The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by jd213

Here's some screenshots from the 2nd episode in Collection 2 Disc 1:https://imgur.com/a/WCxeuMV

I'm not sure if there was any specific settings or plugins I was supposed to use for this, but I took some screenshots of Funimation release of Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 in MPC-HC. These are from the first couple episodes, but only these two correlated with ones you had taken. [1 2]

As surprised as I am to say this I think the Funimation release might actually be the better of the two, what do you all think?

[BoscoTheMan82]

Think you can match this screenshot https://imgur.com/uheMXh0, this is where the intro on the Ultimate Collection has dot crawl

[omarchafa]

Originally Posted by professorwho

With regards to Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (the movie), the best release is actually the Italian Dynit Blu-ray, due to the best compression, high bitrate, and having English subtitles and the dub. Since the film was licensed from Sony, I believe that's why they could be included, as otherwise, they would be unavailable. However, note that it is Region B locked, so unless you're region free or have a Region B player, then it may not be an option.

With Haibane Renmei, the FUNimation DVD used the master from the Japanese Blu-ray release, which seems promising enough, but it was sadly a poor decision, as the old Geneon DVDs look better because the DVD master is less filtered (the BD master was a poor upscale that smeared away some detail, and even when shrunk down to DVD, it's still noticeable).

As for Trigun, that's interesting. The initial Pioneer single DVDs had this weird issue where the OP from episode 1 was used for every single episode. Trigun has dynamic OPs, where a shot or two was changed in every single episode, so that was lost. Later, "Remix" DVDs which fixed that were released, had better picture quality, and new 5.1 mixes (though I'd stick with the stereo tracks, because I'm a purist). The FUNi release uses the Remix masters, which is great, but I believe the issue was something to do with video compression (and the original stereo tracks being removed), though please don't quote me on this.

As for the last 3, I don't know about those. You'd assume a newly encoded DVD from the 2010s would be better than early 2000s DVDs, which is usually the case, but you never know...

No way, so there's a superior DVD edition of Trigun that surpasses the Pioneer release? I thought the Pioneer edition which I bought for a mere $20 for the whole boxed set was the best version and that the only other version that existed outside of that one was the Funimation release. We all know that Funimation releases are generally worse than it's predecessors so I never bought it. So this "Remix" DVD is actually the best one to get? Is the stereo track still in there? I found the dynamic range of the stereo track rather too wide though.

[Rosenkreutz]

Whoops, I just realized that I accidentally re-posted jd213's screenshots instead of my own, it's fixed now, but here's it is again anyway. https://imgur.com/a/2uP7X2h

Originally Posted by BoscoTheMan82

Think you can match this screenshot https://imgur.com/uheMXh0, this is where the intro on the Ultimate Collection has dot crawl

I took a few shots of the intro if you wanna see for yourself, I didn't get that exact shot that you provided, but this one is close though. Doesn't look particularly great either, but it doesn't seem to have that weird dot crawl stuff. https://imgur.com/ZgmKtZP

Interestingly, the Funimation release is only on 4 disks, unlike the Essential release which was 6. I'm assuming the Ultimate Collection was on 6 too, but I don't know for certain.

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by omarchafa

No way, so there's a superior DVD edition of Trigun that surpasses the Pioneer release? I thought the Pioneer edition which I bought for a mere $20 for the whole boxed set was the best version and that the only other version that existed outside of that one was the Funimation release. We all know that Funimation releases are generally worse than it's predecessors so I never bought it. So this "Remix" DVD is actually the best one to get? Is the stereo track still in there? I found the dynamic range of the stereo track rather too wide though.

Yes, the "Remix" version seems to be the definitive version more or less, there are 6 individual DVDs (unlike the pioneer release which was on 8 DVDs) as well as two Collector Edition tins that had thin pack DVD cases within them as well as some trinkets. The remix release is supposed to look a bit better and as mentioned before has dynamic intros, that is to say footage of each respective episode is spliced in unlike the old release which always used clips from the first episode.

