The Videophile

Summer Update: I'm not dead, nor is my rage!

2009-07-14T10:30:00.003-04:00

So, it's been a few months now; that student film I mentioned in April has been long finished, and what a wreck that was...

Anyway, in that time, I've come to a few rage worthy bits in my life since then, and it's about time I mentioned them. Some of them are common knowledge, but I can't help but complain, right? First off:

- iTunes is a bloated piece of shit; I'm currently on Windows 7, so I'm aware of possible incompatibilities, but really Apple, running 32 bit processes concurrently with a supposed 64 bit program? What a joke.

- Speaking of Apple, don't you love it when people use Macs, and then complain about not being able to do something that a Windows user has been able to from the start? I know I do!

- The VDSLRs are making their way, but no one has gotten it right yet. Big fucking surprise when "making it right" would just destroy their pro video sales. Ok, I'm not asking for XLR input, as I understand the body of a DSLR is limited, but seriously guys... Get rid of the god damn audio gain, allow shutter and ISO control (Nikon, you bastards), and cut the half-assed compression (Panasonic, we all know you're bullshitting us with the low bitrate on the GH1)

- Oh lawd, a repackaged consumer cam yet again. The HMC-40 is to the HMC-150, as the DVC-30 was to the DVX-100, except it doesn't suck quite as much. The sensor has been reduced to 1/4.1" 3MOS, and it takes an external XLR adapter for audio input, though it fortunately maintains the native 24p capability, which was lost in the apparent relative to this camera - the Panasonic TS300. The camera actually would be a great deal if it had a couple of hundred bucks shaved off. B&H has the camera listed at $2995, which is plain stupid considering the HMC-150 is about $3200 if you look around. Give me the camera for about $2300, and I'm sold.

- Back to Apple: I'm tired of the fans knocking on other products' abilities just because they're not made by Apple. I know several people who discredit Adobe Premiere, often giving a chuckle or concerned look whenever I mention that I edit on it. Yeah, take that as a personal blow, but objectively speaking, why should it fucking matter? These people will be the same person to say that the amount of money you spend doesn't matter if you can produce a good film regardless. Can I edit with and do I love FCP? Yes. Do I want to spend $3000 on a Mac Pro? No. (Don't give me that "buy used" crap; computers aren't cameras, and you can't rely on old tech very long; I can build a cheaper PC myself). Sure, Premiere's workflow is a little less friendly than FCP, but it has come a long way, particularly into CS3 and CS4, and anyone unwilling to admit that is lying to themselves.

- Another Apple whine (I have tons of these): Photoshop does not magically run "better" on OSX. I have not referenced benchmarks, so I'm not going to make a quantitative statement on this, but for pure functionality, Photoshop IS THE SAME ON BOTH PLATFORMS. Stop spewing this shit all over, I'm tired of hearing that "Macs are better for graphics", or that "There is no point in running Photoshop on Windows". The hilarious aspect is this: Most people making those claims can't design for shit. You want to talk about productivity and quality? I'm too lazy to reference this, but go over to CreativeCow and watch a tutorial. You'll see quite a few of the users running Windows-based versions, and creating gorgeous animations, composites, etc.

- And PC lovers, stop calling Apple gay or stupid for no apparent reason. OSX is not a terrible platform at all (though its security is lacking; don't worry Mac users, you'll get more viruses eventually), and has some great applications from the start. To Microsoft's credit, I do believe they would like to integrate more "creativity" programs in Windows, but given the drama over Windows 7 not even including a browser in the EU version, I say the EU can shove it, and let MS just integrate more programs regardless. I'm paying $200 or so for the OS, I want my basics... Anyway, I hate Apple myself, but as a company. Their products are generally good, albeit ridiculously overpriced (don't give me the APPLE QUALITY argument, I have run into just as many problems and crashes with OSX as I have Windows), and the culture they perpetuate is snobbish and idiotic.

I'll see what else I can gather for my rage. I've strayed a bit from video this time...

How To Fuck Up Your Student Film

2009-04-10T21:02:00.003-04:00

It's been ages since my last post, but I felt now was a good time to report my own failures to this blog. Afterall, it's been a goal of mine to outline several experiments (whether they be successful or not...) here, and it's about time I do so. Anyway, I'm in the middle of a student film of mine; post production has already begun and unfortunately, while shooting the thing I realized a couple of errors:

- I shot about 20 mins of footage as interlaced 60i (Of all people to do this, I fuck up of course...)
- After those 20 mins, I switch the camera to a 24p mode (Not 24Pa, stupidly enough)
- After another 10 mins or footage, I realize that I left the camera's 24p mode with 1/24th shutter... So now a good deal of footage ends up with MOTION BLUR EVERYWHERE!

Please, learn this lesson, fellow film students: Always shoot one format, otherwise you'll just give yourself a headache. How so? Well I wanted the whole thing to be 24fps, so I ended up deinterlacing the first 20 minutes, then motion compensating it (AVISynth - MVTools) to 24p. The result is somewhat artifacted, but it's better than having two mismatched framerates...

At this point, I have a separate file for the 20mins of converted footage, while another 10 or so mins remain a somewhat blurry mess.

On top of this, there are a few shots I did not consider achieving while on set, and editors know exactly what a shortage of shots can lead to. ("FUCK, I CAN'T CUT TO ANYTHING"), and the sound is a bit shitty at times. They say each problem is just a creative challenge...

Bullshit.

All I can say is FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

2008-10-21T22:14:00.003-04:00

The new Zeta Gundam Blu-rays come out on December 19th, and although the pictures are only in standard definition, the color comparison is outstanding to say the least. JUST LOOK AT THAT FUCKING HIZACK... By the way if you can't figure it out already, the Blu-ray version is on the right side, while the existing DVD version is on the left.

Tutorials? WHAT?!

2008-09-29T17:38:00.007-04:00

I've always intended to post entire tutorials for the world to see, but I never got around to it. Fear of technical inaccuracy/laziness to find accurate technical specs has prevented me from getting around to it, but let me start with something simple:

Cheap places to buy shit:

www.monoprice.com - Whenever you hear some dumbass at BestBuy tell you to buy Monster Cables, ignore them (or preferrably, call them out on their bullshit) and go here.
www.supermediastore.com - For all forms of storage media (among some hardware for it), go here. Don't fall for buying a 2GB flash drive for $20.
www.bhphotovideo.com - Buy all video equipment here, IF YOU LIVE OUTSIDE OF NY. While they have great prices, you'll get raped in sales tax if you live in NY, so I suggest buying expensive shit from out of state (www.beachcamera.com, but the selection is terrible I'm afraid).
www.newegg.com - Everyone knows this one. For two months or so, they were charging sales tax in NY, but have since reverted their stance (my guess is that the "amazon tax" fell through or something), so I feel it's necessary to keep them on here. TigerDirect is also good, but I hate their shitty site layout, so it's not listed here.

