The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Hrabnaz

I'm new here but I've been lurking on this thread for a long time. Thank you everyone for providing so much useful information.

Others have probably noticed this already but it appears that Naiera has been banned. This is unfortunate since he was a prolific contributor to this thread and elsewhere. Does anyone know what's up with that?

PM'd you about Naiera.

[Zaku77]

Originally Posted by professorwho

PM'd you about Naiera.

I'm quite curious about this too.

[kevers7290]

Please let me know if you can professorwho. I hope Naiera isn't banned permanently. He was a stickler for grammar but he and I got on well enough, sharing a distaste for Funimation and love of Aniplex "clones."

[kk1]

Of all the people here Naiera gets banned?

[omarchafa]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Ugh... I'm quite mixed on the presentation. Obviously the UHD is an upscale of the 1920x1080p source, but there is some sharpening applied which is kind of distracting, but I'm not sure how it appears in motion on its own. If it's not distracting, then I might pick up the UHD, as the HDR seems to be very good when compared to the SDR native BD.

You should pick up the UHD version if you can. The HDR alone is worth it. I'm not a fan of Edge Enhancement, but this one wasn't overly done or distracting enough. Overall, it almost looks native 4K or at least better than most upscales.

Sound! Euphonium Movie if finally out this week:

Disc Title: SOUND EUPHONIUM THE MOVIE
Disc Size: 42,272,094,208 bytes
Protection: AACS(v68)
Playlist: 00002.MPLS  
Size: 34,058,526,720 bytes
Length: 1:40:42.202
Total Bitrate: 45.09 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 0 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: English / 0 kbps  
Subtitle: English / 0 kbps

I'm not good with this BDinfo stuff, but that's what I can pulled off from DVDFab.

I watched the movie today, and I can confirmed that bitrate is constantly hitting in the 40Mbps+ range. I saw no color banding, no macroblocking, or any flaws especially the night scenes. Very flawless encode, almost as if it's just a direct clone to the JP BD. I'm surprised how well this one was done.

[Kougeru]

Originally Posted by omarchafa

You should pick up the UHD version if you can. The HDR alone is worth it. I'm not a fan of Edge Enhancement, but this one wasn't overly done or distracting enough. Overall, it almost looks native 4K or at least better than most upscales.

Sound! Euphonium Movie if finally out this week:

Disc Title: SOUND EUPHONIUM THE MOVIE
Disc Size: 42,272,094,208 bytes
Protection: AACS(v68)
Playlist: 00002.MPLS  
Size: 34,058,526,720 bytes
Length: 1:40:42.202
Total Bitrate: 45.09 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 0 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: English / 0 kbps  
Subtitle: English / 0 kbps

I'm not good with this BDinfo stuff, but that's what I can pulled off from DVDFab.

I watched the movie today, and I can confirmed that bitrate is constantly hitting in the 40Mbps+ range. I saw no color banding, no macroblocking, or any flaws especially the night scenes. Very flawless encode, almost as if it's just a direct clone to the JP BD. I'm surprised how well this one was done.

That looks like a direct rip of the JP. File size is basically the same. Curious though, does it have the DTS Headphone-X track? I noticed a lot of US releases don't include those. And unrelated to the actual quality...are they using yellow subs like they did for A Silent Voice? *blagh*

[NLScavenger]

I never check the Movies and TV Shows subforums, but I guess Naiera got banned over something there. Not the first time that happened.

Originally Posted by Kougeru

That looks like a direct rip of the JP. File size is basically the same. Curious though, does it have the DTS Headphone-X track? I noticed a lot of US releases don't include those. And unrelated to the actual quality...are they using yellow subs like they did for A Silent Voice? *blagh*

It's not a copy of the JP BD. US BD uses the theatrical version instead of the home video version with corrections.

https://twitter.com/LUCKYMIZORE/stat...89577786716161

US BD top, JP BD bottom

[pikagreg]

Anyone check out the US Tokyo Godfathers yet?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Anyone check out the US Tokyo Godfathers yet?

I hope someone does. I can provide screenshots from the UK BD for a comparison.

[The Collector FX]

Originally Posted by kk1

Of all the people here Naiera gets banned?

Those were my thoughts. When ever he posts, his replies are usually a few words in length, maybe four at best. How does someone like that end up on a shit-list?

