The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread - Page 23 - Blu-ray Forum

vincentric · 01-06-2016, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

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.

I've been streaming some eps at youtube in the last few days and have been enjoying it in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Ordered a copy at RS ($20 w/new year's rebate). If no one else gets to it first before I get mine delivered, I'll nitpick the video and post up usual thoughts and screens for it. Edit: Have not forgotten about Guin Saga, I'll get to that as well when my workload lightens up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

[Show spoiler]

I'll upscale those DVD shots when I get a chance if no one else does it beforehand.

vincentric · 01-07-2016, 04:11 AM

vincentric · 01-08-2016, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincentric

Just some more cheap stuff from right stuf -

[Show spoiler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Out of curiosity, can you pick at Guin Saga in the video quality thread? I'm curious to hear from a video snob how Sentai did with that, especially since there apparently was no Blu-ray release in Japan.

Alright then, as per BOA's request (and for anyone else interested), I took a good look at Guin Saga.

Compression blocking and color banding are often and severe. I did not need to nitpick the video frame by frame, they were very noticeable in just about every other scene during normal viewing. It can look good during more brighter daytime scenes but even then, the blocking and banding can be quite noticeable. Not good at all, this one falls squarely into the sentai pile of shite encodes.

The first six screenshots are from ep8 and the following six are from ep1 -

The 26 eps are split 8-8-8-2 across four discs with 112 GB of total data. It breaks down to around around 4 GB of data for the video and 300 MB for the audio in each episode -

[Show spoiler]

BigOnAnime · 01-08-2016, 07:36 AM

Yay, I have another reason to push this button...

Shame it looks that bad. Doesn't help there will never be another option. It appears Guin Saga is OOP (On Amazon, only marketplace sellers and FBA have it in-stock), CR removed it without warning sometime last year, and given it's an Aniplex title, it's doomed, forever. Still will get it in spite of the problems (Really liked the show), especially considering how Sentai had someone good do the translations, and they actually got plenty of video extras when normally they're too cheap to acquire many.

Ex: Big making of extra missing on Chu2koi that's similar to this extra from ADV's Kanon (2006) singles (It is NOT on the FUNimation release).

vincentric · 01-08-2016, 08:14 AM

I really like the show too, it's too bad that we probably won't ever see a better version (pq-wise) released. On the bright side, being able to snag it for around $30 (which isn't too bad of a price for a 26 ep show) at the recent RS holiday sale helps alleviate the fugly pq, even if only a little.

I forgot to mention this though, I'd hate to add salt to the wound, but the video artifacts in Guin look even worse while in motion. Similar to Children Who Chase Lost Voices, the blocking and banding artifacts seem to crawl and jump around making themselves even more noticeable. lol smh. It reminds me of a crowd at an NBA game trying to distract the opposing player when shooting free throws.

Naiera · 01-08-2016, 01:05 PM

I was going to do stats for The Korean Who Leapt Through Time, but then I got errors

[Show spoiler]

Naiera · 01-09-2016, 12:50 PM

The errors stopped errorising me

[Show spoiler]

I MakeMKV'ed the lossy core audio tracks, so I left out the audio stats here

MoonFly · 01-10-2016, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincentric

I really like the show too, it's too bad that we probably won't ever see a better version (pq-wise) released. On the bright side, being able to snag it for around $30 (which isn't too bad of a price for a 26 ep show) at the recent RS holiday sale helps alleviate the fugly pq, even if only a little.

I forgot to mention this though, I'd hate to add salt to the wound, but the video artifacts in Guin look even worse while in motion. Similar to Children Who Chase Lost Voices, the blocking and banding artifacts seem to crawl and jump around making themselves even more noticeable. lol smh. It reminds me of a crowd at an NBA game trying to distract the opposing player when shooting free throws.

