File sizes are getting ridiculous

[sarahg]

What's with all these overkill. Do we really need a 600mb for a 20 min anime? I'm sure all the fancy computer people are laughing at me but I just want my good old 175mb's and I want to rant!

[Eity]

I agree, with h264 even HD may be encoded in less than 200 mb with quality hardly different from 400+ etc... Really I almost don't see any difference between several versions of different size encodes (with h264 format, and same resolution).

[JPark]

A lot of it depends on who does the encoding.  For instance, a lot of SD encodes are eye-cancer because they were encoded straight from the HD and changing the resolution on subtitles apparently sucks.  And quite honestly, you don't need a crazy computer to be able to watch  anime in HD.  I have a 4, almost 5 year old computer that has the original core duo chip and I can run everything fine with CCCP.  Don't need to understand anything, it just works.  But back to the original point, it's really hard to compare 200 MB to 600 MB releases for one main reason:

The fact that they're 600 MB means they're probably 1080 releases.  I generally categorize it as: 175-200 MB is SD (400 or 480p), around 300-400 MB is HD (720p), and 500+ MB is FHD (1080i/p).  If you don't have an HDTV monitor, there's no point in you even trying out the 1080 releases because you won't be able to see the differences in the first place.  A lot of it is color brightness/contrast, and those millions of colors that more expensive monitors provide let you enjoy FHD if your computer can run it.  Counter to what I said earlier, while most computers should be able to run HD anime (it'll be an uphill marathon for some, though), this is not the case for FHD.  You say you don't see a difference from 400+ and I'm assuming this is because you don't have an HDTV monitor and are able to see a difference between SD and HD, but not HD and FHD.  There's no reason to laugh at you guys because everyone has their own circumstances, which is why most groups have two releases: a lower quality 200 MB SD (usually xVid) release and a 300-400MB HD release (usually h264).

I just honestly don't see what you guys are complaining about?

Edit: I'd also like to add, it's really hard to get quality into a 200 MB encode because you don't have a lot of bit rate to work with.  H264 provides great SD I suppose, but you should be able to see a fair difference between 200 and 400 MB releases...

[Eity]

I just honestly don't see what you guys are complaining about?

Edit: I'd also like to add, it's really hard to get quality into a 200 MB encode because you don't have a lot of bit rate to work with.  H264 provides great SD I suppose, but you should be able to see a fair difference between 200 and 400 MB releases...

Really? Let's compare...
Here is two screens from opening of 45 and 41 episodes of FMA Brotherhood (opening same in both).
http://i6.fastpic.ru/big/2010/0501/46/eef396b49d30be0bb0dbbb4f53842246.png - this is from 175 Mb rip
http://i6.fastpic.ru/big/2010/0501/7c/caa9d516b5a9cfe23e54742e25fb117c.png - this is from 354 Mb rip
And here is screens from the same scenes from different encodes of Jewelpet 45.
http://i6.fastpic.ru/big/2010/0501/5d/4c564a3e294a6d46c90c182a0c9c0a5d.png - 264 Mb
http://i6.fastpic.ru/big/2010/0501/5d/e83fd6970116e7d34a8ed662117c315d.png - 425 Mb
All episodes raws, h264, 1280x720. As you see there is only a small difference in quality, and very big in size. The point is even for HD there is no need for very big sized files. A less then 200 Mb file is enough for at least h264 1280x720 (and even FHD doesn't need 500 MB...). I personally watch mostly raws (since I know japanese), and only for few series there is h264 HD less then 200 mb raw... I can and do download bigger versions. But it will be better to have smaller version with same quality. Now I need to write one DVD almoust everyday (and alredy have collection about 1500 DVD)...
It also have nothing to do with which computer who have. I personally have good enough computer to watch even FHD (but monitor is only 1280x1024). And of course I see a lot of difference between HD and SD. But compare only HD (I watch in SD only things I can't get in HD). Sure there is a big difference between small SD XviD, and big h264 HD. But that is because its SD Xvid...