Pirates Frustrated After TV Groups Swap MP4 For MKV

nilepez said:
Probably, but it's their caps. Again, anyone that doesn't like it is free to do their own capping. I'm actually surprised there people that watch SD files. With that said, it sounds like for those that are doing that much streaming to incompatible devices, they could set up a cron job to automatically convert MKV to MP4. It'd take 45 seconds per file, but require no manual intervention by the person that required MP4.
Honestly, it's an awful lot of bitching about stuff that's free (and of questionable legality).
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IMO, people overrate the importance of HD. 2 minutes into a show, I forget it completely, so I encode all my stuff to 540p. Not only that most people have their TV so far from their couch, that the difference is pretty minimal, or they are watching them on phones.

It isn't just streaming. PS3/PS4/Apple Devices, and who knows what else don't play MKV (Xbox?) natively. And a lot of people won't know how to convert. You don't want to automate converting too much because, you don't want to convert all MKV files, some files actually need to be in MKV containers.

The annoyance this causes to people using these files, on now incompatible devices, will probably be meet with giggles by scene wankers who will probably responds that they should be running VLC on Linux.
 
farscapesg1 said:
So, out of curiosity what were you using before that you are going back to? Serious question because I came from SageTV and have found the Plex interface pretty decent. Sure, there are a few things I would like to change (like it takes too many clicks to get a complete season list to show for one show), but after organizing my shows into appropriate libraries (movies, TV, Kids movies, Kids TV, etc.) it's worked very well for the family. Better than my WMC attempt after SageTV got purchased by Google.

A key for me though was no true HTPC connected to the TVs. We used SageTV extenders, so when we made the move to WMC we were limited to the XBOX 360 interface. When that didn't work, we tried the Roku and the family accepted it almost as well as SageTV. A full PC is just not an option, and nothing that needs a keyboard/mouse would fly for us either.

Our viewing habits revolve around a TV, not tablets, phones, laptops, etc. I might watch something for a few minutes on a tablet during lunch at work (where Plex comes in very handy for me), but if I'm at home it is on the 65" TV with the family.
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xbox 360, it just died recently so going to go with xbox one when I return the roku. I have a metric shit ton of content and I'm not going to reorganize it for plex. Right now I just use vuze to stream to the 360, which works flawlessly and gives a simple list interface where I can easily sort and see file names to choose the one I want, instead of a worthless screen shot. Plus vuze does the torrents, so don't need a separate media server on top of a torrent program. It's not the best at either task, but it does both easily and simply. Plus it's easy to teach the lady of the house to use and download her own chick shows on her laptop to stream to the tv.
 
Snowdog said:
IMO, people overrate the importance of HD. 2 minutes into a show, I forget it completely, so I encode all my stuff to 540p. Not only that most people have their TV so far from their couch, that the difference is pretty minimal, or they are watching them on phones.

It isn't just streaming. PS3/PS4/Apple Devices, and who knows what else don't play MKV (Xbox?) natively. And a lot of people won't know how to convert. You don't want to automate converting too much because, you don't want to convert all MKV files, some files actually need to be in MKV containers.

The annoyance this causes to people using these files, on now incompatible devices, will probably be meet with giggles by scene wankers who will probably responds that they should be running VLC on Linux.
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It's noticeable, IMO. I've got an old cap of an episode of 30 rock and another from that season that's in HD and the difference is huge. I could see the difference with or without glasses.
 
nilepez said:
It's noticeable, IMO. I've got an old cap of an episode of 30 rock and another from that season that's in HD and the difference is huge. I could see the difference with or without glasses.
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Shitty old caps, are shitty old caps, I have some of those too.

Modern 720x404 encodes with CRF of 19-20 (the current SD norm), look damn good. They are less detailed than HD, but they are free from artifacts, which is what really makes crappy encodes.

On the other side of the Coin, there was very popular release group Yiffy. They released low bit rate HD caps, that looked like shit. Higher resolution, but full of artifacts. So many people downloaded this just because it was HD and small, despite the fact that it looked worse than SD caps. It leads me to believe most people downloading HD, because it should be better, not because they are really paying any attention to quality.
 
Snowdog said:
Shitty old caps, are shitty old caps, I have some of those too.

Modern 720x404 encodes with CRF of 19-20 (the current SD norm), look damn good. They are less detailed than HD, but they are free from artifacts, which is what really makes crappy encodes.

On the other side of the Coin, there was very popular release group Yiffy. They released low bit rate HD caps, that looked like shit. Higher resolution, but full of artifacts. So many people downloaded this just because it was HD and small, despite the fact that it looked worse than SD caps. It leads me to believe most people downloading HD, because it should be better, not because they are really paying any attention to quality.
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My point was that they were both from the same time frame. I could go out and look for a low res TV show to compare, but I'd be shocked if I couldn't tell the difference. I can tell the difference between 480p and 720p on my computer, and it's going to be worse on 65" TV.

