The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

To be fair, I probably wouldn't have noticed the incorrect colours unless it was pointed out here.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by cfx

Isn't doing HDR on cel animation revisionist no matter what? I can't imagine the originals of any of this exceed standard dynamic range.

Technically it's revisionism for live-action films as well, though it's kind of OK since it's just better recreating the real scene captured by the film. You're right that animation is different, since for the most part it would be painted diffuse white even at its brightest and thus unlikely to go into the higher dynamic range territory, however they did also use actual light effects to enhance bright things and get that nice optical glow:






I'm guessing they did this by overlaying very reflective colored material on top of the image. These parts would probably translate nicely to HDR without any additional fakery in much the same way as filmed live action material.

[professorwho]

Add Sakura Wars to the ever growing list of "botched Sentai/Maiden Japan SDBDs";

Originally Posted by Samantha Ferreira

...Uhh... Forgive my rudeness, but... this... doesn't look very... good? I don't remember the text artifacting like that on my DVDs.

I can go back to four different masters of DVDs to verify that end.

Believe it or not, this is Sakura's arrival to the capitol in the show. See that pink blur in the middle of the first still? That's Sakura. \o/

For comparison, here's the text on ADV Films' original DVD release. Volume 1, 2003. THE ORIGINAL FRIGGIN SINGLE DVDS LOOK BETTER!

Source with more screencaps

[pikagreg]

So much for them fixing this issue. I really want some of their SDBD's but not enough to deal with stuff like that.

[Lambadelta]

Has anyone compared Media Blaster's release of Twelve Kingdoms against Discoteks yet?

[kk1]

Wow what's the point, don't they have someone comparing the two before putting these out? Just ridiculous.

[pikagreg]

idk if this is one of you guys but I thought it was interesting about Sakura Wars

https://twitter.com/LandofObscusion/...09988616097798

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Lambadelta

Has anyone compared Media Blaster's release of Twelve Kingdoms against Discoteks yet?

Media Blaster's one is a 1:1 clone of the JP BD. Discotek's is on par despite being on half the discs due to Justin's encoding ability. So if you have the old release, just keep it, or if you don't have either, go with Discotek's release.

[Gouki]

(Yeah, yeah, I need to get over it, it's the best it will ever look, at least it's getting released, they take up less space, the subtitles are purdier, FULL standard definition, less compression, lossless audio with garbage video, ETC.)

[Lambadelta]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Media Blaster's one is a 1:1 clone of the JP BD. Discotek's is on par despite being on half the discs due to Justin's encoding ability. So if you have the old release, just keep it, or if you don't have either, go with Discotek's release.

ah kk. Ye I have the old release, but one of my part 2 discs is a bit weird, and fails to play 1 specific episode on the disc.

I should replace that set at some point.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Gouki

(Yeah, yeah, I need to get over it, it's the best it will ever look, at least it's getting released, they take up less space, the subtitles are purdier, FULL standard definition, less compression, lossless audio with garbage video, ETC.)

These Maiden Japan releases are IN NO WAY indicative of what you can do with SDBD.

[sagadego]

Originally Posted by Naiera

These Maiden Japan releases are IN NO WAY indicative of what you can do with SDBD.

this is Sentai films just failing bad!

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by sagadego

this is Sentai films just failing bad!

It seems they fixed the frame rate issue, but in this case, maybe the source was sh*t quality. I don't think "Sentai dun goofed", but rather, the source is the issue.

If you want an example of a properly encoded but terrible looking SDBD due to source- Pet Shop of Horrors. An example of something with a bad source and bad encoding is Criterion's War and Peace.

[HunterKIller]

Okay, let's back to old DVD box.

As I know, Votoms looks okay, so it is a good information, because old version ain't easy to buy right now (or in good price).

[BigOnAnime]

Just when I thought those SD-BDs had been fixed yikes, and I pre-ordered that. Well I still got the ADV Thinpak and Sentai Selects release at least, and still intend to get the singles + artbox in the future for the booklets, extras and such. Some video extras were only ever on the singles.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by cfx

I realize you can't show HDR on a non-HDR screen, but all of these youtube videos (and those screenshots) seem to tell us that VAP thinks HDR means "brighter/paler colors"

Isn't doing HDR on cel animation revisionist no matter what? I can't imagine the originals of any of this exceed standard dynamic range.

Still, I stand by my earlier comment. The grain is gone which is unfortunate, but the line work doesn't appear to have suffered the way it did on Mamo, and there's still some gradation to the colors instead of the way that one looked where the colors looked like they were filled in using the Photoshop paint bucket tool.

I don't intend to ever have a 4K setup so this is more just of theoretical interest to me anyway but it is interesting to me.

You've never seen anime until you've watched it on a full-blown OLED using Dolby Vision.

I was skeptical but it does wonders for traditional animation. Hand-drawn cel animation looks incredible even if the source was only mastered at 1080P.

[Naiera]

In case anyone cares, here are stats and pie charts for one episode of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens.

It's a 1080i release with some majorly big files. The episodes are standard length, but the files are all over 7 GB each, with just one of the three 2.0 PCM tracks that come with it. I figure the other two are commentary tracks. 1080i takes more bitrate to turn out nicely, so they did really good here. It's a recomposite and it looks about as good as something much more recent, such as Waiting in the Summer, which I finished for like the fifth time the other day.

[Show spoiler]
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 23mn 41s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 38.7 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 40.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : MBAFF
Scan type, store method : Interleaved fields
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.623
Stream size : 6.40 GiB (96%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 23mn 41s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate : 30.000 fps (1600 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 260 MiB (4%)
Title : Stereo
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Menu
00:00:00.000 : en:Chapter 01
00:01:30.023 : en:Chapter 02
00:12:10.996 : en:Chapter 03
00:22:04.990 : en:Chapter 04

[BigOnAnime]

Just to note it was recomposited.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...0#post11377230

Really a shame we're not going to get the show on Blu-ray from Aniplex USA, or anyone because Aniplex Japan works only with AoA now.

[Naiera]

It being a recomposite makes a lot of sense

It’s really nice looking.

[Kool-aid23]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

You've never seen anime until you've watched it on a full-blown OLED using Dolby Vision.

I was skeptical but it does wonders for traditional animation. Hand-drawn cel animation looks incredible even if the source was only mastered at 1080P.

May I ask, what anime have you watched in Dolby Vision? I'm assuming you are referencing streaming content? I wasn't aware of any UHD discs using DV.

Respects,