The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[vincentric]

Nice GitS UHD review.

I really don't like DNR, though if it is applied lightly I don't mind, but a moderate or heavy application of it usually results in a hard pass from me. I took a chance on Space Adventure Cobra UHD and absolutely hate how it looks like due to the heavy DNR in spite of the pretty HDR10.

It sounds as if the DNR in GitS isn't as bad but am in no hurry to get it, may wait for a BF deal.

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

Oh, I believe I actually saw this one, but since I was going through the older posts so quickly I think I only looked at the first screenshot and mistook it for Brotherhood. I really wish Aniplex would say if they planed to re-release 2003 since not only would their release probably look a bit better than Funimations', but as much as people love to complain about their prices they'd still be leagues better than what authentic copies are going for right now.

I'd be interested to see an AoA release of FMA 2003, as well.

On a sidenote you probably already know this but just in case you didn't the UK BD for Blue Exorcist contains the same PQ as the AoA version. If you are looking to get that title as well and don't mind simpler packaging, get the UK release to save some money. Only downside, IIRC (I haven't watched my copy of it in a while), is that they are region B locked so you'll need to be prepared for that.

[prophetic]

Thanks professorwho, sounds like a comfortable skip for me. But I was sightly surprised to see you praise the video quality, as I know you previously removed the JP UHD from your recommended list.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by prophetic

Thanks professorwho, sounds like a comfortable skip for me. But I was sightly surprised to see you praise the video quality, as I know you previously removed the JP UHD from your recommended list.

I mean, when you actually have it playing before your eyes, it's totally different than just looking at screenshots. Not that the UHD is perfect by any means, but it was cheap, and I wanted to support 4K anime here, so I bought it.

[Footlong Shoe]

I don't have a 4K player just yet so I haven't watched my copy, but it's a shame about the credits. I've always thought the music in credits is critical for defining how the viewer feels walking away from a movie, and I abhor replacement music (which you usually don't have to deal with on the Japanese track!). I guess I'll just have to turn it off the very second the credits begin...

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by vincentric

I'd be interested to see an AoA release of FMA 2003, as well.

On a sidenote you probably already know this but just in case you didn't the UK BD for Blue Exorcist contains the same PQ as the AoA version. If you are looking to get that title as well and don't mind simpler packaging, get the UK release to save some money. Only downside, IIRC (I haven't watched my copy of it in a while), is that they are region B locked so you'll need to be prepared for that.

As for Blue Exorcist, I only ever saw an episode or two of it, but from what I saw it didn't really seem like the sort of series that I'd be super into. I'm generally not that into Shōnen anime unless it's something that I grew up with like DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho or something like Yu-Gi-Oh! where the dub and edits turned it into an unintentional comedy.

I primarily tend to favor older anime series mainly ranging from the 90s to early/mid 2000s barring a few outliers. There's a lot of newer (relatively speaking) series that I've been meaning to check out, but I just haven't gotten around to yet, I probably will once I've properly begun my Blu-ray collection. I'm hoping AoA will bring back Baccano! too, I still haven't actually seen it yet, but I've heard good things about it and I know it's supposed to be very westernized like Cowboy Bebop, sadly it's so hard to find the NA BD release and it goes for so much used. I have no idea if AoA ever re-releases stuff when they go out of print or how often if they do it at all.

Oh, by the way I was curious to know, I recall you saying that the PQ for the SDBD of FotNS was pretty good and while looking at an older thread I saw someone mentioning that the SDBD looked cleaner than the DVD, this struck me as odd since jsevakis recently stated that there wouldn't really be much noticeable difference between most of SDBDs and DVDs, any thoughts on the matter? Judging by a screenshot comparison someone did a few years back for Samurai Pizza Cats it would appear that there's barely if any visible differences between the SDBD and DVD which would falls inline with what jsevakis told me. Though perhaps there is and I'm simply not noticing it, I'm not sure if any of them are benefiting from less compressed or anything like that. The SDBD version of FotNS does have some fixes made to it though so it at least has something noteworthy going on for it either way.

[vincentric]

The UK Baccano BD also contains identical PQ to the AoA release so it's a good one at that but again just be sure you are region b capable before getting it. Don't want to make it sound like every UK release contains similar PQ to AoA it's rather quite a short list last time I remember it was only Baccano, Blue Exorcist, Durara and Outlaw Star with identical PQ.

Wish I could go into more detail regarding FotNS but have actually never owned the DVDs for it. Just from eyeballing the SDBD release the PQ looks a lot better than I thought it would. I haven't searched around if there are any screencaps of the old FotNS DVD's floating around out there I can try matching them with the SDBD release.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by professorwho

UPDATE: Just after I write a glowing review, it’s uncovered that the credits have the incorrect music playing. In the original Japanese mix, “Chant 3 - Reincarnation” by Kenji Kawai is supposed to play, and in English, “One Minute Warning” by Passengers. On the UHD, on all 3 audio tracks, “Passengers” plays, which means the LPCM 2.0 track is a downmix of the Atmos remix.