If I'm missing out any cheap ass sites, do tell, people... Also maybe I'll put some DVD rip guide up or something...

AVCCAM: It better deliver

2008-09-29T17:19:00.006-04:00

A few months ago, I essentially orgasmed over a (then) new camera called the Sony PMW-EX1. Since then, I've gotten to actually try the camera, and play around with some of its actual footage. Let me tell you, it's really beautiful, and the camera is great... Though I personally hate the ergonomics - or lack there of. I feel little need to whine about that here, since this blog isn't devoted to cameras, but it DOES devote itself to video quality, and there's something I've been following in the last few months that has just come out from Panasonic:

Panasonic's HMC-150

I'm very excited by this for a few reasons. I am a big fan of Panasonic's awesome, but aging, DVX-100 series, and despite my love for it, I simply will never buy one since, to me, HD is the way to go.

Now I've never liked HDV; the idea of 25Mbit MPEG2 makes me cringe, and HDV footage just sucks for the most part. DVCPROHD P2 is a bit hard for students (read: me) and low-end videographers to afford, despite being a great format and workflow. I've seen the footage, and it is beautiful. When the EX1 came out, I was excited for what was essentially a cheaper form of P2 media (SxS cards), while still using MPEG2 (albeit at a much more acceptable 35mbits... and yes, 35mbits does do the job), but it seemed like an easier format to manage in terms of hard drive space (not to mention interframe editing isn't as horrific as it used to be due to fast transcoding times).

That brings me to the HMC-150. It uses MPEG4 AVC, which many (hahahahahahaha) readers will know is my favorite codec. Consumer cameras have been using this for a while actually, and naturally, editing is not the smoothest operation around (though I haven't tried it myself), since the codec is much more processor intensive. So anyway, the HMC-150 compresses 1080p footage using a 21mbit (24mbit max) bitrate. This sounds lower than HDV, and it is, but MPEG4 AVC is fucking amazing, you can take my word for it. The greatest part? Footage is stored on SDHC cards, and with such a compression ratio, there is an estimated 3 hours to a single 32GB card. Now, 32GB cards are still about $60-70 depending on where you go, but compare this to a $500 SxS or P2 card (which only get MINUTES to a card, not hours).

Sorry Sony, you tried, but please kill HDV already.

I knew it would happen!

2008-04-10T21:07:00.004-04:00

For all of you people who practically fornicate over CG animation over cels, the problem that I've predicted for years has finally surfaced:

Yup, that's right. Can't figure out what I'm talking about? Oh, right... The Yukikaze Blu-Ray box-set (and I'm going to stray away from comments on the show, since I haven't seen it) happens to be upconverted 480i.

I have been prepared for shit like this happen eventually, I'm just astonished that something upscaled was actually released, rather than it being impossible to release it (and thus ignoring an HD release).

Bandai Visual is behind the release, and the video is AVC, so no doubt the added bitrate and codec efficiency gives it an edge over the DVD release, not to mention the fact that it has been upscaled probably a bit better than a simple DVD upscale would be, but this does not excuse such production standards. That reminds me, who animated Yukikaze again? Oh, right...

Gonzo

The "masters" of anime production have fulfilled my greatest fear, and I even thought that they would be the first ones to do it. Apparently, they were such dumb fucks that they animated the entire show (Oh, let's not forget this is an OVA, shouldn't there be higher production values?) in SD. Jesus Fucking Christ, why did I know this would happen? Not only is this an upscale, but it's an upscale from an interlaced source, meaning there could be multitudes of poor edits, 60i effects, ghosting, etc... And no, not from being upscaled, but just from being left over.

Fucking hell, enjoy your shitty mastering, and cheap computer shortcuts.

EDIT: Seems Air TV's BD set is also an upscale (save the redone OP apparently), go figure.

A sad perspective of anime production

2008-03-12T11:24:00.005-04:00

Anime is essentially a format in its own if you ask me. Generationally speaking, we can separate the difficulty of anime into categories based on their age. Not just of the series itself, but of the transfer/DVD.

"Older" Shows: usually identify will anything that was cel-based, photographed onto film, and most likely hard telecined for the original TV masters and original DVD releases. A possible exception to this rule are extremely modern cel based shows (Big-O, Inuyasha, and anything remaining the 2000s), whose DVDs often have component transfers and very consistent telecines.

"New" Shows: Usually refers to anything in the 2000s up produced with computers. The problems of hard-telecined cel based shows have been trumped with the consistency of a digital workflow; HOWEVER, inconsistencies such as differences in programs, resolutions, framerates, special effects, and budget lead to, in my opinion, far worse telecine issues with CG anime.

To diverge for a moment, CG anime (not to be confused with CGI animation; I'm referring to 2D animation that is colored on a computer) CAN be (I'm not saying I know precisely how it's done) colored in one program and animated together in another. There's a ton of issues that come up in the editing stage though, where editors may even work in 60i (presumably after the animation itself has been telecined) and then integrate purely 60i special effects, credits, etc. There are even cases where a 60i pan is performed across the animation, presumably because the motion was already telecined.

This of course causes another huge problem: HD capability. Already there are mere upscales for Blu-ray anime discs. Yukikaze's BD is an upscale (unsurprisingly from the "masters" of telecine, Gonzo) judging by the utter lack of detail and sharpness. The few pictures I've seen have shown combed frames in various places, which makes one wonder just how possible it is to easily resize these shows (presumably edited in SD... I'll get to why I can guess that later) to HD.

Take Full Metal Panic S1 (I refuse to buy the second and third season R1 DVDs due to horrible authoring). The DVDs are decent, with some artifacting, but the mastering is absolutely terrible. In any given episode, there is not only VFR, but 60i zooms, double telecines, and 60i fades. This would lead one to believe that at least the 60i stuff was added very late in production, most likely by the editor, and after the show was already output for SD. What will happen to this show beyond SD? The combs can be helped very manually, but the dissolves, pans, and zooms would have to be rerendered to look decent at all.

To get back on topic though...

"Old" Shows on Remastered DVDs: These are the best in my opinion. Since the older cel-based shows are entirely on film, most remasters (Evangelion being a nasty exception) are easy to IVTC, with some even being able to have Force FILM applied to them (Outlaw Star comes to mind). There *should* be no possibility for VFR in these shows.

