The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

Huh. The listing for it on Amazon JP says 3 BD-25s... isn't this the same distributor who put Devilman Lady on a single disc? I still have the episode slerch666 sent me to get a second opinion on and it ain't pretty... piss poor bitrate and blocking up the arse, it's a fun time, alright...

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Huh. The listing for it on Amazon JP says 3 BD-25s...

Yes, the JP release of Glass Mask is 3x BD25. US is 2x BD50 + 1x BD25 (and missing some content: recap ep, pilot film)

isn't this the same distributor who put Devilman Lady on a single disc? I still have the episode slerch666 sent me to get a second opinion on and it ain't pretty... piss poor bitrate and blocking up the arse, it's a fun time, alright...

Yep.

[BoscoTheMan82]

New Cutey Honey (Discotek)

Episode 1 Bitrate



Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbit/s 48kHz)
Japanese LPCM 2.0 (1536 kbit/s 48kHz 16-bit)

Screenshots from Episode 1

[professorwho]

Giant Robo
(Discotek, USA)



















Album link

Bitrates:

Episode 1



(The rest in order from 2-7)


Audio:
Japanese LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English (NYAV Post) DTS-HD MA 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English (NYAV Post) LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English (Manga/Animaze) Dolby Digital 2.0 448 kbps
Japanese Cast Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps (Episode 1)
Japanese Staff Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps (Episodes 3, 5, 7)
English Manga/Animaze Staff Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps (Episode 4)

Giant Robo has a really crazy and awesome narrative, so I only took screencaps from the first 12 minutes, which is the "prologue" to it. Lazy? Yes. But it does make it harder to spoil.

Wow. Just wow. Yes, it's been de-grained, but I don't see any loss in detail. This was scanned at 4K and presumably finished at 2K so the amount of detail picked up is great. There still is grain, but not everywhere. Still, the clarity here, and especially the color is impressive. Honestly, other than there being more grain, I can't see any major flaws with the image. Yes, there's some very, and I stress, very minor artifacting, but only on a screenshot (or frame by frame) level- in motion it cannot be seen. It's encoded on a high bitrate and both discs have no wasted space (Disc 1 is 43.7 GB and Disc 2 is 46.2 GB).

And for those wondering, this is presented at 1.37:1 like the Japanese BD, so slightly more detail is present on the sides than any prior release. (I counted them pixels to make sure)

Audio is very rich. In terms of clarity, the Japanese track is best, followed by the NYAV Post Dub. The older Manga dub (which I quite like and prefer over the newer one) has a less clear sound, though I assume this is due to the source and not being lossy audio. As expected the subs are yellow (which I don't have a problem with unlike a lot of people), and the translation is very good.

The extras are insane. Want to see all the trailers from VHS, DVD, and for the Japanese BD? Sure. Want to see pencil tests? Sure. How about the credit sequences from previous releases to see how older anime distributors handled credits? Why not. As well as those, you get interviews, a look behind the scenes of the show's legendary soundtrack, and 5 commentary tracks. Honestly this beats quite a number of Criterion releases in terms of quantity and quality of extras.

If you didn't get the message, go buy Giant Robo. It's only 7 episodes, the A/V quality is great, extras are probably the best for an anime release I've seen, and the show is a joy to watch (there's tons of sakuga in it, including a surprising amount of animation on 1s). JUST BUY IT ALREADY IF YOU HAVEN'T.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Received Maiden Japan's Blu-ray of Glass Mask today and I noticed some ghosting while spot-checking. The video is 23.976p. The ghosting doesn't appear to be present in every scene. Very weird. Maybe an intentional effect? I wonder if it's also on the TC-Entertainment Blu-ray.

https://i.imgur.com/lKO3BEa.png
https://i.imgur.com/5vfAxDA.png
https://i.imgur.com/aQVeW1w.png

EDIT:
These screenshots are from episode 2. The opening also has ghosting. I think the entire episode is f'ed because episode 3 doesn't appear to have any ghosting in the episode+opening.

There are more episodes that exhibit the ghosting.

Checked a re-encode of the JP BD episode 2, no ghosting there. The re-encode is 23.976p, dunno if the JP BD is 23.976p as well.

[PissedOffPeoN]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Giant Robo
(Discotek, USA)



















Album link

Bitrates:

Episode 1



(The rest in order from 2-7)


Audio:
Japanese LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English (NYAV Post) DTS-HD MA 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English (NYAV Post) LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English (Manga/Animaze) Dolby Digital 2.0 448 kbps
Japanese Cast Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps (Episode 1)
Japanese Staff Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps (Episodes 3, 5, 7)
English Manga/Animaze Staff Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps (Episode 4)

Giant Robo has a really crazy and awesome narrative, so I only took screencaps from the first 12 minutes, which is the "prologue" to it. Lazy? Yes. But it does make it harder to spoil.

Wow. Just wow. Yes, it's been de-grained, but I don't see any loss in detail. This was scanned at 4K and presumably finished at 2K so the amount of detail picked up is great. There still is grain, but not everywhere. Still, the clarity here, and especially the color is impressive. Honestly, other than there being more grain, I can't see any major flaws with the image. Yes, there's some very, and I stress, very minor artifacting, but only on a screenshot (or frame by frame) level- in motion it cannot be seen. It's encoded on a high bitrate and both discs have no wasted space (Disc 1 is 43.7 GB and Disc 2 is 46.2 GB).

