Resolution/Bitrate, Audio & Subtitles Picking Code Probably Needs a Full Rewrite

[jpp72]

see this here - https://www.howtogeek.com/323686/how...ows-and-macos/

I am talking about StreamFab showing the actual video bitrate in the download pop-up instead of the generic 15000/8000/4000 kbps

You can clearly see that i know how to get that information from Windows using Icaros or MediaInfo...

[october262]

Since it is radio silence from the powers that be, i will continue to point out why being able to pick the season or episode to scan is the only way to address the problems of the current way.

I am not sure if they just want to stick to their guns and not want to make it seem the competitor had it right all along but, if it is, that is very bad business.

Anyway, here is the story of downloading all 4 seasons Halt and Catch Fire from APV with StreamFab v6.1.2.5.

I wasted a bunch of download credits by first getting all seasons, then Season 4 in 1 scan, and Season 4 again by scanning individual episodes.

The individual episodes gave the best results as expected because there is no guess work by StreamFab. Simply download what i choose.

All 4 Seasons at Once

Selecting Season 1 within StreamFab, i was able to get H265 and 5.1 Audio for the pop-up. Selected the 5000 kbps bitrate.



The result was the usual wild variations in bitrate but also, 2 episodes of Season 3 downloaded in H264 at the highest bitrate available. Season 4 was entirely in H264.





So we have 3 problems here:

• H264 only episodes from Season 3 are downloaded at the highest bitrate.
• H265 episodes without the 5000 kbps bitrate get downloaded at 9000 kbps instead of the closest bitrate available which is 4000 kbps.
• The entirety of Season 4 is in H264. I found that hard to believe.

Being able to scan individual episodes, i would have known those 2 episodes didn't have a H265 version and i could have picked a more appropriate bitrate for my needs. I could have also done the same for Season 4. Lastly, I could have picked 4000 kbps for anything that didn't have 5000 kbps.

Season 4 Only

Since i didn't buy the fact that the whole season was in H264, i tried scanning just season 4. Because my APV settings are configured to download in H265, i got this pop-up:



So i decided to try scanning episode 10. The only way to do that is to go to APV in a regular browser, searching for the show/season, and right-clicking on the episode and copying the link to the clipboard. StreamFab needs to be configured to monitor the clipboard.

After StreamFab scanned episode 10, i got this pop-up:



I chose the 5000 kbps and selected all episodes. The resulting downloads looked like this:



The problems here are:

• H264 Bitrate is too high.
• H265 episodes without 5000 kbps are downloaded at 9000 kbps instead of 4000 kbps.
• Some episodes' audio are missing the English language tag.

The first 2 are because of the "logic". It's already been proven that they cannot predict what i will want so why not give is the power to just pick what i want for each episode???

Last one looks like a bug to me.

Season 4 Individual Episodes

The last thing i did was to scan each individual episode and get the bitrates i actually wanted. This took a long time because there was a lot of back and forth between my browser and StreamFab and of course, the enumeration of all seasons each of the 10 times i did this.

The final folder looks like this:



This, to me, is the best option. Yes, Amazon's annoying bitrate variations are not ideal but, this way, i get something somewhat consistent.

Lastly, i think Amazon has changed all their bitrate profiles so the 15k, 8k, 4k for H264 and 9k, 5k, 2k for H265 are inaccurate. Is there no way to get the actual video bitrate?

see this here -

[jpp72]

Since it is radio silence from the powers that be, i will continue to point out why being able to pick the season or episode to scan is the only way to address the problems of the current way.

I am not sure if they just want to stick to their guns and not want to make it seem the competitor had it right all along but, if it is, that is very bad business.

Anyway, here is the story of downloading all 4 seasons Halt and Catch Fire from APV with StreamFab v6.1.2.5.

I wasted a bunch of download credits by first getting all seasons, then Season 4 in 1 scan, and Season 4 again by scanning individual episodes.

The individual episodes gave the best results as expected because there is no guess work by StreamFab. Simply download what i choose.

All 4 Seasons at Once

Selecting Season 1 within StreamFab, i was able to get H265 and 5.1 Audio for the pop-up. Selected the 5000 kbps bitrate.



The result was the usual wild variations in bitrate but also, 2 episodes of Season 3 downloaded in H264 at the highest bitrate available. Season 4 was entirely in H264.





So we have 3 problems here:

• H264 only episodes from Season 3 are downloaded at the highest bitrate.
• H265 episodes without the 5000 kbps bitrate get downloaded at 9000 kbps instead of the closest bitrate available which is 4000 kbps.
• The entirety of Season 4 is in H264. I found that hard to believe.

Being able to scan individual episodes, i would have known those 2 episodes didn't have a H265 version and i could have picked a more appropriate bitrate for my needs. I could have also done the same for Season 4. Lastly, I could have picked 4000 kbps for anything that didn't have 5000 kbps.

Season 4 Only

Since i didn't buy the fact that the whole season was in H264, i tried scanning just season 4. Because my APV settings are configured to download in H265, i got this pop-up:



So i decided to try scanning episode 10. The only way to do that is to go to APV in a regular browser, searching for the show/season, and right-clicking on the episode and copying the link to the clipboard. StreamFab needs to be configured to monitor the clipboard.

