doesn't have the digital jitter reduction (the way to tell the difference is that it has a different looking spine the the original 0:1 release). btw, those who are wondering or don't know... thoes scene change jitters are introduced in the original editing of the TV series. Unless the studio that created NGE gives the US company a better source, there's not a whole lot the US company can do besides post-processing the video to make it look better... which is not a good thing IMO. Eva was re-released in R2J (Region 2 japanese) with remastered video, under the title "Second Impact", as to the quality of the video there, I don't know, but I assume it has cleaner scene changes, and it includes the improved animation/added scenes in eps 22-26. The R4 Australian release is sublicensed by ADV, and should include the exact same video/audio/sub attributes as the R1 release, though I don't know if the 0:1 dvd would be the redone version or the old one. Hmm... maybe I've ranted a bit too much... Anwyho, the best way to get the best video quality is to buy the R2 re-release (Second Impact), which you should be able to IVTC...

[midiguy]

I am going to be buying that next week ladies and gents. hopefully it will IVTC, but it will probably follow the same trend. It is probably the way the series was done originally and not the way all these companies master the DVDs. I mean, what are the chances that ALL these different DVDs from all around the world of the exact same anime can't IVTC... I am hoping that this works out nicely. If not, I will probably just make VCD or SVCD episodes... I can't be bothered with deinterlacing NTSC material. I hate blending.

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
you lucky one! if I had 180 bugs spare, I would have buy it instantently that new japanese box!
Well, please be sure to tell us if it's IVTCable and don't hesitate to post some screenshots so we can have a look at the image quality.

If it is what I think it is, it will be *THE* good news for every DivX ripper!

[RadicalEd]

... wow.. that really didn't work. I got better results with decomb than with IVTC(44,11,95). Then again, fielddeinterlace(blen=false) got rid of the interlacing, but it made the picture really crappy. Damn, well I'll play around with IVTC a bit I guess and see if anything works, good luck with the japanese box midiguy. Yeesh.


of course decomb only gave better results because it used fielddeinterlace. meh, what a mess.

[DJ Bobo]

@ RadicalEd
It seems really to be like Trigun Episode2 I have. in that case ivtc(44,11,95).FieldDeinterlace() will be best for you.
BTW, I looked carefully at the frames in the evangelion opening and in the trigun episode2, you'll notice that some frames have the higher part from the former frame, and the lower part from the next frame, and that's why the video seems to dance really weird if FieldDeinterlace(blend=false) is used.

An AviSynth function catched my attention: PeculiarBlend:

"This filter blends each frame with the following frame in a peculiar way. The portion of the frame below the (cutoff)th scanline is unchanged. The portion above the (cutoff-30)th scanline is replaced with the corresponding portion of the following frame. The 30 scan lines in between are blended incrementally to disguise the switchover.

You're probably wondering why anyone would use this filter. Well, it's like this. Most videos which were originally shot on film use the 3:2 pulldown technique which is described in the description of the Pulldown filter. But some use a much nastier system in which the crossover to the next frame occurs in the middle of a field--in other words, individual fields look like one movie frame on the top, and another on the bottom. This filter partially undoes this peculiar effect. It should be used after th before the Pulldown filter. To determine cutoff, examine a frame which is blended in this way and set cutoff to the number of the first scanline in which you notice a blend."

This *may be* the best solution to the problem! (here no way to use ivtc though)

[EDIT]
Does anybody know what's the missing word in the sentence "It should be used after th before the Pulldown filter"? it should be used after what?
[EDIT2]
I guess after DoubleWeave

[RadicalEd]

hmm.. interesting that peculiar blend sounds.
Um.. I have a question though.. well, do you think its in any way possible that eva was somehow animated at 29.97 interlaced? It would be crazy to go through the trouble of drawing 60 fps material, resizing it by half, and then weaving it, but is it possible? I just did a separate fields and field bob (which came out as 720x240) and I resized to 320x240, encoded at 59.94, and it looks good. Real good. A lot better than any other method we've come up with. Strange stuff.
Anyway bobo I noticed that too looking through the frames in TMPG. I guess I'll try the peculiar blend thing next and see what it does.