As for low bit rate HD, I don't get why you'd do that either.
 
nilepez said:
My point was that they were both from the same time frame. I could go out and look for a low res TV show to compare, but I'd be shocked if I couldn't tell the difference. I can tell the difference between 480p and 720p on my computer, and it's going to be worse on 65" TV..
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I never said you couldn't tell the difference. Just that it's pretty much irrelevant 2 minutes into a show, when you stop looking for the difference.

The effect of well encoded SD content is not intrusive. But the effect of bad encodes with artifacts is intrusive.

I watch a mix of HD and SD content, and whether it is SD, or HD has absolutely no bearing on how much I enjoy the content.
 
bos said:
So bought a roku, installed plex, at least half my files the audio and video is out sync, not to mention the plex channel interface is a disaster. That's shit I haven't dealt with in a decade, apparently this is a common issue with anything streaming from plex to roku, consoles, chromecast, and plex blames it on the hardware, and the hardware blames it on the software. So much for that, uninstall plex again and roku getting returned.
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Get a Raspberry Pi and Kodi, that works for my brother, he's got a few in his home.
I use an Apple TV4 and a FireStick with Plex and have no issues.
 
Zepher said:
Get a Raspberry Pi and Kodi, that works for my brother, he's got a few in his home.
I use an Apple TV4 and a FireStick with Plex and have no issues.
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Is the R Pi connected directly to HDs or does he just use it to connect to run Kodi and that connects to a file server? What do you use to control Kodi? Do Universal remotes work with it?
 
MKV because it supports pretty much every codec.

Plex because it streams to nearly anything.

Makes it pretty simple. .ts is the only other container I regularly use and it's with work.
 
Snowdog said:
I never said you couldn't tell the difference. Just that it's pretty much irrelevant 2 minutes into a show, when you stop looking for the difference.

The effect of well encoded SD content is not intrusive. But the effect of bad encodes with artifacts is intrusive.

I watch a mix of HD and SD content, and whether it is SD, or HD has absolutely no bearing on how much I enjoy the content.
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I understand that the writing is king, but my days of watching SD are past me. The only exception is I'll occasionally watch an old DVD, just because I have it, but getting new content in SD is like buying a DVD, and that will never happen again.
 
nilepez said:
Is the R Pi connected directly to HDs or does he just use it to connect to run Kodi and that connects to a file server? What do you use to control Kodi? Do Universal remotes work with it?
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He has all the media on one of his PC's and just shares the folders. The Pi runs Kodi and just accesses the network shares.
He uses a universal remote to operate the Pi. You just have to get an IR receiver for the Pi.
 
The people complaining are SD users. They complained 4 years ago when it went from AVI to MP4 because they couldn't use their DVD players anymore. Now they'll have to upgrade again.

If the scene really wanted to be malicious they could implement 10-bit, or H265 now that it's a decent speed to create with.
 
Snowdog said:
I never said you couldn't tell the difference. Just that it's pretty much irrelevant 2 minutes into a show, when you stop looking for the difference.

The effect of well encoded SD content is not intrusive. But the effect of bad encodes with artifacts is intrusive.

I watch a mix of HD and SD content, and whether it is SD, or HD has absolutely no bearing on how much I enjoy the content.
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For you perhaps, but for me I can see the difference between sd and hd constantly and it bugs me. It honestly feels like watching a showjust after you have woken up and everything is still slightly blurry, the lack of detail and sharpness is always there and you can see it in all the small things like not being able to read the title of a book in the background (anal I know but that's something I do lol)

just like 720p vs 1080p, On my 50" I couldn't care less, but on my 100" it is very noticeable.
 
Ryokurin said:
The people complaining are SD users. They complained 4 years ago when it went from AVI to MP4 because they couldn't use their DVD players anymore. Now they'll have to upgrade again.

If the scene really wanted to be malicious they could implement 10-bit, or H265 now that it's a decent speed to create with.
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Ugh, XviD. Don't make me puke. Dont forget the 700MB limitation because people need to burn videos to CD-Rs.
 
bos said:
Is there a streaming media player that supports streaming mkv with dts sound? Right now doesn't seem like there is.
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Haven't tried it myself but I'm pretty sure the shield tv supports it.
 
Ragenrok said:
For you perhaps, but for me I can see the difference between sd and hd constantly and it bugs me. .
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Some people obsess over details and can't let little things go. Though I expect you are in the minority (in the real world, not on [H], the home of obsessive nerds).

Likewise, you have to recognize the opposite. HD isn't that big a deal for a lot of people.

This thread of the conversation began with the remark "Who watches SD?".

Lots of us.

Remember back when Blu Ray "won" the HD video war, there were lot of people saying they really didn't see the big deal and that DVD was fine. Which kept blowing the minds of obsessive nerds who couldn't believe it.
 