The only potential drawback of this release is that it only has 5.1 audio so if you wanted stereo then you're out of luck. It's also worth mentioning that the menus on the Remix release are pretty lame compared to the Pioneer ones, but I imagine most people don't care about that sort of stuff.

Regardless, If you happen to be looking for the Collector Edition Tins I actually happen to have both of them brand new and would be willing to sell them for a good offer as I'm personally not a fan of tin containers, but at the time I wasn't aware that there were individual DVD releases.

[Rosenkreutz]

Unrelated to the above, but I just learned that the Golgo 13 TV series had a Blu-ray release, I've never seen the show, but I thought the movies were alright so I figured I'd check it out. Good thing someone pointed it out to me since I was originally going to get the DVDs. However, I know that Sentai has a habit of screwing things up from time to time so I just wanted to see if anyone knew of any reason not to get the Blu-ray over the DVD for this one.

Additionally, I was a bit confused to see that there's been like 5 different releases of Kino's Journey (2003.) I wasn't aware that the ADV brand had still been in use for some of their releases after the company went defunct, seems like it's owned by Section23 Film/Sentai Filmworks now? I know to avoid the SDBD because apparently all of Sentai's SDBDs suck, but are all of the DVD releases identical quality-wise? I know that there were 4 DVDs for the individual releases, the thinpacks seems to have only 3 unless they put 2 in one of them, the single case releases from 2011 and 2017 appear to have 4, but I'm not entirely sure.

I was thinking about looking for the thinpack, but if the single case DVDs are the same then perhaps one of those would be better. However, I beleive I recall once reading a comment where someone said that the quality of the single case releases seemed worse which is why I was apprehensive about getting one of those releases.

Also, while on the topic of Sentai, I saw some talk about their Princess Tutu BD on page 247, it sounds like their release had some ghosting and/or blended frames and I was curious how bad it was. Is it to the point where you'd say that the DVDs are better?

[BigOnAnime]

The ADV Films logo has been seen on 12 releases since 2010, with one of those coming out a few days ago.

Petite Princess Yucie - Complete Collection 1/5/2010
Kino's Journey - Complete Collection 12/13/2011
Elfen Lied - Complete Collection 12/20/2011
UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie - The Ultramaiden Collection (Seasons 1&2+S1 OVA) 9/11/2012
New Fist of the North Star 2/12/2013
Elfen Lied - Complete Collection* (DVD) 9/3/2013
Elfen Lied - Complete Collection* (Blu-ray) 9/3/2013
Mezzo - Complete Collection 3/21/2017
Kino's Journey - Complete Collection 6/6/2017
Kino's Journey - Complete Collection (SDBD) 2/26/2019
Elfen Lied - Collector's Edition [SteelBook] (Blu-ray) 7/30/2019
Lady Death: The Motion Picture (US Movie/Blu-ray) 9/29/2020

*First release of Elfen Lied with the OVA.

https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=835361

Those Kino's Journey releases with 3 discs (they're all 3, the singles are the only 4-disc release) stripped out the extras from the singles, except the 2017 release which had the production sketches extras which hadn't been seen since the singles, it's also on the SDBD which is basically a port of that release (you can tell it's a port because when you start it up the views disclaimer says "this DVD" and not "this disc", and the black screen credit roll is dated 2017). ADV Films had a practice where most of their complete sets stripped out the extras to encourage people to buy the singles rather than wait for the box set down the line as the singles paid the bills, now how well that strategy worked, IDK. If an ADV complete set had extras, it re-used the singles discs. Examples off the top of my head: Blue Seed, Noir, every complete release of Neon Genesis Evangelion excluding the Platinum Thinpak, Azumanga Daioh (2009 set-that has the short movie, which only the singles previously had, the Sentai Selects release is missing it), Coyote Ragtime Show, Comic Party Revolution, Jinki:Extend, Princess Tutu, Martian Successor Nadesico (thinpak used the Essential Anime Collection discs, still uses the TV broadcast masters)