Do you have From The New World collection 1 and 2? I'm curious about Sentai's rerelease of it that's now only on 3 discs. The video quality is honestly the most distracting I've ever seen with the banding and compression everywhere. Don't know if it's source based or not but, if you have collections 1 and 2 will you be able to check out the rereleased complete collection for a comparison to see if they fixed anything or if it's just the same?

SeaFox · 01-10-2016, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoonFly

Do you have From The New World collection 1 and 2? I'm curious about Sentai's rerelease of it that's now only on 3 discs.

Didn't realize they'd done a Complete Collection set until you said that. Might explain why the separate Parts 1 & 2 were on Rightstuf's Holiday Sale.

New cover art is just ew.

BigOnAnime · 01-10-2016, 09:15 PM

Don't get your hopes up for improved video quality on that one.

Sylontack · 01-10-2016, 10:37 PM

The PQ is going to be pretty much the same (Although I don't recall it being as terrible as everyone says, I might have to revisit it. Although I did check and the major banding I noticed was from the source- present in the JP encodes too). I mean I don't have anything to prove it as I'm not working on the discs but I certainly wouldn't hold my breath and I'd be quite comfortable betting on it.

Sylontack · 01-13-2016, 10:44 AM

Things are looking good for the PQ on the Sentai Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Blu-Ray.
So the set is still on 4 discs, just like the JP BD Box- and from what I can see in the mock-up images the discs seem to have the same episode/arc distribution as what I can see of the JP discs. Most of those discs will have 6-8 episodes and I think one will have 5 episodes.

So basically if they're all BD50s Sentai have no reason to screw this up on us (not to say they won't but having the discs laid out exactly the same is far from a bad sign). If they try to skimp on us we could potentially get a BD25 for Disc 3 or 4.

Our final concern is if they do use BD50s, whether or not those will be poorly utilised like with their normal sets. It will be VERY interesting to take a look at this set once it's out. The upscale for season one is pretty rubbish (as is the animation for season one) but that's exactly why I'll be very excited if we get a good English release, because the underwhelming upscale (not an ugly smudgy one from what I've seen, just not much of an upgrade) doesn't really give any lenience for extra compression because it needs to look as good as it can to be worth the upgrade at all.

EDIT: Although what's really throwing me for a loop is the JP Blu-Ray discs. Disc 3 clear as day says it has the "Eye Opening" arc (which is also the only arc on Disc 3 of the Sentai BD. Which leaves only the "Atonement" arc left, but there are two arcs listed on the final JP BD disc. Atonement and one other arc that I can't match the characters to. Maybe they were just being clever in how they listed the extras or something.
-----------EDIT 2: Don't worry I realised that's the extra "Cat Killing" OVA episode, I don't think that'll be on the US release, though it'd be nice if it was.

Mangaranga · 01-19-2016, 07:16 PM

I received the Sentai release of K-On! today, and since I also own the JP BD Box I took some comparison shots from episode 1.

Initial impressions are good but there are a few weird minor issues I have with Sentai's release.
The first is that there are black bars on both sides of the screen. Not exactly a deal breaker but they're there, something I also noticed with the Index movie. Second is that text in the opening and ending seem to be very poorly compressed (See pictures 2 & 11) - something that I noticed immediately before even looking at the JP disc. The colours on the title card (screenshot 1) also look pretty muted in comparison. This doesn't seem to carry across to the episodes themselves nor have I seen this from any other Sentai release. Third is that the audio for the performance in episode 1 has once again been replaced for both audio streams. Other than that things are as I expected. The show doesn't look as fantastic as I remember it being, but you'll see that the problems are inherited from the Japanese BDs (good example being the back of Yui's head in screenshot 10).

