It's far from the worst thing I've ever seen. Really, I think it's unfair to judge it based solely on a YouTube video- even though I think there will be more DNR than I'd like, with YT being so compressed, you can't even tell.
As for HDR, if it's on-par with Cobra, then I'd honestly be okay with it- you haven't lived until you've seen Space Adventure Cobra in HDR. It is an artistic assault on the eyes of color that pushes the HDR10 format to its limits. I'd honestly give the picture quality a 6 or 7/10 simply because the HDR is THAT good. Had there been no severe DNR, it would be a perfect 10.
also youtube is reducing the bitrate do to the corona virus
They aren't, actually. They're supposed to default every playback to 480p, but you can still choose any resolution you want, and some of us still get 1080p or 2160p by default anyway.
Netflix, Apple+ and Disney+ have been reducing their bitrates, in Europe for now.
I'm unable to look at the AKIRA trailer at proper resolution but from what I could discern, it looked alright (though that might be masked by the fact that mostly darker scenes were used in that trailer).
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works - Dynit (IT) vs Aniplex (JP)
[Show spoiler]The Dynit BD has a few improvements over the Aniplex BD. The banding has been reduced (see the phone screenshot for instance), more detail is preserved (see the gate in the first screenshot) and there’s no loss of definition from filtering (see the last two screenshots).
Size: 15,264,645,120 bytes
Length: 0:47:41.942
Total Bitrate: 42.67 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 37993 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle: Japanese / 231.366 kbps
Subtitle: English / 229.999 kbps
Episode #18 appears to be bit-for-bit identical Aniplex BD, to the point where screenshots have the same MD5 checksum. Maybe other episodes are identical as well, but I haven't compared those.
Episode #18 appears to be bit-for-bit identical Aniplex BD, to the point where screenshots have the same MD5 checksum. Maybe other episodes are identical as well, but I haven't compared those.
Bitrates are identical.
The reason why I checked the Aniplex BD version of episode #18 is because I was curious how this shot was handled:
2 BD-25s... low bitrates (with good optimization for the target)... it looks like that French authoring house that has a lewd name (I mean, they really do)...
2 BD-25s... low bitrates (with good optimization for the target)... it looks like that French authoring house that has a lewd name (I mean, they really do)...
Don't have any real data for this one as it's very much a first impressions, but I had a quick look at Funi's Steins;Gate 0 the other day. It peaked my interest seeing as the episodes were actually quite large for a Funi release - bigger than the Japanese release which had 5.6gb episodes. Unfortunately this was only the case for Part 1 (2x BD50s @31mbps vs 1x BD50 & 1xBD25 for Part 2 @21mbps), but honestly, it ultimately didn't matter in the end.
Unsurprisingly this show suffers from the usual White Fox production problems, but unlike the Japanese release this isn't filtered at all, so there's ugly banding and blocking, particularly in darker scenes. Don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near the level of bad as the original series, but not fantastic by any means either. That doesn't mean the Japanese BD is immune from criticism either as it also looks pretty meh (25mbps iirc), and despite having been filtered there's still banding. In direct comparisons the Japanese version also shows a slight green tint in comparison to Funi's as well, something I assume is due to said filtering.
At a slight tangent this is a prime example of a show where, through my stereo setup at least, Funi's 5.1 upmixes of the OP/ED songs sound like utter bass boost trash.
Last edited by Mangaranga; 04-08-2020 at 08:05 PM.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
(Sentai Filmworks, USA)
Episode 1: 1080i MPEG-4 AVC Upscaled
1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
21.64 mbps
Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) 4418 kbps
Where to begin... it doesn't look like crap, but for what you're paying, it sure as f**k isn't worth the $800 with regards to picture quality, though most of the blame lies on the Japanese licensors, but Sentai isn't free from partial blame here.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the greatest anime of all time, yet its home releases have been quite something... A 110 episode OVA released over the span of 9 years, the series was shot on 16mm film and released on VHS and Laserdisc. Then in the 2000s, the series was released on DVD, but there were several changes:
First, several scenes from the first two seasons were fully re-animated, however, they look like dogsh*t because the character designs are totally different than the original series ones, and they look digital in nature- nothing was done to make it look like it was done on cels (film grain, wobble, dirt, nothing). Those scenes were done at 30i standard definition, and because of that, the show is interlaced on Blu-ray due to those terrible scenes being re-used. Obviously those scenes would have to be upscaled, but the Japanese licensor didn't do anything about the series, and simply re-used the existing remaster which was presumably finished in SD because I don't really see anything that screams like HD clarity here (it may have been HD, but if it is, I just don't see it). The only HD element here is the text, which was 100% re-done for the Japanese Blu-ray, and it is the cleanest element, but still not perfect. More on that later.
Is this an improvement over the Japanese DVDs? Yes. Absolutely. The higher bitrate of Blu-ray allows for less compression than the old DVDs, and as such looks a ton better despite no real gain with regards to detail.
