The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread - Page 251 - Blu-ray Forum

SpaceDandy · 07-22-2020, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TThomas

RahXephon
German / French / Dutch Blu-ray by Dybex / Nipponart (not English friendly)
[…]

Capture from the french BDs, are you sure you did not compress the images? There does not appear to be as much edge enhancement on the shots shown here, also has much less pixelization and aliasing. The authoring should be the same so it is really confusing. I know the upscale is fairly weak for RahXephon so it could be a on per episode-basis.

TThomas · 07-22-2020, 03:25 PM

I'm sure I did not compress them.
But as the timestamp of the Dybex BD is from November last year and it carries the same audio tracks (+ same audio error on ep3 german track) I assume the discs are 100% identical.
But yes, the quality varies from scene to scene and I guess I took several "not so good" scenes.

SpaceDandy · 07-22-2020, 04:21 PM

Alright, I am quite curious to see how it performs compared to the JP release. AVMedia is a good authoring house in general so I would assume it matches, but you never know.

(They're responsible for French Akira BD as well as a few recent releases from Dybex such as FMA2003 & Lain which both have excellent image quality)

professorwho · 07-22-2020, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

I really need to figure out how to screencap Blu-rays and such.

I've agreed to teach you how, but you just haven't told me when to have a Discord call for me explaining it.

TThomas · 07-22-2020, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

AVMedia is a good authoring house in general so I would assume it matches, but you never know.

My personal experience is mixed, due to issues with the German audio track.
Not only approx 3min of the German Dub is missing (replaced with French? audio), they also decided to ommit the 5.1 audio track from the earlier DVD release. However both issues should have been spotted by the QC from the distributor.
(Escaflowne, another Dybex BD, also had 20 seconds of german audio missing - however that was only a next-episode-preview and nothing serious)

SpaceDandy · 07-22-2020, 08:56 PM

Actually the 5.1 is lacking because it's completly made up! The japanese blu-ray presents solely 2.0 PCM, 2.0 for the original DVD too. Anything advertised 5.1 for this series is just 2.0 with, at best, 5.1 dub atop. And I think that's pretty bad so uniformizing and using solely 2.0 is more logical in my opinion.
From what you describe the QC step seem definitely lacking? But maybe that's Nipponart problem? I know their old Cowboy Bebop release (DVD) was also flawed with the audio on a specific episode. It's not their "first" on audio problems.

I can't talk for Escaflowne, I don't know who did the authoring on that. I just know the project was all handled by Selecta Vision and the result is well... "meh"?
But everything AVM did specifically for the French distributor (or french release) was fine. There were likely a real QC step as well for those releases.

HunterKIller · 07-24-2020, 05:49 PM

Video quality of Maid Sama old and new version from Sentai are the same? Only different it's English dub and new artwork?

TThomas · 07-24-2020, 06:06 PM

It's the same English Dub as before.
Only some early DVD printruns didn't include English Dub.

HunterKIller · 07-24-2020, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TThomas

It's the same English Dub as before.
Only some early DVD printruns didn't include English Dub.

So... Only new artwork? lol

BigOnAnime · 07-24-2020, 09:54 PM

Discs are likely completely new, Sentai very rarely re-uses discs. The Clannad SteelBook uses new discs, the Grave of the Fireflies SteelBook is using a new disc, the Elfen Lied SteelBook also uses new discs. The credit roll is likely also different, a telltale sign would be "Griffin Vance" under "Producer" and "Toru Iwakami" under "Executive Producer" as Eiichi Takahashi seemed to have left the company in 2018. The biggest telltale sign of course would be the copyright at the very end of the credit roll.

vincentric · 07-28-2020, 05:39 AM

Not sure if already posted, tried searching but couldn't find any results.

Have a few comparisons for the 2016 US DVD and 2020 US BD of After War Gundam X. From episode 1 exact frames:

01 - DVD | BD

02 - DVD | BD

03 - DVD | BD

04 - DVD | BD

vincentric · 07-28-2020, 10:27 AM

Have another comparison to share this time between the 2013 US BD and 2019 US BD Steelbook release of Elfen Lied.

Don't have in-depth bdinfo/bitrate charts, only the rudimentary MPC-HC media info.

