high quality anime ripping

[Crucio]

OFCOURSE i do ivct before the ABD, but ABDeinterlacer is still best. Only for lazy people though. I do ivct maually. Also, i edit use aviutil to copy and paste good frames onto bad frames

[ThePanda]

hmm now i remember why i stopped using this smart deinterlacer. it causes all white flickering around the motion when the characters move their mouths and stuff. maybe that was because i had it set to interpolate instead of blend.

[ThePanda]

I found this frame tweaker plugin (http://www.geocities.com/cplarosa/video/tweaker.htm) that could let you fix those frames on the scene changes of a lot of anime with the horizontal blackish lightning-bars on the top and bottom of the screen. It seems like it would take a ridiculous amount of time though scrolling through the video in slow motion looking for which frames it happens on, so I'll just clip out the area. Most people just leave them in I think, but they annoy me too much :D

EDIT: Crucio: AviUtil lets you do that too? Is it easy or does it take a long time?

[Crucio]

its relatively easy, its best suited for copying a frame that is better before the good one, or copying the frame to the clipboard and then pasting into paintshop pro. It can be done pretty fast though

[manono]

Hi-I wonder if you could give me more information as to why you believe that IVTC4 is better than Decomb. I haven't tried IVTC4 yet and have found Decomb to be excellent. So I'm curious. Is it because (as daxab admits) IVTC4 is slower-No, that can't be it. Is it because IVTC4 doesn't have a deinterlacer built in to catch any stray interlaced frames that sneak through-No, that can't be it. Do you find that Decomb lets more interlaced frames through-then you can tweak the setting-maybe change the default setting of 15 to 10. Does Decomb deinterlace good frames making them jaggie (much more likely)-then you can weaken the default setting of 15 to 30 or so.

From what I understand, IVTC4 is good on easy, properly telecined material (as is Decomb), but it will fail on more difficult material. But as I said, I haven't yet tried IVTC4, so I'm curious.

[western shinma]

But you haven't even tried it yet! Donald Graft even said that it "appears to work well on several torture clips that Decomb has problems with." Where did you get the impression it only works on easy material?

[manono]

Hi ws-

Dali Lama made a pretty bold assertion that I couldn't let pass. I can understand if IVTC4 is as good as Decomb in some anime material. I can not understand if he believes it to be better than Decomb in all anime material (using the latest versions of Decomb) which is what he seems to be saying.

DGraft's statement was made some time ago, and more recent versions of Decomb have since been released.

I hope Dali Lama comes back to let us know what version of Decomb he was using, and what the AviSynth script was, and if he experimented with tweaking the threshold or other settings before comparing the 2 methods. Because, otherwise I'd say it's an unfair comparison. And an unfair statement.

[Guest]

Gentlemen,

Let us keep some perspective here. There will always be a need for different kinds of tools in our toolboxes. One screwdriver is not going to be enough for all jobs; we need a phillips head, a flat, and even sometimes a torx. And those too in different sizes. It all depends on the nature of the problem and the goals we have. So let us not begin some kind of war here over tools.

Having said that, I do want to address a few points that have come out here. I must say that my reaction to Dalai Lama's point about Decomb being better for "regular movies" was the same as that of manono. I was motivated to write Decomb by the fact that anime was not treated well by existing IVTC tools. And the early successes I had were achieved with difficult anime. Decomb does also work very well with clean telecined source, what I suppose is meant by "regular movies".

Now let's get technical. Decomb without postprocessing is a straightforward field-matching approach to recreating progressive frames. It is completely blind to patterns; it deals with each frame one at a time. IVTC4 is also a field matcher in effect, but it can overrule the result of field matching with what it thinks is the prevailing pattern. This is an interesting approach. But due to its pattern awareness it is currently limited to the patterns for which it is coded, i.e., 3:2 pulldown. That is not a problem, it is just a different kind of screwdriver, a specialized one. Being specialized, however, obviously limits its usefulness, e.g., my PAL friends cannot use it.

When IVTC4 first came out I ran it against my torture clips and I noticed that it recreated *a few* progressive frames that Decomb did not. I assumed first that it was better field matching code in IVTC4, but it later transpired that it was the pattern override that kicked in (also please note that IVTC4 fails at other points in the torture clips where Decomb succeeds). Before realizing that it was the pattern override, and still thinking it was the matching code, I went into a coding frenzy and discovered a much better matching method that allowed Decomb to recreate those few frames correctly, and this new matching is now in the released version.

Note also that Daxab advises that IVTC4 be followed by my FieldDeinterlace() to clean up the bad frames that come through IVTC4! After doing that one wonders why one shouldn't just use Telecide() to do the field matching as well. I don't think anyone has shown that IVTC4 field matching is better than Decomb's current matching, and if it isn't, how can one argue that IVTC4 handles anime better than the current Decomb?

So, it is different strokes for different folks. If IVTC4 does the job for you and you prefer to use it, fine. Sometimes the color of the screwdriver is important to some people! If you work in areas where IVTC4 does not apply, then you'll need Decomb.

