The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Gowho]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

nobody submitted the credits to ANN for Umineko as per usual for NISA titles (nearly every NISA title has no English staff credits submitted to ANN, I could only add from what little NISA releases I own, hopefully someday someone can help fix that...).

This is actually no surprise, it was a shock when nobody added anything for Cardcaptor Sakura for a long time despite it being well-known how they botched that one.

[llj]

Originally Posted by SteamfloggerBoss

Yep, that's the pickle for me. I'll probably buy at 30 something.

Will it ever get that low? It's a 42 episode show on blu-ray with likely a low print run. It seems to me like the current price on Amazon may well be as low as it gets

[CDv2]

I know this has probably been asked a nauseating amount of times on here, but is there a list of anime blu rays that had multiple releases in the US and goes over which release was best?

[dubudavid]

In regards to Higurashi, it is true that Geneon’s S1 subs were probably the worst of the three, with each series getting slightly better as it went.
The real issue especially for the latter two was not really the translation itself (though there were a handful of actual errors that were fixed, some pretty big ones in fact) but more the fact that they read very stilted and unnaturally, as if they were translated by a non-native English speaker and the subtitles did not receive an edit or cleanup pass at all. I don’t know if this was actually the case but that’s what it felt like. Also, there were many terms and stuff that were not consistent throughout all three seasons so did our best to make everything match. I referenced a lot of different things including the visual novels, fan wikis, even fansubs at times, to see what certain things were called across all of them and to see if there was some sort of accepted commonalities between them.
After doing the S3 subs I went back and took a quick look at the S1 ones, and I will admit they’re still not perfect and missed a few things that will have me kicking myself forever, but I can still say that they are vastly improved overall.
One more thing, I don’t think I’ve ever researched anything for subtitles more than the one big mahjong scene in Rei. God that was confusing as hell.

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by BoopityBoop

The original Princess Tutu BD release does have ghosting issues, but the steelbook release fixes them. The most recent Votoms release is largely problem-free, however Pailsen Files does not display in the correct aspect ratio.

Are you referring to the Complete Collection from 2020? Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any information regarding the quality of the other releases that I mentioned, but it's good to know about the Steelbook release of Princess Tutu at least.

[Saturn2888]

Screenshot reference: https://imgur.com/a/QTGMAGa

The Canaad Japanese Blu-rays I picked up look really pixelated almost like it's DVD footage, but it doesn't look like it was upscaled properly either. Since the BD is showing pixels, it's not a Q-TEC upscale (��), but something's still off.

The show's from 2009, well into the HD-era, so it should have a native 1080p release (even if the source isn't quite 1080p). The video file is interlaced, but it's not merging fields properly like you'd see on DVDs where you can flip through frames, and by the 3rd one, everything should look normal 24p because of IVTC.

I thought it was my player (MPC-HC), but it also happens in VLC.

US release is superior?

Looking at Blu-ray.com's screenshots of the US release, it's not pixelated. Lines are very smooth.

You have to zoom in to see the difference. It's obvious on my screen (especially my TV) but might not be obvious on smaller ones.

Blu-ray.com also notes 1080p for the US release and 1080i for the JP BD. I've seen this discrepancy in the past, but without both releases, it's hard to tell. I don't wanna buy the US BD as well if I later find out DVD is the correct medium for this show.

For this particular show, I'm wondering if it was just improperly mastered on the JP release (interlaced h264 is rare), and maybe that was fixed by Sentai Filmworks for the US release and converted to 24p?

Does anyone know?

[jd213]

Canaan, other PA Works series from that period, and some series like Spice & Wolf S1 were mistakenly output as interlaced (sometimes called "720i"), then poorly deinterlaced and upscaled to 1080i/p for the JP BDs. I was under the impression that the US BDs were usually the same or worse (Spice & Wolf S1 was upscaled from SD in the US), but not sure about Canaan. Other than some Panasonic Blu-ray recorders in Japan with "Anime Mode", in order to get rid of these deinterlacing artifacts you'd have to rip the Blu-ray and apply avisynth filters and re-encode.

edit: this blog had some of the AVIsynth filters, here's what they used for Seikon no Qwaser S1: https://web.archive.org/web/20190610...0/01/1_12.html

[Saturn2888]

I might wanna re-encode, but I've never use AviSynth, and it's always been a pain to set up. I wish there was a ZIP of everything, and it was ready to go :/. Interlaced content is not something ffmpeg does well.

