The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Not true. They're often better, but not always.

99% percent of the time.

[Lum]

Originally Posted by Naiera

99% percent of the time.

The prevalence is startlingly strange, you have to admit. Any encoding and mastering are already done. What is there for foreign distributors to change?

Neither slapping on subtitles or translated menus should alter the video stream.

[The Collector FX]

Originally Posted by Lum

The prevalence is startlingly strange, you have to admit. Any encoding and mastering are already done. What is there for foreign distributors to change?

Neither slapping on subtitles or translated menus should alter the video stream.

Doesn't South Korea generally follow this rule? Pretty sure most of the anime releases they have in Korea use Japanese discs with altered language/menu options. Don't quote me though.

[UHD2019]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

I am sorry but this is the funniest thing I've seen online all day.

Go Ahead Laugh.

Their Transfer still the Best in US Anime Blu-ray. Video Quality most part and Audio.

REMOVED THEIR UGLY UNFITTED CRINGE ENGLISH DUB.
And their UGLY OVERLAPPING SUBTITLES STILL PRESENT ON THE DISC (BLU-RAY)

[BigOnAnime]

I'm pretty sure Discotek Media is the best for video quality in the North American market, especially as they have the Blu-ray Authoring God Justin Sevakis working on those.

[Prince_7]

Originally Posted by Lum

The prevalence is startlingly strange, you have to admit. Any encoding and mastering are already done. What is there for foreign distributors to change?

Neither slapping on subtitles or translated menus should alter the video stream.

They fear that the japanese market would import western releases for much cheaper than buying the japanese blu-rays.
This is the same reason we often don't get to disable subtitles when playing the japanese audio, that extras are missing on our releases, that we sometimes receive a different (and worse) master than the one used for the japanese blu-ray (Steins;Gate is a good example), etc.

All of this is to make the JP blu ray more appealing than western releases.
Cases of the japanese video track being used are rare (unless you buy from Aniplex) but recently we found out the french release of Ride Your Wave uses the JP video track.

[mysticwaterfall]

Originally Posted by UHD2019

Funimation deliver Best Quality Anime Blu-ray High Bitrate (Majority) But... there English and Dub Subtitles in the Blu-rays are same as there Web and App Subtitles.

While most Funi titles are okay, they certainly aren't the "Best Quality" and some are just dreadful. There's a reason a lot of people replace there Funi discs with other versions.

Originally Posted by UHD2019

Viz Media Terrible Quality Lowest Bitrate and Poor Encoding. It's either WORST to somewhat Poor Quality.

While Viz does have some notably bad titles like Sailor Moon, they also have some great looking titles like Ranma. So you can't say they are universally terrible, it's more of a mixed bag.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

I'm pretty sure Discotek Media is the best for video quality in the North American market, especially as they have the Blu-ray Authoring God Justin Sevakis working on those.

Justin and AoA

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Prince_7

They fear that the japanese market would import western releases for much cheaper than buying the japanese blu-rays.
This is the same reason we often don't get to disable subtitles when playing the japanese audio, that extras are missing on our releases, that we sometimes receive a different (and worse) master than the one used for the japanese blu-ray (Steins;Gate is a good example), etc.

I'm not sure if the master used for Steins;Gate JP BD was in optimal condition because the authoring house applied a destructive deband filter. The debanding on the Dynit BD was done more carefully.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Lum

What is there for foreign distributors to change?

Japanese releases are typically spread across a lot more discs than western ones, so there simply isn't room on the discs for all the data needed to just re-use the JP video.

Of course, there have been examples of western releases that were intentionally gimped, but not really that many, and mostly it's just because FUNi, Sentai, etc. don't want to spend more than a BD-50 and a BD-25 on a one-cour release.

[SpaceDandy]

Originally Posted by Lum

The prevalence is startlingly strange, you have to admit. Any encoding and mastering are already done. What is there for foreign distributors to change?

Neither slapping on subtitles or translated menus should alter the video stream.

