The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Brutalizer79]

Ugh, I just looked at the screens for Sakura Wars and that looks awful. I'm not nearly as harsh on PQ as others on here but even I have to say that looks like absolute dog***. I had it pre-ordered on Amazon so I should be able to cancel it (hopefully). I'll stick with the DVDs until something better comes along.

Edit: Just cancelled it. It wasn't coming out until August, I don't know, for some reason I thought is was coming out sooner than that.

Also, while I'm here, thinking of pulling the trigger on Great Mazinger but wondering what the quality of the Blu is. It's about $20 bucks cheaper (on average) than the DVD set but if the quality is the same (or worse), I'd just as well pay the extra and get the DVD set.

[professorwho]

Great Mazinger is from Discotek, which means a Justin Sevakis encode, which means the best quality release until an HD scan is made.

[kevers7290]

I'm in the process of upgrading some titles in my collection. I have a few UK and Australian imports that I purchased as cheaper alternatives to AoA releases, but now I'm not sure if some have any glaring issues that would warrant an upgrade. If anyone can chime in on any of the following, it would be greatly appreciated:

-Aldnoah Zero (AU-Hanabee)
-Irregular at Magic High (AU-Hanabee)
-Kill La Kill (UK-Anime Ltd.)
-Magi (UK-Kaze)
-SAO (UK-Manga)
-SAO 2 (AU-Madman)

Thanks in advance for input.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by kevers7290

I'm in the process of upgrading some titles in my collection. I have a few UK and Australian imports that I purchased as cheaper alternatives to AoA releases, but now I'm not sure if some have any glaring issues that would warrant an upgrade. If anyone can chime in on any of the following, it would be greatly appreciated:

Kill la Kill was encoded by Madman, so while the video quality is generally fine, Part 1 has burnt subs for Japanese text, so whenever Japanese text is on screen, the English translation is burnt in beneath it. Parts 2 and 3 do not have that issue. Audio is DTS-HD Master Audio, and while I'd assume it's on-par with the other releases, after hearing what weird stuff happens with some audio encoding (specifically with AL France), I'm not sure. If you want to add subs, the IT Dynit version is king with the best PQ, but that requires adding subs (though I have timed subs by Scavenger).

Magi is from KAZE, and they are notorious for their lack of quality. Take their release of Nisekoi for example- 10 episodes per disc with Japanese and French audio in LPCM at full 24-bit (I'd be okay with 16-bit considering the amount of video on the disc) with some subtitle timing errors and questionable picture quality.

SAO S1 is very good from what I've heard. It has a high bitrate encode and no major issues. SAO 2 is from Madman and while I've heard less positive things, it should still be more than acceptable.

There's also this thread from another website, so maybe you'll find some more info there. (I stopped posting there for reasons, so, yeah...)

[Lambadelta]

Originally Posted by professorwho

(I stopped posting there for reasons, so, yeah...)

I think you shouldn't let that 1 thing stop you posting there. Your being a bit harsh on yourself

[BlackCondor93]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Kill la Kill was encoded by Madman

I thought the UK release of Kill la Kill was encoded and authored in a UK based authoring house, seeing as the warning screen at the beginning was used for UK authored discs, and that the All the Anime ident appeared first before the Madman ident (Madman authored discs have it the other way round).

[BlackCondor93]

Sorry for the double-post, but who authored and encoded Anime Limited's release of Welcome to the Ballroom Part 1, as there are a few subtitle issues, as seen in the review on myReviewer (from Just Passing Through)?

The previous UK authored releases, by the authoring house of a yet to be known name, had no issues with the subtitle timing, but this one was one of those titles where they can't display more than one caption at a time. The start of episode 4 opted to show the episode title instead of translating the dialogue, episode 7 had a scoresheet that wasn't translated and episode 8 had a diagram that lacked a text translation rendering a joke meaningless.

Was this like that on the Amazon Prime streams? If so, and if it's the same authoring house as before, then I'm guessing they based the subtitle timing and translation from the Prime streams, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by BlackCondor93

I thought the UK release of Kill la Kill was encoded and authored in a UK based authoring house, seeing as the warning screen at the beginning was used for UK authored discs, and that the All the Anime ident appeared first before the Madman ident (Madman authored discs have it the other way round).

Kill la Kill was encoded by a UK company, but Madman started releasing it first.
Also to note, the Japanese audio for Episode 1 is mono. IIRC this was the same authoring house that did the UK BDs for Gurren Lagann and were never used again after that hot mess of a release.

[BlackCondor93]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Kill la Kill was encoded by a UK company, but Madman started releasing it first.

I was aware about Madman releasing it first, although Madman released it in 5 volumes (just like the Aniplex of America release), compared to Anime Limited's 3 volumes.

