AniDB

What's exactly the difference between the two?

It is TV=analogue, DTV = digital, isn't it?

Since the advent of the digital flag that we failed to crack, I usually never know if the raw that has been used for a fansub was aired on a digital channel or an analogue one, so I usually leave the Source on "unknown", but it seems like a lot of people just use always "DTV", not considering the nature of the raw. I know I used to do it before the flag.

I just saw one file I added have a CREQ granted, changing the Source from unknown to DTV. It's a file from the anime "Black Cat". And AFAIK the 4:3 sources for Black Cat are aired on an analogue channels, first on TBS, then on MBS and CBC, and nearly one week later comes the 16:9 digital ones from BS-i, and that would mean that all 4:3 episodes should be TV, yet lots of 640x480 encodes are marked as DTV, including the one that I added as 'unknown' before I knew a bit more about the channels.

So...
- ...does it really matter at all?
- ...should we merge both types into TV/DTV?
- ...or perhaps add that TV/DTV option as another alternative to "unknown" when we know for sure it's from TV, but don't know if it's digital or not?

I think there are not much TV (analog) sources by now.
DTV is the source, not the format. The same with DVD... the source of the file, not the format in itself.

I think the question is valid if there needs to be a distinction between TV and DTV.

If it is supposed to be different because of the aspect ratio [which DonGato says it isn't], then it could be useful. It is not necessary though because the height and width are also shown and someone could generally tell based on that (unless a widescreen source was encoded with a black bar at the top and bottom).

So if it has to do with the source of the signal, if someone got it off rabbit ears (antenna) or sattelite dish/cable. What is the use of this information? The quality indicator would most likely show this difference.

I know that this information not consistent within the database (I think that I may have been inconsistent myself). I agree that the two values should just be merged into one. I don't see the point in distinguishing and since many of them are wrong anyway, there isn't much use.

wiki wrote:Sometimes, it's ok to make an educated guess: For animes that are released fansubbed shortly (within days/weeks) after they aired in Japan, you can safely assume "DTV" (Digital TV) as source.

This is all the wiki has to say about it.

Myself, I added a LOT of files with source "unknown" because I couldn't decide between TV and DTV. After all, most of us take the RAW from Winny...

So I vote for merging the two: TV/DTV.

I'm guessing there is no analogue TV in JP any more. Which of course doesn't mean that there is no terrestial broadcast any longer, just that it's something like DVB-T (no clue which system JP uses, too lazy to look it up). But yeah, widescreen version often only air over digital pay-tv channels (wowow, Bs-i, BS-Asahi etc).

CU,
lamer_de