Finally, for me the important things are to be useful to people through my efforts *and* to participate in a collective endeavor to find better ways to do the things we do. That involves researching *and sharing* our results. That is why every single line of my source code is available, and the same can be said for Wiz, trbarry, and others. I think it is a very bad precedent to be witholding source code and not cooperating in the collective endeavour, while benefiting from it.

[ThePanda]

Hi, you can call me crazy, but I actually prefer the smoothed and consistent look of deinterlace(blend) for anime :). If you use smart smoother or something, why not just use deinterlace(blend) and eliminate smart smoother, and just use temporal smoother? I suppose I would want to use something else for a live action movie with more details though.

Also, thanks for pointing out not to crop in DVD2AVI, VirtualDub seems to be better for it.

[Dali Lama]

Sorry that I did not reply right away, I have been studying for tests:

I like the new IVTC 4 on anime.

IVTC 4 gets rid of all of the interlaced frames in anime. Decomb does not.

They are both equal in speed on my Duron.

Decomb causes avisynth errors that can be reproduced. IVTC 4 does not.

IVTC 4 has no options to set or think about--> easy to use. Decomb makes you think about which setting to use, but once you know which one, its pretty easy from there. So ease-of-use is pretty good for both, but IVTC 4, like Donald said is catered to NTSC users, which I am.

The Version of Decomb I used was 3.1. The version of IVTC 4 I used was 1.01.

Side Note: Decomb produced beautiful results on a pretty hard movie: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It switches from progressive to interlaced and NTSC to Film. Very complicated. Therefore, I like Decomb for movies.


Do I know the technical reason that IVTC 4 works better on anime? NO. Why Decomb did beautifully on CTHD? NO. But I respect thier work and hope they continue development.

Thanks,

Dali

[Guest]

>The Version of Decomb I used was 3.1.

As manono pointed out, that is one revision behind the Decomb with the improved field matching.

>IVTC 4 gets rid of all of the interlaced frames in anime.

That is a demonstrably false statement. Not only is it demonstrably false, but daxab recommends placing my FieldDeinterlace() after his filter to correct the bad frames that slip through. Why are you making false claims like this?

For others that may be misled by your false statement, here is a direct quote from the author of IVTC4:


It [IVTC4] is not perfect. It has to deal with inconsistencies in the source material due to noise, edits, and CG overlays (30fps animation overlaid on telecined 24fps video, seen in things like credits and anime). IVTC4 will try to handle all of these problems, but interlaced frames will emerge if things get dicey. If this is a concern, I recommend following IVTC4() with a high quality deinterlacing filter like Donald Graft's FieldDeinterlace(), from the Decomb plugin.
Finally, I'm not aware of Decomb "causing avisynth errors". Please elaborate.

[western shinma]

Dali Lama,

IVTC4 does have options as well, although it seems you were just using the defaults.

Also, there is nothing complicated about this:
switches from progressive to interlaced and NTSC to Film
That is normal, it just means there aren't any pulldown flags in the so-called NTSC sections which are actually telecined film just like the rest of the movie.

[Inindo]

Hello. This is my first post here, and I want it to be contributing something, instead of asking for help. However, I am rather new at this so please be kind.

I’ve been testing out the Area Smoother. It seems to work all right, but I don’t think it’s very practical yet. The most obvious problem is how to prevent it from eating the background. This will shade a given “area” with all the SAME pixels so it will destroy background if it decides to “smooth” it over.

Increasing Max Pixel color difference and Max Span Color difference will help. However, you will begin yo see jagged lines when a color fades into a solid color. Plus, many areas will be missed. Increasing Minimum span Width and Span Overlap seems to help. But then the jagged line problems becomes obvious at certain points.. Another method that is simply lower the noise margin. Lowering it to around 1.3 generally does the trick for me.

However, this lends another problem. Now, in order for any areas to show at all, I need to turn down all the other values to almost nothing before I see any kind of result. Otherwise, it can be an large area of obviously uniform color but still not grouped into an “area”. Even so, it will still turn into a “patchwork quilt” various areas, never really coming together into one large one. I’m still trying to find a happy medium between the two.

Another problem is that the “areas” tend to have jagged edges, which are sometimes rather noticeable. This applies to both the large uniform areas, and the small scattered ones.

I was thinking about first running a normal smoother, then Area Smoother, but that will take a huge amount of time. Any ideas?

[Crucio]

hey "thepanda"

i too like the look of the blended frames. This is only good if you have made sure there are no interlaced frames though.

Otherwise, you will get a ghosting effect

[manono]

Hi-

Yeah-I fooled with it for awhile and came to the same conclusion as you. While it might be useful in animation where the colors really are solid (The Simpsons?), in any case where one color gradually changes into a different one within the same frame, the results are horrible looking, with the jagged edge effect you noticed. I gave up.

[Inindo]

Yeah. I tried it on Cowboy Bebop: Sympathy for the Devil. Lots of dark areas, blended areas, and detailed backgrounds on this one. I tried the smoothing fiter beforehand and ie helped a little. but not much.