BigOnAnime · 01-19-2016, 10:19 PM

Yeah, the banding was also in the Japanese release. While the full screencaps are gone (Imageshack sucks now, though if you try URL uploading to Tinypic they might work again) you can see the original Japanese singles also suffered from it despite being on more discs (The BD box has 14 episodes and a bunch of extras on 4 discs).
http://konfan.blogspot.com/2011/11/k...eview-and.html

Goes to further show Japanese releases while almost always better aren't always perfect.

mp3dom · 01-20-2016, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

The first is that there are black bars on both sides of the screen. Not exactly a deal breaker but they're there, something I also noticed with the Index movie. Second is that text in the opening and ending seem to be very poorly compressed (See pictures 2 & 11) - something that I noticed immediately before even looking at the JP disc. The colours on the title card (screenshot 1) also look pretty muted in comparison.

It's due to the fact that the japanese BD comes from HDCAM-SR tapes, while Sentai's release comes from HDCAM.

Mangaranga · 01-20-2016, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mp3dom

It's due to the fact that the japanese BD comes from HDCAM-SR tapes, while Sentai's release comes from HDCAM.

This is something completely new to me so correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it Sentai release is taken from a 1440x1080 master and the black bars/text issues are a result of stretching the image back to 1920x1080? I thought it was more common to receive files via HDD nowadays anyway.

mp3dom · 01-20-2016, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Sentai release is taken from a 1440x1080 master and the black bars/text issues are a result of stretching the image back to 1920x1080? I thought it was more common to receive files via HDD nowadays anyway.

The image is stored at 1440x1080 but the output from the deck is already at 1920x1080 (the stretch is made internally by the deck, like the chroma subsampling). The text issue is due to the fact that HDCAM is not fullres/not square pixel/no full bandwidth (it's just an "extension" to the old digital betacam SD tapes to get HD output). The "not full bandwidth" is the issue here. On HDCAMs, frequencies are first low-pass filtered because the bitrate (144 Mbps) is not enough to save everything (also, even with lowpass filter, the bitrate is not enough to store complex scenes... this format is mainly used for materials that needs to be delivered to TVs). It means that "high frequencies" are attenuated/cut off. You can see it in the text/logos, where you have something "razor" (graphics), in high contrast zones or especially on reds. You can see a form of "haloing" around edges (something similar to a light border or a "softer" effect). This is the result of low-pass filtering.
On the other hand, HDCAM-SR is full bandwidth so no problem here (the used bitrate, which is 3x to 6x times bigger than HDCAM, is enough to store everything... also the technology of the recording is different too).

You receive files nowadays, but animations studios stores everything on tapes so you can get files but if the source is the HDCAM... you get files with lowpass-filtered video.

Sylontack · 01-22-2016, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylontack

Things are looking good for the PQ on the Sentai Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Blu-Ray.
So the set is still on 4 discs, just like the JP BD Box- and from what I can see in the mock-up images the discs seem to have the same episode/arc distribution as what I can see of the JP discs. Most of those discs will have 6-8 episodes and I think one will have 5 episodes.

So basically if they're all BD50s Sentai have no reason to screw this up on us (not to say they won't but having the discs laid out exactly the same is far from a bad sign). If they try to skimp on us we could potentially get a BD25 for Disc 3 or 4.

update on this end, apparently Season 1 is confirmed 4 BD50s. Great.
According to WTK's source, Season 2 is 3 BD50s, leaving the final ELEVEN EPISODE arc on one disc, instead of the two it was spread across on the JP BD.
Genuinely ridiculous in my opinion, being charged the same price for fewer discs with technically less content (I mean I doubt Section 23 had to pay more for the S1 dub but from a consumer perspective it is less, not that I care about the dub for this one), no help that the Kai upscale looks a little better than the S1 upscale and seems to be getting lesser treatment(?).

So I guess we have to tread carefully on this one. Kind of peeved as I really love S2 for this series.

ApocalypseKnight · 01-24-2016, 12:46 PM

Anyone knows if there's a difference in AQ/PQ between the GitS: Arise OVA imports made by Funimation and their domestic release?

I have the imports for the OVAs but haven't bought the movie yet. There's a pretty big difference in price for the movie so if the AQ/PQ is going to be the same perharps I should wait...

