@ Koepi: XviD better than NanDub SBC?!

[DJ Bobo]

You said in the DivX3 forum, that XviD is better than NanDub SBC.

Yesterday, depressed from DivX5, I've finally done my very first SBC encoding @ 1100kbps (anime of course, what else? :D), and as expected, it delivers the best quality I've seen so far, comparable to the quality of good fansubs.

XviD (CVS 06/02/03 Nic) 2-pass (int) @ 1100kbps (well, the corresponding file size) with MPEG quantisation (I'm tired of H263) makes much more mosquito noise, although the resolution was lower (512x384 instead of 640x480 of the SBC version).

So how is XviD much better than DivX3?! what am I doing wrong?! I want absolutely no mosquito noise, or at least very minimal, as in DivX3, because mosquito noise just pisses me off!

[OUTPinged_]

mpeg quantization = mosquito noise.

it should be used only for low bitrate encodes imo. all hq stuff should be done with h263 quantizers.

[majerle]

First of all: I am not an expert just an soddisfacted XviD User !!

Use mpeg quant only for hiq quality encoding : bit rate > 1300
Used and b frames or other mpeg tools ?
Use Modulate Quant.
Get sticky with CE and gmc. No other (or just bframes 1/125/100)

greetings

Andres

[DJ Bobo]

@ majerle
Havn't used any extra features.

Well, the reasons why I havn't used H263 are:
1) loose crispness
2) dancing wall problem

With SBC, the walls are kinda fixed with nails (!) so they appear very stable. And the crispness is very high, even higher than XviD w/ MPEG q.

H263 still produces more mosquito noise than DivX3.

As far as I understood, modulated quantization will switch in the 2nd pass between H263 & MPEG q. to improve quality and/or crispness. I havn't tried modulated, I just tried H263/H263 & MPEG/MPEG in quality based mode 100% along with DivX3 @ 6000kbps, both XviD clips were inferior to the DivX3 version in terms of crispness and mosquito-noiselessness.
In 2-pass mode, the difference become even bigger...

NB: all my testings are done on anime, because it's there where you can judge the mosquito noise problem at best.

[Koepi]

With VHQ, the walls are stable like hell. Even without it, I can't see where SBC is capable of outperforming current builds. Honestly I think you need to do the hard learning from ground up that you had to do with nandub - sorry for the bad news. Good news is, if you learned it properly, you can _easily_ stomp nandub into ground. (Don't even dare to ask "which setting is best" ;) )

Regards
Koepi

[ssjkakaroto]

so koepi do you recommend the use of vhq for "non-test" encodes?

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by ssjkakaroto
so koepi do you recommend the use of vhq for "non-test" encodes?
if your encode is something important to you, stick with the stable builds, but so far VHQ seems to be a pretty kick-ass feature.
use at your own risk :p

[Angrychair]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
You said in the DivX3 forum, that XviD is better than NanDub SBC.

Yesterday, depressed from DivX5, I've finally done my very first SBC encoding @ 1100kbps (anime of course, what else? :D), and as expected, it delivers the best quality I've seen so far, comparable to the quality of good fansubs.

XviD (CVS 06/02/03 Nic) 2-pass (int) @ 1100kbps (well, the corresponding file size) with MPEG quantisation (I'm tired of H263) makes much more mosquito noise, although the resolution was lower (512x384 instead of 640x480 of the SBC version).

So how is XviD much better than DivX3?! what am I doing wrong?! I want absolutely no mosquito noise, or at least very minimal, as in DivX3, because mosquito noise just pisses me off!

Well, DJ, I assume you're the same guy from over on the divx.com forum. This discussion has been had before many times, even over there.

The maindrawbacks to 'SBC' are horrible macroblocking (on staionary objects especially) horrible dust artifacts (trails of miscolored pixels in the wake of a moving object) and errant blocking on objects (if you like fansubs, you probably see them a lot, but just get used to it and may even think it's normal)

In my group (www.ishin-anime.com) we use xvid exclusively now, and target <700kbps for our video bitrates. With 1100kbps I (for one) can pretty much match dvd quality. If you're getting 'crappy' results from xvid with that much bitrate, the problem is most likely with your methodology.

[Acaila]

I understand what DJ Bobo is talking about and I have to say that I agree with him. An encode in DivX 3 gives a completely static picture (although with the occasional block that is inherent to the codec), whereas an encode with XviD always gives mosquito noise. Using MPEG quantizer this effect becomes very visible, using H263 you'll end up with much reduced noise, but also a more unsharp picture compared to DivX 3.
The only way that I know of to reduce this is by filtering, but it won't kill all the noise before you start loosing detail, so that's not really a viable option.

