xREL.v3

300.2007.720p.BluRay.x264.PROPER-hV

Format       : x264
Source       : BluRay
Genre        : Action / Drama / History / War
Resolution   : 1280x528
Video Bitrate: 9115 kbit/s
Audio        : AC3 640 kbit/s English
Subtitles    : English
Release      : 07.23.07
Rars         : 86x100mb
imdb         : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/

Based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of
Thermopylae in 480 B.C

Notes:
We're sure you will all wonder why after Shooter we are
propering a smaller size with a larger one. Ok, here goes:
1. Visual quality is highly subjective: but the bitrate on the
SEPTiC release is too low. Again, we have produced our
quants from our encoding. The QP figure is not trivial.
A figure in the range between 20 and 30 should give
satisfactory results in most cases but is dependant on
the movie itself - scene changes/textures/dark areas/grain
high action/ etc etc. Using a QP lower than 15 is
overkill. Using a quantizer higher than 40 will result in
unwatchable video, so we need an acceptable level in
between but also considering the demands made on the encode
as referenced above.
Most encoders agree that no difference is seen once we
end up <~20 but that >~25 is generally undesireable in
most instances.
We can surmise the following before encoding:

a) The movie is rather long
b) It contains many actions scenes
c) The source is *intentionally* very grainy.
Choosing the proper average bitrate setting for a "Two Pass"
encode is also not trivial! That's because the bitrate
required for satisfactory results highly depends on the
"compressibility" of the video as well as on personal
preferences.
So in achieving a good QP and proper bitrate there are lots of
factors to consider and some movies even long ones (eg shooter)
come from a superb source and lend themselves to little challenge
on compressibility and produce good QP figure at low bitrate. Hence
the proper with a smaller movie.
On the other hand, 300 for the reasons given above does not
encourage a DVD5 encode if it is encoded with a proper bitrate to
ensure good compressibility and hence good QP figure. Albeit it
will encode faster.
We therefore ran two encodes (which explains our delay in
releasing this PROPER!) to see what each produced and decide
the best way forward -
DVD5 x1.5:
x264 [info]: slice I:1638  Avg QP:20.06  size:104069
x264 [info]: slice P:73275 Avg QP:22.67  size: 54593
x264 [info]: slice B:92738 Avg QP:24.00  size: 24858

DVD9:
x264 [info]: slice I:1633  Avg QP:18.56  size:115393
x264 [info]: slice P:72163 Avg QP:20.99  size: 64946
x264 [info]: slice B:93855 Avg QP:22.44  size: 32916

So what is the difference between ours and SEPTiC?
Unsurprisingly, the compression is not particularly great
at DVD5 x 1.5 but the DVD9 produces an ideal encode. The SEPTiC
figures can only be worse than those produced on the DVD5
x1.5 and would not be regarded as acceptable notwithstanding
you probably think their video video looks okay.
However, if you dont believe/understand all the techno mumbo-jumbo
then we have included a folder called "comparison" which contains
an almost same frame screenshot from SEPTiC vs ours.
The difference is obvious (whilst you can view them with the .jpg
extension plz rename them to .png before viewing. They were
intentionally renamed to .jpg to avoid script issues).
The difference on Shooter was we could achieve the same on a much
lower bitrate mkay. Also, check out the samples of both releases,
we have made sure ours is from the same section.
2. SEPTiC audio is transcoded 640 kbit/s DD+ to 640 kbit/s
AC3 - which does not not sound as glorious as it should.
This is because the HDDVD was used as source. Dynamic
compression is not SEPTiCs fault but we did a direct
demux of the audio from the BluRay so its crisp as it
should be. Not itself a reason to proper but a point worth
raising in addition to the video issue.
Ultimately, the rules say you should not proper when a movie "could"
have had a higher bitrate. This movie "should" have had a
higher bitrate not "could" have, the figures speak for themselves
as do the samples and the screenshot comparison. Enjoy the better
PQ and audio.

Greetz fly out to FoV, CTU, DNA, PROGRESS, &10M3 and SATAN, our
unholy master !