The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Norbie]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

... As for licensors giving companies inferior masters, I doubt that's the case today, but it was a thing back in the DVD singles era ...

They still do it. In the U.K. Anime Ltd. got doggy masters for their Gurren Lagann - Ultimate Edition. That's just one that I'm sure of.

[Naiera]

Dodgy

That may or may not have been on purpose. The reason AL went ahead and used what they got was that the wait for new material was deemed unacceptable. It was a combined 23 seconds, after all. If everything else had been perfect (which it wasn't) I could easily have lived with that.

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by Norbie

They still do it. In the U.K. Anime Ltd. got doggy masters for their Gurren Lagann - Ultimate Edition.

Originally Posted by Naiera

Dodgy

I think it could work either way.
Maybe the picture quality is so bad it alters your perception of Yoko.

"Did you see that girl in the flaming bikini top in the AL release? Woof!

[Alfred E. Neumann]

German Blu-ray trailer of Toei Animation's CAPTAIN FUTURE (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdWFe0x6OkI

Sadly there's no japanese trailer yet.

[BigOnAnime]

Sensuifu cap drop:

US Releases

Charlotte Volume 2
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post385517

Death Parade
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post386761

God Eater Volume 1
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post386764

Note: God Eater is not an Aniplex Japan title. Bandai Visual is the one who did the Blu-rays in Japan and Aniplex Japan had no involvement with the show other than being apart of Anime Consortium Japan (ACJ; AKA Daisuki) who was on the production committee. Only other case of them getting something not through Aniplex directly was Expelled From Paradise. While Aniplex was involved, they did not have international rights, Toei Animation did, which is why their logo appears on AoA's release, and the Aniplex logo is absent on the UK release. There's also possibly Kodansha having rights to some Monogatari stuff (they were rumored to have international rights for Bakemonogatari from the start, meaning only FUNi would have had a good shot, and they probably passed on it) and now Garden of Sinners as their logo has appeared on some recent European releases for those rather than Aniplex.

Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!: Heart Throb
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post385514

Prison School
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post385513

Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post386762

[Show spoiler] I really don't want to be reminded this show exists thanks to a certain event around episodes 4 and 5. Only posting this for others.

The Asterisk War Volume 2
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post385516

Wakaba*Girl
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post385515

JP Releases

Macross Delta Volume 5
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post386090

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Sensuifu cap drop:

US Releases

Prison School
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post385513

Did Funi actually fix the contrast here? Those don't look as extreme as the streaming episodes did.

[BigOnAnime]

That was an issue that affected just about everything FUNi uploaded from late 2011 when their EVS service launched up until recently (there's tons of examples). It affected only the streams, not the discs. I had an entire post on their forum about it calling them out after they claimed that happened only because of them using hard subs when that's not the case, at all. Their Broadcast Dubs also got affected. I do have a Twitter thread on it though.
https://twitter.com/BigOnAnime/statu...99780875943936

[Sylontack]

Not Blu-ray, but is anyone familiar with the Ai Yori Aoshi releases?

I know Geneon had some pretty good DVD releases, although the recent FUNi release is much more compact.
Problem is the only other "anime classics" range DVD I've seen was my father's copy of Last Exile and the compression was absolutely awful on that one (to the extent that I couldn't watch it because I couldn't hold my tongue and didn't want to trash his purchase ). Is there anyone that has both and can attest to the quality of the FUNimation set?

[BigOnAnime]

Last Exile is re-using the same discs they've had since 2009 so that probably explains it a bit, also their track record at the time with license-rescues wasn't good (Even say Trigun which they released in 2010 looks worse than Geneon's DVDs from 2000). FUNimation has gotten better over time with DVD, and I'd imagine their Ai Yori Aoshi release probably can compete with Geneon's as their set hit in late 2012 (thanks Geneon and Universal Japan merger delaying the delivery of the materials) and it actually has extras (Last Exile does not because FUNi was cheap/didn't try bothering with extras on license-rescues most of the time until 2011 or so. Quite a shame, many good extras they failed to get).

Sadly I have neither release, so I can't help much. Also still wondering if the Blu-ray in Japan was a good or terrible upscale.

