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.

[DJ Bobo]

Motion is absolutely perfect, and there is no 30fps sequences in eva anyway. I tried the settings on episodes 12 & 13 of trigun and it works *like a charm*. Absolutely smooth motion! (absolutely no interlacing of course)
The only "problem" is slight line jitter, but that is normal if one uses Bob. If anyone knows how to get rid of this, please let me know.

I know that the english DBZ version sucks, I hate it if you ask me! I only care for the japanese version, above was just a test.
I did filter it slightly using TemporalSmoother(2). If I use SmartSmoother, I get 25% less size, in other terms 33% better quality by equal bitrate. But I can't allow myself to use this filter, since it takes too much time on my PIII@667MHz. But even so, it still needs a (very) high bitrate. (you can trust me on that matter, I have encoded *all* DBZ DVDs there is, I buyed them all :D)

[midiguy]

I am on a p3 600 mhz with 128 meg pc100 SDRAM. With my filter setup for dbz, this is what I got:

smart smoother (dia:5 thresh:30 weighdiff:3 mode:avereged pixels)
temporal smoother (2)
resize (640 x 480 precise bicucic -0.6)
subtitler (convert to SSA to add my own text (channel name, yes, I pirate, and the etc.))

and, I encode at a whooping 1 fps!!!!! wooo fucking hoo!
but, I don't care to wait the 17 hours for a nice looking 2 pass encode, or the 8-9 hours for a nice 1-pass quality based encode.

oh, by the way, spatial smoothing and temporal smoothing are 2 completely different things. so that is why I use both smart smoother and temporal smoother/ but I go way below the defaults for smart smoother otherwise I smooth too much. The way I have it set up above keeps ALL the details intact, I checked for 2 hours! and compared it all! all the details are there, extremely little unwanted blending. and, this makes the ep/movie about 40% more compressible, sometimes more sometimes less.

[DJ Bobo]

There was a time I used SmartSmoother, but not more because:
1) too long encoding time
2) gives a digital/plastic effect which I don't like
I'm thinking of not even using TemporalSmoother anymore, since it has a bad effect on pans with clouds and such stuff, don't know how to explain it well (clouds borders and the limits between color bands look excited/agitated somehow)
I think for DBZ BilinearResize does the whole job. It reduces noise without the effects I mentionned.
And 640x480 is a too high resolution anyway. With 3 episodes per CD, 512x384 is the right choice IMHO. (for 4 eps -> 448x336)
And I don't encode the subs in the video, since this cause quality loss (mosquito noise around the subs and higher bitrate consumption)

[manono]

Hi guys-

I hope you don't mind me butting into your private conversation. I think midiguy must be speaking of the SmartSmootherHiQ (even slower than the regular Smart Smoother). And since the groups require burning in the subs, then he hasn't much choice in the matter (although DJ Bobo is very right about separate subs being way better). I am surprised that they let you use DivX 5.02, since most groups still use DivX 3.11.

But the reason I'm writing is because it looks to me as if midiguy is using SShiQ and the Subtitler plugins of VDub, and therefore using the slower Full Processing. You do know that you can do those things in AviSynth and Fast Recompress without any color conversions, right? The SSHiQ for AviSynth is available here (http://cultact-server.novi.dk/kpo/avisynth/smooth_hiq_as.html), and the SSA subs can be put in with Textsub, which comes with VobSub. Who knows-by switching to AviSynth all the way you may boost the encoding speed to 1.5-2fps. :)

But if there's another reason why you're using VDub's filters and Full processing, then ignore me.

[Dreassica]

If i am not wrong it was stated that the avisynth port of SSMHiQ isn't faster as it's Vdub's version yet because it's not optimized yet!!

[midiguy]

Originally posted by manono
Hi guys-

I hope you don't mind me butting into your private conversation.

