My attempts with AT-X broadcasts have been a resounding failure. I’m sticking with web streams.

What is the difference between the v1, v2 and v3? Quality or subs or censorship?

v3 uses erai-raws (hidive) as a video source and uses a different graining method. v1 and v2 used shincaps (AT-X broadcasts) as a video source in an attempt to address the lower bitrate of hidive streams, but no amount of filtering could improve the image quality enough to justify the higher bitrate. The new quantizer estimation method ensures that what detail is in the web stream isn’t lost, and the file size is just large enough to achieve the target image quality.

Any reason you don’t use SubsPlus+ or Anime-WEB for subtitles? In my testing, they are both far better than standard Hidive.

@Persona5RoyalOnSwitch Thanks for the tip! My priority is the best quality for a same day release. SubsPlus+ releases appear to be mostly automated changes to font, text color, and karaoke along with audio retiming sporadically. That’s never been very important to me, and I wouldn’t delay a release for them unless there was a noticeable desync which I can handle on my own. They are however using Tsundere-Raws (ADN streams) which appear to be simulcasts with Hidive with higher bitrate and French subs so I might switch to Tsundere-Raws for that from now on. I have no clue what Anime-Web is doing since they’re taking Chihiro’s fansubs and adding them to lower bitrate encodes. I’ll probably use Chihiro’s for a batch release at the end of the season as they’re doing their own decensored composites of the higher quality Amazon streams.