Which UK release of Escaflowne has the proper version of the movie (not the Funi disc)? Also, does the UK release have both dubs or just the Funi dub?
The 2016 Ultimate Edition Blu-ray set comes with the on-disc extras: Special Program & Roundtable Discussion, Japanese TV Spot, English Teaser, Anime Expo 2000 Premiere Interviews and Concert, Anime Expo 2000 Premiere Footage & Panel.
The 2017 standard edition Blu-ray as well as the 2019 TV & Film collector's Blu-ray set uses the Funimation encode which only includes the Promo Video, US Trailer and Funimation trailers (I don't know the exact reason but I presume it's licensing issues).
All versions include the Bandai English dub and Funi English dub.
Is the UK "Children of the Sea" a competent release? I know the French release is to be avoided, but that was not handled by Anime Limited's FR branch(iirc). Should I just get the GKIDS version?
Surprised it took 5 months for a review, and despite that....
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Funimation noted in a press release that replacement discs would be offered to buyers wanting the HDR version of the 4K presentation. The replacement discs were expected to be shipped in February, 2021. Yet several months later, the replacement discs have yet to be shipped to many buyers – and a HDR disc was unable to be obtained for the review. Buyers should consider this to be a significant caveat to an otherwise decent release.
Surprised that the audio got a perfect score, seeing as it’s the awful new Hypersonic mix (not even the 2009 one, which was way better) with weird changes and awful noise reduction on the centre channel, and the original Japanese 2.0 mix is missing. But then again, it seems that the reviewers here don’t really care when the original audio mix is missing (as seen by most reviews of 4K catalog titles).
Still, it sucks that the replacement disc scheme is still ongoing.
Why do anime companies create 5.1 sound for most of their DVDs and Blu-rays? Was this some kind of marketing strategy to increase sales? If so, which anime best benefit from the additional channels of surround sound?
It was a marketing thing. They'd even put it on the front and/or back covers, description, and even stickers. The only company that still regularly does it is FUNimation, and they've actually in recent years stopped doing it for certain titles. Sentai Filmworks sometimes does 5.1 mixes (Ex: Parasyte) but it's rare.
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I've noticed that many US disc releases of anime titles (especially in the past decade) have English dub tracks that were listed as having 5.1 or "Dolby Digital" English audio, which would lead one to believe that it features "surround sound." However, the Japanese audio tracks are usually only stereo, and the discs sold in Japan are usually only stereo as well, so I presume that the US licensors would only have stereo M&E (music & effects) tracks to work from. It sounds like it'd be an enormous amount of work to make a proper 5.1 mix out of them, if that's even possible. With that being the case, are the English tracks that are listed as "5.1" really that? Is there anything special about them over a basic stereo track, and what kind of extra effort is being put into them, if any?
Japan normally doesn't do 5.1 surround mixes for their TV shows. Only high-end OVAs and movies get that treatment. But in the early days of DVDs in the US, the ability to have 5.1 was considered a huge selling point of the format. People that could afford it would spend a lot of money tricking out their home theaters with 6 speakers -- 3 in front, two in back and a subwoofer on the floor -- and would really enjoy the immersive effect. It was especially important for action movies.
It's important to note here that while 5.1 tracks and "Dolby Digital" were often used in the same sentence, they are not the same thing. 5.1 is what we call having discreet 6-channel audio (the 5 speakers plus the ".1" of the subwoofer), as opposed to Stereo, which is just two channels (left and right). Dolby Digital, or AC3, is just the compression format it's stored in, like MP3. (There are others too, like DTS.) Dolby Digital sound was heavily marketed in the early days of DVD, with publishers often including annoying 3D logos for the format on their discs. It wasn't special -- nearly every DVD uses Dolby Digital. But just because something is in Dolby Digital doesn't mean it's in 5.1.
Anyway, lots of US anime publishers spent a lot of money making 5.1 mixes for their dubs. They generally left the original Japanese audio tracks alone, but since they were directly in charge of the dubs, and those dubs needed to be mixed anyway, they decided to pay the extra money and have those dubs finished in 5.1.