This was never a private conversation as it is on an open forum =)
and thanks for your advice about the avisynth. but, Dreassica is right that sshiq for avisynth is not optimized yet. so it actually results in slower speeds. also, I have a question:

Why would subtitles be HARDER to compress? wouldn't they be easier because they are just uniform colours and have extremely little detail? wouldn't actual video footage be WAY less compressible then subs? explain please! thank you! shalom for now!

[manono]

Hi Again-

I did some tests for you. I've done them in the past while beta testing SSHiQ, but no longer have the results, so I did them over again. This is the opening song of Cowboy Bebop plus 15 seconds of the episode that follows-1 minute 47 seconds altogether. Here's the .avs:

LoadPlugin("E:\DIVX STuff\GKnot\mpeg2dec2.dll")
LoadPlugin("E:\DIVX STuff\GKnot\Decomb.dll")
LoadPlugin("E:\DIVX STuff\GKnot\SmoothHiQ.dll")
mpeg2source("D:\Cowboy Bebop\Tests\CB-30fps.d2v")
crop(8,0,704,480)
Telecide(Guide=1,Gthresh=50,Chroma=True,Threshold=30)
Decimate(5)
BicubicResize(512,384,0,0.5)
SmoothHiQ(5,25,25,125,10)

I did it with XviD-Constant Quant 2 (I had something set up in DivX 5.02 that I didn't want to change). The AviSynth version of SSHiQ uses only Weighted Average (better than Ave. Pixel), while in VDub you have a choice of Wt. Ave. or Ave. Pixel. Other than that, the settings were the same (except Ave. Pixels turns off amount in VDub and the AviSynth version has both Luma and Chroma thresholds).

Fast Recompress-No SSHiQ.......1:52...........29,572 KB
Full Processing-No SSHiQ..........2:03...........29,168 KB
Fast Recompress-SSHiQ...........4:49...........26,688 KB
Full Processing-Ave. Pixel.........4:53...........27,192 KB
Full Processing-Wt. Ave...........5:34...........27,414 KB

You can draw your own conclusions. But if you're also using the Temporal Smoother in VDub, then switching to TemporalSoften2 in AviSynth will result in signifigant time savings. And if you're using the Subtitler in VDub, then you can switch to TextSub in AviSynth and I think you'll save some more time (not positive-never done any tests with that one). And as you all mentioned, after the optimizations are done for SSHiQ AviSynth, there will be even more reason to switch.

As for why it's harder to compress burnt in subs, I think DJ Bobo knows more about that than I. It's something to do with the encoder having a harder time compressing static subs when everything else is moving all around them. I don't think that anyone can argue against the fact of noise around the burnt in subs (although your filters will help that a bit). One thing I do know, though. I've done several 2 hour, 2 CD movies with constant Quant 2, and the file size of movies with burnt in subs is up to 50 MB larger than the same movie done the same way without the SSA subs. That's a significant difference (4-5%). I hope you didn't find this long post too boring.

[RadicalEd]

gah, sorry for being dead for a week but I'm back now. I'm trying the new thing right now but I wanned to say that I tried the original ivtc(44,11,95) thing again this time attempting to get the best motion (I was encoding at 320x240 so the interlacing didnt matter) and it seems to have worked perfectly as well, better than the 59.94 fps clip I had. I'll see if I can upload the clip in a lil bit, now I gotta rip another clip from eva and try bobo's method.

[ErMaC]

Well yes it turns out I am on this forum, I just don't visit here much.

Eva suffers from the dreaded "GAiNAX Syndrome". Basically, ever since Gunbuster way back when, GAiNAX has been using really really bad Telecine techniques. Not only that, but the people they actually have shooting the film are also very poor. Eva, Nadia, and to some extent KareKano all suffer from frame jitter (where they aren't keeping the various film cels aligned properly, i.e. the scene shifts around) as well as scene cut artifacts (those big white chunks at the top and bottom of the screen when there's a film splice) and very very bad Telecining.

As was described on the AVISynth documentation page, they do indeed use a method of Telecining where the frame change occurs in the middle of a field. This is why when IVTC'ing you will wind up with half of a frame on the top, in the middle there will be this weird blend of two frames, and then the bottom will be the next frame.

