QaS - Quality and Size presents

This is a 10-bit HEVC / x265 re-encode of Shady Crab’s 100.2 gb release of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, its OVA and its specials.

Reaktor released a similar x265 re-encode of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood but this one has:

• Surround 5.1 english audio track.
• Specials
• Some episodes have english comment audio tracks. (I don’t know why not Reaktor includes this)
• Better video quality according to some measured video quality metrics (details on technical section)
• Less size

Screenshots:

Details on technical section. Enjoy.

Recommended Players: VLC Media Player, Media Player Classic (K-Lite Codec Pack)

File details
Video:
1920x1080 23.976 fps HEVC x265 10-bit

Audio:
English; Opus Surround ~ 256kbit/s
Japanese; Opus Stereo ~128 kbit/s
Some episodes English Commentary; Opus Stereo ~96 kbit/s

Subtitles:
English; ASS subtitles
Signs/Song for Dub; ASS subtitles

Technical Details: (in case you’re interested)
Audio:

I encoded the default english surround audio track with Opus 256-Kb/s because the recommended bitrate for surround is 256-Kb/s according to wiki, i encoded the japanese stereo audio track with Opus 128-Kb/s because it says opus at 128-Kb/s for stereo is nearly indistinguishable from the uncompressed source on wiki. I encoded stereo english comment audio tracks with Opus 96-Kb/s for decreasing the file size and it’s the minimum recommended setting for stereo according to wiki. In case you are asking why i am using opus: Opus Comparison

Video:

I encoded all videos with x265’s slower preset and crf 23. One anime episode takes about one and a half hours to encode. I measured three video quality metrics: PSNR, SSIM and the newest one VMAF. PSNR is the oldest one and i think it has the lowest importance because it’s a signal to noise ratio and it has nothing to do with human perception of quality. VMAF i think is the most important one because it’s developed with human perception of quality in mind. I don’t want to go into details on these.

Let’s talk about my video metrics. I measured these quality metrics on first episodes only, Reaktor’s video and mine given the reference video Shady Crab’s.

My video PSNR: 38.5909
Reaktor’s video PSNR: 48.2257

In my defense PSNR looks for pixel-wise noise and it really is a signal-to-noise ratio instead of human quality perception. Yes you guessed it correct my video is more noisier than Reaktor’s but when we look at the VMAF score we can say the noise is not noticable for human eyes.

My video SSIM: 0.9911
Reaktor’s video SSIM: 0.9917

There is no reason to talk over this. The difference is minimal.

My video VMAF: 94.9976
Reaktor’s video VMAF: 94.9814

My aim is to provide more quality for smaller sizes. I know it’s a little improvement but i managed to get more video quality at this size and more content like specials, opus 5.1, english comment tracks etc…

Seed as much as possible please.

Notes:

1. I have slow upload speed. Only 512 kb/s. And i have a weekly schedule to uphold. So expect download speed fluctuation. I use super seeding mode because of my slow upload speed. So if you won’t upload, you can’t get any torrent pieces from me until there is more than one seed. I use super seeding mode because i try to shorten the time it takes for initial seeding. I might rent a seedbox but that’s extra cost for me. I paid electricity and hardware price already and monthly seedbox price is a burden i can’t overcome. If there is a huge request for seedbox i can start a discord server and accept donations through discord shared bitcoin address but i’m guessing nobody will request a seedbox :)
2. To my weekly schedule followers: there won’t be a 720p, 480p release. This took a long time to encode and i have real life stuff to attend to but if there is a huge request for it i guess i can do it.

I tried to be as honest as possible while writing this description. I know it’s too long to read. If you read all of it, i thank you for your time :)