200mb episodes are good enough!
200mb episodes are good enough!
I watch a fair amount of series, but I'm not a data hoarder. I see the value in 2GB episodes, but I watch most series on my laptop, my simple 1920x1080 tv or even my phone where that value doesn't make a difference. If I want to have a theater experience, I'll go to the theater.
Most of the times I just want to enjoy a good story and relax before I go to bed.
I don't have infinite storage and I hate when I want to download something new, but Im out of storage, so I have to delete stuff first.
Good enough for who? You? Sure. But not everyone watches on a small screen. Some people might actually care about the quality too. Some of us can't goto the theatre.
2GB isn't large by any stretch. There are 720p versions of pretty much everything (at least that's what I see on most Usenet Indexers). You could easily get a multiple terabyte external drive if your internal storage is full.
Yeah complaining about storage space in 2023 is a bit silly. You can go on eBay right now and get a used 4TB SATA drive for $25. Even cheaper if you get SAS drives, you just need a SAS expansion card which is also around $20 or so. 6TB SAS drives are going for $30.
ISP data caps are a bigger enemy than raw storage capacity these days. It costs me $50/mo to remove my 1TB cap. Which means it is more expensive to download 6TB than it is to buy 6TB of physical storage. And even SSDs are dirt cheap now. Storage has never been cheaper.
A family of 4 going to the theater is about 1TB of external SSD. Nowadays they are smaller than your regular phone.
I'd even say that going to the theater sucks balls. The picture and sound quality usually sucks compared to a high quality download on a 75" 4k TV. Even a high bit rate 1080p video looks better than the theater.
500mb 1080p HEVC for most shows on a 75" TV, but if it's a space sci-fi show with lots of dark scenes I need that 1GB-2GB episode.
Some shows get by on 200MB, but it depends how static the scenes are and how much lighting there is.
Not on my 65" 8k OLED they aren't! You can absolutely tell the difference.
Smaller/low res screens though, sure.
That's what I'm saying; not everyone watches media on their phones. I have a Plex server at home with a projector and a mediocre 5.1 (not a HTIB). No way I'm running anything less than 1080p.
Ha, yeah. I work from home, and when I'm out the last thing I want to do is look at my phone.
So I watch films at home. I paid for a high end home cinema set up, I'm gonna make the most of it. Otherwise it's just a waste.
This may change as I'm having to downscale a bit for my new apartment...but yeah, 200mb still won't be enough.
I paid for this 4k TV, so damn it I want all the pixels!
Seriously though, resolution is only half the equation. Bitrate, HDR, and compression methods are very important as well.
I feel you, but I also have a feeling this will be blasphemy to some.
Might as well download the episode in GIF format at that point, right guys? 😅
Too much resolution is confusing for my eyes. I need dithering and a max of 256 colors to truly enjoy television as intended.
I want my colours to have names, not hexadecimals
A
manperson of culture
Lmao. True. I know some people who think 1080p is still bad, and here I am content with 480 on my phone 😂
(don't kill me, guys)
480
I'm pretty sure I started watching on 360p.
Your best bet would be to use handbrake and transcode them down yourself. I have a relatively. I've setup for my living room and thus want to get the best quality I can. Exact opposite reasons to you but, It's easy to downgrade, basically impossible to upgrade.
But that's my two cents. Ideally, every file is uploaded with both of us in mind.
I was just going to say, handbrake is a good way to cut back a bit on file size if you get the settings right. It is very taxing on hardware tho.
Yeah, 300-350MB h265 is great for anime. The 1GB+ are fine and all, but I'd rather save storage space.
Anime encoders squeeze the most out of the h265 codec... Its astounding how they achieve great quality video for the filesize, even in scenes with fast motion or odd vignettes/filters
Even the highest quality anime isn't very complex compared to any live-action footage so it compresses incredibly well. The better groups also use vapoursynth filters to fix errors on the blu-rays like bad anti-aliasing and banding. So the best encodes will actually look better than a remux which is never going to happen with live-action.
The rise of HEVC and AV1 is arriving! Keeping the quality with a smaller file size. Plex and most android devices support AV1 now too!
As long as you are happy with that, all good. Fuck the people that sets a standard for you.
I sort by size, then seeders. I didn't buy all my hifi tv and surround sound to watch compression in action. I couldn't imagine those 200 to 300 mb episodes, but to each their own. i usually pull the 3 gb to 4 gb episodes.
A 12tb WD hard drive is like 200$ when they go on sale. That equates to about 0.015$/gb. So that 3 gb show costs all of a nickel to store.
