Brooke Vibber 
there are at least 2, and sometimes 4 versions of each episode!
Original
Remaster
Original with commentary
Remaster with commentary
this is gonna take extra hdd space ;)
ok, Jelllyfin itself groups everything properly but Infuse (the tvOS app I'm using on the AppleTV as a frontend) only seems to show the default version of each movie or episode :P
i'll worry about that later
(long-term, jellyfin's own app should eventually be complete on tvOS but it's not yet)
workaround: pull up Jellyfin in Safari on a Mac, start playback with a specific version variant or extra feature, and then AirPlay it to the AppleTV
it'll do in a pinch but not ideal
arriving Saturday for the movie/TV collection:
Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin (Blu-Ray) - we watched these on streaming when it came out, it's cute! Rounds out our Pitch Perfect 1/2/3 movie set.
Jeremiah season 1 (DVD) - watched when it came out long ago, there's a second season I still have to track down
Max Headroom (DVD) - saw this when it came out even longer ago :D
The Starlost (DVD) - never saw this, picked it up on a whim
started churning through the series 2 blake's 7 discs
was pleased that the episodes with audio commentary in this season actually use secondary audio tracks instead of having a second copy :D
(i can probably postprocess that shit in ffmpeg on the series 1 episodes if i get antsy)
there are 3 episodes in series 1 with audio commentaries, in 2 versions each
so i can save like 50 gigabytes by merging the commentary audio tracks as secondary tracks and discarding the extra copies of the video :P
anyway, no rush on that. should be straightforward fmpeggery when i get to it
seems to have done the trick!
trying makemkvcon's firmware dump before attempting to flash the drive firmware, and it's just hanging
apparently this is a problem for the linux version of makemkv that others have seen :(
will attempt to resolve...
forum recommended downgrading to a known-good version for the firmware flash: eg makemkv 1.17.7
this runs and claims to be successful but when i reboot i'm on the same firmware so it's not taking
i may have the wrong images :D
ok seem to have found the right version; attempting to read a 4k disc now :D
claims to be ripping Ghost in the Shell (1995) in Ultra-HD now :D \o/
movie itself is 54 gigs, plus a few gigs of special features which I assume are in HD, we'll see later
Ultra-HD discs ship with video in HEVC, so they'll benefit the least from a potential re-encoding to AV1 for space savings despite being the largest space-takers because they ship four times as many pixels as HD :D
For MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264 discs I can get much more significant space savings if I decide to re-encode them, but I have to deinterlace any 480i, 576i, or 1080i material.
Interestingly a lot of Blu-rays these days ship lossless audio tracks which are also quite large!
3.1G Ghost in the Shell (1995) - DVD.mkv
21G Ghost in the Shell (1995) - HD.mkv
51G Ghost in the Shell (1995) - Ultra HD.mkv
ah, moore's law
score! Infuse on the AppleTV actually plays back the original HDR HEVC, even if I enable subtitles
looks nice. is it worth an extra 51 gigabytes of disk space? maybe :D
ok back to the salt mines...
and now back in the Ultra HD mines... :D
another HD/UHD pair:
25G Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) HD.mkv
56G Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) Ultra HD.mkv
the HD disc has an H.264 8-bit SDR video track at about 26 Mbps average, plus several audio tracks and subtitles
the Ultra HD disc has an HEVC 10-bit HDR video track at about 74 Mbps average, plus the same audio and subtitles
my rough mappings for experimental AV1 transcodes:
2 Mbps for 480p/480i/576p/576i <- from ~5 Mbps MPEG-2 on DVDs
12 Mbps for 1080p/1080i <- from ~24 Mbps H.264 on Blu-rays
60 Mbps for 2160p HDR <- from ~75 Mbps HEVC on Blu-rays
(for interlaced sources I have to deinterlace))
However I'm not certain my current AppleTV groks AV1 in hardware, I'm going to have to do some test runs before I commit to anything.