I guess ProfessorWho knows something about it but I'm not gonna bug him about the matter if it's not something he's at liberty to post in a thread like this one.

Didn't CFX get banned too?

I've noticed in the "Post Pics Of Your Anime Collection" thread that alot of senior members who used to collect boat loads of anime like we do have all but disappeared. Wonder if they just sold their collection and didn't tell anyone. I see that happening ALOT on YouTube. People collect for a couple years and just end up hocking it on eBay cuz they got bored...

[Gorgon]

Haven't see Gouki on for a few months either but doubt he was banned.

[gundamcero]

Pretty sure if you are suspended it will say so on your profile. From what I know if it says Banned your account is now inactive. Maybe Neoz can correct me.

[Kougeru]

For some reason I can't reply to NLScavenger. I've tried twice, it says my posts were made but then I get redirected to the main anime subforum

@ NLScavenger

Thank you for correcting my ignorance. I was just making an assumption based on the file size being extremely close to my own copy that I imported. I felt bad after spending so much on my copy. It was my first time importing a CE/LE and was really expensive for me. But it's my favorite franchise so I really wanted the bonuses. I feel a bit better about my purchase after seeing the US version isn't using the corrected version. That kind of thing is very important to me. If it's too far off topic then please PM the answer if you can, but I'm curious as to why the US release wouldn't be using the corrected version. Is it simply because they didn't want to wait for it?

[BigOnAnime]

In most cases, when a company released something using the TV or theatrical masters rather than the home video version, it was by accident. ADV didn't intentionally use the TV masters for Martian Successor Nadesico (this is why the dub doesn't sync properly on the Nozomi releases that used the JP Blu-rays for the video source), FUNimation didn't intentionally use the TV masters for Sankarea or nearly for Ben-To (fans caught it prior to release), and VIZ didn't intentionally use the TV masters for Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan: Demon Capital. It can happen due to negligence on the Japanese side too, like they mixed up the masters and then sent it over thinking they sent the home video version. Back in the days before legal streaming and simulcasts, and the main legal way to watch stuff was via discs, this was more likely to happen.

[professorwho]

Eleven Arts’ titles have all used theatrical masters, so if I had to take a guess, they never asked for updated home video masters, and/or decided to use their theatrical masters supplied for theater usage.

[NLScavenger]

Production on home video releases can take months, so it is perhaps possible that production started before a corrected master is made available (and maybe the international distributors are not made aware of the existence of such a master).

[BigOnAnime]

And if they don't have anything on hand to do a comparison, that doesn't help either. Some instances of companies using the wrong masters were discovered years later. Some noticed early on with Martian Successor Nadesico when ADV had it that ADV used the TV masters, others didn't notice until the disclaimer on the Nozomi DVD LE release.
http://catsspat.dyndns.org:2080/anim...001/index.html
https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...ge8#post243887

[Mangaranga]

Had a quick look at the US BD of Promare, pretty much only comparing scenes which I remember being a bit troublesome on the JP BD. First impressions seem to be that it's a pretty good release. Matched the JP BD for a lot of what I saw, although there were some moments which had slightly more banding, and two instances of blocking which weren't on the JP BD, albeit these were in areas of the screen no normal person would be looking at.

To my surprise, in busier scenes such as the opening credits and a certain scene around the 1 hour mark, the US BD actually seems to preserve fine detail slightly better than the JP BD, albeit it was only in these busy, effects heavy moments I noticed this. Not exactly a transformative experience by any means, but still worth pointing out. Also worth pointing out is that the BD is 24p as opposed to 23.976.

US BD



JP BD

[mp3dom]

It is common in japanese releases to apply on complex scenes a lowpass filter, which indeed "smooth" details a bit in some way but allows for better compression efficiency (since there are a lower amount of high frequencies (details)). This is also very visible on your second shot (the "wireframe"-effect body). The intensity in the red right-eye (but not only there) is very attenuated due to chroma lowpass filter applied.

Other than that... US BD looks a lot like a 30 Mbps CBR without stuffing bits.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by mp3dom

Other than that... US BD looks a lot like a 30 Mbps CBR without stuffing bits.

That’s the norm with Shout Factory- most of their releases use a CBR or something close to it.