12th March 2012

Minor change to the last article, 3DS pairing changed from Express Sprinter to Turbostar after further usage of the 3DS.

7th March 2012

Seems pointlessness still won't die. Twitter for short stuff (lah), Facebook for middle-ground (yes, I'm on Facebook now), and pointlessness for this. This? Why this is me comparing all of my computers and games consoles to... UK Railway Set trains! You may have seen it on Twitter and assumed it was a joke. Nope. Complete with commentary too. I need a proper blog.

26th December 2011

Whoa, whoa, wait. What the hell? An article? An honest to goodness article?!?

So, I was in bed, unable to sleep, ranting to myself about a problem. After writing 90% of an article in my head I thought "You know, that needs to be on pointlessness", so I got up, and made it so! The result being My Three-Point Plan on Chinese Reunification. Yes, something easy like peace in the Taiwan straits. I also thought about the Middle East and the Falkland Islands, I may yell at the Argentinians later, if I feel like it, though that would mostly be me saying I think the British position is entirely reasonable (because I do).

In other news, 3DS! Believe it or not, the 3D without glasses thing actually works, for the most part. Is it worth buying a whole new handheld console for? Hell fucking no. Are the other features like upgraded hardware and the ability to use it as a half-decent web browser worth buying a whole new handheld console for? Probably yes. Also, still reading Sailor Moon and Sailor V (me likey) and gave up on the netbook (the 3DS is pretty much what I decided on in place of a netbook) and I've been playing OpenTTD pretty much non-stop for the last couple of weeks (the UK Railway Set and Extended Generic Road Vehicle and Tram Set really revitalized it for me, the next steps are to make serious usage of the Aviators Aircraft Set, start using trams, find a ship NewGRF set I like, and maybe try new industries).

30th September 2011

OK, not quite dead then. I actually have a new article, Wedding Peach Field Patterns, detailing the pattern I've found to the hideous ghosting in Wedding Peach. My hope is that someone who sees it will have an idea of what to do about it.

28th September 2011

Hmm? Something new? Well, yes.

Yes, more anime and I encoded it all myself this time. So, first the vital statistics:

• Torrents: NyaaTorrents, BakaBT
• Video: 694x478 (4:3) H.264 @ CRF16 (~1400Kbps)
• Audio: Japanese/English 2.0 AC3 @ 224Kbps (direct from source)
• Subs: Unstyled full & songs/signs VOB (R1 source) and unstyled full SRT (Elite-Fansubs)

The release has a few problems, the first being those unstyled VobSubs that would've been replaced by styled ASS subs were it not for the fact that I hate doing typesetting and got lazy about stuff. The second being an unusual amount of blocking in dark scenes (which I'm probably being too neurotic about), the cause of which I have been unable to identify. There are also several glitches on scene transitions (also present in the source). However, I still think it's miles ahead of aa666's DivX5 encode, which is the next best option for this OVA.

I intend to fix at least some of the above problems in an eventual version 2, but my focus after this will be Wedding Peach proper, so any v2s of this will most likely be several months down the road at the very least (assuming I ever make any, the release you're looking at now is already six months behind schedule).

I'm also going to include some file hashes here for verification purposes. Since I'm feeling crazy today, they're in the SHA-512 format:

[Lillymon] Wedding Peach DX 01 [55A89658].mkv
d27b82f5ae8cd39c141a3aa04bcdd525d60047c91bb180c24a47f2f6aeb57e8e0ab29bfb68106c0a05743f359f25e7e49ddeb18cee590c36d804836f9c631831

[Lillymon] Wedding Peach DX 02 [CA316E20].mkv
16be44aa4e00a1910a80af672d133e4a24265fb06154d884f68e8407ed547e1a1cd6294cea3086999f9b15a016d9e4cea27aaf24b01bdd90e4d14823f1010433

[Lillymon] Wedding Peach DX 03 [1A0A6275].mkv
da88c8272236d675ad745657773841007c78e851d8a7d472fba41c051a6eedbc7dce640a9ea837cb725ef80655c0d71f6e980de87122c6ea7ea85af528286d4a

[Lillymon] Wedding Peach DX 04 [1C15D790].mkv
3cec8a8022c1f78068ef45f9164cb2e134dc415d6e5c5404a1a6f7692f5e4874806e41c1d0189943a6ae0c15471d145ac964ffb5ce07dd290c8aa7e73a05ce65

Now for the important bit: Screenshot Comparions (aa666 vs. Lillymon) (yes, there's subtitles on the screenshots, as if that makes any difference to the results).

