What the hell happened to just watching anime? Who cares how the audio was encoded? Does anyone actually stop during watching an episode and say "You know, if only the audio was encoded in FLAC instead of AAC at 32o kbps, my experiance of this anime would be grately enhanced". Why does is matter if it has ordered chapters or not. So what if it does? It's not like you watch the freaking OP/ED every single episode. So what if it doesn't? It's not like 100MB per episode is going to kill your HDD. Yeah, video is something you can complain about. If it's blocky, it it has severe banding, if it's in a low resolution or upscale it takes away from the viewing experience because you can pitpoint exactly what's wrong instantly. But the other stuff?
I'm a sucker too. So what if it doesn't have chapters? Yeah, it's kind of stupid, but it's not like I'll die if I watch the OP too, or skip manually. And why the fuck am I releasing anime with two versions of the same audio track? It's STUPID, and I won't do it every again. I'll upload a FLAC version on MU for those truly obsessed, but having the same audio twice in the file is stupid IMO. Also, just because 10bit encoding & decoding is now possible does not mean you need to request every single anime ever released in 8bit to be re-released in 10bit. You can still watch the 8bit anime, you know. You've been watching it for years, it's not going to kill you. Sure, newer stuff should be encoded in the better format, and maybe even some classics, but I've seen people asking "Are you going to re-release this in 10bit" all over. It's like all of a sudden, every 8 bit release is now invalid. What are you going to do? Not watch anything older then 1 year? And on that note, you don't actually expect me to believe that you're going to stop the video and say "Hey, this scene has banding". If you can do that, then clearly you're not paying much attention to the anime. And another thing: why the almost univeral vocal hate of vobsubs? What's wrong with them? Is it because they are yellow? I've seen people preffering the unstyled .srt for shows with MANY sings. In .srt, those cannot pe placed well, and end up messing up the lines. And people STILL want those instead on the DVD subtitle.
This rant was brought to you by the "It's 3 AM and I can't sleep" fundation.
After spending 3 days listening to every audio test I can find, I came to the conclusion that I can't tell the difference between FLAC 16bit and AAC 320 kpbs. Used different speakers, HQ headphones... still nothing. So screw it, if I can't tell the difference, why am I releasing in dual-audio? Hell, I watched this in TV rips and I didn't complain. I'm trying my best to stop with this perfectionist crap, it's taking too much time and effort, and most don't care.
I was going to suggest putting the version of audio you didn't end up liking on a secondary download, but I didn't want to be that douchebag that bugged you with shit like that. Just keep releasing good shows and IDC what you do as long as it's not 240p rmvb files.
ReplyDeleteWhy complain about chapters when it's really fucking easy to make them?
ReplyDeleteAll I care is if there's a working 720p with accurate subs.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about 8/10bit, I can't even tell the difference, don't care about chapters, don't notice the difference between AAC and flac... none of that perfectionist crap concerns me one bit.
I do hate vobsubs though. They're usually a big ugly mess. Small styled subs are much less distracting.
ACC is smaller then flac. no one can hear the difference from flac and ACC. the poll is stupid and pointless. dont waste your time with releasing flac on MU.
ReplyDeleteOrdered or not, they never bothered me.
ReplyDeleteLike many others, I can't tell the difference between FLAC and AAC neither, but if I had to choose, I prefer FLAC since knowing it has slightly better quality makes me FEEL better, lol.
Quality is my biggest concern. I'd be happy if things were re-released in 10bit, but I'm not gonna ask for it since I probably won't even rewatch it. As long as it's not below 720, I'll live with it. 10bit is like a bonus to me.
Now Vobsubs. Oh god I hate them. There's plenty wrong with them. I will admit, it's clearer than most subs. But it's too clear. Bulky. Annoying. Example: Webrip from ANN of Maria Holic Alive. I was dying, but I had to settle for it.
Was enjoyable to read and reply to your rant, haha.
I like to use the winamp audio enhancer filters because that really make difference on the quality of the audio BUT I can only use this with things that is not FLAC because I need to use this filter through FFDshow audio decoder and as you know FLAC is problematic on FFDshow because if the video have ordered chapters the FFDshow give an error that fuck the synchronism with the video.
ReplyDeleteSoo if I see that an release have FLAC I just say FUCK YOU Im not gonna download this crap because it give me problems.
Really I cant feel any difference between FLAC and AAC soo its stupid to use FLAC because it use a fucking high amount of bitrate for something that the human ears cant tell the difference.
As for H264 I think 10 bit encode is really ONLY usefull with Anime that have most of the time dark picture because only on darkness you can really see high amount of banding.
The only things I cant stand anymore is 4:3 screen size and XVID AVI. My LCD LED and my EYES will cry if I watch shit like this.
I never skip the OP or ED!
ReplyDeleteAs for the Vobsubs:
People don't like them because they don't scale well to higher resolutions/look shit at them. I have my standard font set as yellow with a nice thick, black outline. So even if it's unstyled srt subs, they look better better because hey are the same resolution as the video.
