The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

[Show spoiler]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

Promare - Dynit BD

Screenshots taken with MPC-HC + madvr (Jinc chroma upscaling). I used MPV first, but when I tried to do a comparison with Mangaranga's US/JP screenshots, I noticed that MPV introduced a color shift in the first shot with undesirable artifacts. I don't know what the caused the shift.

Left to right: JP - US - IT - IT (MPV)


Left to right: JP - US - IT


Slowpoke pics comparison

https://slow.pics/c/kHb2gBsc

Anyway, the picture quality gets a big thumbs up. This is the best way to watch Promare at home. No low-pass filtering bull from the JP BD, and better encoding than the US BD.

Screenshots


Main feature

Disc Title: PROMARE
Disc Label: PROMARE
Disc Size: 44,916,700,474 bytes
Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00004.MPLS
Size: 36,089,195,904 bytes
Length: 1:51:06.660
Total Bitrate: 43.31 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 33951 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Italian / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  3507 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz /  1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  3479 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz /  1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: Italian / 36.548 kbps
Subtitle: Italian / 0.535 kbps

Side: Galo

Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00005.MPLS
Size: 3,054,867,840 bytes
Length: 0:10:16.616
Total Bitrate: 39.63 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 35863 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Italian / DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1872 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: Italian / 46.537 kbps

Side: Lio

Playlist: 00006.MPLS
Size: 2,963,322,240 bytes
Length: 0:09:58.806
Total Bitrate: 39.59 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 35825 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Italian / DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1878 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: Italian / 37.166 kbps

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Promare - Dynit BD

Screenshots taken with MPC-HC + madvr (Jinc chroma upscaling). I used MPV first, but when I tried to do a comparison with Mangaranga's US/JP screenshots, I noticed that MPV introduced a color shift in the first shot with undesirable artifacts. I don't know what the caused the shift.

Left to right: JP - US - IT - IT (MPV)

Color in the MPV screenshot appears to be different because of a rounding error perhaps. MPC-HC+madvr uses dithering which can help prevent rounding errors. Once dithering is added to MPV config file, the result looks the same.

[NLScavenger]

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer - Nozomi / Anime Limited BD

I still need to watch 00 BD first, but I'm not looking forward to this film. It wasn't good from what I remember.

Screenshots made in MPV with Spline36 chroma upscaling and dithering.



BDInfo

Playlist: 00001.MPLS
Size: 35,872,865,856 bytes
Length: 2:00:27.595
Total Bitrate: 39.71 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 24972 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  4608 kbps / 16-bit
Audio: English / LPCM Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  4608 kbps / 16-bit
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1536 kbps / 16-bit
Audio: English / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitle: English / 49.490 kbps
Subtitle: English / 4.174 kbps

[professorwho]

Yikes at the bitrate. LPCM is perfect for mono and stereo, but for surrounds it doesn't work well if you have multiple of them. As it is, 12.29 mbps is eaten up just by the audio out of the possible 48, so, because it goes over 8 for audio, the max video bitrate had to be lowered to ~35 mbps, which is still high enough to have a good encode as it currently is, but them encoding it at just under 25 is a waste of space, unless there's other extras on the disc.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Yikes at the bitrate. LPCM is perfect for mono and stereo, but for surrounds it doesn't work well if you have multiple of them. As it is, 12.29 mbps is eaten up just by the audio out of the possible 48, so, because it goes over 8 for audio, the max video bitrate had to be lowered to ~35 mbps, which is still high enough to have a good encode as it currently is, but them encoding it at just under 25 is a waste of space, unless there's other extras on the disc.

Disc size is ~42.5 GB

[Mangaranga]

No so much on the video front, but I received the K-ON! Ultimate Collection set today and the mono Japanese audio in Episode 11 is still present. I assume this is a defect with the original materials they were sent, as it appears that the exact same HDCAM master was used for the new encode. This begs the question, why were new materials never requested, or at least why wasn't audio from the JPN BD used to fix it at least?

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

JP caps for The Twelve Kingdoms can be found here.https://web.archive.org/web/20110519....php?p=1829310

A bit late but finally got around to capturing those screens from Discotek's BD of Twelve Kingdoms to match and compare the ones posted by hissatsu from episode 1 of the JP BD release (the first 10 caps, skipped the last four).