So from a noise/static point of view DivX3 is superior, BUT overal video quality of XviD is much much better because it doesn't have all those nasty qualities like luma blocks, shit frames, motion trails etc.

[wotef]

sbc background "fixed with nails" - er, yeah, even through scene changes :D

fwiw, i applied mb1's "andreas 78er" quant matrix as custom-mpeg in xvid and from some quick tests, you know i think it's a real good "in-between" H263 and MPEG for detail/noise - maybe give that a try!!!!

[DJ Bobo]

@ koepi
Which setting is best? :p :D
Because I know, XviD *can* achieve super results (still with lower crispness than sbc :D). I've got some juuni kokki episodes encoded with XviD. They are simply COMPLETELY mosquito noise free!!
Again, they are the only ones I know that are that clean!! and I'm really not able to produce similiar results! (they are not even close ¬.¬)

@ angrychair
Someone with the same name in the divx.com forums?! I havn't visited them in years!
Anyway, I'm aware of the artifacts that SBC can produce, and I have quite many of them in my rip from last night.
But again, I have some fansubs that are almost completely artifact free and that were encoded in NanDub, so NanDub is capable of DVD quality encodings, but I'm sure, I'm missing some things again ¬.¬
I have the first Get Backers episode from ishin. It seems to be XviD encoded @ 900kbps. It has a lot of mosquito noise!
Any advice how you achieve dvd quality would be very nice. I would really like to achieve the quality of the juuni kokki xvid episodes.

@ acaila
Exactly! but as stated above, I've seen some SBC encodings that are very clean! Naruto from TW for example, I'm barely able to see anything wrong in their files, although the file sizes are pretty low (180MB and lower) and the resolution is kept on 640x480. I simply don't get it!!
There must be some gurus out there, that don't want to share their experience ¬.¬
I mean all guides here don't give the mighty keys that unleash that kind of quality, especially for anime.
I swear, I was studying 3 (!) different nandub guides simulatneously yesterday. The quality achieved was better than anything I've done before and pretty close to fansub standards, but isn't a~s good as what I'm seeing from some fansubbing groups! :angry:

@ wotef
Thanks for the tip! (man I hate encoding the same thing again & again & ag...)

[Angrychair]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo

@ angrychair
Someone with the same name in the divx.com forums?! I havn't visited them in years!
Anyway, I'm aware of the artifacts that SBC can produce, and I have quite many of them in my rip from last night.
But again, I have many fansubs that are almost completely artifact free and that were encoded in NanDub, so NanDub is capable of DVD quality encodings, but I'm sure, I'm missing some things again ¬.¬
I have the first Get Backers episode from ishin. It seems to be XviD encoded @ 900kbps. It has a lot of mosquito noise!
Any advice how you achieve dvd quality would be very nice. I would really like to achieve the quality of the juuni kokki xvid episodes.



Sorry, I don't share my personal techniques on encoding, and even though I'm probably the best encoder in my group, the only ep they've released that I encoded (in awhile) was get backers 6 (if I remember correctly) but it's not the most glowing example of work I've done, as the raw wasn't very good. If you watch through the series, you might notice some places where quality jumps significantly. Those are usually the spots where the people asked me for some advice on how to do better (asagiri no miko comes to mind, it was ep 7 or 8 before they asked me how to properly deinterlace it).

Anyway, SBC has a lot of followers because they are people that aren't ready to unlearn sbc, and learn xvid.

[ssjkakaroto]

Sorry, I don't share my personal techniques on encoding
why is that with all fansub encoders out there???:confused:

[Teegedeck]

After reading all that I feel that one of XviD's (and DivX5's, also) biggest benefits is its democratic nature [Edit: unlike putting up a filter-chain]... The actual codec-setup isn't that hard.

BTW, DJ Bobo, there must be something you've overlooked. I hope searching the forum helps you eventually.

[iago]

Originally posted by Angrychair
Sorry, I don't share my personal techniques on encoding, and even though I'm probably the best encoder in my group [...] What modesty! I really admire it. :rolleyes:

[Angrychair]

Originally posted by iago
What modesty! I really admire it. :rolleyes:

Maybe it's a comment on the state of my group's other encoder(s)? :rolleyes:

[Morbo]

I moved to Xvid for the fact it doesnt blur so bad.I use it for varying sources and have no problems(cTd's,etc).

I DONT like the new release,but if they can get the blocks out,it looks promising.

Cheers!!!

