Is it me... or is it the same location where the Bara no nai Hanaya cafe was?

Where is this anyways, with regards to your first picture post?

silly-thing wrote:

Some pictures i found~~

Cool... Life-sized stand-ups.

deseipher wrote:

Nah, my plan is to simply provide the RAWs since the video quality is better and there are people out there who prefer a RAW/softsub combination since it'd allow them to edit for grammar or contextual errors and/or hardsub in their own particular way if they choose to do so. I believe 'racer is taking that route. I don't have any plans to hardsub, but I don't have a desire to download the SARS or JTV versions. I just hate extra text on screen or the occassional too-colorful sub that distracts from watching a show.

Download of Episode 1 completed sometime in the wee hours this morning...

Bring on Episode 2!

bmwracer wrote:

Download of Episode 1 completed sometime in the wee hours this morning... Bring on Episode 2!

What do you think of the video quality?

Started seeding Episode 2. According to the stats on d-addicts I'm the only seeder, and the three peers have nothing, so chances are this one will take a while longer.

Still seeding Episode 1 as well for those still downloading. I see 5 seeders at the moment, so I may stop seeding in a little bit.

deseipher wrote:

What do you think of the video quality?

I haven't looked at it yet... I was on my way out the door and just checked to see if the download had completed...

I'll report back tonight.

Quote:

Still seeding Episode 1 as well for those still downloading. I see 5 seeders at the moment, so I may stop seeding in a little bit.

I'm still on at home, so I'm probably one of the seeders.

bmwracer wrote:

I'm still on at home, so I'm probably one of the seeders.

Good to know I decided to go ahead and stop seeding Episode 1 for the time being, so all the uploading is now for Episode 2.

Since I don't have the original Chinese subs, I'm listed as a peer at 99.9% and since no one has the subs at the moment, I'll be stuck as a peer. So as long as you see one peer at 99.9% you should be ok

deseipher wrote:

Good to know I decided to go ahead and stop seeding Episode 1 for the time being, so all the uploading is now for Episode 2. Since I don't have the original Chinese subs, I'm listed as a peer at 99.9% and since no one has the subs at the moment, I'll be stuck as a peer. So as long as you see one peer at 99.9% you should be ok

Yeah, I'm seeding ep1 too.. send out a link to ep.2 when you get a chance
_________________

"Actually, I don't have bones. I'm supported
by a system of fluid-filled bladders"

phlargo wrote:

Yeah, I'm seeding ep1 too.. send out a link to ep.2 when you get a chance

Why, that's a splendid idea! It might help if I provided a link Thanks for the heads up.

http://d-addicts.net/torrents/nodame_cantabile_ep02_1280x720_divx6_chinese_subbed.torrent

deseipher wrote:

Good to know I decided to go ahead and stop seeding Episode 1 for the time being, so all the uploading is now for Episode 2.

I stopped my seeding on Episode 1 to allow more down time for Last Friends... I'll reseed if need be.

deseipher wrote:

What do you think of the video quality?

The raw you posted is definitely and absolutely better: it's clear and sharp at the full 1280x720 resolution... And judging from the advertisers' plugs, it's from the original HD broadcast.

The JTV 1280x720 is most likely an upscale and/or upconvert of the DVD-release for various reasons: it doesn't have the commercial plugs, the opening of Chiaki's dream sequence in Nodame's apartment lacks the music found in the HD broadcast (thtl noted that a ways back), and the image is grainy and lacks the sharpness of the HD broadcast...

That's odd that they would upconvert the DVD release rather than use the HD broadcast as the source...

By choosing the DVD as the source, they probably had to to TWO encodings, which clearly degraded the image: the first one to convert the MPEG2 to XViD/DivX and a second one to hardsub the subtitles into the video...

If quality settings during the encode were at the highest setting, there wouldn't be very much degradation, but to keep file sizes reasonable for upload/download, I'm sure the quality parameters were backed off.

As an experiment, I'm going to hardsub the HD raw to compare against the original source and the JTV "HD" version...

Dang, I have too much spare time on my hands, apparently.

bmwracer wrote:

The raw you posted is definitely and absolutely better: it's clear and sharp at the full 1280x720 resolution... And judging from the advertisers' plugs, it's from the original HD broadcast. The JTV 1280x720 is most likely an upscale and/or upconvert of the DVD-release for various reasons: it doesn't have the commercial plugs, the opening of Chiaki's dream sequence in Nodame's apartment lacks the music found in the HD broadcast (thtl noted that a ways back), and the image is grainy and lacks the sharpness of the HD broadcast... That's odd that they would upconvert the DVD release rather than use the HD broadcast as the source... By choosing the DVD as the source, they probably had to to TWO encodings, which clearly degraded the image: the first one to convert the MPEG2 to XViD/DivX and a second one to hardsub the subtitles into the video... If quality settings during the encode were at the highest setting, there wouldn't be very much degradation, but to keep file sizes reasonable for upload/download, I'm sure the quality parameters were backed off. As an experiment, I'm going to hardsub the HD raw to compare against the original source and the JTV "HD" version... Dang, I have too much spare time on my hands, apparently.

Yeah, the JTV was encoded using the DVDs as their source. I remember reading about the discussion about it over at D-Addicts. One of the JTV members kept insisting that the quality was good for that resolution. I find it strange really, that they would bother to convert it to 720p in the first place. It's not like media players we use on our computers can't upscale if need be. I would take a higher quality encoding at DVD resolutions over what they put out.