"Really New" Shows: Since about 2005, MAYBE 2004, the mastering quality of CG anime has increased, admittedly. Gundam Seed Destiny for example, brought Gundam Seed's framerate to a solid 24fps (Gundam Seed was practically all 30p, with few exceptions), with one or two flashback sequences breaking the trend. Sunrise even rerendered several sequences (mainly the recycled OP animations) to playback in 24p. VFR is still abundant, but the break in framerates isn't as problematic as it once was, and 60i stuff isn't as common. Additionally, with many more shows being natively produced in HD, there is a push for high quality mastering.

There's my little rant, I hope I reduced someone's faith in anime DVDs.

That was a post I made yesterday on Doom9's forums. I felt it extremely necessary to show just how fucked up most digital shows are. Computers are better right? With all the money saved on not drawing cels, you'd think they could invest in some proper production and mastering. As I said, it's beginning to get better, but there are still numerous shows that suffer from, and will most likely continue to suffer from, interlacing issues.

Before anyone even bothers to go batshit insane on me and claim that the animation couldn't possibly have been created in SD, YES that's true. It would be extremely difficult to color in and animate in SD, I even suspect that many companies maintain their original production files (hopefully...). I mean really, even on non-HD broadcast shows, this is highly probable considering the amount of changes, uncensoring, reanimating, etc, that is done for DVD versions these days. To reiterate the point quite simply, this is not the animators' faults, this interlacing is the fault of the editors, video operators, and quite possibly anyone that adds special effects AFTER telecine.

Fuck all of the editors who insist on working in 60i, we need to ditch this shit called interlacing already.

I don't often go without posting for this long...

2008-02-27T12:33:00.003-05:00

http://iris.nyit.edu/~dguerr01/

My new site is up. Fear the collection of high resolution awesome. Shriek from the explosion of color that will undoubtedly consume your monitor. Hide your eyes from insane level of detail that only high resolutions can provide.

Ok, enough bragging. I've setup an actual website (on my college's webspace) as a way for possible employers to actually get a look at what I've done... without of course going to myspace or facebook to find it. In addition, because I have no bandwidth penalty that I really know of, I've posted 100% full resolution images on the site for the world to see; they don't even contain watermarks.

So enjoy it if you can, or just spread the word. I'm trying to get a job here, so if anyone need graphic assistance...

In actual Videophile news though, it's great to finally announce THE END OF THE FORMAT WAR. This is old by now, but yes I have been keeping up with it quite steadily. Sadly, the less DRM-controlled HD-DVD is essentially dead, so it may become challenging for backing up/ripping to take place anytime soon with BD+ being on more and more discs.

There is some good news to it though. I suspect that the increase of BD users (no matter how long it takes, do we really have a choice now?) would lead to a faster cracking of BD+ anyway, and the fear of increasing prices without further competition sounds ludicrous to me. At worst, we just won't see any drops for quite a while, but anyone would be a complete dumbass to increase the price of something (the exception of course being EXTREMELY high demand) after the consumer has essentially come to expect the current price to be fair. Those subsidies won't end anytime soon if Sony is smart...

MOVE THE FUCK OVER, STANDARD DEFINITION!

2008-01-10T23:05:00.001-05:00

At this point I'm going to seem like a Sony shill based on my Blu-Ray comments from earlier on, but I did happen to get a hold of Sony's new PMW-EX1 this evening, and Jesus Christ is the picture amazing.

Being a poor student, I only have the money for a shitty standard definition camera, but now, more than ever do I want to just dump the format. This camera can do 1080p/24, which is all I've ever wanted (not that other beautiful cameras, such as the Panasonic HVX-200 -another one of my favorites- don't), but can even over/undercrank for slow motion and fast motion.

Again, the HVX-200 can do this already, and just like this new XDCAM, records to solid state media (P2 Cards in the HVX's case)... The other similarity between these two cameras is that their media is expensive as fuck. Oddly enough (for Sony mostly), the price of the camera is similar, at around $6500 if I recall, which isn't too much different than the HVX-200's $6k. Obviously I'm guessing these numbers, and I haven't even checked in a while, but I'm only making this post because I've been simply floored by the demonstration given.

And no, it wasn't Sony's demonstration, nor was it on a huge scale. A local pro video store was demoing the camera, and merely took some test shots early in the morning, and played them back for the small crowd to watch. Despite looking fucking amazing, I have one problem with this camera though:

It encodes in MPEG-2.

Don't get me wrong, it still looks amazing, but as if the editors of the world out there really wanted to deal with this thing. Who the fuck wants to deal with long GOPs and terribly lossy codecs (not to mention really friggin old)? Admittedly, the codec didn't break up at all, which was impressive. The person shooting the clips even tested this out himself on several difficult shots, such as streams, rain, and various forms of trickling water. Even on a 50" 1080p display, there was nothing noticeable, and that's coming from a guy who hallucinates so much in a movie theatre as to see interlacing...

C'mon Sony, I gained a little bit of respect for you with this new camera, as it really is something else, but did you really need to use MPEG2? Actually here's some specs on this thing:

Recording Time (approx.): HQ 35Mb/s VBR | 50 Mins (8GB flash card)
SP 25Mb/s CBR | 70 Mins (8GB flash card)

Not too bad I suppose, those bitrates are higher than HDTV, but isn't there another format that uses 25MBit MPEG2? Oh right, HDV!

HDV is a piece of shit by the way.

Random Update: The Format War Rages On

2007-11-15T17:22:00.000-05:00

There simply hasn't been anything interesting to post about lately. The video world is pretty dead, but just as I did two posts ago, I have to thank Sony for releasing Spiderman 3 exclusively in widescreen. Yet another defecation has been taken upon the "fullscreen" zealots.

In other news, the extreme price cut (probably clearance) of Toshiba's HD-A2 player caused 90,000 HD-DVD players to fly off shelves, and while it sounds like a lot, just consider that Sony is selling about half that number in PS3s, weekly. The big issue I have with this is that, while I'd LOVE to pick up a cheap HD player (and I fully believe HD-DVD can deliver the goods), this has only put a dent into Blu-Ray's stride, and whatever progress has been made in this format war, has been reversed to some extent. Fuck you, Toshiba, I would buy your format if it was winning, but trying to turn the tide is only delaying me (and MANY other people) from buying EITHER format.

