Backing up anime with megui

[dan_man555]

Hi,

I'm trying to backup my anime dvd to an x264 MP4 with MeGUI, but I have a few concerns.

I want to either not resize it and have it be anamorphic to 4:3 OR resize it to full screen with minimal loss.

Also, I used the x264 settings from http://ayumilove.net/ayumilove-megui-x264-encoding-settings-guide-hd-quality/
But it gives a bitrate of 729, which I feel is a bit low.

The original DVD is anamorphic with the MediaInfo stats:

General
Complete name                            : C:\-\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_1.VOB
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 1.00 GiB
Duration                                 : 3mn 27s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 41.5 Mbps

Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Duration                                 : 3mn 27s (really 24mn 18s)
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 40.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 7 000 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate                               : 25.000 fps
Standard                                 : PAL
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 3.858
Time code of first frame                 : 01:00:00:00
Time code source                         : Group of pictures header
Stream size                              : 991 MiB (96%)

Audio #1
ID                                       : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Muxing mode                              : DVD-Video
Duration                                 : 3mn 27s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -80ms
Stream size                              : 11.1 MiB (1%)

[jman98]

I want to either not resize it and have it be anamorphic to 4:3 OR resize it to full screen with minimal loss.

This sentence doesn't make much sense, so if you'd care to try again it might enable you to get help.

While I've been known to get bent out of shape when morons put a question mark at the end of sentences that are not questions (ie. "That's the biggest dog I've ever seen?" is NOT a freakin' question!), going your route and having NO QUESTIONS at all is not really better although it is at least grammatically correct. Your post just consists of a bunch of declarative sentences about your experience encoding so what exactly do you want help with?

[dan_man555]

Oh, I see what you mean. I'll try and be a bit clearer.

The DVD has a resolution of 720:576, but displays as 4:3. I want to know the resize settings for MeGUI that will give the best results.

Also, I notice that most high quality anime's have a bitrate between 1400~1800. So when I get an output of 729kbps, I feel like there's been too much compression. I used the x264 settings from http://ayumilove.net/ayumilove-megui...de-hd-quality.
I would like someone's opinion on this.

[hello_hello]

Are you cropping the video at all? Assuming for the moment you're not.....

Theoretically, the best method to use is one of the anamorphic options which doesn't resize. "Encode non mod16" doesn't resize and it doesn't adjust the cropping (if you're cropping), so the video is encoded "as-is", and it relies on the player resizing it correctly as it would the original DVD. Not all hardware players will display the encoded video correctly if you use anamorphic encoding, so it's something to consider before using it.

The next best option is to resize "up". Hit the "config" button next to the AVISynth Profile dropdown box and the option to enable resizing "up" is in there. There's also an option in there which tells MeGUI how much it's allowed to fudge the aspect ratio. If you crop the video it enables MeGUI to resize to exact 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios when using anamorphic encoding, without having to crop the video to exactly 4:3 or 16:9 dimensions. If you don't want MeGUI to "fudge" the aspect ratio at all, set it to 0%.
Once resizing "up" is enabled, change the mod16 setting next to the resize area to mod2. You want to leave the height at 576 and increase the width until the aspect ratio distortion is as low as you can get it. You'll end up with 788x576, using your screenshot as an example.

Now for the more tricky bit. 788x576 isn't 4:3. That's because MeGUI has selected ITU resizing in the Input DAR section. ITU resizing isn't exactly 4:3 (or 16:9). You can change that to straight 4:3 resizing manually. If you do, you'll also need to change the resizing a little. 768x576 will give you a zero aspect error and it also happens to be exactly 4:3.

The third best resizing option is to resize "down". Instead of increasing the width, you reduce the height. ie 720x540. Depending on the DVD you're encoding that might lose you a little fine detail compared to 768x576, but often it won't. Often you can go all the way down to 640x480 (still 4:3) before you have a chance of seeing a difference. It just depends how much detail the original video actually contains. Use the preview function to compare resizing methods to see if you're losing detail resizing down compared to resizing up etc (keep in mind the preview doesn't display the correct aspect ratio if you use anamorphic encoding, but don't worry about it, it'll still be encoded correctly).