[yaz]

Originally posted by Angrychair
Sorry, I don't share my personal techniques on encoding, and even though I'm probably the best encoder in my group


whoops ... u're humble, modest and shy ... but honest, at least. the only point some could admire :-) i guess, u're the inventor of mpeg4 encoding, the creator of all stuffs round it, the heaviest beta tester ever & (of course) the beholder of the ultimate truth. not expecting but not accepting any kinda help. no doubt, u're the god. but imho, just a smaller kind :-)

Originally posted by Angrychair
Anyway, SBC has a lot of followers because they are people that aren't ready to unlearn sbc, and learn xvid.

negative. one o'reasons could be that some kinda 'gurus' are unwilling to share their knowledge & experience about it. for example :-)
maybe, u were able to figure out even the smallest trick on your own but there are lottsa people needing, accepting & appreciating other's help. anyway, that's the way of development of human mankind. sorry, been starting sidekicking :-)

don't get me wrong! i'm not blaming & not angry. just lamentating.

the bests
y

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by Angrychair
Sorry, I don't share my personal techniques on encoding

So, what do you hang around here for? :confused: 'To let other people know how great you are? :mad:

@ wotef
where did you get that matrix from?

[mf]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
But again, I have some fansubs that are almost completely artifact free and that were encoded in NanDub, so NanDub is capable of DVD quality encodings, but I'm sure, I'm missing some things again ¬.¬

Right. I've done high quality artifact-free stuff in SBC as well. You know how much effort put in ? 1-2 hours of artifact hunting. You have to find the artifacts and force the frames which contain them to be a keyframe. Then you have to re-encode. This also further reduces the quality of your encode since keyframes take up more space than normal frames and the codec won't have as much bitrate left for the rest of the frames (this effect is minimal, but I've seen encodes with about HALF of all the frames as keyframes(!!), which is simply sick).

Exactly! but as stated above, I've seen some SBC encodings that are very clean! Naruto from TW for example, I'm barely able to see anything wrong in their files, although the file sizes are pretty low (180MB and lower) and the resolution is kept on 640x480. I simply don't get it!!

I recently encoded a 640x480 clip at 660kbit (140MB for 24mins) in XviD. Ok there was some ringing but overall the quality was higher than most SBC encodes, especially for the high-motion parts. There really isn't that much to it!
Btw, TW overfilters their Naruto eps :D.

There must be some gurus out there, that don't want to share their experience ¬.¬
I mean all guides here don't give the mighty keys that unleash that kind of quality, especially for anime.
I swear, I was studying 3 (!) different nandub guides simulatneously yesterday. The quality achieved was better than anything I've done before and pretty close to fansub standards, but isn't a~s good as what I'm seeing from some fansubbing groups! :angry:

It took me a few weeks to get the perfect Nandub settings too (before XviD existed), and a tip: don't just use guides, use intuition as well. Oh and another thing, it took me a few minutes to find good XviD settings.

[Shamballa]

LOL you make me too laugh ishin anime is the worst team ever in encode u_u 90% of anime team in us suk's a lot he don't know how encode a 120fps raw ~_~ i am soory to tell you that but for anime raw the setting of xvid can't be magic (as normal good encoder) for anime the only "secret" can be the filters ;)

[wotef]

ahoy, mates, the matrices were discussed here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27528&highlight=andreas+78er+matrix)

for my fellow lazy users, i made them (andreas' "78er", "einfache", "doppelte") into xvid matrix files you can simply load up, once this attachment has been approved

now, i don't pretend to understand precisely how the matrices work, except from what mb1 says that it acts like a filter (echoing tr barry's thread on the same concept) but i do think they give you different results than H263 or default-MPEG

in my tests, i thought the 78er matrix gave more detail than H263!

if you test,please share your results!!

finally, for the skeptics, please apply the matrix posted by tactx at the end of thread i linked above :p

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by wotef
ahoy, mates, the matrices were discussed here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27528&highlight=andreas+78er+matrix)

for my fellow lazy users, i made them (andreas' "78er", "einfache", "doppelte") into xvid matrix files you can simply load up, once this attachment has been approved

meravilioso! grazie tanto! THIS is fair play.

how come, i always get the goosebumbs everytime i read the word 'release group'?:rolleyes:

[AS]

Originally posted by Shamballa
LOL you make me too laugh ishin anime is the worst team ever in encode u_u 90% of anime team in us suk's a lot he don't know how encode a 120fps raw ~_~ i am soory to tell you that but for anime raw the setting of xvid can't be magic (as normal good encoder) for anime the only "secret" can be the filters ;)

You must be kidding, have you ever seen an encode from AJ?

If your setting is not suited, no matter how you filter it, it won't be good. The two goes together.

oh, for those who is impressed by tw's naruto. I think Rice-box's Witch Hunter Robin is even more impressive.

