Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released) — Page 298

jdryyz said:  As you may have already guessed, I am using HandBrake for the re-encode.  I believe you're referring to the settings in the "Video Quality" section.  I see no reason why I couldn't try it again, but how did you determine what setting to use?

Sorry.  When you specified a BD player and an average bitrate, I assumed that you had tried unsuccessfully to remux the MKV to a BD structure and burn the result to disc, which I do recommend you try.  I knew which setting to use from experience with x264, for which Handbrake is a GUI.  If you are recompressing, I doubt that using a CRF rather than two-pass VBR would be the cause of any playback problems.

Thanks for all the help, guys.

I should have mentioned that I am using a DLNA server to play the file over my BDP-83, not burning it to a BD or using an external USB drive. Not having to do either of those things is one of the reasons I use DLNA. I never obtained a BD burner due to the relatively high cost of media, although I have burned a BD structure to a DVD-R DL disc when working with small source files.

I should also mention that I have come across plenty of .mkv files in additional to creating several of them on my own that play fine. This is the first time in a long time I have had any trouble with a .mkv and the BDP-83.

Since it plays just fine on my other Oppo (BDP-93) I am pointing my finger at the BDP-83 because the latest firmware I have may not cover any recent changes in the H.264 spec as has happened before (and quoted here). I'm just guessing though. Because the 83 plays back something and doesn't just immediately freeze with DeEdv2.0, I do not believe it has to due with one of the old problems related to FPS. There were a couple of issues the 83 had relating to how .mkv files were encoded. One was something that was fixed in a firmware release, the other meant no longer being able to use "same as source" in HandBrake, but I may be confusing the two at this point in time.

Incidentally, I cannot use the very latest firmware update due to another known issue involving the BDP-83's "16:9 Wide/Auto" setting as is documented here:

http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/bdp-83-firmware-55-0226.aspx

So, while I am stuck using old firmware, I do not believe any of the updates released up to this point dealt with any problem I having, they're mostly for BD disc compatibility.

I found the info on the update that addressed a very similar problem I am seeing (item#2):

http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/bdp-83-firmware-50-0323b.aspx

As you can see, that goes all the way back to 2010.

No prob.

I used HR setting 16 for a constant quality re-encode last night and the resulting file is about half the size! It only included the DD 5.1 soundtrack, but I still think that might be too much compression.  :)

Maybe I will stick with something closer to the default setting. I suspect using the constant quality option is a better way to go to resolve this particular incompatibility I'm having and re-encoding process takes less time as well.

I still need to try my highly-compressed file first.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said:  As you may have already guessed, I am using HandBrake for the re-encode.  I believe you're referring to the settings in the "Video Quality" section.  I see no reason why I couldn't try it again, but how did you determine what setting to use?

Sorry.  When you specified a BD player and an average bitrate, I assumed that you had tried unsuccessfully to remux the MKV to a BD structure and burn the result to disc, which I do recommend you try.  I knew which setting to use from experience with x264, for which Handbrake is a GUI.  If you are recompressing, I doubt that using a CRF rather than two-pass VBR would be the cause of any playback problems.

Now that is interesting. I may try this also.

Perhaps we can suggest this be pre-disabled in v2.1!

SpilkaBilka said:

This might not be related to the issues you're having, but maybe it will help.  A while ago I tried to stream Harmy's 2.0 MKV from my laptop to my Panasonic blu ray player, but it wouldn't play.  I read some stuff on AVSForum, and used MKVmerge to "disable header removal compression" in the MKV.

I have no idea what that means or does, but it worked.

jdryyz said: I still think that might be too much compression.  :)

It's not.  The original file-size is excessive.

Track down the AVCHD version, which is barely distinguishable from the MKV in terms of quality, and see if it plays.  That might save you some bother.

My constant quality test file is playing without error on the 83.

That being the case, I will try experimenting more with adding back the audio tracks I desire and adjusting the quality rate.

How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality? All those audio tracks shouldn't take up that much space, but I'm no expert.

So far no luck in finding the AVCHD version, by the way.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said: I still think that might be too much compression.  :)

It's not.  The original file-size is excessive.

Track down the AVCHD version, which is barely distinguishable from the MKV in terms of quality, and see if it plays.  That might save you some bother.

jdryyz said:  How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality?

Higher file-size does not necessarily mean higher quality.  The MKV was much bigger than it needed to be, so your recompressed file ended up being considerably smaller.

Wonder why it was larger than it needed to be to begin with.

Ahhh well...I am getting a feel for the constant quality settings. They're quite sensitive to adjustments but I believe I am getting close to a value that will work.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said:  How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality?

Higher file-size does not necessarily mean higher quality.  The MKV was much bigger than it needed to be, so your recompressed file ended up being considerably smaller.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said:  How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality?

Higher file-size does not necessarily mean higher quality.  The MKV was much bigger than it needed to be, so your recompressed file ended up being considerably smaller.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said: I still think that might be too much compression. :)

It's not. The original file-size is excessive.

Track down the AVCHD version, which is barely distinguishable from the MKV in terms of quality, and see if it plays. That might save you some bother.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said:  How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality?

Higher file-size does not necessarily mean higher quality.  The MKV was much bigger than it needed to be, so your recompressed file ended up being considerably smaller.

I would like to give my my heart felt thanks to Harmy for restoring my memories in HD! Excellent, phenominal work!!!