I'd like to see how your hardsub version compares to JTV's and the DVD for that matter.

Man there are some very technical speak here...... lost me

well but it's all for the good of getting more high quality Nodame out there

heyman wrote:

Man there are some very technical speak here...... lost me well but it's all for the good of getting more high quality Nodame out there

Nah, nothing technical really. We're just two guys who just want nice quality videos, especially if they have anything to do with Juri-chan or Nodame

Honestly, when it comes down to it, I have no reason to bash JTV over their encoding. They, like any other subbing groups, take the time to sub these dramas so the rest of us can understand whether or not Gyabo actually meant anything in Japanese, among many things. For that I appreciate it. It's awful hard to enjoy a show when you don't know what the heck is going on. If they hadn't been so defensive about it when a few people inquired about the encoding quality I wouldn't have bothered really. But to say that the encoding is good quality when it clearly isn't just doesn't sit well with me.

deseipher wrote:

Yeah, the JTV was encoded using the DVDs as their source. I remember reading about the discussion about it over at D-Addicts. One of the JTV members kept insisting that the quality was good for that resolution. I find it strange really, that they would bother to convert it to 720p in the first place. It's not like media players we use on our computers can't upscale if need be. I would take a higher quality encoding at DVD resolutions over what they put out.

Yeah, it was odd of them to do it aside from bragging rights.

Quote:

I'd like to see how your hardsub version compares to JTV's and the DVD for that matter.

I started my hardsub, but realized it'll take five hours and be around 5GB(!) at the max XViD quality setting (Q=1, single pass)...

I'll run it overnight and post unprocessed (Photoshop) caps for comparison.

bmwracer wrote:

I started my hardsub, but realized it'll take five hours and be around 5GB(!) at the max XViD quality setting (Q=1, single pass)... I'll run it overnight and post unprocessed (Photoshop) caps for comparison.

Thanks, I'd really like to see how it turns out.

deseipher wrote:

Thanks, I'd really like to see how it turns out.

Will do.

bmwracer wrote:

Will do.

5 GB sounds a bit overkill for a single episode.. you can't even fit it on a DVD. You should be able to get very serviceable compression down to around 1 gb if you use the right codecs and compression options in mpeg4.. look at h.264 or VC1 options - they may help you cut it down more.
_________________

"Actually, I don't have bones. I'm supported
by a system of fluid-filled bladders"

phlargo wrote:

5 GB sounds a bit overkill for a single episode.. you can't even fit it on a DVD.

Not a single-layer one.....

Quote:

You should be able to get very serviceable compression down to around 1 gb if you use the right codecs and compression options in mpeg4.. look at h.264 or VC1 options - they may help you cut it down more.

I think that's what the folks at JTV sorta did... And you saw the results.

I took a look at what I did encode using the xViD encoder and even at the Q=1 setting (highest quality), I could see some macroblocking in some of the dimly lit scenes... I'll bet the DivX encoder will have the same problem.

bmwracer wrote:

I think that's what the folks at JTV sorta did... And you saw the results. I took a look at what I did encode using the xViD encoder and even at the Q=1 setting (highest quality), I could see some macroblocking in some of the dimly lit scenes... I'll bet the DivX encoder will have the same problem.

Well of course you're bound to get some compression artifacts in dim scenes.. you're already compressing it so much. I think there is a cost-reward analysis that needs to be done. I think you'll find vastly diminishing returns in that last bit of space. I'll also tell you - people don't like to get 5 gig files for a single episode (speaking as someone who has 5-6 terabytes work of backup dvds)

Also, arguably, there is a big difference in what JTV did - they are upscaling. That creates little expansion artifacts on non-horizontal/vertical bounds called aliasing (the jaggies). No matter how you deal with it, it's not going to look as good as a higher native resolution work - even effective anti-aliasing will make the images look too soft. The challenge is in figuring out where artifacts are okay to leave in. Take a look at the encodes of Lost or Heroes - they adopt a pretty near ideal balance, even if it comes at a cost.

If you figure the raw video stream is probably like 75 gigs or something (given 8 bit color (it's probably more like 8 bit per channel in the hd version) and 30fps), you're cutting out an incredible amount of data either way.

Part 10 mpeg4 encoding has additional features to increase compression quality without dramatically increasing the space requirements. This comes as the cost of increased processor requirements (many of which are now offloaded to your video card or a specialized instruction set on your CPU). Xvid (non AVC) is limited to the h.263 specifications for compression (to the best of my knowledge) and divx is also somewhat outdated.

Here's a section from the wikipedia entry for DivX that may offer some suggestions for effective encoding:

"Since the standardization of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, a new generation of codecs has arisen, such as x264 and Nero AG's Nero Digital AVC codec. Despite being at a relatively early stage of development, these codecs out-performed DivX in Doom9's 2005 quality test, thanks to the more advanced features of MPEG-4 Part 10. Part 10's advanced features come at a cost: AVC decoding is two to three times more CPU intensive compared to MPEG-4 ASP; lightweight algorithms used in faster modes of DivX (or Xvid) codec allow one to achieve reasonable quality in a small fraction of time required to take advantage of all features of AVC. It remains to be seen whether DivX will release a new codec based on the newer specification, like the Xvid team did with their Xvid AVC codec (not yet released to the public)."
_________________

"Actually, I don't have bones. I'm supported
by a system of fluid-filled bladders"