The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Raye]

I'm not so much of an audiophile as some of you folks here so I don't think I could really tell the difference between the tracks. No comments in regards to the picture quality? What about the FUNi upscales in general? There are actually a bunch of FUNi BD releases that I would like to upgrade to (primarily for space-saving purposes) but don't want to pull the trigger if the DVDs look better like Viz's Sailor Moon releases.

[SeaFox]

Any opinions on Funi's release to Terror in Resonnance, video quality-wise? Is it another banding fest?

[vincentric]

^Am looking to place an order for that really soon. If no one else has chimed in on it regarding PQ by the time I get it, look for me to provide my usual nerdy screencaps and quick thoughts on it.

EDIT: Should be getting this delivered on Saturday or Monday.

[vincentric]

Checked out FUNi's Terror in Resonance. The way the show is lit and stylized - with plenty of dark and shadowy scenes and backgrounds - is a recipe for disaster where banding could have ended up looking very noticeable and very fugly. Am glad to report that it didn't turn out that way. Gradations look smooth for the most part. There are still slight hints of banding here and there but it could have been a lot worse, we have seen much worse, they did a wonderful job at minimizing it here.

First 11 pics are from ep1 -


The next 11 are from ep11 -


The 11 eps are split 8/3 across two discs, here is the data amount for disc 1 and 2 -

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Checked out FUNi's Terror in Resonance. The way the show is lit and stylized - with plenty of dark and shadowy scenes and backgrounds - is a recipe for disaster where banding could have ended up looking very noticeable and very fugly. Am glad to report that it didn't turn out that way. Gradations look smooth for the most part. There are still slight hints of banding here and there but it could have been a lot worse, we have seen much worse, they did a wonderful job at minimizing it here.

Thank you, man! Just in time for the end of the sale.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Am glad to report that it didn't turn out that way. Gradations look smooth for the most part. There are still slight hints of banding here and there but it could have been a lot worse, we have seen much worse, they did a wonderful job at minimizing it here.

I haven't posted in this thread for quite a while now, but just to chime in on this one - Terror in Resonance suffers from having a brightness boost over the Japanese BDs so it does look a bit washed out in comparison. Here's a comparison for your second shot from episode 1.

Bought the reissue of Children Who Chase Lost Voices a few weeks ago and it seems to be a fair bit better over the old release. Banding is massively reduced, the brightness is right this time, there's a few glitched frames that were fixed and the strange Horizontal lines that appeared throughout the film (and on other Sentai releases) are gone. A good effort although I did notice a few - and I mean few instances of compression artifacting around characters in far shots during the credits.

Today I received the MangaUK release of Death Note and I found it pretty interesting personally... Video wise it seems to use Viz's masters albeit with an increase to brightness. Episodes are between 6-7gb each with the video bitrate averaging from slightly below 30mbps to 33mbps from episode to episode on disc 1. Language options are English and Japanese only in 24bit LPCM @2.3mbps. There's both a signs and full subtitles track albeit the they both lack something the other has (e.g. signs has no song translations whilst the full subs have no translated episode titles).

What I found interesting is how the disc is set up. Put it in your standard player and you won't notice anything out of the ordinary - you'll get your normal OP - Episode - ED - Preview, but put it in a PC and it's a bit of a different story. When you play back each episode ts you are greeted with this (sometimes with the Standard TV Off Air screen/noise beforehand). I'm under the assumption that the date on the top right is the date the episodes were completed and mastered for TV. Also present are the stills for the sponsor screens and black voids which I assume were for commercials. It's not really anything of significance but I found it pretty neat. I am left questioning whether this means Viz upscaled TV masters rather than the Japanese DVD masters though which may explain the subtle difference between the two like colour.

[Naiera]

So the Viz release of Death Note actually has the correct brightness?

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

I haven't posted in this thread for quite a while now, but just to chime in on this one - Terror in Resonance suffers from having a brightness boost over the Japanese BDs so it does look a bit washed out in comparison. Here's a comparison for your second shot from episode 1.

Bought the reissue of Children Who Chase Lost Voices a few weeks ago and it seems to be a fair bit better over the old release. Banding is massively reduced, the brightness is right this time, there's a few glitched frames that were fixed and the strange Horizontal lines that appeared throughout the film (and on other Sentai releases) are gone. A good effort although I did notice a few - and I mean few instances of compression artifacting around characters in far shots during the credits.

