Instrumental Anime Project

[rose4emily]

So I'm trying to encode the improved Forbidden Memories for submission to rose4emily.

...

How do you convert a 24fps video to 29.97fps without (1) interlacing it, (2) speeding up the footage, or (3) inserting extra frames and making the video jerky?

Or is it that you want us to interlace? In that case, then, the only DV codec that I have (the old Panasonic DV codec) doesn't... really interlace. It left the footage at 24fps, progressive. It also softened the video quite a bit and left a noticable greenish tint.

No, you have all of the possible ways of converting 24fps to 29.97fps (at least without performing all sorts of time-based interpolation - which can be done, but isn't by any professionals I've ever heard of). The most common is a mix of interlacing and inserting frames called the 3:2 Pulldown, or Telecine.

I ran some tests with editable codecs, and here are the files that I ended up with.

Huffyuv v2.2.1. 720x480. 24 fps. 44100Hz, 16-bit WAV audio. [749 MB]
This is the master huffyuv file that I've been encoding everything from. I have resampled the audio, per your request, for the next two files.

Panasonic DV. 720x480. 24 fps. 48000Hz, 16-bit WAV audio. [468 MB]
This is the DV file that I talked about above. Panasonic DV seems to be a pretty outdated codec, but it is the only one available to me. For the reasons mentioned above, I'd prefer not to use it.

Lagarith lossless codec. 720x480. 24 fps. 48000Hz, 16-bit WAV audio. [409 MB]
This one really surprised me, as it's a lossless codec but came up with a filesize even smaller than that of the DV encode. This is the file that I'd like to submit, but I don't know if your computer can support Lagarith.

Actually, given how "clean" your footage is, it's not surprising that the Lagarith codec provided a smaller file size than DV. Mine actually encoded more tightly with HuffYUV than DV. This is just a fluke caused by the highly "structured" nature of most animated footage compared to the more "chaotic" nature of most live-captured footage. Lossless entrophy methods work better at compressing higly ordered footage, while DCT-based methods (JPEG, DV, MPEG...) only begin to shine when the picture contains a very large amount of detail that is ordered in the frequency domain (it doesn't look like it's just a bunch of noise), but less so in the spatial domain (it's not a lot of large regions of flat color separated with black lines).

I'm not sure whether Lagarith does any form of interframe encoding, but I suspect that's where the huge file savings over HuffYUV comes from.

---

Just submit the HuffYUV. I'll take care of the Telecine and audio sample rate conversion.

I ask for the NTSC footage under the assumption that most of you began with NTSC source. You probably did, too, but I think it's most practical to work off of the 24fps master you have, especially where it really does look every bit as nice as the Fruits Basket DVDs did. Performing a Telecine on 24fps before submitting is actually just padding the file size, and isn't going to provide any benefit over sending the 24fps. If you already have NTSC footage, on the other hand, it may or may not (depending on when the studio did their telecine process - before or after editing) result in a loss of quality if a Pullup is performed before transmission, only to have a Pulldown performed again before encoding.

[jasper-isis]

Okay, I'm uploading the huffyuv to your server now. The filesize is about 694 MB because I cut out the end bumpers. I also resampled the audio to 48000Hz for you already, using SSRC (supposedly the most accurate sample rate converter around). Yes, that was a direct quote from the guides.

This upload may take a good while, as my access to your server seems to be fluctuating. (I took a screenshot.) I didn't split the file into two halves like last time, so hopefully this upload isn't going to die near the end.


EDIT:

The upload stopped a few minutes ago. There are only about 24 MB of the file on your server right now. It wont let me resume the upload, even though my client is perfectly capable of it. Let me know what you want me to do...

[rose4emily]

This upload may take a good while, as my access to your server seems to be fluctuating. (I took a screenshot.) I didn't split the file into two halves like last time, so hopefully this upload isn't going to die near the end.

Looks like a nice synth waveform for a gritty analog club piece...

It's just too bad it doesn't look like a flatline with a positive DC offset.

The upload stopped a few minutes ago. There are only about 24 MB of the file on your server right now. It wont let me resume the upload, even though my client is perfectly capable of it. Let me know what you want me to do...

Fscking Comcast.

Then again, the problem might be your side of the internet service, since the 64KBps peak is really high for a an upload cap - so your ISP might be cutting off your upload bandwidth in pulses instead of giving it a proper limit to keep the average bandwidth consumption down.

You might want to try uploading again at a limited rate (maybe 20-30KBps) to see if the upload graph starts looking like a line, rather than a pulse.

Finally, if your upload took place during certain portions of the afternoon, the problem might be that my computer was running near 100% on other tasks (transcoding, actually). If that's the case, then you should be able to set the upload off at some other time (from 3-11 AM would be optimal, but I've been leaving the machine unoccupied for as many other large blocks of time as is possible).

I've also just set the priority of my FTP server daemon to a much higher level (actually, a lower level - but that's just because priorities are actually "nice" levels on a Linux system, so the numbering is sort of backwards), so the only things that should really interrupt it (even if I am actively using the machine) are the low-level system tasks needed to keep the OS from falling apart - and those aren't active very often, and don't take up all that much CPU time anyhow.

---

Don't worry if you leave a few partial uploads stranded in the FTP server when trying to determine if any of my suggestions are actually going to help you. I can clean up all of that.

For now, I renamed the failed partial upload to mark it as such, just so I don't get confused later on. I'm keeping it around for the moment, however, in case I find some use for it before I have the full version.

