The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[kevers7290]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

To my knowledge, it’s pretty much a port of the Aussie disc other than it’s region locked.

OK cool, and thanks. Just copped the Umbrella release for ~$12 shipped on eBay. I'll probably dump my Image disc in the near future. If anyone wants it keep your eyes on my B/S/T post.

[professorwho]

Here's a bunch of quick stats for titles I got for Christmas. I used the first episode for the stats, except in Kokoro Connect, where I have 2 listings- one for Episode 1, and one for Episode 14- the first OVA (because the OVAs were sold individually from the series).

I'm not gonna go insanely in-depth, but I'll give a short summary.

All are the US encodes from Sentai Filmworks.

Chivalry of a Failed Knight


JP DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit
EN DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit

Pretty good PQ. There is some banding now and then, but overall it's solid. The CG is well defined with no aliasing, and the character outlines are solid, with no artifacts. There is chromatic aberration in some shots, but it's intentional, so no artifacting there. The banding is mostly on darker walls and/or floors, but generally is hard to spot in motion. 8/10

Audio is flawless. Crisp and clear with no compression. 10/10

Flying Witch


JP DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit
EN DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit

Near perfect. Zero banding, macroblocking or other compression related artifacts. There is some slight aliasing on the CG train in the opening scene, but it looks like a source issue. Colours are bright and vivid, and there is a well defined texture on characters' clothes (Makoto's leggings for example. ). Beautiful presentation. 9.5/10

Audio is again flawless. No compression to speak of. 10/10

Kokoro Connect

(Episode 1)

(Episode 14)

JP DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit
EN DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit

While not a pretty looking series, the encode is solid. Very minor banding pops up in a few places, but otherwise it's fine. Line detail is not that great, with occasional asiased edges, but it appears to be a source issue. Overall, it's fine, I guess? but with source issues, I'll give it a 7/10.

Audio is a repeat. 10/10

Blue Spring Ride


JP DTS HD-MA 2.0 48kHz 24-Bit

Despite having all 12 episodes on a single BD-50 (which is 43.1 GB, so it was utilized properly), it's very, very good. Near perfect, in fact. Yes, there is some banding that pops up occasionally, but that's it for artifacting. The rest is a beautifully rich and vibrant presentation. The compressionist here deserves to be congratulated, for putting all 12 episodes on a single disc, at a fine bitrate (it's higher than FUNi's FMA Brotherhood, which only had 9 episodes per disc, ironically) and with very artifacts. 9/10

Take a guess about the audio? 10/10

I guess I was lucky with these series in particular. I can recommend these for their AV presentation- especially Flying Witch and Blue Spring Ride, both of which are near reference quality for western anime encodes (other than Justin Sevakis and mp3dom, obviously).

[chronoclast]

Originally Posted by professorwho

I guess I was lucky with these series in particular. I can recommend these for their AV presentation- especially Flying Witch and Blue Spring Ride, both of which are near reference quality for western anime encodes (other than Justin Sevakis and mp3dom, obviously).

Sentai's encodes in general are pretty solid these days. Encode problems are rare from them anymore. They blow Funi out of the water, that's for sure.

I agree with you on Blue Spring Ride, I was surprised by how good that looked for being a single disc. Good to hear Flying Witch is top notch too.

[professorwho]

Someone here mentioned that the second version of Ninja Scroll from Sentai had a new encode. I thought their first version looked amazing, with really only 2 things that could be improved:

1. Brightness. It was boosted a bit, but when seen on its own, not an issue. Really, only when you look at it in comparison to the JP BD is it one.
2. Bitrate. Sentai put NS on a BD-25, which isn't a bad choice- there's enough room to fit it on there- but because the audio commentary was lossless, the video bitrate had to be lower- it averaged 19.83 mbps

I can confirm that, yes. It is a new encode.

I'm not that good at grabbing screenshots, nor do I have any of the programs NLScavenger recommended, but I hope these VLC shots will suffice.






So, the brightness is corrected. How about the encode? After all, Sentai's previous one was very good, with few artifacts. Well, it's certainly different.

Here's a bitrate graph of the old release (via Caps a Holic):


And here's the new one:


As you can see, the timing between them is identical, so audio is bit-for-bit identical to the previous BD.

The older encode had a slightly lower average, but way higher spikes, where this new one has an ever so slightly higher average, but lower spikes. The difference in the average is nothing to fuss over- 19.83 vs 19.93 is a small difference. However, the spikes are fascinating. The old encoder included high spikes to help cope with the low average, however, the compressionist here has achieved a similar, if not identical image with lower spikes (if any, as it never goes above 37 mbps on the new disc). Both are valid choices.

If Sentai felt the need to re-do the disc to fix the brightness, then why not put it on a BD-50? Sure, it costs more, but if you are going to re-do it in the first place, why not go all out and do a 30 mbps+ encode? That way it could potentially look even better.

