The perfect anime 2cd rip

[xeo]

OK, so before u read on, I'll admit, I'm a rookie, but from research I am quite convinced that divX 3 sbc is the best codec to use for ripping anime DVDs to 2cds, and if anyone would beg to differ, I'd like to hear about it :sly:.

So what I would like to know is what you think the perfect settings would be for nandub (including which filters) for creating high quality, high resolution 2 CD rips that would work for generally most anime movies.

(and btw thumbs up 2 the idea of creating a seperate forum for anime encoding :D).

[xeo]

uurrgh :angry: i've waited for days... 57 views, and 0 replies!!! Don't mean 2 sound annoying, but i really wanna settle this. If my statement sounded wrong, about divX 3 sbc being the best codec for anime (so long as the right filters are used) someone please tell me. If not, then I'd really like to know which filters to use.

[ArcticIce]

*shugh* there is NO perfect setting for a dvdrip.. if there is.. then no one would be around these forums.. for a good rip you must look watch you anime/movie to determine the best settings for it

[OUTPinged_]

you wont get any feedback here, it is just wrong forum for that.

use search, read all anime related threads and always remember that 90% of posts here contain people opinions, and not usefull info.

and dont mess with nandub if you are just starting, you will get better ersults with divx5/xvid.


about your question: there is no codec which will work best for anime. anime encode's quality isnt about codec mostly. it is about making good ivtc and applying filtering in worst scenarios.

[Hanty]

remember that 90% of posts here contain people opinions, and not usefull info.

The opinions on some of the encoding scene's sharpest and most productive minds. If that's not useful info then I don't know what is. DivX3.11 however is hardly discused any more, the codec is living on borrowed time.

[jeremymacmull]

i think no disrespect to the previous poster but he is talking BOLLOCKS....

read doom9's recent comparison test and . in my opinion and i do a lot of anime the trick in anime is getting the deinterlacing and IVTC right once that is right u can get some kick as results with Nandub SBC much better than divx 5/4 cos of the filters u are able to use with nandub and the vast amount of knowledge u are able to draw on from other parts of the forum which have very useful bit. there are a lot of threads on anime encoding and i think they answer nearly all if not all your questions.

On another note there is no point in my opinion of doing in most cases 2 CD rips of an anime movie for example cos anime compresses differently to movies if you get the filters right ( i use smart deinterlace, smart resize, 2d cleaner and warp sharp in that order ) u end up with a product that hopefully has large expanses of solid blocks of colour. hence major compression and hardly any if any visible deterioration in picture quality. So normally one cd will suffice nicely. add to that OGG sound eg 130 k ogg and uve got for an anime movie of 1:30 hrs length one hell of a high bit rate. a bit rate of 800 or more might not be the best for a movie but for anime it can produce amazing results.. more important is the resolution try to keep it as high as possible so for a movie 640*352(272) of 512*384 640*480 is also brill.

in conclusion there is no definate setting but the threads with anime encoding have pretty good ideas on what settings to use. i use 2d cleaner with a variety of settings and warp sharp at 40 works wonders depending on the source. basically read up

and yes divx 3.11 is still in my opinion the best codec for anime.

Ezekiel
:)

[poopity poop]

You want perfect anime encodes? You have two choices:
DivX SBC or SVCD

Either way you can get perfect results, SVCD which less encoding artifacts.

Everyone has a guide but I specialize in anime, so you may want to check it out (click on the link in my signature). Also is a link to my animefilters site, which explains an outdated sucky method which I badly need to update to reduce noise in mpeg-2 DVD streams.

If you want o use DivX SBC using nandub, you can download my vcf file my website in the nandub section and tweak it slightly if you like.

I would suggest SVCD. The results are as good as SBC, they play in stand alone DVD players (and on comptuers just get the elcards mpeg-2 filter on doom9's filter section on the software page), and there will never be any encoding artifacts.