After StreamFab scanned episode 10, i got this pop-up:



I chose the 5000 kbps and selected all episodes. The resulting downloads looked like this:



The problems here are:

• H264 Bitrate is too high.
• H265 episodes without 5000 kbps are downloaded at 9000 kbps instead of 4000 kbps.
• Some episodes' audio are missing the English language tag.

The first 2 are because of the "logic". It's already been proven that they cannot predict what i will want so why not give is the power to just pick what i want for each episode???

Last one looks like a bug to me.

Season 4 Individual Episodes

The last thing i did was to scan each individual episode and get the bitrates i actually wanted. This took a long time because there was a lot of back and forth between my browser and StreamFab and of course, the enumeration of all seasons each of the 10 times i did this.

The final folder looks like this:



This, to me, is the best option. Yes, Amazon's annoying bitrate variations are not ideal but, this way, i get something somewhat consistent.

Lastly, i think Amazon has changed all their bitrate profiles so the 15k, 8k, 4k for H264 and 9k, 5k, 2k for H265 are inaccurate. Is there no way to get the actual video bitrate?

[MrGrackle]

Hi,

We will improve the logic soon, or to download the best audio codec if the selected audio is not available to download.

StreamFab analyze one season only for speed up the analyze speed.

Wilson

Wilson,

Individual episodes have varying bit rates and subtitle options (including forced subs). The 'always download forced subs' option never works. Look at Stranger Things for episodes that are all over the place for bitrates and forced subs.

[jpp72]

Obviously i meant to post this in another thread and reference this one but this i what happens when you have 5 DVDFab forum tabs open at the same time lol

[jpp72]

So far, all the attempts at guessing and predicting what the user would like to download have been unsuccessful.

From the "1920x1080 if availabled" that downloads everything at the lowest resolution, to the prompting for "Stick to my settings" or "download better audio" that disregards your answer, i'd say all the attempts at addressing the flawed scanning (single episode) have been a miserable failure.

I would like to get an explanation as to why this feature request/problem solution is not being considered... It's one thing to say "We have a better way" but clearly that's not the case.

So? Why is this simple solution not viable? I really want to know. Mona? Wilson.Wang ? Can you have the developpers tell us why? We all would also like to know what is being done about this, if anything.

[Brozilla]

Is not only with audio the problem. For example, if the first episode is a trailer and this is only available in SD, the other episodes are also downloaded in SD although they are available in FullHD.

[Wilson.Wang]

Hi,

We will improve the logic soon, or to download the best audio codec if the selected audio is not available to download.

StreamFab analyze one season only for speed up the analyze speed.

Wilson

[Josephus]

Exactly! Right now, the only way for you to do it is to go to Netflix in your regular browser, start playing an episode from the season that has HD, copy that URL, and have StreamFab analyze that.

Thank you for the suggestion. Being the option available at the moment I will use it.

[jpp72]

About Netflix.
I want to download the second season of "Pasión de Gavilanes" in FullHD, however, after analysis, it only recognizes the resolution of the first season which is SD.
The suggestion cited above would help a lot if it was added.

Exactly! Right now, the only way for you to do it is to go to Netflix in your regular browser, start playing an episode from the season that has HD, copy that URL, and have StreamFab analyze that.

[Josephus]

About Netflix.
I want to download the second season of "Pasión de Gavilanes" in FullHD, however, after analysis, it only recognizes the resolution of the first season which is SD.
The suggestion cited above would help a lot if it was added.

[jpp72]

This has been an issue from the get-go. I finally decided to dedicate a post to it.

When browsing Amazon Prime, Netflix or others and picking a show from within StreamFab, the pop-up where you select your resolution/bitrate, audio and subtitles lists stuff depending on what you clicked or pasted

Because of this, you can sometimes pick something that is not available in all seasons or episodes.

For example, Narcos: Mexico. I am re-downloading all my Netflix content as H265/HDR10 if available and i tried this one today.

Browsing to the show, this is the pop-up:



Notice the audio is EAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus). I cannot pick Atmos because it analyzed S01E01 and that does not have Atmos. I know for a fact that Season 2 and 3 have Atmos so how do i get that? Even if i didn't know Season 2 and 3 had Atmos, when downloading all seasons from the Season 1 analysis, it should download the 6 channel audio, not the 2 channel one.

The resulting downloads look like this:

Season 1



Season 2



Season 3



Now if i start the analysis from Season 2, i can pick Atmos and it actually downloads the Atmos audio:



Season 3



Also, notice how the bitrate on some episodes vary significantly?

That is why i think the whole pop-up behavior needs to be re-evaluated. I used to bitch that we could only queue 1 season at a time with the competitor but now i see why.

One main problem with the way SF works right now is that you cannot really pick a specific season because it will bring you back to the previous page after analysis. That is especially true of Netflix but also very valid on Amazon Prime because even when you search for a specific season, it may not show up in the search results. It exists but doesn't show up!

I truly believe there are 2 things that can alleviate the problem:

1. Stop bringing us back to the previous page after analysis
2. Add a button to trigger the analysis

I still think there should be a rewrite of that pop-up so you can pick video, audio and subtitles per episode but these 2 things will go a long way in getting us to download exactly what we want without having to use a regular browser 1st to copy the link to the clipboard and trigger the analysis on the proper season or even episode.

I know there is also an issue with the wrong bitrate being selected in batch but because of the low 50 item limit per day, it's hard to do proper troubleshooting to pinpoint what is happening...

Like i said, being able to pick per season/episode would be ideal. For seasons, you could have something like this (very bad mockup):