The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[mp3dom]

NANA is a mixture of 23.98p and 29.97i (especially on the EDs). Colorbanding is already into the source (sometimes in a severe way). It may be converted to 23.98 (Endings too, without dropping frame) but it needs a very special attention and a long "all-manual" processing. Other choice would have been to have 23.98p+soft pulldown for the episode and 29.97i for the OP/ED and other minor parts.

Considering the source, the upscale itself (the single image without artifacts) anyway is not that bad per se.

[professorwho]

Italian Urusei Yatsura is a DNR disaster. It seems like Dynit is the only competent Italian distributor, so it's a shame Yamato got it instead.

Our only hope now is for Discotek to do it justice with zero DNR...

[BigOnAnime]

Oh my god... They took one of the most beautiful remasters and did a DBZ-style "remastering" to it.

One of the shots matches and I can do a comparison with hissatsu's. This is disappointing to see.

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I'm referring to a line of audio that is missing due to a mixing error. The line is translated in the subtitle track and it can still be heard in the 2.0 PCM track.

Are there any known errors like this for the English tracks?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Rosenkreutz

Are there any known errors like this for the English tracks?

Yes. These are very well known. Please read my review for such details if you're curious.

(NOTE that there are some inaccuracies in there, such as the credits music issue, but I have no desire to edit it, simply due to it changing the original text)

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Yes. These are very well known. Please read my review for such details if you're curious.

(NOTE that there are some inaccuracies in there, such as the credits music issue, but I have no desire to edit it, simply due to it changing the original text)

I'm aware of the issues that were present in the English track for the regular BD release, but judging by your review it would appear that they were seemingly all fixed for the 4K release which is relieving to read. By the way, do you know if there are any good comparison shots between the BD and 4k BD releases of Space Adventure Cobra? I recall that you approved of the 4k release overall, but did note that it didn't look too great when viewed from a short distance, others seemed to have more mixed opinions on it.

[Zaku77]

Has anyone taken a look at the new Sentai release of Moribito yet? How does it compare to the Viz release??

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Italian Urusei Yatsura is a DNR disaster. It seems like Dynit is the only competent Italian distributor, so it's a shame Yamato got it instead.

Our only hope now is for Discotek to do it justice with zero DNR...

It's a shame. Kinda saw this coming after what happened with Lupin III green jacket.

Hopefully Yamato won't get their hands on Maison Ikkoku. Dynit was in negotiations for Ranma, so Ranma should be safe.

[kk1]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Oh my god... They took one of the most beautiful remasters and did a DBZ-style "remastering" to it.

One of the shots matches and I can do a comparison with hissatsu's. This is disappointing to see.

[Show spoiler]

Are they trying to make them look like modern anime? If so mission accomplished. It's too bad they can't do both versions, keep the original with intact grain and the wiped clean version, at least for a show like UY there isn't much detail to lose.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Oh my god... They took one of the most beautiful remasters and did a DBZ-style "remastering" to it.

Is it bad that I thought they'd upscaled an analogue master for a second? Who greenlit this for release?

[SpaceDandy]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

One of the shots matches and I can do a comparison with hissatsu's. This is disappointing to see.
[PICS]

A twitter user posted matching captures from the JP BD using provided timecodes.

It's just sad.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Zaku77

Has anyone taken a look at the new Sentai release of Moribito yet? How does it compare to the Viz release??

I would assume the encoding is better, but it has an issue that the Viz release shares- it is presented at 23.976 frames per second in 1080p and not 1080i. Now, I think most can agree 1080p is preferred, but in this case, Moribito is VFR (variable frame rate), like many shows from the early to mid-2000s, so in order to preserve the shots which were composited at a higher frame rate, it needs to be in 1080i. Only the Media Blasters release has that correct for western BDs, but the encoding is so terrible on it, it’s not worth it. So, if you have the Viz release, I’d assume the Sentai will be slightly better encoded, but that’s about it...

Had it not been for the audio. Moribito is one of the rare TV anime natively produced in 5.1 surround sound, as was the norm of Production IG works of the era. The Viz BD is in stereo only, while the Sentai release is in 5.1, as I don’t have a surround sound setup it doesn’t make a huge difference to me, but to audiophiles, it should be a big deal, as it is native 5.1 and not a shitty upmix.

