The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

The show was produced in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and the Blu-ray presents it like that- black bars on the left and right of the screen. The first 2 films were produced with 1.85:1 AR in mind, and the BD is that way as well.

[SolHerald]

What I meant was when I played it at 1080p on youtube I got this when ever there was motion:


But its not there when I play it at lower resolutions, so I think it is just Youtube.

[StahCatte]

Yea I saw this too, and still going to have to stick with my Goodsmile one. Love the definition and sculpt in it more than the full body of this one.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by SolHerald

What I meant was when I played it at 1080p on youtube I got this when ever there was motion:


But its not there when I play it at lower resolutions, so I think it is just Youtube.

That’s interlacing. Sentai didn’t de-interlace the video for the YouTube upload.

Yes it’s interlaced, because it’s an upscale and some scenes were horribly re-animated at a higher frame rate, so that’s why.

[pikagreg]

Has anyone took a look at Orphen since it is SDBD from Sentai and not Maiden Japan? Using it as an example could be a decent step to getting them to acknowledge the issue since they dodge criticism against Maiden Japan.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Has anyone took a look at Orphen since it is SDBD from Sentai and not Maiden Japan? Using it as an example could be a decent step to getting them to acknowledge the issue since they dodge criticism against Maiden Japan.

We looked at Sakura Wars, which is a Sentai release, but nothing has been done...

[psychopuppet]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Has anyone took a look at Orphen since it is SDBD from Sentai and not Maiden Japan? Using it as an example could be a decent step to getting them to acknowledge the issue since they dodge criticism against Maiden Japan.

I’ve been waiting for someone to do a check on Orphen . I did not notice any issues when I watched that did not appear to be part of the source ,but I’m not good at spotting stuff as I used to be . All the other SDBD it’s so bad it’s really easy to see .


Now Princess Resurrection is Sentai to and it’s a hot mess . They never returned my emails about it .

[ps3bd_owner]

Can someone do a comparison of Sailor Moon's Japanese DVD release vs the Blu-rays (mainly Via but have read there's a JP BD release too now). It can just be two screenshot comparison and that would suffice.

From what I've seen, the BDs don't look very good, but how does it stand against the R2J DVDs? Aren't there supposedly Italian DVDs that look good too? Maybe it's a different show.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

Can someone do a comparison of Sailor Moon's Japanese DVD release vs the Blu-rays (mainly Via but have read there's a JP BD release too now). It can just be two screenshot comparison and that would suffice.

From what I've seen, the BDs don't look very good, but how does it stand against the R2J DVDs? Aren't there supposedly Italian DVDs that look good too? Maybe it's a different show.

A quick comparison:
http://sailormoonnews.com/2017/07/03...t-great-in-hd/

[ps3bd_owner]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

A quick comparison:
http://sailormoonnews.com/2017/07/03...t-great-in-hd/

The DVD looks better to me as I expected it to be. After all these years, the best detailed version is the R2J.

Best to worst in my opinion: JP DVD > JP BD > US BD

[professorwho]

Nah, the Italian DVD or Australian DVD (both are same master) is best.

[ps3bd_owner]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Nah, the Italian DVD or Australian DVD (both are same master) is best.

Good to know. I thought I was getting it mixed up.

Might track to track down the Australian DVDs then.

[AlexTenshi]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

Good to know. I thought I was getting it mixed up.

Might track to track down the Australian DVDs then.

Only the first 3 seasons of the Australian DVDs are good. The DVD quality drops off quite a bit with SuperS onwards.

[slerch666]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Galaxy Express 999
(Discotek, USA)
Galaxy Express looks pretty darn good to me, but it's not completely perfect. This is an upscale of the scan done for Toei's DVD. In Japan, Q-Tec did their own smeary upscale for BD, while Justin Sevakis did this one here. It looks fantastic, and from a distance, looks native HD.

As someone who owns all of the physical digital versions of GE999/GT999 TV (OK, I didn't get the D'Agostino (I think that's the name) releases but debated it...), I can say definitively that this release is the best of all worlds possible. At least with the elements currently available.

Despite having spent upwards of $1200 on the DVD LE sets from Japan well over almost a decade and a half ago, this set has already surpassed that quality just by virtue of having higher bitrates. I will have to do a side by side but I also think they tamed the super nasty grain from the JP DVD sets. It's still grainy but I think the JP DVDs sometimes looked alive because of the amount of grain present.

Of course, wouldn't take much to beat the turd that was released previously in the US (which sadly, I do own).

The Japanese BDs have some minor merit. The FORS audio transfer is quite good, no question, but honestly I don't hear a tangible difference between the Discotek release and the Japanese BD.

The other part I appreciate on the JP BDs is they removed what I believe are tape marks at the bottom of some scenes and some of the cell wobble from the scenes.

Where the JP BDs fall apart is the grain removal. As we have discussed before, I don't think it's TERRIBLE as all of the detail appears to have been retained, it just looks a bit unnatural like this.