And I'm not committed to re-encoding in the first place still, just fiddling around.
the ultra hd ghost in the shell blu-ray is fucking gorgeous
Dark City Director's cut Ultra HD disc has *eleven* audio tracks:
* 7.1ch Dolby TrueHD + Dolby Atmos
* 5.1ch ac3
* 5.1ch DTS-HD MA
* 5.1ch DTS
* stereo DTS
* stereo ac3
* 5x stereo ac3 audio commentary tracks
and one English SDH subtitle track
and for some reason the HD Blu-ray of Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023) has a second copy of the film, with only a video track (no subtitles or audio)... at a higher bitrate than the main copy
The Stuff (1985) - Theatrical release Ultra HD disc has three audio tracks:
* stereo 24-bit PCM
* 2x stereo ac3 (commentary)
Apparently you can straight up ship uncompressed PCM audio on Blu-ray and everybody considers this a fine use of bitrate. :) :P
found the secret to selecting which version of a title to play back in the Infuse front-end on Apple TV:
*long-press* the play/resume button on the title screen
then pick 'Select version' from there
it occurs to me there was a time when these 100Mbps Ultra HD Blu-ray streams would fill my entire network bandwidth <3
fuck yeah 2.5Gbps backbone in the apartment
Dark City 4k edition comes with both director's cut and theatrical cuts in Ultra HD 2160p/HDR
The Stuff 4k edition has the theatrical cut in Ultra HD 2160p/HDR and a prerelease cut in HD 1080p/SDR
Pitch Perfect 3 and Ghost in the Shell 4k editions ship the same cut in both Ultra HD 2160p/HDR and HD 1080p/SDR versions on separate discs.
no consistency :D it's the wild west here
Hm, the external drive doesn't like Max Headroom disc 4. I'll try it on the other drive later...
the portable drive seems a lot pickier about discs than the internal drive
internal drive likes it fine \o/
i now has a complete archive of Max Headroom, both seasons (and they're short seasons for an American show of its time: 6 and 8 episodes respectively. what is this fucking britain?)
also done ripping The Starlost, which'll be fun
and working on Jeramiah season 1
still have to track down season 2 of that; I'm not 100% sure I saw the whole end of season 2 when it first came out
up to series 7 watching Red Dwarf, finally got into episodes I haven't seen before :)
*watching Max Headroom ep1*
how did they get this project funded it explicitly shows the network executives as evil bastards :D
also, this show has the namesake of Ogg Theora ;)
A/B testing should definitely come with rebus tapes (hashtag dystopia)
wait, Theora has a *car* in her bedroom?
how does she afford this apartment in the big city
the casting in this show is just great
Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays, Jeffrey Tambor... all just do *wonderful*
Max Headroom is a DVD release, seems to ship 480i; single stereo audio track, single subtitle track, no extras.
Nothing fancy, but it's got every episode of the US show and it seems like a clean enough transfer for a 1980s show! :D
This is gonna be fun to finish going through over the next few weeks. Haven't seen them since it came out in the 80s!
how u know when an episode is gonna fuck your shit up:
Babylon 5: "Written by J. Michael Straczynski"
Blake's 7: "Written by Terry Nation"
I still feel like in an ideal world this Blake's 7 Blu-ray set would've just shipped 576i50 data instead of upscaling to 1080i59.94
but whatever. my AppleTV would've just done the same upscaling realtime anyway
did they recast Kristine Kochanski when they bring her back in series 7 Red Dwarf or do i just not recognize the actress after a few seasons' worth of time?
(checked Wikipedia; they did indeed recast her in season 7, and the new actress returns in season 8 and Back To Earth)
breakdown of space used by my show rips so far (movie rips are a smaller chunk of the total, in another folder)
HD shows that run multiple seasons take a *LOT* of space :D
short-run DVD series like Max Headroom feel almost like rounding errors lol
ok these rips make it *easy peasy lemon squeezy* to make screenshots with or without subtitles
just fire it up in vlc, set the subtitle track if appropriate, and hit 'snapshot'
(for HDR i have to do a further post-processing step to tone-map to SDR, but most of my Ultra HD HDR discs have an HD SDR companion disc which I've also ripped)
👭
wait you're telling me it wasn't officially confirmed ivanova was gay until they hook up later?
after seeing her in this outfit in the first episode?
Fun fact: the DVD of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is in 1.66 aspect ratio (letterboxed to 4:3), but if I'm reading IMDB correctly the theatrical release was cropped to 1.85?
4k transfer of The Stuff mostly just lets you see the film grain in incredible detail :D
(squashed back to SDR from HDR with my hdrfix tool, then attached here which might downscale it from 2160p)
Doing some testing in the background with re-encoding, if i decide to go ahead with that.
Possible targets:
* AV1 for best compression, or
* HEVC for better support on my AppleTV
Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are already in HEVC, and while they're big I only have a few of them for movies.