I tried peculiar blend with no luck, it seems as though the actual frames from the original TV show are blended together a bit and thus the interlaced blend appears to be a peculiar blend.

Anyway, I have a wmv (stop complaining, it was the only format I could get 60fps to work in) of one scene in 60fps, I'll try to host it but chances are my site will go down real quick cuz of sucky bandwidth, if anybody else can host it it would be nice.
http://www.angelfire.com/anime3/airanime/eva/eva.html

[DJ Bobo]

From point of view of motion, it looks almost perfect, but not perfect (the best I've seen so far though), there is regular light stutters (btw, you should have chosen another sequence with more pans and less stills ;)) so it can't be that it is 60 or 30fps, Evangelion is definitely 24fps. But as I have to see on my own with the Trigun DVD, it's the fault of the DVD authors, they must have some sort of board or software where they can choose between keeping film, regular telecing, or real framerate transformation, and it seems like they choosed the last option for Evangelion
I always ask myself why do they have to telecine or convert anyway -.- I mean most movies are encoded as film, why have anime to be different?! it sucks!

Just to let you know, the deinterlacing method you used is the same used by PowerDVD when "Force Bob" is enabled, so it's kinda of last resort for hopeless cases (mainly because of the high framerate and the big image quality loss)

off topic:
man, once again the japanese dub wins, never thought the english dub was so bad, or is it just me?! :D

[RadicalEd]

oh yah, forgot to mention it was the dub ^^;
I picked that scene cuz I was pulling at my eva dvds and I was like hmm.. what can I actually use... and I remembered that I had wanted to encode that scene as a short clip because its a cool clip. Anyway yea, there are veery slight stutters, but just slight ones. And oh well, I watched the dub through so I have their dub voices engrained in my head, sorry o.o;

off off topic: I was thinking today (or the other day.. or sometime) about the idea of an anime forum that went around awhile ago, and I've noticed a large increase of people with anime avatars (see buba, you, that guy with the spike avatar, etc) so hopefully some day doom will consider that.
Oh yah, super off topic:
Last night I had a dream that Ddogg came back but the dream wasn't all good as I also found out that ErMaC was part of this forum (haha.. just a dream) o.o yah, I'm a strange one.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ midiguy
you lucky one! if I had 180 bugs spare, I would have buy it instantently that new japanese box!
Well, please be sure to tell us if it's IVTCable and don't hesitate to post some screenshots so we can have a look at the image quality.

If it is what I think it is, it will be *THE* good news for every DivX ripper!
I am getting the japanese box set for $54 CANADIAN, which is $35 US and no taxes. i'm not sure how these guys can sell them for so cheap, but what do I care. I am sure that it isn't HK DVD, they sell all official asian DVD.

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
honto?!
Where do you get this?! as for the official japanese release, it costs 21500 Yen, which are equivalent to about 180 US$/Euro.
Do you have a link or something?

This is how the japanese box looks like:

[midiguy]

I don't think mine looks like that.. it is probably by some other asian company that licensed the series for distribution. not sure. but hey, $35 US can't be too bad for whatever it is.

[buba king]

Originally posted by RadicalEd
off off topic: I was thinking today (or the other day.. or sometime) about the idea of an anime forum that went around awhile ago, and I've noticed a large increase of people with anime avatars (see buba, you, that guy with the spike avatar, etc) so hopefully some day doom will consider that.


w00t you noticed :D yeah a anime forum would be great :D

adding to the EVA disucussion: err. well i feel really lame here cuz i have not seen any more than the 13 first episodes :P

i recently got this:
Neon.Genesis.Evangelion.EP01-02.ReRelease.Subbed.DVDrip-AVCD (no requests please, i will not awnser you)
and it looks great! much better than ed's sample (on my pc Monitor)

from the nfo:

VIDEO SOURCE : R2 DVD

This is a re-release redone from scratch, some of the jitter in scene changes has been fixed when it was possible without sacrificing motion and IVTC was done by hand. This release also includes still menu's for chapter access. Previous release had some issues with data corruption and bad IVTC. It looks as good as I could make it without hiring child labour to redraw the frames, since the source looks awful after Gainax put it through a 2$ telecine equipment.

i dont think that this can help anyone but i'm just saying...