Sylontack · 01-24-2016, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApocalypseKnight

Anyone knows if there's a difference in AQ/PQ between the GitS: Arise OVA imports made by Funimation and their domestic release?

I have the imports for the OVAs but haven't bought the movie yet. There's a pretty big difference in price for the movie so if the AQ/PQ is going to be the same perharps I should wait...

It's supposedly really damn close if not the same. They treat each episode just like they treat movies (FUNi does actually do very well with their films). I haven't watched my discs themselves but the file sizes were quite large and the disc size and episode distribution is the same as the JP releases which in any case is usually a good indication.

01-08-2016, 07:36 AM	#444
BigOnAnime Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Mar 2015 Location:Minnesota, USA 4K collection:17 Blu-ray collection:671 DVD collection:714	Yay, I have another reason to push this button... Shame it looks that bad. Doesn't help there will never be another option. It appears Guin Saga is OOP (On Amazon, only marketplace sellers and FBA have it in-stock), CR removed it without warning sometime last year, and given it's an Aniplex title, it's doomed, forever. Still will get it in spite of the problems (Really liked the show), especially considering how Sentai had someone good do the translations, and they actually got plenty of video extras when normally they're too cheap to acquire many. Ex: Big making of extra missing on Chu2koi that's similar to this extra from ADV's Kanon (2006) singles (It is NOT on the FUNimation release). Last edited by BigOnAnime; 01-08-2016 at 07:40 AM.

01-08-2016, 01:05 PM	#446
Naiera Blu-ray Prince Top contributor Member since:Jun 2012 Location:Denmark Home Theater Gallery:2 Trading Score:25	I was going to do stats for The Korean Who Leapt Through Time, but then I got errors [Show spoiler] Last edited by Naiera; 01-08-2016 at 01:12 PM.

01-13-2016, 10:44 AM	#452
Sylontack Special Member Top contributor Member since:Aug 2013 Location:Sydney, Australia Blu-ray collection:3 Blu-ray reviews:4	Things are looking good for the PQ on the Sentai Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Blu-Ray. So the set is still on 4 discs, just like the JP BD Box- and from what I can see in the mock-up images the discs seem to have the same episode/arc distribution as what I can see of the JP discs. Most of those discs will have 6-8 episodes and I think one will have 5 episodes. So basically if they're all BD50s Sentai have no reason to screw this up on us (not to say they won't but having the discs laid out exactly the same is far from a bad sign). If they try to skimp on us we could potentially get a BD25 for Disc 3 or 4. Our final concern is if they do use BD50s, whether or not those will be poorly utilised like with their normal sets. It will be VERY interesting to take a look at this set once it's out. The upscale for season one is pretty rubbish (as is the animation for season one) but that's exactly why I'll be very excited if we get a good English release, because the underwhelming upscale (not an ugly smudgy one from what I've seen, just not much of an upgrade) doesn't really give any lenience for extra compression because it needs to look as good as it can to be worth the upgrade at all. EDIT: Although what's really throwing me for a loop is the JP Blu-Ray discs. Disc 3 clear as day says it has the "Eye Opening" arc (which is also the only arc on Disc 3 of the Sentai BD. Which leaves only the "Atonement" arc left, but there are two arcs listed on the final JP BD disc. Atonement and one other arc that I can't match the characters to. Maybe they were just being clever in how they listed the extras or something. -----------EDIT 2: Don't worry I realised that's the extra "Cat Killing" OVA episode, I don't think that'll be on the US release, though it'd be nice if it was. Last edited by Sylontack; 01-13-2016 at 10:57 AM.