The problem with this is first, each scene can give completely diffrent results. Second, that it is possible to screw up a scene REALLY badly, in a painfully noticable way.

Eh, great idea in theory. I suppose it might work with some others.

[poopity poop]

This is a new topic for anime and I just have a quick question not to deter anyone from the ivtc stuff going on:

I hate seeing mpeg-4 artifacts in my anime esspecially on the subtitles. I'm asssuming anitshit-full, while slow, can eradicate these problems. I'm asking this(because I'm lazy):

Who has experimented with different antishit settings and can tell me(in a private message, so as not to deter from the ivtc discussion) the best settings for anime with subtitles that are being burned into the frame by vobsub, so as to most limit the amount of crap that gets through?
-------------------------------------------------------
Also, perhaps there should be a seperate forum for anime(DivX, SVCD, etc.), seeing as how its more difficult to encode and a lot of people are interested in it

[Crucio]

naw its cool, ill just post it here.

i have found 17-0-0 to be best for anime

also, the thing about the subs, i have found its best to just include subs for BSplayer. Theyre MUCH better that way

[poopity poop]

yes but I have an audience on DALnet that expects subs to be burnt into the frames.
I'm also going to learn everything there is to know about X(S)VCD's and basically reproduce a 2episode/CD rip of the Kenshin series that will be 10x's better than adx(switchable subs, 2 audio, menu). They were so smug when I showed them a sample, mine will be GRRRRREAT(read like tony the tiger)...sorry I'm excited about SVCD's!

[Wyldchyld]

Greetings to all! This is my first post on the Doom9 forums, and i hope to contribute as much as i'm sure i'll learn from everyone here. My principle interest is anime ripping, from DVD to DivX, from both full-length feature anime and episodal anime sources. I've been heavily experimenting with a variety of methods for a good 3 months now, and feel confident enough to bring something to the forums :). I've posted my PC's stats in my signature so as to provide a constant reference to any ripping benchmarks i may post here.

I'd like to begin my applauding the tremendous wealth of information contained in this post alone. By simply reading this one thread, any budding anime ripper can find him/herself with nearly everything they need except experience, which is a rarity of sorts even in this day and information age.I do however, strongly support Poopity Poop's suggested creation of a seperate anime-ripping sub-forum on Doom9, as i feel we could all greatly benefit from it, not to mention providing a definitive resource for this particular brand of ripping, undoubtedly one of the most difficult IMHO. I'd also like to offer my own 2 shiny pennies as to my findings w/ the two hot topics in this thread, IVTC and Filter combinations for anime. Oh, and anyone wishing to know more about my experiments may contact me, of course :).

A) Deinterlacing/IVTC'ing anime: I've experimented w/ Decomb, Telecide, Smart Deinterlacer, VDub's own Deinterlacer & IVTC algorithm, as well as manual and automatic IVTC in TMPEG. In the end, as painful as this may sound, i've found that a careful manual IVTC in TMPEG has produced the quickest and best results! Barring any major oversights during the manual process, and occasionally adding the Gunnar Thalin Area-Based Deinterlacer ("the GTABD") has produced truly remarkable results for me. Honestly, it's not even that hard, and i think everyone should give it a try!

B) Filtering anime (VDub/Nandub): I'm sorry to say, Poopity Poop, but i've been experimenting w/ SS/WS &/or 2D Cleaner for quite some time now :) On the other hand, i couldn't agree more that Donald Graft's 2D Cleaner ("the 2DC") (i use the K7-Optimized version by Jaan Kalda) produces excellent result for luma noise cleaning. As you stated earlier when criticized about your opinions resulting from experimenting with the 2DC, "the 2_d cleaner does not smooth sharp area's at all, as long as you set them correctly. Simple as that. Once again, if *careful*, you can reduce the blurring to a very minimal level; and again, like ALL DVD RIPPING (!), there are no "right" settings! If someone put a gun to my head, however, i'd say that a Threshold of 5-6 w/ radii of 3/3, 4/3, or 4/4 seems to work best. In some cases, a threshold of 9-12 can even be used, but not for higher-quality painted backdrops.

Other than the luma noise-cleaning component, i almost always use a subtle brightness/contrast modulation, which again is almost always set to -2/-6 brightness, +6 contrast, which again helps mitigate luma noise if used in concert w/ the 2DC. When resizing i've come to the conclusion that VDub's own resizer, using Precise Bicubic filtering, is the only way to go as far as i've seen. I NEVER crop more than 8 pixels all around, w/ the aspect ratio usually be within 0.1%, sometimes 0.2% (as it should *always* be!). For those who'll insist that Precise Bilinear works best, i just find that it blens WAY too much, and prefer to rely more on Nandub's "Motion-Based Crispness Modulation" option for high-motion "blurring". Otherwise the resize is usually accomodated quite well by this filter. The size increase w/ bilinear filtering isn't to be ignored, i'll give you that, but i find it an acceptable compromise. Also, given that i strive to make very high quality rips, i rarely stray from a horizontal resolution in the 540-640 range for 720 sources. Anything and well, i don't find that they become good enough backups for myself (because that's what i'm doing, in the end). I end up with 85-95%% DVD quality rips for 23-minute episodes, 2X/CD, and i'm happy with that.