Anyway, I've never done a comparison before between an ADV complete set that stripped out the extras and the singles before, so I don't know how much of a quality difference there'd be. The Platinum Thinpak for NGE reportedly has a higher bitrate than the singles despite being on 6 discs instead of 7 thanks to it stripping out the extras. There may also be tweaks to the subtitles as well, I own a few shows through both the singles and complete sets, and when you look in the disc credits, the person credited for doing the subitles changes (Ex: Chance Pop Session, Sakura Wars TV-I don't have the singles yet, but the ugly singles credit rolls were re-used on every release, even the SDBD). Just to note, unlike Sentai when they made new discs, ADV never redid their (ugly) credit rolls on the actual show. You can tell based off the copyright on them, and the Executive Producer credits as the back covers with those would differ from the actual show for later releases. Sharon Papa stopped being credited for that in early 2003, Mark Williams stopped being credited for that beginning in 2007, and then it was Joey Goubeaud to the end.

[omarchafa]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

Yes, the "Remix" version seems to be the definitive version more or less, there are 6 individual DVDs (unlike the pioneer release which was on 8 DVDs) as well as two Collector Edition tins that had thin pack DVD cases within them as well as some trinkets. The remix release is supposed to look a bit better and as mentioned before has dynamic intros, that is to say footage of each respective episode is spliced in unlike the old release which always used clips from the first episode.

The only potential drawback of this release is that it only has 5.1 audio so if you wanted stereo then you're out of luck. It's also worth mentioning that the menus on the Remix release are pretty lame compared to the Pioneer ones, but I imagine most people don't care about that sort of stuff.

Regardless, If you happen to be looking for the Collector Edition Tins I actually happen to have both of them brand new and would be willing to sell them for a good offer as I'm personally not a fan of tin containers, but at the time I wasn't aware that there were individual DVD releases.

That's alright, I'm not interested in buying this show again right now, but I'll let you know if I do in the near future.

[BoscoTheMan82]

On the Trigun Remix DVD's the dub is 5.1, but the Japanese tracks are 5.1 and 2.0, so just the stereo dub track is missing from them

[kk1]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

Unrelated to the above, but I just learned that the Golgo 13 TV series had a Blu-ray release, I've never seen the show, but I thought the movies were alright so I figured I'd check it out. Good thing someone pointed it out to me since I was originally going to get the DVDs. However, I know that Sentai has a habit of screwing things up from time to time so I just wanted to see if anyone knew of any reason not to get the Blu-ray over the DVD for this one.

Pretty sure the Blu-ray is OOP.

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by kk1

Pretty sure the Blu-ray is OOP.

It is, as are most of the DVDs iirc, but I simply wanted to know if there were any issues with the Blu-ray since as mention before, Sentai Filmworks isn't always the most reliable distributor.

Originally Posted by BoscoTheMan82

Think you can match this screenshot https://imgur.com/uheMXh0, this is where the intro on the Ultimate Collection has dot crawl

I decided to go back and screenshot the specific shot that you posted just to be sure, (https://imgur.com/270r5oc) as far as I can tell there still doesn't seem to be any dot crawl, so I guess that means the Funimation release must be using the component master, therefor making it the superior release?