I also did quite a few (anime) tests with umaniac's 29-11-2002 build and even when I increased the bitrate by 20% , sbc divx 3.11 still isn't as good in terms of motion (trailing dust noises), detail (it doesn't look any better). Half of the encode were ending up all taken in q2, the walls looks no worst than sbc divx 3.11

To make it fair, I use ffdshow's filter to playback the video, which doesn't filter as strong as divx 3.11 nor xvid's. I tweaked the stats file for sbc and took the default option in xvid with altcc enabled.

obviously I am doing something wrong here, but for me. Xvid is better :)

[csr2000]

Originally posted by Shamballa
LOL you make me too laugh ishin anime is the worst team ever in encode u_u 90% of anime team in us suk's a lot he don't know how encode a 120fps raw ~_~ i am soory to tell you that but for anime raw the setting of xvid can't be magic (as normal good encoder) for anime the only "secret" can be the filters ;)

yeah~~~

for AviSynth2.07,IVTC like IT,some NR combo like C3D,2DC,EE like WarpSharp will produce very good Result.

for AviSynth2.5,IVTC als can be IT,NR combo like C3D,Deen(a2D),
EE use aWarpSharp or WarpSharp

it will lose some details,but very useful,Try it!

[DJ Bobo]

I'm aware of the fact that TW-Naruto files are heavily filtered. But from my testings, heavy filtering brings 10% compressibility advantage, not more. Considering that a 640x480 rip will easily fill one CD in highest quality (Q2), bringing it to 170MB with minimal artifacting is simply awesome, so it's the encoding side that brings miracles, not the filtering side.

[ssjkakaroto]

C3D,Deen(a2D)???
i think you'll lose too much detail with that, deen(a2d) alone filters a lot, imo you should just use one or another unless your source is REALLY bad

[mf]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
I'm aware of the fact that TW-Naruto files are heavily filtered. But from my testings, heavy filtering brings 10% compressibility advantage, not more. Considering that a 640x480 rip will easily fill one CD in highest quality (Q2), bringing it to 170MB with minimal artifacting is simply awesome, so it's the encoding side that brings miracles, not the filtering side.

Pff 170MB (4eps/cd) really is the max any anime episode should be, except if it's 768x576 (fabulous resolution for anime ^_^ T_T, but sources hard to find) or higher. I think people should just do 140MB per ep (5eps/cd) in XviD, and do VBR MP3 if they can't make it look good enough, or do Vorbis and mux to ogm. Exceptions again can be high res and/or DVD source. Movies are exceptions, they should be able to be fitted on 1CD or 2CD with AC3 sound (given that the movie fills the whole 1400MB, I don't wanna waste space on my cds).

[Angrychair]

Originally posted by Shamballa
LOL you make me too laugh ishin anime is the worst team ever in encode u_u 90% of anime team in us suk's a lot he don't know how encode a 120fps raw ~_~ i am soory to tell you that but for anime raw the setting of xvid can't be magic (as normal good encoder) for anime the only "secret" can be the filters ;)

'Encoding' for an anime group is a difficult thing to wiggle into. Tons of people think they can do a great job at it, tons of people want to do it because it takes no real skills (translating, timing, etc) and there's tons of ego to it. Which is why it's as I said, I might have the most skills (relatively) in my group (not saying I'm the master, saying that I'm better than the guy(s) that do it now) but there's rarely a time when I'm asked to do it, because there's tons of ego in the way now (and silly mistakes were made as a matter of course, stuff like not cropping the black edges off of raws before encoding them)

Like I said, sometimes they ask for my advice, and I give it. And, yes, I do use pretty much every beta version of xvid from umaniac and koepi.

So, what do you hang around here for? 'To let other people know how great you are?

Mainly because I can see what the developers have to say about new features, problems, timelines, etc. Certainly not to post out my step-by-step guide to a good anime encode.

[DJ Bobo]

@ mf
I don't agree with you, if you wanna keep 640x480, the best way would be 2 episodes per disc. But as said, there is people, that are able to tweak the encoding settings so much, that it looks good (not perfect!!) even with 175MB filesize. How they do that?! I don't know
I personally put most of the time 3 episodes per CD, and 4 when the series comes to an end, and I don't wanna put 2 on a single CD.
The problem is, I'm not able to get good results unless I lower the resolution to 512x384 or 448x336. With good results, I mean mosquito noise free. The backdraw is: lower sharpness. While that is not tha~t dramatic, because you get used to it after 2 minutes watching, you've always got that idea in the rear of your head, telling you that it would be fine to have 640x480 and getting the same clean picture. The only codecs able to achieve that are DivX3 using NanDub or XviD with tweaked parameters. While I'm pretty close to achieve that using NanDub, with XviD I've got a lot to learn...

