[Klikster]

@ned Scott
Thank you very much for the info, it calmed my irritated curiousity.

@magao
Handbrake looks like it will work perfectly!!! Thank you so much.

Although I'm not really worried about file sizes, more so just getting the videos from 10-bit to 8-bit so I can watch them in XBMC. And I can leave the processes on over night as well to get them done so speed isn't really an issue.

Actually, I'd prefer to get the least amount of quality loss possible, and not care about file size at all. Would your Handbrake preferences/settings change to accommodate this? Or do you think the ones you listed up above will still work well? Thanks again!!!

[Ned Scott]

To add to the handbrake settings recommendation, you set audio to bypass (basically preserving the audio track, rather than reconverting it) to save audio quality and conversion time.

Also, Toradora and Macross Frontier have 8-bit copies out there (from Bluray). Shouldn't be too hard to find them.

[Klikster]

I've been downloading a lot of stuff off of BakaBT and it seems like Coalgirls are always the first pick there, I guess I'll just have to start looking elsewhere. Thanks!

[magao]

@ned Scott
Thank you very much for the info, it calmed my irritated curiousity.

@magao
Handbrake looks like it will work perfectly!!! Thank you so much.

...

Actually, I'd prefer to get the least amount of quality loss possible, and not care about file size at all. Would your Handbrake preferences/settings change to accommodate this? Or do you think the ones you listed up above will still work well? Thanks again!!!

Most of the options don't significantly affect the quality (that's largely controlled by the rate factor you select). They affect the filesize and the speed of encoding. IIRC the only options that change quality significantly at a particular rate factor are the Psychovisual settings (and they're a little hard to quantify) and Weighted P-frames (specifically improves fades).

If you don't care about the filesize (e.g. you'll delete the 8-bit encodes after watching) then I would recommend just sticking with the settings in the High Profile preset, but changing to Constant framerate. For faster encoding (but much larger files) you can reduce the SUBME, but at some point you will stop being able to fully use all cores on your computer while transcoding - the higher SUBME searches are highly parallel, whereas some of the lower ones are not. You'll need to experiment a little.

As noted, where possible do passthrough of the existing audio. If there's no matching option (e.g. the audio is FLAC) you have two options:

1. Reencode it to another format - probably AAC with the appropriate number of channels;

2. Remove all audio while transcoding, and then use mkvmerge to mux the new video with the original audio and subtitles.

And note that the Coalgirls release of Toradora! does not include any of Toradora! SOS or the Toradora! OVA (Bentou no Gokui).

[Klikster]

Most of the options don't significantly affect the quality (that's largely controlled by the rate factor you select). They affect the filesize and the speed of encoding. IIRC the only options that change quality significantly at a particular rate factor are the Psychovisual settings (and they're a little hard to quantify) and Weighted P-frames (specifically improves fades).

If you don't care about the filesize (e.g. you'll delete the 8-bit encodes after watching) then I would recommend just sticking with the settings in the High Profile preset, but changing to Constant framerate. For faster encoding (but much larger files) you can reduce the SUBME, but at some point you will stop being able to fully use all cores on your computer while transcoding - the higher SUBME searches are highly parallel, whereas some of the lower ones are not. You'll need to experiment a little.

As noted, where possible do passthrough of the existing audio. If there's no matching option (e.g. the audio is FLAC) you have two options:

1. Reencode it to another format - probably AAC with the appropriate number of channels;

2. Remove all audio while transcoding, and then use mkvmerge to mux the new video with the original audio and subtitles.

And note that the Coalgirls release of Toradora! does not include any of Toradora! SOS or the Toradora! OVA (Bentou no Gokui).

Very informative, thanks again!
I'm going to try and re-download a non-Coalgirls version so hopefully I'll grab SOS & the OVA with that, reading the Manga currently.

[Ned Scott]

There was an OVA? Crap, where have I been...

[magao]

There was an OVA? Crap, where have I been...

Lilymon for Toradora! SOS and Tokidan for the OVA are decent (if not brilliant) releases.