5 ms·

It's only recently been possible to actually use HEVC/x265 for transparent encodes, previous versions of x265 removed film grain/digital noise to such a degree

It's only recently been possible to actually use HEVC/x265 for transparent encodes, previous versions of x265 removed film grain/digital noise to such a degree that the quality was worse than x264 at equivalent bitrates. Combine that with the massively increased costs in both encoding/decoding time (and worse x265 encoding tools/knowledge), x265 simply wasn't worthwhile except for crappy re-encodes at super low bitrates for people with crappy internet. AV1 is far from ready even for crappy bitrate starved releases, but that's where you'll see it used first. Recently you've begun to see a lot of x265 releases though, usually with HDR, the only significant feature x264 can't provide. For sub-4K SDR content there's really no incentive for pirates to switch to x265 or AV1, it's just a nuisance. With torrenting people don't pay for the extra bitrate x264 requires, unlike streaming services like Netflix, the ~20-40% bitrate savings of x265 and AV1 are not important at all, especially compared to the other "costs" of compatibility issues and 10X-100X longer encode times.

worble 8y ago
Exactly this, it's slightly annoying to see the claim scenes are "slow" or "not what they used to be". They use the technology that it makes the most sense to use, weighing up encoding speeds, tooling, quality at the resolutions they care about, and output size. They will actually move when some of these technologies actually start providing major benefits that outstrip the existing technologies in these categories.
- zamadatix 8y ago
  I disagree with your reasoning, the scene hasn't slowed because new technologies don't offer anything it's slowed because optimizing every bit of the transfer like you had to on old internet is no longer relevant and so "use the technology that it makes the most sense to use" has become "use h.264 or h.265 because dedicated players and hardware offload support it". If anyone really cares about extreme quality at this point they'll just download a rip of the original media rather than a transcoded copy There is no longer a driving force behind pushing the limit of encoding in the scene and so the scene HAS slowed.
- userbinator 8y ago
  Another point is that the pirate scene obviously does not care at all about patents/openness, so their choices are driven strongly by technological factors. Plain old conservatism also plays a role. This can be seen in warez too, where RAR is still popular despite 7z being often just as good in compression ratio while also open.
  - canofbars 8y ago
    They don't care about violating patents but they care about open source more than the general population. Taking a look at the stats from a large private tracker, a huge chunk of the users are running firefox on linux and the forums are full of open source talk. FLAC tends to be the only allowed lossless codec over all the proprietary ones.
ksec 8y ago
It is exactly this reason I wonder if we should just stick to x264. You can do very decent x264 encode in low bitrate if you don't care about about film grain and noise. x265 also has advantage in 4K release due to increase in block size. But x265 has made lots of improvement, I was watching some late 2016 encode the other day, and the current 2019 encode looks a lot better on the same ( Low-ish, 3Mbps) bitrate. One reason I am looking for next generation VVC and AV2. The current AV1 an HEVC just don't give enough improvement that matter to me. They are far from what marketing slides want you to believe in 50% reduction.
stordoff 8y ago
> It's only recently been possible to actually use HEVC/x265 for transparent encodes, previous versions of x265 removed film grain/digital noise to such a degree And even then I've found that it still requires tweaking. With x264, pick a preset, crank the RF high enough, and it'll come out transparent. I haven't seen any of my own x265 encodes, even for high RF encodes (RF16+), come out transparent without adding '--no-sao --aq-mode 3' (without aq-mode 3 - dark areas are prone to blocking (especially SD sources), without no-sao - film grain is easily lost).

worble 8y ago

Exactly this, it's slightly annoying to see the claim scenes are "slow" or "not what they used to be". They use the technology that it makes the most sense to use, weighing up encoding speeds, tooling, quality at the resolutions they care about, and output size. They will actually move when some of these technologies actually start providing major benefits that outstrip the existing technologies in these categories.

zamadatix 8y ago
I disagree with your reasoning, the scene hasn't slowed because new technologies don't offer anything it's slowed because optimizing every bit of the transfer like you had to on old internet is no longer relevant and so "use the technology that it makes the most sense to use" has become "use h.264 or h.265 because dedicated players and hardware offload support it". If anyone really cares about extreme quality at this point they'll just download a rip of the original media rather than a transcoded copy There is no longer a driving force behind pushing the limit of encoding in the scene and so the scene HAS slowed.
userbinator 8y ago
Another point is that the pirate scene obviously does not care at all about patents/openness, so their choices are driven strongly by technological factors. Plain old conservatism also plays a role. This can be seen in warez too, where RAR is still popular despite 7z being often just as good in compression ratio while also open.
- canofbars 8y ago
  They don't care about violating patents but they care about open source more than the general population. Taking a look at the stats from a large private tracker, a huge chunk of the users are running firefox on linux and the forums are full of open source talk. FLAC tends to be the only allowed lossless codec over all the proprietary ones.

ksec 8y ago

It is exactly this reason I wonder if we should just stick to x264. You can do very decent x264 encode in low bitrate if you don't care about about film grain and noise. x265 also has advantage in 4K release due to increase in block size. But x265 has made lots of improvement, I was watching some late 2016 encode the other day, and the current 2019 encode looks a lot better on the same ( Low-ish, 3Mbps) bitrate. One reason I am looking for next generation VVC and AV2. The current AV1 an HEVC just don't give enough improvement that matter to me. They are far from what marketing slides want you to believe in 50% reduction.

stordoff 8y ago

> It's only recently been possible to actually use HEVC/x265 for transparent encodes, previous versions of x265 removed film grain/digital noise to such a degree And even then I've found that it still requires tweaking. With x264, pick a preset, crank the RF high enough, and it'll come out transparent. I haven't seen any of my own x265 encodes, even for high RF encodes (RF16+), come out transparent without adding '--no-sao --aq-mode 3' (without aq-mode 3 - dark areas are prone to blocking (especially SD sources), without no-sao - film grain is easily lost).