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Answerman - How Much Anime Can REALLY Fit On A Blu-ray?


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Tylerr



Joined: 13 Nov 2010
Posts: 475
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 1:52 am Reply with quote
eh 15mb\s is more than enough... when you don't have to conform to blu-ray standards.

but this is usually why japanese blu-rays look so much better, since they only put like 2-3 episodes max per disk.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 3:24 am Reply with quote
Shiflan wrote:
The comment Justin made about the film grain and certain kinds of shading not playing nicely with digital compression was certainly true. A lot of earlier shows from the 80's looked downright horrible when released on DVD for this reason. And I've even seen it in some current shows via streaming. I have yet to see what I would consider a "bad BD", but I would be worried if I saw a long-running show crammed on a single disc. Perhaps it's just paranoia from seeing some bad DVDs years ago, but the concern is there.


That is a strange thought, that it's older media that modern digital devices have the most problems dealing with. But perhaps it also makes the most sense, as the media back then was never meant to be converted into today's digital formats.

That makes me wonder then: If 80's action shows have so many problems with getting the grain right, what is the difficulty or bitrate of older works with limited animation with simple visuals, like the Charlie Brown specials or The Flintstones?

Tylerr wrote:
eh 15mb\s is more than enough... when you don't have to conform to blu-ray standards.

but this is usually why japanese blu-rays look so much better, since they only put like 2-3 episodes max per disk.


The point of this article and many people who have commented on it is that you can actually fit a lot onto one disk without any noticeable drop in quality, but it comes down to the work itself, as well as the skill and budget of the people doing the encoding.
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Kalessin



Joined: 15 Aug 2007
Posts: 931
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 3:59 am Reply with quote
configspace wrote:
Anyways, regarding x264 settings, I found that tune=film is the best and is the most suited for anime ironically (the "animation" tuning is best for American cartoons), but results in gigantic sizes for all but the flattest scenes when used with CRF.


I've done pretty well with --tuning=animation, but I override what it does with aq-strength and psy-rd so that it matches what you get with --tuning=film. I also use really high settings for other stuff like the profile and preset. But I expect that plenty of folks would think that the resulting sizes were still too high. When I transcode my anime Blu-rays for local storage, some shows end up with the episodes around 1GB, whereas others are 2+ (whereas on the Blu-ray, they're usually somewhere between 4 and 5GB). I think that the worst was Intrigue in the Bakumatsu, which ended up being only slightly smaller than what was on the Blu-ray - almost certainly thanks to all of the grain. But I'll take quality over file size any day, and while I'm sure that I could frequently get better compression if I tuned the encoding settings to each show, I'd much rather save my time and use options that are overkill so that I can guarantee that any of the problems that the video has were in the original without having to encode the video multiple times to find the best result.

The one thing that I haven't figured out how to deal with satisfactorily is interlacing. Handbrake's decombing feature seems to do well with live action but not so well with animation, and straight up deinterlacing or de-telecining always ends up looking bad. One of these days, I'm probably going to have to break down and figure out how to use AviSynth and see if I can get some of the fancier de-interlacing filters that are floating around to do an acceptable job (though given that I use FreeBSD and Linux rather than Windows, using AviSynth is going to be a bit of a pain). Much as I want Blu-rays to be released without banding, I'll take banding over interlacing any day of the week (though I don't want either). The fact that some Blu-rays are interlaced when HD displays aren't is just plain ridiculous. Neutral

On the bright side, while there are problems with some Blu-ray encodes, they're pretty much universally better than what we used to get on many anime DVDs (and maybe still do; I don't know; I pretty much don't watch DVDs anymore).
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thekingsdinner



Joined: 25 Sep 2010
Posts: 1067
Location: Geertruidenberg, Netherlands
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:09 am Reply with quote
As of yet, I only have 2 shows with all episodes crammed on one disc, which are Meganebu! (Sentai) and K (Kaze). I have watched them both and didn't notice any quality loss whatsoever, I'm completely satisfied with those releases.
Thanks to this article it's finally clear to me why that is the case, it always left me scratching my head.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:18 am Reply with quote
Tylerr wrote:
eh 15mb\s is more than enough... when you don't have to conform to blu-ray standards.

but this is usually why japanese blu-rays look so much better, since they only put like 2-3 episodes max per disk.


