- #### [SAD] is a size-optimized release with careful filtering to reduce bitrate requirements while retaining as much grain as possible while also keeping clean lines, and encoding to create the best balance of line and grain quality at the target "about 30GB" size.
_**This is probably what most people should pick, especially if on a small screen.**_
- #### [sorrow] is a "transparent in motion" quality target release with almost no filtering except for fixes and improvements.
_**This is for those who want near-perfect quality and somewhat reasonable size should pick.**_
- #### [SWORDS] is a "placebo" as close to BD as possible quality release with almost no filtering except for fixes and improvements.
_**This is for those who want the best, even if it means outrageous size.**_
All 3 releases feature edge fixing and card cleaning using modified versions of ZQ's scripts, as well as numerous uses of scene filtered debanding and regraining to improve quality in scenes with banding or quantization issues, as well as heavily filtered restorations of 2 scenes in E18 and E25 that had significant damage on the BD but were fine on older DVD releases.
My Dekinai base set subtitles are based on the grammar fixed version from Arid's release which are based on ZQ's OP edited version which based its styling on G_P's, I've restyled the OP to more close to Dekinai's original OP styling while retaining readability for all of my sub tracks.
Why use AVC/x264 instead of HEVC/x265? For this particular release AVC produced better subjective quality than HEVC, HEVC tended to produce uglier grain and lines with more ringing, while still, image grain may have appeared closer to source grain, it tended to clump together and in motion looked much worse than AVC because of the differences in how AVC and HEVC do things, no amount of tuning I tried could solve the issue completely, so AVC was the best choice. I produced hundreds of test encodes testing settings for this trio of releases, and if including testing of filtering then the number probably becomes over a thousand.
| | |
| ------------- |:-------------:|
| [SAD] (30GB)| https://nyaa.iss.one/view/1489010 |
| [sorrow] (63GB)| https://nyaa.iss.one/view/1489011 |
| [SWORDS] (99GB)| https://nyaa.iss.one/view/1489012 |
| Video & Audio | Codec | Language |
| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|
| Video | x264 High L4.1 8bit | |
| Audio 1 | libFLAC 16bit Stereo | Japanese |
| Audio 2 | libFLAC 16bit Stereo | English |
| Subtitles | Info | Language |
| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|
| Subtitle 1 | English Full [Dekinai] | English(ASS) |
| Subtitle 2 | English Full [Dekinai] Nostalgic Yellow(Dekinai with G_P Dialogue styling) | English(ASS) |
| Subtitle 3 | English Full [Dekinai] Readable White(Dekinai with More readable Dialogue styling) | English(ASS) |
| Subtitle 4 | English Full [GBR BD] SRT | English(SRT) |
| Subtitle 5 | English Signs & Songs [Dekinai] | zxx(ASS) |
| Subtitle 6 | English Signs & Songs [GBR BD] SRT | zxx(SRT) |
| Full Mediainfo | https://pastebin.com/cqs8RfRd |
| ------------- |:-------------:|
| VapourSynth Scripts | https://github.com/sorrowSAD/Scripts/tree/main/Berserk%20(1997) |
| Video Comparisons | |
| ------------- |:-------------:|
| [SAD] + multiple other about 30GB releases + JPBD | https://slow.pics/c/HDb2MLV4 |
| [sorrow] + [Arid/GRAINY] + JPBD | https://slow.pics/c/SQBRnaRB |
| [SAD] + [sorrow] + [SWORDS] + JPBD | https://slow.pics/c/ZOFNfB3O |
| E18 & E25 - Damaged scenes restoration | https://slow.pics/c/6ZPlxqJL |
| Subtitle Styling Comparisons | |
| ------------- |:-------------:|
| Main | https://slow.pics/c/YSoQMZaM |
| Demon | https://slow.pics/c/IoUPLfLv |
| OP | https://slow.pics/c/UDk5wN4e |
Please comment any issues or things that could be improved with the release either here or in this discord: https://discord.gg/bejXvKP2
Thanks for this, I remember it was a huge pain to watch this a few months ago since there was not a single decent release, they all had trashy subs or poor encoding which led to losing all the grain. Had to download the BDMV and mux some rando subs I found. I'll dl this one for archival and see if it's goode.
@Interruptor, the JPBD is generally great for Berserk, so very filtering isn't really needed to fix any issues in the vast majority of frames, for the SAD(30GB) release I carefully created and tuned an adaptive degraining filter chain to reduce the amount of grain in different frame conditions to reduce the required bitrate while still retaining as much noticeable grain as possible with as little damage to lines and details at the target bitrates. For sorrow(60GB) and SWORDS(100GB) the filtering for bitrate reduction just isn't required, so neither is the adaptive degraining allowing these releases to have more of the original grain. All 3 releases feature the same scene filtered debanding and regraining for scenes where there were banding or quantization issues in the BDs and replaced damaged scenes in E18 and E25 with restored versions from the R1DVD.
@o3x is it? I pulled the English audio from Yellow-Flash's release and readded the next episode preview from Zeta-Rebel's UKBD English track, I did it this way because in my comparison the track from Yellow-Flash's had better levels and sounded better and more similar to the JPBD's Japanese audio. At the time I worked on the audio these were the only 2 sources I had access to with the English "lossless" tracks.
How did you determine this so I can try to check myself?
@sorrow I compered the flac audio with ac3 from GP release using spek.cc and audacity, its identical apart from dithering, also checked all torrents that claim to have english audio in flac and they are all like this.
@o3x I'll check it out when I'm no longer sick with covid and finish up my current in-progress projects. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll check UK and AUS Blu-rays myself and see about doing a v2 with potentially some video updates too
Comments - 15
Guardianes15
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Interruptor
sorrow (uploader)
Interruptor
andysmith89
Star_Blade
HachiRokuNiSanKyu
HachiRokuNiSanKyu
HachiRokuNiSanKyu
o3x
sorrow (uploader)
o3x
sorrow (uploader)
Fullbuster