Motherf**ker! UGH. This film is cursed, I swear. Every single release outside Japan has issues.

Though, it seems this issue has been around since the DVDs, and didn't get much attention.

Originally Posted by Schmullus (Logan)

So if I've got this right so far...

Laserdisc, Anniversary BD, GitS2.0 BD, JP UHD - confirmed to have "Chant 3" on JP track
98/SE DVDs, US UHD - incorrectly feature "Passengers" on JP track(s)
US UHD's included BD - unchecked

https://twitter.com/Schmullus1/statu...12305678782464

And, now things get even worse...

Originally Posted by Jose Argumedo

Holy s— , the English dub is out of sync too (in at least one place).

https://twitter.com/ArguingMeadows/s...31962385281024

Let. Justin. Sevakis. Work. On. Gits. Please. For. The. Love. Of. All. That. Is. Holy.

[Rosenkreutz]

Yikes, were there audio syncing issues in any of the previous releases? I'm really starting to think that I should avoid getting the 4k release of this one, especially if these issues keep piling up. It's a true shame, it baffles me how such a well regarded property can continue to keep getting mangled like this.

[BigOnAnime]

Well, if Dragon Ball Z can continue to get bad releases, so can Ghost in the Shell. Unfortunately even the biggest and well-regarded properties can get treated poorly time and again.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Don't want to make it sound like every UK release contains similar PQ to AoA it's rather quite a short list last time I remember it was only Baccano, Blue Exorcist, Durara and Outlaw Star with identical PQ.

The list is a bit longer now, but it's still very few. Durarara season two is NOT identical to the US releases.

[jsevakis]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Let. Justin. Sevakis. Work. On. Gits. Please. For. The. Love. Of. All. That. Is. Holy.

no... more... work... pleeeze

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

Yikes, were there audio syncing issues in any of the previous releases? I'm really starting to think that I should avoid getting the 4k release of this one, especially if these issues keep piling up. It's a true shame, it baffles me how such a well regarded property can continue to keep getting mangled like this.

I checked my 2017 Japanese Blu and the English dub is in-sync (though this is the original dub mix).

[NLScavenger]

While I am absolutely not interested in 'Domestic Girlfriend', I find it interesting that the US BD picture quality is better than the JP BD

Comparison from "catsound website"

https://slow.pics/c/COSWx7vN

[professorwho]

I know a DomeKano fan and they'll be pleased to see that...

[Rosenkreutz]

The continual disappointment of the NA releases for Ghost in the Shell, SAC & 2nd Gig is leading me to consider saving up and just importing the JP Blu-rays. According to the site listings it looks like the original film, innocence, SAC, SAC:2nd and the SAC movies will all work on region A players and that they include the English dub. I actually really like the dub for this series so it'll be a pain having to manual switch the dialogue to English every time I want to hear it, but I suppose that's still better than having to settle for the old DVDs which have been the only decent NA release thus far.

To my knowledge the NA blu-ray for Solid State Society and Innocence are supposed to be fine with no issues right? If so then I may stick with the NA releases for those two, but I might still check out the JP 4k release of Innocence. Come to think of it, wasn't there two dubs of Innocence, I think one carried over some of the voice actors from the first film while the other used the SAC cast, does anyone know which dub the Japanese release features? Also, are there any problems with the JP 4k release of GitS?

Lastly are there any other JP releases that are both miles better than the their NA counterparts and also include the English dub? I only took a look at a few so far out of curiosity, but I was sad to see that the JP Cowboy Bebop didn't include the dub since I heard that release looked better, it looks like the JP Blood: The Last Vampire doesn't include the dub which is too bad since I don't know if the DNR I heard about on the NA release makes it look worse than the regular DVD or not. Either way, I was on the fence about importing blu-rays before, but I think I'll be okay with it if there's a notable difference in quality, it includes the dub and it will play on region a players, assuming that I don't just get one of those region free ones at some point. Are there many AU and UK releases that work on region A players? For example, I know someone recently mentioned that the AU release of Steamboy worked on region A players and seeing as there's no NA Blu-ray release for it I see no reason not to go with that one.

Edit: I was wrong about Innocence, the JP releases doesn't feature the English dub apparently. The standalone JP release of Solid State Society doesn't seem to include the dub either, but apparently the S.A.C. Trilogy does, though if I recall correctly the other two films were just abridged versions of the show. I wonder if the JP releases for SAC feature English subtitles for just Japanese text or not, since it might be a little confusing in places if it doesn't.

[Member-571539]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

[...] it looks like the JP Blood: The Last Vampire doesn't include the dub which is too bad [...]