For subtitles, i always rip subs, always in english unless by special request, always burn them in the frames, and i almost always apply my own blend of colours, which is something i'd love to discuss in another thread btw :sly:. For those of you who're interested, my fill colour on the main subtitle stream is usually an RGB in the neighborhood of 250/230/100, and the outline is again usually around 20/15/5. I must say that i've seen some really nice subs by http://www.elite-fansubs.com on their "Argento Soma" fansubs, which were a White/Off-White/Pearl fill w/ a Teal/Aqua outline, truly impressive. For "Secondary" or "Overlap" subtitles streams (like, say in "Neon Genesis Evangelion" when the radio plays in the background) i use a standard White/Black Fill/Outline. In response to Poopity Poop's question about reducing noise around burned-in subtitles, antishit does yield decent results for sure. I use 10-15/0/0 and it works quite well, though i can't get rid of them altogether most of the time.

I hope i'm not too late to contribute to this thread, and if so i'll just pick my socks up a join in next time. If anyone has questions of comments they'd like to ask me, please don't hesitate, but i prefer being contacted by ICQ (59582232) if not through the forum. Thanks, and cheers!

Wyldchyld :devil:
Current Project: Ghost In The Shell, Subbed, 697-702MB, DivX 3.11A Nandub SBC, 608x336-640x352.

[manono]

Hi Wyldchyld-

Welcome to the forum, and if all of your posts are as excellent as the first one, then you'll be a great addition.

I think that one of the best points you made was the one about not going overboard on the filters. From just about the day it was released I've been using the Optimized 2D Cleaner, and have slowly adjusted the settings downward so that I'm now usually using it with a threshold of 5 or 6 and a radius of 2/2 or 3/3. I may put WarpSharp on top of it with a 16 setting sometimes. But it's just too easy to blur clouds, walls, tree leaves, the ground, etc. if you're not careful.

One minor correction, though (so minor that I almost hate to bring it up, but credit where credit is due). Although Donald Graft's site hosts the 2D Cleaner, it was written by Jim Casaburi and optimized by Jaan Kalda.

[Wyldchyld]

Manono: Thanks for the kind words, and you're right, the 2DC is Jim Casaburi's, my mistake! Using Warp Sharp w/ the 2DC is not a bad idea at all, but it must definetaly be used only in moderation. My own testing has lead me never to use it past a threshold of 30, 2 blur passes. The result is definetaly an improvement, but it seems to get rid of detail really fast, and i don't think i'll be using it unless the source material is really noisy. I think i'll give your 15 threshold setting a try, since i've never used it with such a low value, but tell me, how many blur passes wouls you use w/ that threshold value? Running a quick preview on "Ghost In The Shell", a plain single-pass blur seems to work nicely. Furthermore, what are your thoughts on the added processing time incurred by using Warpsharp? Acceptable compromise? From my observations, depending on the source material and any previous filters applied, it can add 10-20% processing time on my system, so it may not always be a viable solution, no matter how pretty :).

Wyldchyld :devil:
Current Project: Ghost In The Shell, Subbed, 697-702MB, DivX 3.11A Nandub SBC, 608x336-640x352.

[Crucio]

SVCDS SUCK!!!!!!!!!

[Crucio]

:0

well, anyways, has anyone tried to rip the fatal fury oavs? they, well, IVCt very badly and i was wondering whether it was telecined at all.

I cant seem to do it manually.

O well, my current projects are Golgo13: queen bee and fatal fury

I rip for AMC on dalnet, and efnet.

Who do u guys rip for?

[manono]

Hey Wyldchyld-

I don't know what a blur pass is. Does that mean that you put the filters on twice? If so, I only do it once.

Here's my current filter chain for some El Hazards I'm working on:

Levels-100 (it'll say .39 on the outside-use the bottom left slider to lighten the picture and uncheck that box to make it RGB)
2D Cleaner-6, 2/2
WarpSharp-16
Levels-100 (use top teft slider to darken it back up and uncheck the box)
Saturate-1.15 (from Hue, Saturate, Intensity filter). I don't necessarily recommend that one-I just like things a bit more colorful-doesn't change it much.

The reason I put on the levels is that the smoothers-cleaners don't seem to do much to medium-dark areas or to the noise around the subs, so by lightening things up before smoothing-sharpening, the 2D Cleaner-WarpSharp combo can do a better job. Maybe it's just my imagination.

