UHD BD to BD?

[deleted user]

I never saw it in 35mm but I think it's simply a very nice looking grading whether it's accurate or not

[Doctor M]

I honestly cannot remember where I first saw Die Hard. Considering the rating and the year, probably VHS or premium cable. I'd be the wrong person to ask about the correct colors.

It's just that the Netflix screenshots don't look like any film shot in the 80s. It looks like something digitally color timed in the last 10 years or so.

[Beber]

The Netflix Die Hard color timing is pretty much the same as the 4K DCP, with rich, warmer colors and a golden hue that's very pleasing. It's not rare for 35mm to look like that. I've never seen Die Hard on 35mm, but I have seen Lethal Weapon on 35mm, a film that came out a year before, also a Joel Silver production. You would be shocked to see how it looks. And when I see at the end of Die Hard that shot of the TV van approaching the Nakatomi Plaza, with debris, papers falling from the sky, and that cyan smoke, it's like I'm back at the theater watching Lethal Weapon again. So I believe there's a good chance that the way the Netflix looks could be the best reference we have.

[Chewtobacca]

If the goal is to go from HDR to SDR though, messing with those to any real degree seems like you are losing what you are trying to gain (i.e, the colors and quality of the new transfer without the HDR baggage).

In RipBot264, though, Tweak() is called after the conversion, which is still experimental and sometimes needs a bit of adjustment. And that's all that Tweak() really offers.

In respect of Die Hard, for what it's worth, the print that I saw a few years ago did have a warm, yellow look, though not perhaps to the extent of the BD. It was somewhere in the middle, and I remember reflecting then that the BD wasn't bad in terms of color.

[X5gb]

I agree, I think the color timing was somewhere between the Netflix and the UHD. Personally I find the Netflix a bit too golden looking where as the UHD is to dark.

[X5gb]

Beber, when you are doing your encodes what settings are you using, started off using very slow, film, 2 pass, variable 30mbps (using the custom perfect bd compliant x264 settings) which would take around 38 hrs (but was getting the frozen picture at end with Grease) and now have decided on very slow, film, crf20, averaging around 35mbps (and again using custom perfect bd compliant x264 settings) and it is taking close to 60hrs encode time.

[Beber]

Beber, when you are doing your encodes what settings are you using, started off using very slow, film,  2 pass, variable 30mbps (using the custom perfect bd compliant x264 settings) which would take around 38 hrs (but was getting the frozen picture at end with Greaee) and now have decided on very slow, film, crf20, averaging around 35mbps (and again using custom perfect bd compliant x264 settings) and it is taking close to 60hrs encode time.

I don't know what the "perfect BD compliant seetings" are.

For my 1st Dark Knight, I went 15 000 kbps, 2 pass on default, film. That ended up like this:

Encoding settings           : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=15000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=62500 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

For my second Dark Knight, I went 20 000 kbps, 2 pass on slow, film. That ended up like this:

Encoding settings           : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=20000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=62500 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

And I think, for my ongoing MIB 2, I went 15 000 kbps, 2 pass on "slower", film. I think "me=umh" would be better than "me=hex", but I can't see where I can chose it. I'm going blind with the variations of "fast", "slow" preset spectrum and end up with "me=hex" so far. Maybe the slowest would give me "me=umh", I don't know.

[X5gb]

Heres the thread for perfect settings:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-97.html

I use the following settings which were on page 9 of that thread and add it to the very slow and film commands (removing everything else already listed in the custom setting box)

--bluray-compat --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --sar 1:1 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --b-pyramid none --weightp 1 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --merange 24

I also add --threads 8 based on my cpu cores. I thought the general consensus here was to use very slow for the best quality (my encodes have me=umh), no wonder my encodes are taking so much longer, although I do have older cpu's which also doesn't help. I've also read on various forums (and contrary to what it says in above thread) that crf 20 or above can give overall better quality than a two pass bitrate set encode (so I changed to that after my first couple of encodes which I set at 2 pass 30mbps), which it says you use only if your concerned (and want to set) with the size of file which I'm not.

[deleted user]

Heres the thread for perfect settings:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-97.html

I use the following settings which were on page 9 of that thread and add it to the very slow and film commands (removing everything else already listed in the custom setting box)

--bluray-compat --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --sar 1:1 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --b-pyramid none --weightp 1 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --merange 24

I also add --threads 8 based on my cpu cores. I thought the general consensus here was to use very slow for the best quality (my encodes have me=umh), no wonder my encodes are taking so much longer, although I do have older cpu's which also doesn't help. I've also read on various forums (and contrary to what it says in above thread) that crf 20 or above can give overall better quality than a two pass bitrate set encode (so I changed to that after my first couple of encodes which I set at 2 pass 30mbps), which it says you use only if your concerned (and want to set) with the size of file which I'm not.

You probably mean CRF 20 or below. Higher CRF = worse quality. Common wisdom says CRF will give you the exact same quality as 2-pass, but the final size will be less predictable. CRF is basically just another "rate control mode". You can think of 2-pass as a mode that analyses the video first and then automatically sets a crf that will give the desired filesize/bitrate. Whereas CRF itself is just kind of a vague factor (that interacts and depends on other settings as well) that basically improves quality (and heightens filesize) as it becomes smaller. But it's hard aiming at a specific bitrate with CRF because it doesn't analyze the video first.

Also, those settings are just a kind of baseline and depending on what kind of content you have, still have issues. Particularly dark and flat areas are affected. The AQ settings are the main driver regarding this. Truth be told, I've played around a lot with x264 (though I wouldn't call myself a pro or anything) and I just find it really difficult to find really good looking settings, especially when pixel peeping. I've managed to get satisfying results with one particular modified version of x264, I think it's called tmod; it has additional AQ settings that allowed me to get a rather satisfying image. But seriously, x264 is, as they say, "optimized for tentacle porn" and small file sizes and it's not exactly a great encoder for getting really good quality. Though it's arguably still the best out there, but I think a dedicated programmer could rewrite x264 a lot to give better results for high-quality aims.

[X5gb]

Yea, by higher I meant lower. Also, the majority of the encodes out there use crf so seems like a good compromise. Also, the other annoying thing with 2 pass in ripbot is, you can't preview the first pass (like you can in Simple x264 Envoder) as it doesn't write the video pass to hard drive. At least the x264 settings above are better than the standard ripbot ones which are not bd compliant.