The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Pyoko]

I don't know why they felt they had to mess with it for the US Blu-ray other than making it progressive.

Anyway I'm happy with my UK set. I can do the IVTC on the fly in madVR and pull down the blacks and gamma when watching, which I probably would have done anyway as even without the extra brightness of the UK encode it's one of those typical Japanese transfers that look a bit washed-out with elevated blacks, especially in some of the CG space shots. In my opinion it's much nicer to look at if you bring it down a notch or two.

[vincentric]

^Yeah the Uk's interlaced image is no problem for me too, VLC's IVTC in automatic mode works flawlessly.

And got some quick thoughts and pics of Wolf Children for Naiera (and anyone else interested).

Funimation seem to be really good at releasing their films with great PQ from what I've seen - One Piece Z and Strong World, FMA Conqueror, Blood C Last Dark, 009 Cyborg to name a few off the top of my head have all looked excellent. That trend continues on with Wolf Children. Some slight aliasing and smudged lines can be seen throughout the movie but am almost certain that it's from the source and not the encode. Blocking is a non-issue here and there were two, maybe three scenes where I saw some slight banding (check the last screenshot for the most apparent one). It's a pretty nice looking picture overall.









The movie runs for 117 minutes and contains around 19 GB of data for the video (I don't have the data amount for the audio).

[Naiera]

As long as the brightness/gamma/whatever is OK, then that is the release I want.

[BigOnAnime]

Can anyone here pick at the Ladies Versus Butlers Blu-ray? Someone I follow on Twitter recently told me apparently the BD is on TWO BD-50's, not the BD-25/BD-50 combo. If this is true, what in the actual ****? Media Blasters, the most broke anime company out there who has to now resort to DVD-R's to keep things in print on DVD, and put out new DVD's can use 2 BD-50's?! No one else really does that here. And in a release that's priced at $30 MSRP which I'd say is too damn cheap and underpriced (How are they going to make money, especially with a dub?).

Granted higher bitrate=/=ALWAYS dramatically higher video quality (See JP releases with problems despite a high bitrate), but still.

[Edit]Also now just heard the split is an even 6/6. Amazing Media Blasters can do this, but not FUNimation, NISA (Granted NISA BD's are authored by Justin Sevakis), or Sentai.

[SeaFox]

Thought you guys might be interested in this:

A fanripper has started to release Patlabor TV blu-ray encodings today, and he has posted some screenshot comparisons between the JDM release and Maiden Japan's US release. Here are the links:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/156459
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/156460
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/156462
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/156464
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/156465

[Naiera]

Shitty brightening hurting the PQ more than just making it look brighter than it should

Seems to have EE too. Damn it

EDIT: Forget the above, I was wrong. WRONG, I say!

[SeaFox]

Actually the ripper's conclusion is the U.S. release is better.

Japanese release is degrained, now the grain looks like macro blocks and details was lost. Crushed blacks.

IVTC combing was more apparent in the US release, but fixable in post process.

Of course his judgement is based on what he can fix.

[Girls With Guns]

Hmm, yeah, my preference is for the US version as well - it is sharpened a little, so that you can see better detail, and even though it's a bit grainy, it is a very even grain, I see no banding or blocking in the grain. The lightening of the image is not too bright, but it is enough to show detail in dark areas. I'll take the US version this time around.

[Naiera]

Sharpening doesn't get you better detail, it just makes it seem sharper, while in fact it removes detail. I'm not sure the US release actually has more detail than the Japanese one.

EDIT: Still wrong

[Girls With Guns]

Don't care, I still like the US release video better. So, the sharpening makes it easier to see that same amount of detail more clearly, then.

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Sharpening doesn't get you better detail, it just makes it seem sharper, while in fact it removes detail.

Are you sure that's sharpening and not aliasing from the comb filter?
Note that it doesn't seem to really be in the background (which would be static) but in the mecha in the foreground that would have their motion divided with the fields.

[NLScavenger]

Doesn't look like sharpening to me. There is a lot of detail missing in the BV release none of which sharpening can accentuate.