Mixing in 5.1 isn't very different than mixing in stereo, but it does require a lot more expensive equipment and an engineer that knows what they're doing. When recording a dub, each individual element is laid out in a digital audio workstation software, like ProTools. Every element is given its own separate "track", much like how every element of a piece of art is on a separate layer in Photoshop. Every character has its own track, music has its own tracks (usually two, 'cause it's stereo), and sound effects get their own tracks.
After everything is recorded and laid out, a mixer will go through the whole show and "position" each audio element according to the speakers. Most characters are speaking from directly on-screen, so they come out of the center channel. Music usually goes on the front left and front right speakers. And sound effects could come from any direction, according to what's happening on-screen. Additionally, some effects can add an echo, so something that might come strongly out of some speakers might echo slightly from their opposite speakers. All of this is done to give the sound a feeling of space, and of realistically re-creating the acoustics of a scene.
With a stereo mix, each element can only come from the left or the right speaker, so a mixer really only has to decide how far off-center to put each element. With 5.1, they suddenly have a lot more options. (Newer technologies, like Dolby Atmos, adds even more directionality.) There's an art to it, and a mixer can do a really amazing job or get lazy at this step. Finally, once every sound is positioned and effects are added, they "bounce," or export, the final mix to 6 separate audio files, which are then re-combined with the picture.
The anime publishers eventually learned that, while 5.1 was a nice thing to have on a disc, it wasn't a make-or-break thing, and having a 5.1 track didn't really make people buy a show when they weren't going to already. So after a few years, 5.1 tracks became a luxury -- much like Japan, only being used for movies and high-profile titles. But for a few years in the early 2000s, a huge percentage of anime DVDs had 5.1 dub tracks.
So, how DO you make a 5.1 dub mix when the original version itself is only in stereo? There are two ways. The first method is called up-mixing, which is that you use software (such as NUGEN Audio's Halo Upmix, or Waves DTS Neural Surround Upmix) to artificially expand a finished stereo dub to 5.1. This is surprisingly difficult to do, because once an audio track is mixed, you really can't easily separate the different elements again. This software gets around that by analyzing the audio and trying to figure out what everything is. They generally it try to keep all the dialogue coming from the front speakers, and expand everything else to fill the room without making anything very directional (because, obviously, the software has no idea what's actually happening on-screen).
The quality of these upmixes varies greatly (and snobs call this "fake 5.1") but they're never as good as a "native" 5.1 mix. Also, most home theater gear has built-in technology like Dolby Pro-Logic or DTS NEO that attempts to do similar upmixes right in your own home, when you're watching the program. If an engineer performing an upmix wants to really go the extra mile, he or she can add in new sound effects that really make use of directionality, but that's very labor intensive, and Japan might not like it. So, the end result is seldom much better than having a plain old stereo track. Manga Entertainment used to do a lot of upmixes, but these days most companies don't bother.
If a dub is being newly recorded, or all of the unmixed "stems" of each track were saved, it's possible to make a new mix in "real" 5.1. Dialogue tracks, obviously, are all separate elements and can be freely positioned in a mix. However, if the Japanese-provided music and effects tracks (M&E's) were sent as pre-mixed stereo, there's not a whole lot that can be done with those, particularly if background music and sound effects are mashed together. The mixer won't be able to position the sound effects without also shuffling the music from speaker to speaker. Luckily, these days it's much more common for music and sound effects to be delivered separately, which gives a mixer enough freedom to position all of the individual elements in a realistic way.
A good 5.1 mix can really add a lot to a viewing experience. A bad mix will just sort of lay there. Of course, these days, half of us are watching anime on a phone or tablet, so 5.1 mixes are something we probably wouldn't even notice.
Dubs in 5.1 are pointless, IMO, along with remixes in general. If the show was originally mixed in stereo or mono or whatever, keep it in stereo or mono or whatever. Remixes are unnecessary, and in most cases, worsen the qualities of the audio rather than enhance it.