Jermeymacmull is estienally correct except for hsi smart deinterlace method. Interlacing isn't some evil thing that needs to be DEinterlaced using a filter. Its just field orders offset by a frame, and you can accually UNDO them properly using ivtc (decomb is recommended, explaination on my site). 2d cleaner is great for speed, HQ smart smoother is the best if you don't care abotu speed. As for warpsharp...cmon.. how BAD is your source. Don't just use filters to use them, you'll destroy the source. I think he thinks that the 2-d cleaner smooths the image...which it does not. It all depends on how cleans your source is though.

Hanty is the man and he is totally right. DivX 3 is living on borrowed time to be overtaken by DivX 5 which IS superior, and possibly SVCD.

All of this up until now has been opinion the rest is straight up FACT:

If you want Perfect quality in DivX use at LEAST an average bitrate of 1200. Lower your max DRF's to like 8-10 and 4-6 on kf's. Have a low pass setting of at least 4000Kbps.

Anyway my site explains how I encode anime, and if you've seen any of my later Kenshin encodes on DALnet, they speak for themselves. The opinions I speak here are in the 10% of those that Hanty says ARE true :)



(psst, go SVCD, they are great, an entire method like my DivX site is coming soon)

[jeremymacmull]

Hey there Poppity Poop,

Um yeah u are right about the deintelace but it depends on the source as for filters the anime ive recently encoded was Magic Knight Rayearth by clamp (which is by far not the best quality source ive seen so needed cleaning up) however normally i would not use warp sharp or maybe on lightly

I used Smartsmoother HQ and while its excellent it took far too long (magic knight is 49 eps long) and it was taking me 29 hours per ep) P3 850 here (yeah i know its kinda slow) so i opted for the faster 2d cleaner while not as good worked well.

I aim normally for 512X384 eps and 4 per CD normally (yeah i could go higher but im not the richest when it comes to buying loads of cds to compensate) as i borrow the DVDs from my friends.

as for the borrowed time for the codec sure i agree with that in principal but my point is there are soo many who are very very experienced with Divx 3 and SBC so it would be a shame to waste that experience. plus id have to learn how to use Divx 5 properly which i can use but im not as good with it as i am with SBC. so for the moment my SBC rips outdo my Divx 5 rips hence im sticking with SBC till there are massive disadvantages etc etc.....

PS i loved your kenshin eps ive got a lot of em in fact a hell of a lot of em (respect man)

EZEKIEL

:)

[OUTPinged_]

jeremy, r1 and hk dvds of MKR _do not_ gain even a little bit from filtering.


On another note there is no point in my opinion of doing in most cases 2 CD rips of an anime movie

boo.

for example cos anime compresses differently to movies

boo.

hence major compression and hardly any if any visible deterioration in picture quality.

boo.

all topics were discussed earlyer. and if you think you can do a 1CD rip of long movie that will look not worse than 2CD rip of it, you are [wrong]

anime compresses exactly the same. divx family of codecs arent siuted for anime encoding, but they _do_ compress identically.

filtered output(using your settings) will look ugly, filtered output with high quantizers will look even more ugly.

and if you think that using filters makes you more "cool" then you are dead wrong. the persons you should aim at are HQ group rippers (take a look at hanty ie), ask them how often they apply filtering for r1 dvd source :/

btw, for a sources which dont need a manual tweaking, xvid will produce same or better rip than a nandub (expecially on high drf)


poop, you are evil, look, after reading all of your "giudes" every newbie out there is beginning using ss+ws on each and every dvd they rip :/ it becomes a serious issue. earlyer, you had to kick newbie's ass for him to not make a "best quality" blend deinterlace instead IVTC (and some jerks on old board were sure that "keeping anime on _original_ 30fps is best"), now you have to kick them to not use any ss+ws combo, thanks to you :-P They evaluate only frames where that combo makes picture better and ignore a frames where it blurs backgroung :-E

adn stop that "svcds are beter stuff", just write a guide on it, i want to see it myself :PPPP (i wont ever ever read "filtering" section of it, honest :PPPPP)


hanty, now look: you or i know basics, right? so if some person states something interesting you can always tell if he is any good just by looking at his posts. newbies cant. 90% of posts dont contain an info usefull for newbies imo. that was what i assumed.

