Stargate Atlantis S05E07 720p HDTV x264-2HD

finally, i can watch this at a quality other than shitty. why aren't the 700meg
versions released any more? at least those were bearable to sit through. the
350meg versions have the quality of a cell phone video that's been compressed to
hell and then posted on you-tube, which is a nice way of saying it's utter crap.

nicole de boer looked better in sd :-/

nothing can make that slag look any good ever

crappy episode, 175mb, 350mb, 700mb, 720p or blu-ray ... will still be a crappy
one 😛

the scene made the decision to dump hr/700mb rips in favour of more x264 rips,
in my mind it was a dumb move, logic to me suggests dropping the lowest quality
format if your moving on to better formats.

in their mind they probally thought to keep the most compatable lower format,
but for many of us the situation just sucks, because now many have equipment
that won't do x264, and now zero hr option.


and guys, stop slaging off perfectly good looking women, your still just an
internet geek who can barely pull a fat chick, being ugly on the inside must
make you the full package...

hmm, i had wondered at the lack of hr versions. maybe instead of discarding it
completely they could have release a 350mb hr x264 rip along with the normal
xvid rip. that would keep the upload requirements down while still giving a
roughly dvd quality version.

... and before many out there scream "350mb hr!? are you insane!!??" go and
look for an earlier sg episode (either sg1 or atlantis) that is 165mb, x264,
*and* at the hr resolution of 960x540. (there's probably one or two still
kicking around somewhere online - try tpb for starters) burn 165mb of your data
allowance (if you have one) out of curiosity just to see how good x264 really is
- i guarantee you'll be surprised. i was. sure in action scenes you get the
stardard compression artifacts, but nowhere near as bad as divx or xvid would
produce at 165mb, and for the low action dialog scenes the quality is actually
quite good considering the extremely low bitrate, and overall a surprising
amount of detail is there. what that tells me is that if you took the same
source, but more than doubled the final file size (and hence bitrate) to get a
350mb final version, you would have a fairly reasonable hr quality x264 rip that
would absolutely walk all over the 350mb xvid version in the quality department.

doing a version like that would satisfy those who have lower data allowances who
normally avoid the 1100mb rips because of their size, but would like to have a
good near dvd quality rips and still stay in the 350mb file size.

on the encoding side, for personal reasons (back before i upgraded my celeron
1.7ghz) and personal use, i reencoded several 720p eps down to 576p (better than
hr [540p]) so my machine could play them properly. i experimented with bitrates
and had file sizes as low as 600mb with very little in the way of distracting
compression artifacts. comparing that with the 165mb hr's i think a 350mb hr
x264 would probably look fairly good if done well.

that's my 2 cents anyway.

you totally missed the point, and perhaps also don't realise the limitations of
x264...

it's 'not' about file size, it's about what is compatable with 99% of most
peoples equipment, most stand alone players won't do x264, it's too new, and
requires to much power to decode (in reletive terms).

your average divx compatable dvd job won't play it, and neither will a xbox
with xbmc, so by only releasing in x264, you would probally instantly rule out
about 70% of people who dl this stuff. (well anyone could probally watch it on
their pc, but that sucks, tv is meant to watch on a tv)

most players will render xvid/divx quite well, it requires quite low spec to
decode, easy on cpu or stand alone chip solutions, which is why xvid rips will
be around from some time to come.

i mentioned 350mb xvid being "most compatable" for a reason, 700mb/xvid/hr is
slightly less compatable, less players will render xvid files that have ac3
audio, and with pictures sizes over a certian size, as often used in 700mb/hr
rips.

anyways, this episode was really really bad.

agree this was a pretty decent ep most the past 2 years have being poor.
as for those bitching bout the rips 350 mb files are more convienent for those
with bandwith caps

okay, i've read all the post complaining about the 350 meg versions of the
episodes and your dvd players not supportting x264, so you guys want the 700
meg episodes back for higher quality. i don't really get this complaint,
because if your looking for quality why have you invested in dvd players? the
fact is that for the last 10 years 75% or more graphics cards have come with
the ability to play video on tv's through s-video, component video, vga, or
dvi, and now hdmi. so, instead of investing in a new dvd player, invest in a
graphics card and a long enough cable to reach your tv. heck my geforce 2 that
i had back in 2001 could play video on my tv through s-video.

if your wondering i play all video on my 32 inch hdtv through my graphics card
via the second dvi port using a dvi to hdmi cable.

keep in mind if you invest in the ability to play video through your computer
to your tv and make sure it's capable of playing 1080p, the only thing you'll
have to update for the next 20 years is codecs or software to play video.
since 1080p is the maximum quality for hd and there probably won't be a new
standard for 20 years.

also, if your playing the 350 meg version on your computer you can use ffdshow
to resize the video to 1920*1080, and the quality comes out to be not that far
from what you get from regular cable.

thebishop74: i don't think i "totally missed the point" and i wasn't calling for
the death of the 350mb xvid rip either. i am also well aware of the limitations
of various pieces of standalone video equiment as far as h264 and divx video
playback is concerned. it's basically only bluray or hddvd (dead format now, of
course) players that support h264 (and then only if the file is an mp4 or
perhaps avi. i can't comment specifically since i haven't looked at the detailed
specs of any).

