Comparing YIFY, SPARKS, ANOXMOUS, LTT, PUBLICHD, VISION, KINGDOM

[NIK]

I stumbled upon this torrent yesterday:

Gravity 2013 SCREENSHOTS (YIFY, SPARKS, ANOXMOUS, LTT, PUBLICHD, VISION, KINGDOM)

I put some effort into comparing quality of Gravity HD rips, might as well share it, especially since none have screenshots and few have samples.

I did all this since Gravity really needs a big screen (mine is 110") and high resolution since a lot of the joy of watching it is the pans in space with graphically fascinating images of Earth etc in the background, you really feel like you're in space - watch it on a 25" b/w set and it's mostly a rather boring movie (except for Clooneys witty remarks). And recommend surround sound.

Downloaded these, some screenshots are enclosed:

91 min

Gravity.2013.1080p.BluRay.REMUX.DTS-HD.MA.5.1-PublicHD 15.43 GB
Gravity.2013.1080p.BluRay.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.x264-PublicHD 9.99 GB
Gravity.2013.1080p.Bluray.x264.anoXmous 1.57 GB
Gravity (2013) [1080p] YIFY 1.25 GB
Gravity.2013.1080p.BluRay.x264-SPARKS 6.55 GB
Gravity.2013.720p.BRRip.x264.AAC-ViSiON 2.01 GB
Gravity 2013 1080p BRRIP x264 AAC KiNGDOM 3.49 GB
Gravity.2013.1080p.WEB-DL.x264-LTT 2.7 GB

Audio (figures denote typ/max bitrates, data is usually from MediaInfo tool): SPARKS 6CH DTS 1509kbps, VISION 6CH AAC 445/664kbps, KINGDOM 6CH AAC 320/334kbps, Anoxmous 6CH 375kbps & 2CH 124kbps AAC, YIFY 2CH AAC 93/105kbps.

Conclusions among 1-7GB rips: KINGDOM/YIFY/VISION/SPARKS have the same video quality level (negligible differences, and the bigger files are not better), Anoxmous and LTT have noteably lower richness in details. I recommend going for VISION, which also has 6ch audio of excellent quality (to have use for higher quality audio than that you need a $100000 speaker setup and perfect hearing, trust me).

So one thing to learn from this is: If you squeeze 1080p into a very small file then the quality migh end up being lower than rips encoded as 720p. SPARKS surprises me a bit, would have expected better quality for a 6,6GB rip. Anoxmous was second from the bottom, but he usually does very good rips.

10-15GB rips: If you don't have a giant screen then don't bother with these. But there is a small but noteable difference in sharpness when going from VISION to the 10GB rip. And the 15GB rip handles noise better (noise in the video is hard for the encoders to capture at low bitrates) which gives it a small but noticeable improvement in detail. See screenshots.

Captures used while playing video in Media Player Classic Home Cinema, and saved lossless using IrfanView. Note that for most of them I have zoomed to "fit height to screen".



I've not downloaded it. I'm not endorsing the findings. I don't actually care that much.

But I do know that relative merits of encoders are often debated and this appears to have been a more rigorous comparative review than most one-sided fanboy rants, so I offer it here as a starting point.

What do you think of his methodology?

If there are flaws in it then what should have have done differently?

Are there other factors (or encoders) he should have considered?

What about his conclusions?

Have you done (or do you have links to) any other such comparative reviews?

[bob5695]

my views about it:

the source (BD remux / untouched BD) should be used only as reference.
720p encodes should be compared only to other 720p encodes and to the source.
1080p encodes should be compared only to other 1080p encodes and to the source.
BR rips should be left out as they're not encoded from the source but from other encodes.
screenshots don't tell the whole story as within a single encode there'll be frames with different levels of compression.
you can get one to which more compression as been applied or one to which less compression as been applied.
a drf analysis of each file would also be useful as it tells not only the quantizer variance but also its average.

but all that is just details. kudos to the whoever put the effort of compiling that info.

[shirepirate]

i don't think from his findings he has much of a clue what he's talking about, not that i'm any expert.

it's not fair to compare the small rips to the larger ones, perhaps there was an error in methodology there. the larger rips will always be better if they were encoded without errors.

of his samples only sparks was an actual scene release, but that is not a guarantee of the best quality, so it's healthy to question that.

any group that takes care to not sacrifice the detail of the original source simply to render a smaller file deserves a download. encodes reach a certain point where they are essentially lossless in comparison to the source blu-ray, at that point only an expert could distinguish them. the trick is to get as near to that point as you can without producing a needlessly large file (and avoid any obvious blunders in cropping, audio errors or overbearing filters).

this film is sort of short at 90 mins, the ideal size to reach that point of perfect quality/size ratio probably averages out to 8GB. important to take that into account as well. a film 2 hours 10 mins in length would then need to be at least 11.5 GB to reach that ideal point

[shirepirate]

There is one "almost" exception. I have found that for their file sizes, the SecretMyth (and other) Kingdom are very good quality. While not quite as good as the large files, they are pretty damn good. I wish I knew how they get their files so good and yet those sizes...

mostly 2 factors,
the longer you encode, the better the outcome proportionately when it comes to size/quality. the encoder crew at YIFY pump out a lot of BRRips, and simply don't take the time to do an exquisite multi-pass encode. the difference is very noticeable.

the better your source, the better the outcome when it comes to preserving original details from the blu-ray. BDRips are by definition better than BRRips because their source is full blu-ray.

then of course there's talent involved in yielding a better size/quality ratio with small files. there are many ways to go about it with many codecs and video encoders.

[SectorVector]

Found this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_quality

I can only relate to "Subjective video quality" methodology mentioned therein.
I feel watching the videos side-by-side or simultaneously (rather than one after another) would help, all other factors remaining constant.
At least that is the method I used when I purchased a Television and it helped.
I watched the videos playing on 3-4 TVs, from close-up, from 10-feet, from 20-feet before making my decision.

YIFY screenshot is not in the torrent I think.
Also I wish the uploader had mentioned some specifics on why he thought A was better/sharper than B.
I recall KINGDOM was better than YIFY, but can't remember which movie it was. Will update if I have the info.
I have not tried the other encoders.
I use a 19 inch LCD monitor.
Good initiative. Maybe some graduate student can convert this into a thesis :-p

[RobertX]

Wow, you guys are like the Iron Chef judges when it comes to reviewing released videos.

[FLiCKSiCK]

hey NIK, i'd be curious to know how my encodes would compare on your 110", especially vs ViSiON and KiNGDOM. would you give it a go and let me know?

[NIK]

It's not my 110" I just copypasted that from the torrent linked to in the opening post... https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/9601005/

Try replying to that guys torrent. I don't think he's a member of SB (but maybe you could even invite him to join this discussion)

[FLiCKSiCK]

ops looks like i jumped some lines in your post

[SectorVector]

Sharing an article I came across. "THE secrets of YIFY ..."

This is an article dated Jan 6 2013. It is basically a Handbrake tutorial on doing good video encodes.

A takeaway for YIFY-team is how they are sacrificing audio quality for a few extra KBs.

In closing the article notes, that someday YIFY too will make way for better videos.

https://ericolon.wordpress.com/2013/01/0...ny-device/

In the article, the author has posted links to his and YIFY's torrent of "TPB AFK" for comparison.
And there is the usual YIFY bashing in the comments section, for amusement :-)