01 - https://i.imgur.com/Hcc7Mks.png

02 - https://i.imgur.com/7ib4fT6.png

03 - https://i.imgur.com/8D5w9b2.png

04 - https://i.imgur.com/hwPFrmR.png

05 - https://i.imgur.com/gt1qi3G.png

06 - https://i.imgur.com/3MbwR0h.png

07 - https://i.imgur.com/RIGdIZG.png

08 - https://i.imgur.com/yhXS47m.png

09 - https://i.imgur.com/QrNG79w.png

10 - https://i.imgur.com/TCDdOxg.png

Noticed a couple of pretty obvious differences from the get go.

The JP BD's pillarbox bars look noticeably greyer than the Discotek ones though I think what's going on is the hissatsu caps are simply just displaying the straight 4:3 image and the grey pillarbox bars on the side aren't part of the cap but instead is what's being generated by the image hoster, dunno for sure though just my best guess (EDIT: it's exactly what's happening. My dumbass forgot to look at the Hissatsu caps are 1440x1080 so... yeah there is no problem with grey bars in the JP BD).

The other obvious difference is the color palette of the JP BD appears more deeply saturated compared to Discotek, have no idea which one is supposed to be more accurate.

Also noticed a few other differences that were more on the subtle but nonetheless interesting side.

The compression in the Discotek release seems to have been handled slightly better with what appears to be some dithering applied giving it a less blocky appearance than the JP BD - have a look at images 5 and 9 where the blockiness seen in Youko's hair and the kochou's wings appear less blocky in the Discotek release.

The downside to this extra dithering is that the outlines of certain objects and characters can appear less defined in the Discotek release - a good example of this can be seen in the rotating wheel of the end credits in image 10 looking more defined in the JP BD.

Another advantage of the JP BD - in image 7 there is what appears to be some edge ringing present within the line work of Keiki's black outfit that can be seen in the Discotek image that is totally absent in the JP BD.

Lastly, I saw less banding in the Discotek release - let's go back to image 7, the gradients of the green wall look a bit smoother in the Discotek image compared to the JP BD.

As for the video bitrate, don't own the JP release and have no idea. Disc 1 of the Discotek release contains the first nine eps with a 3:45:32 runtime and averages 22 Mb/s -

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     : 3 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 3 h 45 min
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 22.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 31.0 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

[professorwho]

For reference, the Media Blasters release is a rip-and-re-author type of release, as in, they took the JP BD, ripped it, added in dub and subs, and then re-authored it.

[vincentric]

Has anyone posted screencaps for Discotek's Blu-ray release of Magic Knight Rayearth? If not I can provide some if anyone is interested. I don't have the JP BD to compare it to.

[BigOnAnime]

To my knowledge, no, and surprisingly, nobody posted anything in the Fandom Post thread either.

[vincentric]

Alright then here are some MKR caps from episode 1.

Didn't notice any major issues with the video for the most part overall PQ is looking very good. Too bad there are no JP BD caps available to match. I did see Justin mention how they were able to fix some things that were in the JP release. Not sure exactly what was fixed. Either way this is basically another job well done by Discotek/Sevakis.

Disc 1 contains the first 9 episodes with a 3:45:35 runtime and a video bitrate that averages 23 Mb/s -

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     : 3 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 3 h 45 min
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 23.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 31.0 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

[jsevakis]

Rayearth UK is the same discs as the Discotek version.
We recreated an earlier version of the 1st OP that was accidentally omitted from the Japanese BD release. I forget what else we did. It was quite a few years ago now.
Resyncing the dub was not fun, since it was originally made with a film transfer that was SLIGHTLY miscalibrated, causing sync to drift.

[Ashura]

Originally Posted by jsevakis

Rayearth UK is the same discs as the Discotek version.
We recreated an earlier version of the 1st OP that was accidentally omitted from the Japanese BD release. I forget what else we did. It was quite a few years ago now.
Resyncing the dub was not fun, since it was originally made with a film transfer that was SLIGHTLY miscalibrated, causing sync to drift.

Here's everything I can remember! Though I think there was a lot more.

-It's the opposite. The intro on the original Japanese BD was the unfinished intro, with incomplete animation and missing effects from when it originally aired on TV. We only had the finished intro in creditless form, so we cut in the updated scenes and recreated all the Japanese titles. In the extras, we included all of the versions of the opening throughout the TV run, which were numerous.

-Around episode 9, one of the director credits (I think) changes in Japanese, and that was omitted on the HD remasters by accident, but we fixed that too.

-The 'Who is it?' segment at the end of the first episode was actually unfinished and missing the Japanese text that's on all other episodes, so we cut in the correct one. We did include the creditless one as a bonus.

-To add a bit about the dub, as Justin said, the sync was funky. The old Media Blasters remastered DVD actually goes out of sync pretty badly in later episodes if you look at it since they didn't bother to really correct the speed drift.