I don't know. Justin seems to be saying that there isn't that much of a noticeable difference.
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Ergzay



Joined: 04 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:29 am Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
I can rarely see a meaningful difference between SD & HD when it comes to anime, so I'm not surprised that you can fit an entire cour's worth of episodes on a single disc & not suffer significant quality loss. I don't think many buyers actually think they sell these things in multiple, separate volumes because of image quality concerns.


You might want to get your eyes checked or possibly get a newer TV/screen that may be hiding the difference. SD (480p/360p) vs 720p is strongly different from each other even to a casual observer.
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partially



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 702
Location: Oz
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:36 am Reply with quote
Ergzay wrote:
Lemonchest wrote:
I can rarely see a meaningful difference between SD & HD when it comes to anime, so I'm not surprised that you can fit an entire cour's worth of episodes on a single disc & not suffer significant quality loss. I don't think many buyers actually think they sell these things in multiple, separate volumes because of image quality concerns.


You might want to get your eyes checked or possibly get a newer TV/screen that may be hiding the difference. SD (480p/360p) vs 720p is strongly different from each other even to a casual observer.


Not entirely, I know plenty of people that don't see the difference. And overall there isn't much of one for the overall image on some anime.

The main thing it comes down to with HD anime is line work, texture and colour. So it also really depends on what anime you watch. Simply drawn stuff doesn't show a big difference, because it lacks any real detail. With a lot of shonen anime it really doesn't matter whether you watch a good SD encode over HD. Unless you are paying attention to the outlines, and a lot of people aren't when watching.

That said it bugs me no end. But then I know there are plenty of people that don't even notice.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 6:00 am Reply with quote
Tylerr wrote:
eh 15mb\s is more than enough... when you don't have to conform to blu-ray standards.

but this is usually why japanese blu-rays look so much better, since they only put like 2-3 episodes max per disk.


Quality has nothing to do with the reason Japan only puts 2-3 episodes on BD, DVD or VHS. I imagine those are only 25 GB BDs and single layer DVDs but I've never gotten that confirmed.

My own personal view on these complaints are "I'm watching this BD with a magnifying glass and I'm seeing problems with it. Everyone else needs to watch it the same way to see my problems!"

Every BD needs to come with a "Watch in a well lit room and from a good distance" announcement. It wouldn't stop the complaints but at least it'll allow publishers a chance to say "you're not following instructions."

I never want to go less than 6 episodes per DVD and I really hate BDs with only two episodes on them... yeah, the kind of series that just have to be eleven episodes so you can't get it on one BD and you can't split it 6 and 5 as it's not cost effective for 2 50 GB BDs.

Which reminds me of the Viz Tiger and Bunny BDs which get split 7/6 over 2 50GB BDs which should still be the same as 3 episodes on 1 25 GB.

If life was a matter of quality, I wouldn't be watching anime in the first place.
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eyevocal



Joined: 21 Jul 2009
Posts: 137
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 8:29 am Reply with quote
The biggest problem I have with Sentai's Blu-Rays is their color banding (remaster and exchange the Colorful movie already, Sentai!), and I'm loathe to buy those crammed discs because of that. Which is why I wish they'd cut the crap and totally redo their BD mastering process from the ground up. Like, say...hiring Justin to do it.
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Shiflan



Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 418
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 8:51 am Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:

That is a strange thought, that it's older media that modern digital devices have the most problems dealing with. But perhaps it also makes the most sense, as the media back then was never meant to be converted into today's digital formats.


I think it's for two reasons:

1) A typical modern show will be created in digipaint. It tends to have large areas all shaded the exact same color. Compare that to an older show that was hand painted and had film grain--the colors were nowhere near as consistent as digipaint. That takes more space to compress, and sometimes the algorithms don't play nice with the grain (like Justin mentioned).

2) Keep in mind I was talking about the early days of anime on DVD. At that time DVD was still a pretty new technology and people were still learning the best methods for encoding. There were many cases of poor digital transfers--not just in anime, but for major Hollywood movies too. Most of those problems have since been resolved.