[haibane]

I don't think encoding an anime series at 4eps per CD is that difficult. Lots of anime have many still scenes, and many of the anime I ran into only has a 1-pass size around 230-300 MB with xvid. Some even has a 1-pass size of about 120MB. so, 5 eps or 4 eps per CD is enough for anime without drop the quality significantly. Normally, I think anime can be encode about half its 1-pass size without losing too much quality from the source.
However, I think SBC can generate very good results if someone is really good at it. The release from rice-box is very impressive, they always have smaller size and better visual quality than most of the other encodes.

[DJ Bobo]

@ haibane
Not most, only some! I've never got saturation at 300MB with 640x480. They all go over the 500 MB barrier! Saturation at 200 to 300MB is possible with 512x384, but just possible! To put it clearly, I refuse to use b-frames because they reduce quality (you get then a clip that is supposedly saturated but you're still able to see artifacts ¬.¬)

[mf]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ mf
I don't agree with you, if you wanna keep 640x480, the best way would be 2 episodes per disc. But as said, there is people, that are able to tweak the encoding settings so much, that it looks good (not perfect!!) even with 175MB filesize. How they do that?! I don't know
I personally put most of the time 3 episodes per CD, and 4 when the series comes to an end, and I don't wanna put 2 on a single CD.
The problem is, I'm not able to get good results unless I lower the resolution to 512x384 or 448x336. With good results, I mean mosquito noise free. The backdraw is: lower sharpness. While that is not tha~t dramatic, because you get used to it after 2 minutes watching, you've always got that idea in the rear of your head, telling you that it would be fine to have 640x480 and getting the same clean picture. The only codecs able to achieve that are DivX3 using NanDub or XviD with tweaked results. While I'm pretty close to achieve that using NanDub, with XviD I've got a lot to learn...
Geez are you really that stupid ?
It's really not hard to get a good encode at 170MB. And 3 eps/cd is really unnecessary. Here are some screenies from something I encoded at 140MB.

Very high motion:
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_1.png
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_2.png
(notice the snow in the screenshot below, this comes flying by at super-high motion, Nandub wouldn't have been able to handle this):
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_3.png

Medium motion:
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_4.png

Low motion:
(I challenge you to find ringing ( = mosquito noise) in the screenshot below.)
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_5.png
(There is a little bit of ringing in the middle in the pic below because there was text that disappeared one frame earlier, for the rest it's clean)
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_6.png
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_7.png
http://mf.onthanet.com/wolfsrain_scrshots/d9_8.png

Ok. Now note, this is HALF the size of your encodes. This is done with XviD, at almost the default settings, only a few things changed and/or enabled/disabled. There isn't that much to it.

[digitize]

@DJ-Bobo
I totally agree with mf on this one. Along with that, b-frames reduce noise, not too sure how that would lower quality...
Also Im not too sure why anyone would want to use nandub for encoding in divx3 anymore.... use ffvfw, uses libavcodec as the encoder, much better mostion estimation = much better compressibility, and an over all better look, take a look at the ffvfw thread here in the xvid forum.

[DJ Bobo]

OK people, I think I got it now. Have you noticed that almost all fansubs have non standard sizes? Wouldn't that mean those people don't use 2-pass at all?! I mean you see 150, 190, 210MB, but less 175 or 233MB sizes. Common point: all heavily filtered.
Well, thinking about the Wolf Rain screenshots, I just made a test, with Smart Smoother full throttle (11/200) and Temporal Smoother on 5 (I think more is barely possible without causing motion blur). You get a typical fansub picture (like that of Naruto :p) and you get 33% compressiblity gain! 33%! Thinking that most fansub groups become already compressed files, and recompress them again (compressed files are more compressible than original ones), that they are captured from TV or VHS (lower crispness than DVD), this makes sense to have 640x480, low size and "perfect" picture ;)
Even with 2-pass, when they're trying to aim to a given size, they choose a size that is the closest to saturation.
So this may backup the theory of shamballa a bit :D

BTW, mf, the problem was never high motion scenes, but low motion ones, because high motion look good most of the time will all codecs (I would even say NanDub has here a disadvantage as it tends to produce macroblocks more than XviD and DivX5)

So, prefering videos with more details (SS *KILLS* the picture), I would rather resize down and keep high file size :p

[digitize]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
So, prefering videos with more details (SS *KILLS* the picture), I would rather resize down and keep high file size :p


Well why the hell wouldn't sshiq kill the picture with high settings??!?!?!!? You gotta learn how to moderate the filter use in order to keep detail....

