Project release formats - what should we be using these days?

I was inspired to start this thread by a little exchange on current video formats/codecs - AVI, MP4, MKV et al - in TK421138's thread. At the moment I'm working on both an SD project and an HD one, and when they're finished I'd like to know what the best way to get them out there is. If we're finally moving past the era of physical DVDs and BDs, what should we be using? I found this quote from retardedted in his 1982 VHS preservation thread particularly interesting:

And I would just upload the video as an MP4 because I honestly can't tell the difference between that and a DVD and the year is 2012. Time to get with it.

Single-file distribution makes sense for easy exchange and for playback in media players (which folks are increasingly leaning towards), but I'm concerned that convenience doesn't mean compromise. The audio and video quality is of course the prime concern, particularly where preservation projects are concerned - I know I wouldn't want to sacrifice an authentic look and sound for the sake of convenience, either as a maker or as a viewer.

And what about menus - are they considered redundant these days, as long as the viewer has the means to switch audio/subs?

In addition to file preferences I'd really like to hear some suggestions for tools to use (including recommended settings) - there's so much experience and knowledge here it would be great to get some tips together for ease of reference.

I realise there probably aren't definitive answers to this (at least, not at this point in time) but I thought a discussion on where we are right now might be useful. What do you think?

Ah, would that be a Psycho or Jaws discussion by any chance?

Fair points all round, though I was more interested to know what we as fan editors and preservationists should be aiming for (as opposed to what the studios - with all their resources - can potentially provide).

For example, do you agree that an MP4 is comparable to DVD MPEG-2 for SD? Should we still be bothering to burn DVDs when more efficient codecs can yield equivalent (or higher) quality in a smaller file?

negative1 said:

we are going with the following for our project:

1) full frame MKV 1920x1080 file that can fit on a 25G bluray disc

  (for those with digital projectors)

2) 1080p bluray compatible files / letterboxed - 25G files

3) DVD-9 files for DVD-DL - 9G (maybe a DVD-5)

4) MP4/avi files - 2-5 G

there will be no large scale physical disk distribution,

except for the private workprints, and the initial seeding.

 

all of it will be usenet, torrent, and lastly file locker shared.

 

we will have a few minimal menus, that's it,

with a few soundtrack choices also. we are using commercial

consumer software for the final product. no custom settings,

except to max out the video bitrate, and fit 3 soundtracks

on the discs.

 

later

-1 

 So the largest file would be a 25G bluray disc?

Just wandering if you broke the movie up into reels,

could you put each reel on 1

Standard 1 Layer DVD?

And have 6 reels, on 6 discs

Mainly trying to get an idea of what is possible.
And NO I do not have a bluray burner.
And no I can't download it all at once. .
Just Downloading 1 of Harmy's SD DVD’s was a challenge.

Which  is why I like physical media.
I could go to a store and buy 5 blu rays   faster than I can download one SD video.

Now HOW IS THAT CONVENIENT ?

Yes I will probably be getting the SD DVD

Actually the BD would not be any good to me now as

I have nothing to play it on. But I am thinking of the Future.

<p>I always vote for the highest possible quality regardless of the format.</p>
<p>Menus, angles, and things like that are nice, but I would prefer quality if a trade off absolutely needed to be made.</p>
<p>Lower quality releases can be made specifically for those who want to burn a disc, but for me, that is not really relevant any more since 99% of my media is played using a computer.</p>

Moth3r said:

AVI, MP4 and MKV are neither formats nor codecs; they are all containers.

MPEG-4 Part 2 and MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) are formats.

A codec (encoder/decoder) is a software library such as Xvid or x264 (actually I think x264 is an encoder only, but you get the idea).

Yeah, I get that - sorry if it wasn't clear in my original post.

Thanks for all the ideas folks. I guess -1's 'blanket' approach is the only way to be sure (and certainly justified for a project of such importance). In order to make things a little more straightforward myself I'm leaning towards an H.264 derivative (MP4 or MKV) for uploading, with an old-fashioned DVD/BD disc for archival purposes.

Side question: for my SD project (ITV broadcast reconstruction) I'm wondering whether to make an AVCHD disc with the video encoded as 576p H.264. I'm thinking the quality benefits over MPEG-2 DVD should be apparent (particularly since the source is already MPEG-2), but since this doesn't seem a very common solution I'm wondering if there's some problem I've missed (other than limiting compatibility to Blu-ray players)?

I strongly support AVC/h264.

It's commonly enough supported on stand-alone machines.

My DVD/BD player can support h264 inside an AVI/MKV/MP4.

The audio is a different story. The restrictions largely vary from device to device.

