HQ anime encoding

[dreassica]

Anyone out there doing HQ anime divx encoding who know which settings and filters i should use in Virtualdub/avisynth?
im trying PAL DVD's at 25fps and want to make a 512/384 24 fps
Divx avi at HQ (around 200mb per 20 minutes episode).
Any suggestions are welcome!

[Enchanter]

For the filter, you should of course do crop & resize, and it looks like you're prepared to do that, knowing what resolution to use. For the resize, it is either bilinear or bicubic. Bilinear makes the video more blurred, but more easily compressible by the codec (Less chance of warming and macroblocks). Bicubic will result in sharper videos (even more with precise), but the video is consequently harder to compress and vice versa. In my experience, you should try both resizing methods, and see which one gives the better result. Different episodes give varying results. No one resize method will work with all of them. I will definitely choose Bicubic over bilinear, but only if there is no macroblock problems and the result looks significantly better and artifact-free than that by bilinear.

I work with NTSC Anime DVDs though. From the few experiences, I've had with PAL Anime DVDs, they suffer from interlacing artifacts as well, which necessitates the use of a deinterlacer. I've not had the chance to work on PAL anime DVDs yet (I will in a few days when I'm done with the set I'm working on currently), so can't really tell whether Inverse Telecine will work.

[dreassica]

I used Gordian Knot to create the AVS file using fast-deinterlacing (which doom9 guide advices for PAL interlaced sources) and neutral Bicubic resizing, no noise reduction. There is also a smart deinterlacing but i dont know if that is a viable option. The script looks like this

LoadPlugin("F:\PROGRA~1\GORDIA~1\mpeg2dec.dll")
mpeg2source("C:\DBZ 147.d2v")
crop(12,14,696,560)
VerticalReduceBy2
BicubicResize(512,384,0,0.5)

I tried the decomb plugin, but i coouldn't find a satisfactory setting with it.

I also use 2d cleaner and smarth smooth HQ and Warpsharp filsters in Vdub, but i don't seem to get it right, the picture always get too blurry or details get lost.

[Enchanter]

What codec are you using for the conversion? 1-pass or two-pass?

[dreassica]

i use 3.11 alpha, 2 pass.

[Enchanter]

I never really like automatic settings. Try doing your cropping & resizing manually in nandub. Probably it's the deinterlacing filter in the avs script file that's making the picture blurred (too low a thresold value results in this kind of problem, and you have no idea what its paramaters are, let alone be able to control them, correct?). Use smart deinterlacer. Remember that it has to come before crop & resze filters.

[dreassica]

I'm doing a intermediate avifile, compressed in huffyuv 2.1.1 with all resizing and filters through Vdub first. I tried doing criopping/resizing in Vdub but it screws up the intermediate file.
Am i doing something wrong then?

[Enchanter]

I'm confused. What do you need that intermediate file for? And if you're using 2-pass mode of 3.11alpha, you are to use nandub. That is the only program that handles this mode of operation.

[dreassica]

I am new to this anime ecoding and i used a guide located HERE
He recommends using a intermediate file with all the filters before going to nandub and doing the 2 pass encoding there.

[Enchanter]

I believe the intermediate AVI would be the .avs file created by GordianKnot. You load the .avs file in nandub and do your usual video encoding. However, if you're still new to this, I recommend using Virtualdub instead and use either the 4.12 or 5.01 codec. They are more user-friendly and fool-proof.

[dreassica]

According to the site the link leads to, the intermediate is an AVI file several Gigabytes in size (Huffyuv 1.2.2 encoded) with all filters and resizing/ropping and deinterlacing done, so that it's ready to be compressed as Divx in Nandub, following the 2 pass method.
I already did a conversion this way (albeit a clip of 2 minutes) to try out different settings. It worked fine, only for a few settings which didn't seem to work well for my DVZ DVD rip.
It may not be the way most do it, but it worked.

[Enchanter]

You should actually try to PM Poopity Poop, the creator of this guide. He is a registered member in this forum (and a knowledgeable one too). I personally prefer the vFAPI path more. It is not as complicated as the "recommended" method and you know that the less complications, the less likely you are going to run into problems.