The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[professorwho]

I think I was a bit too harsh on the master itself. It’s not flawless, but seeing one of the very last 35mm shows getting the FORS process really sucks. I don’t know what the JP DVDs look like, but unless they’re something really special, I’d suspect the BD is better. (I still think I was right on about Nozomi’s compression, though)

I still need to continue my re-watch of Turn A (it’s really good). Now I’m making my way through Eureka Seven, and I don’t know how I’ll approach it here (spoiler alert: the Blu-ray is horrible) as there’s so many issues to speak of.

[NLScavenger]

KonoSuba Season 1 - Madman BD (AU) / Discotek BD (US) / Kadokawa BD (JP)

Madman used the materials from the Discotek BD, but encoded at a higher bitrate. The subtitles are the same and like the Discotek BD there are 2 episodes per M2TS file.

There isn't much of a difference between the Madman and Discotek BDs. They look nearly identical to each other.

AU BD



US BD


JP BD


Comparison of 5 screenshots

https://slow.pics/c/y4G9Tdgx

Bitrate Episode #1 AU BD

AVG: 26869 kbps | MAX: 52531 kbps

Bitrate Episode #1 US BD

AVG: 16968 kbps | MAX: 39118 kbps

Bitrate Episode #1 JP BD

AVG: 39216 kbps | MAX: 47751 kbps

All three have PCM 2.0 16-bit audio.

[Nothing371]

Funny that you should mention that. I was watching my Konusuba S1 disc last night and was thinking about what a low bit rate that was.

[professorwho]

As much as I hate seeing low bitrates, they are not the be-all-end-all they once were in the DVD days. The Discotek release is a bit low (and there's a few GB on the disc that could've been used to make it higher, and yes, that pun was intended), but the encoding quality is damn near perfect, so that's all that matters at the end of the day. And besides, the actual bitrate itself is well optimized, with spikes up into the 40s and 50s in most episodes.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

There isn't much of a difference between the Madman and Discotek BDs. They look nearly identical to each other.

Just goes to show that bitrate isn’t always important.

[Member-571539]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

Just goes to show that bitrate isn’t always important.

As long as you have people who know what they’re doing...

[Raye]

I'm no expert, but I bought the Clannad steelbook which features reauthored discs. I did an eyeball comparison of the OP against the original Blu-ray release from almost a decade ago and the difference is apparent. The dark screens don't feature almost any binding and the image looks crisp and vivid. The subtitles have also been adjusted to a decent size, not a gigantic yellow. I'm very happy with the subtle upgrade.

[BigOnAnime]

I'm more curious about how the 2017 Blu-ray compares to the SteelBook, is it like with Shirobako (not a significant difference as expected)? The 2017 Blu-ray should also have different discs from the originals and should be authored by Joel McCray instead of David Williams. There being a significant difference between the SteelBook and original Blu-rays shouldn't be surprising, especially given how Clannad was one of Sentai's earliest Blu-ray releases.

[NLScavenger]

Discotek Media's BD of Wicked City is a remux of Toei BD with extra audio tracks inserted.

I'm not going to take screenshots, but you can find screenshots from Toei BD here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=12946&d2=12945&c=5069

Discotek Media BDInfo

DISC INFO:

Disc Title:     Wicked City
Disc Label:     WICKED CITY
Disc Size:      28,671,058,710 bytes
Protection:     AACS
BDInfo:         0.7.5.5

PLAYLIST REPORT:

Name:                   00001.MPLS
Length:                 1:22:15.639 (h:m:s.ms)
Size:                   21,362,417,664 bytes
Total Bitrate:          34.63 Mbps

(*) Indicates included stream hidden by this playlist.