BTW - judging off of the two seconds I have, it looks beautiful.

[jasper-isis]

Then again, the problem might be your side of the internet service, since the 64KBps peak is really high for a an upload cap - so your ISP might be cutting off your upload bandwidth in pulses instead of giving it a proper limit to keep the average bandwidth consumption down.

Well... I've never seen my uploads fluctuate like the way they do on your server, and my ~60KBps upload has been working fine for months, so I doubt that it's something to do with my ISP. (Why my upload cap was raised in the first place is another mystery altogether.)

Finally, if your upload took place during certain portions of the afternoon, the problem might be that my computer was running near 100% on other tasks (transcoding, actually). If that's the case, then you should be able to set the upload off at some other time (from 3-11 AM would be optimal, but I've been leaving the machine unoccupied for as many other large blocks of time as is possible).

Okay, I'll try to upload again around midnight EST tonight.

BTW - judging off of the two seconds I have, it looks beautiful.

Thanks! And well, you could just download the distro file that I linked to on the last page.

[rose4emily]

Well, I'm packing up to go back to school now.

Starting Sunday, the desktop / server will be back in its home at RIT. Happily, the networks there are quite a bit more reliable than this one seems to be.

So, to Jasper (and anyone else who's trying to upload), I'll post the updated IP when I get back.

[Otohiko]

Ah, I'm seeing signs of progress!

Just so you know, I'm officially dead right now (unofficially, buried under 50+ pages of reports to do within the next week and a half), but if there's anything important I should do right now, do say. Meanwhile, perhaps this will be further along in progress by the time I (un)officially un-die.

By the way, I've come around to seeing the aspect ratio issue in Ararat the way Rose put it - yea, I really did mess that one up a bit. My only concern in actually resizing it to widescreen would be the text - though my hunch is that it'd only end up a little squeezed, and not unreadable or anything.

/re-dies

[jasper-isis]

Otohiko! So that's why you've been gone all this time!

I don't think we have anything to assign you right now. This aspect ratio problem has been solved. Rose4Emily is going to switch Ararat and A Boy I Knew to the widescreen segment, and switch 13'37 into fullscreen.

Good luck with your reports! :sympathetic: Hopefully it won't be too long before you un-die. I kinda missed seeing your posts all over the place.

[NeoQuixotic]

<random post>
This thread is getting closer and closer to being a year old. And since I created my submission I haven't really started any other projects. I did start a Digimon one, but it got annihilated in my HD crash. I only need one more Platinum Eva DVD to complete my collection, and then its party time! Hopefully I'll get an idea for a video soon. I'm busy, but not 50+ pages busy, so I'm still alive. Good luck X2 Otohiko ^_^!
</random post>

[rose4emily]

Just so you all know, I am not (officially or otherwise) dead. I made it home a bit late, as is typical when travelling via Amtrak, but have otherwise happily settled down at RIT for the new semester (old semester in a way, since three of the four courses I'm taking are second attempts - my love for higher mathematics diminishes further, though I'm at least understanding it all a whole lot better this time around - and I'm at least doing great in my Software Engineering courses, those being the core of my major and all...).

As to why the server isn't up at the moment...

It involves a forgotten ethernet cable, running a lot of wires through a cramped utility closet, and waiting until Saturday for a friend to lend me a power drill so I can finish the job. Until then, all three of us are working downstairs in the living room and my server is sitting upstairs, unconnected. On the bright side, we'll no longer have a stairwell that's halfway covered with wires and duct tape.

---

Now this is just too funny a story to keep to myself:

A few days ago, while I was still home on vacation, my sister calls me to ask about cutting a hole in her floor.

That might seem strange enough on its own, but it turns out the reason why was that her kitten, VinSnitzer (a strange name for a cat, if you ask me), had crawled through a hole in the back of her kitchen cabinets, into the wall, and under the floor. Feles lacrimosa. Soror lacrimosa. Raeda in fossa insidet (different story, nevermind).

So, I ask her to look at her ceiling. To which she suddenly fell silent, paused, and asked "what?".

"It's an apartment, right? So I figure you probably have those ceiling tile things instead of drywall up there. Do you?"

"...Yeeeees..."

"Think about it. What's beneath your floor?"

"My neighbors."

"And they probably have ceiling tiles as well."

"What has that got to do with anything?"

"Before anyone comes over there with a forstner bit and a jigsaw, don't you think it'd be a good idea to go downstairs and ask them to lift a couple of ceiling tiles so you can get your cat out of their ceiling?"

"But the cat's under our floor..."

"Just go ask them, okay."

"...Okaaay...".

Anyhow, chibi koneko VinSnitzer was rescued, fed, and happily asleep on the couch within a half hour. My sister, no longer worried about the cat, regained her normally sharp sensibility and sealed off the one-way cat door hidden under her kitchen sink. I, now that the cat was fine, my sister was fine, and neither my father nor I would have to spend the afternoon fixing anyone's floor, was relieved, fed, and happily alseep on the couch within a half hour.

---

Or, for a shorter bit of off-topic humor, I thought of this one when contemplating software re-use:

If no one had ever re-invented the wheel, my bicycle would weigh a hundred pounds and make a typical suburban road feel like it has been paved with cobblestones.

And that's not to mention what might have become of Schrodinger's cat if the man had spent all his time thinking "outside the box".

[downwithpants]

rose, wanted to know: which videos are you waiting for to be submitted? and will you be doing the final encode (or final two encodes) once you receive them?