LOL at the guy that won't download because of FLAC.
Demux, transcode, remux!
If you reencode the FLAC to another codec and remux it back on the file the code of the file will be changed and the ordered chapters will stop working soo that guy complaining about FLAC cant reencode the audio.
ReplyDeleteThe ordered chapters need the original code of the MKV soo if you remux the MKV this code change and you have to edit every ordered chapter OP ED to that new code.
Its a pain in the ass to remake those ordered chapters files just because you remuxed an episode.
Forgot to mention that the audio codec have to be the same on the OP file, ED file and Episode file or the ordered chapters will give an error.
ReplyDeleteSoo if you reencode the audio of the episode you also have to reencode the audio of the OP and ED files.
Reencoding the audio will destroy the entire ordered chapters config.
Its not simple to remake the ordered chapters soo you cant reencode the audio or you will destroy everything.
Eh, maybe I'm a perfectionist but some of these things do bug me, like banding. If you have ever watched the Crunchyroll/HorribleSubs releases of Steins;Gate, the banding gets so bad at times that it is distracting.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to audio, I prefer FLAC or the core AC3/DTS tracks to AAC or Vorbis. Sure when AAC and Vorbis are done correctly they sound fine, but I've seen people fuck them up bad. The worst offenders are R1 DVD/Blu-ray rippers. So many groups do normalization and make the audio unnaturally loud. It's not something you can notice on laptop speakers but if you have a decent sound system it just sucks.
Example: http://www.mediafire.com/?6tzk3uf9gpugxhc
You can use MKVMerge's header editor to change the re-encoded OP/ED's Segment UIDs to the original ones. No need for mucking with the chapters.
ReplyDeleteVOBSUBs are an abomination because their low resolution text are a visual distraction. It's a blunt contrast to higher resolution video and filtering like alpha blending is not supported by DirectVobSub. Not that it'd improve those unsightly things much.
ReplyDeleteSoftsubs are the way everything should be released, but not with some elaborate font, just a simple font like NeoSansIntel.
As for FLAC, I'd rather have DTS personally. All of my systems convert audio to AC3 and support pass-through DTS. So those 3MB FLAC audio streams are being filtered down to 640kbps, and those 1.5MB DTS streams are being untouched.
And AAC/Vorbis...good enough for DVDrips, since DVD audio always has a low bitrate.
Well, concerning FLAC and AAC...
ReplyDeleteFlAC=Losless
AAC=Lossy.
While there is barely a noticeable audio difference between the 2. I have to note to you that reencoding the Lossless one to a different audio-format will give way less Quality loss than reencoding a Lossy.
Finally I would also like to say, that whilst I can't hear the audio difference between FLAC and AAC at the same kpbs.I can in fact hear a great Q-difference in the AC3 audio at the same kpbs compared to the other two. AC3 always seems to lack some dB,because of it I have to always turn up the volume when AC3 is used in video :/
I don't plan on using AC3 that much. The only reason I'm using it for Enma-kun us because there is something wrong with either my PC or the BD that won't let me encode the audio to AAC. It always produces a blank audio.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most, but vobsubs.
ReplyDeleteThey suck balls.
These are the comments from the deleted post. I merged the two.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
Thanks.
And of course you can't tell the difference. You are just a human after all.
Just because some illiterate idiots think FLAC is better because, "Hey, it's lossless, it MUST BE better, right?", doesn't mean it's true.
Why do you think scientists spend time and money into researching complex encoding algorithms?
Anyway, sorry for ranting, thanks for the release and also thanks for not jumping on that stupid FLAC bandwagon.
September 3, 2011 2:34 AM
Anonymous said...
I am with u in this choice of AC3.Thank you
September 3, 2011 3:31 AM
Spinarakk said...
Good decision.
I also can't tell the bloody difference between FLAC and AAC, though I do have very crap speakers lol.
I consider myself somewhat of an OCD when it comes to things, but when it comes to anime, I have to compromise living in Australia and FLAC is definitely a waste of space when AAC is like half the size.
September 3, 2011 7:43 AM
Anonymous said...
thank you for no flac.
September 3, 2011 10:46 AM
Anonymous said...
wait... why 10bit for both? That makes no sense. you want best quality, you get 1080p. now I can't watch either :/
September 3, 2011 11:52 AM
Paz said...
Trust me, nobody can hear the difference.
I've got these speakers:
http://www.audioemporium.com/bwxtseries.htm
and these headphones:
http://www.gradolabs.com/page_headphones.php?item=fa25fd0be6abcd040b8093b9915a2126
And I definitely can't tell the difference.
September 3, 2011 11:56 AM
DmonHiro said...
The first one's were 10bit too. I didn't reecode them. Like I said, I can tell the difference between 8bit and 10bit, especially for Enma-kun, where everything happenes at night, so the scenes are dark.