VIDEO:

Codec                   Bitrate             Description     
-----                   -------             -----------     
MPEG-4 AVC Video        24321 kbps          1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

AUDIO:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description     
-----                           --------        -------         -----------     
* DTS-HD Master Audio           English         2419 kbps       5.1 / 48 kHz /  2419 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz /  1509 kbps / 16-bit / DN -3dB)
* LPCM Audio                    English         1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz /  1536 kbps / 16-bit
* LPCM Audio                    English         2304 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
* LPCM Audio                    Japanese        1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz /  1536 kbps / 16-bit
Dolby Digital Audio             English         192 kbps        2.0 / 48 kHz /   192 kbps / DN -31dB

SUBTITLES:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description     
-----                           --------        -------         -----------     
Presentation Graphics           English         0.710 kbps                      
* Presentation Graphics         English         0.711 kbps                      
* Presentation Graphics         English         26.295 kbps

Toei BDInfo

PLAYLIST REPORT:

Name:                   00001.MPLS
Length:                 1:22:15.639 (h:m:s.ms)
Size:                   19.679.391.744 bytes
Total Bitrate:          31.90 Mbps

VIDEO:

Codec                   Bitrate             Description     
-----                   -------             -----------     
MPEG-4 AVC Video        24321 kbps          1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

AUDIO:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description     
-----                           --------        -------         -----------     
LPCM Audio                      Japanese        1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
LPCM Audio                      English         1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
DTS-HD Master Audio             English         2419 kbps       5.1 / 48 kHz / 2419 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit / DN -3dB)

[NLScavenger]

The Discotek BD of KonoSuba appears to be slightly better encoded than the Madman BD, despite the lower average bitrate. I kind of noticed it in the screenshots I took (and the smaller file sizes of the PNG caps), so I checked some shots in episode #2 and the difference is noticeable in the upper side of this shot:

https://slow.pics/c/r6eWENCd

In motion it's pretty much impossible to pick up the differences between the two, but it is interesting nonetheless.

JP BD has some debanding going on, hence the increased amount of dither noise. See Megumin's cape on the right:

https://slow.pics/c/PoCHaGxa

[Raye]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

I'm more curious about how the 2017 Blu-ray compares to the SteelBook, is it like with Shirobako (not a significant difference as expected)? The 2017 Blu-ray should also have different discs from the originals and should be authored by Joel McCray instead of David Williams. There being a significant difference between the SteelBook and original Blu-rays shouldn't be surprising, especially given how Clannad was one of Sentai's earliest Blu-ray releases.

I only picked up on the fact the same discs weren't reused after you pointed out that Sentai reauthored discs for their complete collections. I briefly looked at who worked on each release. David Williams is listed as the author on the original release but his name is nowhere to be found on the steelbook release.

I was also curious to see if the translation was changed. JN Productions is credited, but I noticed there are different names acknowledged in each release under "Subtitles". I'm guessing perhaps those people were involved in either the styling or timing? I'd have to do a full side-by-side comparison to see what changed, if anything. I just rewatched the original discs the other year and was pleased with the translation, regardless.

Honestly, I'm surprised Sentai even put the effort in to go back and improve upon their initial release when they could have just repackaged and resold any excess discs they had. I guess I'm so used to what FUNi does that I forget to realize we have some good companies among us.

[svenge]

Speaking of Sentai reissues, anyone pick up the new release of The Garden of Words to see if its video issues on the initial release were corrected? Based on the language options it's certainly a new disc, but that's all I know about it.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Raye

I only picked up on the fact the same discs weren't reused after you pointed out that Sentai reauthored discs for their complete collections. I briefly looked at who worked on each release. David Williams is listed as the author on the original release but his name is nowhere to be found on the steelbook release.

I was also curious to see if the translation was changed. JN Productions is credited, but I noticed there are different names acknowledged in each release under "Subtitles". I'm guessing perhaps those people were involved in either the styling or timing? I'd have to do a full side-by-side comparison to see what changed, if anything. I just rewatched the original discs the other year and was pleased with the translation, regardless.