(doh, i have to get myself together and leech those heaps of anime that hanty and co. have ripped)

[Dali Lama]

Alright Poopity Poop, I need to d/l some more of these Kenshin episodes. I think I only saw one a while ago. One of your earlier ones. Where can I see the rest of your kenshin encodes?

Thanks,

Dali

[xeo]

seems like this guy knows what he's talking about....so what do you have to say jeremy?

[Hanty]

This has gotten really OT already but I'll speak for Poop (I've been unable to reach him with PM for the last few days so he might be gone for a while).

Poop will get back to his own encoding comp this summer, expect to see him handing out more goodies then.

[RadicalEd]

hmm... the idea of an anime only forum does sound enticing.. anyway

True to what Hanty said, this is OT and has nothing to do with Nandub, but 2 things;

1. Some anime DVDs are reeeally noisy and do look a lot better using filters like 2D cleaner. Similarly, I would expect the less-noisy video to encode a little better since there is less noise and noise is the arch nemesis of digital video.

2. I may be incorrect but from what I've read in the other forums and experienced anime needs a much higher bitrate than regular live-action video. Live video is usually a lot softer and has a much smoother frequency curve. Likewise, fast motion in live video is blurred. On the other hand, anime (and all other cartoons) are very sharp and have abrupt changes in color from pixel to pixel, introducing a very hard to compress frequency range and fast motion in anime is usually not as blurred due to its nature as drawn images and not true video.

From my experience about 2 episodes/CD is acceptable for SVCD and I'm new to creating DivX CDs but for them I'll probably go 2-4.

Anyway thats coming from someone who will give anything to stay as close to uncompressed looking as possible ;)

So if the source is really noisy I say filter all the way (with moderation of course) and as for the difference in anime vs. live video.. well, I'm not completely sure anymore, but anywho thats what I've come to understand.

So theres two cents from someone who got involved in video editing courtesy of anime (since you probably cant tell by my username :rolleyes: ), hope it helps, laters

-edit- @poopity (whenever he gets back) very nice guide, wish I would have seen this a long time ago ;)

[OUTPinged_]

yikes, more of that filtering maniac guys..

[xeo]

i honestly don't know who's right and who's wrong! :scared:

[jeremymacmull]

Right this i think requires an good load of answers. ie more than just say hes talking bollocks and he needs his head examined!! here goes.

"jeremy, r1 and hk dvds of MKR _do not_ gain even a little bit from filtering. "

I have BOTH box sets of MKR R1. Ok mkr was and still is possibly the worst quality DVD transfers ive ever seen and if you want to compare for transfer quality compare it to something like utena or ah my goddess the movie (those are top knotch transfers)

So we start off with not so good quality RAW VOBS. on mkr series 1 there is visible distortion on nearly every fight scene when they use flare arrow attack, water dragon etc ie nearly all the preset sequences. if you dont believe me have a look at it closely. initially i did not use filters at all but for the second DVD onwards i started to use filters i tried both 2D cleaner and smartsmoother HQ. i admit SSHQ is better but it takes sooooo much longer to do than 2d cleaner. the result is a hell of a lot visible improvement and i do mean a substantial amount ( i was doing 4 eps CD 512X384 res) so thats one thing disproven. I could provide screen shots at a later date if i can be arsed to rerip the DVD.

The next thing about Warp sharp again bollocks while it is not the best sharpner out there its easy to use and quick so it serves its purpose however it is not always needed.

Next point on the fact that u dont ever need to use filters for R1 DVDs entirely. I would reccomend u borrow Rocky 4 or jaws 3 both R1 and tell me if you could get rid of the macroblocks ON THE DVD without using filters in your encodes. End of that point...

"On another note there is no point in my opinion of doing in most cases 2 CD rips of an anime movie for example cos anime compresses differently to movies hence major compression and hardly any if any visible deterioration in picture quality. .


