The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread - Page 6 - Blu-ray Forum

Mangaranga · 05-25-2015, 01:59 PM

Has anyone else noticed anything about the video quality for Knights of Sidonia? It looks blocky/pixelated, and this is made more noticeable by the entire show being animated in 3D. The Japanese BDs don't look like this, so I'm not sure if this is a case of Sentai using Netflix's materials (which in turn were probably from the interlaced HDTV materials) due to the fact we have English translated credits instead of the original Japanese ones, or whether it's just Sentai being Sentai again since their PQ is garbage most of the time anway. Three random screens here (more noticeable in the second and third shots).

robgmun · 05-26-2015, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naiera

How the shit do they only use 3.5 gigs per ep with nine eps per disc? Stupid idiots.

Downloading tv rips from Japan, they tend to be about 500-600Mb and look very good and clean. 3.5 gigs should be more than enough, it's down to the compression settings to getting it right.

Naiera · 05-26-2015, 12:59 PM

3.5 gigs is not enough. You need six or preferably seven to do it right. (see: Aniplex)

robgmun · 05-26-2015, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naiera

3.5 gigs is not enough. You need six or preferably seven to do it right. (see: Aniplex)

No, i bet with someone competent at doing their job and a bit of time i bet you can they can get it down to 1.2Gb with almost zero difference to AV quality. The problem is that the industry seem to be full of idiots who doesn't know how to authorize a disc without causing problems.

The industry as a whole needs a shake up and some form of body to quality check and have powers to stop a release if it's sub-par

Naiera · 05-26-2015, 02:30 PM

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

NLScavenger · 05-26-2015, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robgmun

No, i bet with someone competent at doing their job and a bit of time i bet you can they can get it down to 1.2Gb with almost zero difference to AV quality. The problem is that the industry seem to be full of idiots who doesn't know how to authorize a disc without causing problems.

The industry as a whole needs a shake up and some form of body to quality check and have powers to stop a release if it's sub-par

I hope you do realize that ripped anime downloads are encoded in 10 bit and more advanced and efficient codecs.

robgmun · 05-26-2015, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I hope you do realize that ripped anime downloads are encoded in 10 bit and more advanced and efficient codecs.

Yes i do notice that, is that not something that can't be used on Blu-rays?

Norbie · 05-26-2015, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Has anyone else noticed anything about the video quality for Knights of Sidonia? It looks blocky/pixelated, and this is made more noticeable by the entire show being animated in 3D. The Japanese BDs don't look like this, so I'm not sure if this is a case of Sentai using Netflix's materials (which in turn were probably from the interlaced HDTV materials) due to the fact we have English translated credits instead of the original Japanese ones, or whether it's just Sentai being Sentai again since their PQ is garbage most of the time anway. Three random screens here (more noticeable in the second and third shots).

I don't understand why we continue with these problems.

Are the Japanese licensors giving the American distributors slightly worse copies then they release in Japan? Does Santai employ people that have no idea what they are doing?

NLScavenger · 05-26-2015, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robgmun

Yes i do notice that, is that not something that can't be used on Blu-rays?

Not on the current Blu-ray format because the new codecs require more processing power, but the new 4K Blu-ray format will support HEVC.

robgmun · 05-26-2015, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Not on the current Blu-ray format because the new codecs require more processing power, but the new 4K Blu-ray format will support HEVC.

Interesting because i noticed the switch to 10-bit about 4-5 years ago! I thought that Blu-ray was more flexible than that

Mangaranga · 05-26-2015, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norbie

I don't understand why we continue with these problems.

Are the Japanese licensors giving the American distributors slightly worse copies then they release in Japan? Does Santai employ people that have no idea what they are doing?

Here's another version of the second screenshot, this time both from Sentai's BD. The first shot is how it looks in the episodes (sourced from the Netflix I assume) whilst the second is from the creditless OP (sourced from the JP BD).

Sentai have always been rock bottom when it comes to video quality between the US distributors (and subtitles... and their H quality dubs...), but the fact they don't even appear to have bothered encoding from the source for this one is really annoying.

I always thought that western distributors received nerfed materials due to how bad they looked in the past, but as I understand it they usually tend to receive hard drives with copies of the source to encode from nowadays (which can be hundreds of gigabytes). Funimation and NIS releases seem to hold up quite well, so I imagine that it's incompetence on Sentai's end, although I would gladly be proven wrong on that one.

Norbie · 05-27-2015, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Here's another version of the second screenshot, this time both from Sentai's BD. The first shot is how it looks in the episodes (sourced from the Netflix I assume) whilst the second is from the creditless OP (sourced from the JP BD).

Sentai have always been rock bottom when it comes to video quality between the US distributors (and subtitles... and their H quality dubs...), but the fact they don't even appear to have bothered encoding from the source for this one is really annoying.

I always thought that western distributors received nerfed materials due to how bad they looked in the past, but as I understand it they usually tend to receive hard drives with copies of the source to encode from nowadays (which can be hundreds of gigabytes). Funimation and NIS releases seem to hold up quite well, so I imagine that it's incompetence on Sentai's end, although I would gladly be proven wrong on that one.

And those jagged lines! You're right, it is pretty piss poor.

CouncilSpectre · 05-27-2015, 05:20 PM

Bummed about this. Animatsu will most likely just use the Sentai encodes over here as well.

