The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

I agree. I implied that they best they could, but it's annoying that the Japanese Blu-rays have an HD native version as a "special feature", and that we didn't get that version.

[Lambadelta]

Originally Posted by professorwho

I agree. I implied that they best they could, but it's annoying that the Japanese Blu-rays have an HD native version as a "special feature", and that we didn't get that version.

for $800 you'd expect better especially when the JP BDs come to about $700

[pikagreg]

I usually find Sentai to be the best when it comes to on-screen text in newer shows. I think it is weird that they didn't have any while introducing characters

[professorwho]

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Disc Breakdown:
(An asterisk denotes a 25 GB single layer disc)

Disc 1: Episodes 1-8 (38.5 GB)
Disc 2: Episodes 9-16 (38.4 GB)
Disc 3: Episodes 17-24 (38.3 GB)
Disc 4: Episodes 25 and 26 (9.8 GB)*
Disc 5: My Conquest is the Sea of Stars (15.5 GB)*
Disc 6: Overture to a New War (23.3 GB)*
Disc 7: Golden Wings (16.7 GB)*
Disc 8: Episodes 27-34 (39.1 GB)
Disc 9: Episodes 35-42 (39.1 GB)
Disc 10: Episodes 43-50 (39.2 GB)
Disc 11: Episodes 51-54 (19.8 GB)*
Disc 12: Spiral Labyrinth 1-7 (35.6 GB)
Disc 13: Spiral Labyrinth 8-14 (35.7 GB)
Disc 14: Episodes 55-62 (41.9 GB)
Disc 15: Episodes 63-70 (42.6 GB)
Disc 16: Episodes 71-78 (42.6 GB)
Disc 17: Episodes 79-86 (43.1 GB)
Disc 18: The Silver-White Valley 1-4; The Mutineer 1-4 (41.7 GB)
Disc 19: The Duelist 1-4; The Retriever 1-4 (41.7 GB)
Disc 20: Episodes 87-94 (41.9 GB)
Disc 21: Episodes 95-102 (42.2 GB)
Disc 22: Episodes 103-110 (44.7 GB)
Disc 23: Dreams of the Morning, Songs of the Night 1-4 (20.7 GB)*
Disc 24: A Hundred Billion Stars, a Hundred Billion Lights 1-6 (32.8 GB)
Disc 25: A Hundred Billion Stars, a Hundred Billion Lights 7-12 (33.3 GB)
Disc 26: The Third Battle of Tiamat 1 and 2; Disgrace/Dishonour 1-4 (30.7 GB)

Total file size: 888.9 GB
Wow, that is huge.

[klasma]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Total file size: 888.9 GB
Wow, that is huge.

They should have shipped it on a 1 TB SSD.

[professorwho]

I found some screenshots of the LOTGH movies from the JP BD, just to make sure I wasn't wrong, and I was right- Sentai had the upscaled master.

On the plus side, it's better encoded than the Japanese BD of the upscale- less noise in the image. But still not as good looking as the HD Native version. So while by no means optimal, it's a slight improvement over the JP upscale version.

Each film is on their own BD-25. Film 1 averages 29.3 mbps and Film 2 averages 29.6 mbps- which are very good.

[Naiera]

Why is the "HD Native" version an extra? What reason is there for not making that the "real" version?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Why is the "HD Native" version an extra? What reason is there for not making that the "real" version?

I have no idea. I guess because everything else is upscaled- consistency? If so, that's dumb.

Regardless, while our upscaled version looks better than the JP version, the HD version is clearly better.

[PissedOffPeoN]

Originally Posted by professorwho

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNND the movies are upscales. Not the HD versions.

Movie 1 looks like s**t. The series upscale is good, probably because it had a good SD source to begin with. This is f**king horrible.



Granted, it's from VLC and it's not 100% accurate to how it would look on a TV, and Imgur converted it to a JPEG, but damn is it ugly.

Sentai encoded it at 29.3 mbps, which is higher than almost all of their releases. They knew they had a poor source, and even with a high bitrate, it looks horrible.

Still looks better than Re:Zero, to me, at least...

Speaking of Re Zero has funimation made any replacements for the first part yet? They never replied to me about it since i sent my email to them and the part 2 just got delayed again to undetermined on rightstuf email just now.