There is no English dub because the Japanese and English track are one and the same. It has characters switching back and forth between speaking Japanese and English. The disc also includes English subtitles.

[BoscoTheMan82]

Both dubs of Innocence use pretty much the same cast

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by gloomranger

There is no English dub because the Japanese and English track are one and the same. It has characters switching back and forth between speaking Japanese and English. The disc also includes English subtitles.

It's been a really long time since I last watched it so I actually can't recall the mixture of languages in it, as far as dialogue goes all I can really remember is the protagonist's really dry delivery and Steve Blum voicing a bunch of the extras. Regardless, I wasn't aware that the Japanese version was the same as the NA release it terms of audio, but if the visual quality on the JP release is better than the NA one, then perhaps I should get that one instead.

Either way, it looks like I'm going to have to take a deeper look into various JP Blu-ray releases, I just noticed that there was a JP Blu-ray release for the Black Jack OVAs which is pretty cool since we never got a BD release for it (other than the movie) in NA. Unfortunately, while it does feature the English dub it apparently lacks subtitles which is really unfortunate since the last two OVAs were never dubbed meaning it be really difficult to follow what's going on in them.

[NLScavenger]

Ghost in the Shell - Bandai 2018 UHD (JP) vs Lionsgate 2020 UHD/BD (US)

Left to right: JP UHD (from caps-a-holic, 150 nits) - US UHD (150 nits) - US 2020 BD (resized to 2160p)





















1080p caps of the 2020 BD are in the gallery.

US UHD caps made in MPC-HC+madvr with bilinear chroma upscaling (iirc caps-a-holic use bilinear), US BD caps made in MPV with Spline36 chroma upscaling and resized in GIMP.

BDInfo JP UHD

Name:                   00002.MPLS  
Length:                 1:22:54.970 (h:m:s.ms)
Size:                   61,521,260,544 bytes
Total Bitrate:          98.93 Mbps

VIDEO:

Codec                   Bitrate             Description     
-----                   -------             -----------     
MPEG-H HEVC Video       89967 kbps          2160p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / Main 10 Profile 5.1 High / 4:2:0 / 10 bits / HDR / BT.2020 / 

AUDIO:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description     
-----                           --------        -------         -----------     
LPCM Audio                      Japanese        2304 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit
LPCM Audio                      English         2304 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit

SUBTITLES:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description     
-----                           --------        -------         -----------     
Presentation Graphics           Japanese        23.391 kbps                     
Presentation Graphics           English         34.973 kbps

BDInfo US UHD

Disc Title: Ghost in the Shell - Ultra HD Blu-ray™
Disc Label: GHOST_IN_THE_SHELL_UHD
Disc Size: 66,722,882,420 bytes
Protection: AACS2
Playlist: 00800.MPLS
Size: 58,532,278,656 bytes
Length: 1:22:38.954
Total Bitrate: 94.43 Mbps
Video: MPEG-H HEVC Video / 59974 kbps / 2160p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / Main 10 @ Level 5.1 @ High / 10 bits / HDR10 / BT.2020
* Video: MPEG-H HEVC Video / 14943 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / Main 10 @ Level 5.1 @ High / 10 bits / Dolby Vision / BT.2020
Audio: English / Dolby TrueHD/Atmos Audio / 7.1 / 48 kHz /  4431 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1-EX / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / DN -31dB)
Audio: Japanese / Dolby TrueHD/Atmos Audio / 7.1 / 48 kHz /  4156 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1-EX / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / DN -31dB)
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: English / Dolby Digital Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /   448 kbps / DN -31dB
Audio: English / Dolby Digital Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /   192 kbps / DN -27dB
Subtitle: English / 40.477 kbps
Subtitle: Spanish / 38.566 kbps
Subtitle: English / 45.844 kbps
* Subtitle: English / 33.852 kbps
* Subtitle: Spanish / 33.374 kbps
* Subtitle: English / 38.791 kbps

BDInfo US 2020 BD

isc Title: Ghost in the Shell - Blu-ray™
Disc Label: GHOST_IN_THE_SHELL_2020_BD
Disc Size: 45,811,003,501 bytes
Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00916.MPLS
Size: 24,861,382,656 bytes
Length: 1:22:38.954
Total Bitrate: 40.11 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 24932 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / Dolby TrueHD Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  3470 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / DN -31dB)
Audio: Japanese / Dolby TrueHD Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  3330 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1 / 48 kHz /   640 kbps / DN -31dB)
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: English / Dolby Digital Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /   448 kbps / DN -31dB
Audio: English / Dolby Digital Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /   192 kbps / DN -27dB
Subtitle: English / 40.477 kbps
Subtitle: Spanish / 38.567 kbps
Subtitle: English / 45.845 kbps
* Subtitle: English / 33.853 kbps
* Subtitle: Spanish / 33.374 kbps
* Subtitle: English / 38.791 kbps