Naiera · 06-02-2015, 12:34 PM

I got my DRRR UK replacement discs today. I actually sold my LE, thinking I'd just receive loose replacement discs some day whenever, and then I would get the Aniplex release some day. Now, I'm not so sure. But the UK release is NOT Aniplex quality. It's better than most, though.

After the pic are the MediaInfo stats.

[Show spoiler]

vincentric · 06-02-2015, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naiera

I got my DRRR UK replacement discs today. I actually sold my LE, thinking I'd just receive loose replacement discs some day whenever, and then I would get the Aniplex release some day. Now, I'm not so sure. But the UK release is NOT Aniplex quality. It's better than most, though.

After the pic are the MediaInfo stats.

[Show spoiler]

That doesn't look half bad at all, thanks for those.

Is UK Baccano! out yet? Would love to see some BD stats for that one, as well.

Clark Kent · 06-02-2015, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norbie

I don't understand why we continue with these problems.

Are the Japanese licensors giving the American distributors slightly worse copies then they release in Japan? Does Santai employ people that have no idea what they are doing?

It's a combination of both. The Japanese content owners aren't bending over backwards to help foreign distributors (there have been accusations they knowingly dump flawed masters on Western distributors) and Sentai has been churning out a lot of anime releases in the past couple of years. Quality was bound to occasionally suffer.

It's widely assumed the Japanese would have less problems handing over their masters if America and Japan weren't in the same Blu-ray region. Those companies fiercely protect their domestic sales.

Naiera · 06-02-2015, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincentric

That doesn't look half bad at all, thanks for those.

Is UK Baccano! out yet? Would love to see some BD stats for that one, as well.

I checked the last disc too. Every episode was 5.7 gigs. Aniplex I'm sure has 24 bit audio. This is 16 bit.

Baccano's been postponed seemingly indefinitely.

vincentric · 06-03-2015, 01:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naiera

I checked the last disc too. Every episode was 5.7 gigs. Aniplex I'm sure has 24 bit audio. This is 16 bit.

Baccano's been postponed seemingly indefinitely.

Not a bad average for the price.

Of all the shows to get postponed, hopefully they are doing some actual qc work on it.

Got those Noir comps up.

Long story short, the Funi transfer seems to have a slight amount of dnr applied, slightly more compression, and it is slightly zoomed in a bit more. The JP image has no dnr, slightly less compression and has correct framing. Both releases overall look good with the same amount of little to no banding.

You guys, am sorry,

I need to go out and watch a movie with the family (San Andreas). I have the screenshots uploaded and ready to go but no time to post them. I will edit this post or post a new one with the comparison shots as soon as I get back home.

I also have some info regarding the data amount. Long story short, the JP release is given around 4.6 GB of video data for each episode. I'll post some more detailed stats (for both the funi and jp release) and some pics when I get back.

BigOnAnime · 06-03-2015, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

It's a combination of both. The Japanese content owners aren't bending over backwards to help foreign distributors (there have been accusations they knowingly dump flawed masters on Western distributors) and Sentai has been churning out a lot of anime releases in the past couple of years. Quality was bound to occasionally suffer.

It's widely assumed the Japanese would have less problems handing over their masters if America and Japan weren't in the same Blu-ray region. Those companies fiercely protect their domestic sales.

And they have apparently been proven correct for say Kadokawa titles in the singles era. From what I've heard from ANN/TheFandomPost, Kadokawa sabotaged the R1 releases for Scrapped Princess, Girls Bravo, Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu, and some other titles. They gave R1 companies composite masters.

Norbie · 06-03-2015, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

And they have apparently been proven correct for say Kadokawa titles in the singles era. From what I've heard from ANN/TheFandomPost, Kadokawa sabotaged the R1 releases for Scrapped Princess, Girls Bravo, Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu, and some other titles. They gave R1 companies composite masters.

Poor behavior on the Japanese side, and then the American distributors get all the blame, ie. Lain.

05-25-2015, 01:59 PM	#101
Mangaranga Senior Member Member since:Oct 2014	Has anyone else noticed anything about the video quality for Knights of Sidonia? It looks blocky/pixelated, and this is made more noticeable by the entire show being animated in 3D. The Japanese BDs don't look like this, so I'm not sure if this is a case of Sentai using Netflix's materials (which in turn were probably from the interlaced HDTV materials) due to the fact we have English translated credits instead of the original Japanese ones, or whether it's just Sentai being Sentai again since their PQ is garbage most of the time anway. Three random screens here (more noticeable in the second and third shots).

05-26-2015, 12:59 PM	#103
Naiera Blu-ray Prince Top contributor Member since:Jun 2012 Location:Denmark Home Theater Gallery:2 Trading Score:25	3.5 gigs is not enough. You need six or preferably seven to do it right. (see: Aniplex)

05-26-2015, 02:30 PM	#105
Naiera Blu-ray Prince Top contributor Member since:Jun 2012 Location:Denmark Home Theater Gallery:2 Trading Score:25	You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

05-27-2015, 05:20 PM	#113
CouncilSpectre Blu-ray Prince Top contributor Member since:Apr 2013 Location:United Kingdom 4K collection:900 Blu-ray collection:7096 DVD collection:881 iTunes collection:13 Prime collection:107 Blu-ray reviews: 11 Trading Score:24	Bummed about this. Animatsu will most likely just use the Sentai encodes over here as well.

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