yerkyderky, thanks. that's what I was thinking.
anyone have any critiques on that episode though?
I finally had time to take a look at it...
No interlacing/combing I could notice, nor any obvious 'hacking' despite being entirely cfr so it was decimated correctly
...
# timecode format v1
Assume 29.970030
0,36221,23.976017
Encoder settings are fine (from MediaInfo);
cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=tesa / subme=9 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=1 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=979 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=50000 / vbv_bufsize=50000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
...very good encoder settings (I assume it's at least two-pass as some of the settings would not make any sense for single-pass), in comparison here's mine for Risky&Safety(v2);
cabac=1 / ref=16 / deblock=1:-2:-2 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=tesa / subme=9 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=1 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=2229 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
But is the image supposed to be so blurry? Or was the source like that? Deinterlacing applied to all frames, along with low deblocking threshold, could produce extensive blurring. Deinterlacing all frames does have the benefit of removing residual interlacing, apparent for example when characters are speaking, but I personally dislike it for the sacrifice of all the good frames...
You could try a deblocking of 1:0:0, perhaps lower dependant of the source (don't go as low as me though (-2,-2), I'm using slight antialiasing filter to counter the ant crawling caused by those settings, but prefer it as it retains very high level of detail, especially by the fact it's countered by the slight sharpening caused for some reason by Telecide/Decimate (don't know the reason for that, but it's the source as I did comparison encodes with TFM/TDecimate...))
Also, you could opt not to deinterlace all frames, if that is indeed set to true in your encoder/avs...
This is in comparison from my script;
Telecide(order=1,guide=0,vthresh=40,dthresh=5,blend=true,ovr="frames.ovr")
Decimate(mode=4,threshold=1.0,timecodes="timecodes.txt",vfrstats="vfrstats")
Set the threshold according to your source, you might need to lower the threshold to deal with things, like characters mouths mentioned above (lower threshold=more bad frames catched but more good frames deinterlaced) or use an overrides file to deal with the bad frames it misses. It's still better than deinterlacing all frames in my opinion...
As for the bitrate difference, that is just because yours is cfr and I used Decimate mode 4, and on top of that DeDup, dropping the number of frames for an average episode from ~18000 to ~12000 thus leaving more bitrate per frame. Nothing to worry about as a high-action encode as Macademi benefits far less from vfr than a very static type of animation like Risky&Safety...
A lot of the settings above can be done in the encoder instead of the avs script, so what application did you use for the dvds/dvd-images? Handbrake, Megui, other?
Subs experience short lead-out times, but that's hard to remedy without extensive work in Aegisub. + for including the fonts
(which sometimes are forgotten) and the chapters...
Other than the blurring (which of course could be because of the source) I give you thumbs up for the encode
...