[Nostalgic Twilight]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Why is the "HD Native" version an extra? What reason is there for not making that the "real" version?

Well, you're talking about the same idiots who thought it was a good idea to waste money by taking classic scenes with absolutely nothing wrong with them and mutiliating them with vastly inferior new artwork.

[Beru]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

Speaking of Re Zero has funimation made any replacements for the first part yet? They never replied to me about it since i sent my email to them and the part 2 just got delayed again to undetermined on rightstuf email just now.

They won't be replacing the discs cause "there aren't any issues with their playability"
Every Re:Zero release so far (outside of Japan) looks just as bad/even worse. We'll if Anime Ltd/licensors from other countries manage to do something about it.

[PissedOffPeoN]

Really... so i am stuck with them.. Oh well i got my japanese blu ray ones on my comp for back up ;o.

[Robbl]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Movie 1 looks like s**t. The series upscale is good, probably because it had a good SD source to begin with. This is f**king horrible.

Just to be clear, the entire series is an SD upscale? Was there no HD rescan done in Japan?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Robbl

Just to be clear, the entire series is an SD upscale? Was there no HD rescan done in Japan?

The whole show is upscaled. The only HD native stuff are the versions of the movies on the Japanese Blu-rays as "special features".

[professorwho]

This review is a great laugh.

It should be mentioned that some of the online chatter is devoted to the fact that the first BD, which contains episodes 1 thru 9, is a BD-50, while the second BD, containing episodes 10 thru 13, is a BD-25. Some feel that the episodes have been "crammed" onto the discs, but that's simply not the case. The first disc runs about 3 and a half hours, far less than a BD- 50 can accommodate at a more than amply decent bitrate, and the second disc is barely an hour and a half, again well within the capabilities of a BD-25. Whatever issues this set has is not due to the amount of content on the discs, at least in my considered opinion. Would things have improved had we been given, say, six episodes on one disc and seven on another, both on BD-50s? Maybe, but I think you'd be hard pressed to make a really serious case that quality would have been improved dramatically by such an approach.]

No, they ARE crammed Mr Reviewer. Everything wrong about their anime reviews are in this paragraph, and the entirety of the Psycho Pass and Steins;Gate reviews.

[professorwho]

Violet Evergarden: Japan vs Germany

Pony Canyon vs Universum Film

TV Version:

Video:
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
(JP) 36.25 mbps
(DE) 29.96 mbps

Audio:
JP:
Japanese LPCM 2.0 24-Bit 2304 kbps

DE:
Japanese DTS HD-MA 2.0 24-Bit 1696 kbps
German DTS HD-MA 2.0 24-Bit 1682 kbps

Movie Version:

Video:
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
(JP) 35.52 mbps
(DE) 29.98 mbps

Audio:
JP:
Japanese LPCM 2.0 24-Bit 2304 kbps
Japanese LPCM 5.1 24-Bit 6912 kbps

DE:
Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 224 kbps

Screenshot Comparisons

Overall, they look nearly identical! Universium did a great job with VE, and while Made in Abyss could've been better, they're still miles better than FUNi.

Source for everything

[Blazing-star]

I'm onto the second disc of funi's The Heroic Banding of Arslan and must admit it suffers from an apalling amount of banding and compression artifacts throughout. How do the Universal UK and Japanese blu-ray releases compare?

[professorwho]

I don't have either, but I can say this- the Universal EU release is a completely different encode using 2 BD-50s per set, but has more audio and subtitle options, so it may not have higher bitrates. I have Universal's Owari no Seraph, and it looks phenomenal- I went into more detail here.

I'm sure the Japanese release is the best, but I've never seen any screenshots from any BD release of the show, so I can't say if it's a source issue, or just FUNi being lazy. I'd like to say the latter, but unless I (or someone here) can see what the releases look like, we won't know for certain.

[Kyle15]

Any news on Shout's Mind Game disc?

[professorwho]

Dynit Akira is getting a small upgrade.

They’re dropping the JP Hypersonic mix, and using the “classical” 5.1 mix at 24-Bit 48kHz. As a result, the max Bitrate is increasing from 35 to 37, and the average from 32 to around 35 mbps. A huge upgrade over the FUNi version which had an average of 20 mbps due to all the audio options.