That said, the Japanese Laserdiscs are the definite release of the series in its original form. Yes, the early episodes look like crap due to being late 80s LDs, but there are zero changes, so like the original Star Wars trilogy, Laserdisc is the best official release of it unaltered.
So, how does it REALLY look? Meh. Not terrible, but not even as good as it could've been given its circumstances. Take the Galaxy Express 999 TV series release by Discotek- Justin Sevakis' upscale is superb and has no real issues (outside of some possible source compression issues) with regards to the Blu-ray. LOTGH here has issues.
There is "frozen grain" to the image in several shots. While taking screencaps, I noted that shots 16, 30, 33, 35, 47 and 53 have it. It is rather noticeable, but isn't a consistent thing, so when it does show up briefly it is distracting. There also is DNR in the master, but its application is rather odd. Most shots have decent to good grain levels, while there are some shots here and there with quite a large amount of grain, but then there's a few shots which are DNR'd smooth and look like crap. Now, the issue here is that the grain levels are inconsistent, and if the company in charge of the remaster decided to DNR a few shots, why not slightly alter the grain levels in a few shots so they have consistency? I'm not asking for DNR, I'm just asking for consistency. Matching grain levels is a common thing, and Paramount's behind-the-scenes of the 4K UHD for "It's A Wonderful Life" has a part which explains how grain matching was achieved;
The video compression by Sentai is fine. There definitely is some macroblocking, but nothing too severe nor noticeable in motion (only when going frame by frame). There is surprisingly some bitrate optimization via the graph, which is odd for Sentai, who usually has very little in the way of optimization. It is interlaced, so I only chose frames with no interlacing issues to show off what it looks like, however, there are two problems with the interlacing;
First is that some of the panning shots appear to have been re-done even with the original cels into 30i and look strange. They stand out as being higher frame rate when everything else is 24 fps in episode 1.
Second is that, yet again, Sentai (and their subsidiary Maiden Japan) cannot figure out how to do interlacing right. That said, I personally didn't notice it, but slerch666 sure did, so I'll simply quote his post on it;
Quote:
Originally Posted by slerch666
Just as they messed up most of their SDBD releases by encoding it poorly, they did the same with LotGH. There are scenes that are blends of frames (or that's what it looks like to me) and it pisses me off.
It should have just been a 1080i release instead of pushed to 1080p poorly. But I guess North American buyers just can't deal, stand, or understand why something would just be 1080i when 1080p is SSSSOOOOOOOO much better... sigh.
The video quality does NOT justify the price of the box on any level.
Not including the name plates for characters, planets, locations, etc is another insult we suffer on this release (and the HiDive stream).
In some regard, I believe the HiDive stream is a superior presentation as it doesn't suffer the frame blending issues the BDs do. Or whatever the technical terms is for how they screwed it up.
Onto the subtitles and audio, he also brings up probably THE biggest issue with Sentai's release.
Pretty much everyone who saw LOTGH before Sentai put it on HiDive watched it fansubbed. I did, I'll admit. Sentai's translation is actually superior to the fansub translation, but Sentai is missing one key feature: the name plates. Essentially, when a new location or character is introduced, on screen text of it appears, giving the viewer information on who or what is being shown. The fansubs keep it, while Sentai lacks it.
Now, I've been told that on the Japanese Blu-ray release these pieces of text were simply subtitle files generated by the player. Even if they weren't, there's no reason they shouldn't be here. I contacted Sentai when I got my BD upon release and I remember their reply being "we never got them." It may sound stupid, and it is, but I do feel bad for them. It may not have been told to them that the on-screen text was NOT burnt in to the video master, and they'd have to ask the licensor for the Japanese subtitles in the licensing agreement. This post goes into more detail on the topic.
I believe Sentai, if aware of the on-screen text (which they should've been), should have added in the text to their subtitle files, but it would require tracking down either the Laserdiscs or the JP BDs, translating the text, and adding it into the subs. I make such a big deal about this because if you watch the show without the on-screen text at all, you'll quite often have no idea who people are and where events are taking place. I do not advocate piracy, but in this case, if you own Sentai's BD, I suggest adding in the fansubs so you can actually know what's going on.
Audio is in Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) and sounds fine. LOTGH was either finished in mono or stereo, so this is a remix. This is a smaller issue I have with Sentai's release- the original audio mix is not present. The Japanese BD has an LPCM 2.0 track which replicated the original mix, and Sentai's own packaging and website description mentions DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks, but they are not present. As I don't have a surround setup, I cannot say how good the 5.1 track is with surround usage, but I'd guess it's mininal, with only the legendary soundtrack taking advantage of the extra channels.
So... was it worth $800? Hell no. But I am glad to own the best anime of all time, so there's that. Instead, stream the show on HiDive. Sure, you're missing the name plates, but it's legal, doesn't have the interlacing issues, and you don't have to pay $800.
I might talk about the LOTGH movies in the set on a later date, but not now.
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