Stand-alones don't always support the most diverse options as a computer.
On computers/laptops you can install codecs; stand-alone hardware is limited only to what the manufacturer installed.

There are multi-media playback "boxes" that support a wider range of formats and codecs than the typical BVD/BD player.

The Blu-Ray disc format would not be a very common medium for the final output. The disc burners can be bought at a reasonable, single price. But the media discs themselves are costly on their own. It's too easy to buy cheap media; cheap in quality and standards, expensive in price.

AVCHD can be a reasonable compromise to offer HD formats on a DVD-5/DVD-9 disc for DVD/BD machines that support AVCHD (mine does).

There are several AVCHD authoring software out there that is free, but limited in support. They work well, but take a long time to convert. One BD to AVCHD takes about 24-32 hours. On a slow machine.
Depending on what settings you use, time will vary.
It it's recommended to use the slower settings as the results will significantly improve. I've tested with one movie with two different settings and noticed vast differences in the visual quality.

As for resolutions like 576p, I'm from the NTSC world. 480p is ideal for me.
Frame-rates other than 23.976/29.97 would have to be played only on the computer/laptop.

H264 doesn't have any other advantage over MPEG2, it only compresses to smaller sizes without compromising quality.

You can get a 2hour movie in h264 with optimal, albeit slow settings, at 1.4gb-2gb (in SD resolution with SD audio, preferably AAC inside an MKV/MP4) and it will look near-identical to the original DVD version.

However, please take extra measures in learning all the settings before doing anything. Some settings will waste time, others will lack care when compressing.

For watching on the computer/laptop/media devices, I'd go for the h264/aac inside an MKV/MP4.

AAC compresses more efficiently, allows variable bitrate and can support 5.1.

For archival/disc formats, the most common formats that most people would download are: DVD and AVCHD-ready disc.

ImgBurn can burn the AVCHD to disc, some of the AVCHD 1-suite programs offer it as an optional download/install.

With AVCHD, you can have 480p? I'm not sure on the 480p, but I don't see why not. But then I don't see why should you. lol.

Common AVCHD formats are 720p. You can use 1008p, but then you lose quality because you have a bigger screen to distribute the bitrate.

A common mistake most people do online is to take a pure 1080p Blu-ray and convert it to an MKV file with 1080p screen resolution but the file size equals less than 4gb.
This only gives horrible, visual discrepancies. You get runs in the darker areas of the screen. You get data artifacts and glitches. And so many visual errors.

General rule of thumb for HD resolutions:

720p = DVD-5 file size range (4.2-4.7gb)
1080p = DVD-9/DVD-DL file size range ( 7.9gb)

For 1080p, it's best to use 7~GB as a minimum.
For a really good visual presentation in 1080p, your file size can get up to 14gb, depending on runtime of the film.

And it's best to keep SD material as SD resolutions (480/576). Upscaling is not well favored as higher resolutions only benefit from data that is originally available in higher resolutions.

If you take 1080p and downscale it to 480p, you lose all that extra data that is not needed when downscaling. If you want to upscale that back to 1080p, you'll suffer from data loss and the codecs will have to "guess"/calculate the missing data, interpret the output without producing as much errors as possible.

It's the same principle as compressing anything. A picture, an audio file, or archive any data with WinRAR, WinZip, 7zip. There's lossless compression and lossy compression.

Most video formats are lossy. Lossless video compression is rather large in file size. Extremely large. Over 30gb for a 2 hour SD film.

h264 has a lossless compression option, but it's large. It's a function that has to be "called" in order to get lossless compression. Otherwise it's lossy.
MPEG2 is lossy as well. 

Extra care needs to be taken for upscaling anything.

For "extra care", it's best to get to know how to use AviSynth and VirtualDub with all the scripts and filters to get it right.

I have a decently large Blu-Ray collection and am in the middle of archiving it all to DVD/AVCHD and "portable" media such as MKV with h264/aac so I don't have to touch the Blu-Ray discs as much as possible.
And this is about the least of the information I keep in mind when transferring.

AviSynth/VirtualDub is what really takes up all the thinking.

For DVD authoring, Cinema Craft Encoder has about the same praise as Pro Coder, but both are commercially expensive.
HCEnc is a freeware encoder that offers excellent visual quality comparable to the other two commercial products.
QEnc has been used and is preferred for some. Good for doing special features and menus in lower bitrates.
Other commercial software like TMPEG do decent, but are not nearly as praised as CCE/Pro Coder and HCEnc.

I would avoid using  VSO CoinvertXtoDVD. Most end-users will say it does "excellent" work. But I find it's limited in the scaler it uses. For downscaling, I prefer to use Spline variants.