The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[NLScavenger]

Is Dybex BD home video version or broadcast version like on Wakanim?

-------------------------------

I checked a Cyber City Oedo 808 fansub release. It's IMO better than the BD and DVD. The blockiness in the chroma has been cleaned up a bit.

Fansub / RU DVD / UK BD

[SpaceDandy]

Broadcast masters, as expected. I don't think Tokuma Shoten will let those BD masters out of Japan. Considering the time it took for the show to get licensed anywhere as DVD and the three additional years for two more publisher to add it to their catalog…(while the two others' license has expired?)

[kuroshi]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Is Dybex BD home video version or broadcast version like on Wakanim?

-------------------------------

I checked a Cyber City Oedo 808 fansub release. It's IMO better than the BD and DVD. The blockiness in the chroma has been cleaned up a bit.

I wonder why Discotek is going to release the same crappy disc. With all the technical knowhow there, they can't be oblivious to its faults. Or are they contractually obliged to use the manga uk master?

[Bamble]

Yeah, if the Discotek disc of Cyber City Oedo is going to be identical, I'm also canceling my preorder. The way this was hyped up beforehand, I'd hoped for something akin to the pretty decent upscale seen on the Devilman OVAs and not what's actually being offered.

[Rosenkreutz]

Dang, does that mean the Discotek BD is likely going to be a downgrade visually from the "Final Collection" that came out over a decade ago? I really hope that's not the case since I was really looking forward to this release. I guess it at least still has the benefit of coming with the option for the UK soundtrack if nothing else.

Also, I'm uncertain if this was already addressed or not, if it was than I must have missed it, but was there ever any comparison made between the Funimation BD and Geneon DVD for Paranoia Agent?

Additionally, I had a quick question for anyone who owned the Magic Knight Rayearth BD, I was reading this article which stated the following...
"On-disc extras: Next Episode Previews; Bumpers; Recaps & Omake Endings; English Pilot Openings & Endings Collection; Trailers & Promotional Spots; Interviews with English Cast & Crew; English Outtakes & Greetings; Production Art Gallery; Storyboards; Mokona’s Song and even an Episode 49 English Dub Director Commentary."

I was curious if the "English Pilot Openings & Endings Collection" part meant that the extras included an archive of the English dubbed OPs/EDs featured on the old DVDs, could anyone who owns this set confirm if this is the case? I plan on getting the BD release eventually regardless, but this particular extra would be a huge nostalgia plus for me.

[BigOnAnime]

There isn't a FUNimation BD vs. Geneon DVD comparison that I know of for Paranoia Agent, but there's been a JP Blu-ray vs. Geneon DVD comparison for 9 years.

Originally Posted by hissatsu

(DVD screenshots bicubic resized to 1920x1080)

01 R1DVD | BD
02 R1DVD | BD
03 R1DVD | BD
04 R1DVD | BD
05 R1DVD | BD
06 R1DVD | BD
07 R1DVD | BD
08 R1DVD | BD
09 R1DVD | BD
10 R1DVD | BD
11 R1DVD | BD
12 R1DVD | BD
13 R1DVD | BD
14 R1DVD | BD
15 R1DVD | BD

https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...961#post120961
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...7#post12652537

[NLScavenger]

I'm waiting for my Funi Paranoia Agent to arrive, but it has been stuck in USPS hell for over a week.

Originally Posted by Bamble

Yeah, if the Discotek disc of Cyber City Oedo is going to be identical, I'm also canceling my preorder. The way this was hyped up beforehand, I'd hoped for something akin to the pretty decent upscale seen on the Devilman OVAs and not what's actually being offered.

I had hoped that they were upscaling from the master (negative telecine), not rips of the compressed MPEG2 video from the Japanese Complete Collection DVD complete with verbatim artifacting in some parts. It's unbelievable that it took them 2 years to push out this crap (announced in late 2018).

If you are going to use compressed DVD MPEG2 video with artifacting, might as well do an SDBD remux and call it a day. Would have been quicker, cheaper and saved them from embarrassment lol

[Logan Jones]

Well according to the gents of this forum, Discotek HAS upscaled DVD rips before. For Tetsujin 28 go (2004) a DVD rip was used instead of the Japanese upscale because it looked like crap.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Logan Jones

Well according to the gents of this forum, Discotek HAS upscaled DVD rips before. For Tetsujin 28 go (2004) a DVD rip was used instead of the Japanese upscale because it looked like crap.

That's SDBD.

[theberserker22]

Yeah, this cyber city release is atypical of discotek and strange. Not sure why they’re bound to the UK master on this, surely they have a good reason. It doesn’t make it any less of a bummer, though.