01-07-2016, 04:11 AM	#442
vincentric Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 Location:Bay Area, CA 4K collection:321 Blu-ray collection:1003 Trading Score:266	Was able to upscale Grayson's Outlaw Star DVD captures. I cropped the 720x540 image then upscaled it to bicubic 1440x1080 - 01 - OS BD \| OS DVD 02 - OS BD \| OS DVD 03 - OS BD \| OS DVD 04 - OS BD \| OS DVD 05 - OS BD \| OS DVD

01-08-2016, 08:14 AM	#445
vincentric Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 Location:Bay Area, CA 4K collection:321 Blu-ray collection:1003 Trading Score:266	I really like the show too, it's too bad that we probably won't ever see a better version (pq-wise) released. On the bright side, being able to snag it for around $30 (which isn't too bad of a price for a 26 ep show) at the recent RS holiday sale helps alleviate the fugly pq, even if only a little. I forgot to mention this though, I'd hate to add salt to the wound, but the video artifacts in Guin look even worse while in motion. Similar to Children Who Chase Lost Voices, the blocking and banding artifacts seem to crawl and jump around making themselves even more noticeable. lol smh. It reminds me of a crowd at an NBA game trying to distract the opposing player when shooting free throws.

01-09-2016, 12:50 PM	#447
Naiera Blu-ray Prince Top contributor Member since:Jun 2012 Location:Denmark Home Theater Gallery:2 Trading Score:25	The errors stopped errorising me [Show spoiler] I MakeMKV'ed the lossy core audio tracks, so I left out the audio stats here

01-10-2016, 09:15 PM	#450
BigOnAnime Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Mar 2015 Location:Minnesota, USA 4K collection:17 Blu-ray collection:671 DVD collection:714	Don't get your hopes up for improved video quality on that one.

01-10-2016, 10:37 PM	#451
Sylontack Special Member Top contributor Member since:Aug 2013 Location:Sydney, Australia Blu-ray collection:3 Blu-ray reviews:4	The PQ is going to be pretty much the same (Although I don't recall it being as terrible as everyone says, I might have to revisit it. Although I did check and the major banding I noticed was from the source- present in the JP encodes too). I mean I don't have anything to prove it as I'm not working on the discs but I certainly wouldn't hold my breath and I'd be quite comfortable betting on it.

01-19-2016, 07:16 PM	#453
Mangaranga Senior Member Member since:Oct 2014	I received the Sentai release of K-On! today, and since I also own the JP BD Box I took some comparison shots from episode 1. Initial impressions are good but there are a few weird minor issues I have with Sentai's release. The first is that there are black bars on both sides of the screen. Not exactly a deal breaker but they're there, something I also noticed with the Index movie. Second is that text in the opening and ending seem to be very poorly compressed (See pictures 2 & 11) - something that I noticed immediately before even looking at the JP disc. The colours on the title card (screenshot 1) also look pretty muted in comparison. This doesn't seem to carry across to the episodes themselves nor have I seen this from any other Sentai release. Third is that the audio for the performance in episode 1 has once again been replaced for both audio streams. Other than that things are as I expected. The show doesn't look as fantastic as I remember it being, but you'll see that the problems are inherited from the Japanese BDs (good example being the back of Yui's head in screenshot 10).

01-19-2016, 10:19 PM	#454
BigOnAnime Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Mar 2015 Location:Minnesota, USA 4K collection:17 Blu-ray collection:671 DVD collection:714	Yeah, the banding was also in the Japanese release. While the full screencaps are gone (Imageshack sucks now, though if you try URL uploading to Tinypic they might work again) you can see the original Japanese singles also suffered from it despite being on more discs (The BD box has 14 episodes and a bunch of extras on 4 discs). http://konfan.blogspot.com/2011/11/k...eview-and.html Goes to further show Japanese releases while almost always better aren't always perfect.

01-24-2016, 12:46 PM	#459
ApocalypseKnight Active Member Top contributor Member since:Nov 2010 Trading Score:2	Anyone knows if there's a difference in AQ/PQ between the GitS: Arise OVA imports made by Funimation and their domestic release? I have the imports for the OVAs but haven't bought the movie yet. There's a pretty big difference in price for the movie so if the AQ/PQ is going to be the same perharps I should wait...

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