The Epic Encoder Poll
January 25th, 2010
So, the time has come.
See also the comments here for stuff about the videos.
…or if you’re lazy bum, i’ve uploaded them all to the server. see here.
EDIT
Looks like both rimi and gavers have new encodes… we’ll wait for those 
new poll asap
Reply with ways that your top choices can do better.
25 Responses to “The Epic Encoder Poll”
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Got them uploaded to the server… link’s in the post.
Gavers is great, with the best color and contrast, though the sharpening is a *touch* too high. Also, higher bitrates = win…
oh I made a better version but too late >_<
Feel free to upload it.
Oh, I’d also suggest using AAC. I know it’s “only” Haruhi-chan audio, but if you’re going for the best there’s no point stinting the audio with MP3. Compatibility is not as much of a factor when it’s in an mkv container
My five year old PowerBook can’t keep up with the fast parts of the video (i.e. Kyon getting murdered by his sister comes through at zero frames per second), so the encode doesn’t cater to old hardware/software combos anyway.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by aRedMoon, Shamisen Subs. Shamisen Subs said: http://shamisen-subs.com/2010/01/25/the-epic-encoder-poll/ [...]
I’ve never been much for being all considerate when it comes to old computers/bad media players/codecs,etc,etc,when it comes to fansubbing.I’ve always felt that rather than release the best all-around compatible file,all fansubbers should release in optimal quality,and let the downloaders’ problems with getting it to work because it’s not compatible with their old hardware,be their own problem.The exception is for files released in 1080p HD,as there are too many computers these won’t work well on.Also,I hate how almost everyone is using mkv these days.I’d much rather have MP4.The quality is just as good,and the format is easier to make compatible with other player than MPC,like VLC for instance.Media Player Classic works well with everything ofcourse,but I’m stuck with low volume on my computer headset when it comes to video,so I need to use VLC to be able to crank it up enough.Oh well.I’m sounding hypocritic here.^^’ I just miss the old days when everything was hardsubbed….I’ve never cared for softsubbing…it’s unnecessary,and can make the video lag.And yet EVERYONE is doing it these days!I mean,really,are you actually gonna watch the video without subtitles?Seems nobody realizes that it’s pointless to have softsubs otherwise,and just how many watch fansubs without subs? :-/
Softsubbing makes subbing easier.
for people like me who do AMV’s, softsubbing is useful since i don’t have to deal with the subtitles, i can just turn them off
MKV and MP4 got the same codecs, the only thing that changes is the container (its like the difference betwen .zip and .rar, its got the same audio and video files inside but what changes is the way of keeping them toghether in one file), the difference is that mp4 doesn’t support subtitles or many audio tracks
Ye, well, MP4 is more compatible with alot of players than mkv, that’s all.
I like MKV better than MP4, there is less loss in quality and also easier to use. But mostly for ppl with CCCP (I hate VLC player >.>)
I guess Macs dont have a CCCP version Oh well
BTW i like Gavers
Gavers and KOR were hard to decide between. So I picked both
The main thing Gavers needs is to include the ending theme audio as it was missing for me.
Still, good stuff.
An example of how I decided (not lossless, don’t base decisions from this image)
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/5729/haruhichan.jpg
So in the end, I voted for gavers and K.o.R. I guess my suggestions would be these:
gavers:
- tone down the brightness and sharpening a bit
- use anamorphic resizing in the MKV file
- there’s not much point in using mp3 for the sake of compatibility when Matroska isn’t all that compatible anyways
K.o.R:
- crop off the black bar from the top and a bit from the right side, which also has a bit of blurriness/I don’t even know what to call it (it’s present in all of the encodes except for gavers’)
As for the other two, I think it’d be beneficial to up the bitrate a bit to get rid of the blockiness.
Oh right, I forgot to add this, but obviously, gavers’ needs audio at the end.
i hurried too much to post this
i have now an even improved version, but i guess it’s too late now.
Feel free to upload~!
Aw dang, spoke too soon.
I vote for gavers, i like the sharpness and the stronger colors, the missing audio at the end is a minor mistake, I’m sure that he’s able to fix it
(i decided by looking at the picture that Peter uploaded, i know about the audio cause everybody is talking about it O.o)
I did the same thing as peter. Though I did it as an elimination round. I bumped one off when i saw something displeasing, and restarted the ones that were left.
Also, as per gavers’ contrast, it was *extremely* high. The skin tones look alien. Toning it down a bit would make it tons better. It’s basically a trade: everything gets sharper HD looking colors, except for the skin tones, which look like pastel. Good otherwise.
ok, this time i did an MP4 cuz i don’t see a reason to Mux it into MKV
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3SZBPF5A
After seeing gavers’ new encode, I can say it’s pretty much perfect. Although I still would like it to be anamorphicly resized during playback, I’ll take what I can get
Nice job!
Gavers’ new encode is perfect, and in my case, I give plus for releasing in MP4 rather than in MKV (I wish all groups would always do this. VLC doesn’t always like MKV if the video is very high quality (which is ironic since MKV was made for VLC back in the day, and only worked on it)), so Gavers has my vote if I have tho choose just one, but K.o.R’s version is almost just as good in my oppinion, so I don’t mind if he’s picked either.
Okay here it is, taking advice from the comments:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JYQB52U4
rimi: wrong aspect ratio which is no biggie, but odd resolution. that said I like this one.
gavers: choppy video at 1:10. Check frame by frame to see why.
kor: good except the black bar
I vote kor first, rimi second.
Rimi: Nice, but you should fix the aspect ratio, and the resolution at which you encoded it. Non-mod16 numbers (numbers which aren’t divisible by 16) aren’t really efficient so you’re making the file size bigger than it needs to be (well, not that’s it’s really big anyways). Just saying.