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February 20

TinTin Asterix

Looking for comics like Tintin and Asterix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.110.131.234 (talk) 08:32, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried bookshops? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:38, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Try Franco-Belgian_comics#Notable_comics.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of those listed, Lucky Luke is probably closest in terms of humour (and in terms of the racial and national stereotypes that seem a bit uncomfortable today). It's a Western parody, started by Asterix author René Goscinny. If you want things that look similar, look up artists in the ligne claire style. Unfortunately, few French comics get translated into English; if you want to go deeper into French-Belgian comics, you really need to be able to read the language. I love the Les Cités obscures comics, but the translations went out of print long ago (I rely on my wife translating them for me!). Smurrayinchester 10:36, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For children, Boule et Bill is good - we lived in France when our girls were younger, and they loved that. Recently I noticed that they are now producing some of the French classics in the same format. We spotted someone with the comic version of Notre Dame de Paris (Victor Hugo) - known in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Wymspen (talk) 15:08, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I used to like Benoît Brisefer (Starke Staffan in swedish) and Les Tuniques Bleues. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some volumes of Achille Talon, e.g. Viva Papa and Le roi des Zotres, are adventures comparable in style to Astérix (though in modern settings). Jean Giraud alias Moebius drew surreal adventures in a style somewhat similar to Tintin's ligne claire. —Tamfang (talk) 11:24, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Diference between quality streaming movies

Specifically streaming movies on Amazon Prime, but i guess it wouold be the same on any streamed films/TV. i have a QHD monitor so 2560x1440 pixels, somewhat higher than HD but not 2k/4k.

Streaming on good quality looks basically the same as great quality (great quality is x4 the bandwith ((i understand that double the reolution equals four times the pixels that have to be displayed)), but still stated as HD, nothing higher). Do any others find that there's a diminishing return on high quality video?

Thanks in advance 95.146.213.251 (talk) 23:31, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess that they are using a lossy compression method that effectively drops the resolution to 1080, at some point in the process. Once they've done that, upconverting to your resolution won't make much improvement. StuRat (talk) 00:15, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

i understand lossy formats for still images as a graphic designer, but that's a very small drop in quality for a huge saving in file size. i'll follow up reading the article you linked ty, but my gut reaction is that if that is the reason, then why is it x4 the bandwith for a stream that looks the same. 95.146.213.251 (talk) 00:30, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you mostly target bitrate rather than quality, then the bandwidth can easily be x4 whatever else. But in any case, GIGO and all that, if you have upscaled, even if you target a quality level the codec is still generally going to use a of extra bits for that resolution even if it doesn't actually seem much better. (Note that GIGO is entirely fair anyway. You're never going to get close to the same as the original resolution presuming you properly recorded at 4k, but the upscaler is making a significant difference and could significantly beat your own upscaling solution if it's crap.) But as said below, I don't think this is relevant. I doubt you're getting 4k video. Nil Einne (talk) 04:54, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You mention a 2560x1440 monitor. Does that mean you're using a PC (including laptops, Macs and any non specialised Linux devices)? Nil Einne (talk) 11:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This might get a more complete answer on the Computing desk. I am far from an expert, but the initial question I would ask is: if the host knows you can view more than 1080P, but not full 4K, does it even have a stream between those standards to send you - or does it just send a 1080 signal because that's the highest standard you can view? And pixels aside, what kind of frame rate is being sent? Again, I'm barely above novice at this stuff, but there are lots of missing pieces to this that could influence the answer. I will also say, based on experience, that Amazon's customer service is top notch: if in doubt, contact them. Matt Deres (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answers, i might ask on the computing reference desk as suggested. I also agree Amazon is great with their streaming algorithm, and i hadn't considered a frame rate when i asked the question, a very good point. 95.146.213.251 (talk) 21:38, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK Amazon justs used H.264 for their streaming as does most of the internet (with small amounts of WebM, and 4k normally using HEVC). There's nothing particularly special about Amazon's algorithm. I'm not even sure if they're using x264 generally considered the best H264 codec in terms of quality. (But they may I think a lot of companies do.) I doubt the frame rate will be different between good quality and great quality. It's fairly rare frame rate is reduced except at fairly low qualities. As for frame rates above 23.976/25, it's possible but I don't think these are common outside of sport and UHD. P.S. It's fairly unlikely Amazon has any resolution between 4k/UHD and HD/1080P. Nil Einne (talk) 04:30, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I should have said VP8 and VP9 above rather than WebM Nil Einne (talk) 06:34, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't get an answer to my question so I'll post this as is. I don't use Amazon Prime, but I'm pretty sure if the video is UHD it should be clearly labelled as UHD and you'll need to choose UHD not HD resolution. Further, I'm pretty sure Amazon Prime still doesn't support UHD streaming on PCs [1]. Nexflix has enabled it recently under certain limited conditions [2] but I cant find any mention that Amazon has.

In other words, it's fairly likely the difference between the streaming qualities just relates to the compression used and all this talk of beyond 1080P is irrelevant. I'm fairly surprised the bandwidth difference is so high, how did you determine this? I mean it's possible, but from my experience most streaming services don't generally have that level of difference between 2 levels. Often it's less than 2x.

In any case, in terms of the general point, lossy compression is complicated. But once the compression is transparent or close to it for a certain individual then significant increases in bandwidth aren't likely to make a noticeable difference. I mean if you can't tell the difference between uncompressed video or the compressed video, then you won't generally see the higher quality lossy compression as better. And I think most codec viewing tests suggest transparency for the average individual (those who aren't experts on detecting the artifacts etc) is at a lot lower quality setting than a lot of people think. Especially when simply viewing the video rather than comparing them side by side or with still images. Also codecs (particularly including the software) tend to be targeted at certain use cases. It's definitely true that many codecs, significantly increases in bandwidth doesn't significantly increase the perceptual quality even for those who can see the quality problems. In fact older simpler codecs can sometimes perform better at these bit rates.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:21, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I should also mention even 4k/UHD is unlikely to be 4x the bandwidth. I didn't find figures for Amazon, but NetFlix uses 15.6 Mbps for their 4k and 7 Mbps for their 1080P [3]. This is HEVC versus H.264, but even if someone were using H.264 for both, and NetFlix evidentally can use HEVC for 1080P, it's unlikely that many would use 4x. Maybe if it were 1080P25 versus 4kP50 HDR with the same codec I suppose. Nil Einne (talk) 04:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]