3 ms·

For shows with identical intros, mkv format supports linking to a separate file to store it. The separate file just has to be in the same directory.

m_eiman 12y ago
If you out your videos in a Quicktime .MOV file, you can put the intro in a separate file too, which can be placed anywhere (I think relative paths work too), you can even put a URL in there to load it from a server somewhere. Alternately, you could decompress the intro frames - that might get ZFS dedup working, if the length of the file header is the same with all episodes.
Filligree 12y ago
A feature which is frequently used by anime fansubbing groups, and almost never elsewhere. Those groups often seem strangely bleeding-edge. They always adopt new features years before western groups will... I wonder why.
- masklinn 12y ago
  I'm guessing it's because they have to do much more work: western rip group just rip and upload, fansubs have to rip, translate (or find a translation), integrate subbing, recompress and upload. And they'll be going through each episode multiple times to QC timings, subs readability and check that subs doesn't prevent seeing anything of interest, at least for quality groups. As a result they're always on the hunt for options which could help them do their stuff and: * they'll find out about other possibly interesting features at the same time as they're poring over release notes * because they might have to re-export their rips multiple times during QC, they can toy around extensively with features & settings (especially on early exports when they'll most likely have typos & al and will have to redo the export anyway) tl;dr: they have plenty of opportunities to find and try out bleeding-edge features.
  - rplnt 12y ago
    I only wish "western" releases were already packed with subtitles. Especially now that opensubtitles tries to sell ad space directly in the subtitles.
  - rakoo 12y ago
    Also, they target much more tech-savvy people who run the latest media player with the latest codec on the latest OS. There is much more chance that the evolutions in the material is readable by consumers; there is less backward-compatibility to support.
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
  Indeed: they were early adopters of many things: Ogg, Vorbis, Matroska (and the advanced features like linked ordered chapters which is designed for the use-case in OP's scenario), h.264 High10 Profile, advanced animated subtitles formats... I think the long answer has something to do with what they do benefitting from it more than other things, and the short answer is "because they're geeks"; so they perhaps care less about slow hardware adoption of things like 10-bit than other encoders.
  - Leynos 12y ago
    They also don't have releasing standards to adhere to. As was mentioned earlier, most fansub viewers are watching on their computers, which can cope with newer codecs, subtitle formats and container features with ease, where-as western TV rips are targeted at viewers using lowest common denominator hardware (and encoded according to a set of standards agreed between groups). Changes to those standards can cause significant upheaval, as happened when the standard def TV groups multilaterally agreed to switch from XviD in AVI to h.264 in MP4 container. AIUI, the tertiary anime groups, who take h.264/MKV/ASS releases and re-encode as MP4 with burned in subtitles, cater to those using lower spec hardware but who still want high def video.
  - Kayou 12y ago
    I think that Anime release groups are also a lot less "regulated" than US TV rip scene. For animes, you can just ask your friends to help you translate an uncovered anime in your country, you get the "raw" from japan and you sub. For TV, they have rules as complicated as this: http://scenerules.irc.gs/n.html?id=2011_TV_X264_u2.nfo http://scenerules.irc.gs/n.html?id=2011_TV_X264_u2.nfo if they don't follow them, they're excluded from the scene.

m_eiman 12y ago

If you out your videos in a Quicktime .MOV file, you can put the intro in a separate file too, which can be placed anywhere (I think relative paths work too), you can even put a URL in there to load it from a server somewhere. Alternately, you could decompress the intro frames - that might get ZFS dedup working, if the length of the file header is the same with all episodes.

Filligree 12y ago

A feature which is frequently used by anime fansubbing groups, and almost never elsewhere. Those groups often seem strangely bleeding-edge. They always adopt new features years before western groups will... I wonder why.

masklinn 12y ago
I'm guessing it's because they have to do much more work: western rip group just rip and upload, fansubs have to rip, translate (or find a translation), integrate subbing, recompress and upload. And they'll be going through each episode multiple times to QC timings, subs readability and check that subs doesn't prevent seeing anything of interest, at least for quality groups. As a result they're always on the hunt for options which could help them do their stuff and: * they'll find out about other possibly interesting features at the same time as they're poring over release notes * because they might have to re-export their rips multiple times during QC, they can toy around extensively with features & settings (especially on early exports when they'll most likely have typos & al and will have to redo the export anyway) tl;dr: they have plenty of opportunities to find and try out bleeding-edge features.
- rplnt 12y ago
  I only wish "western" releases were already packed with subtitles. Especially now that opensubtitles tries to sell ad space directly in the subtitles.
- rakoo 12y ago
  Also, they target much more tech-savvy people who run the latest media player with the latest codec on the latest OS. There is much more chance that the evolutions in the material is readable by consumers; there is less backward-compatibility to support.
AlyssaRowan 12y ago
Indeed: they were early adopters of many things: Ogg, Vorbis, Matroska (and the advanced features like linked ordered chapters which is designed for the use-case in OP's scenario), h.264 High10 Profile, advanced animated subtitles formats... I think the long answer has something to do with what they do benefitting from it more than other things, and the short answer is "because they're geeks"; so they perhaps care less about slow hardware adoption of things like 10-bit than other encoders.
- Leynos 12y ago
  They also don't have releasing standards to adhere to. As was mentioned earlier, most fansub viewers are watching on their computers, which can cope with newer codecs, subtitle formats and container features with ease, where-as western TV rips are targeted at viewers using lowest common denominator hardware (and encoded according to a set of standards agreed between groups). Changes to those standards can cause significant upheaval, as happened when the standard def TV groups multilaterally agreed to switch from XviD in AVI to h.264 in MP4 container. AIUI, the tertiary anime groups, who take h.264/MKV/ASS releases and re-encode as MP4 with burned in subtitles, cater to those using lower spec hardware but who still want high def video.
- Kayou 12y ago
  I think that Anime release groups are also a lot less "regulated" than US TV rip scene. For animes, you can just ask your friends to help you translate an uncovered anime in your country, you get the "raw" from japan and you sub. For TV, they have rules as complicated as this: http://scenerules.irc.gs/n.html?id=2011_TV_X264_u2.nfo http://scenerules.irc.gs/n.html?id=2011_TV_X264_u2.nfo if they don't follow them, they're excluded from the scene.