September 3, 2011 12:08 PM
just curious...
ReplyDeletewhat aac encoder did you use?
nero? mainconcept? quicktime? maybe another one?
neroaacenc
ReplyDeleteYou can tell the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit??? I understand that 10-bit gives more freemdom to cheat and lower the quality/birate of the video without resorting to banding, but since the source is 8-bit to begin with..... Meh.
ReplyDeleteOf course I can tell the difference between 10bit and 8bit. 10bit has WAY less banding on dark colors.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see someone else standing up against FLACebo audio.
ReplyDelete@ Anon 9-2 8:41
I totally see where you're coming from; the only thing I can't stand to watch anymore is 16:9 screen size. My CRT TV&monitor and my EYES will cry if I watch shit like that. Those black bars of neutral nothingness are nothing short of visual murder.
I used to be a staunch defender of vobsubs, but after seeing some DVDs played on a new HD projector at my local anime club, I can see where the haters are coming from. At higher display resolutions, the designed-for-1997-CRT-TVs imagesubs do suffer from flaws like aliasing, pixellation, and cross-coloration. I still believe that people's complaints about things like vobsubs' colors/fonts are subjective bullshit, as fansubs used to use those styles prior to 2003. Nobody got eyecancer from *those*, afaik.
But while I'm perfectly fine with watching vobsubs on DVDs/rips myself, I wouldn't use them in my releases, unless it was a walls-of-text show that would require >9000 hours to OCR and typeset. Aside from the aliasing issues, using vobsubs means being stuck with other flaws of R1 subs like subpar positioning (except ADV/Nozomi/AnimEigo DVDs), mediocre timing, and any errors in the actual subs that slipped by the professionals.
But if you feel that vobsubs are the best and most time-efficient way to get a release out the door, by all means use them. Let people do their own OCR work if they feel that strongly about it.
"Softsubs are the way everything should be released"
--Umm, vobsubs *are* softsubs, unless they've been hard-coded into the video such that they can't be turned off... which would make them hardsubs.
Your right about vobsubs being softsofts, but your being facetious Zalis and you know it! I've followed your defence of vobs for years!
ReplyDeleteThe point of yellow subs and subjectivity; I suppose you are right but few people introduced with .ass (or equiv) styled subs would look kindly to yellow non-bordered subs. I can only assume you love them due to nostalgia.
Anyway, just stating opinions, I think your awesome Zalis.
To be fair, not all vosubs are created the same. Some are horrendous, thin, hard to read, placed too high. Some are weird colors, like red with green borders.
ReplyDeleteIn SRT you can use {\a6} command which serves the purpose of putting the subtitles on top of the screen.
ReplyDeleteDH> To be fair, not all vosubs are created the same. Some are horrendous, thin, hard to read, placed too high. Some are weird colors, like red with green borders.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently working thru the AM version of Ranma 1/2 and those vobs are killing me. I wish I wasn't so lazy, I'd subrip them.
The whole thing about higher quality video and audio codecs was a result of the evolution of fansubs. Those who only know of widescreen monitors and televisions expect high definition everything. There are always the home theater nuts and audio/video snobs as well. Viewers these days don't get how spoiled they are getting to watch a show subtitled within hours of it's release, or even just a few days or maybe weeks. Only the old farts can appreciate the difference compared to grainy VHS copies of shows they had been waiting to see for years, and having to read each line from a printed script to understand the dialogue.
ReplyDeleteEver since the .mkv container gained traction, there has never been a standard for formats or codecs in fansubs. Luckily there were only a few that saw common use, so it was (and still is) possible to play back most anything with proper codecs (and now just with MPC-HC). Hi10P is just the evolution of that, too. Fansubs were on the cutting edge when H.264 wasn't popular at all, but stuff sure got encoded in it like crazy and eventually it was almost standard.
You're the one doing the work, so you can encode in whatever you like. There are plenty of re-encoders out there, so if you release something in one codec and enough people want something else, you can count on it showing up somewhere.
Besides, the "dual audio" thing is kind of confusing, since that usually means there's one track in English, the other in Japanese. Makes sense on a commercial BD/DVD, sure. Those with fancy home theaters would probably appreciate keeping whatever DD/DTS 5.1/7.1 track there is intact, but otherwise if it's just stereo audio, 320kbps is good stuff.
tl;dr: Just do what floats your boat. There will always be people that want something else. You can't please everyone, so don't bother trying. Just do stuff the way you want, and the people who download will appreciate them for what they are. Those who have a problem don't need to download.
personally idc how vobsubs look so much but i have noticed in alot of players (MPC) when i switch to a vobsub track the subs disappear after one line, but in VLC that problem is gone, so maybe its just a player or codec issue
ReplyDeleteNot. Not at all. I would even say the opposite. When you watch a really good anime, then you absolutely do not care what kind of sound is there, where there are errors and so on. You are captured.
ReplyDelete