The average video bitrate for episode 1 of the 2013 release is 12.1 Mb/s:

Code:

Original source medium         : Blu-ray

Video
ID                             : 1
ID in the original source medi : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames     : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 26 min 35 s
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 12.1 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 35.0 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

The episode 1 average for the 2019 Steelbook is 21 Mb/s:

Code:

Original source medium         : Blu-ray

Video
ID                             : 1
ID in the original source medi : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames     : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 26 min 33 s
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 21.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 35.0 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

In spite of the 2019 release having a higher average bitrate I didn't see much difference compression-wise. What I did see is different brightness/gamma for the steelbook appearing darker compared to the brighter 2013 version:

01 - 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

02 - 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

03 - 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

04 - 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

The 2013 BD contained some banding in this particular scene that is greatly reduced/eliminated in the 2019 steelbook:

05- 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

The subtitles for signs and dialog is noticeably improved for the 2019 version as well:

06 - 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

07 - 2013 US BD | 2019 US BD

Overall video and subtitle improvements for the 2019 release are subtle but add up nicely plus inclusion of soundtrack cd is a good bonus for me it was worth getting the steelbook though of course, YMMV.

On a sidenote have not checked the video bitrates for the other episodes am unsure what the numbers look like aside from ep1.

BigOnAnime · 07-28-2020, 10:58 AM

If you want to compare to the Japanese Blu-rays, here's some shots. Also one of the main advantages the SteelBook has over the 2013 release is the audio quality on the English dub as there was muffled audio on all the episodes of the 2013 Blu-ray except the OVA. From what I can tell, the SteelBook solved that issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hissatsu

https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...191#post278191

vincentric · 07-28-2020, 11:11 AM

Glad to hear audio is improved as well. Will for sure try to get matching screencaps to compare to the JP BD next chance I get, no time for it at the moment.

Mangaranga · 07-28-2020, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincentric

Have another comparison to share this time between the 2013 US BD and 2019 US BD Steelbook release of Elfen Lied.

Overall video and subtitle improvements for the 2019 release are subtle but add up nicely plus inclusion of soundtrack cd is a good bonus for me it was worth getting the steelbook though of course, YMMV.

General rule of thumb is that if Sentai have put out a newer release of a show they released prior to 2015, always grab the new release. Sentai bought someone on board who can actually encode properly either at the end of 2014 or early 2015, and for pretty much all re-releases their new guy completely redoes everything properly (much better video encode with correct gamma, audio without defects like mono audio, and non aliased subtitles with improved typesetting). Re-releases of titles released after the new guy stepped in will pretty much always be the same encodes, even if the discs are slightly different or for a new dubbed release.

kevers7290 · 07-28-2020, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

General rule of thumb is that if Sentai have put out a newer release of a show they released prior to 2015, always grab the new release. Sentai bought someone on board who can actually encode properly either at the end of 2014 or early 2015, and for pretty much all re-releases their new guy completely redoes everything properly (much better video encode with correct gamma, audio without defects like mono audio, and non aliased subtitles with improved typesetting). Re-releases of titles released after the new guy stepped in will pretty much always be the same encodes, even if the discs are slightly different or for a new dubbed release.

I think we need a master list of re-released Sentai discs that have been re-encoded for video/audio with improvements etc.

kk1 · 07-28-2020, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevers7290

I think we need a master list of re-released Sentai discs that have been re-encoded for video/audio with improvements etc.

I think we need a sticky thread for every studio with releases added every month which we can then update for rereleases, OOP status, give them a star if they are the best release available etc.

BigOnAnime · 07-28-2020, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

General rule of thumb is that if Sentai have put out a newer release of a show they released prior to 2015, always grab the new release. Sentai bought someone on board who can actually encode properly either at the end of 2014 or early 2015, and for pretty much all re-releases their new guy completely redoes everything properly (much better video encode with correct gamma, audio without defects like mono audio, and non aliased subtitles with improved typesetting). Re-releases of titles released after the new guy stepped in will pretty much always be the same encodes, even if the discs are slightly different or for a new dubbed release.

It started with their July 2014 titles. I recently took a look, and going down this list and then looking at the credits on ANN (note that a bunch of Sentai shows are missing credits on ANN, I had to fix that on so many entries), David Williams started to stop doing Blu-rays starting with their July 2014 releases, he had a few after that point. They had Nick Lee who was largely doing DVDs before do some, then Joel McCray stepped in and has been doing everything since. Though I've noticed that now they're having Joel McCray and Ryan Anthony doing the disc authoring together, first noticed this on Prisma Phantasm and Vow in the Snow which released this month. They've moved the authoring credits to a Disc Credits page on the last disc of their releases starting with their November 2018 titles when they made an awful change to their back covers (Before | After).

vincentric · 07-28-2020, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincentric

Glad to hear audio is improved as well. Will for sure try to get matching screencaps to compare to the JP BD next chance I get, no time for it at the moment.

