Freedom HD DVD Impressions

[Chris Beveridge]

I received an early copy of Freedom Vol. #1 from Bandai Visual USA today. The release is a twin-format disc which is a single layer HD DVD and a single layer DVD on the same disc.

Though this is a Blu-ray forum, I wanted to provide impressions on it for reference. Please note that since today is my 9 year wedding anniversary, I won't be around after 1pm to post anything. More impressions will follow on Sunday afternoon as well as a full review.

Player: HD-A1

The disc comes in a super jewel case as is still used in Japan. Instructions are standard JApanese text (in English of course) in that it talks about the importance of updating firmware and provides specific instructions on where to get the Xbox 360 firmware update.

As I haven't used my HD-A1 since last August, I wanted to do a firmware update to 2.2 since I suspect the network interactivity of this release will require it. As it's been about ten months since I last used the player I had forgotten how god awful clunky and slow it is. Upon starting the firmware update, it took ten minutes via cable internet to get to 10% complete. That's where I'm still at.

Update has now been running for 30 minutes and is at 30%. This is a joke.

I put the Freedom disc into my PS3. Disc is recognized easily and without any problems. The disc goes from the opening logos right into the 24 minute presentation. The main show has 4 chapter stops, audio is 448 kbps DD 5.1 Japanese. The video bitrate of the MPEG2 encoding is typical JApanese in that it's usually 9.0 and up with a few dips into the high 8's. The next episode preview is the only "extra" on the disc and runs 1:41 and can only be seen after you finish the main program. You cannot select it from the menu nor chapter-skip to get to it.

Downloaded Content:

Freedom marks the first HD DVD worldwide I believe to contain downloadable content to the players' persistent storage. Our HD-A1 has about 131 mb of persistent storage to it. Accessible from the popup menu, a separate menu is loaded that allows you to view downloaded content that belongs to the program, connect to the server to get more content and to go back to the main menu. The menu is nicely designed to be in theme with the show and maintains the same layout and dynamic as the standard popup menu. Moving left or right, there are five pieces of downloadable content that you can get. Each is clearly marked as to what its audio/video specs are

The content included for this release is the special prologue to the series which runs just under seven minutes. It's provided in two flavors; one is a Dolby Digital+ 5.1 mix and one is an LPCM 2.0 mix. Both are encoded with VC-1. A preview for the next episode is included as is the promotional trailer for the series as well as a TV commercial for the production.

The content downloads fairly quickly to the player and it has a well designed countdown meter so you can tell there is actual progress going on. When the individual content piece is played, there is a twelve second delay as the disc itself is loaded back into the foreground as it was playing off of the player directly. The concept of downloadable content is not one that bothers me but what does bother me is that all of this content is material that should have been on the disc and been encoded at a higher rate. What is here looks good, be it the 1080i material or the 480p material, but it should have been on the disc without me having to spend the time not only to download it instead of just clicking a button to watch it, but without me having to maintain it (hey, my player died!) or having the keys for the content revoked at some future date (hey, I wanted to watch it again!). Downloadable content within the context of home video releases is still finding its way and I'm curious and intrigued to see where it will go. This is an example of how it works but the content provided is not what should be provided in this manner.

In going through the main presentation, BV USA has a really slick looking disc here. The popup menus are well done by the inclusion of a button to turn off the button sounds, the Picture in Picture feature is very damn slick with the ability to resize it and change transparency. The Storyboard feature is something that could revolutionize how extras are done with home video in general and anime in particular. The bookmarking is a slick little feature that I'm glad to see implemented in-theme with the show as well.

Overall, this is a slick piece of work that looks fantastic. It's unfortunate that the HD-A1 can't do 1080p out however.