And NO most fansub groups don't use 1 pass, heh if any..... Just because their files sizes aren't exactly at 175mb etc.... doesn't mean they only use one pass. They aim for a certain file size and depending on the setting they have and the nature of the video the file size drops or raises..

[Schlumpf]

One question popped up in my head while reading this thread: How can you distinguish between the codec's and the filters' benefits?
I mean: Not all filters work that obvious like temporal or spatial smoothers.
Take my 2 favourite filters for example:
DUP copies duplicated frames and thus works extremely well on anime sources, if you tweak the threshold right. Is somebody able to recognize if this filter is used in an encode? I doubt it.
Or Tom's DCTFilter. With a parameter like (1,1,1,1,1,0.5,0,0) , I almost can't distinguish the output from the input but have a nice gain in compressibility.

That said, you should be careful with conclusions derived from watching fansubs, unless you find an encoder that is willing to share his methods (Does such a person even exist? ;) )

[DJ Bobo]

@ digitize
SS hq kills too, but not as much as the normal ss
And how would you explain that they get less size than aimed if they havn't overfiltered the video?! bring me *ANY* anime episode from DVD, and get it through DivX3 @ 6000kbps without any kind of filtering with 640x480 resolution and see how much size you get!! reasonable filtering nevers gives you more than 10% compressibility gain!

[EDIT]
@ Schlumpf
That would also explain things ;)

[mf]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
OK people, I think I got it now. Have you noticed that almost all fansubs have non standard sizes? Wouldn't that mean those people don't use 2-pass at all?! I mean you see 150, 190, 210MB, but less 175 or 233MB sizes. Common point: all heavily filtered.
Well, thinking about the Wolf Rain screenshots, I just made a test, with Smart Smoother full throttle (11/200) and Temporal Smoother on 5 (I think more is barely possible without causing motion blur). You get a typical fansub picture (like that of Naruto :p) and you get 33% compressiblity gain! 33%!

What? Are you a complete moron ? Smart smoother full throttle?!
First, you should use Smart Smoother HiQuality or eDeen, Smart Smoother is simply outclassed by now. Second, Temporal Smoother ALWAYS causes motion blurring (ghosting), it's a major NO to use that filter. You probably screwed up your video as far as backgrounds not being more than a few colored blobs.

Thinking that most fansub groups become already compressed files, and recompress them again (compressed files are more compressible than original ones), that they are captured from TV or VHS (lower crispness than DVD), this makes sense to have 640x480, low size and "perfect" picture ;)

Nobody captures from VHS. And TV caps can also be very sharp (look at wolf's rain), and then there's also the fact that there are HDTV (1152x864px, YES i'm serious) broadcasts which are much higher quality even than DVD.

Even with 2-pass, when they're trying to aim to a given size, they choose a size that is the closest to saturation.

Bullsh*t theory.

BTW, mf, the problem was never high motion scenes, but low motion ones, because high motion look good most of the time will all codecs (I would even say NanDub has here a disadvantage as it tends to produce macroblocks more than XviD and DivX5)

You saw my low motion screenshots as well, why haven't you commented on those ?

So, prefering videos with more details (SS *KILLS* the picture), I would rather resize down and keep high file size :p
DUH, WTF would you think you'd keep ANY detail with Smart Smoother at MAX strength ?! To me it shows a certain lack of intelligence to do such a thing. And another thing: I don't filter for compressibility (heck, my filtering LOWERS compressibility), but to get rid of the artifacts of the original raw, and to sharpen the image if it's an anolog TV capture.

[digitize]

@DJ BoBo
You ever think about the nature of the video?!?! Depending on the texture, color (like if it's generally dark), or if there is just little action it compresses extremely well. And even if you aim for a high file size you may come out with a huge compressibility gain b/c each frame gets basically maxed out and the bitrate cannot get higher..

[DJ Bobo]

@ mf
You're getting nervous aren't you?! baaaaaaka! :devil:
And I lack now of intelligence just because you loose your nerves and don't take the time to read my posts properly (or may be slowly? :rolleyes: )
I don't even use SS or SS HiQ at all in my rips, because they just kill details (both). I *tested* full throttle because your *low motion* screenshots seemed filtered full throttle, and I wanted to have an approach ;)
TS *doesn't* cause motion blur as long as it is used lightly. That's also the only filter I use for my rips. Most of the time with 1 or 2 strength. With Motion blur, I mean you see a ghost from the previous frame in the present frame, like when you use really the motion blur filter of VD.
TV caps can't be sharp like DVD because broadcast resolution is estimated at 352x480. DVB is a bit sharper (480x480? so lower than DVD) but from what I'm seeing, *very few* are taken from DVB, like Saint Seiya Hades for instance.
HDTV is even less used and I don't know any anime series being broadcasted on HDTV or any group becoming raws in real HDTV quality, they mostly get through usual capture cards or even through VHS or S-VHS.
When you think, you're seeing a sharper picture than usual, it's very easy to explain: when you push SS a bit, you'll see the drawing lines becoming aliased more and more. That gives a sharper effect to the picture.