Working on it now as we speak. Am a dorky perfectionist trying to match exact frame (using frame by frame stepping) but finding it impossible to do for some of the caps taken from static imagery. Taking me longer than expected and may have to skip over some of them or note which ones aren't exact frame caps and call it a day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

General rule of thumb is that if Sentai have put out a newer release of a show they released prior to 2015, always grab the new release. Sentai bought someone on board who can actually encode properly either at the end of 2014 or early 2015, and for pretty much all re-releases their new guy completely redoes everything properly (much better video encode with correct gamma, audio without defects like mono audio, and non aliased subtitles with improved typesetting). Re-releases of titles released after the new guy stepped in will pretty much always be the same encodes, even if the discs are slightly different or for a new dubbed release.

Good to know I wasn't going crazy (though I think I already am) when I noticed that as well with some of the rereleases I've seen over the years. There was one outlier that was still a mixed bag for me on my end in terms of video quality - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...9#post16192159 Shared only just a few caps from the first episode in that post but all the other episodes I saw contained the same PQ result - CE has improved gamma/brightness and line detail but worse banding and macroblocking. CE was released end of 2014 so guessing old guy was still working on it, or new guy still had some kinks to work out.

vincentric · 07-28-2020, 11:30 PM

Got the Elfen Lied screen captures to share from the 2019 Steelbook to match the ones in the JP BD hissatsu caps. Will note the ones that aren't exact frames. Particularly had trouble with the images from scenes that remain static for several seconds or where they only use minimal eye or mouth animation made it impossible to pinpoint exactly when to start counting the frames).

01 - 2019 US BD
02 - 2019 US BD
03 - 2019 US BD
04 - 2019 US BD
05 - 2019 US BD
06 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)
07 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)
08 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)
09 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)
10 - 2019 US BD
11 - 2019 US BD
12 - 2019 US BD
13 - 2019 US BD
14 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)
15 - 2019 US BD
16 - 2019 US BD
17 - 2019 US BD
18 - 2019 US BD
19 - 2019 US BD
20 - 2019 US BD
21 - 2019 US BD
22 - 2019 US BD
23 - 2019 US BD
24 - 2019 US BD
25 - 2019 US BD
26 - 2019 US BD
27 - 2019 US BD
28 - 2019 US BD
29 - 2019 US BD
30 - 2019 US BD
31 - 2019 US BD
32 - 2019 US BD
33 - 2019 US BD
34 - 2019 US BD
35 - 2019 US BD
36 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)

07-22-2020, 08:56 PM	#5006
SpaceDandy Senior Member Top contributor Member since:Aug 2018	Actually the 5.1 is lacking because it's completly made up! The japanese blu-ray presents solely 2.0 PCM, 2.0 for the original DVD too. Anything advertised 5.1 for this series is just 2.0 with, at best, 5.1 dub atop. And I think that's pretty bad so uniformizing and using solely 2.0 is more logical in my opinion. From what you describe the QC step seem definitely lacking? But maybe that's Nipponart problem? I know their old Cowboy Bebop release (DVD) was also flawed with the audio on a specific episode. It's not their "first" on audio problems. I can't talk for Escaflowne, I don't know who did the authoring on that. I just know the project was all handled by Selecta Vision and the result is well... "meh"? But everything AVM did specifically for the French distributor (or french release) was fine. There were likely a real QC step as well for those releases. Last edited by SpaceDandy; 07-22-2020 at 09:17 PM.

07-28-2020, 10:27 AM	#5012
vincentric Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 Location:Bay Area, CA 4K collection:321 Blu-ray collection:1003 Trading Score:266	Have another comparison to share this time between the 2013 US BD and 2019 US BD Steelbook release of Elfen Lied. Don't have in-depth bdinfo/bitrate charts, only the rudimentary MPC-HC media info. The average video bitrate for episode 1 of the 2013 release is 12.1 Mb/s: Code: Original source medium : Blu-ray Video ID : 1 ID in the original source medi : 4113 (0x1011) Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High@L4.1 Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 26 min 35 s Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 12.1 Mb/s Maximum bit rate : 35.0 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 The episode 1 average for the 2019 Steelbook is 21 Mb/s: Code: Original source medium : Blu-ray Video ID : 1 ID in the original source medi : 4113 (0x1011) Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High@L4.1 Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 26 min 33 s Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 21.0 Mb/s Maximum bit rate : 35.0 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 In spite of the 2019 release having a higher average bitrate I didn't see much difference compression-wise. What I did see is different brightness/gamma for the steelbook appearing darker compared to the brighter 2013 version: 01 - 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD 02 - 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD 03 - 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD 04 - 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD The 2013 BD contained some banding in this particular scene that is greatly reduced/eliminated in the 2019 steelbook: 05- 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD The subtitles for signs and dialog is noticeably improved for the 2019 version as well: 06 - 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD 07 - 2013 US BD \| 2019 US BD Overall video and subtitle improvements for the 2019 release are subtle but add up nicely plus inclusion of soundtrack cd is a good bonus for me it was worth getting the steelbook though of course, YMMV. On a sidenote have not checked the video bitrates for the other episodes am unsure what the numbers look like aside from ep1.

