TWD S06E03 1080p WebDL x265 HEVC 5.1 noobless[UTR]

A return home doesn't go as expected.

What an episode!

Season: 6
Episode: 3
Title: Thank You
Video: 1080p | x265 (H.265/HEVC) | CRF 22 | slow preset | dither, denoise, deband, ordered noise pre-processing pass
Audio: English | AAC LC | 6 channels | Target Quality 0.4 | 327 Kbps Variable (373 Kbps max)
Subtitles (embedded SRT): English, English SDH
Source: The.Walking.Dead.S06E03.1080p.WEB-DL.DD5.1.H264-RARBG.mkv (5584 Kbps)

TWD is the ugliest source material I've ever had the displeasure of working with. For one thing, the bitrate is too low in places, revealing artifacts. The grain is also horrendous and there is some color banding present. Why the studio allows the network to release a product this poor is beyond me.

Pre-processing the grain and color banding out took quite a bit of tweaking for me to get right. The end result is, in my opinion, a higher quality print than the original. See comparison screenshots below I did for E01 (these screens are not representative of the actual file in this torrent):


Until we get a BluRay, I believe this is the best product we're going to get. Even then I suspect the quality will only marginally improve (still grain, but no artifacts).

[soapbox]Distributors need to up their delivered quality! Stop affixing a fixed 5500kbps bitrate to every WebDL.Studios need to stop applying grain like it makes everything better. All it does is mask the poor quality of your low-budget CGI. If you're going to stylistically apply grain, like this show does, do it right by telling the player to add it later with Film Grain SEI messages.[/soapbox]

Full media info: