One thing I do know about King Records is they normally send stuff to Q-TEC to become oil paintings (RIP Azumanga Daioh, Blue Seed, and Love Hina). Thankfully that didn't happen with Evangelion for obvious reasons.
Their "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" and "Streets of Fire" releases are jokes (Alfredo uses the pre-Arrow remaster but filtered it for no reason and "Streets of Fire" had both the old Universal supplied master and Shout Factory remaster but treated the Shout remaster like some low bitrate bonus feature).
Eva's restoration is faaaaaaarrrrrrr from perfect (some grain reduction at a master level- the comment about "grain compression" being mushy is probably wrong when one considers it- along with scanning issues like fringing and chromatic aberration, colour grading which isn't white balanced which exhibits a yellow tint that shouldn't be there, and the fact that it was probably scanned on an outdated Spirit Datacine- it just has the look of it), but it's still the best the show has ever looked, and some of the inherent issues in its restoration can be overlooked (not everyone is picky about colour correction). It's an admirable effort, but for the 5 years it apparently took Sony PCL, it could've been better.
...but it still looks great, so those are mostly just nitpicks on an overall good restoration that still holds up decently well. (I hope it didn't come off as completely negative, but Eva's BD restoration is not the "perfect release" most fans were proclaiming for years.)
Their "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" and "Streets of Fire" releases are jokes (Alfredo uses the pre-Arrow remaster but filtered it for no reason and "Streets of Fire" had both the old Universal supplied master and Shout Factory remaster but treated the Shout remaster like some low bitrate bonus feature).
Even though I didn't pay a lot for Streets of Fire, I'm still feeling buyer's remorse.
Only other King Records disc I have is Pop Team Epic TV Special which was alright, but then again it's Pop Team Epic.
I don't think SoF or Pop Team Epic were done at Sony PCL. Don't see the SBMV logo anywhere. Sony PCL also prefer TrueHD and PCM over DTS-HD MA.
Last edited by NLScavenger; 12-22-2021 at 01:39 PM.
Even though I didn't pay a lot for Streets of Fire, I'm still feeling buyer's remorse.
Only other King Records disc I have is Pop Team Epic TV Special which was alright, but then again it's Pop Team Epic.
I don't think SoF or Pop Team Epic were done at Sony PCL. Don't see the SBMV logo anywhere. Sony PCL also prefer TrueHD and PCM over DTS-HD MA.
So what is the good Streets of Fire to get? (I've been meaning to get it on Blu-ray for a while but every time I turn around seems like there is a new release)
So what is the good Streets of Fire to get? (I've been meaning to get it on Blu-ray for a while but every time I turn around seems like there is a new release)
The US 2018 steelbook is the best overall package. German 2019 mediabook has slightly better picture quality, but the Steelbook has an exclusive 4.1 track that was created from the 70mm 6-track soundtrack. The 2017 US BD doesn't have the 4.1 track.
Sign translations are burned in. There's some basic motion tracking here and there, but not in the first example, so the sign stays in the same position even though the car is idling. End credits are not translated.
Looking forward to one of the resident experts to get hold of the discotek release of Project A-KO. Its a single disc that seems stacked with extra's but screenshots of the film look amazing.
I was curious enough about how these two releases stacked up against each other that I decided to find out for myself, since no one else had done a comparison yet. The more I looked at, the more interesting this became, so I've looked at a lot of different parts of the show and have found more inconsistency than I expected.
[Show spoiler]Throughout the whole run of 4:3, standard-def animated episodes, Viz used a sort of upscaling that's not too uncommon to see with shows from this era. The Blu-rays often look clearer or sharper, but there usually is no actual detail to be gained (some compression artifacts lead me to believe this is a direct upscale of the DVDs). It tends to cause some smearing distortion in displeasing ways, for example the moon in screenshot #4 appears a lot less natural and smoothly defined, and the poster in screenshot #5, which looks to have out-of-focus kanji on the DVD, now appears to use a simpler alien language due to the distortion.
On the other hand, the OP does provide a notable curiosity, as seen in screenshot #1. Telops are replaced with English on the DVDs, and any frame that's been altered like this is significantly blurrier than anything else on the disc. The Blu-rays retain the original Japanese telops.
Also, as seen in screenshot #7, the DVDs in this early period use burned-in subs for signs. I'm not sure how far into the series this goes but it does eventually stop. The Blu-rays use traditional soft subtitles for signs.
Also worth noting, the series at this point has a variable framerate with the occasional 30i element, but the Blu-rays are 24p, so a handful of frames are lost.
Personally, I recommend the DVDs for these episodes for a more organic look closer to what was intended, but the Blu-rays are decent enough.
Part 2: 16:9 Episodes 168-230
(Screenshots 13-18)
[Show spoiler]When Bleach started airing in widescreen, Viz strangely opted to crop it down to 4:3 for a few sets. The DVDs are decent enough outside of the obvious cropping, but it is often distracting not having the full picture. One particularly strange case is screenshot #18, where it appears the widescreen image was squished into 4:3 instead of cropped. The effect also appears a lot more translucent on the DVD than the Blu-ray.
The Blu-ray, on the other hand, is where these sets started to gain some unfortunate quirks. In still shots, the Blu-ray looks good, but there's a stair-stepping artifact that consistently appears on anything and everything that moves. For the frames with these artifacts, I find it looks worse than the DVD, but on every other frame it looks better.
I recommend the Blu-rays for these episodes, if only for the sake of seeing the full frame.
Part 3: 16:9 Episodes 231-??
(Screenshots 19-24)
[Show spoiler]This is the point of no return for the Blu-rays. I didn't spot check every disc and episode, so I'm not confident inwhen this starts, but for a while the stair-stepping artifacts from before are constant, like the video is consistently half the resolution it should be. The DVDs unfortunately win out here, as they provide a smoother and cleaner image than the Blu-rays and, given any decent BD player upscaling, will look better on your TV.
Beginning with Set 10, there's also a problem regarding the framerate that persists all the way to the end of the series. It should be 24p, but it instead plays at 30p with every fourth frame repeating. If you're used to 3:2 pulldown you may not notice this, but if you're used to watching things at native framerate, it can be very distracting. The DVDs do not have this problem and most players should IVTC them into 24p.
[Show spoiler]Since I didn't check every disc and episode, I can't pinpoint when this change happens, but eventually the video of the Blu-ray goes back to the quality seen in "Part 2" of this comparison, and only has stair-stepping artifacts on moving objects. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the framerate problem is never fixed and remains incorrect. I saw some say that they noticed an increase in quality at the start of the final arc, but I personally noticed no such thing.
I recommend the DVDs for these episodes for a more visually consistent experience.
To sum it up, you should probably stick with the DVDs for Bleach, with the exception of the span of episodes 168-230, where they are presented uncropped on the Blu-ray (Sets 7-9).
It's a shame the ball was dropped so hard on these Blu-rays. Sets 1-6 are still competent, if flawed, upscales, and the video on later episodes would still be acceptable if it weren't for the strange aliasing and framerate issues present throughout. I don't see myself buying into any other "upscales" Viz might put out after this.
Last edited by Footlong Shoe; 11-02-2022 at 05:07 PM.
Looking forward to one of the resident experts to get hold of the discotek release of Project A-KO. Its a single disc that seems stacked with extra's but screenshots of the film look amazing.
I have the release, but whenever I try to upload bdinfo or screenshots for anything the post never shows up
The forum requires more posts on your end to allow links and images to be embedded in your posts. You could DM the links to the captures and bitrate plot to someone else here and they would post it. (But you will still need to participate in the forums to be able to do it yourself later on )
The forum requires more posts on your end to allow links and images to be embedded in your posts. You could DM the links to the captures and bitrate plot to someone else here and they would post it. (But you will still need to participate in the forums to be able to do it yourself later on )
Ah okay I see, IMO it'd be nice if that rule was posted in rules section or something, but I get why (anti-spam)
On the subject of captures is there recommended software to use? Currently I use MPC-HC+MadVR, but have heard that MPV is also a good option
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