720p for most tv shows is fine for me. 1080p for films.
Why not just use those streaming sites then? You don't need to download anything
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, as they say
- Saving files for offline enjoyment/no dependence on internet connection.
- More player and playback options: easier rewind/fast-forward, chapter controls (for many releases), etc.
- Fewer ads/pop-ups/phishing/etc. nonsense (depending on how effective your browser's adblockers are)
- Often, choice of subs and dubs. Generally better ones than the generic DVD release subs. And sometimes, even commentary tracks.
Most streaming sites are even worse quality.
Bearing in mind the community you're posting in I wouldn't think they were suggesting the big streaming companies.
Kodi + (insertname)debrid or stremio+ (insertname)debrid .... either will let you stream torrents in much better quality than the streaming sites and no need to horde.
Also, i'm fairly sure there's some torrent clients that allow streaming of the torrent file, I'm not sure if they're still around but I think Vuze was one, I don't used desktops any more just mobile/tablet so my knowledge might now be out of date.
I actually prefer the Jellyfin interface even when I have access to content through another service.
Was about to say the same. I mean to each his own, but I can hardly justify a release that has worse quality than online streaming
1337x has tons of episodes that are that size. It seems to either be ~200mb or 2gb+ though. It would be cool if there were a nice middle ground.
Get better sources then
Well that is a super helpful comment. 🙄
Yes, for you and several others that is why those exist. Doesn’t mean there are no others who like to watch it in higher resolution on larger screens.
You could transcode your downloads and store them at a lower quality if you want to save space. It is extra steps though.
my laptop, my simple 1920x1080 tv or even my phone
yeah well that's cool but I like my media big and (when appropriate) loud, with as high a quality as I can get
absolutely agree. for most shows, I don't particularly care what I download, but for specific shows like GoT, I'll go for the high quality x264 copy
x264.. disgusting
some of the best releases are still in x264. can't wait for av1 to be more mainstream, though.
I forgot about GOT! Yes, I got larger files for GOT as well.
I usually aim for 1080p top, since all my screens resultion don't go above that.
Sometime even 720p, depends on how many seeders.
Yeah, I agree, I can understand wanting higher resolutions but there are diminishing returns and even 1 GB for a half-hour episode is pretty absurd.
Plus, you can't seed what you can't keep.
I downloaded some 200mb episodes on telegram but I've never seen such bs before. Because of that I only download from the Usenet and have a look on the nfo before.
I really shot myself in the foot downloading 4k60 versions of some of my favorite movies. The quality is great, but I can really only watch them on my gaming pc.
For any and all talk shows, there should be a sub-720p option. Don't really need the video feed at all for most of an episode.
Agreed, since I mostly watch stuff on my not-4K laptop or my not-4K phone.
For people who like to watch stuff on huge 4K screens and stuff, they'll require higher quality videos, but as long as everyone has their needs meet I'm more than fine.
Streaming is always an option. You don't need to download every video you want to watch.
True, but impractical with an unstable internet connection. Maybe i'll look into it if I ever fix my wifi
Always? Sometimes not
For me, that size in fullHD in x265 is indeed good enough.
couldn't agree more. I watch pretty much everything on a 50" 720p TV from 10ish years ago. as long as its not some god awful 240p pixelated garbage, I'm fine. When I go over to some buddies places where they have newer nicer tvs and the qaulity is better, I still am 99% focused on story and idaf about the pockmarks on someones face etc.
I don't hate extra quality but end of the day, i want to prioritize disk space without having complete garbage on quality. love it when encoders can do stuff in x265 instead of x264 to cut off a few extra MB.
i have a theory that when quality started going crazy (2K by my mark) is about the same time where story quality in tv shows started taking a big dive. Byt I'm sure lot of ppl not agree lol.
40MB anime episodes are perfection 200MB episodes are good
I download the biggest files i can get. Im going to delete it when I'm done with it anyways, who cares about the space.
Blasphemy! Don't you care about your share ratio?
Also i should mention that I do torrent occasionaly and I leave it seeding for ages. So my torrent ratios are very healthy.
I primarily use Usenet, so no seeding.
I am a data hoarder and endorse this message.
Dude, you should see what a nice 2 gig episode of anythng looks like on a 70 inch dolby vision TV. It's worth the extra space. I download 40 gig movies if they are DV.
Even if you don't have the extra space, just delete it after you're done.
DV remux hybrids are pretty damn cool