These points may be largely moot now, but my experience has taught me to be leery of very high episode counts per disc.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:16 am Reply with quote
Matroska has a feature called "chapters" that enables encoders to include just one copy of the OP and ED and play it seamlessly within each of the episodes. Since the OP/ED constitutes three minutes per episode, that method saves 36 minutes of repetition in a thirteen-week series. Do Blu-rays have a similar feature? Is it used for anime production?
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consignia



Joined: 06 Jul 2011
Posts: 391
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:31 am Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
Matroska has a feature called "chapters" that enables encoders to include just one copy of the OP and ED and play it seamlessly within each of the episodes. Since the OP/ED constitutes three minutes per episode, that method saves 36 minutes of repetition in a thirteen-week series. Do Blu-rays have a similar feature? Is it used for anime production?


I think there is, something called seamless branching, although I'm not sure it's the exact same thing.

However, It wouldn't be any use, since the OPs and EDs are different for each episode, i.e. the staff who worked on a particular episode will be different.
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Shiflan



Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 418
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:03 am Reply with quote
consignia wrote:
However, It wouldn't be any use, since the OPs and EDs are different for each episode, i.e. the staff who worked on a particular episode will be different.


Wouldn't it be possible to repeat the main portion of the opening (which would remain unchanged), and then store just the sections with differing credits?

Though maybe that would cause annoying pauses and/or not be worth the effort?
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Tylerr



Joined: 13 Nov 2010
Posts: 475
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:18 am Reply with quote
[quote="Animegomaniac"]
Tylerr wrote:
Quality has nothing to do with the reason Japan only puts 2-3 episodes on BD, DVD or VHS. I imagine those are only 25 GB BDs and single layer DVDs but I've never gotten that confirmed..


I didn't say that it did.

and yes they are single layer for blu-rays, not sure about dvds but since they are dirt cheap now i'd expect them to use dual.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 12:27 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:

Quality has nothing to do with the reason Japan only puts 2-3 episodes on BD, DVD or VHS. I imagine those are only 25 GB BDs and single layer DVDs but I've never gotten that confirmed.


I can confirm that for you right now. They definitely skew toward dual layer. After just checking my own collection, if the disc has 4 episodes on it, it is pretty likely that it'll be dual layer, if it is a volume release in general, it's probably about 70-80% likely that they'll be dual layer(regardless of episode count). Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere volumes are dual layer with 3 episodes per disc, Accel World are single layer(at least for ones I checked) with 3 episodes, Paranoia Agent Box set is dual layer with 4 episodes per disc, Tatami Galaxy Box is single layer with 3 episodes per disc, Soul Eater Box is dual layer, One Punch Man volumes are dual layer with 2 episodes(plus OVA) per disc, K-ON Box is dual layer, Hyouka volumes are dual layer, Gargantia volumes are dual layer, Haruhi Box is dual layer, Kanon(2006) box is dual layer, etc. In particular, it seems like more recent volume releases are almost ALL dual layer, while going back to like 2008-2011 it was a little more varied. Economy Blu-ray boxes seem to be more likely to either have single layer, or dual layer with up to 8 episodes on them. I think my Rahxephon Box has a dual layer disc with 8 episodes on it. I haven't seen any set with more packed on it than that.

Quote:
My own personal view on these complaints are "I'm watching this BD with a magnifying glass and I'm seeing problems with it. Everyone else needs to watch it the same way to see my problems!"

Every BD needs to come with a "Watch in a well lit room and from a good distance" announcement. It wouldn't stop the complaints but at least it'll allow publishers a chance to say "you're not following instructions."


Forcing your customers to watch in a specific way like that seems like a bad idea. I have a small room with a big TV and I pay very close attention to video quality. It is something inherent to my personality. I've always been highly observant. Telling me to stop being myself because it makes them look bad is not a solution.
I don't complain about many discs, honestly. I think that the vast majority of them are just fine, but I'm not going to change my watching habits to make it easier for a company to get away with sloppy work. I'm with Kalessin and a couple of others here who really notice and get frustrated by banding. I would love to see that stop happening.
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