This blog has mostly been descriptive, providing introductions to Orphan's releases. The thought and opinion pieces that peppered the early years of the blog have by and large disappeared. It's time to tick some people off again, so here's a column on encode bloat.
Orphan's offerings have been growing in size lately. Techno Police 21C (BD 1080p) was 6GB in size. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo movie 1 (web 720p) was also 6GB in size. The Usagi Drop live action movie (BD 720p) was almost 8GB in size. This is a far cry from the ~300MB for Orphan's typical 30 minute 480p DVD or laserdisc encode.
However, the size of our encodes pales in comparison to what I see elsewhere. On BakaBT, the first Urusei Yatsura movie (BD 1080p) comes in at 10.5GB. The first two Tenchi Muyo movies (BD 1080p) come in at 14.5GB and 15.7GB. The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl (BD 1080p) comes in at 12.4GB. On nyaa, Redline (BD 1080p) came in at 16.2GB. And on and on.
Back in 2011, when Hi10P encoding was just coming in, and encoders were again claiming it would allow for superior quality at reduced file sizes, I predicted that any reductions in file size would be short-lived, and file sizes would continue to rise inexorably. So it has proved. Partly this is driven by the demise of 720p/AAC as an intermediate encoding point. These days, encoders want to do everything at 1080p with FLAC audio, even for TV broadcasts, whether justified or not (it usually isn't). But mostly this is driven by the use of higher bit rates in the name of preserving detail. Every grain must be reproduced, or some other encoder will release an allegedly better (and certainly bigger) encode.
I was baffled by this seven years ago, and I'm baffled by it now. To me, film grain is usually a defect of bad or aging film stock. I'm pretty sure that the original animators didn't have film grain in their cels and drawings, and they certainly don't in today's digital files (with rare exceptions, like the paper effect in this year's Angolmois). So when an encoder tells me that the bit rate must be higher to preserve the grain, I feel they're throwing bits at preserving the grime of time. We restore paintings (and films) for a reason - to remove the grime and let the original shine through.
I recognize that others - including several of the encoders in Orphan - disagree, and as a result, some of Orphan's encodes are rather large. But I have a hard and fast rule - no single Orphan file can be bigger than a DVD9 (7.8GB). That's why there's no 1080p version of the Usagi Drop live action movie. The 720p version is 7.8GB; a 1080p would be around 15GB - not happening.
My rule is as baffling to others as the size of present encodes is to me. Optical media are dead, they say. Just store those mammoth files on hard drives! That's fine for a small number of individual files, but with an anime collection exceeding 16TB (my nick is Collectr for a reason), a file server of requisite capacity is neither cheap nor reliable. Optical discs will last out my lifetime, and they don't require RAID6, system management, software updates, protection from viruses, or power.
I don't expect this diatribe to hold back the rising tide of big encodes. What I would like to see is a return of quality 720p/AAC encodes. I don't watch anime on a big screen TV; I watch it on my computer monitor and listen to it through my computer speakers. 720p is, for me, the sweet spot for comfortable viewing. AAC is just as good as FLAC for the tiny speakers nestled behind my monitor (or the reference monitors in my stereo system, for that matter). A few encoders (Atsui, DmonHiro) still work at 720p. Almost everyone else has moved up. More is better, right? Well, not always.
Of course, the next wave will probably be 4K encodes with 5.1 or 7.1 FLAC audio, at even bigger file sizes. So I'll be down at the shore, railing against the rising tide, for a loooong time.
Orphan's offerings have been growing in size lately. Techno Police 21C (BD 1080p) was 6GB in size. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo movie 1 (web 720p) was also 6GB in size. The Usagi Drop live action movie (BD 720p) was almost 8GB in size. This is a far cry from the ~300MB for Orphan's typical 30 minute 480p DVD or laserdisc encode.
However, the size of our encodes pales in comparison to what I see elsewhere. On BakaBT, the first Urusei Yatsura movie (BD 1080p) comes in at 10.5GB. The first two Tenchi Muyo movies (BD 1080p) come in at 14.5GB and 15.7GB. The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl (BD 1080p) comes in at 12.4GB. On nyaa, Redline (BD 1080p) came in at 16.2GB. And on and on.
Back in 2011, when Hi10P encoding was just coming in, and encoders were again claiming it would allow for superior quality at reduced file sizes, I predicted that any reductions in file size would be short-lived, and file sizes would continue to rise inexorably. So it has proved. Partly this is driven by the demise of 720p/AAC as an intermediate encoding point. These days, encoders want to do everything at 1080p with FLAC audio, even for TV broadcasts, whether justified or not (it usually isn't). But mostly this is driven by the use of higher bit rates in the name of preserving detail. Every grain must be reproduced, or some other encoder will release an allegedly better (and certainly bigger) encode.
I was baffled by this seven years ago, and I'm baffled by it now. To me, film grain is usually a defect of bad or aging film stock. I'm pretty sure that the original animators didn't have film grain in their cels and drawings, and they certainly don't in today's digital files (with rare exceptions, like the paper effect in this year's Angolmois). So when an encoder tells me that the bit rate must be higher to preserve the grain, I feel they're throwing bits at preserving the grime of time. We restore paintings (and films) for a reason - to remove the grime and let the original shine through.
I recognize that others - including several of the encoders in Orphan - disagree, and as a result, some of Orphan's encodes are rather large. But I have a hard and fast rule - no single Orphan file can be bigger than a DVD9 (7.8GB). That's why there's no 1080p version of the Usagi Drop live action movie. The 720p version is 7.8GB; a 1080p would be around 15GB - not happening.
My rule is as baffling to others as the size of present encodes is to me. Optical media are dead, they say. Just store those mammoth files on hard drives! That's fine for a small number of individual files, but with an anime collection exceeding 16TB (my nick is Collectr for a reason), a file server of requisite capacity is neither cheap nor reliable. Optical discs will last out my lifetime, and they don't require RAID6, system management, software updates, protection from viruses, or power.
I don't expect this diatribe to hold back the rising tide of big encodes. What I would like to see is a return of quality 720p/AAC encodes. I don't watch anime on a big screen TV; I watch it on my computer monitor and listen to it through my computer speakers. 720p is, for me, the sweet spot for comfortable viewing. AAC is just as good as FLAC for the tiny speakers nestled behind my monitor (or the reference monitors in my stereo system, for that matter). A few encoders (Atsui, DmonHiro) still work at 720p. Almost everyone else has moved up. More is better, right? Well, not always.
Of course, the next wave will probably be 4K encodes with 5.1 or 7.1 FLAC audio, at even bigger file sizes. So I'll be down at the shore, railing against the rising tide, for a loooong time.
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