The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Naiera]

One of the Yowamushi Pedal discs had compression artifacts.

[Toad King]

Originally Posted by Jackson_H

Any feedback on the new Kaiji Season 1 Blu-ray release from Sentai would be appreciated. Would like to know if the interlacing judder issues from the 2021 release have been corrected or are less distracting

I don't put much faith in the site reviews...

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Kaiji...371223/#Review

Answered in PMs as well but posting here for future reference:

I got the new Kaiji Blu-ray and it's in 1080i 59.94 fps. I personally don't notice any major judder but I know some people are more sensitive to it. (Inspecting it frame-by-frame it just does 2:3 pulldown for the 24 fps video.)

[BigOnAnime]

Quick note, the site listing should now say "1080i (upconverted)" instead of simply "1080i". Upscales need to be under "1080i/p (upconverted)".

Interesting to hear it's still 1080i, especially given how much Sentai has struggled with interlaced content for more than a decade.

[MasterJeff]

Mononoke The Movie: Karakasa VAP JPBD (includes English subtitles)

Disc Size: 20,296,888,673 bytes
Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00001.MPLS
Size: 15,022,589,952 bytes
Length: 1:29:54.389
Total Bitrate: 22.28 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 14500 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  4020 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz /  1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: Japanese / 84.240 kbps
Subtitle: English / 85.753 kbps

[peppapigstan]

vap L strikes again

[NLScavenger]

If the backers who paid 20.000 yen or more receive the same disc, big oof.

[MasterJeff]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

If the backers who paid 20.000 yen or more receive the same disc, big oof.

I imagine it will be the same considering this disc has English subtitles (like the kickstarter promised) and VAP releases (especially anime) usually do not. It is very disappointing considering that outside of Japan it is probably in netflix jail and will not receive a bd.

[SpaceDandy]

French reviewer Vick has posted a lengthy review on the french release of The Boy and the Heron by Wild Side, including plenty of comparisons with the JP BD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi7b1flvirk

Comps:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

The standard BD is an oddity on its own:
- It is the UHD HDR master tonemapped and downscaled to 1080p
- 24 frames per second, not 23.976
- 16 Mbps average video bitrate
- 2x 7.1 Dolby Atmos tracks (JP, FR) at 4.8 Mbps each, 1x 2.0 DTS-HDMA 16-bit for audiodescription (insanity)
- Bloated with interviews
- Storyboard movie as bonus, accompagnied by the movie using the Picture-in-Picture feature (i.e soft overlay, can be disabled on the menu).

The usage of the Blu-ray Picture-in-Picture feature is a rare sight in itself. Buena Vista had similar features with their Ghibli releases, where the storyboard had a 480p encode of the movie playing in a small box on the side.
But the authorer did an oopsie. He encoded the secondary video in 1080p and set a 1/4 scale on playback. The PIP video is decoded in 1080p then forcefully downscaled to 480x270p. Why did they not use a 480p video, like Disney had? This is a catastrophic waste of disc space.

Why is this so special? This is one of the few, if only, commercial Blu-ray to use PIP with FHD secondary video. While the disc itself sucks (too much content on a single disc), the lack of compatibility issues/returns from customers may motivate post-prod businesses to use HD PIP (and notably the luma key feature) on their releases. So far they were all afraid due to "large scale compatibility issues", which seems wrong as it works on very cheap players from the 2010s.

[SpaceDandy]

Merry Com'On Screenmas, courtesy of K. again.

Love Live Superstar S2 (Anime Limited - UK/FR)
Screencap -
Comparison between BD JP, FR, ADN and CR USA.

Colours are wrong, and those horizontal macroblock-sized lines flicker and move around. Here is it in motion (re-compressed).

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

Colours are wrong, and those horizontal macroblock-sized lines flicker and move around. Here is it in motion (re-compressed).

I know Com'On are s***, but how did they manage to get the colour matrix wrong now? That's a new one.

[SpaceDandy]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

I know Com'On are s***, but how did they manage to get the colour matrix wrong now? That's a new one.

Why are you surprised? This is just one more to their very long list of wrongs. The person took these shots with mpv FWIW.