I would think that using AVISynth's Peculiar Blend option should help alleviate the problem, but I have never done this personally. I do happen to have the Eva DVDs on my hard drive right now, so I can go test it out myself if you guys want, but I would suggest experimenting with the PeculiarBlend option in order to fix the IVTC problems.

Bobbing and then Decimating is essentially losing you vertical resolution if I understand what you're doing correctly.

BTW, the Japanese Region 2 DVDs have the exact same problems in terms of film quality because the problem lies in the way Eva was shot on film and then Telecined to their video masters. It is not the fault of any other company.

Thankfully GAiNAX went all digital once Anime Ai no Awa Awa Hour (Ebichu) came around, so titles since then do not exibit this problem (FLCL, Mahoromatic, Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai).

[ErMaC]

Well I've figured out how to get it to work, although I've run into a slight problem...

Either the top half or the bottom half of the frame will have its field order reversed. ^_^ And I can't figure out how to fix it.

Here's the script:

LoadPlugin("D:\Decomb.dll")
LoadPlugin("D:\MPEG2DEC.DLL")
MPEG2Source("E:\AMVs\Evangelion\EvaOp.d2v")
SwapFields()
SeparateFields()
PeculiarBlend(129)
Weave()
Telecide(chroma=true,post=false)
Decimate()

The other problem is that not every frame needs to be blended as such, and so some frames wind up getting worse instead of better, although this isn't very often nor very noticable.

But still, it's some progress. Does anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: The SwapFields() will just change which half of the picture is reversed. You can remove it, and then the other half of the screen will have the problem.

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
I think, manono has answered your question about the subs. Encoding with subs, the files are getting bigger using constant quality mode ;) so subs are harder to encode. And don't try to speak theory too much, it's the same as credits, I always thought that credits take very little place because there is much black on them, but then it was the exact contrary ;)

About DBZ: I tried yesterday to encode with BilinearResize alone, it looked very good. So from now, I won't use any noise filters at all.


@ ErMaC
I'm not talking about scene change jitter, I'm talking about line jitter, that is typical for Bob. I'm aware of the image quality loss, but as far as I've seen, the latest method I posted is the only one that delivers smooth motion on the whole line. My first method with ivtc(44,11,95) delivers the best motion among automatic IVTC filters, but on some places not as smooth as the Bob/decimate method.
I think IVTC isn't the way to go anyway, since that was no telecining, but real framerate conversion, from 48 fields/s to 59,94 fields/s.
My Bob/decimate method consists in fishing out the cleanest 24 fields every second, and it works very nice.

[RadicalEd]

AAAH! Just like my dream O.O spooky. Now we just have to wait for Ddogg to come back... Ha, owell. Guess you got here through my post on the amv.org forums huh ermac. I just left home gosh darnit so I can't run tests with your method but it sounds good. Bobo, your method did give pretty perfect motion although the bob filter in avisynth does irreparable damage to the image quality if you ask me. So far the best yet (without having tried ermac's method) is still ivtc(44,11,95) and fielddeinterlace(). Actually I've been encoding at 320x240 so I havent been so worried about the extra interlacing, but ivtc(44,11,95) does look clearer than bob at 320x240 and gives the same perfect motion. I have a few clips that I'll upload tomorrow when I get home I suppose.

btw, just kidding about the it wasnt all good thing ^.^

[midiguy]

AnimeMusicVideos.org ownz. oh, and for anyone who cares, I have been making vids for a while now, but none were really good enough for release. but my current vid that I am working on is good enough I think, so I will be releasing it.

Anime: Streetfighter Alpha (no IVTC possible, damn HK DVD...)
Song: Crawling in the Dark (Hoobastank, I know, it is a bit too poppy for my tastes too, but whatever, works for the vid)

and yeah. when it is released I would like feedback, so please! thanks.

vid progress: 40% or something like that.