[BigOnAnime]

Don't know about any issues with Golgo 13, but you can find screenshots on the site's review.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Golgo...6/#Screenshots

ANN doesn't have the Blu-ray credits (yet another instance of missing Sentai credits, sigh...), but the Blu-ray was most likely authored by David Williams, who did most or all of Sentai's Blu-rays from 2010-sometime in 2014, and most of the time didn't do a very good job, to the point the static menus could have compression artifacts (what do you know, Golgo 13 is one of those!). He did most of Sentai's problematic discs. Ex: Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, Colorful: The Motion Picture, Penguindrum, Kids on the Slope, all of these. After Joel McCray took over in late 2014, things improved, their track record got less mixed. Generally with Sentai, if it's a DLW disc, likely has problems. If the show is originally 1080i or they received 1080i masters instead of 1080P, there's problems. If it's an SDBD, it most likely looks worse than the DVDs or how the DVD would look. Though, Sentai has abandoned SDBD, it's been nearly a year since the last one if you exclude the Votoms re-release which is an HDBD/SDBD combo pack. The Votoms re-release still has some issues with the SDBD stuff, but less of them. Last Sentai SDBD: Di Gi Charat 9/17/2019 Last Maiden Japan SDBD: Yumeiro Patissiere 10/29/2019 No SDBDs were solicited this year.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Don't know about any issues with Golgo 13, but you can find screenshots on the site's review.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Golgo...6/#Screenshots

The review screenshots only covers the first dozen or something episodes. These episodes are blurry and grainy. Later episodes are of higher resolution and drop the fake grain.

[The Collector FX]

Still no Aniplex of America vs Funimation "Demon Slayer" Blu Ray comparison?

I'm disappointed in this community...

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Though, Sentai has abandoned SDBD, it's been nearly a year since the last one if you exclude the Votoms re-release which is an HDBD/SDBD combo pack. The Votoms re-release still has some issues with the SDBD stuff, but less of them.

Wait, what's the point of including both HDBD and SDBD? That seems even more pointless that the BD/DVD Combos. At least with those it's catering to people who don't have Blu-ray players, but wouldn't you need one to play both of those regardless?

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

The review screenshots only covers the first dozen or something episodes. These episodes are blurry and grainy. Later episodes are of higher resolution and drop the fake grain.

It's good to know that they at least improve as they go on, so long as the quality is better than the DVDs I won't have any reservations about getting it.

[BigOnAnime]

It's because most of the Votoms stuff is only in standard definition and had no Blu-rays in Japan, and Sentai is largely done with DVD as a format due to low sales. Anime fans embraced Blu-ray so much that DVD-only is no longer viable, even for standard definition content. The industry is now very much Blu-ray-only, Discotek Media called it quits for DVD this year. They took their individual releases and put them together into one, but with newly authored discs as the old ones had problems.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Armor...lu-ray/226970/
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Armor...lu-ray/234517/
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Armor...lu-ray/241957/
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Armor...lu-ray/271421/

You do need a Blu-ray player to play SDBDs. SDBD stands for "Standard Definition on Blu-ray Disc".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_Blu-ray

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

It's good to know that they at least improve as they go on, so long as the quality is better than the DVDs I won't have any reservations about getting it.

Picture quality is far from perfect, but it should be better than DVD. It's worth a purchase IMO.

First disc


Final disc

[BigOnAnime]

Can you at all post the English staff credits, as well as the "Disc Credits" found in the special features? Want to know if it's for sure a DLW Blu-ray.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Can you at all post the English staff credits, as well as the "Disc Credits" found in the special features? Want to know if it's for sure a DLW Blu-ray.

Disc 1/2/3




Disc 4


Disc 5 episode 39+


Disc Credits (special features on Disc 6)

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

You do need a Blu-ray player to play SDBDs. SDBD stands for "Standard Definition on Blu-ray Disc".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_Blu-ray

Oh, I see that makes more sense, since I only just recently got into Blu-rays I wasn't aware that you could play SDBD on a regular DVD player. Speaking of which, seeing as there are typically far more episodes featured on a BD than on a DVD, when selecting a specific episode will the following episode continue on afterwards or will it just keep bringing you back to the chapter select every time? I imagine it might simply be a case-by-case feature just like with DVDs, but seeing as you're likely to not finish a whole disk in one sitting it be a massive pain to have to manually select every episode were you to return to it, especially for SDBDs with a lot of epsiodes per disk like FotNS or Samurai Pizza Cats.