Think about it: Tons of people buy DVD players, and they usually don't go for the $30 players, because they feel they're shitty (quite the contrary in many cases), and will even buy >$100 DVD players just for superior playback/recording abilities, or even a brand name. If HD players stayed consistently in the 100-200 range (and maybe even 200-300), people would buy it... fast.

Stop prolonging this struggle, those who bought the losing format (whoever it will be) are fucked already, so we don't need them building up a library only to lose support later on.

I'm starting to sound like Doom9 with this update... I never expected to report news, more than just bitch and whine about idiocy in the video world. Well, believe it not, I CAN tie this in to my life. Recently, I finished a paper (yes, for college) on the differences between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray; no sources have been cited (most of the paper is based on my own knowledge, opinion, or estimated statistics from other, uncited sources), and the paper has been dumbed down to an extraordinary level in order for the professor to grasp it to at least some extent.

More importantly though, I will most likely revamp the entire paper (which currently runs at 7 pages, though will face definite expansion), removing dumbed down words, discarding my NUMEROUS parenthesis in the paper (I do it on here too!), and going into specifics on bitrates, disc speeds, background information on the development, and while not necessarily citing many sources, will provide far more statistical information on sales, actual video encode data from both formats, etc.

Of course, the paper will remain opinion to some extent. I'm a Blu-Ray supporter, even if it is for the larger disc space (Yeah, I know it's not necessary for many movies, but think of data storage), but I primarily support it because it's winning. If HD-DVD was currently in the lead, had the majority of studios and hardware developers behind it, AND led sales, I would be in favor of it. I want this war to end, and I'm sure www.digitalbits.com would agree with me on that. In the end, the paper will be published most likely here, and maybe on a separate site.

Some topics I've already discussed in the butchered version:

- Disc space comparison
- Codec usage and compatibility
- Audio formats and practical advantage of uncompressed audio
- How simultaneous BR and HD releases have used the same encodes.
- That the one advantage of two formats is quicker price drops.
- Improvements over standard DVD in interactive features.
- The demand of Region Coding from New Line Cinema, thus delaying HD-DVD versions.
- Dreamworks and Paramount's sudden shift to HD-DVD which prolonged the war.
- How this war is analogous to every war before it.
- The changes from DVD to High-def are not justifiable to a lot of people (people have shitty eyes).
- Both formats have proven themselves capable of awesome video
- That Blu-Ray's extra 20GB on a BD50 is not as helpful as many think
- That it takes an HD30 (two layers) to fit most movies, whereas a BD25 would have (probably) done the job.
- How quickly the prices of both formats have decreased in under two years.
- That adoption rates of either format has been substantially lower when compared to DVD's debut.

Just to name a few. I wrote the thing in two days, so it shouldn't really take me more than one more to fill in the remaining details and topics that I haven't covered already. However, I do have little time, so extra work is the last thing I want to do by choice. Someone call a publisher.

Youtube: An Encoder's Downfall

2007-10-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

Before I begin, I do not want to put my stance against Youtube's (and for that matter, ALL flash player websites) existence. I love the ease of availability of some rare clips on the site, and the fact that it has made spreading videos far easier. It is a quick and easy way to see what is necessary, but nothing more.

But what has this done? By far, the worst thing youtube has accomplished is making people so god damn lazy. This is particularly notable with anime fansubs, which have largely degenerated from increasingly high quality fansubs, to shitty looking flash videos with almost illegibly small subtitles.

And people love it.

WHY?! Why settle for utter shit, when you can settle for this (click to enlarge):

This is from a high definition encode of Gundam 00. Not only is the animation itself razor sharp (and this is only 720p), but notice how legible even the HUD readouts are. You would never be able to read that in Youtube's meager 320x240.

Now yes, I understand that for practical reasons, Youtube cannot supply the bandwidth and space for that many HD videos, but THAT'S WHY YOU SHOULD FUCKING DOWNLOAD YOUR VIDEOS! The real problem at hand is that Youtube has ruined the standards by which encoders such as myself live by. People have come to accept such crappy quality, which should have been abandoned in the days of RealPlayer (buffering, lol), nearly 10 years ago. Jesus Christ, people, are you that blind?

In relation though, the other problem that has arisen out of this is that no one knows HOW to obtain higher quality encodes, because they have become that much harder to find. I'm not here to advocate piracy, but if you're going to pirate, at least do it right. I can't stand walking by my college campus' computers only to find 4 people watching 320x240 Naruto episodes off Youtube... Kill me.

Paramount gave me no Blu-Ray, but they also gave me no Pan&Scan...

2007-10-22T23:18:00.001-04:00

Most of us know that Paramount refused to put out Transformers on Blu-Ray... I'm not in particular support of BD (I do favor it, but not to a strong extent), but I do wish this war would end, so I was kind of pissed when Paramount canceled its BD release of Transformers in favor HD-DVD.

Well, I'll have to forgive Paramount because they've done something a lot better: No "fullscreen" version of this movie exists, and I could not be happier. Ever since the release of this movie last week, numerous people (usually the stereotypical soccer moms) have been asking me if the movie "only comes in widescreen" or "is there a fullscreen version?" I was getting irritated at the question, and I ALWAYS answer it with "No, there hasn't been one luckily, but to be honest, you're better off with the widescreen version". Seriously...

But in the last two or three days I've come to see that what Paramount has done is genius. I hope Michael Bay, despite being somewhat of an idiot, forced them to only release in widescreen on this movie, because he'd be my new video-hero.

I wish you guys would help end the format war, but thanks for taking what is essentially a big shit on top of all those who advocate pan & scan bullshit for the sake of filling their TV screen.

Another Message to Apple: Your Store Sucks (Apparently)

2007-10-15T23:18:00.000-04:00

I ran into another lost soul at my job today. What was a co-worker's problem, soon became mine after I volunteered to help this woman with her question. Basically, she wanted to buy an Apple TV, but was curious as to if it would work with her projection TV, and if not, how easily she could return the product.

At first, I merely overheard the whole conversation about this from the walkies we use, and while the manager and my co-worker tried to help the best they could, they ended up resorting to looking into a reference table for the Apple phone number. As soon as I took over the situation, the woman revealed to me that she looked on the Apple site, went to the Apple Store, and even visited forums (I've never seen a customer do this before...) on advice for the product. She ended up with two questions:

- Will it work with my 5 year old projection TV (implying 4x3 ratio, Standard Definition, and analogue inputs).

- Can I return it if it doesn't.

Being a low level employee, I could not fully advise her on returns, but I tried to alleviate her compatibility issue quite a bit. To make a long story short, I showed her what component inputs were, reassured her that if the connection was made correctly, that nothing more than letterboxing can happen to her videos, and that her TV most likely has said inputs considering it's a huge projection set... Yet she was always wondering this because of one thing.

