I always make the Signs/Songs track the default to match with the English audio. At this point it's mainly to remain consistent with previous releases.
Personally I don't even watch in English I just include everything for the most options possible.
People still buy i3s or else Intel wouldn't make them. And if you can have both at the same time for free then why does it matter? You could make the same argument about the English dubs themselves, I'm still going to include them for the people that want an "inferior" experience. Some people watch mini encodes. Some people choose to watch BDMVs instead of encodes altogether. I'm not here to decide what's best for everyone I'm here to provide more options in a sea of other options.
For your S2 encode, I would highly recommend lowering your debanding strength. [You're](https://slow.pics/c/cMjV6CcL) [nuking](https://slow.pics/c/WOTcEYlk) [a](https://slow.pics/c/tK8GEWwj) [lot](https://slow.pics/c/zcL6r2dm) [of](https://slow.pics/c/ed1QTJAW) [back](https://slow.pics/c/JYGO3ZvH)[grounds](https://slow.pics/c/RWLn5x9M) [and some lines](https://slow.pics/c/lJ06rEHz). I get wanting to get rid of as much banding as you can, but what makes Spice and Wolf so appealing visually are its backgrounds. Nuke them and you're actively harming the experience in my honest opinion.
The banding is really bad in some shots. I could filter those scenes separately but I don't have that kind of patience.
To me fixing the banding was more important than those smaller details. But I can understand if you don't agree.
It's actually less aggressive than the debanding on VCB's encode which is why I included them in the comparison.
Although they added way too much grain in my opinion. I think my encode ended up somewhere in-between Beatrice and VCB.
[I should have included more banded scenes in the comparison](https://slow.pics/c/zsoXiqzP)
Without knowing what the original looks like, VCB actually seems decent. But yes they went completely overboard with the grain.
The best possible encode would be one that goes scene-by-scene and applies heavier banding only to the scenes that need it.
Beatrice usually does this now if you look at [their encode scripts]( https://github.com/Beatrice-Raws/encode-scripts) so I'd like to see them re-do this one.
Yeah, VCB went seriously overboard. I tried looking at ways to fix the banding without requiring as much scenefiltering [a while ago](https://github.com/LightArrowsEXE/Encoding-Projects/blob/master/%5BOPMan%5D/Seasonals%20%5BTV%5D/2008-1%20-%20Winter/%5Ba5406%5D%20Ookami%20to%20Koushinryou/SWBD_NCOP1.py#L100-L113), but I couldn't come up with anything that also didn't come with heavy drawbacks. Really sucks that of all shows to have such bad BDMVs, it had to be one where fixing it ruins what I'd argue (and have argued lol) is the most stunning part of its visual production.
BASED release, but how does it compare to the video encodes from Baal that CTR used in his 720p release? CTR stated that he thinks Baals encodes are superior to Beatrice's for season 1.
The problem with comparing a 720p encode to a 1080p encode is it's going to look different depending on the upscaling method of the video player and TV/monitor.
[I could not decide which one to use so here is Bilinear, Bicubic, Lanczos, and Spline36](https://slow.pics/c/zUP3UKk9)
It does look very good, but I think Baal used a different version of the BD because the framing, colours, and grain are entirely different from everyone else. Or he probably added a ton of grain like VCB did. It also looks over-sharpened to me but that might just be the upscaling methods being too aggressive. It's hard to tell which parts are x264 artifacts and which parts are upscaling artifacts.
In my opinion it's too far removed from the source but I can also see a lot of people (like CTR) preferring the sharp grainy look. It's ultimately a matter of preference. For my encode I specifically made sure not to add more grain than the BD has. I probably did about a dozen different encodes before settling on what was released. It is pretty easy to either add way too much in the filters or for x265 to smooth everything out so I tried to balance it as best as I could.
[You might also be interested in this other comparison I found but unfortunately it doesn't include the BDMV.](https://compare.bakashots.me/compare.php?setId=3927)
Thanks for the effort you put into this comparison. Your encodes for this are definitely better than VCB's from what I've seen in the comparison screens, but Beatrice's encode work seems to retain the closest look when compared to the JPBD. So you're right about your encodes being in-between the two in terms of quality. With that being said though, I can honestly say that I do prefer Baal's encodes, except for one minor issue, he slightly cropped the image. Other than that I really like the extra clarity of the small background details as a result of the minor sharpening Baal did. I can see if it were some strong warp sharpening filter that completely alters line work and wipes out detail, as seen in Moozzi and Cleo's encodes, but that's fortunately not the case.
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