Admittedly, I chose to go for the Aniplex of America volumes whilst they were still in print. I would've gone for the CEs, but the Volume 2 CE was out of print, so I went for the SEs for all 5 of them instead.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by Naiera

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

I'll take it upon myself to complete the holy trinity of Aniplex recomposites with the stats for Working!!
Absolutely had to pick up the S1 BD BOX in Japan last year as it's probably my favourite series - tied with Gurren Lagann. The lack of a domestic release is truly deplorable.

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 24 min 36 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 34.7 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.697
Stream size : 5.96 GiB (92%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 24 min 36 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 200.000 FPS (240 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 270 MiB (4%)
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 24 min 36 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 200.000 FPS (240 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 270 MiB (4%)
Title : Commentary
Language : Japanese
Default : No
Forced : No

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by BlackCondor93

Sorry for the double-post, but who authored and encoded Anime Limited's release of Welcome to the Ballroom Part 1, as there are a few subtitle issues, as seen in the review on myReviewer (from Just Passing Through)?

Apparently they're not done by an authoring house, but an individual person who does a few odd projects for a few companies (or something like that, it was mentioned by an AL Staff member on Discord). I haven't seen the show itself nor do I own the BDs, but I'd imagine any subtitle issues are due to subtitles being taken directly from Amazon. I briefly checked the start of episode 4 and the episode title is indeed the only thing translated.

I've personally never really bothered watching Amazon's streams primarily due to subtitle readability issues and lack of typesetting, but I found that they could be a bit funky in how (or even if) they present multiple lines. Their subtitle timing was also pretty messy as I found to be the case when I was retiming Re:Creators, and I do wonder if the effort that'd need to go into the subtitles is one of the reason why AoA never released it. In general Amazon's player's functionality leaves a lot to be desired for anime fans, and it's probably one of, if not the least friendly towards the medium out of the major players.

[Thedoctor2016]

I found Netflix to be as bad if not worse. Eva ep 6 was especially bad due to the lack of the subs for the names of locations. As VE is kinda weak translated even on madmans BD and if AL keeps licensing these shows I wish they got their own translator and typesetter to improve the subs.

[Lambadelta]

Originally Posted by Thedoctor2016

As VE is kinda weak translated even on madmans BD and if AL keeps licensing these shows I wish they got their own translator and typesetter to improve the subs.

Bet AL will use Madman's master because its cheaper

[professorwho]

Just a random thing I found out, but SSS.Gridman has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix on the JP BDs.

[kevers7290]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Kill la Kill was encoded by a UK company, but Madman started releasing it first.
Also to note, the Japanese audio for Episode 1 is mono. IIRC this was the same authoring house that did the UK BDs for Gurren Lagann and were never used again after that hot mess of a release.

What was the issue with the UK Gurren Lagann? I know there was like 30 seconds of upscaled footage but was anything else wrong with that release?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by kevers7290

What was the issue with the UK Gurren Lagann? I know there was like 30 seconds of upscaled footage but was anything else wrong with that release?

I think it had mono Japanese audio instead of stereo.

[oldmario]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Just a random thing I found out, but SSS.Gridman has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix on the JP BDs.

now i think i'm more excited about rewatching it if it eventually comes out on blu-ray next year

i understand why it happens but it honestly bugs me that they only seem to do 99.9% of the time 2.0 mixes with the Japanese audio, rewatching the manga release of Stand Alone Complex recently and it was pretty nice to hear the echo whenever they were talking internally

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by professorwho

It seems they fixed the frame rate issue

I stand corrected- they didn't.

Originally Posted by Ashley Uncia

Scan type: Interlaced
Scan order: Bottom Field First
Bit rate mode: Variable
Bit rate: 7159 Kbps
Maximum bit rate: 9000 Kbps

Source

That looks like a DVD preset to me, MPEG-2 and all.

Dammit Sentai... They told me they fixed it, but who knows which release will be the first to implement it...

DISCLAIMER: It may be a 60i native title for all we know, I mean, lots of late 90s anime were edited on video that way, so it's possible that it may be encoded correctly.

[chronoclast]

Originally Posted by professorwho

I stand corrected- they didn't.




Source

That looks like a DVD preset to me, MPEG-2 and all.

Dammit Sentai... They told me they fixed it, but who knows which release will be the first to implement it...

DISCLAIMER: It may be a 60i native title for all we know, I mean, lots of late 90s anime were edited on video that way, so it's possible that it may be encoded correctly.

What the heck is Sentai doing? Did they recycle the DVD encode and fudge it worse? Regardless, that just screams super lazy on their part. They're approaching SD-BD totally wrong here.

MPEG-2 should be left to DVDs. They've used AVC on other SD-BDs so this is nonsense. Get it together already Sentai.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by cfx

Edit: Reading that twitter thread there's more going on than I understand, so I may be wrong. My knowledge of video is mainly with NTSC and what goes on there, I am somewhat clueless about 24p and how blu-rays work.

Yeah, what I meant was, "it could be 60i which means it was 24p with some digital stuff done like text and such to make it 60i" ala Kare Kano.