BOO!! "

On this note my statement is correct and here is the proof. take a single frame of an anime save in highest quality BMP form. now compress using any proggie... how does the compression format work it looks for colours of the same type and instead of coding each pixel separately it write a line saying pixel x-y color xxx if each pixel was different it could not do this. with anime there are large blocks of the same color which compresses using the above principal much better than if each pixel was a different color.

so how could anime with 256 colours eg. not compress better than a movie with 16 million colours??!! i think it can compress better and that u are wrong

Next point:-
"and if you think you can do a 1CD rip of long movie that will look not worse than 2CD rip of it, you are [wrong]"

firstly uve got your info wrong read my post i never mentioned a 1 CD rip of a LONG movie i mentioned a 1hr 30 min ish anime movie which by any description is a short movie!! so my point stands. no u cant do a good 1 CD rip of a LONG movie ie 3 hrs or so but for a short one anime or otherwise u can get it perfect.


"filtered output(using your settings) will look ugly, filtered output with high quantizers will look even more ugly."

This is incorrect as well as one only needs to look at any ones posted clips of before and after filters to prove my point.

"and if you think that using filters makes you more "cool" then you are dead wrong. the persons you should aim at are HQ group rippers (take a look at hanty ie), ask them how often they apply filtering for r1 dvd source :/ "

Actually as for aiming for HQ group rippers i myself am part of a ripping group which does a lot of anime and which u have probably heard of if not got some yourself. which i shall not say but they have done a lot of the series NOIR etc. and yes we use filters on nearly all our rips!! ie not just me but the group.

as for the other comment to poop i think he should answer that but in his defence he does not advocate using filters for EVERY ANIME DVD only for the ones that he thinks need it. and when he wrote the guides SS +WS was the best combination since then 2d cleaner and SSHQ have overtaken it along with X sharpen and others so the guides are just outdated but that should not be held against him as he at least unlike some people took the time to write a guide.


Right this is the end of my post next time

EZEKIEL

[OUTPinged_]

so how could anime with 256 colours eg. not compress better than a movie with 16 million colours??!! i think it can compress better and that u are wrong

what you think and what mpeg4 compresion is, these are diferent things. if you dont believe me, just ask any codec devel person why animation compresses worse than a movies do.


. Ok mkr was and still is possibly the worst quality DVD transfers ive ever seen [i]

man, these are not that bad, you can believe me there are worse shit around(*cough* ADV *cough*). and you wont gain so much it is worth filtering with 2dcleaner. of course that is if you are using it with too high threshs (but with threshs high enough to filter the mpeg artifacts backgrounds will be blurred no matter what :-(

"utena" transter you are referring to is a movie one or a tv eps? at least tv eps (didnt see movie dvd, but it supposed to be hq) arent a top class transfer :-) you dont need to filter them too btw :P and they have messed up fields, too (and the colors are ugly and brown).

[i]format work it looks for colours of the same type and instead of coding each pixel separately it write a line saying pixel x-y color xxx if each pixel was different it could not do this.

%-\ ok, you wont listen to me, just read through mpeg4 papers (are they competent enough for you?) and ask people around, they will explain you why current mpeg4 codecs compress anime worse than movies.

Next point on the fact that u dont ever need to use filters for R1 DVDs entirely.

ok, for _most_ dvds, you caught me here (hihihi)


movie i mentioned a 1hr 30 min ish anime movie which by any description is a short movie!!

eh? 90mins are long enough that you need 2cds to get a good quality in a lot of cases. i personally prefer rips where there is stored 40-70 minutes/cd, and dont tell me "you cant see the difference" or "it is of DVD quality"

one only needs to look at any ones posted clips of before and after filters to prove my point.

yeah, they prove my point too :-)


[i]and yes we use filters on nearly all our rips!! [/]

yeah, here we go again... i never wrote "you shouldnt use filters at all". my point was that people are filtering stuff too much.

for some wierd reason nowadays i have to get 2-3 versions of the same episode until i will find the less filtered one.



PS. people, just dont take my posts here serious. most of it is just random flaming on people who i feel are writing incorrect stuff. \o/

have phun.

[jeremymacmull]

Read on microsoft.com how mpeg4 works they have a wonderful article where they use to compress a bmp both jpeg and mpeg4 compression my point lies in that article . i believe the bmp is also of an animated computer drawn hot air balloon.