The Apple Store told her that she could only use the product on a widescreen/HDTV.

Upon inspection of the product, the box made no such mention (it does mention compatibility with 16x9 TVs, but it does not mention exclusivity), and I found such a claim to be bullshit anyway. After all, a lot of Apple's own content is 4x3, such as TV shows and music videos; not everything is 16x9 still... I could not believe Apple trains its employees with such a low level of knowledge. Oh wait, what was their market again? That's right...

So what am I left with? Well, I sealed the deal for one thing. I even told her to avoid component cables, and use her existing composite cables since they were essentially the same thing with different color coding. Hell, I even explained how to connect the cables and finally get the manager to confirm that she could return it if it didn't work. Oh well, it's nice to get a good story at work, but seriously Apple, is it really good business practice to say that your products just DON'T work?

Widescreen vs. "Fullscreen": An Argument That Should be Dead

2007-10-02T13:44:00.000-04:00

There's three ways to approach this argument:

- You prefer "fullscreen" (I'll get onto why I put quotations on it later)
- You prefer widescreen
- You prefer the original aspect ratio that it was viewed in.

I'd say I'm the last one of the three. I believe things should be as they were when created; HOWEVER, the grey area lies in things that were shot/animated in one ratio, but presented in another. For this area, I support the release of both versions, so a "fullscreen" and widescreen release being separated is fine (though optimally, having both in one package would be nice...).

Now for the part where I complain.

It is beyond my understanding as to why some people still prefer bastardizing the original aspect ratio of... anything. Be it a movie, commercial, TV show, video game, etc. There are large number of people who still buy "fullscreen" versions of movies, and worse yet, STILL under the misconception that they are seeing more footage. This bullshit has to stop right now. While those in the know, already are aware that some movies do indeed have more in the fullscreen version, this exception is usually only made to Super 35 films and animation that was actually drawn within a wide ratio. My real problem with this, err, problem, is that there's so much misconception, and there's only more with the advent of 16x9 televisions. Here's what used to be the problem:

1. Movies were widescreen, but pan and scanned for 4x3 sets. Most people are too stupid to notice/card.

2. Widescreen movies were released and the advocates could be happy, but the dumb fucks thought that it was "removing" footage because suddenly, their TV sets are "full", but the movies are not.

That problem still exists today, but I fear we may eventually shift towards a slightly different version of this issue:

1. 16x9 TV's will become more and more common, essentially becoming the standard ratio for almost everyone.

2. After becoming standard, "fullscreen" will continue to mean "taking up the entire frame", and the term will mean that any feature shot/animated in a wider ratio than 16x9 will suddenly be cropped off to fit anyway. This already happens on many HDTV channels, sadly.

You know what I really love? There's a lot of people who bought "fullscreen" movies, and still do, but they own, or will buy an HDTV. These same people will be the first ones to bitch about how their movies look stretched out, or that there are now "black bars on the side" (pillarboxing). Hell, I knew someone who almost always bought "fullscreen" movies simply out of preference, because he DID believe that he was seeing more, and then he finally bought an HDTV; I asked him what he did with his collection, and he merely said it worked.

Bullshit.

People need to wake up and use some fucking common sense. Buy Original Aspect Ratio and shut the fuck up.

Apple, I'm begging you.

2007-09-16T14:19:00.000-04:00

I never thought I'd find myself pleading to Apple. They're a company that I have long-disliked for their inflated prices, snobbish fanbase, and of course, the fact that they don't allow their operating system to be installed on a vanilla box.

But I will give credit to one area of Apple's. Their Final Cut Studio is a wonderful software suite, and the main part of it, Final Cut Pro, is my favorite editing tool (though I haven't had much practice with Avid to be honest). It's truly a powerful set of tools, and I cannot wait to try out Color, the digital color correction program new to FCS2.

So why am I pleading? Well, like I said, I can't stand Apple's prices, and while my student discount helps, it's still not a huge dent in the price. Hell, the stock Mac Book Pro is $1999 without discount, and with discount, is $1799. Sounds nice, but tax brings it back to almost the original price (if memory serves correct, $1945, but it's somewhere near there), meaning it'll be a while before myself, or my parents can afford it. My school actually happens to use Avid for editing, and the Adobe lines of products for compositing and effects, which is interesting, because I can run all those programs on a PC (or Windows-based laptop). The desire to buy a far cheaper Windows-laptop is growing, even though I WANT to get a Mac simply because I can run OSX, Windows, AND FCS (within OSX obviously).

Sorry Apple, you've lost a customer for now. I haven't bought anything yet, but I suggest you reconsider your prices if you want to take a larger chunk of market share. Also, I know you love your hardware dominance and profit from only allowing OSX to install on Apple hardware, but I wonder what would happen if you allowed other people to simply buy OSX off the shelf (already possible), and install it on their PC. Maybe one day, you'd be looking at a much larger install base, eh?

In protest of Apple's high prices, I'm suggesting this method to buying a Mac Book Pro:

Go to Amazon.com; if possible, find a refurbished MBP for around $1699 (yeah, it's lower than the student discount...), and buy it. You'll get charged a few bucks shipping, but you'll still be saving nearly $300. Enjoy your somewhat cheaper, but still overpriced Mac Book Pro.

Video in College

2007-09-12T12:46:00.000-04:00

I've just started college (some of you may have noticed the flyers promoting this site around my campus), but I've been somewhat disappointed in my fellow students. I would HOPE that if you're going into a career (whether or not it be video related), that you have researched the topic first, and even better, have possibly even made it a hobby or self-teaching of yours. This is the internet, there is a wealth of information for you idiots to absorb, so take it already. I've taught myself since 2000 about video, and blazed through my high school video courses with ease, including getting my CTS certification this May. I'll admit, the cert isn't exactly the most specific thing out there, it's more or less an A/V installation certification if you ask me, but to a more advanced degree. No matter, the fact remains.

Anyway, to all video and film majors:

- Do some research on the internet; colleges hate it, but Wikipedia can teach the basics even if it does have bias and errors. Look up interlacing, YUV colorspace, aspect ratios, framerates, shutter speeds, chroma key, NTSC, PAL, Nyquist Theorem, and MPEG4... To start anyway.

- If you want to gain a huge amount of knowledge in video's technical aspects, you should go straight to www.doom9.net and take part in their forums. The site is dedicated to DVD backups and encoding, but the community has grown to video filtering, DVD authoring, and all sorts of encoding discussions (which ALL relate to each other).