I have a separate Anime, Betterman, with a pretty lackluster 390p JP DVD (not sure about the US release) with black bars on top and bottom. I can't remove them via a re-encode with ffmpeg because it's telecine interlaced.

For Canaan, at least, I'll probably buy the US release and return it if it's just as bad. I'm pretty sure Sentai Filmworks fixed it, but who knows. On Monday, I should be getting an email response.

[TThomas]

Originally Posted by CDv2

I know this has probably been asked a nauseating amount of times on here, but is there a list of anime blu rays that had multiple releases in the US and goes over which release was best?

A list? one could write a book about that

Generelly speaking:
Funimation / Crunchyroll: in 95 % of cases Blu-ray discs are the same across all releases, with later re-releases usually dropping the DVDs & Slipcover & replacing them with a no-longer-working Digital Copy. This can be annoying in some cases in which the DVDs included special content or even episodes (like Is this a Zombie Season 1 or Lucky Star)

Dragon Ball Z: Steelbooks and UK Seasons have correct 4:3 aspect ratio, whilest most other releases are cropped to 16:9

Sentai / Maiden Japan / ADV: in 95 % of cases Blu-ray discs are at least slightly improved compared to previous print runs, however if the older print run was quite recent the difference might be very minor

VIZ: Sailor Moon improved with later print runs. For other titles quite often UK / AU releases of the same titles have better video quality

But I guess @BigonAnime can provide further details. We need such a list?

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by TThomas

Dragon Ball Z: Steelbooks and UK Seasons have correct 4:3 aspect ratio, whilest most other releases are cropped to 16:9

Was the 2023 box set 4:3 as well? If I recall correctly, it used the same discs as the steelbooks.

[lilwolf555]

Chainsaw man comp 'movies' out. Anyone see if they improved anything or is it the same as prior streaming thats better than all but JP blu?

[Saturn2888]

Originally Posted by jd213

Canaan, other PA Works series from that period, and some series like Spice & Wolf S1 were mistakenly output as interlaced (sometimes called "720i"), then poorly deinterlaced and upscaled to 1080i/p for the JP BDs. I was under the impression that the US BDs were usually the same or worse (Spice & Wolf S1 was upscaled from SD in the US), but not sure about Canaan. Other than some Panasonic Blu-ray recorders in Japan with "Anime Mode", in order to get rid of these deinterlacing artifacts you'd have to rip the Blu-ray and apply avisynth filters and re-encode.

edit: this blog had some of the AVIsynth filters, here's what they used for Seikon no Qwaser S1: https://web.archive.org/web/20190610...0/01/1_12.html

I'm probably gonna have to pick up the US BD for Canaan and see... But it's not sold by Amazon, so if it's not any better, returning will be tough.

[jd213]

You may as well see if any of the releases on the cat site have fixed video, and then pick up the US BD if you want a physical copy, but if it's OOP then I personally wouldn't bother unless I really wanted it

[Saturn2888]

Originally Posted by jd213

You may as well see if any of the releases on the cat site have fixed video, and then pick up the US BD if you want a physical copy, but if it's OOP then I personally wouldn't bother unless I really wanted it

The cat site had the JP BD. I was looking at it to see the release quality since I don't trust buying before seeing (many JP BDs are upscales or have insane DNR), and the Blu-ray.com pictures looked way better.

I went ahead and bought it. Unlike some others, this is in print.

[jd213]

It was delisted earlier this year, I haven't been paying much attention to what's in print though: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=4051

[Saturn2888]

Originally Posted by Saturn2888

I'm probably gonna have to pick up the US BD for Canaan and see... But it's not sold by Amazon, so if it's not any better, returning will be tough.

Bad news. Canaan US looks as bad as the JP version. It's slightly blurrier, but it's 24p rather than 60i, so there's that. Overall, no difference between the two other than the blurriness DTS-HD MA vs PCM audio. It's 5.1 in both versions.

The screenshots on Blu-ray.com were too blurry then .

[jd213]

Damn, was kinda hoping they had upgraded the video at some point, but I guess not. TBF, I think Spice & Wolf S1 is the only "720i" Blu-ray in Japan that got officially fixed video (don't think it got a US release, but I could be wrong).

I haven't dabbled in AVIsynth much myself, but if you do go that route, I imagine there's plenty of ways to make it more streamlined nowadays. Or maybe one of the other cat site versions has better video.