"Ok mkr was and still is possibly the worst quality DVD transfers ive ever seen [i]

man, these are not that bad, you can believe me there are worse shit around(*cough* ADV *cough*). and you wont gain so much it is worth filtering with 2dcleaner. of course that is if you are using it with too high threshs (but with threshs high enough to filter the mpeg artifacts backgrounds will be blurred no matter what :-( "


as for the other point im sure there are worse ones out there i just said it was the worst quality transfers IVE ever seen and im talking about utena the movie not the TV series. besides i never mentioned using filters with too high a thresh in fact my argument lies in using em with low and well thought out threshs. of course if you use em with high threshs they look shit!!!

Hey if you dont like our rips dont download em thats what i say.

and last but not least its your opinion that u want to have films of 40-70 mins per cd most people dont hence the ripping groups VITE and DOMINION still supplying most films as 1 CD versions.

As most people dont want loads of cds per film

EZEKIEL

[RadicalEd]

Okay okay calm down.

With the filtering issue, you should really go through and look around your video to see if any real detail is lost using 2D cleaner, warpsharp, etc. If it is, I wouldnt use it. If the source is noisy enough though (and they sure as hell can get pretty noisy) filtering is like god. And yes, it does help with compression (once more, noise is the antithesis of digital video)

As for MPEG 4, MPEG 2, MPEG 1, mostly every and any codec, anime is more difficult to compress. Jeremy, your theory surely makes sense, and I believe there is a quicktime codec out there that does this, but the fact with MPEG 4, JPEG, any type of image compression is that DCT coding and quantization do not handle sharp things well. Anime is naturally very sharp in every way, both color-wise and shape-wise. The fact that most objects are made of points introduces abrupt changes from pixel to pixel, and due to the nature of a drawn image, the changes in color and therefore frequency are dramatic. If you're following, this means that for the same reason you are stating that it is easier to code, it also makes it harder. Discrete cosine transform is based upon natural images, which usually contain soft, gradual changes in color and shape, therefore having a very simple frequency range. Anime, which contains abrupt changes in shape and color, have a sharp frequency range based on extremes. It is for this reason that anime will always produce more artifacts and more problems than regular video. As someone who does only anime, it is simply something we must live with. This is why IVTC is such a great feature of anime and if you're into SVCD, cropping overscan. Both are essential to maintain decent quality with anime whereas a 30 fps full screen natural image would look fine.

There you go outpinged, now the codec developer persons can concentrate on developing codecs ;)

[jeremymacmull]

Hey There,

Im prepared to admit i was wrong in some and right in others. Lets not get this into a massive flaming spiral

I CALL A TRUCE

Enough about this topic

EZEKIEL

[OUTPinged_]

jeremy, if you are a fansub group encoder, then i guess you can afford yourself to make a second pass of final version encode with sshq. the problem lies within 2dcleaner itself. it doesnt produce that good quality output tbh, its just pure speed.

however the fansub groups arent releasing more than a 2eps/day in general and those have several encoders usually.

so, if you need to use 2pass (some groups use a fixed drf over raws), just make an encode with 2dcleaner, then after you are satisfied with quality, make a one more second pass, just use sshq instead of 2dc. now some lame newbies will begin to state that you shouldnt change filters between passes, stuff them. the frame sizes wont change even a 5% and even 10% still doesnt kill a rate control. in 15-20hours your ep will be done even if you are with p3-600. if you wil use a shiny 1-1.5g athlon with ddram it will be 3-4 times faster.

RadicalEd: well it isnt that bad problem to encode animation, the mpeg4 advanced coding profile has some features to help with animation frames. the bad thing is, no codec has them inplemented atm, but i hope xvid or dxn guys will stuff these into their codecs at some point. we will see quite a drops in bitrates then.

[poopity poop]

why is it that dual processors are so underrated... try using dual 1900+'s and get 10-15fps using SSHQ :)

[OUTPinged_]

poop, now tell me a good reason to buy these babies besides sshq :P


btw, i got 5fps on dual 1600s. no way there will be 15 on 1900s.

[poopity poop]

I was jsut making a point that duals are faster not really stating actual speed :)