Mr Chewtobacca,

Respectfully I disagree with you on all counts. I see the difference and so do others. These releases need to be kept "archival grade" IMHO, you can never get back what is lost.

A 16GB file in 2013 is not large. If someone has issue be it connectivity-wise or patience-wise between a 10GB or say a 20GB file then perhaps the owness is on them not Harmy to do things differently.

Harmy, 

I beg of you,  please keep 2.1 "archival grade" and do not reduces the size via compression merely to cater to a tiny faction. I bet you like me can see the difference. Keep up the great work my friend and my eternal thanks!

Respectfully I disagree with you on all counts. I see the difference and so do others. These releases need to be kept "archival grade" IMHO, you can never get back what is lost.

Then it should be released as a 1080p 40gb mpeg2, or even some lossless codec.  Pretending a 720p 15gb mp4 is archival grade is silly.

You being able to see the difference is more placebo than anything.  You really do need comparison software to see the difference.  The "tiny faction" is people who can actually see a difference, although plenty claim to.

If an archival grade copy is important Harmy should release a HUGE lossless encode into the wild.  It is overkill for 99.99% of use cases, but just having access to it benefits many people.  If it were 1080p, then yes, 15 gigs would be necessary, but since 720p is half the resolution, 8 is plenty.

dblake83 said: I see the difference and so do others.

I doubt it, but feel free to disagree.  Wabid is correct when he says that you need comparison software to see the difference.

A 16GB file in 2013 is not large.

It's not, but it was larger than was needed for high quality.

Harmy said:

wabid said:

Respectfully I disagree with you on all counts. I see the difference and so do others. These releases need to be kept "archival grade" IMHO, you can never get back what is lost.

Then it should be released as a 1080p 40gb mpeg2, or even some lossless codec.  Pretending a 720p 15gb mp4 is archival grade is silly.

You being able to see the difference is more placebo than anything.  You really do need comparison software to see the difference.  The "tiny faction" is people who can actually see a difference, although plenty claim to.

If an archival grade copy is important Harmy should release a HUGE lossless encode into the wild.  It is overkill for 99.99% of use cases, but just having access to it benefits many people.  If it were 1080p, then yes, 15 gigs would be necessary, but since 720p is half the resolution, 8 is plenty.

 

That's not strictly true - while I myself must admit to see little difference here between the AVCHD and the MKV, it really depends on the size of screen you're watching it on and of course the viewing distance - there is a clear difference between a 16GB 1080p and a full BD encode - while the 16GB version is likely to look great, the BD will look even better, especially with grainy film, because grain is hard to compress, so it stands to reason that with half the resolution, you need half the size - that is 8GB for very good quality, 15-20GB for retail BD quality compression-vise. A 40GB 1080p would of course be pointless, since I've been working at 720p from step one, so it would have to be an upscale, but I don't think BD25 size is an overkill for 720p (the mkv release is a BD25 size once you add lossless audio, menus and some extras).

Exactly Harmy! Grain does not compress well, not at all. That is why you are THE Expert.

I have 20/18 vision [it used to to 20/15] and my Screen is 55" .  I notice needless compresssion in a heartbeat.

I find it a bit mind-boggling that in 2013 that saving a few GB has even entered into the conversation. Anyhow glad that the only one who is critically important to the Despecialized Edition understands.

Once again Harmy, thank you for restoring my early childhood memories in HD!

P.S. if you do wan to release 2.1 in a "special" 20GB+ version as well I know I'm not the only one who will be all for it.

Thanks for the update Harmy, great work. Btw it still amazes me how bad the colour timing is on the Blu-Ray SE version....

dblake83 said:

 

 

I would like to give my my heart felt thanks to Harmy for restoring my memories in HD! Excellent, phenominal work!!!

 

Mr Chewtobacca,

Respectfully I disagree with you on all counts. I see the difference and so do others. These releases need to be kept "archival grade" IMHO, you can never get back what is lost.

A 16GB file in 2013 is not large. If someone has issue be it connectivity-wise or patience-wise between a 10GB or say a 20GB file then perhaps the owness is on them not Harmy to do things differently.

Harmy, 

I beg of you,  please keep 2.1 "archival grade" and do not reduces the size via compression merely to cater to a tiny faction. I bet you like me can see the difference. Keep up the great work my friend and my eternal thanks!

This.  

If someone thinks the file size is too large and wants to re-encode it and share it with others, that's one thing. But for a project like this, 16-20GB is not excessive.

A little question  regarding the best Playback device:

What Player do you use to get the closest to the original as possible experience. Until now i used vlc media player 1.1.5 with GPU acceleration turned off, cause in my experience it smoothes the picture out to much, as in the CPU mode it is more sharp. Very noticable if you play it on a beamer and a 2m wide screen.

Yesterday i tried Media Player Classic Home Cinema with the MadVR renderer, but here the sharpness isn`t as great as in VLC with GPU deactivated. Perhaps i should enable some sharpening shaders?

Edit: I made some comparison screens for myself and the results were interesting. It seems that the picture in MPC HC is more yellowish than in VLC. I don`t know what`s closer to the way it`s supposed to look.

With activated sharpening complex in MPC HC the details are MUCH better (Lukes hair etc.). The question is, whether this overemphasized sharpness is the true 1977 SW experience or not.

I`m a total beginner when it comes to MPC HC and its renderers, filters and shaders.

Do you use the default MadVR settings?