Question regarding blu-ray releases/upscales - Blu-ray Forum

Red_Machine · 01-10-2022, 12:34 PM

Hi all, longtime anime fan here with a pretty specific question. I'm keen on buying physical releases of my favourite shows, and I've discovered through bitter experience the travesty that is upscales. I bought boxsets expecting them to be true HD transfers, only to discover they were sloppy upscales of DVD masters (Lucky Star looked awful). I've done a lot of research around this, and have established that there's a window of about a decade where most of the anime released was mastered for SD television on digital video tape, so 480p is all we're ever going to get. There were a few here and there that still mastered to film as they had done up until the 90s, but by and large everything released from the late 90s till about 2010 was mastered to SD digital tape. Then you've got the crossover period where anime was starting to be made in HD, but this wasn't much better than what had come before (Haruhi S2 being mastered in 1080i springs to mind, which barely looks better than DVD) so blu-ray releases can be hit or miss. Until after about 2012/13 when the migration to HD was complete and we got competent high definition masters that could shine on blu-ray.

I have discovered in the last couple of years that some of the anime that I had previously downloaded BD rip fansubs of wasn't actually mastered in HD, or the only blu-ray releases that are available in the west are upscales from SD masters because the studios were either unwilling or unable to source the original HD masters. I've been wanting to migrate more of my collection from digital downloads to physical copies, but in some cases a show's HD bona fides are in doubt. I would rather watch a show in its native format, as I have an SD CRT television to watch DVDs on, and not buy upscales. Is there some place I can look online to see what the native format is? Blu-ray reviews aren't always forthcoming about that, so I'm honestly not sure what to buy.

Specifically for right now, I'm considering buying Toradora (which appears to be an upscale, according to myReviewer), Amagami SS (which is from that nebulous limbo era where some were mastered in HD and others SD), Serial Experiments Lain (which according to myReviewer was sorced from film masters and is true HD), and Ergo Proxy (which apparently is one of those incredibly rare actual HD animes from the early/mid 2000s). It's just a bit hard at times to verify the facts, and would appreciate some advice from fellow afficionados. Thanks.

01-10-2022, 12:34 PM	#1
Red_Machine Junior Member Member since:Jan 2021 4K collection:25 Blu-ray collection:170 DVD collection:329 Digital collection:5 iTunes collection:89	Question regarding blu-ray releases/upscales Hi all, longtime anime fan here with a pretty specific question. I'm keen on buying physical releases of my favourite shows, and I've discovered through bitter experience the travesty that is upscales. I bought boxsets expecting them to be true HD transfers, only to discover they were sloppy upscales of DVD masters (Lucky Star looked awful). I've done a lot of research around this, and have established that there's a window of about a decade where most of the anime released was mastered for SD television on digital video tape, so 480p is all we're ever going to get. There were a few here and there that still mastered to film as they had done up until the 90s, but by and large everything released from the late 90s till about 2010 was mastered to SD digital tape. Then you've got the crossover period where anime was starting to be made in HD, but this wasn't much better than what had come before (Haruhi S2 being mastered in 1080i springs to mind, which barely looks better than DVD) so blu-ray releases can be hit or miss. Until after about 2012/13 when the migration to HD was complete and we got competent high definition masters that could shine on blu-ray. I have discovered in the last couple of years that some of the anime that I had previously downloaded BD rip fansubs of wasn't actually mastered in HD, or the only blu-ray releases that are available in the west are upscales from SD masters because the studios were either unwilling or unable to source the original HD masters. I've been wanting to migrate more of my collection from digital downloads to physical copies, but in some cases a show's HD bona fides are in doubt. I would rather watch a show in its native format, as I have an SD CRT television to watch DVDs on, and not buy upscales. Is there some place I can look online to see what the native format is? Blu-ray reviews aren't always forthcoming about that, so I'm honestly not sure what to buy. Specifically for right now, I'm considering buying Toradora (which appears to be an upscale, according to myReviewer), Amagami SS (which is from that nebulous limbo era where some were mastered in HD and others SD), Serial Experiments Lain (which according to myReviewer was sorced from film masters and is true HD), and Ergo Proxy (which apparently is one of those incredibly rare actual HD animes from the early/mid 2000s). It's just a bit hard at times to verify the facts, and would appreciate some advice from fellow afficionados. Thanks.

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