Qualifications/Sorting of releases

[mw2merc]

We need a 'Sticky' of SPECS that we can set so that releases get posted in the right section. Can we get an @OP to start one please?

[spudthedestroyer]

??

Specs aren't really right, its how good it looks.
viewtopic.php?t=47

As long as you don't have any glaring problems and its a dvd rip, it goes in the higher quality,if its poor visual quality then it goes in the lower quality.

Rough guidelines are just common sense and what any competant ripping guide will tell you, the main specs you should look at are:

• Resolution minimum is ~ 512xYYY (although high 400s is acceptable for 4:3)
• Bits/Pixel should be as high as possible, the higher the better quality. Doom9 covers adviced
• Bitrate, if it goes below 800, then your probably looking at low quality.

Also:

• Make sure any interlaced source is deinterlaced
• IMPORTANT: Make sure movies from NTSC regions are FORCEFILM or IVTC'd to the correct framerate. Doom9s gknot guides cover this in more detail if you don't understand. Basically, films are artificially changed to 29.9fps and if you encode on this you waste a lot of video data. You Should check forcefilm in DVD2AVI if with a preview, the movie ever reaches ~FILM 95%+.
• Make sure you crop off all black boarders, it wastes bitrate encoding like this.
• Tip: always use VBR instead of CBR to better quality.

I'd point out the split is just to display some kind of criteria of quality. The split doesn't say anything about a good/bad rip job, but to let the people downloading know what to expect (which is why including screenshots = top marks ). If its restricted by source (ie. poor DVD master) or it doesn't meet your satisfaction (ie. blocky, pixelated), then put in lower.
AR, should be within ~5% of DVD AR

[spudthedestroyer]

if you want that copy and pasted along with the other guidelines, tell me. But those factors should be noted are general encoding common sense/ettiquette

[mw2merc]

Thanks! I'll read through all of those. Somehow, I missed that topic. I still think it's odd how some people seem to be so Anti-SVCD where it's often better than at least 1/2 the AVIs out there & plays in stand alone DVD players. I've been able to make some really killer SVCDs from good/great quality AVIs.

To me, these AVIs that are ~512x272 or something are less quality than SVCDs that are 480x480, beacuse SVCDs have MORE information per frame. Often 1.5-2x the information, and by using MP2 VBR audio, you can make some really nice SVCDs.

Anyways ... IMHO, SVCDs for the most part are HQ, but I post them in the SVCD section.

Thanks for the input/effort Spud. I appreciate your time.

[John_Doe]

The main reason I don't like svcd's are the fact that it ofthen released in cue/bin format, and has to be burned/extracted and all that shit. Then when I watch it, I can't use my favorite player (Koala) and I have to use something else, where I can't strech the image like I want to...

[spudthedestroyer]

I still think it's odd how some people seem to be so Anti-SVCD where it's often better than at least 1/2 the AVIs out there

Preeminant words "I" and "think"

MPEG4 is a superior codec, MPEG2 is an older poorer codec. These are the formats of Xvid/Divx and DVD/SVCD respectively, on top of the MPEG2, you have the restrictions of the format

Take SVCD...Res is too small, bits wasted on boarders as well (so you have smaller image and addition of huge boarders = no extra gain), you need 2cds more often than not to come to the quality of a 1cd mpeg4 (except when you have those stupid 800-pass things, which are nearly on par with), audio is crap/lacks options, and worst of all you can't reshare... the only think it had going for it was standalone compatability which is fastly becoming a non-issue due to standalones and consoles. If you want a whitesheet of the many reasons why SVCDs aren't very popular here, you want to look on forum.dead-donkey.com in the help section. The simple reason is that, p2p sharability and quality wise, MPEG4 wins

They aren't nearly as hq (the reason why mpeg4 may seem lower is because there's a damn sight more (as they are of course an easier format), so more people mess up ), but they go in SVCD regardless if they were, since they are MPEG2 rather than MPEG4.

Of course format conversion shouldn't really be done, quality loss is too much... however, MPEG2 -> MPEG4 is the only way your going to get a decent result. Its a more compressable source since MPEG2 isn't as nearly as optimised due to it being an older format.

http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic. ... light=svcd
http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic. ... light=svcd

If you can ignore the crap and want to read more on format quality and feasability of release. It was in response to what format releases should be in.

xVCD is a format for people that don't have the capabilities for MPEG4 playback. Quality and sound superiority is in favour of mpeg4. Of course DVDr/9r has the sheer filesize power, but you can get a better quality mpeg4 than DVD9 if the filesize was a level playing field