How to best encode Dragon Ball Z from the Dragon Box DVDs?

[Adam Cole]

So I finally got all the Dragon Ball Z Dragon Box DVDs and want to preserve them in digital format. The DVDs use SD resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio and retain the noise from the original film roll. When encoding, I want to retain the original quality as much as possible, with colors, noise, sharpness etc all intact. So far I extracted all raw video from the DVDs and each episode is about 1 GB large. Do you have any suggestions how to encode them to make the file size smaller and preserve the exact or near-exact DVD picture quality? I tried Handbrake and while the episodes became smaller in file size, the quality was not exactly as good as the source. No idea if I should go for x265 (the options overwhelm me) or if x264 is enough. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[SeeMoreDigital]

If you don't want to loose any quality, I suggest you use something like MakeMKV to back-up the DVD's original MPEG-2 video and audio streams into the .mkv container.

[Adam Cole]

If you don't want to loose any quality, I suggest you use something like MakeMKV to back-up the DVD's original MPEG-2 video and audio streams into the .mkv container.

That’s what I did when I said

So far I extracted all raw video from the DVDs and each episode is about 1 GB large.

[Forteen88]

No idea if I should go for x265 (the options overwhelm me) or if x264 is enough. Any help is greatly appreciated.Go x265 10-bit (--profile main10) for hardware-support setting. And test if the bitrate is high enough for being good quality in dark scenes, or use AQ mode 3 if the source-video overall is dark.
Also, learn about SAR, and set the correct SAR-value in x265, for Blu-rays you normally don't have to set SAR (since it's like always 1:1), but with DVD:s you need to do that, with correct ITU or non-ITU setting.

To determine Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR) of the DVD-video, use this AviSynth-script,
avsfile = "encode.avs" # Encoding script
format = 1 # 1=NTSC, 0=PAL
wide = 1 # 1=Widescreen 16:9, 0=Full screen 4:3
#########################
ITU = (format==1?10:12)/11.0*(wide==1?4.0/3:1)
SARs = """"12:11","16:11","10:11","40:33","16:15","64:45","8:9","32:27""""
ITUprof = "SDB "+(wide==1?"ANAMORPHIC ":"")+(format==1?"NTSC":"PAL")
i=import(avsfile).converttorgb
i
ab = round(height*(sqrt(45.0/44)-1))
a = spline36resize(round(width*ITU),height)
a = a.addborders(0,floor(ab/2.0),0,ceil(ab/2.0))
bb = width(a)-round(width*ITU/sqrt(45.0/44))
b = spline36resize(round(width*ITU/sqrt(45.0/44)),height+ab)
b = b.addborders(floor(bb/2.0),0,ceil(bb/2.0),0)
interleave(a,b)
scriptclip("""subtitle("Playback Resolution: "+\
string(round(width(i)*ITU*pow(44.0/45,current_frame%2)))+"x"+string(height(i))+\
"\nMeGUI Profile: "+ITUprof+(current_frame%2==1?" NON-ITU":"")+\
"\nx264 --sar "+eval("select(2*format+wide+current_frame%2*4,"+SARs+")"),lsp=0)""")
Additional methods that can help determine if the source is ITU or non-ITU:

If the DVD was produced around 2006 or later it's most likely non-ITU
If 4 pixels or less were cropped in total from the width to remove black borders it's most likely non-ITU
Make a comparison between a high definition source and the upscaled DVD
Find other perfect circles to measure such as clocks, car wheels, any kind of ball, etc but careful of the camera angle, the picture may be skewed.

For reference, the following table shows the various SAR and SDB MeGUI profiles for each source type where 'Aspect' and 'FrameSize' are the values reported by DGIndex:

DVD | Aspect | FrameSize | ITU SAR & SDB Profile | Non-ITU SAR & SDB Profile
PAL | 4:3 | 720 x 576 | 12:11 (1.091) SDB PAL | 16:15 (1.067) SDB PAL NON-ITU
PAL | 16:9 | 720 x 576 | 16:11 (1.455) SDB ANAMORPHIC PAL | 64:45 (1.422) SDB ANAMORPHIC PAL NON-ITU
NTSC | 4:3 | 720 x 480 | 10:11 (0.909) SDB NTSC | 8:9 (0.889) SDB NTSC NON-ITU
NTSC | 16:9 | 720 x 480 | 40:33 (1.212) SDB ANAMORPHIC NTSC | 32:27 (1.185) SDB ANAMORPHIC NTSC NON-ITU

[RanmaCanada]

I'd say just keep them as MPEG2. No point really in recompressing them to something smaller as the source is really noisy, and you will end up losing details. Storage is cheap, and you can re-author them as blurays if you want, as MPEG2 is an accepted medium for bluray, and then you will have scratch proof discs that you will never have to worry about being wrecked, for the mere cost of like $15. You may want to make backup copies of the menus just so you have everything, if you are a completist haha. Old anime is very difficult to encode properly.