Unless you're triggered over the whole brightness thing and own the old release, there's little reason to upgrade to what's here. Yes, it is better, but unless side by side, most people won't tell any difference.

[professorwho]

Now I'm curious about the UK edition by Manga Entertainment. That's also on a BD-25, but has a higher bitrate (24382 kbps) with the trade-off of 16-Bit audio. Not that I could tell a different, but from a technical perspective it's inferior. I'm curious if it has the brightness issues or not.

[kevers7290]

In regards to "The Slayers," what's holding up an English friendly release? It seems like one of those titles that is available to the rest of the World except for AU/UK/US. I guess Funi has distro on it here in the States...

[Lambadelta]

Originally Posted by kevers7290

In regards to "The Slayers," what's holding up an English friendly release? It seems like one of those titles that is available to the rest of the World except for AU/UK/US. I guess Funi has distro on it here in the States...

It's popularity in the english regions is pretty much dead.

[chronoclast]

Originally Posted by kevers7290

In regards to "The Slayers," what's holding up an English friendly release? It seems like one of those titles that is available to the rest of the World except for AU/UK/US. I guess Funi has distro on it here in the States...

Funi kinda suck when it comes to re-releasing their catalog titles on BD that aren't the top-tier perennial sellers.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by chronoclast

Funi kinda suck when it comes to re-releasing their catalog titles on BD that aren't the top-tier perennial sellers.

And even then, they can suck when it comes to some top-tier selling catalog titles (Bebop), and some they don’t (Escaflowne). It all depends on luck, really. They can make a good looking Blu, they have before- it’s just a crapshoot as to what it’ll be (and 90% of the time it ain’t pretty).

[chronoclast]

Originally Posted by professorwho

And even then, they can suck when it comes to some top-tier selling catalog titles (Bebop), and some they don’t (Escaflowne). It all depends on luck, really. They can make a good looking Blu, they have before- it’s just a crapshoot as to what it’ll be (and 90% of the time it ain’t pretty).

Oh I just meant actually releasing stuff, that's before the question of quality. Funi has numerous titles that have BDs in Japan but they'll never touch them again like Kanon and Mushi-shi for a couple examples.

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by chronoclast

Funi has numerous titles that have BDs in Japan but they'll never touch them again like Kanon and Mushi-shi for a couple examples.

There was a blu-ray of the first season of Mushi-shi? Or do you just mean Zoku Shou, and Funi has no interest in the whole franchise either way?

[Ajc228]

I’d be very surprised if Mushi-shi ever gets a bluray release in the U.S. I don’t think it set the sales charts on fire.

[chronoclast]

Originally Posted by SeaFox

There was a blu-ray of the first season of Mushi-shi? Or do you just mean Zoku Shou, and Funi has no interest in the whole franchise either way?

Yeah the first season had a BD box set. It's an upscale and it had a new 5.1 audio track produced for it. Funi dumped Mushi-shi in their Save line which they've never gone back to do re-releases for. It's basically dead to them.

Zoku Shou is Aniplex and that's been relegated to streaming only .

[Robbl]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Now I'm curious about the UK edition by Manga Entertainment. That's also on a BD-25, but has a higher bitrate (24382 kbps) with the trade-off of 16-Bit audio. Not that I could tell a different, but from a technical perspective it's inferior. I'm curious if it has the brightness issues or not.

How is that a trade off? Afaik, 16bit is capable of up to ~95dB. Unless you want to blow your ears off it's a non issue.

[ApocalypseKnight]

Not pq related but aq instead but since I didn't get any reply in the main thread I'm trying my luck here:

So I just watched my Aniplex USA copy of Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel and I noticed an annoying buzzing sound coming only from the right surround speaker in some of the scenes.
It occurs both with the Japanese or English dub. Examples of some scenes can be found at 0h40, 1h36 and 1h51m30s.

Anyone is having the same issue? At 0h40 I though it might be by choice for atmosphere, albeit it gets annoying quickly, but it's totally out of place in the 2 other examples.

[jala12]

Does anyone know whether or not the HK version of Fireworks is a good encode video and audio wise? I saw the packaging and it said that it has a 96k upsampling going on with the truehd track.

[Naiera]

It's 1080i50. Avoid.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Now I'm curious about the UK edition by Manga Entertainment. That's also on a BD-25, but has a higher bitrate (24382 kbps) with the trade-off of 16-Bit audio. Not that I could tell a different, but from a technical perspective it's inferior. I'm curious if it has the brightness issues or not.

I posted screenshots of the UK BD last year, but those should be gone now. I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

[jala12]

Originally Posted by Naiera

It's 1080i50. Avoid.

Wow, why would they do that? Then how about The Place Promised in Our Early Days?

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by jala12

Wow, why would they do that? Then how about The Place Promised in Our Early Days?

1080p 23,976fps