[NLScavenger]

Weathering with You GKIDS BD screencaps: https://highdefdiscnews.com/2020/08/...y-screenshots/

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Weathering with You GKIDS BD screencaps: https://highdefdiscnews.com/2020/08/...y-screenshots/

Toho BD screencaps



I don't know how the HighDefDiscNews caps were taken, so I used bilinear chroma upscaling to play safe. Colors are slightly different but I don't know if that's caused by the screencapping method or not.

GKIDS BD uses home video master and the low pass filtering from Toho BD seems to be gone.

Toho BD (check red lights)

[Rosenkreutz]

Hello, I'm new here, but recently I decided to finally start upgrading to Blu-ray. However, I noticed that there were a handful of older series that were only re-released in standard definition on Blu-ray, but I was curious if these releases were actually an upgrade from their previous DVD releases in terms of quality. I've read that SDBD releases can potentially be better, but that it depends on the particular title. The paticular SDBD releases I was curious to learn about are the below.

Eastern Star: "Fist of the North Star," "Blue Seed" & "Medabots"
Sentai Filmworks/Section23 Films: "Orphen" "Saiyuki" "Sakura Wars" "Pet Shop of Horrors" & "Kino's Journey."
Nozomi Entertainment: "A.D. Police to Protect and Serve"

Additionally, I've been perusing this thread a little bit and saw some posts talking about how some regular Blu-rays were actually a downgrade to their older DVD releases for one reason or another. Is there a compiled list of which anime fall into this category? The only examples I know of offhand are that some of the DBZ releases have washed out colors, The Big O no longer has it's iconic Flash Gordon-esque opening and apparently Ghost in the Shell SAC/2nd Gig are just total messes all around.

I can provide a list of all the DVDs that I was planning to upgrade to Blu-ray if that helps at all, though it's a bit lengthy...

"Afro Samurai," "Afro Samurai Resurrection," "Akira," "Baccano!" "Black Jack The Movie," "BLAME!," "Blue Submarine No. 6," "Boogiepop Phantom," "Captain Harlock Arcadia of My Youth," "Cowboy Bebop," "Cowboy Bebop - The Movie," "Space Adventure Cobra The Movie," "Cobra the Animation," "Crusher Joe The Movie," "Ergo Proxy," "Death Note," "Fatal Fury The Movie," "Fullmetal Alchemist," "Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa," "Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood," "The Garden of Sinners/Kara no Kyoukai," "Ghost in the Shell," "Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence," "Golgo 13 The Professional," "GunGrave," "Gunsmith Cats," "Jin-Roh The Wolf Brigade," "Lupin the 3rd Bye Bye Lady Liberty/Dragon of Doom/Island of Assassins/Castle of Cagliostro/Legend of the Gold of Babylon/Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure/3rd Voyage to Danger," "Magic Knight Rayearth," "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water," "New Cutey Honey," "NieA_7," "Night on the Galactic Railroad," "Ninja Scroll," "Outlaw Star," "Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt," "Paprika," "Patlabor," "Perfect Blue," "Pokemon Indigo League," "Pokemon Movies 1-3," "Princess Tutu," "Record Of The Lodoss War/Chronicles of a Heroic Knight," "Revolutionary Girl Utena," "Redline," "Riding Bean," "Robot Carnival," "Samurai Champloo," "Serial Experiments Lain," "Street Fighter II The Animated Movie," "Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust," "Wolf's Rain," "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie," "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions" & "Yu Yu Hakusho"

Any help would be much appreciated, in the meantime I'll keep browsing the earlier posts on the thread to see if any of my above questions were already addressed.

[professorwho]

Anything Discotek is good, so no need to worry on those ones. As for Sentai, avoid those SD-BDs. Not sure about Nozomi's one...

As for the rest... give me like, a day, and I can probably go title by title and say if they're worth the upgrade and which version to get on BD.

[xXx$uicide_Ma$terxXx]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Anything Discotek is good, so no need to worry on those ones. As for Sentai, avoid those SD-BDs. Not sure about Nozomi's one...

As for the rest... give me like, a day, and I can probably go title by title and say if they're worth the upgrade and which version to get on BD.

Except Cobra 4k.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by xXx$uicide_Ma$terxXx

Except Cobra 4k.

Disagree. I absolutely despise DNR, but even I have to admit it looks solid. Far from perfect, but the HDR is so... hypnotic, it's easily worth a purchase.

[pikagreg]

Fist of the North Star TV had some issues playing on ps3/ps4 I remember though idk if this was fixed later.