Quality vs. Compression

[madbunny]

I'm not saying to throw compression out the windows. Sure, I'd love to see HDrez videos, but I can see how that might not happen anytime soon. if you take 10-15 meg per minute as a standard, then a 4 min video is between 40-60 meg depeinding on the source. that's still large by dialup standards, but not unrealistic for a 512x384 sized video. If I can get the same video at 640x480, or even 800x600 for just a few meg more... say... 60-70 meg, then I'd say go for it.

I would rather have an emphasis on quality, and learning how to keep that quality while at the same time learning how to compress than purely on saving file size.

People on dialup that complain endlessly about file size are a lot like people that complain endlessly about the cost of fancy editing programs. Lets face it, you picked a hobby with a high overhead.

[devilmaykickass]

Does that make more sense to you?

Not really.

[Keeper of Hellfire]

People on dialup that complain endlessly about file size are a lot like people that complain endlessly about the cost of fancy editing programs.

I have a broadband connection, but as editor I'm interested to find a filesize that is as small as possible while keeping visual quality for two (selfish ) reasons. My connection is asymetric, while can download with 1MBit/s I can upload only with 128 kBit/s. Its annoying slow, even if it's 2.5 times the speed that a 56k dial up user has. And the number of dial up users is still large. With keeping the filesize in limits that are interesting for them I increase my audience.

And even if I have a good download speed, as viewer I prefer well compressed files too. My internet contract includes only 1GByte traffic per month. Every additional MByte I have to pay. AMV's aren't my main hobby. This is expensive enough - my motobike.

[Sky_William]

If the video looks great, then I'm fine with a large file size. But there is no excuse, if you know how to compress audio, to leave the audio as a pcm wav. When the video and audio are almost the same size, that is just ridiculous. 10-25% percent should be just fine. That will cover the range 128-320Kbps.

[JclassRoleover]

i always put down to compression 5mb/min.

[trythil]

Sure, I'd love to see HDrez videos, but I can see how that might not happen anytime soon.

Well, the first problem is a lack of anime being broadcast or otherwise distributed in HDTV.

You have the speed to download huge files within seconds, what the hell do you care if the filesize is large even though the compression could've been better.

Indeed! What the hell do I care? More importantly, what incentive is there for me to care? It's your connection, not mine, and I'm not losing anything vital over your refusal to watch anything I make.

Facetiousness aside, I do think that it is important to maximize compression, if only for personal pride -- but only at minimal cost to video quality. There is no reason why I should have to settle for evident macroblocking and mosquito noise in the final product after having invested so much time getting rid of that junk.

I, as a 56k'er, knows how long it takes to download files that are 70mbs. While you only lose, what, 30 seconds of your life downloading that file? We lose hours.

Is your life so serially structured that you simply cannot do other things while your computer is downloading a large file?

the least you can do is show courtesy to the members who have slow internet connections and make your filesize reasonable. (ie)A 3 minute AMV shouldn't be 60mbs.

This is where we can throw another factor into the quality/size problem.

I'll illustrate by way of anecdote, since it's easiest for me...

I know it is possible to achieve significant size savings with little to no visible degradation in quality by using contemporary video codecs: H.264 implementations, for example, can do quite a number.

The problem is that nobody wants to download the codecs to make this distribution scheme work. Everyone wants to use the same old thing.

So that is the problem. I'd rather not distribute videos that look like crap to anyone, but I'd still like to keep size reasonable. Contemporary compression techniques offer a way to achieve the best of both worlds, but few people have the ability and/or knowledge to play back such material.

Hmm.

[madbunny]

Sure, I'd love to see HDrez videos, but I can see how that might not happen anytime soon.

Well, the first problem is a lack of anime being broadcast or otherwise distributed in HDTV.

I thought that most broadcast TV in Japan was either 720p, 1080I, or uh... 1035. For sure that beats 480i any day of the week. So, would I download and watch videos done at 1280x720? Hell yes, ideally they wouldn't suck, but that's never been a guarantee anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it would seem to me that the problem isn't really the broadcast (which is theoretifcally happening at the higher rez) but that capture devices. I haven't seen many electronics in the 'normal' price range for consumers that can record at the higher resolutions. Thus my theory goes, most of the time the anime is broadcast at either 720, or 1080, and raw providers capture them onto TiVO boxes or something similar at the lower 480 size. Am I even close here?

If I could get 1080i footage, I'd be pretty happy. Sure. I'd prefer that they were compressed to a reasonable amount though. I'll bet you that as the technology for compression (such as the codecs you mention) develop we'll begin to see work put forward in larger and larger file sizes.

I don't know about other people, but when I watch a video that fills the screen with crisp detailed images in it, that makes the video more enjoyable for me. If you take fansubs as an example, they've been getting better and better as the encoding and compression skills of the various groups develop. I think that as a community that specializes in presenting videos to others we should look to presenting them in the best possible light.

[trythil]

Sure, I'd love to see HDrez videos, but I can see how that might not happen anytime soon.

Well, the first problem is a lack of anime being broadcast or otherwise distributed in HDTV.

I thought that most broadcast TV in Japan was either 720p, 1080I, or uh... 1035. For sure that beats 480i any day of the week. So, would I download and watch videos done at 1280x720? Hell yes, ideally they wouldn't suck, but that's never been a guarantee anyway.

Japan, yes, but as most people get their source domestically (and don't live in Japan) I figured it was safe to say. If you can intercept HDTV feeds from Japan and get them looking good, well, more power to you.

As far "beating 480i": Resolution-wise, that's true, but you also have to be careful of other things, like errors and bitrate.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it would seem to me that the problem isn't really the broadcast (which is theoretifcally happening at the higher rez) but that capture devices. I haven't seen many electronics in the 'normal' price range for consumers that can record at the higher resolutions. Thus my theory goes, most of the time the anime is broadcast at either 720, or 1080, and raw providers capture them onto TiVO boxes or something similar at the lower 480 size. Am I even close here?

No, there do exist readily available capture devices that will handle 720p/1080i HDTV. Check out the WinTV-HD, for instance. If you're into set-top box hacking you may be able to extract MPEG-2 data off of, say, the PVR that digital cable companies will give you. (Don't ask me how to do it...)

[Zero1]

Fansubbing could play a substantial role into moving on to H264. The problem is Joe Average is just as content to carry on downloading AVI videos with MPEG-4 ASP.

A disturbing movement I have noticed is that a lot of fansub groups that have taken up H264 are using MKV, while this is of course better than AVI for a number of reasons, the proper way to do this is MP4. As trythil said:

Indeed! What the hell do I care? More importantly, what incentive is there for me to care? It's your connection, not mine, and I'm not losing anything vital over your refusal to watch anything I make.

This is how I feel, I'd rather do a job properly than give way to people. Fansubbing is something we do for fun, we have no obligations. If people really want to see something, they will follow a simple step by step guide to install ~2MB software.

And if the computer isn't fast enough to play it back? I provide alternatives and prompts for updating drivers, directx etc, but other than that it's too bad. Things move on over time, Microsoft aren't making the next version of Windows so that it will run on hardware from 1995.

Like trythil I enjoy what I do and will aim for the best. I have a tendancy to push things to the edge and will often try things that people might shy away from (Still waiting for CQM support in libavcodec!).

[trythil]

As trythil said:

Indeed! What the hell do I care? More importantly, what incentive is there for me to care? It's your connection, not mine, and I'm not losing anything vital over your refusal to watch anything I make.

Well, I meant that in jest, but I suppose there's some truth in it.