- The Digital Bits is a great site for DVD reviews, and a consumer's view on the world of home theatre, digital film presentation, and overall commentary on the digital formats. This is not a technical site to much extent, but I find it to be a very accurate site in its reviews.

- www.100fps.com has existed for years now, and while the information is a bit outdated by today's capabilities, this site is EXTREMELY informative on interlacing, progressive scan, and many issues relating to why interlacing is a problem in the modern video world.

That's all I can really recommend for technical learning. I would be lying to say I have an extensive knowledge of the creative side of film and video; I myself have little experience with writing, directing, acting, etc. The closest thing to creativity that I can claim as my own is with editing, and special effects compositing to a very small extent.

But hell, I'm here to help on those technical issues, because we can at least easily understand the creative concepts. We may not all become good at it, but at least it's plain English for most of us (though the ability of many NATIVE english-speaking students is disappointing...). In the meantime, visit the above sites and try learning those nerdy terms, because it'll only become advantageous to you in the future.

Heroes is awesome, in more ways than one

2007-09-11T16:56:00.000-04:00

I recently just started watching Heroes (through "certain means") and I must say, this show is fucking awesome. After only 1 episode, I was hooked, and after 4, I can't stop watching, though unfortunately my schedule prevents any marathoning. But anyway, this is a videophile blog, so I'm not gonna speak much for the show's creative qualities (which are there, don't get me wrong), but rather its technical qualities.

Someone's gotta tell me the budget on this, because for a TV show, it seems to have gotten a ridiculously good treatment in all stages of productions. It's shot on film for one, so you know they're not being cheap here, plus the level of special effects and compositing is pretty high for a TV show. Practical effects are even good looking, with some definite attention paid to the cinematography of the show. I'm willing to admit my pirating of this show for one reason, and one reason only: I bought the boxset even after downloading the high definition versions. I had downloaded up to episode 13 in HD, (which by the way, REALLY shows how awesome this show looks. The transfer is amazing, and free of any framerate shit that normal TV shows suffer from editing) and fell in love with the show. I've been saying it for years now, and I will continue to say it; if a product is genuinely good, I will buy it, and so will the general public. I will buy a movie I love, a video game I have to play, and a TV show that actually delivers.

Let me not get off topic though, the HD-DVDs are amazing, but I still only bought the standard def discs due to the lack of an HD player. Before buying the discs, I happened to do some experimenting of my own. Using a simple BicubicResize, I brought the 720p files (they were re-encoded from 1080p) down to anamorphic SD, and did not filter at all; I relied on the downscaling to take care of most of the noise instead. I compressed the episodes quite tightly, in order to fit on a DVD5 (only 3 eps per disc, but they're 43mins on average), so there was some blocking and ringing, but overall sharpness wasn't sacrificed much. The video was encoded with HC, and the audio was brought down to 384kbps AC3 (down from 640kbps). The results of the video were amazing to say the least. Due to the downscaling and compression, most artifacts and grain from the source were eliminated, but like I said, some smearing occured in the video, but nothing you'd notice easily on an SDTV.

Now you're probably wondering the obvious: "Won't you compare the retail DVD to your HD downscale?" Yes I will, but right now I'm writing this a bit before work, so expect pics later on.

Try explaining interlacing to someone

2007-09-04T12:35:00.001-04:00

Now I'm usually one to criticize the world on how fucking retarded it is, but I really made a big mistake this time. Working in retail has opened my eyes to a mass populous of idiots; I never knew how stupid people could be, but then again, sometimes my expectations shouldn't be so high.

The point is this: Many times I'm put in the electronics area of a certain store (they will be nameless), and in my efforts to further educate any consumers on the electronics they purchase, someone asked me the difference between 1080i and 1080p... Being an idiot myself, I actually tried to think of a way to explain the difference in layman's terms. Let's just say I actually got the message across decently, but I wasted a good amount of time that could've been spent doing other tasks at hand.

So I leave you with this; if by some chance any of you happen to try to explain something advanced to an idiot, use the following methods:

Interlacing: Some people actually get the concept of frames (from flipbooks, seeing how a cartoon is made, etc), so explaining how a field is "half a frame" is possible. Try demonstrating that your fingers represent odd and even lines, and show how one hand moves before the other in an interlaced system, whereas progressive hands move together. The hard part is explaining why a static 1080i image looks as good as a static 1080p image...

Compression: Tell them image is pixely or blocky... somehow they understand this...

Optical Zoom vs. Digital Zoom: Optical zoom is a lot like use a magnifying lens on an object, whereas digital zoom is like blowing up an old picture you have but losing the quality. This is probably the easiest explanation to formulate.

Gigabytes vs. Gibabytes: Don't explain, just say that that's the way computers count and that's all they'll need to know...

iPod vs. MP3 Player (this happens a lot...): No difference for the main purpose of the player, so an MP3 player and iPod are generally the same thing.

"Will these headphones work on my iPod?": Sadly, this shit happens on a daily basis for me. Tell the customer that headphones are headphones are headphones are headphones. They'll get the picture soon enough. Telling them that technically only 1/8" mini plugs will work will confuse them, so avoid it.

"Do you have the card for this camera?": People who are too stupid to check the box/ask their friend/read the manual come to me with this question quite often. With some cameras, it's easy to answer if I've messed with the camera before, but seriously, even as a videographer I HAVE NOT used every fucking camera ever made. I don't know what card your camera takes, and on that note, it's not my fault you didn't do some god damn research before buying it (happens a lot with the Sony cams... people are pissed to find out they require the more expensive Memory Stick and proprietary Li-Ion battery, which we don't sell).

"Does it work good?": I get this question in regards to just about everything, and it's even worded like that. Hell, someone asked me what the best wood glue was once, and I told them (as I always do) that I haven't tried every one of the brands so I can't tell you. Just die, please.

I don't expect people to understand interlacing, nor even the entire concept of what a megapixel is, but shouldn't we be at a point where knowing what a byte is? That a headphone works in any other device so long as the plug is the same? That an employee has not personally used every single model on the floor? That you should research your products before buying them? That being a fucking idiot makes products worse for the rest of us because companies won't have to improve?

Jesus Christ.

Is Full Metal Panic destined to have shitty DVDs?

2007-08-27T00:24:00.001-04:00

Anyone who's encoded Full Metal Panic knows that every R1 DVD is problematic. I'm gonna make this as short as possible, but here's the list of problems for each series:

FMP S1: Shitty production; the entire show is produced with crazy interlacing errors, VFR, and even 60i pans. This presumably effects ALL DVDs in every region if the show is like this to begin with.