[Naiera]

Alright. I guess I've developed knee-jerk reactions to US releases that are brighter than JP ones

[llj]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Alright. I guess I've developed knee-jerk reactions to US releases that are brighter than JP ones

Don't worry, you just got tripped up by a rare exception. It's well known that the Japanese frigged up their release of Patlabor TV on BD. The US release for once benefited from their usual "We don't care" approach. They just dumped the masters they got straight onto the BD without tinkering too much with it, unlike the Japanese side which degrained and tinkered to their own detriment.

[Pyoko]

I remember seeing comparisons between the editions some time ago.

They're clearly both from the same messed-up master so while the US release does have sharpening, so does/did the JP release, it's just lessened from the filtering, along with some of the combing, grain and detail. Not sure which one would be more pleasant to look at since I haven't seen the JP in motion but I would probably lean towards the US anyway.

[Sylontack]

So I've basically been lazy as all heck, user Mangaranga was helpful enough to send me some AoA Bakemonogatari screenshots three weeks ago and I only just got around to matching them to the Australian/UK counterpart.

There is definitely some blocking, which is evident in the OP screenshot.
Using episode one to compare from disc one which is a BD25 containing 22.6GB of data with 5 episodes consisting of a single 21.7GB stream file. I mean considering the 5 episodes on a BD25 is a total FUNimation move it looks a hell of a lot better than anything they've coughed up.
Also I'm not sure if the US release did, I don't believe so though- this release has the Character Commentary tracks with English subtitles for said commentary (only for Bake though, not Nise)

AoA | Hanabee
AoA | Hanabee (OP)
AoA | Hanabee
AoA | Hanabee (This one seems to be slightly off, I thought I had it right but I guess not. Sorry.)
AoA | Hanabee
AoA | Hanabee
AoA | Hanabee
AoA | Hanabee
AoA | Hanabee

I'll let y'all reach your own conclusions about these. I'd like to see some of the later episodes compared at some point too for dimmer scenes such as Araragi and Senjougahara stargazing.
I also think Nisemonogatari would be a very interesting one to test as that was supposedly actually animated in full 1080p and is only on two discs here so any shortcomings may be a lot more apparent.

[kk1]

Thanks for the comparison, looks close enough to me glad I haven't opened my AOA set yet.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Can anyone here pick at the Ladies Versus Butlers Blu-ray? Someone I follow on Twitter recently told me apparently the BD is on TWO BD-50's, not the BD-25/BD-50 combo. If this is true, what in the actual ****? Media Blasters, the most broke anime company out there who has to now resort to DVD-R's to keep things in print on DVD, and put out new DVD's can use 2 BD-50's?! No one else really does that here. And in a release that's priced at $30 MSRP which I'd say is too damn cheap and underpriced (How are they going to make money, especially with a dub?).

Granted higher bitrate=/=ALWAYS dramatically higher video quality (See JP releases with problems despite a high bitrate), but still.

[Edit]Also now just heard the split is an even 6/6. Amazing Media Blasters can do this, but not FUNimation, NISA (Granted NISA BD's are authored by Justin Sevakis), or Sentai.

Still no one willing to pick at Ladies Versus Butlers!? It's on TWO BD-50's, with a 6/6 split apparently. The most broke company doing what no one else really does.

[Naiera]

Just send me a copy

[Grayson]

I didn't set these up as well as vincentric's contributions but I wanted to cross-post my samples here from the Outlaw Star BD Box-Set, from the JP Bandai release since my original links no longer work. I haven't been up-to-date with what's happening on a NA release of this Box-Set, pretty sure Funi has the license. These are the 5 comparison images I posted originally, plus 3 extra screenshots.

Outlaw Star BD-Box Comparison 01

Outlaw Star BD-Box Comparison 02

Outlaw Star BD-Box Comparison 03

Outlaw Star BD-Box Comparison 04

Outlaw Star BD-Box Comparison 05

Screenshot 01

Screenshot 02

Screenshot 03