Of course, something we will miss out on in the North American release are the send away BD extras that aren't available otherwise. That's a small price to pay for receiving a GE999 set with great audio and video with removable subs in a market I never would have thought could support a release like this. And done lovingly by Justin Sevakis.

13 episodes have been placed per disc, which did concern me, but compression is pretty good throughout, though there's a bit more in the way of macroblocking than I expected. It's not noticeable in motion at viewing distance...

As you said, unless you are doing pixel peeping, you don't notice the macroblocking and honestly, I would say it still beats out the original JP BD set handily, though they have higher bitrates and no blocking of any kind.

This is basically an untouched 16mm print, and as such there is a lot of grain (which I am fine with, and love) and some specs and occasionally some artifacts (not in terms of compression) on the bottom portion of the screen.

I need to verify but this seems to be less grainy than the JP DVDs. Haven't done a 1:1 compare though yet.

Dirt and specs and cell damage all match the JP DVDs.

You probably know but that cell damage at the bottom of the screen I believe is tape marks. The JP BDs removed all of this quite well. But given the other trade offs, the Discotek release is still better IMO.

If you really watch, sometimes you will notice scenes where you have some of that crap on the top of the screen as well.

Audio is pretty good for an anime of its vintage. Not sure what source it is, considering Toei was known to throw away master tapes, but it is clear, has no compression, and very few hisses and pops. Certainly WAY better than the Japanese audio on official releases of Dragon Ball Z, that's for sure.

Audio is from the original optical track most likely as this was the source for all the JP releases. I need to do some A/B compares but I think it's a bit less scratchy than the JP DVD release but at least on par with the FORS BD release. But this is going by memory so I could be remembering all this wrong and will have to do a proper compare sometime.

Honestly, until this gets a full on HD remaster, then this is the best GE999 TV will look on home video. And if that remaster is Q-Tec, then I'll certainly prefer this BD here due to the superb grain.

I think this is likely the best release we will ever see for GE999. Toei doesn't seem keen on pushing that envelope any further and given the backlash for what they did to the 999 movies, I am surprised they went with Q-Tec for the JP BD releases. Though honestly, I don't think the damage Q-Tec did was totally terrible given line detail was retained. It still looked unnatural though.

Sorry for the long post and not coming around more often. Work is crazy and I was actually traveling to Japan when my BD GE999 set landed at my house early (thanks to TRSI).

[slerch666]

Originally Posted by professorwho

The show was produced in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and the Blu-ray presents it like that- black bars on the left and right of the screen. The first 2 films were produced with 1.85:1 AR in mind, and the BD is that way as well.

As one who owns the Sentai box (as I believe you do as well), I think the video quality, at the price, leaves a lot to be desired.

Just as they messed up most of their SDBD releases by encoding it poorly, they did the same with LotGH. There are scenes that are blends of frames (or that's what it looks like to me) and it pisses me off.

It should have just been a 1080i release instead of pushed to 1080p poorly. But I guess North American buyers just can't deal, stand, or understand why something would just be 1080i when 1080p is SSSSOOOOOOOO much better... sigh.

The video quality does NOT justify the price of the box on any level.

Not including the name plates for characters, planets, locations, etc is another insult we suffer on this release (and the HiDive stream).

In some regard, I believe the HiDive stream is a superior presentation as it doesn't suffer the frame blending issues the BDs do. Or whatever the technical terms is for how they screwed it up.

[Rozay]

Originally Posted by slerch666

Not including the name plates for characters, planets, locations, etc is another insult we suffer on this release (and the HiDive stream).

I was honestly contemplating getting the set, but then hearing that turned me off almost more than the price.

The show gives you so much to take in, not having any of those names or titles is frustrating.

[slerch666]

Originally Posted by Rozay

I was honestly contemplating getting the set, but then hearing that turned me off almost more than the price.

The show gives you so much to take in, not having any of those names or titles is frustrating.

If you watched it on HiDive, it's the same experience as there. Annoying.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by professorwho

One way to tell: 96kHz audio.

[Gorgon]

I'm curious if anyone could provide thoughts wrt the quality of the MVM (uk) release of Garden of Sinners?
It's currently about 1/3 the price of the Aniplex set (86 quid) and is cut on 7x BD-50s in MPEG-4 and Eng subs.
Ta.

[NLScavenger]

Aura Battler Dunbine - Sentai Filmworks

2K scan from a newly printed interpositive (ニューマスターポジフィルムによる2Kスキャン).



Bitrate - episode #1

AVG: 21519 kbps | MAX: 30572 kbps

------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by Gorgon

I'm curious if anyone could provide thoughts wrt the quality of the MVM (uk) release of Garden of Sinners?
It's currently about 1/3 the price of the Aniplex set (86 quid) and is cut on 7x BD-50s in MPEG-4 and Eng subs.
Ta.

I don't have it, but it is a clone of the Aniplex release. Even has Japanese subs.

And I can confirm that these eight discs are the Japanese discs from Aniplex, complete with English and Japanese subtitles and that original Aniplex quality authoring.