[midiguy]

for $35 US I also got a Cowboy Bebop box set (series only, not the movie). The DVDs IVTC perfectly, and the video quality is pretty descent. these DVDs seem to have been distributed by Manga International and were mastered by Anime Cartoon International Inc.
attached is an image from ep 1. it is in PNG format, so there shouldn't be too much image compression artifacts. as you can see from the image, there is little noise, especialy around sharp points. nothing that some filtering couldn't clear up though. I just use smart smoother hiq at the default settings (in Avereged Pixels mode) and it seems to clean it up nicely without losing image detail. the set came with 3 DVDs (9 eps / DVD) and it came with english and chinese subtitles. for $35 US, what do you think?

[midiguy]

hey, question, what is an easy wat to determine whether you are buying a bootleged DVD set? aside from the packaging of coarse.. do the HK and bootlegged DVDs usually have CD art? can they IVTC properly? and, what abotu the image quality? spanks.

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
You used SmartSmoother??!! the only anime that *may be* worth being filtered with it is Dragon Ball Z which is quite old and has lot noise. But you used it for Cowboy Bebop?! man, you must be an "absolutely noise free" freak.
I think original HK DVDs don't have english dub. All the ones having english dub are copies from US DVDs, quite rare though.
About image quality: it's usually very good, but that's not the point, the main disavantadge of HK DVDs is the subtitles, unless you're *very* lucky, you won't get state of the art subtitles, like on the US DVDs.
The HK studios are working always under time pressure, they release titles as potatoes :D
I buy HK DVDs only when there is no US release of the anime I want.

I think, the evangelion box you're buying doesn't even match the box I showed above in quality. You're getting the regular HK version I guess (or was it specified to be the second impact box?!)

[RadicalEd]

course I noticed, digi charat ownz. But what's with the Dejiko avatar? You know Rabi en rose is the universal solvent
/me worships rabi en rose shrine *-*

[midiguy]

hmm, the subtitles on my bebop set are VERY bad. bad grammar and sometimes they just lead off the screen. can they be HK DVD? how would I know? it appears to be packaged and distributed by "Manga International" and the DVD is by "Anime Cartoon International Inc." so what gives? are these quality DVDs? what about the image I attached in one of the above posts? does it look okay? the way I see it, it does hav noise that could be cleaned up. smart smoother cleans up the noise and still leaves all the details. not only that, it makes the episode much more compressible, especially the low motion scenes, so then the high motion scenes can get more bits and look a hell of a lot better.

[DJ Bobo]

Most "asian" DVDs as you call them come from HongKong. Anime Cartoon is one of the HK studios. There is no rule "that studio is good, that one is bad". It always depends on the title. As said, the image quality is usually very good, and most DVDs are IVTCable.

The only garanteed quality asian DVDs come from ODEX which is in Singapore http://www.odex.com.sg/
Their DVDs are almost on US quality level, very good subtitles, but are R3 only (you must have a codefree DVD player) and no english dub of course (who cares anyway? :D). Their prices are somewhere between HK & US prices.
Take Hand Maid May complete series for example:
HK Price: 20US$ + about 10US$ shipping
Odex Price: 33US$ regular (atm in sale for 23US$) + about 10US$shipping (1US$ is about 2S$)
US Price: 75US$ at best (SRP is 90US$)

[maven]

odex is NOT a bootlegger, they have actually acquired the licenses (i.e. they are a legitimate company). the 3 disc cowboy bebop one is certainly a bootleg (i do have timed DVDSubber scripts for those incidentally with the subs from the Bandai R1 release) as are almost all others from HK / R3 that are not from Odex.