Overseas distributors are given intermediate files, not the Blu-Ray streams. Whenever they want to target a specific product or service, they have to create a new export (encode) which comply with the target constraints.
So something always has to be done, it is rather a matter of having competent staff tackling the said job.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by InuYashaCrusade

The color looks off on the VIZ Blu-ray. Whats up with them and messing with the color?

It's not the colour that's off, it's the gamma levels.

Originally Posted by UHD2019

Go Ahead Laugh.

Their Transfer still the Best in US Anime Blu-ray. Video Quality most part and Audio.

REMOVED THEIR UGLY UNFITTED CRINGE ENGLISH DUB.
And their UGLY OVERLAPPING SUBTITLES STILL PRESENT ON THE DISC (BLU-RAY)

That's nice. As a heads up, you might want to stop with the all caps if you want to be taken remotely seriously.

Funimation releases are okay. Their encoding falls apart in darker gradients though, and all their modern discs have a red tint to them so they're far from being the best. Bitrate also doesn't = quality. If the compressionist knows what they're doing, you can get better results at a low bitrate than someone who just throws a higher bitrate at everything, like Funimation and GKids. As others have said, the best discs tend to come from Media OCD/Justin.

You're also missing the part where JP BDs are more often than not filtered, whereas western BDs are almost always an encode of the raw source and look worse by default. Whilst your complaint of Sentai BDs having banding doesn't hold any weight because of this, they do have a mild issue with ringing around text and line art, due to a universal filter they use on all their discs. If there's one credit I can give Funimation and Sentai, you at least know what you're getting from them, unlike Viz.

One final point - it's no secret that the Japanese Home Video market is getting smaller each year, and that's also starting to show in the output from certain companies. Whereas it was standard for Japanese companies to encode everything at max bitrate and shove them on a BD50, we're now seeing companies like Kadokawa putting out BD25s and seeing the quality nosedive as a result, so don't expect the "Japanese BDs are better" mentality to last forever.

[Prince_7]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I'm not sure if the master used for Steins;Gate JP BD was in optimal condition because the authoring house applied a destructive deband filter. The debanding on the Dynit BD was done more carefully.

Maybe I'm thinking of Psycho Pass then

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by UHD2019

Go Ahead Laugh.

Their Transfer still the Best in US Anime Blu-ray. Video Quality most part and Audio.

Their compression is hugely subpar to horrendous and then there's the gamma issue that's never ended.
Don't even get me started on their de-graining and regraining of Cowboy Bebop. Bad.

So yes, I'm going to laugh.

[NLScavenger]

The gamma issue isn't common since 2015, but starting from 2016 the chroma has a half-pixel shift to the right (still affects recent releases)

[SpaceDandy]

I bet they don't ensure that the chroma sample location remains proper throughout the filter chain. It probably changes from top-left to top-center while they perform some conversion, hence the 0.5 shift to the right.

Quite likely an easy fix, unless they work with an automated tool which does not expose any internal option.

[cooperb21]

Does anyone know if Funimation's Steins;gate 0 release has same animation or frame corrections as JPN Blu ray? Or is it just TV airing on disc.

[Dailyan]

Warning: includes a couple of bloody NSFW shots (nothing too extreme...at least by this series' standards)
Angel Cop (Remastered)

Episode 1


Episode 2


I never owned the old Discotek Blu but I can safely say that this remaster blows it out of the water easily. I've only watched the first two episodes so far and looks great. I did notice that there were quite a few instances (also included in screenshots) where, inconsistently, the bottom edge of the film frame (especially the bottom right corner) is shown in episode two. I'm not sure what's up with that.

[Ccharmanderk]

Curious to know what a comparison between this and the upscaled Blu-ray would look like. Screencaps seem to have existed in the main Angel Cop Blu-ray thread at one point, but they're inaccessible now.

[dubudavid]

Well, when you're working with 35mm film scans of anime, the way they actually shot the feature can be inconsistent. Some shots are animated open-matte/full frame, others are clearly not, and it seems to be random. I believe Angel Cop was cropped globally across each episode rather than shot by shot, and as a result sometimes you can see the edge of the frame when they shot the cut in a certain way. Not a huge deal, but it can happen a lot if you're not careful.