As for time, I'll run the first pass with only Crop-Decomb-Subs-BicubicResize(512,384,0,0.5) and Fast Recompress (resize varies depending on the quality/size I aim to get-usually 3/CD). It's done with an .avs generated in GKnot with Decomb edited in. That will generally take 53 minutes for a 24 minute episode on my system (these El Hazard OAVs are a bit longer). Then in Nandub, I'll put the filters on for just the second pass together with anti-shit 12 and Full Processing (I know-the guides say to use the same filters for the first pass as you intend to use for the second pass, so don't try this at home). That will take around 1 hour 53 minutes or so on my machine. I don't know how much of that time is added by WarpSharp alone. But before the Optimized 2D Cleaner I had to use the Smart Smoother and it was so much slower, that this way now seems fast by comparison. Filtering before resizing should improve things even more (thanks ws), but I'm lazy and impatient.

I also would like to see an anime specific Forum here. As it is, the anime posts wind up scattered all over the place. I would also like to see an IVTC-Filters forum (although those things could be covered in an anime forum, "real" movie encoders also need them sometimes).

Who do u guys rip for?

I rip for myself.

Edit: I changed a couple of my settings for this particular series. As poopity poop says, always experiment with different settings for different material and find what looks good to you. The author may not be held responsible for any damage caused by following his methods.:)

[Dali Lama]

Could you explain how you "manually IVTC" in TMPEG. I have tried to do it, following doom9's guide, but it confuses me. I tried to get a pattern and it doesn't work for the whole movie?

Thanks,

Dali

edit: Right now, I don't have any anime DVDs to test on. Could anyone send me a short clip of a scene to try out some of the methods Manono and WyldChyld gave. Thanks again.

[Wyldchyld]

Crucio: Who do i rip for? Myself mainly, but also for a few close friends of mine; i find anime to be such a unique genre, one that has even significantly affected the way i view many things in life, to a point where it's become something that i want to share with others. Given the chance, i'll probably also trade my DVDivX rips with other people, but preferrably not have them "released". On the topic of Fatal Fury, i can't help you there since i haven't even seen them! If you're wondering how to IVTC manually, i'd suggest checking out the Doom9 guide, it's how i learned to do it. (See below, my section to Dali Lama for more info).

Manono: The "Blur Pass" option is one of the 2 options in the standard Warp Sharp filter; i suspect you may be using an older version of the filter, or mayhaps it's me. In any case, here's a screenshot of what mine looks like: http://www.promisemeheaven.com/WS_2-Ops.gif. Seeeee? "Blur passes" :). I only use the filter once, as using it twice would undoubtedly yield an exponential result, being somewhat disastrous too i imagine. I think i'll try it just for fun some time... :D.

I like your idea of playing with the levels, although i haven't touched upon that too much just yet. I find the difference between using a levels filters and a bright/contrast fairly negligeable, but i agree with you that it produces nicer results, and i maintain that it seems to help "restore" in a way some of the detail blurred by spatial smoothers, that is if the damage isn't too extensive already :). As for using a levels filter before a sub filter, i haven't tried that actually; i would tend to think that noise around burned-in subs is caused simply by compressing the frames, and as such the filter would have no effect, but i don't know nearly enough about video noise to say that for sure.

I like your idea of doing 2 passes w/ different filters, even if it is true that you wouldn't be able to reap thefull benefits of the "standard" 2-pass nandub SBC encoding method, but i also haven't tried it yet. I'm guess the filesize would have a slight deviation to it, somewhere in the range of 5-10%, which is something one could easily adapt to while ripping a series, for example (even if each episode has completely different materia, the lengths are all roughly the same, usually). I'm also starting to wish i knew more about using AVISynth since everyone using it reports a great success, while i don't even understand how it works yet! LoL :p.

Dali Lama : I only followed Doom9's guide to manual IVTC'ing and it worked out great, save for the fact that it took me 3 attempts to get it right. The first time around i actually Telecined the entire movie AGAIN (yes, believe it or not, i did the exact opposite of what i'd set out to do), you can imagine the result! In the end it worked out fine, so i'm not too sure where you could've gone wrong. One thing i'd tell anyone attempting this method is to remind them that originally, when Telecine is applied to source material, it's most often applued several times (as in, with different patterns) throughout a movie. As such, once you've entered your first pattern, you'll need to scan through the entire movie AFTER the point where you first entered a pattern, find a point where your pattern is no longer effective, and apply a new one from that point on. Once i'm done ripping Ghost In The Shell satisfactorily (which is taking a damn long time for some reason, i'm never satisfied), i'll rip a sample from the GITS source DVD for you, and try to explain it, that should help.

NOTE: Anyone who'd like the GITS sample to help practice how to manually IVTC can let me know and i'll arrange it.

Also, i had to read up alot on Telecine and IVTC'ing before getting it right. Here're the most useful links i found over the past few weeks:

- http://doom9.org/mpg/tmpg-ivtc.htm (Doom9's own guide).
- http://www.inwards.com/~dbb/interlace_myths.html
- http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/ivtc/
- http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/ivtc.shtml

All of them basically cover the same thing, some are more technical about how it works, other detail a method of doing it, etc. Hopefully this gives you a leg up and something to do until i can get you this sample, which might take a few days as i said, i really want to finish this rip first :(.