[SpaceDandy]

By the way, has anyone seen the Yamato Video release of Paranoia Agent? The master of this show is in 1080i/30 and I'm definitely eager to see how they handled that. Especially after what has happened with Kazé.


In regards to Urusei Yatsura: Yamato Video BD explicitly credits an obscure "Amakusa Corps" for video remastering. Audio remastering & Blu-Ray authoring credits Pianeta Zero. I don't think the later played any role in this catastrophic accident. Source

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Is it bad that I thought they'd upscaled an analogue master for a second? Who greenlit this for release?

Someone who hates film grain with every fiber of their being. I could have never imagined those beautiful remasters for Rumiko Takashi cel-animated anime having no grain, and someone managed to do it. They must have looked at say FUNimation's Dragon Ball Z Blu-rays and went "That looks AMAZING! Other cel-animated anime should look like that!" Luckily for Americans, the only party that'd be interested in releasing Urusei Yatsura on Blu-ray here (Discotek) would not touch the grain. Shame people in Italy had to get this trash though.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Speed Racer - Funimation

[Show spoiler]

BDInfo episode #1

Disc Title: Speed Racer: Complete Series (Disc 1)
Disc Label: SPEEDRACERCOMPLETESERIES_DISC1
Disc Size: 48,918,618,685 bytes
Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00815.MPLS
Size: 4,004,210,688 bytes
Length: 0:23:49.177
Total Bitrate: 22.41 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 19358 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / Dolby TrueHD Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /   753 kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Embedded: 2.0 / 48 kHz /   192 kbps / DN -31dB)
Subtitle: English / 52.530 kbps

This release was authored and compressed by Sony DADC instead of Funi's usual in-house solution.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

This release was authored and compressed by Sony DADC instead of Funi's usual in-house solution.

At least it was released before Sony got lazy with their Blu encoding (some of their recent MOD releases are pretty underwhelming).

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

This release was authored and compressed by Sony DADC instead of Funi's usual in-house solution.

Got the credits screen at the end of the disc? This is now the second anime release I know of authored by them, the first was the Gundam 00 movie for Bandai Entertainment. I had never even heard of Sony DADC until I was adding some missing credits from Bandai's combo pack release to ANN. Have to wonder why FUNimation didn't have their usual in-house crew (Matthew O'Hara, Trace Furniss, John Andreas, Christine Bertolino, Duncan Yan) do Speed Racer and instead opted to outsource.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/enc...y.php?id=20143

[professorwho]

BoA be like, "who is Sony DADC?"

They're a disc replication plant by Sony and they also so some compression and authoring now on smaller discs.

In the Laserdisc era, they were notorious for being really shit, because of how they pressed LDs, disc rot was a common occurrence and to a very high degree. Look at the most rotted LDs, and you'll see DADC did most of them.

It's worth noting that only DADC USA was that bad. Their EU (Austria) and Japan DADC plants were nowhere near as terrible.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Got the credits screen at the end of the disc? This is now the second anime release I know of authored by them, the first was the Gundam 00 movie for Bandai Entertainment. I had never even heard of Sony DADC until I was adding some missing credits from Bandai's combo pack release to ANN. Have to wonder why FUNimation didn't have their usual in-house crew (Matthew O'Hara, Trace Furniss, John Andreas, Christine Bertolino, Duncan Yan) do Speed Racer and instead opted to outsource.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/enc...y.php?id=20143

I wonder who did the Mach GoGoGo discs for the collector's edition set. Apparently Mach GoGoGo episode 23 has a major error that is not present on the included DVD discs.

[BigOnAnime]

So, they did indeed outsource the Blu-ray authoring, as well as the Blu-ray compression, and even the QC, again, interesting. "QC again"? When I was adding the Aria the Scarlet Ammo AA BD/DVD credits to ANN, "BluFocus, Inc." came up for QC, though they had some of their usual in-house staff doing it too. Wonder how many other shows are like this, I'm slowly going through adding this stuff to ANN.

And huh, they also outsourced the Blu-ray menu audio, but not the menu design. I've noticed FUNi seems to be outsourcing the menu designs as of late to a company called "Shiny Side Up Creative" (note that when adding a company for "Menu Design", ANN automatically displays it as "DVD Menu Design", wish they'd change that). Lastly, Jeremy Jimenez is not the Blu-ray editor? That's a first.