Back on the ITU resizing subject..... there's no way to know for sure if a DVD uses the ITU resize method or the straight 4:3 (or 16:9) resize method. As a general rule, they're more likely to use straight 4:3 (or 16:9) resizing. In my opinion. The difference isn't all that great anyway.
If you go into MeGUI's options, under the Main Configuration tab, there's a checkbox labelled "Use ITU Aspect Ratio". If you uncheck it (which I do) when you next open a DVD, MeGUI will default to displaying exactly 4:3 (or 16:9) in the "Input DAR" section, rather than default to ITU resizing.

Hopefully that helps. The whole resizing/aspect ratio thing for DVDs can take a bit to get your head around, but eventually you will. I did, so I assume anyone can....

[hello_hello]

Also, I notice that most high quality anime's have a bitrate between 1400~1800. So when I get an output of 729kbps, I feel like there's been too much compression. I used the x264 settings from http://ayumilove.net/ayumilove-megui...de-hd-quality.
I would like someone's opinion on this.

I don't encode anime so I couldn't comment on x264 settings specifically for doing so, but my advice would be to not set a file size/bitrate. Use a quality setting and let the bitrate be whatever it'll be. The default of 20 should give you quite good quality. If not, try lowering it to 19 or 18. Even down as low as 16 if the output file size doesn't get too out of control. The lower the value the higher the quality (and also a larger file size).

There's a lot of odd advice floating around regarding various x264 settings. Mine (odd or otherwise) would be to start with the default settings, Tuning "Animation", Constant Quality Encoding with a quality setting of 18 to 20, and the slowest speed preset you can stand. Run an encode, apply whatever "tweaks" are recommended, then run another encode to compare the results. That way you can look at any changes to the quality and file size (use the same quality value each time) and decide for yourself if the person who recommended them is a genius or simply has no clue.
The person offering those "tweaks" encodes everything using CRF23. Personally, I never go above CRF20 and I pretty much encode everything using CRF18. Sometimes "tweaks" just seem to compensate for not having simply used a low enough CRF (quality) value in the first place.

[dan_man555]

Thanks for the detailed response. This helps me out a lot.

[hello_hello]

No problem.
In case I wasn't clear, the resizing options I mentioned (resizing "up", "down" or somewhere in between) referred to resizing with anamorphic encoding disabled, which then always resizes the video using square pixels, so it'll display correctly using any player.

Some of the anamorphic options also let you resize, but generally that'll end up with the resolution being different to the aspect ratio and relies on the player resizing the video correctly. I used to encode all DVDs using anamorphic encoding, but there's now three TVs in this house with built in media players and none of them obey the aspect ratio for MKV/MP4 video, so I gave up and now resize to square pixels. Generally I keep the remaining height after cropping and increase the width accordingly when encoding movies, although sometimes I pick an "in-between" size for 16:9 video to keep the file size down as generally I can't see any loss of detail when doing so. For 16:9 PAL DVD video I often use 960x540 as it's exactly 16:9. How you do it though is of course up to you.

Also, don't be afraid to experiment with different resizing methods if you resize to square pixels. Some are sharper than others but it's often a compromise between sharpness and having jagged edges in places etc. I mainly use spline36 but I don't encode anime.

One other thing to consider..... as your video is interlaced you may want to experiment with changing the de-interlacing method to something other than the default MeGUI chooses. It will default to de-interlacing to 25fps but the methods which de-interlace to 50fps should give you smoother playback. Yadif with Bob etc might give better results. After changing the de-interlacing method, use the Preview button and watch the total frame count in the preview window. You'll know if the video is being de-interlaced to 25fps or 50fps that way. Once again.... don't be scared to experiment. If you don't want to encode the entire video to make comparisons, create a few different scripts and use the AVS cutter under the Tools menu to encode just a small section of it. Have fun!