Wyldchyld :devil:
Current Project: Ghost In The Shell, Subbed, 697-702MB, DivX 3.11A Nandub SBC, 608x336-640x352.

[manono]

Hi Again-

You're right-I must have an older version of WarpSharp. Mine only has one slider. Thanks for the pic.

I'd guess that the levels stuff does the same as your way with brightness-contrast. I found levels very easy as you use the bottom slider to lighten it up, and the top slider at the same setting to darken it back to the beginning. I always take the easy way out whenever possible. Damn-I thought I made it up, and here I come to find out that you're doing the same thing. :)

I'm guess the filesize would have a slight deviation to it

Nope-I aim for 701 MB with 3 episodes, and that's what I get. I have found cases with live action movies where if I put on some strong denoisers-cleaners for only the second pass that I may have up to a 1% smaller filesize.

even if it is true that you wouldn't be able to reap thefull benefits of the "standard" 2-pass nandub

I've wondered about that, but I've compared the results doing it both ways, and for the life of me, I just can't find any differences, although I admit there may be some. Sure saves a lot of time, though.

(even if each episode has completely different material, the lengths are all roughly the same, usually)

I'm not sure I understand that one completely. If you mean that the final encoded file sizes wind up the same, then I've found huge differences in file sizes among different episodes of equal quality. This depends mainly on the amount of action in the episodes. For example-Ep 23 of Cowboy Bebop, entitled Brain Scratch is filled with computer screens and TV watching, and the animators make them very noisy. And the file size wound up being huge compared to others. Episodes with them travelling through the Warp Gates a lot also eat up the bits. So how do you ensure even quality for episodes within the same CD? One way is to do the first passes for the 3 episodes/CD (or in your case 2/CD),load the stats files and then jiggle the file size-bit rate among the 3 until the 2nd Pass Compared To First Pass percentage in GKnot is roughly the same. I get signifigant differences in relative file sizes doing it that way. But again, that may not have been what you were talking about. As an experiment, you might load a few of your .avis from the same series in Nandub and then go File Information-DivX Quality, and see if the numbers given vary much. Of course, with 2/CD, even at 640x480, you may be getting numbers all in the 80s and 90s.

Anyway-I'm enjoying discussing things with you Wyldchyld. OutPinged-where are you when we need you? You like talking about these things (and bringing us back down to earth).

[Dali Lama]

Thanks WyldChyld,

I read those articles...good stuff, especially the second articles. But from that article he says to do automatic for anime episodes and manual for anime movies? Do you agree?

I have also been trying out Decomb and IVTC 4. I think Manono likes Decomb better, but I have found IVTC 4 to work well for anime. Give them both a try if you have time.

http://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft/decomb.html For Decomb

http://www.geocities.com/daxab88/ For IVTC 4

And I will patiently wait for your clip. (you don't have a clip of Rurouni Kenshin by chance? That's my favorite! and the one I will most likely try to encode, when I get back my DVD. Thanks :) )

P.S.: Manono, how has your Xvid encoding been going? And do you like IVTC 4 yet?

Ok bye,

Dali

Edit: To all, I have read somewhere in this forum that "Sub Rip" gives smaller files than "Vob Sub" (used in Gknot). If so, how is this possible? And WyldChyld, I would like to make fancy looking subs like the ones I d/l. You were talking about it in your post, but which program does this for you??

[ThePanda]

Originally posted by Dali Lama
Edit: To all, I have read somewhere in this forum that "Sub Rip" gives smaller files than "Vob Sub" (used in Gknot). If so, how is this possible? And WyldChyld, I would like to make fancy looking subs like the ones I d/l. You were talking about it in your post, but which program does this for you??

SubRip can convert the subtitles to text format, so the file size is smaller. This is good if you want to edit the subtitles if they are in broken english or something (Someone please edit the Yu Yu Hakusho subs so I can understand them, I started to do it but gave up b/c 112 episodes is too much to do alone :))
But I think .txt subtitles suck otherwise because they often mess up the formatting of the text.

[OUTPinged_]

Decomb vs ivtc4 debates:

the thing neuron mentioned just settles it. ivtc4 results may look better if dvd was mastered from VHS master tape (that happens often to r1 dvds).

tmpg gets you best results sometiimes, but you have to be really good with it (10 encodes at least). And if you are postprocessing it, that means you arent any good with tmpeg at all.

So use decomb well and it will pay back with excelent results. Just dont be afraid to mess with settings, some encodes require blend, others interpolate (this one is critical). there are some encodes where you just have to use that 30fps mode with smooth pans (Thanks DG for this one, you da man!).

poop: u wont get any good results with 16(or less)-0-0 anitishit settings as somebody mentioned. I'll be a polite boy and wont write here this guy is just talking shit and havent tested anything at all. When i have run into that problem, i had to raise settings to 21-1-0, it became better. If you use this, you will have to check for places where codec and antishit both suck ass adn are producing streams of drf32 frames. Mess with them separately. The first thresh depends on subtitle sharpness (more sharp subs tend to produce more shit). White subs woth black borders are even more evil, dont use them.