[alex1399]

If hard drive cost / data plan is the main concern, just compress them. Try x265 --lossless only for crystal clear video - Skip. Try x265 --cu-lossless for not-so-clean video - Skip. Noisy video, try sub-optimal encode that preserves the signal strength and mitigate the quans or phys interference as much as possible in the present first encoding process, and maintains the best visual quality by some futuristic state-of-art encoder in the second encoding process (perhaps forever away). Try x265 --tune SSIM / --tune PSNR.

[pcwizard7]

Hi i m someone who comes from using handbrake/vidcoder and knows nothing on how to get the best profile and found this thread from a google. now i am trying to rip dragon ball z but from the blue box blue-ray set 16;9 and to me still appear to have noise in the video.

i also have orange bricks, 30th anver which is 4:3 but i hear has fake grain and is cropped (unsure). I want to keep quailty as vest as possible while maybe clean the noise so it appears clear and sharp but i know it hurt the quality so a balance would be nice. now the sound is important as well as music and hear the hits is the best part.

On youtube, there are dbz videos that seem to have extra-base/Trimble that makes it sound intense some else to consider. so that said any recommendation would be appreciated special since its dbz and my all-time beloved show.

finally knowing i m newb can you suggest a better solution to handbrake/vidcoder as i hear they use out of date methods?

[benwaggoner]

If hard drive cost / data plan is the main concern, just compress them. Try x265 --lossless only for crystal clear video - Skip. Try x265 --cu-lossless for not-so-clean video - Skip. Noisy video, try sub-optimal encode that preserves the signal strength and mitigate the quans or phys interference as much as possible in the present first encoding process, and maintains the best visual quality by some futuristic state-of-art encoder in the second encoding process (perhaps forever away). Try x265 --tune SSIM / --tune PSNR.Lossless is almost certainly going to be higher bitrate than the original MPEG-2. Tune SSIM and PSNR will require a higher file size at the same subjective quality; neither metric is great at film grain. For noisy content post MPEG-2 --cu-lossless may not find a single block that it actually encodes differently. Encoding 8-bit source as 8-bit will be faster and identical quality and efficiency as 10-bit in HEVC; the efficiency improvement of 8-as-10 was really only in H.264.

Using --tu-intra 4 --tu-inter 4 can help preserve some small details in SD.

Also, if there is any visible blocking in the MPEG-2, using a deblocking decoder with conservative settings can help improve accuracy and make encoding easier. And make sure to inverse telecine to a clean 24p if possible; that'll cut bitrate as much as half versus doing 30i in HEVC.

Sent from my SM-T837V using Tapatalk

[foxyshadis]

Hi i m someone who comes from using handbrake/vidcoder and knows nothing on how to get the best profile and found this thread from a google. now i am trying to rip dragon ball z but from the blue box blue-ray set 16;9 and to me still appear to have noise in the video.

i also have orange bricks, 30th anver which is 4:3 but i hear has fake grain and is cropped (unsure). I want to keep quailty as vest as possible while maybe clean the noise so it appears clear and sharp but i know it hurt the quality so a balance would be nice. now the sound is important as well as music and hear the hits is the best part.

On youtube, there are dbz videos that seem to have extra-base/Trimble that makes it sound intense some else to consider. so that said any recommendation would be appreciated special since its dbz and my all-time beloved show.

finally knowing i m newb can you suggest a better solution to handbrake/vidcoder as i hear they use out of date methods?

Orange Box is the closest thing you will ever be able to find to the ultimate true DBZ. The only parts that were cropped were the rounded 35mm corners or film damage, versus just butchering in every previous release, including blue. They don't have film grain added, they still have some removed, but less so that most releases; maybe some people think the presence of any film grain at all is fake grain.

If you really want to remove all grain, while keeping as much detail as possible, check the Avisynth and Vapoursynth forums here. There are many ways, that are more or less destructive, and faster or slower. But it might not be worth it if you only have one project; just use a bit more bitrate, instead of spending a few weeks of your life to optimize it.

[RanmaCanada]

As I said in August 2018, keep them as is. Do you really think that you'll be able to do a better job than the studio? This is 20 year old material. Leave it as remux, and let it go. You can use playback filters to remove anything that you deem as noise, but you don't want to lose detail on the original source files.