Movies

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One of the side effects of the RAID-mode oops incident has been having to re-rip and encode my Blu-rays and DVDs. At this point, most of the anime collection is basically done, but movies are in the “As needed” case because of the time/effort.

Recently, I was in the mood both, for watching Pacific Rim and taking a look at one of my original reference videos from back when I setup my previous AVC/x264 presets in HandBrake. I.e., Prometheus. In the years since then, I shifted over to an HEVC/x265 and slowly started to adopt it. Most discs since then have been anime or few and far in-between, so not as large a sample set.

So, naturally, this was the preset I chose when ripping Pacific Rim. However, I found myself disappointed in the video quality. Fortunately, I still enjoyed it greatly–as one of my favorite films and one that I haven’t seriously watched in a few years.

In particular, the opening sequence and numerous cases of darker scenes exhibited artifacts. Now, my original AVC preset wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t that bad either. Taking the first chapter, I decided to do a bunch of experiments, focused on the parts most prone to artifacts. The logo’s background fire effect, the star field, and the breach, followed by the more general video quality of the next 5~6 minutes of the opening.

EncoderQualitySize (MB)Bitrate (Mbit/s)TimeComments
Blu-rayN/A38,32022.8N/AReference Blu-ray ripped with MKV.
x264RF 201,01014.806:05Reference AVC.
Limited artifacts
x265RF 18949.113.813:11Like reference AVC
RF 2079411.511:39Close to AVC reference.
Not as good as RF 18.
RF 22688.19.806:56Reference HEVC
Too many artifacts.
Video ToolboxCQ 801,78025.701:08Close to AVC reference.
(not as good)
CQ 701,08015.701:08Close to AVC reference.
(not as good)
CQ 22448.96.501:07Like a mid 2000s video game
(only better)
CQ 18453.26.301:07Like a mid 2000s video game
(really)
CQ 104246.101:07Like a mid 2000s video game
(too close for comfort)

The AVC and HEVC reference referred to above, are my presets. For x264, high profile level 4.1 was used with the “medium” preset. For x265 auto was used for both profile/level, with the “fast” preset. The only adjustment for the experiments were the Constant Quality, which for those encoders is a logarithmic scale where higher numbers are worse quality.

For Video Toolbox, I couldn’t find any documentation about the scale but the tests obviously show higher numbers are higher quality. In each case, the “medium” preset was used.

Based on what I found, I’m kind of disappointed with the x265 cases. Perhaps it’s time to experiment with kicking it to the medium preset or enabling a deblocking filter to compensate. For the most part though, the quality is there sufficiently if comparable bitrates are thrown at it. The downside of course is that basically doubles the encoding time from x264.

The Video Toolbox case is more impressive, but also not so useful. I believe the M2’s encoder is a lot better than the ‘Bridge and early ‘Lake era Intel encoders. But in much the same way, they just don’t serve my purposes. To make my M2 achieve good enough quality for streaming, the file sizes balloon to near the original Blu-ray–so may as well not bother transcoding in that case. But still, we’re talking about a speed of 190~200 fps encoding versus about 30-40 fps encoding. I think it’s better suited for video editing than streaming video from my server to my TV.

The difference though is considerable. At the uber quality levels, it’s still subpar for Netflix/YouTube quality at this point, versus a Blu-ray reference.

Partly though, I’m tempted to revert back to using x264 and partly tempted to just leave it at Blu-ray. I didn’t really change from AVC to HEVC to save on disk space, so much as I did it because the more modern codec was now widely available on most of my hardware. The kind of perspective that AVC is still fine, but I assume devices will hold onto HEVC support longer once AVC becomes to new MPEG-2 :D.

There’s also the option to just stick with MakeMKVs output. My entire Blu-ray collection probably represents about 4 TB to 5 TB of data at this point, and ahem, it’s an 8 TB storage array with 6 TB free. My storage concerns were pretty much solved two sets of hard drives ago, back when my server’s storage was made up of 3 TB drives rather than 8s. The playback concerns, well, much like HEVC capable devices becoming the norm, most of my devices have less concern with Blu-ray quality bitrates at this point.

