The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[theberserker22]

https://www.funimation.com/blog/2020...mited-edition/

For those of you who would like to request the 4K HDR version of AKIRA, please send an email to akira4kreplacement@funimation.com (US/CA) or akira4kreplacementUK@funimation.com (UK/IRE) with “AKIRA 4K” as the subject, and provide your name, mailing address, email address and proof of purchase (receipt or confirmation email and photo of the disc).

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Which is why I've tried to highlight an actual good release after looking at so many awful ones in the last few days.
It's nice to look at a BD which isn't full of blocking and generally shit encoding. In the last few days alone I've looked at Violet Evergarden, the UK release of Birthday Wonderland which also has the same issues as Violet, and Viz's One Punch Man S2 BD.

Thanks for that and for the informative look into The Promised Neverland. I have the Aniplex release but I've not had a chance to watch it yet (I watched it initially streaming). I was disappointed to see that One Punch Man S2 has issues as well.

[professorwho]

Good on them. I'll pass, as it's a terrible DNR disaster, IMO, but for those who want it, that's very good news.

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by theberserker22

https://www.funimation.com/blog/2020...mited-edition/

Ah, this again. It took me six months to get replacement copies from them for Re:Zero (I had bought the initial LE release).

Hopefully, this program won't be such a fiasco. They eventually printed a corrected complete season of it. Perhaps, they'll eventually do a similar corrected release for Akira (preferably one which can be easily differentiated from the original release).

[Mangaranga]

This might be a weird question to ask and will probably ultimately have no motive behind it, but is there any particular reason as to why pretty much all aniBD releases (especially overseas) seem to have blank frames at the start and end of each episode? I'm literally only asking as I noticed that Madman (and seemingly only Madman) don't do this. The first frame of their encode is the first actual frame of the video, as is the last.

[jala12]

Originally Posted by Footlong Shoe

This is rather old news and I'm not even sure this is the best thread to bring it up in, but I never heard anything about this so I want to at least put the word out there.

Funimation's Blu-ray for Hinamatsuri only has the first version of the OP. The visuals are supposed to have subtle and not-so-subtle changes throughout the series that are important for narrative and symbolic reasons, but since those changes aren't present, it can lead to confusion and muddled messaging when you get towards the end of the show. Curiously, every version of the ED is present, and they even switch to Japanese credits halfway through to accommodate them. I assume they weren't given creditless materials for the later versions, but in that case they should've made this compromise for the OP too.

It might be insignificant for some but personally it makes the series feel incomplete, not just from a content perspective but also in terms of storytelling. I'm putting an example in the spoiler below if you need to see what I mean.

[Show spoiler]
Both of these screencaps were taken from Crunchyroll



Closing shot of the OP at the beginning of the series (the Funi BD uses this version throughout the entire series)



Closing shot of the OP later in the series

The first version is intended to mislead the viewer into thinking Utako, the woman, on the left, is a much more important character to the narrative than she really is. After a certain point the series, once the protagonist realizes she's not as great of a person as he thought, she's removed from different parts of the OP each episode until eventually she's only shown in her necessary scenes.

I thought this was important to note because usually when Funi uses bad materials, the problem is that they use broadcast masters instead of home video masters, but in this case something is missing that was present in the broadcast. You effectively get a more complete experience watching the series on Crunchyroll than on Blu-ray. I just want to warn people in case it's a dealbreaker for them.

Is this an issue than only affects the initial Funimation blu-ray release or would this be an issue for the essentials release as well?

[NLScavenger]

Tekkaman Blade II - Discotek Media BD



Half of episodes #1 and #2 use upscaled footage


Upscaled footage / HD footage



BDInfo episode #1

Disc Title: Tekkaman Blade II
Disc Label: Tekkaman Blade II
Disc Size: 39,692,003,671 bytes
Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00000.MPLS
Size: 6,575,173,632 bytes
Length: 0:28:05.684
Total Bitrate: 31.20 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 26971 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / Dolby Digital Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /   448 kbps / DN -31dB
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle: English / 28.373 kbps
Subtitle: English / 2.672 kbps

Hope we get a BD release of the TV series someday from Discotek (and SDBD of the Teknoman dub with the awesome theme song)

[Logan Jones]

I got the VHS release of Tekkaman: The Space Knight by LD Video.

Y'know... the one in which each tape is three episodes cobbled together into one? And the voice acting is laughably awful?

By the way... Why is some of the footage in Tekkaman Blade II upscaled?

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Logan Jones

I got the VHS release of Tekkaman: The Space Knight by LD Video.

Y'know... the one in which each tape is three episodes cobbled together into one? And the voice acting is laughably awful?

Produced and directed by the same guy responsible for this masterpiece

Hokuto no Ken vs Heart Toei English Dub - YouTube

By the way... Why is some of the footage in Tekkaman Blade II upscaled?

I guess they couldn't locate the film?

[Logan Jones]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I guess they couldn't locate the film?

Should have figured.

I was wondering if some of the show was mastered on SD tape formats back in the day... Since it came out in the 90s. But the fact that some of the original film is lost... That really sucks.

[oldmario]

Originally Posted by Footlong Shoe

This is rather old news and I'm not even sure this is the best thread to bring it up in, but I never heard anything about this so I want to at least put the word out there.

Funimation's Blu-ray for Hinamatsuri only has the first version of the OP. The visuals are supposed to have subtle and not-so-subtle changes throughout the series that are important for narrative and symbolic reasons, but since those changes aren't present, it can lead to confusion and muddled messaging when you get towards the end of the show. Curiously, every version of the ED is present, and they even switch to Japanese credits halfway through to accommodate them. I assume they weren't given creditless materials for the later versions, but in that case they should've made this compromise for the OP too.