FMP Fumoffu: The production is fairly clean here, with some VFR, but no where near the level of field corruption as seen in Season 1. The problem here is that the Region 1 DVDs are sourced from some composite bullshit master. Why I don't know, especially since ADV had component masters for the first season...

FMP TSR: This season incorporates a lot more VFR (actually, many still shots are 30p, which ingeniously makes it possible to decimate, but also progressive), but that's not the problem, since it's all fixable... The problem only afflicts the R1 DVDs, and that problem is shitty encoding. I just recently got a hold of a TSR DVD, and Jesus Christ. The episode itself is decent at best, but the OP is just ridiculous. Checking the bitrate on the OP (which Funimation thinks requires an alternate angle for an english version, thus wasting disc space), it seems that the average bitrate is around 3.4mbits; the whole OP clocks in at 57MB. Pathetic.

Just for fuck's sake, let me show you the latest atrocity in FMP's life on the DVD format.

I request Funimation reauthor these discs (and apparently a good deal of their discs since I've heard similar encoding issues on their other DVDs) with proper encoding. It is 2007, and we should not have shit like this anymore...

Gundam Seed: An Issue I'd Like to Clarify

2007-08-24T13:29:00.000-04:00

So I'm sure that many of us have at least taken a glimpse at Gundam Seed, and for a couple more of us, own the DVDs, or have at least dealt with them (Encoders know what I meant by "dealt"). Anyway, some of you may have noticed that Gundam Seed (and Destiny by extension) has a terrible softness to the picture. A lot (meaning not many) of people that I've spoken to about this have blamed the DVD authoring company and/or Bandai for having poor masters.

While many older Gundam DVDs have had shitty video quality, poor encoding, etc, Gundam Seed is not one of them. If anything, I'd rate Gundam Seed's video quality as possibly the highest of any release they shit out in recent years. But why?... or more like how? As stated above, Seed is blurry, so compressing it is incredibly easy, even for MPEG2 (H264 LOVES Seed's softness actually). The myth I want to dispel is that this is Bandai's fault in any way. Bandai did NOT blur this thing, the DVD Authoring company (which I think is Ascent Media if memory serves correct) did not blur it, and the masters were not bad to begin with. In an age of digital anime production, it is rare to have poor "transfers" of shows to DVDs before the encoding level (with the exception of some random shows like Full Metal Panic Fumoffu's R1 discs), so the only logical explanation is that Gundam Seed is intentionally soft.

That's right, Seed was soft in production, and it most likely always will be. All TV broadcasts have been soft, and all DVDs in BOTH REGIONS have been soft. This includes movie compilations, the 5-minute OVA, and Stargazer. I no longer have any TV caps with me to prove this point unfortunately, but here's a little interesting part of Seed that slips by every so often... In episode 5, at 6:33 into the video, there's a quick shot of Strike flying around, and the Duel chases after it.

Decently sharp for Seed, right? Random sharp shots like this appear throughout the show... Not in every episode, but they're there. I was searching for some others, but it's been a while since I've examined my DVDs... Let's look a few frames later to find an animation error.

Woah, what happened here?! Seems whoever was in charge of the layers forgot to put the thrust layer down where the actual backpack is! It's stuff like this that makes you wonder kind of Photoshop-NLE amalgamation program they use...

Alright, so the blurriness issue has been cleared up, and I've even shown a sharp side of Seed. But what's another issue people are confused about? The framerate. I actually can't stand Gundam Seed's framerate, but it is indeed a progressive 30fps show, almost entirely throughout. There's usually at least one or two, albeit very short, telecined segments per episode, and that number actually grows to quite a few in the last 10 episodes or so, but other than that, Gundam Seed may look ugly, but because of its odd framerate, it is nearly 100% progressive by nature. I have no idea how Sunrise animated this show, but the unorthodox practices have actually made it easier to encode, go figure.

Attention: Engineers

2007-08-24T01:19:00.001-04:00

Engineers of the video world, haven't you questioned why we not only support previous interlacing systems, but also seem to encourage the further usage?

Bandwidth was the original excuse for having 1080i60, but I don't know about that anymore. In an age where we can shoot the Olympics in 1080i50, do an NTSC conversion, and broadcast it the US in near-realtime, I find it hard to believe that at least the major networks cannot shoot 1080p60.

We have NUMEROUS issues with interlacing to this day. Those of us familiar with modern anime production know that many new DVDs have variable frame rates, and most notoriously, even some purely interlaced segments. This is all "thanks" to the idiots who edit the shows AFTER telecine (and most NLEs are not independent of framerates, so they just assume it is a 60i video, rather than a 3:2 pulldown), thus introducing pure 60i segments into telecined segments. In the end all we have is a massive orgy of frames and fields. Nothing more.

May I suggest a new video system? It will try to support older systems as much as possible, but some deprecation will be necessary.

- PAL and NTSC no longer exist. All video uses a unified system independent of frame rates and color systems.
- All new content is progressive for both SD/HD.
- All older content can be interlaced ONLY when presented entirely interlaced, there will be no mixed frame/field shit.
- All interlaced content must be deinterlaced or inverse telecined to match existing progressive videos if editing together.
- Variable Frame Rates will be supported, so all video can be deinterlaced but there won't have be additional motion comp for framerates.
- Analogue video is gone; digital video transmissions require minimum 4mbits with AVC compression/SD, minimum 12Mbits AVC/HD.
- All pixels will be SQUARE to present consistency across all monitors and editing systems. Older transfers can either be interpolated or padded to conform. Cropping is banned.
- Color is now 24bit 4:4:4
- Shooting 60i for the sake of having a 60fps look is banned. Shoot progressive 60fps broadcast 60i if necessary, but all SD downconversions must be from the 60p master.
- All film is to be transferred at its original framerate, NOT straight to a 3:2 pulldown process. 3:2 processing of a new transfer is banned with the support of VFR.
- Though supported, VFR use is discouraged due it being ugly as fuck.
- Audio is encoded in LC-AAC/minimum 128kbps for stereo, HE-AAC+PS/minimum 224kbps for multichannel.
- Overlaying interlaced effects over progressive video is banned.
- Pan&Scan is banned.
- Mixed aspect ratios can be anamorphically compressed in various ways, as necessary, with realtime AR correction on playback for each clip.

There. The encoding world would be so much easier if it was like this... One can dream.