The biggest chunk of library size is TV shows on H.264 HD Blu-rays: Babylon 5, Blake's 7, Orphan Black
DVDs feel tiny in comparison but would get a big compression uplift from replacing the ancient MPEG-2.
My suspicion is that Infuse on the AppleTV will try to decode AV1 in software and it will be ok for SD and maybe HD but likely too slow for Ultra HD.
Which leaves a possible compromise target of leaving Ultra HD discs in HEVC and re-encoding everything else to AV1 for space. ;)
I'll test playback later after work when my test encodings are done.
did a quick playback test:
* AV1 at 480p23.976, 480p59.94, 1080p23.976, and 1080p59.94 8-bit SDR plays back fine on the Apple TV (4K 2nd generation)
* AV1 at 2160p23.976 10-bit HDR is.... way too slow on the same device; super choppy playback
So I'm inclined to either the all-HEVC model or the hybrid AV1-for-SD-and-HD / untouched-HEVC-for-Ultra-HD model if transcode the collection.
Will do more encoding and space estimation tests after work :D
are you telling me a trans coded these videos
DVD set shipped and arriving March 3:
Dinotopia (TV miniseries)
yes, i'm finding all the good stuff out there
rough estimate using these hypothetical AV1-vs-whatever compression ratios per input codec:
mpeg2video: 60% savings
h264, vc1: 40% savings
hevc: don't recompress
run over the entire collection extrapolates:
total duration: 647.2 hours
total input bytes: 4278.9 GB
total output: 2520.6 GB
space savings: 41.1%
HD h264 content dominates; UHD hevc content is higher bitrate but have few of them; DVD mpeg2 is horrible bitrate but low resolution.
i'm not sure that's enough capacity increase to make it feel worth it, but if i add enough HD and UHD discs to the collection it'll eventually outstrip my current drive's space :D
meaning recompression or buy bigger drives ($$$$)
here's a breakdown by input codec:
mpeg2video - SD DVDs
total duration: 379.2 hours
total input bytes: 970.2 GB
~2.6 GB/hour
vc1 - One (1) HD Blu-ray
total duration: 2.0 hours
total input bytes: 20.6 GB
~10.3 GB/hour
h264 - Babyon 5 and Blake's 7 together make up half of this lol - most HD Blu-rays
total duration: 255.4 hours
total input bytes: 2919.7 GB
~11.4 GB/hour
hevc - Ultra HD Blu-ray
total duration: 10.7 hours
total input bytes: 368.4 GB
~34.4 GB/hour
*looking more carefully at Babylon 5: The Gathering and In The Beginning DVDs*
ohshit
all the exterior effects shots are 29.97 fps progressive?
and all the interior film shots are 24/23.976 fps telecined to 59.94 interlaced :D
so if that's consistent through the series, that means all my 23.976fps Blu-ray discs are cheating me out of 20% of the spaceship special effects frames ;)
deinterlacing the 480i59.94 materials with yadif=1 preserves every frame but introduces some artifacts
The HD Blu-ray for Dogma (1999) has a second copy of the film with (in parts) inset video of the fellas recording the audio commentary track :)
Ripping the DVD set of the Babylon 5 spin-off Crusade, which never quite found its stride
"I'm not Bruce Boxleitner, but..."
from the 4K Dogma (1999)
(snapshotted in VLC to .png then tone-mapped to SDR with my hdrfix tool and saved as .jpg)
jell
Lucas Werkmeister@brooke *makes an edit of the LOTR commentaries with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhMILe8C84 on loop as the inset*
Prank interview with Elijah Wood
Ben Zanin@brooke oh hang on, we can spreadsheet this trade-off.
Let's assume that your other option for UHD playback is AV1 but on a device other than the AppleTV - say, Kodi on a MeLe Quieter4C. Those cost about, what, $200?
Whereas that same money put towards more mechanical storage nets you... quite a few more playback hours at HEVC compression rates. Plus the convenience of not juggling multiple devices.
wohali
Michael McCune ☮️@brooke ahh Dinotopia, we barely knew ye...
(i wanted this show to be so much more)
disorderlyf@brooke Why does this look like it was shot on a flagship smartphone camera from 2013?
Deborah Pickett@brooke She always cast Ace Valkyrie vibes for me, but maybe that was just Goals.
Ashwin DixitDoes that outfit make her look gay? I'm a lesbian, and I would never have guessed. Sexy outfit though.