07-22-2020, 03:25 PM	#5002
TThomas Senior Member Top contributor Member since:Mar 2019	I'm sure I did not compress them. But as the timestamp of the Dybex BD is from November last year and it carries the same audio tracks (+ same audio error on ep3 german track) I assume the discs are 100% identical. But yes, the quality varies from scene to scene and I guess I took several "not so good" scenes.

07-22-2020, 04:21 PM	#5003
SpaceDandy Senior Member Top contributor Member since:Aug 2018	Alright, I am quite curious to see how it performs compared to the JP release. AVMedia is a good authoring house in general so I would assume it matches, but you never know. (They're responsible for French Akira BD as well as a few recent releases from Dybex such as FMA2003 & Lain which both have excellent image quality)

07-24-2020, 05:49 PM	#5007
HunterKIller Expert Member Member since:Nov 2017 Location:Poland Trading Score:4	Video quality of Maid Sama old and new version from Sentai are the same? Only different it's English dub and new artwork?

07-24-2020, 06:06 PM	#5008
TThomas Senior Member Top contributor Member since:Mar 2019	It's the same English Dub as before. Only some early DVD printruns didn't include English Dub.

07-24-2020, 09:54 PM	#5010
BigOnAnime Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Mar 2015 Location:Minnesota, USA 4K collection:17 Blu-ray collection:671 DVD collection:714	Discs are likely completely new, Sentai very rarely re-uses discs. The Clannad SteelBook uses new discs, the Grave of the Fireflies SteelBook is using a new disc, the Elfen Lied SteelBook also uses new discs. The credit roll is likely also different, a telltale sign would be "Griffin Vance" under "Producer" and "Toru Iwakami" under "Executive Producer" as Eiichi Takahashi seemed to have left the company in 2018. The biggest telltale sign of course would be the copyright at the very end of the credit roll.

07-28-2020, 05:39 AM	#5011
vincentric Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 Location:Bay Area, CA 4K collection:321 Blu-ray collection:1003 Trading Score:266	Not sure if already posted, tried searching but couldn't find any results. Have a few comparisons for the 2016 US DVD and 2020 US BD of After War Gundam X. From episode 1 exact frames: 01 - DVD \| BD 02 - DVD \| BD 03 - DVD \| BD 04 - DVD \| BD

07-28-2020, 11:11 AM	#5014
vincentric Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 Location:Bay Area, CA 4K collection:321 Blu-ray collection:1003 Trading Score:266	Glad to hear audio is improved as well. Will for sure try to get matching screencaps to compare to the JP BD next chance I get, no time for it at the moment.

07-28-2020, 11:30 PM	#5020
vincentric Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Feb 2013 Location:Bay Area, CA 4K collection:321 Blu-ray collection:1003 Trading Score:266	Got the Elfen Lied screen captures to share from the 2019 Steelbook to match the ones in the JP BD hissatsu caps. Will note the ones that aren't exact frames. Particularly had trouble with the images from scenes that remain static for several seconds or where they only use minimal eye or mouth animation made it impossible to pinpoint exactly when to start counting the frames). 01 - 2019 US BD 02 - 2019 US BD 03 - 2019 US BD 04 - 2019 US BD 05 - 2019 US BD 06 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame) 07 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame) 08 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame) 09 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame) 10 - 2019 US BD 11 - 2019 US BD 12 - 2019 US BD 13 - 2019 US BD 14 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame) 15 - 2019 US BD 16 - 2019 US BD 17 - 2019 US BD 18 - 2019 US BD 19 - 2019 US BD 20 - 2019 US BD 21 - 2019 US BD 22 - 2019 US BD 23 - 2019 US BD 24 - 2019 US BD 25 - 2019 US BD 26 - 2019 US BD 27 - 2019 US BD 28 - 2019 US BD 29 - 2019 US BD 30 - 2019 US BD 31 - 2019 US BD 32 - 2019 US BD 33 - 2019 US BD 34 - 2019 US BD 35 - 2019 US BD 36 - 2019 US BD (not exact frame)

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