Also, a quick FAQ:

If this release has flaws, why release now and do a v2 later? Why not just make a better release?

jackoneill actually asked this on #bakabt, and my response was the same as it is here: Six months behind schedule. The reason I did that was making an encode, getting hung up on fixing problems rather than releasing, then stalling for months without ever releasing anything. I get the impression many releases end up not being made because of that. So I set myself a deadline, made a 'possible v2 fixes' list, and then decided to release on time no matter what.

VobSubs? Really?

Really. I seriously considered a stripped down SubRip version of the full VOB track, but ran into weird timing issues and my self-imposed deadline. It's on the possible v2 fixes list, along with styled ASS subs. However I would point out that the old E-F SubRip track is still there, the VobSubs are an addition rather than a replacement, and this is the only dual-audio Wedding Peach DX release available (to my knowledge).

Also, as you may have figured out by now, the biggest reason behind me stalling was the subtitles. I love encoding, but hate messing around with subtitles. I find it difficult and tedious. So I quickly made a load of encodes, then came to making better subtitles, and began procrastinating. For six months.

Anyone wanting to help make better subtitles for this is strongly encouraged to get in touch so I can try and provide you with whatever you need to do that.

What, exactly, is in this 'possible v2 fixes' list?

The main things are to fix anything that other people point out as being wrong with this (that I don't already know about), fixing the blocking in dark scenes, and making better subs.

What video filters did you use?

AnimeIVTC using mode=3 for IVTCing, and aa=1 for anti-aliasing (as the source seemed to benefit from it). AnimeIVTC was the easiest way I found to deal with the double hard telecining used in Wedding Peach DX (also used in Wedding Peach) though better quality is probably possible using multiple filters to achieve similar ends. aa666 did not use the correct IVTCing method for WPDX, so that release has some artifacts in it. Anime-Avatar did though, so their Wedding Peach release is clean.

Finally...

Ah, regular site stuff. Yeah, pointlessness is damn near dead. All lists should be considered abandoned and this may well be the last proper update here (I have at least performed one last archiving to clean up the front page, it'll probably be the last). I'm thinking the whole "Do It All Yourself" site mentality has proven too much for me. I may well get a proper blog where stuff gets archived for me and updates are trivial instead. pointlessness will remain here though (both as an archive and just in case my views need a second home on the web), and any moves will be announced. It's been a good learning experience at least. I know far more about HTML, XML, CSS, and PHP than when I started. I've also got into good coding habits, which always helps.

Actually, very quickly, a few things I've learned about web coding in these five years:

1. In CSS, if you specify color, always specify background-color too, and vice-versa. You always intend for there to be a specific colour for both the foreground and background if you're specifying one or the other, but decide to allow your intention for the one of them to be implicit rather than explicit. Don't. Always be explicit about your intent. That way there will be no confusion.
2. The alt tag is mandatory for images, use it. Properly if possible. The title tag is not mandatory, but it's nice to have, for links as well as images. Show you care.
3. There is no reason to use frames any more. None. If you're thinking of using frames, you're doing it wrong. Seek the help of someone who knows better.
4. Sticking with strict W3C recommended standards to build a site more complex than this will drive you completely batshit-crazy in about two hours. All web designers should bow down and pay their respects to Apple, Mozilla, and Opera for creating the WHATWG and pushing for web standards that we can actually use in the real world.
5. MNG, ANG, AniPNG, PNG-in-GIF, and RGBA-in-GIF are stillborn proposals that will never go anywhere. APNG is the de facto replacement for animated GIF. Ignore the PNG Group, start using APNG where you'd usually use animated GIFs, and maybe we can finally deprecate GIF.
6. Anyone using Internet Explorer 6 in 2011 is either: a) An idiot. b) Dicking around with old browsers because they have nothing better to do. c) Working for a terrible corporation. Either way, they deserve ridicule rather than sympathy. Use content negotiation to mess with their heads for fun.
7. XHTML totally sucks and has no redeeming qualities to it whatsoever. Don't do what I did. Use HTML 5 instead.

In other news, I'm still reading Skulduggery Pleasant and finished Death Bringer lately. I'm still hooked. I've also ordered the recent English reprints of Codename: Sailor V and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which should start arriving here shortly. I may get a netbook this year as well, the Open Pandora looking like an excellent option for me. As for Zophar's Domain, I'm the official admin who doesn't do stuff. Go me.

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