[jsevakis]

It’s because literally nothing better is available. The remaster tape is gone. The old master CPM had looked worse. There’s literally nothing else to work with. It was either this or nothing.

We filtered this video six ways from Sunday. Weeks of encode time. You guys definitely cherry picked the worst looking frames. Can’t deny they’re accurate, and that this disc is not ideal or something that I’m going to hold up as a reference quality disc, but in motion it looks quite watchable. I ordered a copy for myself. Sorry if you aren’t satisfied but there’s literally nothing else to be done, by us or anybody else, unless the missing remaster tape is found or another new transfer is done somehow.

[KaizerChef]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

There isn't a FUNimation BD vs. Geneon DVD comparison that I know of for Paranoia Agent, but there's been a JP Blu-ray vs. Geneon DVD comparison for 9 years.
https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...box#post120961
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...7#post12652537

Oh, so the Spanish BD by Selecta Visión is encoded with the wrong brightness because of course it is, just like their release of a Silent Voice ... good Lord, they are completely useless. I swear there isn't a single release by them that is free from major issues. I don't buy anything from them anymore because they always drop the ball in the PQ department. And they are basically the only major anime distributor in Spain. Why can't Dynit open a Spanish branch...

[SpaceDandy]

Got captures? Is it at least 1080i? The box claims it is 1080p but as 1080i blu-rays are not so common, it's not so rare to see 1080i masters labelled as 1080p on the box.

[KaizerChef]

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

Got captures? Is it at least 1080i?

No it is not. It's 1080p. As I said, they really are the worst.

Media-Info for the first episode (Spanish dub removed):

General
Unique ID                      : 334040256805693262767762361313148133081 (0xFB4DD035D2F00653BC8159D1F60DDED9)
Format                         : Matroska
Format version                 : Version 4 / Version 2
File size                      : 3.74 GiB
Duration                       : 24 min 30 s
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 21.9 Mb/s
Encoded date                   : UTC 2020-12-06 13:48:08
Writing application            : mkvmerge v51.0.0 ('I Wish') 64-bit
Writing library                : libebml v1.4.0 + libmatroska v1.6.2

Video
ID                             : 1
ID in the original source medi : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.1
Format settings                : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, Reference fra : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 24 min 30 s
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 20.1 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 35.0 Mb/s
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                         : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                     : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Standard                       : NTSC
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.405
Stream size                    : 3.45 GiB (92%)
Language                       : English
Default                        : No
Forced                         : No
Color range                    : Limited
Color primaries                : BT.709
Transfer characteristics       : BT.709
Matrix coefficients            : BT.709
Original source medium         : Blu-ray

Audio
ID                             : 2
ID in the original source medi : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                         : DTS XLL
Format/Info                    : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name                : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID                       : A_DTS
Duration                       : 24 min 30 s
Bit rate mode                  : Variable / Constant
Bit rate                       : 1 706 kb/s / 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Channel layout                 : L R
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                     : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                      : 16 bits
Compression mode               : Lossless / Lossy
Delay relative to video        : 6 ms
Stream size                    : 299 MiB (8%)
Title                          : Stereo
Language                       : Japanese
Default                        : Yes
Forced                         : No
Original source medium         : Blu-ray

Text #1
ID                             : 3
ID in the original source medi : 4608 (0x1200)
Format                         : PGS
Muxing mode                    : zlib
Codec ID                       : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                  : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                       : 3 min 23 s
Bit rate                       : 9 529 b/s
Count of elements              : 18
Stream size                    : 237 KiB (0%)
Language                       : Spanish
Default                        : No
Forced                         : No
Original source medium         : Blu-ray

Text #2
ID                             : 4
ID in the original source medi : 4609 (0x1201)
Format                         : PGS
Muxing mode                    : zlib
Codec ID                       : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                  : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                       : 23 min 42 s
Bit rate                       : 29.9 kb/s
Count of elements              : 482
Stream size                    : 5.07 MiB (0%)
Language                       : Spanish
Default                        : No
Forced                         : No
Original source medium         : Blu-ray

And here's a link to a matching screenshot for the first capture of the post mentioned above (a couple of posts more until they let me include links I guess):
postimg[dot]cc/gallery/1Z25RrQ

[SpaceDandy]

Ah, so they converted this 30i upscale to 24p. I had been wondering which distributor had kept the 30i framerate. Must have added in (for free ) artefacts.
Dybex and Kazé DE releases are 1080i. (The captures for the latter do not seem right however). The first has matching brightness with respect to Kadokawa release. Yamato Video release status is still unknown (box claims 1080p tho). FUNimation should be proper too.