The worst remixes are "stereo" remixes of mono-finished films that are just a poor re-channeling of the final mono track littered with phasing ("Cinderella Liberty", "The Manchurian Candidate", and both 70s Lupin films being the worst offenders in this regard imo).
German release seems to be the same as the French (also Kazé), and matches up with the info from ViCklatereur‘s video. But once I have the JP BD in my hands, if you want to replicate the shots I do (either myself or what Scavenger does and I replicate), go ahead.
It matches (and I just discovered the live footage bonus is exclusive to the german language and not available in french ). Anyway there's definitely some banding. But with such smooth textures I guess it's unavoidable unless you manualy process each problematic scene. I think it's acceptable for a budget release (but it is OOP now). Two additional captures, which show some banding.
Movie bitrate:
Last edited by SpaceDandy; 05-19-2021 at 11:30 AM.
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 / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1 h 59 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 12.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 28.0 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) : 0.241
Stream size : 9.97 GiB
Writing library : x264pro - Adobe CS Exporter Plug-in
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=24 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=25 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=12000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=28000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / nal_hrd=vbr / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
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 #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 59 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 493 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 : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 2.07 GiB
Title : Surround 5.1
Language : German
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Audio #2
ID : 3
ID in the original source medium : 4353 (0x1101)
Format : DTS XLL
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1 h 59 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 493 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 : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 2.07 GiB
Title : Surround 5.1
Language : German
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Audio #3
ID : 4
ID in the original source medium : 4354 (0x1102)
Format : DTS XLL
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1 h 59 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 565 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 1.30 GiB
Title : Stereo
Language : Japanese
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Text #1
ID : 6
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 56 min
Bit rate : 5 862 b/s
Count of elements : 420
Stream size : 4.87 MiB (0%)
Language : German
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Text #2
ID : 8
ID in the original source medium : 4609 (0x1201)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 1 h 58 min
Bit rate : 45.0 kb/s
Count of elements : 2669
Stream size : 38.1 MiB (0%)
Language : German
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Menu
00:00:00.000 : en:Chapter 01
00:02:14.759 : en:Chapter 02
00:03:44.974 : en:Chapter 03
00:11:58.968 : en:Chapter 04
00:19:56.695 : en:Chapter 05
00:22:37.522 : en:Chapter 06
00:23:48.885 : en:Chapter 07
00:25:32.948 : en:Chapter 08
00:27:02.954 : en:Chapter 09
00:33:45.940 : en:Chapter 10
00:46:06.054 : en:Chapter 11
00:47:36.478 : en:Chapter 12
00:47:53.120 : en:Chapter 13
00:49:23.460 : en:Chapter 14
00:58:05.482 : en:Chapter 15
01:09:37.506 : en:Chapter 16
01:11:06.595 : en:Chapter 17
01:11:25.447 : en:Chapter 18
01:12:12.494 : en:Chapter 19
01:13:42.459 : en:Chapter 20
01:22:10.508 : en:Chapter 21
01:33:31.480 : en:Chapter 22
01:35:00.569 : en:Chapter 23
01:35:14.417 : en:Chapter 24
01:36:23.194 : en:Chapter 25
01:37:53.409 : en:Chapter 26
01:45:12.472 : en:Chapter 27
01:57:19.032 : en:Chapter 28
01:58:48.079 : en:Chapter 29
- Vol. 2 and 3 have similar bitrates, but lower sizes due to 4 eps per volume
- The German DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is actually included twice on all 3 volumes
Upon request, I used MPC-HC with MadVR installed. Haven't changed any default setting except for PNG instead of JPG
Onscreen text like the translation of the book titles is baked into the video.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
). Anyway there's definitely some banding. But with such smooth textures I guess it's unavoidable unless you manualy process each problematic scene. I think it's acceptable for a budget release (but it is OOP now).
Linear Mode