And yes, SVCD suck =P

wyld: about your position on cropping: dont be afraid man, even 2% off are tolerable. beter crop more and more and more. be more evil on these encodes, it helps alot. dont trust anybody, alot of people here dont care about results (ie heavily filter output).

on youre filtering settings: you talking here you use up to 12 threshs. but think yourself, are they filtering enough? it doesnt give you anything. even strong noise doesnt interfere with watching stuff, it only makes a movie to take less bits. now make a check on how much profit you are getting from using these filters :/

gah, it look like i am beginning to post alot of shit too. (noone reads that anyway) But you guys begun first :P

so if you have read till this place, then know all posts above are crap, and use only mine recomendations. not that they are any better, but at least they are 133t. so it makes them automatically only and the best ones. j/k man.

hmm.. what else you guys discussed here....

doh, i told ya warpsharp sux. even poop himself wrote that after all.

and mamono, if you hitting filesize that well, that just means you didnt edit your results at all. thats not good or bad, jsut dont be proud of it :-P 3-5% off filesize dont change anything really.


dali lama(see? some ppl are realizing how good they are finally): no, subtitles dont change anything at all. i got 2% difference at most at first pass. different soft gives identical subs. color/font dont matter.


THE POINT IS: THIS THREAD SUX!!! PPL ARE POSTING SHIT HERE(me)!!! DONT USE ANYBODYS ADVICE(use mine)!! DONT TAKE ANYBODY SERIOUSLY(xcept me of course)!!


disclaimer: if you think of some part of my post as of offence then you are right, it _is_ offence. flame here, thats a flaming thread, not about ripping as one may think.

\o/ (c) OUT ______o/__L,,,,,______

[manono]

Ahhhh! OUTPinged! You worry me. You're making no sense. Are you eating enough? Getting enough sleep? Hitting the pipe too often?

Good to have you back man. Keeping us on our toes. Adding some seriousness to the thread.

Is it time to start a new thread? Call it High Quality Anime Ripping-Part 2. Or maybe Anime Lies And Other BS.

[Wyldchyld]

*Soapbox*: I for one don't think this thread sux or that it's a flaming thread: not everyone here is saying "this technique sucks, this guy's full of shit," etc. There's alot of knowledge being shared, and alot of constructive criticism, too.

OUTPinged_: I gotta hand it to you, it seems like you know your stuff. There's some pretty decent knowledge in your posts... but then you go and spoil it by cutting up the thread. Kinda makes it hard for me to seriously take any of what you say... So tell me: in the end, what's your point? You're suggesting some stuff to me, but then you're sayin' not to trust anybody. So then why even post your advice here? :confused:

Manono: I'll be honest, nothing i suggest here will ever originally be my idea, i just work on a trial and error basis. I tweak & perfect things, i'm not really an innovator. I must've picked up the brightness/contrast/levels/hue thing either on some webpage i read, or by pure fluke :), so i don't want any credit here. LoL for all i know it might've been from you. What i meant by the source file lenght is the length in time (hh:mm:ss.mss); even if 2 cowboy bebop episodes will vary significantly in terms of bit demand, a quick tweak'll bring 'em back to roughly the same size, like you mentionned.

Dali Lama: I use VobSub V1.53 myself, and i think that's a really old version of it: going to try another one today. I don't know anything about filesize differences between using it or SubRip, although i know SubRip gives you more options and therefore control, options which i find i don't really care for even if some are really neat, so i've stuck w/ the quite functional VobSub. I'd say try both methods, they're pretty easy to figure out. Oh, and i'm afraid I can't really provide you with anything too exotic in terms of clips, i stick mainly to the classics. I'll probably hook you up w/ something from Gasaraki though, since that'll probably be my next project.

The mention of using auto-IVTC for series', manual for movies, is simply in terms of time consumption. Manual IVTC for an entire series can get long and tedious, even if i've found it quicker than waiting 45 minutes for the auto IVTC to finish; manual gives better results too. I must apologize though, i've never tried Decomb, i meant that i've tried Decimate. Giving decomb & IVTC 4 a try is definetaly on my to-do list now, there seems to be alot of praise towards it.

Wyldchyld :devil:
Current Project: Ghost In The Shell, Subbed, 697-702MB, DivX 3.11A Nandub SBC, 608x336-640x352.

EDIT: I just purchased DivX 5.0Pro, am toying with it right now: will post my impressions of it later on!

[Crucio]

hey, outpinged, if your as good as you say, goto #nandub on IRC and We'll be the judge of that. MAybe exchange samples and if you are a great encoder we will hook you up. Were always looking for new people who dont suck

[Crucio]

i forgot, the server is Dalnet, also, if im not there, just tell an op that Crucio sent u, or say u want to send a sample, whatever

[Crucio]

one more thing outpinged, its 1337 not 133t

[poopity poop]

False, SVCD's do not Suck.