[DJ Bobo]

hehe! :D
People, the japanese second impact release isn't "a" Box Set, but 3 (!) Box Sets!!
The first one is out of print, includes 3 DVDs with the episodes 1 to 12 and costs about 180 bugs.
The second one is also out of print, includes 3 DVDs with the episodes 13 to 24 and costs 180 double bugs.
And finally the third is still available, includes 4 DVDs with episodes 25 & 26 + the movies and a game. Price: 180 triple bugs

540 US$ ladies and gentlemen! to think that I wanted to buy it (them), I must be crazy -.-"

[midiguy]

Originally posted by maven
odex is NOT a bootlegger, they have actually acquired the licenses (i.e. they are a legitimate company). the 3 disc cowboy bebop one is certainly a bootleg (i do have timed DVDSubber scripts for those incidentally with the subs from the Bandai R1 release) as are almost all others from HK / R3 that are not from Odex.
MAVEN!!!!!!!!!!
I need those subs!! please! can you hook a guy up? if so, can you please tell me where you got them from? or can you maybe send em over to me? I am assuming the file size for them is pretty small, so can you hook me up? that would be great. please reply. only tihng is, I am in the middle of switching ISPs, so you can email me @ my yahoo account:

cappa86@yahoo.com

if you can, please send em! (if possible) and please reply here if you can or jsut tell me where to get them *thanks*

by the way, I ahve the Manga International release. the vid quality is pretty good actually, the DVDs are ripped from the R2 DVD set I beleive. and although it is a 3 disc set, the DVDs are double layered. each DVD stores something like 7.7 GB of data. each eps come off the DVD (the VOBs) at around 850 MB give or take per ep. that sounds about right, right? just want to make sure they didn't compress the eps more to pack more on less DVDs. but they DVDs are double layered, which is why I don't think they did.

one more question. do HK studios actually use the exact same VOB files that are located on the DVDs that they rip? or do they re-encode them to pack more video on less DVDs? thanks. also, the bebop HK MI (Manga International) box set that I have was ripped from the official retail R2 DVDs. how does it compare to the US release in terms of image quality? please answer all. and I apologise for my ignorance. but hey, I have learned a lot in the past few days about HK DVDs and the like.

[DJ Bobo]

The HK Studios do not necesserely (actually rarely) rip the japanese DVDs, they take mainly japanese LaserDiscs and VHS (VHS or S-VHS only when there is only a VHS or TV release though). I assume, the version you have is taken from LaserDisc, since you're talking about noise that I don't see on my R1 package. The only negative point about the R1 release are the rainbows around drawing lines (this is because of too low scan resolution I guess, they are BAKA!).

LaserDiscs are analog mediums, so HK studios capture them and compress them to MPEG-2 to put them on DVD.

Just for you to compare, each episode on the R1 release is 1250 to 1450MB on the first 2 DVDs, and about 915MB on the later DVDs.
On the japanese DVDs, each episode will have about 1400MB as they were released on single layered DVDs with 3 episodes each (the last DVD having only 2, so may be even 1700MB per episode on that particular DVD)

[maven]

midiguy: yes, i can send you the srt's (but you'll have to adjust the timing yourself), my DVDSubber files are for a different HK release (which is a reencoding of the R1 DVDs (including the FBI-screen)).

actually most HK-release i've seen used the cheapest official DVD release (i.e. Odex or R1) and reencoded those (i.e. lower quality).
only a few select ones are from TV (for new anime not yet released on DVD (e.g. Sister Princess)) or from LaserDisc (for things not out on DVD - e.g. Star Wars or The Archives of Studio Ghibli).

[DJ Bobo]

@ maven
I would rather say, very few are taken from other DVD releases as most titles come out in HK before they even come out in Japan.
If it was the contrary, we would get HK DVDs with awesome subtitles and/or after the japanese/us/odex release, but that's most of the time not the case.

[maven]

dj bobo:
as i said i'm writing on what i've seen (and i'm not that interested in HK releases...)
the ones coming out before a DVD release are obviously TV captures (or worse) and although they sometimes take R1 sources, they still don't keep the (english) subs (i dunno why...)