And for those wondering, this is presented at 1.37:1 like the Japanese BD, so slightly more detail is present on the sides than any prior release. (I counted them pixels to make sure)

Audio is very rich. In terms of clarity, the Japanese track is best, followed by the NYAV Post Dub. The older Manga dub (which I quite like and prefer over the newer one) has a less clear sound, though I assume this is due to the source and not being lossy audio. As expected the subs are yellow (which I don't have a problem with unlike a lot of people), and the translation is very good.

The extras are insane. Want to see all the trailers from VHS, DVD, and for the Japanese BD? Sure. Want to see pencil tests? Sure. How about the credit sequences from previous releases to see how older anime distributors handled credits? Why not. As well as those, you get interviews, a look behind the scenes of the show's legendary soundtrack, and 5 commentary tracks. Honestly this beats quite a number of Criterion releases in terms of quantity and quality of extras.

If you didn't get the message, go buy Giant Robo. It's only 7 episodes, the A/V quality is great, extras are probably the best for an anime release I've seen, and the show is a joy to watch (there's tons of sakuga in it, including a surprising amount of animation on 1s). JUST BUY IT ALREADY IF YOU HAVEN'T.

Got any Japanese screenshots to compare with this release .

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

https://i.postimg.cc/y7PjxpkN/06.png

Is that banding above the cars lights?

Here's a matching cap from the JP BD for comparison.

https://u.cubeupload.com/Spili/GIANTROBOTHEANIMATIO.png

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

Got any Japanese screenshots to compare with this release .

One of these might be able to match.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...6#post12711886

[Kyle15]

Awwww Giant Robo got degrained? Granted it doesn't look horrible but man, ick.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Checked a re-encode of the JP BD episode 2, no ghosting there. The re-encode is 23.976p, dunno if the JP BD is 23.976p as well.

All episodes have variable degrees of ghosting in the US BD. IVTC gone wrong. Section23 can't handle SDBD and IVTC.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

Got any Japanese screenshots to compare with this release .

Personally, nope. But I’d rather you not quote an entire long post to ask that. It’s about bandwidth.

[sagadego]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Giant Robo
(Discotek, USA)

so much goodness

Stahp! my wallet cannot handle so much goodness

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by sagadego

Stahp! my wallet cannot handle so much goodness

[sagadego]

Originally Posted by professorwho

damn it!!!

[chronoclast]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

All episodes have variable degrees of ghosting in the US BD. IVTC gone wrong. Section23 can't handle SDBD and IVTC.

Sentai have always struggled with interlaced materials and encodes. At least they do inverse telecines now, albeit not always well. They used to not do them at all which led to atrocities like the Penguindrum BDs.

They've had years to figure this stuff out, it's time they get their act together.

[NLScavenger]

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works - Dynit (IT) vs Aniplex (JP)

The Dynit BD has a few improvements over the Aniplex BD. The banding has been reduced (see the phone screenshot for instance), more detail is preserved (see the gate in the first screenshot) and there’s no loss of definition from filtering (see the last two screenshots).

IT BD


JP BD


#0 Prologue (IT BD)

Size: 15,352,133,184 bytes
Length: 0:50:38.785
Total Bitrate: 40.42 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 34958 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Italian / DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1710 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1675 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: Italian / 47.452 kbps
Subtitle: Italian / 0.327 kbps

#0 Prologue (JP BD)

Size: 16,661,962,752 bytes
Length: 0:50:38.785
Total Bitrate: 43.86 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 39033 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle: Japanese / 284.026 kbps
Subtitle: English / 280.680 kbps

#1 A Winter Day, A Fateful Night (IT BD)

Size: 14,440,640,064 bytes
Length: 0:47:41.942
Total Bitrate: 40.37 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 34940 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Italian / DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1695 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1668 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: Italian / 37.922 kbps
Subtitle: Italian / 0.541 kbps

#1 A Winter Day, A Fateful Night (JP BD)

Size: 15,264,645,120 bytes
Length: 0:47:41.942
Total Bitrate: 42.67 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 37993 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle: Japanese / 231.366 kbps
Subtitle: English / 229.999 kbps

[professorwho]

Same timing... Yes! Might import them. Not a huge Fate fan (other than Zero and Heaven’s Feel, really), but it’s mighty tempting seeing an mp3dom encode of a show that’s expensive elsewhere and is of slightly lower quality for more money in Aniplex land.

[BlackCondor93]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to say this, but a few months ago, I imported Hanabee's release of Beyond the Boundary: I'll Be Here.

Normally, Hanabee's releases, especially their recent ones, are authored (and often encoded) locally, which was the case with their release of TV series, but unusually, their release of the movie used Sentai's discs with the yellow subtitles and the trailers for other Sentai releases, most of which were already released in Australia by Madman.

Despite the packaging and discs saying Region B, I've tested it on my Region A (once Region Free) player and it was Region A compatible (probably due to Sentai's discs being geolocked). The only real difference is the warning screen (also used in Madman and MVM releases) and the Hanabee logo at the beginning.

Any other recent Hanabee releases that aren't authored and/or encoded locally?

[jd213]

Got the Daitarn 3 box that was recently released in Japan. Image quality looks about the same as the Italian BD box, maybe a slight bit more DNR (but nowhere near as bad as the Zambot 3 box).
A couple shots from the IT box:
The JP box's audio is much better however, the IT box's audio was probably taken from the optical audio of film prints or something, comparing the spectograms and it looks like everything over 18 kHz is nothing but noise on the JP track from the IT box.

[mp3dom]

JP audio comes directly from the same JP master and left almost untouched (it was just normalized because the original volume was too high). However, since the JP box came out afterwards, I cannot say if they have somewhat filtered/denoised the audio or made other kind of postprocessing.