It looks like FUNi applied the wrong rgb values for Terror. Am guessing they used the full range instead of the limited one which is the reason why it is appearing washed out. Here's my same screencap of the FUNi release but adjusted to use the correct values which now looks identical to the JP release - https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5563/3...15c46ef7_o.png

And good to know the reissue of Journy to Agartha is an improvement, I also noticed how poor the initial release looked some time ago - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...4#post11279014

[Blazing-star]

Urgh brightness issues! I just ordered the MangaUK Deathnote set this morning, hope I can cancel it and order the US one.

[Norbie]

Originally Posted by vincentric

It looks like FUNi applied the wrong rgb values for Terror. Am guessing they used the full range instead of the limited one which is the reason why it is appearing washed out. Here's my same screencap of the FUNi release but adjusted to use the correct values which now looks identical to the JP release...

How do you adjust it to get it looking properly?

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Norbie

How do you adjust it to get it looking properly?

On the TV/monitor set the color format to RGB limited or YCBCR. On the Blu-ray player do the opposite and set it to RGB full. That should apply a fix to FUNi's incorrect brightness levels.

EDIT: Setting the player to output full range while the tv is at limited will normally result in black crush so don't forget to switch the player back to limited when not watching fubared FUNi material.

[Norbie]

Originally Posted by vincentric

On the TV/monitor set the color format to RGB limited or YCBCR. On the Blu-ray player do the opposite and set it to RGB full. That should apply a fix to FUNi's incorrect brightness levels.

EDIT: Setting the player to output full range while the tv is at limited will normally result in black crush so don't forget to switch the player back to limited when not watching fubared FUNi material.

.... cheers.

[Blazing-star]

Originally Posted by vincentric

On the TV/monitor set the color format to RGB limited or YCBCR. On the Blu-ray player do the opposite and set it to RGB full. That should apply a fix to FUNi's incorrect brightness levels.

EDIT: Setting the player to output full range while the tv is at limited will normally result in black crush so don't forget to switch the player back to limited when not watching fubared FUNi material.

RGB limited is 16-235 and full is 0-255?
It will be a pain switching all the time and knowing which FUNi discs are buggered in the first place, is there a list somewhere?.
This will be probably be what happened with MangaUK Deathnote.

[vincentric]

That is correct.

Am not aware of a list, it would be nice to have one though. Here are some other titles off the top of my head that have brightness issues - Psycho Pass (Funi), Lain (FUNi), Gargantia (Viz), Fate Zero (UK), Cowboy Bebop (UK). Am sure there are many others.

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by vincentric

That is correct.

Am not aware of a list, it would be nice to have one though. Here are some other titles off the top of my head that have brightness issues - Psycho Pass (Funi), Lain (FUNi), Gargantia (Viz), Fate Zero (UK), Cowboy Bebop (UK). Am sure there are many others.

Eh? I thought the party line here was that Funimation's U.S. release was too dark and the U.K. release shows more detail because its "right".

[vincentric]

The US and JP release of Bebop have the same brightness. UK Bebop is brighter than both, has more detail than the US FUNi release but also contains more banding. US FUNi Bebop has a weird grain filter that obscures line detail but contains very little to no banding. I went into a little more detail between the US and UK versions here - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...3#post11645893

I don't own the JP version but someone at Fandom shared comparisons between all three versions - http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...&pp=10&page=44

[Kiramay]

Sorry, not a bluray - but anyone know the quality of the DVD complete series of Persona 4? Seems there is no bluray complete set/one box that wasn't the limited edition, but I can't find any information on the quality of the dvd. Thought I'd try here to see if anyone had heard anything.

[vincentric]

^Can do a quick dvd comparison of that when I get a chance.

[vincentric]

Not a P4 dvd v bd comparison (will try to get one up later) but to quickly go back to the subject of incorrect rgb range/brightness. That user fix I shared earlier isn't entirely foolproof and doesn't work with every problematic title.

Case in point: Psycho Pass.

The JP version has correct brightness not to mention much less banding than FUNi's effort - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...3#post11187233

When I apply the rgb user fix to the FUNi release, obvious black crush is the result.

JP (pretty flawless)
http://114.imagebam.com/temporarylin...0/PSYCHO01.png

FUNi (brighter, more banding)
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5773/...db5b68fd_o.png

FUNi user fix applied (less banding but now black crush)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/380/32...2585b2b5_o.png

[Pyoko]

Yeah, that's not a PC/Video range issue as evidenced by the fact that everything is brighter on the Funi shot, otherwise the lower range would have been brightened and the upper range darkened. UK Cowboy Bebop was the same. They've messed it up in some other way.