Snowdog said:
Some people obsess over details and can't let little things go. Though I expect you are in the minority (in the real world, not on [H], the home of obsessive nerds).

Likewise, you have to recognize the opposite. HD isn't that big a deal for a lot of people.

This thread of the conversation began with the remark "Who watches SD?".

Lots of us.

Remember back when Blu Ray "won" the HD video war, there were lot of people saying they really didn't see the big deal and that DVD was fine. Which kept blowing the minds of obsessive nerds who couldn't believe it.
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haha fair enough, I don't hate SD content. Me and the wife still watch old shows like MASH and enjoy them but the lack of detail is always noticeable, then again its no different than FPS in a game. Some people need a minimum of 60FPS, I can play happily at 30 FPS in most games and never use a FPS counter. As long as I don't know what the FPS is I can handle it lower and not notice.
 
Ryokurin said:
The people complaining are SD users. They complained 4 years ago when it went from AVI to MP4 because they couldn't use their DVD players anymore. Now they'll have to upgrade again.
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Actually you can still find them online today complaining about it. Some groups still do Xvid encodes.

The switch from DivX/Xvid actually brought tangible benefits. x264 is a better encoder and it improved image quality/size ratio.

Switching to MKV, from MP4 does nothing for SD TV shows. It just brings hassles to a lot of people.

If someone started a group repackaging MKV TV shows to MP4, they would probably be the most popular TV torrent group out there doing the least work.

Then we would see all the scene cappers throwing hissy fits.

Damn, now I am wishing I didn't live were big Content could get me, so I could do it. ;)

It sounds like the perfect answer, put both out there and let the "customer" decide.
 
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Seems like people also forget from their stance of dumping on the "SD downloading peasants" - not everyone has unlimited bandwidth.
Internet Providers with Data Caps

Also, do I really need a 1080p or even 720p of 'The Big Bang Theory' (don't judge)? Not every show needs to be viewed as a cinematic masterpiece.
 
I sometimes have a show playing in a window on the desktop and SD is fine for the that.
sd-tv-desktop.jpg
 
WangChung said:
Seems like people also forget from their stance of dumping on the "SD downloading peasants" - not everyone has unlimited bandwidth.
Internet Providers with Data Caps

Also, do I really need a 1080p or even 720p of 'The Big Bang Theory' (don't judge)? Not every show needs to be viewed as a cinematic masterpiece.
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I don't know...at 400MB, does it really matter? And I understand some have data caps, but even at 300GB (Comcraps cap) you could probably make it work, assuming you're not consuming insane amounts of content. But yeah, if you watch TV in a window, then I guess SD is fine. As for Big Bang Theory, I watch it, but honestly, it's been more miss than after the 2nd or 3rd season. Ironically, it became popular after it's quality had peaked...then again, maybe the masses prefer a show that's mostly just a relationship sitcom vs the true nerdfest that it was for the first 2-3 seasons.
 
The anime fansubbing scene has been using mkv as the standard for quite a long time now (probably for the stylized subtitles and such). Generally, they're also at the cutting edge of encoder usage... good luck trying to play releases on anything else without converting it. This is probably the most common/popular codec pack for anime fans:
CCCP - Combined Community Codec Pack

... Honestly, though, I've long since just started streaming all my anime from Crunchyroll/Funimation. I wanted to support the industry at least somewhat. Crunchyroll used to suck, but they've improved a lot. Used to be, there wasn't really any good way to get the content in the first place. Since Crunchyroll/Funi started actually grabbing some of the scene's best fansubbers and paying them money to do it professionally, they've pretty much made most fansubbing obsolete.
 
nilepez said:
I don't know...at 400MB, does it really matter? And I understand some have data caps, but even at 300GB (Comcraps cap) you could probably make it work, assuming you're not consuming insane amounts of content. But yeah, if you watch TV in a window, then I guess SD is fine. As for Big Bang Theory, I watch it, but honestly, it's been more miss than after the 2nd or 3rd season. Ironically, it became popular after it's quality had peaked...then again, maybe the masses prefer a show that's mostly just a relationship sitcom vs the true nerdfest that it was for the first 2-3 seasons.
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Until recently my Cap was 60 GB (now 150GB) and a typical drama episode is ~1GB/Episode at 720p. So yeah it matters.

Generally HD is ~4X the data cap usage, and 4x storage, for what appears to me as a slight improvement, if I look for it.
 
Snowdog said:
Until recently my Cap was 60 GB (now 150GB) and a typical drama episode is ~1GB/Episode at 720p. So yeah it matters.

Generally HD is ~4X the data cap usage, and 4x storage, for what appears to me as a slight improvement, if I look for it.
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This is why I like in Kodi you can pick which HLS format you want to play. So I tell my 4yo to use the first one that says 480 ;)
 
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