Encoding anime for PC use

[TheNeverhood]

Hi,

I have ripped my Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT boxsets to my HDD (MakeMKV) and I want to encode them with x264, but I'm holding off until I have learnt a bit more. I would appreciate any help

I have attached two files from the Dragon Ball boxset (NTSC, Progressive, SD). One is the original and the other is the encoded file. I used Simple x264 Launcher (10 bit):
--ref 16 --aq-mode 3 --aq-strength 0.6 --bframes 16 --b-pyramid 2 --me umh --merange 16 --subme 10 --rc-lookahead 60 --b-adapt 2 --partitions all --trellis 2 --no-fast-pskip --direct auto --weightp 2 --slow-firstpass --deblock 1:1 --psy-rd 0.4:0.0 --range pc

They will only be played back on a computer with an IPS LCD monitor.

[LigH.de]

I doubt that max. 16 reference frames are useful, real cartoons have many (almost) duplicate frames, therefore the best references will probably often be short. Same for max. 16 consecutive B frames, unnecessary complexity, a waste of encoding time. And I doubt that a slow first pass is necessary. Don't try to use the slowest options without understanding what they do, they may not even help.

There is a reason why x264 offers a speed/quality "preset" set and a "tune" set of parameters. They are quite well balanced. Try to combine the tuning "animation" with a sane preset ("placebo" is insane).

[TheNeverhood]

I doubt that max. 16 reference frames are useful, real cartoons have many (almost) duplicate frames, therefore the best references will probably often be short. Same for max. 16 consecutive B frames, unnecessary complexity, a waste of encoding time. And I doubt that a slow first pass is necessary. Don't try to use the slowest options without understanding what they do, they may not even help.

There is a reason why x264 offers a speed/quality "preset" set and a "tune" set of parameters. They are quite well balanced. Try to combine the tuning "animation" with a sane preset ("placebo" is insane).

Hi,

Thanks for replying, I appreciate the help :]

I read on the Avidemux x264 guide that even 16 reference frames can help with anime and considering these encodes will only ever be played back on my computer, I didn't see any harm.

An excerpt from the guide:
"At the same time Anime and cartoons benefit a lot from additional reference frames. Sometimes even the maximum of 16 reference frames can be helpful for such material."

I guess I will use the "very slow" preset with the "animation" tune.

What about the color range? Should I leave this to default or change to PC if they're being played back on a computer (IPS monitor)?

[LigH.de]

In general: Leave it. The original video you want to convert was probably already encoded with TV range (YUV: luma 16..235, chroma 16..240), so the PC decoder will know that your copy is encoded with TV range too, and will expand to PC range during playback. AviSynth functions will limit it by default anyway, except you enable "coring" manually.

To be certain, analyze your video source with the Histogram(mode="levels") function. When the video source exceeds YUV range limits, you will spot warning colors. A little bit of clipping is not to be worried about, only regular "bleeding" into headroom areas.

[jaggy]

Hi,

I have ripped my Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT boxsets to my HDD (MakeMKV) and I want to encode them with x264, but I'm holding off until I have learnt a bit more. I would appreciate any help

I have attached two files from the Dragon Ball boxset (NTSC, Progressive, SD). One is the original and the other is the encoded file. I used Simple x264 Launcher (10 bit):
--ref 16 --aq-mode 3 --aq-strength 0.6 --bframes 16 --b-pyramid 2 --me umh --merange 16 --subme 10 --rc-lookahead 60 --b-adapt 2 --partitions all --trellis 2 --no-fast-pskip --direct auto --weightp 2 --slow-firstpass --deblock 1:1 --psy-rd 0.4:0.0 --range pc

They will only be played back on a computer with an IPS LCD monitor.

Introducing 16 reference frames improves compression but may cause playback issues even in some computer setups. (Kodi under IOS). You will not be getting better quality vs a more reasonable number of reference frames. While you may not care for hardware compatibility, some standalone players support relatively high uppermost limits of reference frames which make sense under just about any scenario. Roku 3 apparently supports up to 8 reference frames. If you don't care to explore the advanced settings, follow light.de's advice.

Regarding your files, the file labeled "original" is half the size of the second file. I did not look at the second file or perform any analysis. You may wish to consider leaving the 1980's DB MKV files as-is - without converting.