300.2006.720p.BluRay.x264.PROPER-hV

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     300.2007.720p.BluRay.x264.PROPER-hV

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

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

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     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.
      
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     Greetz fly out to FoV, CTU, DNA, PROGRESS and SATAN, our 
     unholy master !

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