[Mangaranga]

Does anyone have the UK/US BD of B The Beginning and would mind posting some screenshots?
I mainly just want to confirm that it doesn't suffer from the same I-Frame pulsing issue that affects the UK BD of Birthday Wonderland before I buy it.

[Cplhicks]

I got my Millenium Actress 4k disc today. Not sure if it has been mentioned here yet. Checked it and I see zero film grain. Like none. I only spot checked so maybe some scenes have it, but none that I spotted. As I recall, this was usually a pretty grainy film. I have not had a chance to compare detail with the Japanese bd, but if you hate grain you will probably like the 4k disc. I am worried, on the other hand, about detail that may have been lost. Will be curious to hear other people’s impressions.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Cplhicks

I got my Millenium Actress 4k disc today. Not sure if it has been mentioned here yet. Checked it and I see zero film grain. Like none. I only spot checked so maybe some scenes have it, but none that I spotted. As I recall, this was usually a pretty grainy film. I have not had a chance to compare detail with the Japanese bd, but if you hate grain you will probably like the 4k disc. I am worried, on the other hand, about detail that may have been lost. Will be curious to hear other people’s impressions.

No, there is film grain. Some scenes have a ton, others have little. It's a selective DNR application. Again, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I'll be making a huge review and screencapture comparison between the JP DVD, JP BD, US BD and UHD.

[Marshall2000_uk]

Originally Posted by jsevakis

It’s because literally nothing better is available. The remaster tape is gone. The old master CPM had looked worse. There’s literally nothing else to work with. It was either this or nothing.

We filtered this video six ways from Sunday. Weeks of encode time. You guys definitely cherry picked the worst looking frames. Can’t deny they’re accurate, and that this disc is not ideal or something that I’m going to hold up as a reference quality disc, but in motion it looks quite watchable. I ordered a copy for myself. Sorry if you aren’t satisfied but there’s literally nothing else to be done, by us or anybody else, unless the missing remaster tape is found or another new transfer is done somehow.

I’ve been saying this. I think mostly it looks nice and most of the issues I’ve noticed are the dark areas of the picture.. It does look miles better than the CPM version which has some of the same issues.. I’m never gonna go back to that DVD... Also it has the UK soundtrack which I hadn’t heard before (despite being from the UK) and (maybe controversially) I prefer it.

[SpaceDandy]

Originally Posted by KaizerChef

No it is not. It's 1080p. As I said, they really are the worst.

Btw I should add that, I don't know how much Selecta listens to customers but sometimes it's good to send them an e-mail that explains well the problem. Some publishers in France did listen to customers' feedback when anime blu-ray was starting to get a thing there (2012-13?), as some blu-ray were catastrophic. We do know that it led to some being fired or blacklisted.
I don't think they are like Kazé France and there must be some room for improvement.

AFAIK Selecta uses sometimes AVM BCN, which is also the authoring house of some french distributors. You can ask them how come their release is of lower quality for the same title, authored by the same company in comparison to the neighbour country's release. It can only be their fault as they must have requested something along the line: "crispy colours, progressive picture, some filtering".
And while I talk about AVMedia, I had this sitting for weeks on my harddrive:

Top wo Nerae! Gattai Movie!! [GunBuster - The movie] (France - Dybex)
Authoring: AVMedia Barcelona
Movie gallery (I took so many )

Movie bitrate (mean 30.61, max 43.81 Mbps)
MediaInfo:

[Show spoiler]

File size                                : 22.8 GiB
Duration                                 : 1 h 35 min
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 34.2 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-12-24 16:27:14
Writing application                      : MakeMKV v1.15.4 darwin(x64-release)
Writing library                          : libmakemkv v1.15.4 (1.3.10/1.5.2) darwin(x64-release)

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=22
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 30.6 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 35.2 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.615
Stream size                              : 20.4 GiB (89%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS XLL
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name                          : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 077 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 1.39 GiB (6%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : Japanese
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.01 GiB (4%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : Japanese
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Text
ID                                       : 4
ID in the original source medium         : 4608 (0x1200)
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                                 : 1 h 34 min
Bit rate                                 : 44.4 kb/s
Count of elements                        : 2522
Stream size                              : 30.1 MiB (0%)
Language                                 : French
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Probably not as good as the 2008 Bandai release, because they put the 2 movies on one BD50 but I was still stunned by how good GunBuster looks (and hence why I took so many captures) and did not notice video artifacts. Too bad the OVA series is in licensing hell.

I have some more Kazé stuff coming up, brace yourself.