The epic quest for fansubs

[sgupta]

Bad Username, it sounds like AviSynth definitely has its challenges - you're right; it should be no problem to get most media players to force 16:9 until that gets sorted out, and I agree it's preferable to resolution lowering. Hopefully there'll be a workaround for that eventually.

Honestly, as long as voluntary and not for profit, I think the PayPal donation thing is fine. I know I'm glad to support this as I really hope to see it successful, and it is an expensive project to take on, so I don't see any issue with people who want to contribute doing so personally.

MKV's a pretty nice format - I think that's a good call.

Jeffbert, those look like interesting sets. I wonder how they compare to the Japanese (and Korean) variants. It's just a shame there are no English subs on any of the other sets.

[sgupta]

Yay, the region-free ISO's are finally up. You can get them (thanks to AstroRex) at:

http://www.superfantasystories.com/astroboy/

The links are at the bottom of the page. Depending on how your computer is configured, you may need to right click them and "Save Target As" to get them to save right - make sure they end in .iso.

These can be burned with most burning software out there (Nero, Roxio) or the free burning program ImgBurn (linked to on the site at the top). Additionally, turns out VLC can play them directly as well without burning. Please let me know if you have any problems with them!

[sgupta]

Uploaded a "final" (not really) version of Episode 01. You can find it at my project page.

This took a very long time and gave me a nasty headache. I am going to take a break before starting Episode 02, but it should be much faster now that I've learned so much about the encoding process.

Bad Username, finally got a chance to watch your newly encoded episode last night, and awesome job! As I mentioned, really loved the way you included subs for the opening/ending, and all the subtitles through were perfect!

(BTW, I used AviRecomp to fix the aspect ratio before watching; it can correct that if you're sending to a source that can't be adjusted).

The quality was awesome - I was impressed that it kept 5.1 sound and everything - truly DVD quality in an AVI file. I know it was a long process, but great work!

[Bad Username]

If you think that's good, you should see the really-final version I just made (and it only took a week to figure out!). It's got a higher size and was encoded with triple pass and all options set to "Horrifically Slow", and it looks near-identical to the DVD video, including aspect ratio. Uploading it now.

[sgupta]

Awesome news, Bad Username! Now that you have the process down, hopefully the next one will be a lot less hassle (though I'm sure still a lot of work). This project is turning out awesome so far tho'. ^.^

[Bad Username]

Bleh. MegaUpload isn't working right. Trying a different site.

[Bad Username]

Finally! The link is at http://sites.google.com/site/abproject2003/

[sgupta]

Cool, thanks, and Happy Holidays! ^.^ Do you still have/are you planning to have a DepositFiles link available, or should I just use the MegaUpload?

[Bad Username]

Nah, DF didn't register the downloads I got from the previous version, so screw them. I'll put up a donation link in January though. Funny thing is, some guys are saying the final looks "iffy", so they want to make a better version. If they can, I'm all for it, especially if it'll play on a PS3 (the sole reason I spent so much time dealing with encoders and hardsubbing was so I could make a PS3-playable video. The final won't play on a PS3).

[sgupta]

Eh - that's no good as far as DF, but the link in Jan may work out better anyways.

Hmmm - strange that it won't play on PS3. I'm just starting the download of this version, but I do something similar via a TiVo (which allows video playback - I use some software called pyTivo to transfer), and the previous version (apart from aspect ratio) played fine on it (and then I recomped it to altar aspect ratio). You might try AVIrecomp if you haven't to see if maybe it can fix the format issues for the PS3. Does it give any reason it won't play?

I'll try this version on the TiVo and see if I have any issues. Hopefully you can get the PS3 issue resolved one way or the other.