The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

In regards to the UK Your Name replacement disc:

Originally Posted by Neill T.

Ah.
I've just discovered a two-frame video glitch at 1h12m28s on the new disc of Your Name. Here's a photo off my TV screen:

Originally Posted by Neil T.

As well as the image distortion, there are also little blocks of random colours just above the stone wall to the right of the screen.

Source

[NLScavenger]

^ruh-roh

Originally Posted by pikagreg

I want to say it is more similar to the UK one since I don't remember the bars being that thick at all like the JP one. I would need to check again when I get home. What is the best way to take screenshots?

DGAVCIndex (included with DGAVCDec), but it has a bit of a learning curve:

- It can only read .m2ts/.h264 files and derivatives. There's no .mkv support, but the .h264 stream can be extracted from the .mkv.
- It saves screenshots as .bmp, so make sure to convert to .png for smaller file size.
- Framestepping can only be done in the 'play' mode (F6 is 'Play', Esc is 'Stop'). There's no support for backwards frame-stepping

[mp3dom]

Originally Posted by professorwho

If the compressionist can do huge spikes in intense moments, why is the brightness wrong?

Because the high spikes are decided by the encoder engine itself and not by the compressionist.
Encoders can be manually set up to 40 Mbps. Temporary spikes above 40 Mbps are decided by the encoder when some conditions are met (a sequence that demands more bits while previous/next sequence does not, and the buffer have enough space to cover those spikes).

You can manually "favour" the encoder to create spikes if you want (manually lowering bitrates in previous/next scenes and forcing a maxed out 40 Mbps for that particular sequence) but you can't ask the encoder to "give you 1 second of 60 Mbps". 99.9% of the times, those spikes are automatically generated by the encoder because its engine thinks that that way is the best choice (and if you see it's not true, you need to manually change something).

As well as the image distortion, there are also little blocks of random colours just above the stone wall to the right of the screen.

Those artifacts (glitches and colored blocks) most of the times are not encoding problems but due to digitizing problems (problems when reading the master tape)

[professorwho]

So, if I'm understanding, the program decides the spikes, and not the compressionist? Unless the compressionist goes in and changes the settings, that's the program's decision?

Also, do you have to have a lower average bitrate to have higher spikes? Say, if I made an anime and had you encode it (in some fantasy world) at 39 mbps average, would the potential spikes be higher or lower depending on the average bitrate? The highest spike I've ever seen on 1080p BD is the US release of Battle Royale which has a spike of 66 mbps, but averages 29.91 mbps. So because the average is below 30 mbps, can the spikes be higher?

[Dailyan]

Time to send out the replacement-replacement discs for "Your Name".

[Lambadelta]

Response from someone at AL

"There’s an issue with a single frame of video, put simply it’s a vast improvement over the previous disc in terms of video quality, and to reauthor it again would have involved another vast time and monetary cost that we simply can’t afford."

[mp3dom]

Originally Posted by professorwho

So, if I'm understanding, the program decides the spikes, and not the compressionist? Unless the compressionist goes in and changes the settings, that's the program's decision?

Also, do you have to have a lower average bitrate to have higher spikes? Say, if I made an anime and had you encode it (in some fantasy world) at 39 mbps average, would the potential spikes be higher or lower depending on the average bitrate? The highest spike I've ever seen on 1080p BD is the US release of Battle Royale which has a spike of 66 mbps, but averages 29.91 mbps. So because the average is below 30 mbps, can the spikes be higher?

Yes, it's the encoder that decide those spikes. If you "change the settings", you still can't decide how high will be those spikes. Above 40 Mbps, it's "encoder engine territory".
If you have a sequence where the encoder decide to eat 30 Mbps, you can manually tell to use 40 Mbps and the encoder will adapt your choice accordingly, but the spikes can't be set by the compressionist.

Regarding the "level of spikes", it's a balance between bitrates and buffer usage. General rule is that when the bitrate set is high for a lot of time, the buffer is more in use and under pressure, and can cope less high spikes (or you can have them for a lower amount of time) but doesn't mean you can't have high spikes. Even with high bitrates, the encoder can decide to lower it in a particular scene that doesn't demand so high bitrates, so the buffer flush enough to cope the next scene with high spikes.

[professorwho]

Source? (For the AL Statement)

[Lambadelta]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Source? (For the AL Statement)

Hanners on discord

[Ccharmanderk]

Originally Posted by Lambadelta

Response from someone at AL

"There’s an issue with a single frame of video, put simply it’s a vast improvement over the previous disc in terms of video quality, and to reauthor it again would have involved another vast time and monetary cost that we simply can’t afford."

They needed a better quality assurance pass so something like this didn't happen. The point of a replacement disc is to patch up existing errors WITHOUT introducing new ones. The Your Name disc fails in that regard.

[professorwho]

Apparently Madman did the encoding on the replacement Your Name as well...


And according to Mangaranga on Discord (for Anime UK News) it's better than the FUNi disc...

Which is fine, but the error still exists on the replacement disc.

[professorwho]

Maquia
(Bandai Visual, Japan)

BD Stats:

Video:
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
23.976 fps
1.78:1 Aspect Ratio
35518 kbps AVG (35.51 mbps)
57475 kbps MAX (57.47 mbps)
30.58 GB

Audio:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-Bit 48kHz 3341 kbps
Japanese LPCM 2.0 24-Bit 48kHz 2304 kbps

I don't own it- I just found the BDinfo

[professorwho]

Maquia BD Screencaps

via Sensuifu

[FeelsBDMan]

Don't really know if I'd call that an error considering it's only meant to last for less than a second? Most people said they didn't notice until someone pointed it out.

I'm sure if I looked through my Aniplex releases frame by frame I might find one instance of banding or an artefact too. It's nitpicking at that point in my opinion.

[pikagreg]

Here are some screens for Metropolis that I think I did right lol

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[Ccharmanderk]

Looks about what I expected in terms of transfer, but the encode looks to be really good.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Here are some screens for Metropolis that I think I did right lol

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Just from comparing my Eureka disc to these caps...Mill Creek adjusted the brightness to be a little darker. I will say that the Eureka release does still get an upper hand just by having the 5.1 Japanese track but MC seems to be a good alternative for folks that don't want to dish out the extra fews bucks for an import. It's a shame that Sony hasn't given this and Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door brand new remasters.

[pikagreg]

Yeah I have the UK steelbook too but I didn't take timestamps and need to find out where it is buried lol

[Robbl]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Maquia BD Screencaps

via Sensuifu

Boi is that movie grainy. I hope AL doesn't **** it up.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Robbl

Boi is that movie grainy. I hope AL doesn't **** it up.

Agreed. Their best hope is if they either:

A) Use the guy who did Amanchu and Geass, but he fixes the brightness issue

B) Get Justin Sevakis to do it- he is the best anime compressionist working for western distributors (David M doesn't count as he does mostly live action films)

C) Somehow get Bandai Visual to allow them to clone it, adding in subtitles and the dub