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Upside of testing surround sound with Godzilla Minus One: it’s got everything from dialogue to roars and explosions.

Downside: “I must not turn an entire wall into a projector screen just to enjoy TV…”

😂

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Not sure what’s worse, how many of these (most)I’ve seen or that one of them is a movie I’ve been trying to figure out for years.

I’m pretty sure that Dark Angel (1990), also known as I Come In Peace, is a movie that I watched as a kid a few years later around ‘92 or so. One that a few scenes stuck with me in visual memory but frankly, I’ve never seen or heard of it again—until now, over 30 years later.

Between the disc based weapon, the alien dude, and the vial I’m certain as I can be that it’s the film I vaguely remember watching when I was like 4 or 5, short of finding a streamable version somewhere.

Some of the other films noted in the above video, is saw when they were relatively new; either on television or rental. Others in the 2000s, or in more recent years thanks to video streaming services.

But I’ll mostly admit to watching this video because the cover image made me wonder if it might give me a clue about Dark Angel. Mystery solved, I think.

Lisa Frankenstein

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One of those times when I’m scrolling for something to watch and decide, “Eh, screw it,” and decide to watch–and end up very much pleased.

The film does pretty well at capturing a late ’80s vibe without making a big deal of its setting, and manages to be a weird and amusing spin on a tale old as time, or uh, graveyard love stories gone off the rails? Anyway, I was quite amused :).

Violet Evergarden: The Movie

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Last night, I finally got to watching something I’ve been putting off for a few years. Because on one hand, Violet Evergarden is one of my favorite anime and on another, the synapses suggest a box of tissues potentially required. Which is kind of true of the series as well, but also well worth it.

I kind of love how Violet’s story is overlaid with the future. A young woman named Daisy learns how her recently deceased grandmother Anne had received a letter from her own mother every year on her birthday for fifty years, and that they were penned by who at the time was a very famous Auto Memory Doll named Violet Evergarden. Reading them, she understands so much more about the one she’s lost and then she sets out to discover just who this Violet Evergarden was, and in turn manages to put her own feelings into a letter to her parents once she reaches the end of her journey.

Violet, I think is a superb case of character development and the movie finally brings it full circle both as a character and as a story. In the series when we’re introduced to Violet, she’s like a void; an empty slate where human emotion should be. By helping other people express their true feelings, she grows as a person and manages to do some very good things along the way. The side story of the boy Yuris serves to show just how special the CH Postal Company is compared to simply scribing and delivering mail, and serves as a great close to the era of the Auto Memory Doll.

When unexpected means brings Violet and Hodgins to the Island of Ekarte in search of Gilbert, Violet very much captures human emotion and how much the character has grown since we first met her at the beginning of her story. Violet’s feelings about seeing Gilbert again, and her reaction when she finally does are beautiful renditions of what it’s like to be a human being. Violet’s reaction when a young boy on the island describes the nice man that serves as their teacher, who happens to be missing both an arm and an eye, are perhaps some of the best renderings of the character’s expressions–as she becomes certain that the one she loves still yet lives.

I mostly think of Violet Evergreen’s story as one about people’s true feelings reaching the people they wish to express them to and that’s why it’s so poignant. And with the movie, we finally have the chance to see Violet and Gilbert’s true feelings reach each other rather than being cut by loss.

Plus, the story deals with the most important words of all, 愛してる (I love you), so what isn’t there to enjoy? 🙂

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

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It’s only taken 36 years, but it’s finally happening!

Considering I hauled my ass out to the theater some years back for the anniversary showing of Beetlejuice, I have a feeling the long overdue sequel will probably get me to go. But the real question is, will we see a Hawaiian cameo as a nod to one of the old script ideas? 😀