[midiguy]

hmm. so maven? how are we gonna set this up? are the SRTs big in terms of file size? can we email them or maybe you can upload them somewhere on the net on a website or something? thanks man! I really appreciate this! and yes, my DVD HK Manga International Bebop set is from the original Japanese DVDs. the menu and everything even looks the same. they used all the exact same art for disc 1,2,3 (and that is all there is for this box set, so they just cut it off there). just wondering, how much does the R1 bebop set cost? and, should I bother encoding this HK set? the quality is still pretty nice as you can see from the screenshot attached in the previous page of this thread.

[DJ Bobo]

R1 bebop collector box: 200 bugs
R1 DVDs separately: 6 x 30 = 180 bugs
if you get the subs from maven, don't bother about the R1 release

[midiguy]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
R1 bebop collector box: 200 bugs
R1 DVDs separately: 6 x 30 = 180 bugs
if you get the subs from maven, don't bother about the R1 release

you think so? it has very light noise in most places. but in some high motion scenes especially darker scenes, there can be heavy noise. but i guess that is ok, cause I can use very light settings and filter it out.

now onto something else. I plan on ripping DBZ Movie 6 subbed when funi releases that DVD in august. I want to do a 1 CD rip. I think I can do 1-pass quality based with the quant. at 2, and have 160 kbps VBR MP3 audio, and still have the movie @ 1 CD. sound like a good plan you think?

[midiguy]

MAVEN, hey, just thinking about it, the SRTs are very small. only around 16 k or so each. so is there any way you could zip/rar the srts for the eps in one file and maybe email the zip to:

cappa86@yahoo.com ?
greatly appreciated.

[DJ Bobo]

DBZ is *very* hard to compress, if you wanna use 1-pass quality based you'll have to lower the resolution to 320x240 or 384x288 to get it on one disc!
So you'll better go for 2-pass with 448x336 or 512x384, the results will be very good and you get a higher sharpness.
As far as I'm concerned:
DBZ Movie5: 2-pass quality based 100% without MPEG4 tools in 320x240 24fps with 256kbps japanese AC3 Stream => 690MB (perfect quality, low sharpness)
The same movie in 448x336 2-pass with the 448kbps 5.1 english stream and 256kbps 2.0 japanese stream looked also magnificent (not perfect of course, but very very good) and had of course a much higher sharpness (96% sharper to be precise :D)

[EDIT][BACK TO THE MAIN TOPIC]
Hey guys, I think I got a great idea concerning that damn telecining problem of Evangelion!
I think, there is 2 types of telecining: frame based & field based. And I think Evangelion was telecined on field base. So this is the idea:
1) Bob to 59,94fps
2) decimate to 47,952fps
3) decimate to 23,976fps
I think there must be 24 fields under those 60 that are clean. I'm going to try this right away on some trigun episodes (on the same DVD (Vol.4): episode 11 -> FILM, episode 12 & 13: field based telecining -.-)
So this is the AviSynth script I'm thinking of:
...
LoadPlugin("...\decomb.dll")
Bob
decimate(cycle=5)
decimate(cycle=2)
...
You may also try with me if you're up to (especially RadicalEd ;))
NB: sorry, I don't have the NTSC evangelion opening anymore, I deleted it :o

[DJ Bobo]

IT WOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRKS!!!!!
MOTION IS PERFECT!!!!!

Here a faster script:

Bob
decimate(cycle=5)
SelectOdd

You have to try it!!!

[midiguy]

you are a genius DJ BOBO, now I have a reason to buy the R1 eva box set!!!! but, was the motion absoultely perfect? aren't there some 30 fps sequences in eva that you cannot IVTC no matter what? and, can you find any interlaced frames left at all? thanks.

oh and by the way, the DBZ dub ummm SUCKS!! ewwwww nasty. but that is another topic for another day.

also, why is DBZ HARDER to compress? I thought it would be easier, considering that the animation is much simpler than most animes. but, the funi DVDs are noisy because of the older animation, so maybe it is because you didn't filter the noise out? I figure I can use pretty harsh smart smoother hiq settings on movie 6 and still have all the details. what do you think? did you filter for you movie 5? thanks.