*EDIT* WHAT THE HELL!? for some reason I thought this was the Otaku Vengeance boards... forgot it was doom9. oopsies. oh well. probably because you were talking about AMV.org

[RadicalEd]

Hah, its okay. Its extremely humorous belonging to AMV.org's forums and these forums at the same time, because those boards are total chaos (in an extremely humorous way) and these forums are quite stiff and rule bent (not that thats a bad thing, there are also not many people on amv.org that will put up an intelligent discussion about video) but it would be great if people here posted stuff with topics like I like cheese or the whole dave and ana thing. Erm.. so anyway. I'm with you on the video front. I've sort of made a few videos (well... one and a half to be exact) but until now I haven't done anything releasable. I'm actually working on a new one right now and I pulled an all nighter 2 days ago starting work on another new one. Hmmmm.... well, just a sec. I'm puttin up an AMV section about my vids on my site right now so you can go check it out, just click the link in my sig. AAnd, finally. Right now I'm dling the avs wrapper so I can do auto ivtc and release the vid at full res (I really dont have the time or hdd space to save a bunch of clips at 640x480 and ivtc them in the mean time, plus the entire dvd is ripped already so might as well use it). Alright well, must go continue work. laters

just kidding.. the avs wrapper didnt quite work in premiere. Guess I'll have to go the old fashioned 320x240 huffyuv way _ _

just kidding again, theres an avisynth import filter for premiere? why didnt I know of this previously -- owell, thats a good thing.

[midiguy]

just kidding again, theres an avisynth import filter for premiere? why didnt I know of this previously -- owell, thats a good thing.

oh yes, that sure is a good thing. as for my sfa vid, I also didn't discover that AVS import filter until it was too late, and I don't have the space for 640 x 480 huffyuv video clips, so I am stuck with using 320 x 240 huffyuv clips.. oh well..

[RadicalEd]

I got sick of using the avs real quick, the IVTC and stuff was making editing like wading through a jell candle. I had around 8 gigs free on D (its rare, but I just cleaned recently) so I went with the 640x480 huffy. I'm about 2/3rds done with 3 gigs left so I should make it through if I'm careful.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by RadicalEd
I got sick of using the avs real quick, the IVTC and stuff was making editing like wading through a jell candle. I had around 8 gigs free on D (its rare, but I just cleaned recently) so I went with the 640x480 huffy. I'm about 2/3rds done with 3 gigs left so I should make it through if I'm careful.
good luck man!

[RadicalEd]

thanks :D actually I just finished but I can't put it online till monday for dumb reasons (prolly wont be able to get on till then either) so for all of u people, bye for the weekend :O

[Bionic-Badger]

Humm... I was messing around with that stupid ADV Eva DVD, going frame by frame through the raw data, and noticed some things about it.

Every six frames there is a perfect-condition progressive frame with no interlacing whatsoever. Between that the amount of interlaced material from each frame changes as the frames progress towards the next progressive frame. This appears to be classic "beat" patterning and consequently matches exactly a 24fps -> 30fps pattern. Ex:


0 1 2 3 4 5 6
| | | | | | | 30fps
| | | | | | 24fps
0 1 2 3 4 5


So I figured I could try using a frame selection method to have the frames on either "side" of the frame be used for raw field recombining and retain the progressive frame by simply making two copies of it so it would essentially be combined into itself.

So I made an AVISynth plugin to do that, but unfortunately, appending deinterlacing functions like weave, FieldDeinterlace, etc. aren't doing it... Any ideas?

I also found out that you can achieve *perfect* looking words and scrolling motion with the credits if this script is used (at least from the frame I was starting from):

doubleweave
SwapFields
SelectOdd

Unfortunately, the background image is messed up from the doubleweave.

-Bionic-Badger-

[ErMaC]

Cool that someone is still looking into this.

Interesting what you came up with. Unfortunately I'm now currently in Japan and can't do much research as I'm on a P2 366 and I don't have the Eva TV DVDs with me (just my own self-subbed movie DVD) but if you could post some examples of what your problem is I'd be happy to give feedback. I'm not quite sure what problem you're describing so if you could elaborate, maybe with some screenshots, that'd be great.