divx capable dvd players also likely won't play any divx/xvid wider than 720
pixels or higher than 576. hr res falls outside those limits so even a divx hr
ep is not guaranteed to play in those machines. as far as tv viewing quality is
concerned - in my house and in 99% of houses i have visited there are no and i
repeat *no* hdtv's so the best displays are the displays attached to any
computers in those houses. i have also seen precious few divx capable dvd
players in people's houses as well, that's why my comments were not aimed at
those who like to get the 350mb xvid and drop it on a cdrw or similar to use in
their dvd players. they are becoming available, but most general consumers just
don't have a clue about divx when they go to buy a dvd player - it's the tech
geeks like us that want those features, and incidentally i'm probably about to
acquire one of them.

sure we have two 68cm crt tv's but they are analog - and that means sdtv or dvd
res at best. those 2 tv's and any other normal analog tv can't come anywhere
near the quality of my cheap little 17" lcd monitor which can display full 720p
no probs. as far as apparent viewing size is concerned, a 17" lcd at a distance
of under 1 metre (typical pc viewing distance) looks bigger than a 68cm (26
inch) crt tv at around 2.5 to 3 metres (typical viewing distance in a typical
lounge room setup), and with the medium hdtv quality the bigger crt just can't
compete in image quality - that's why i download my favorite shows in 720p. i
watch my downloaded shows on my pc, since it's far more convenient to watch them
there than trying to get them to either tv and i get far better picture quality
as a nice bonus. we also have a 22" lcd on another pc that borders on full hd,
and i'll be looking for a 24" full hd (and then some) lcd for my next pc. that
machine will become my main entertainment unit as well as my everyday pc and
will be the best quality screen in the house.

my main point with talking about doing a 350mb hr x264 rip was to give those
people who do watch their downloaded shows on their computers a better image
quality while also keeping the download size down for those who have a data cap
(and that's pretty much *everyone* in my country - it's just a matter of how big
or small the cap is) and don't want to use up 1100mb for just a single episode.
you can get *three* full 350mb eps in 1050mb rather than just 1 in 1100mb - and
that's a good saving on a limited data allowance.

sure keep the 350mb xvid rip, i *can* see the point of being able to play them
in a divx capable dvd player, etc., and i get them for those shows i don't want
to use 1100mb per ep. when they're from a good source they look ok, but given
the choice of a 350mb 640x360 xvid or a 350mb 960x540 hr x264 i would grab the
x264 hr version because i play them on my pc and i like the better image quality
the higher res versions offer, (the sort of quality our crt tv's have zero hope
of ever offering) but i can see why people like the xvid versions and would
still get those. heck, i have seen a vcd played in a dvd player, and the
picture quality was surprisingly good. the dvd player did an excellent job of
upscaling and the vcd looked far better than it had any right to, given vcd's
poor resolution. i can imagine those 350mb xvid's probably get the same
treatment and begin to look quite close to dvd quality on a decent dvd player -
provided your tv is not so big that it will be blurry no matter how good your
player is.

kgreen78: i agree with you about using a pc that is 1080p capable (my next one
will be), and also that there likely won't be a new tv broadcast standard (and
perhaps even disk [or whatever comes next] standard) better than 1080p for 20
years or so - since most still haven't even moved to that yet. hdtv and bluray
will be around for quite some time to come.

what i don't get is why you suggest using ffdshow to "resize" the video to hd.
any video/media playing program worth using will have a full screen mode that
automatically scales (and smooths) the video to whatever resolution you happen
to be running in, on the fly using your computer's built in graphics hardware,
regardless of whatever codec you are using to play the video with. it's been
like that ever since windows 95 came out 13+ years ago. if your video playing
program doesn't have a full screen mode and you have to manually scale it so
that your viewing window fills your screen, then i would suggest it is not worth
using, since these videos are made for full screen viewing, and just to go back
to a more popular player like windows media player or zoom player (my personal
favorite at present) or vlc or media player classic where full screen mode is
only a keystroke (or mouse click) or 2 away. no mess, no fuss, and no rehashing
video files to fit a particular display.

the only other catch with "the only thing you'll have to update for the next 20
years is codecs or software" is that newer codecs tend to ask for more cpu time
to play a video of any given size and chances are that a 2008 model pc will
probably not be fast enough to play 1080p video using a codec from 2020 let
alone 2028.

just look at the progression: mpeg1, mpeg2, divx/xvid (early mpeg4 versions),
h264 (more advanced mpeg4). each of those required significantly more cpu power
to play a video of any given resolution - a pc only just capable of playing a
divx/xvid file would not be able to smoothly play the same source file encoded
to h264 for example. that's just the way it is - newer better codecs that give
better quality in the same or smaller file size need more cpu power to play the
resulting files, and i suspect that is unlikely to change any time soon.


admin : this may or may not very interesting but please stop as it has
nothing to do with the series or the episode. and on top the scene will never
read it. thanks.