In other wrongdoings, COS also managed to leave translator comments in Gleipnir subtitles. Albeit All the Anime France is to blame here. They stick to outdated subtitles conventions and enforce a "one file suits all medium" approach, which imposes ridiculous limitations and ruin all subtitles.
But hey, at the end of the day it's just Anime Limited fault for skipping quality checks. This has been going on for years at this point.

[SpaceDandy]

Re Superstar S2: the english subtitles got the AL french branch treatment. No typesetting, no concurrent signs/dialogue. Was CR typesetting in Yohane a mistake? Maybe they received the NHK E subtitles, but then the release lacks CR fixes, which is also lame.

AL must be an absolute shitshow if every project manager has its own workflow to manage subtitles.

[tigeress02]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

If the backers who paid 20.000 yen or more receive the same disc, big oof.

I just got mine and yeah, I think they just sent us the retail BD instead of a special Kickstarter release. Since they never gave us any details on the disc or packaging images and the shipping date was after the retail BD, I kinda figured that was what we were getting. I think I'm just used to how AnimEigo runs these things.

FWIW, there is a UPC of 4988021720908 which pulls up this on Amazon JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp//dp/B0DKFNG5PP

Edit: Looking at the Ubgoe site for the JP side of the campaign, it looks like none of those reward tiers had a BD listed as a reward. I guess that side was done when the first shipment of rewards went out a couple years ago (besides the special viewing of the movie). They only needed BDs for the people on Kickstarter and there were only a few hundred of us. Easier to just send us the retail version instead of making a specific Kickstarter release.

[NLScavenger]

Love Live! Superstar!! JPN BD Season 3 Vol 1
Same as previous seasons that were also handled by Sony PCL, so I only took a few comps with home video corrections.

BDInfo

Disc Title:     Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season 1
Disc Label:     BDROM
Disc Size:      36,709,842,338 bytes
Protection:     AACS
Playlist:       00001.MPLS
Size:           15,415,947,264 bytes
Length:         0:47:38.188
Total Bitrate:  43.15 Mbps
Video:          MPEG-4 AVC Video / 38,784 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio:          Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle:       English / 137.62 kbps

[omarchafa]

I don't know if I asked this already, but any Frieren BD comparisons between the JP and CR US BD?

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by omarchafa

I don't know if I asked this already, but any Frieren BD comparisons between the JP and CR US BD?

It hasn't been asked already, but one has already been done here.

[omarchafa]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

It hasn't been asked already, but one has already been done here.

Yeah, it's really hard to tell difference between each one. The JPBD is clearly a bit sharper while the rest are a bit softer. The CR stream is the best of the stream versions while the Amazon one is not so great. The 9Volt one looks very good, although I'm not sure what the source is from.

So it looks safe to buy the US BD then. I don't see any real issues (wrong gamma, color, filtering).

[NLScavenger]

JPN BD and US BD are lowpass filtered (see ringing in end credits text)

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I was relieved to see the SBMV logo in the Superstar S3 vol 1 packaging contents picture. No disc picture shots of the the Yohane compilation film and Nijigasaki trilogy part 1 yet, but they have PCM 5.1 according to specs. Could indicate Sony, but I hope the PCM is a mistake and that the actual discs have TrueHD.

Yohane compilation film uses bitrate wasting 24-bit PCM for the 5.1 track.

Disc Title: YOHANE THE PARHELION -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR- Movie Edition
Disc Label: YOHANE_THE_PARHELION_MOVIE
Disc Size: 42,187,359,755 bytes
Protection: AACS
Playlist: 00000.MPLS
Size: 30,700,443,648 bytes
Length: 1:30:21.416
Total Bitrate: 45.30 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 33924 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz /  6912 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz /  2304 kbps / 24-bit

[celery]

Re: Dokuro-chan BDs
Posting again without links since I get caught in new member spam filter (admin approval?). Looking for information regarding difference in Discotek Media upscale BD released in 2020 versus the Universal Japan release in 2022 (GNXA-1840); particularly, I want to know if Universal Japan copied the upscale work Discotek did (1080i) or if they did a proper remaster. I can't find anything in Japanese that says if the Universal BD is 1080i or not. If anyone here has insight it would be greatly appreciated.