[Suzahara]

I also found out that you can achieve *perfect* looking words and scrolling motion with the credits if this script is used (at least from the frame I was starting from):

doubleweave
SwapFields
SelectOdd

Unfortunately, the background image is messed up from the doubleweave.

No, this doesn't seem to work at all. Reason being, you can't swap fields once your recover the progressive frames...all 4% of em in eva that I've found...but it messes up the picture too much by trying to swap the fields. It does work well on the outro though, nice smooth moving text, but it doesn't work on any other part and it doesn't seem to work on stationary text.

I've tried the other methods in here as well, they all leave a lot of ghosting, not a lot of interlacing, but ghosting where interlacing would be. Too bad not even manual ivtc in tmpg can handle eva 100%.

[Bionic-Badger]

I made an AVS plugin to try and extract as many progressive frames as possible, and it worked, at least, near the beginning, where the frames followed a horrible direct 5 frames -> 4 frames conversion. The problem is that it only works for a short while; later on doesn't work at all. It is like the pattern is changed on the fly according to whims or some pattern I don't see.

Even if all the frames followed the pattern that plugin was meant to handle, there is irrevocable damage to the frames, where there are fields that are blends of two different fields. In fact, the damaged field in the 24fps, four-frame blocks actually have data on two different fields in the 30fps sequence, about 75% of which is on one of them and 25% on the other. I could manage to pull two perfect frames out of each five-frame sequence, the other two had, each, one blended field, 75% intact. That would've cut the amount of blurring by 50% on top of whatever extra blending could've occurred. Unfortunately, the pattern changes.

-Bionic-Badger-

[Suzahara]

Yes, Eva doesn't have one pattern for the whole thing, I find that it changes every scene. The other problem is, some are impossible to convert to progressive and it seems the interlaced and progressive frame are blended together so you can't retrieve either...

One can only hope and find a way that gets eva 95% looking good, there's no way unless Gainax remasters the original that it will become a normal pattern.

[Bionic-Badger]

And even if they do, I'm not about to pay for another set of DVDs... I *DO* know that I'm not going to buy DVDs from ADV anymore...

-Bionic-Badger-

[Suzahara]

Well, I doubt another set will ever be put out. And I doubt you can find a set that doesn't have mastering problems as the original was this way too.

[ErMaC]

The original TV analog masters for Eva were like this - you're never going to get around the problem unless they go back and dig up the film which knowing GAiNAX may not even exist anymore. The Japanese releases have been this way since the LD releases, and the Japanese DVD exibit the same issues as the US ones (although the Japanese ones look better anyways). From what I've heard Eva was shot on 16mm film anyway - not even full 35.
You might see a remote chance of it happening - hell look at Macross. Animeigo went and dug out the original 16mm interpositives and cleaned 'em up.

[RadicalEd]

heh, I just realized that I'll be watching eva on a friend's progressive scan DVD player + HDTV sunday. The turnout should be interesting... if not horribly deformed.

[DJ Bobo]

@ Bionic-Badger
Not all ADV DVDs are like that, only the EVA DVDs are like that. I have the ARC THE LAD DVDs & the SAKURA DIARIES DVDs from ADV and they are telecined properly.

@ Ermac
You may be right about EVA being shot on 16mm, the original image is quite blurry.

@ RadicalEd
I think I know now why the motion on PC monitors is choppy. It's because the refresh rate is low.
When you produce a 60fps output from the EVA DVDs or any other telecined DVD (using Bob) and display it with 85Hz refresh rate, the motion can't be smooth.
The solution would be to lower the refresh rate to 60Hz or increase it to 120Hz.
My monitor can achieve 120Hz (which are more comfortable for the eyes ;)) when I lower the resolution to 640x480.
Try it and you'll see that the motion will become better.
BTW, a progressive scan DVD Player won't do any wonder ;)