Honestly, I'm surprised Sentai even put the effort in to go back and improve upon their initial release when they could have just repackaged and resold any excess discs they had. I guess I'm so used to what FUNi does that I forget to realize we have some good companies among us.

Yep, they indeed redid the credits, I entered them in on ANN over the summer with the precision "2020 BD SteelBook". I only had the sub-only DVDs previously, so I've no idea what's on the dubbed DVDs, the original Blu-rays, or 2017 release. An interesting thing with the sub-only DVDs, there's no "Production Assistant(s)" credits, only time I've ever seen that with an ADV or Sentai release.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/enc...me.php?id=7809
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/enc...me.php?id=9701

Them redoing the credits goes further than re-releases, there's usually differences between the simulcast and dubcast, and then the home video release. While they usually redo the credits, there are some titles with new discs that re-used the old credits, it's been mainly Maiden Japan stuff from what I've noticed.
https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=839664

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by svenge

Speaking of Sentai reissues, anyone pick up the new release of The Garden of Words to see if its video issues on the initial release were corrected? Based on the language options it's certainly a new disc, but that's all I know about it.

I’m curious as well, but I have a feeling it won’t be as good as it could be, as Sentai will encode the commentaries in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 at full 24-bit, and are doing the dumb thing of using a 1.5 mbps DTS core. Almost everyone uses a 1.5 mbps DTS core (even Justin), but for stereo tracks, it’s pointless. Regardless of bit-depth, that means it’s at the very least a constant 1.5 mbps at all times, which is overkill. You don’t need it to be 1.5 mbps at all times. For 16-bit tracks, it’s especially wasteful, seeing as an LPCM 2.0 16-bit track is 1536 kbps, so you’d be going over uncompressed bitrate (something Kino Lorber does on almost all their discs). I think the approach taken by mp3dom and Dynit of a 640 kbps DTS 2.0 core is better, and similarly, Fidelity in Motion (David Mackenzie) does this for the discs he makes for Arrow.

Or better yet, don’t have lossless encoded commentary tracks. It wastes space that could be better used to increase the video bitrate. Unless the compressionist is smart and can allocate enough space to everything and still has enough room for it, it’s a bad idea.

[tuffy]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Or better yet, don’t have lossless encoded commentary tracks. It wastes space that could be better used to increase the video bitrate. Unless the compressionist is smart and can allocate enough space to everything and still has enough room for it, it’s a bad idea.

Turns out the compressionist allocated enough space to everything by putting the lossless commentaries on a completely separate title from the main feature. Essentially putting the film on disc twice is the sort of thing one can get away with when it's only ~50 minutes long.

[Dailyan]

Eh, lossless commentaries and above average audio bitrates are the least of some of these authors/authoring houses' problems. If you have a competent encoder than it's pretty moot (ex: the Eureka release of "High Noon" has four LPCM tracks and the video encode is perfection).

[Clark Kent]

I guess Bartender is limited by its dated animation. I have the AllTheAnime/Shout Factory set in my hands and it looks little better than an upscale. Was this animated at 540P?

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Most probably.

[sgbraden1]

Hi, sorry I'm just new member here. I have read past posts on this thread about comparing screenshot between two different blurays. There is still a confusion I want to ask. As I know, there is license company and distributor company. For example: GKIDS is licensed for studio ghibli fims in US i.e. From up on poppy hill, but the distributor for that film in US could be Cinedigm (Sep 03, 2013) and Shout Factory (Dec 15, 2020).

So I just wonder who is responsible for the encoding of bluray ? The licensed company (GKIDS) or distributor company (Cinedigm, Shout Factory). If it is the former (liscense company) who did it, so two BD version 2013 vs 2020 will be the same right ?

[Clark Kent]

Cinedigm is merely the distributor for GKIDS. Cinedigm does not actually prepare the release - they replicate it and ship the final product all over the country.

Confusing matters is that Cinedigm does have a few home video imprints of their own for which they handle doing everything, both creation and distribution.