I just bought a 3 disk DVD player, and basically switched form making SBC DivX, which is a pain in the ass to output to TV, to just plain making huge SVCD files, who cares, vbr mpeg-2 compression is great, its just as good as SBC DivX, and we can argue until we are blue in the face, the fact it, for people who have DVD players...its more practical.
I'm sure you've wanted to show anime to your non-anime friends..you like sitin' in front of a moniter, or having your comptuer close enough to the TV, or setting up some long cord with some sort of power cupling for signal loss..just make an SVCD with CCESP and stick the thing in the drive.

note: this is in the nandub section...but...its turned into an anime thread...so..yeah whatever, SVCD's are practical

[OUTPinged_]

Crucio: ok, i'm there ready for some fun. get in too and pm me.

lol @ topic: "we are the best encoders. get op status when you are skilled enough."

and its "177t", not "1337" :P tho it depends on how much leet/readable you want it to be.

poop: looks like we have lost one more ripper to svcd. =) anyway, its just you who decide, are you ok with svcd quality or not.

[ThePanda]

Can someone tell me, if you use SVCD to be played on a DVD player, do you still have to deal with deinterlacing, or can you just leave it interlaced and it will look just like the original DVD? I just ordered a dvd player, and although I don't have a problem outputting divx from the computer to the tv, I thought SVCD might look nicer because there would be no interlacing artifacts?
It sucks that you can't use AC3 audio though, right?

I would like it most if I could store mpeg4-type files on my computer with the AC3 audio and not have to deal with deinterlacing, then just output it to my tv somehow and it looks like the original (no interlacing stuff visible..). is that possible or not?

[poopity poop]

yeah well havn't lost me yet... SBC encoding is still superior being that you need approximatly half as much info wtih DivX than with mpg. But for me right now...SVCD is fine because of a big screen TV he he.

INTERLACING...
Yes you can leave the leaving interlacing works....sort of. Here's what I mean. I edited some video for my church. I captured the video total interlacing. Then I aded titles and junk using only huffyYUV so as not to lose anything. For some reason my computer coudln't keep up with a fullscreen real-time huffyYUV decompression when my TV out was on. So I accualy had to compress it using 6000Kbps DivX(which is for all intents and purposes lossless, arguably). The DivX file did have interlacing, but because the bitrate was so freaking high, the interlacing did not get smeared, and when recorded using wmp with tv out to a VHS tape, it played fine o a TV, with no interlacing. So that really only answers your question half-assed just thought people would find that interesting.
Anywa to answer your question: You really can't compress interlaced video because the codec will treat that like details and smear it. The only way to raelly do that is to have such a high bitrate that it doesn't smear(which is what I did). But that's not practical for storage purposes.
When encoding to SVCD the same principle applies. You really have to de-interlace it to compress it. then when you mux the audio in, it acually adds the scan offsets. Basically to sum everything up....you always have to deinterlace your source before compressing it, unless you are using extremely unreasonable bitrates(even then its just a hack-job).

[Crucio]

OUTPinged_ sorry i wasnt in nandub


im there now if you want to talk

[ThePanda]

poopity: thanks for the detailed reply

[Guest]

Poop, you're not correct about always having to deinterlace to do compression. The MPEG2 format specifically supports compression of interlaced material. It can simply compress the fields individually as if they were frames. Did you know that services such as DirecTV broadcast their material (telecined as well as straight video) as MPEG2? SVCD uses MPEG2 so there is no need to deinterlace as long as you do the MPEG2 encode with interlacing support enabled.

[OUTPinged_]

heh, for some reason interlaced svcds are extremely rare and people prefer to have badly ivtc'ed encode instead of pure interlaced svcd

[poopity poop]

That's very interesting about directTV using mpeg-2 compression. Thanks for the info Graft. I guess my post was more just re-stating if you comress an interlaced DivX frame, it treats it as detail and will smear it, that's all :)

[triffid]

wow, this threads still going :D

anway, read about SVCD, svcds are great if you gota dvd player from a company that doesnt bow down to the almighty Hollywood sign (ie apex). But, we gota Sony dvd player here...gahhh no svcd for us, unless theres a special way to get it to work.

Anyway, speaking of IVTC I have been happy with decomb since I tried it, I really like skipping TMPG when i can. However, I do turn back to the tried-and-true TMPG when necessary.

ps I encode for a channel on dalnet.
#shinseiki-illuminati

yes, it is hard to spell :P

[daxab]

@triffid

You can run TMPG and then save a .tpr file and then use TPRIVTC to load up the .tpr file in a .avs file -- if such a thing is useful to you. (I posted TPRIVTC on another thread.)

[takeru]

daxab:
i don't see tprivtc anywhere. how about a link? all the threads i see are the ones you talking bits about it not being done yet.

[poopity poop]

yes I link would be great, I would love to add that method to my arsenal, please whre is that plugin?

[OUTPinged_]

lol, tpr files are working in avs, just use internal tmpeg's fapi plugin.

at least that was the way i was messing with tmpeg for a last 4 months.

why need more plugins and stuff for that?

poop: :-)