Biggest Fucking Letdown EVER

2007-08-23T23:50:00.001-04:00

Ok guys, you'll all be surprised by this one:

Ok, so before I begin, let me state that this DVD is worth every penny I spent on it, and you should buy this "visual feast" as well. The movie itself is amazing (albeit lacking substance, but the style is a great for those interested in digital video), and the bonus content is definitely satisfying if you buy the 2 disc version. BUT, this DVD is a huge letdown in one very important (to me) area: Encoding

Warner dropped the ball on the video quality here. Most likely in an effort to reduce the number of discs they must author (not quantity of copies made, I'm talking about different types of discs), they shoved three 5.1ch tracks on this thing! Those of course being 5.1 versions of English, French, and Spanish languages. It's not over though! There's also a stereo english track, and commentary track! Having 5 audio tracks devour so many bits from the video is bad enough, but for those of us that have seen 300, we KNEW that compressing this movie would be a challenge.

300 is not particularly long. It's 116mins, so fitting it on a dual layer disc with 5 audio tracks is not entirely hard to achieve. Why the problems (the exact problems I'll get into afterwards)? Well, despite being short, 300 is an extreme high motion film, with the majority of the film being shot with fast action going on, or very slow motion (though detailed in its movement). Then of course, we've got the issue of the coloring. 300 has very high contrast, and the saturation isn't particularly high, but the reds are quite strong through much of the movie. The third issue is of course the heavy, heavy, heavy (but intentional!) grain throughout the film. I'm actually in favor of some light grain in my video, but I'm absolutely against heavy shit like this.

Now that the movie's challenges have been laid out, let's take a look at the problems they've caused. In order to combat the movie's technical difficulties, the engineers seemed to have applied a heavy blur to the entire thing. It's still definitely tolerable, but the overall softness is sometimes annoying to me at times, especially knowing how sharp a lot of these scenes were in the HD trailers. Oh, and before anyone bitches about how I cannot compare HD to SD, get the god damn trailer off Apple's website and downscale it to SD to see for yourself. Possibly the worst scenes in the entire movie? Look below:

COMPLETELY UNTOUCHED FROM DVD, WITH NO AR CORRECTION!

What lovely ringing we have here around the "Virtual Studios" logo.

Seriously. If I wasn't lazy, I'd post a video of this area. Not only does this block to fuck, but we have some serious issues with the snow since the compression smears it all over the place.

Now, to be fair, this is a complex shot, and most of the arrows are pretty much blended together due to the sheer quantity of arrows; HOWEVER, there's still notorious blocking and this really shows off the softness of the video.

I'd post more, but like I said, I'm lazy. Warner, I'd like to thank you, but also give you a giant "fuck you" at the same time. I'm glad to see plentiful content on these discs, but sometimes there must be compromise, and video quality is definitely not a place to make that compromise. If Warner wanted to save disc space, the commentary could have been mono, the stereo mix could have been removed (Yes, I know, many people whine about downmixing but I've never had a problem), and the alternate languages could have been stereo. We're STILL not done though. There are some trailers and and extra or two on the first disc... All of which could have been moved to the second disc for some extra space. Part of what makes the Star Wars discs (save Episode I) so great is that they save the first disc ENTIRELY for the movie. There are alternate languages and commentaries, but barely any other video is on the discs with exceptions made for menus.

Overall: Buy it, you won't regret it, but it may be a bit soft/artifacted on an HDTV (get a fucking HD player in that case then!).

Videophile Hall of Fame I

2007-08-23T23:17:00.000-04:00

Encoders are sick of dealing with a number of things in this world:

- Interlacing
- NTSC and PAL conversions
- Low bitrates
- Composite transfers (yes, they still exist)
- Knowing that you could have done a better job, no exaggeration
- Variable Frame Rates (read: interlacing to an extent)

So in order to put the minds of some videophiles at ease, I've decided to assemble a "Hall of Fame" so to speak... Pretty much the latest highlights that have come across my eyes. The first inductees will be:

The Star Wars Trilogy
These 2004 discs truly shine in a way that, in my mind, has yet to be topped. Unfortunately for many, these are indeed the super "George Lucas Edition" from 1997 (plus even more edits for the DVDs), but regardless, I have yet to see any other discs than match these in sharpness, vibrancy, and digital artifacting. These discs are representative of not just the potential of the the standard DVD format, but also of modern film restoration technology. All aspects of the movies shine beautifully, with not a SINGLE spec of dirt to be found (grain is inevitable, though incredibly low).

However, there are only two aspects of the disc I must mention are, well, questionable. First off, the audio in episode IV has had some "creative changes" to the mix, but that's for another discussion. More importantly, the sound quality varies quite a bit, particularly right before Alderaan is destroyed (listen to the Tarkin line). The second issue is that every transfer suffers a stray interlaced frame here and there. Although, there's only been 4 transfers in my life that I've seen with perfect telecines.

Outlaw Star Remastered
By far the BEST anime restoration I've seen (so far anyway). Previous transfers of this show have looked like utter shit, particularly all Region 1 releases (which stemmed from VHS masters by the looks of them). I wish I could applaud the colorist and telecine engineer who brought this show back to an amazing condition. There are blemishes on the picture, but they few and far between, but the truly amazing thing about these discs is the cleanliness of the image. There is barely any grain visible in the entire transfer. Several scenes require close inspection with an upscaled image to even notice grain, and yet, the MPEG2 compression handles this extremely faint grain VERY well. The sharpness of the cels is breathtaking, and the audio is given the PCM treatment, with no bitrate taken away from the video. A great utilization of DVD9, and one of the four transfers I've seen that is truly progressive, 100% of the way. (No, I'm not just quoting DGIndex). This is probably the only set of DVDs where I have not found a problem... Of course, the only downside is that these are Region 2 discs, that the states will probably never see (thus meaning these discs are NOT subtitled).

That's it. Two additions so far, I'll decide in the future if others are worth it. Now to get through the Hall of Shame... We all know how long that'll be.

And so it begins...

2007-08-23T23:03:00.000-04:00

This site will not be dedicated to news and DVD backup as Doom9, it will not be a frightening IRC channel like Darkhold, and it will certainly not use JPEG images for comparisons and demonstrations. No, this "blog" (as much as I hate the term) is intended to allow me, and only me, to show the internet how he's doing in the encoding world.

But before my ego takes over the website, let me counter the ego of every encoder out there right now: If there is a "goal" of a project here, or if a result is obtained, I will almost always disclose the scripts and techniques used for it (with the exception of software if it is not freeware). So anyway, enjoy the site while you can, I'll probably be upsetting a lot of people in the encoding realm particularly...