Hi! Welcome to another episode of fansub drama! Some of you may know that Ayako and Chihiro were in a joint, working together on Sekirei. Chihiro ended up quitting the joint (and for no real reason - I'll explain below) First, just to clarify - I'm (= Coma) not part of Chihiro nor Ayako... I joined the project because the encoder was MIA at the time. I was pissed off in general because they broke up the joint (and told me that Ayako could still use the script... can they really? two groups can't use the same script with minor differences, it's retarded). I took a look at their release, and the video quality was horrible - not to mention they decimated it. (more info after the wall of text) Explaining why they broke up the joint: Their TL argued that the release schedule was way too slow - and there was less than a day between finalizing episode 2's script to episode 1v2 and 2 being ready for distribution - I left the encode running and went to sleep... by the time I woke up episode 1 had finished and 2 was nearing the end... but it turns out the joint was already over by then! * Topic is 'joint is over. Thanks for everyone that had worked.' Here are some replies I got while confronting their TL (the only Chihiro staffer, euronymous considered a freelancer) > But at the rate we were going, we weren't going to release until after Ep 3 came out > I'm not saying the work was bad; rather, I feel like I had a different type of release schedule planned out for Sekirei The problem I have with this is - had Chihiro stuck with the joint - both episode 1v2 and episode 2 would've been out before the time Chihiro released episode 1. To justify Chihiro breaking up the joint, he also said he was never really for the joint, and Jaka was the only one who really wanted this joint. Since Jaka RAGEQUIT Chihiro, that supposedly gives them a valid reason to break up the joint. Also: > No one even told me, the translator, that we'd be working in a joint that involved not only Chihiro and Ayako, but Jaka as a "separate' entity. (lol) In reality, Jaka was supposed to do the translation, but the person I just quoted ended up doing it... so in the end, Jaka wasn't doing any work - and shouldn't be considered a part of the joint. Pros and cons for the releases - Ayako-Chihiro Pros - Better video & audio quality, TS raw source - 30p video (see comparison) - Edited scripts - Hypothetical faster release Cons - Resolution = 1024x576 (Sekirei is not HD, so it's up to you whether this is a con) Chihiro Pros - Resolution = 1280x720 (Sekirei is not HD, so it's up to you whether this is a con) Cons - Choppy 24p video (see comparison) - Far inferior video & audio quality, PD raw source - No editing (or at least - crappy editing... mistakes I fixed in the A-C script ("ascention") are in the Chihiro script) The comparison shows comparison shots between the Chihiro release and the video that would have been in the [Ayako-Chihiro] release (ep. 1 released as [Chihiro-unshitted] with Chihiro ASS) Following the comparison, I'll post the specs for each encode. 1) They decimated to 24 fps, when Sekirei is 30 fps, so... choppy. http://www.sendspace.com/file/fk5xnu - side by side comparison 2) They probably did some serious smoothing, and on top of that x264 raped it some more because of their lackluster settings. Comparison shots - Format: Encoded-by Screenshot# URL Chihiro 1 http://img1.hugeup.com/f/07142008/76cc9.png Ayako-Chihiro 1 http://img1.hugeup.com/f/07142008/ee5f221c7584.png Chihiro 2 http://img1.hugeup.com/f/07142008/30eca99c1c.png Ayako-Chihiro 2 http://img1.hugeup.com/f/07142008/532e3404b.png Chihiro 3 http://img1.hugeup.com/f/07142008/fbf77fc.png Ayako-Chihiro 3 http://img1.hugeup.com/f/07142008/34649f24c9.png Encode specs: Chihiro Turbo (guessing: on) x264 - core 60 r901M 58d7d06 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2008 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=8 deblock=1:1:1 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=umh subme=6 rdcmp=psy brdo=1 mixed_ref=1 me_range=12 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=3 nr=0 decimate=1 mbaff=0 bframes=16 b_pyramid=1 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=3 wpredb=1 bime=1 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40(pre) rc=2pass bitrate=1207 ratetol=1.0 rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' qcomp=1.00 qpmin=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 cplxblur=20.0 qblur=0.5 ip_ratio=1.40 pb_ratio=1.30 aq=2:1.00 Ayako-Chihiro Turbo off x264 - core 60 r912M 9c5e557 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2008 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=8 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=umh subme=7 psy_rd=1.000000 brdo=1 mixed_ref=1 me_range=24 chroma_me=1 trellis=2 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=3 nr=0 decimate=1 mbaff=0 bframes=16 b_pyramid=1 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=3 wpredb=1 bime=1 keyint=300 keyint_min=30 scenecut=40(pre) rc=2pass bitrate=1206 ratetol=3.0 rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' qcomp=1.00 qpmin=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 cplxblur=20.0 qblur=0.5 ip_ratio=1.40 pb_ratio=1.30 aq=2:1.00 The obvious mistakes in the Chihiro release are trellis = 1 while using psyRDO, ME range = 12 (default = 16, why lower it? especially at 720p...), unnecessary higher deblocking... So I've joined the group of people who hate Chihiro.