Somebody tells me now who's the complete moron? :D

@ digitize
I'm totally aware of that. For example, Blood compresses extremely well, because it's quite dark. Talking about your average (colorful) anime, don't try to convince me that it has good compressibility, I'm dealing with tons of them, and not a single one got saturated at lower sizes. Not because it looks simple, it will compress good. Anime are truely the less compressible videos there is.

[mf]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ mf
You're getting nervous aren't you?! baaaaaaka! :devil:
And I lack now of intelligence just because you loose your nerves and don't take the time to read my posts properly (or may be slowly? :rolleyes: )
I don't even use SS or SS HiQ at all in my rips, because they just kill details (both). I *tested* full throttle because your *low motion* screenshots seemed filtered full throttle, and I wanted to have an approach ;)

Ahou. I'm not getting nervous, and I haven't filtered at full strength. That wolf's rain encode was filtered with sshiq at 10 threshold with 50 strength, and the raw already contained some smart smoothing. It was pretty hard to filter out most of the artifacts from the raw while keeping all details, and I had to make a concession.

TS *doesn't* cause motion blur as long as it is used lightly. That's also the only filter I use for my rips. Most of the time with 1 or 2 strength. With Motion blur, I mean you see a ghost from the previous frame in the present frame, like when you use really the motion blur filter of VD.

TS ALWAYS causes ghosting, at small strengths you just don't see it.

TV caps can't be sharp like DVD because broadcast resolution is estimated at 352x480. DVB is a bit sharper (480x480? so lower than DVD) but from what I'm seeing, *very few* are taken from DVB, like Saint Seiya Hades for instance.
HDTV is even less used and I don't know any anime series being broadcasted on HDTV or any group becoming raws in real HDTV quality, they mostly get through usual capture cards or even through VHS or S-VHS.
When you think, you're seeing a sharper picture than usual, it's very easy to explain: when you push SS a bit, you'll see the drawing lines becoming aliased more and more. That gives a sharper effect to the picture.

Afaik there isn't even DVB broadcast in Japan. In any case almost ALL major channels that broadcast anime are also available on HDTV, and YES those raws are available, just very hard to find. I'd love to get my hands on a bitstream-copied raw @ 1152x864, and show the world what anime should *really* look like :p.

Somebody tells me now who's the complete moron? :D

Yes, you are. You've proven it multiple times in this thread.

[DJ Bobo]

@ mf
That Ahou pleases me *lol* (Saito Hajime is one of my fav. characters, I think you know what I'm talking about ;))
Well, your filtering was (yappari) quite high, I mean 10 threshold is really high! what I would consider as reasonable is 3 :eek:
So your filtering (oh well, the result of it) was almost (comparable to) full throttle after all, considering that it was already filtered, see? ;)
Again, considering that you've become an already compressed file, it is even more compressible than usual, see? ;)

AFAIK Saint Seiya Hades is broadcasted on DVB on Sky channel in Japan, and I've seen many sites talking about "having original DVB stream of it" ;)
Have no idea about HDTV channels in Japan. We share at least the same wish :D

And I think we should keep that "moron" thing aside, nobody of us is an idiot, you got nervous, that's why you talked bullshit sometimes :D

Anyway, at least I've finally realised the truth. You know that (wanna be) samurai that admired the ultimate swordsmanship of another samurai killing 3 people on a dark night, kept improving his skills seeking that ultimate swordsmanship, until the day came, when he killed that one samurai he once admired, to finally realize what he saw that night was only an illusion his mind made up for him? ;)

[mf]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ mf
That Ahou pleases me *lol* (Saito Hajime is one of my fav. characters, I think you know what I'm talking about ;))
Well, your filtering was (yappari) quite high, I mean 10 threshold is really high! what I would consider as reasonable is 3 :eek:
So your filtering (oh well, the result of it) was almost (comparable to) full throttle after all, considering that it was already filtered, see? ;)
Again, considering that you've become an already compressed file, it is even more compressible than usual, see? ;)

10 treshold is about as low as you can go, as 200 is the maximum for sshiq. As I said before, my filtering heavily reduced compressibility, as I've sharpened it quite a bit.