It might be insignificant for some but personally it makes the series feel incomplete, not just from a content perspective but also in terms of storytelling. I'm putting an example in the spoiler below if you need to see what I mean.

[Show spoiler]
Both of these screencaps were taken from Crunchyroll



Closing shot of the OP at the beginning of the series (the Funi BD uses this version throughout the entire series)



Closing shot of the OP later in the series

The first version is intended to mislead the viewer into thinking Utako, the woman, on the left, is a much more important character to the narrative than she really is. After a certain point the series, once the protagonist realizes she's not as great of a person as he thought, she's removed from different parts of the OP each episode until eventually she's only shown in her necessary scenes.

I thought this was important to note because usually when Funi uses bad materials, the problem is that they use broadcast masters instead of home video masters, but in this case something is missing that was present in the broadcast. You effectively get a more complete experience watching the series on Crunchyroll than on Blu-ray. I just want to warn people in case it's a dealbreaker for them.

probably just a case of dealing with what the japanese companies gave them, iirc zombieland saga was fine for this because the episode title pops up in each OP

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by Logan Jones

Should have figured.

I was wondering if some of the show was mastered on SD tape formats back in the day... Since it came out in the 90s. But the fact that some of the original film is lost... That really sucks.

Very disappointing.

Thank God, the original "Tekkaman" has been transferred on true HD.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by jala12

Is this an issue than only affects the initial Funimation blu-ray release or would this be an issue for the essentials release as well?

If it affects the original release, it'd affect the Essentials as well as FUNimation with only a handful of exceptions does not make new discs. So if something is missing or screwed up, it's going to stay that way unfortunately.

[Nothing371]

Originally Posted by AreaFive

Ah, this again. It took me six months to get replacement copies from them for Re:Zero (I had bought the initial LE release).

Hopefully, this program won't be such a fiasco. They eventually printed a corrected complete season of it. Perhaps, they'll eventually do a similar corrected release for Akira (maybe with a sticker which reads "I'm not broken").

Funimation never sent me my replacement discs for Re;Zero from one year ago...

I mailed in the original discs and just, nothing.

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by Nothing371

Funimation never sent me my replacement discs for Re;Zero from one year ago...

I mailed in the original discs and just, nothing.

I'm sorry to hear that. The entire entire experience was an exercise in frustration for me.

There's no way I'm getting involved in another exchange program of theirs.

[BigOnAnime]

FUNimation has a rocky history with disc replacement programs. Code Geass R2 was a mess for example. They sent some people only some of the discs they needed, sometimes DVDs instead of Blu-rays (I got 2 DVD discs and 4 Blu-rays), and duplicates, like they wanted to bury some people under a sea of replacement discs.

Meanwhile, like VIZ/Warner Bros.' replacement programs for Sailor Moon with the discs, R's cover sheet, and the StarS booklet were handled much better. Others have also made their replacement programs easy. Ex: Anime Sols, Discotek, NISA, Aniplex USA (yes, they've had them before) For whatever reason, FUNimation struggles with them by comparison.

[The Collector FX]

Originally Posted by AreaFive

So, there's apparently too much EE in Weathering With You 4K, no HDR in Akira, and Violet Evergarden has issues, in addition to others.

I'd rather have non-optimal releases than no releases, obviously, but this has not been the best few weeks for video quality.

There's absolutely nothing to gain with HDR in cel-produced anime (Akira) other than a slightly wider color gamut. Akira, as well every other anime made with celluloid sheets, not having HDR is a nothing-burger problem.

HDR benefits the film industry because of how much digital/film cameras struggle to capture natural light and natural colors in the post-production process before it hits cinemas. Anime is not at all subject to the same handicap.

Like I've said in a previous post; there's no loss of light, or shallow black levels, to gain/fix in something that was drawn on a flat sheet...

[Logan Jones]

Hmmm... Well here's a scenario I thought of:

Suppose I created an anime movie digitally, but mastered it to 70mm film in 16k at 1000nits.

Would that have any advantages in HDR?

[The Collector FX]

Originally Posted by Logan Jones

Hmmm... Well here's a scenario I thought of:

Suppose I created an anime movie digitally, but mastered it to 70mm film in 16k at 1000nits.

Would that have any advantages in HDR?

You'd have to down-sample it to 4K anyway because there's no storage media capable of fitting a file size that big. You might have a case for implementing HDR because of the X factor of what digital program and color grading was used to make it. The image would certainly "pop" more if 1000nits was both implemented and viewed on a capable television - that's for sure.

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by The Collector FX

There's absolutely nothing to gain with HDR in cel-produced anime (Akira) other than a slightly wider color gamut. Akira, as well every other anime made with celluloid sheets, not having HDR is a nothing-burger problem.

HDR benefits the film industry because of how much digital/film cameras struggle to capture natural light and natural colors in the post-production process before it hits cinemas. Anime is not at all subject to the same handicap.

Like I've said in a previous post; there's no loss of light, or shallow black levels, to gain/fix in something that was drawn on a flat sheet...

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, the wider color gamut was exactly what I was hoping to gain from the HDR.

Have you seen Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie in 4K? Its colors are wonderfully vibrant and rich. It is really something to behold with HDR. I was hoping to see Akira benefit in a similar manner, particular as it has so many varied shades of red.