AFAIK Saint Seiya Hades is broadcasted on DVB on Sky channel in Japan, and I've seen many sites talking about "having original DVB stream of it" ;)
Have no idea about HDTV channels in Japan. We share at least the same wish :D

In any case DVB sucks, 480x480 is an insane resolution.

And I think we should keep that "moron" thing aside, nobody of us is an idiot, you got nervous, that's why you talked bullshit sometimes :D

a) I didn't get nervous (2nd time).
b) I didn't talk bullshit. I know better what I'm talking about than you, I'm backed by part of the XviD team (the part that is on IRC anyway), and by 3 very experienced anime encoders (well I only know for sure about digitize but G-Dragon and AllTimeStoneD would probably also agree with most of my views :D), while you have only yourself.

Anyway, at least I've finally realised the truth. You know that (wanna be) samurai that admired the ultimate swordsmanship of another samurai killing 3 people on a dark night, kept improving his skills seeking that ultimate swordsmanship, until the day came, when he killed that one samurai he once admired, to finally realize what he saw that night was only an illusion his mind made up for him? ;)
I guess I'm the ultimate anime encoding kenkaku then, as I encode in XviD armed with the ultimate sharpening technology, things that most anime encoders would dream of doing (but are not allowed by their fellow fansub members who force them to use divx3) :D.

[ssjkakaroto]

mf besides SS did you use any other filter on wolfs rain?

[mf]

Originally posted by ssjkakaroto
mf besides SS did you use any other filter on wolfs rain?
sshiq
crop
supersampled xsharpen
cartoon filter
warp sharp

[RadicalEd]

xvid divx what I use RV9 OMGWTF

;P

well on the original topic, there are other reasons which weren't mentioned relating to why people prefer XviD over SBC. Theres the issue of DivX 3.11 being an illegal hack of microsoft's (crap) partial-mpeg 4 codecs, theres the issue of DivX 3.11 not being compliant (tom says this compliance can be fixed, but last I heard of it the details were sketchier than originally thought). Theres the issue of DivX 3.11 being old. Then when you consider XviD, its a completely open source legal and compliant mpeg 4 implementation, constantly being updated and refined for the better. Taking the varying reports on which is better quality wise into consideration, and not getting any solid answer, people are likely to turn to details like this to choose what tickles their fancy.

Another thing to consider is encoding technics. Unless you're lucky enough to get a better quality encode with the default or near-default settings in Nandub, you're going to do a shitload of tweaking, especially to juice out the 'best'. XviD isn't nearly as hard to get a solid encode out of. The same argument can be used for DivX 5 vs XviD, on a less severe level. Most people find XviD a good medium between enough control and too many settings.

Then finally there's the potential quality. Taking the other subjects into consideration, most find that XviD and DivX are equal enough to divert their attention to the other said matters. Not to mention the already mentioned issues of DivX 3, the motion trails, the shit frames, those weird mini gradient-in-a-block artifacts that pop up in animated encodes every so often, none of which plague XviD and the like.

There's no clear answer, but it comes down to how the above factors affect the encoder and perhaps even relies on personality a bit.
Thats my 5 cents :\


oh I forgot. Quick comparison between major codecs I did one day to try out 5.03 (http://digitalinsanity.ath.cx/~tab/divxtest/tableCompare.html). The source isn't DVD so it isnt exactly the perfect test, but it still shows off the goods and bads of the latest codecs :\
All were encoded at ~ 1mbps
The click comparison test is a better method for seeing the results. Thought this might be of some use considering the thread topic :\
note - I also consistently spelled 3ivX wrong 3vix.. 3xvixivskvisnwknm whatever, same thing :\

[emmdeeell]

DJ Bobo and Angrychair represent nearly everything I hate about fansubbers. The only person we need in order for this thread to degenerate completely into a giant cockslapping ego-fest is Killshok.

mf wins the thread because he actually knows what he's talking about. :/

[Defiler]

Originally posted by emmdeeell
DJ Bobo and Angrychair represent nearly everything I hate about fansubbers.Replace that with digisubbers, and you've got total agreement from me.

[digitize]

Hehe I do not think they are fansubbers, or at least I hope not =P. I myself am, and yeah those are the people that kinda piss you off.

@emmdeeell
Lmao, yeah etg fansubbers utterlly (sp?) hate killshok, but he's also a good source of entertainment, or any member of aj for that matter.

btw I used to be a former e-f member, i've been with various groups such as keep (ugh), aoi, e-f, a-e, etc... yeah i get around ^_^.