[Girls With Guns]

I have the JP Last Exile Blu-ray release, and the Range Murata DVD box set - the upscale is decent quality, but almost no visible difference in PQ to the original DVDs, at least to my eyes, which aren't quite as sensitive as some of you guys. There were some comparison shots posted on here somewhere for those, and they looked pretty much identical.

[BigOnAnime]

Yep. I've linked to this a few times, but later embedded it.

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Like I thought, I hit the text limit... Here's some more. Also let me know if I messed up with any links. Any from the Internet Archive I had to modify the links.

Last Exile Geneon DVD vs. JP BD
Same situation with Gankutsuou, text in his post is now gone. From what I remember, he stated Last Exile's DVDs were authored by SpeeDVD (note: ANN encyclopedia isn't always complete/very accurate, so this is probably most of what they did) who did the best encodes around back then (and based off other archived AOD posts I've seen, they were great), so the upgrade isn't massive. He noted something about the sound, can't remember what. It was a positive for the Blu-ray though. Really hope we can get these from FUNi someday. They accidentally announced a Blu-ray like 5 years ago, and nothing. They also noted this.

http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...ll=1#post44156

This is basically the best you can expect it to look because it's a digitally-animated show from 2003. When the DVD is done well enough, the difference isn't going to be big.

[Girls With Guns]

Yes, the sound is as big a part of the advantages of Blu-ray over DVD as the PQ and disc ruggedness can be - so if there is an uncompressed audio track available for the Blu-ray, it can really shine there.

[Pyoko]

Like R.O.D. The TV, it's basically the DVD with no compression artifacts, which is a good upscale in my book.

The Geneon DVD release is pretty decent (especially with some upscaling enhancements using madVR) but the interlacing is a bit broken with combed frames showing up here and there and the opening/ending is badly messed up with massive compression issues, so I definitely wouldn't mind an upgrade if Funimation ever manage to release it on Blu-ray.

[SeaFox]

Looking over those Last Exile caps, the differences is minor. I see color timing a bit different in a couple. The last few show a small loss of detail in the blu-ray from what looks to be DNR scrubbing.

[Sylontack]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Sadly I have neither release, so I can't help much. Also still wondering if the Blu-ray in Japan was a good or terrible upscale.

I did take a quick peek at the BD upscale (I figured if it was good I could just go the Classics release regardless of quality because if I liked the show I'd upgrade if an English BD came out anyway). A lot of it looks really good, there are some shots that made me notice it was definitely an upscale but a lot of it wasn't particularly smeary or anything for the most part of what I looked at. Definitely a lack of detail in distant shots, but that would be a mix of the upscale and the actual animators not giving these characters faces .
Although I don't imagine FUNi will pop out a BD any time soon, being in the Classics label doesn't necessarily mean it sold well for them because they debuted the title under their company with the classics label (thus while it probably sold well for Geneon, there's no evidence it moved many units for FUNi at all), and it's a pretty recent BD release for a show that isn't really on anyone's lips at the moment.

[BigOnAnime]

One thing that does make me question how well it sold for Geneon though is when Chad Kime was talking about how much Heat Guy J flopped for Geneon in this ANNCast, he said "Ai Yori Aoshi, outsold, Heat Guy J."

[Raye]

Sorry to bring up old releases but I'm interested in getting Samurai Champloo on Blu and am wondering if it's worth the upgrade. I've read the review on the site but am hesitant since the Geneon release is still pretty good in my eyes with the proper upscaling hardware.

[Girls With Guns]

The Samarai Champloo Blu-ray has lossless Dolby True HD 5.1 audio for both the English and the Japanese, so that in itself is worth an upgrade over a lossy DVD - unless you plan to watch your anime while listening to built-in stereo TV audio for the entirety of your life...

[SeaFox]

Just make sure you get the latest (Anime Classics) release for best video. Not the original BD release.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by Girls With Guns

The Samarai Champloo Blu-ray has lossless Dolby True HD 5.1 audio for both the English and the Japanese, so that in itself is worth an upgrade over a lossy DVD - unless you plan to watch your anime while listening to built-in stereo TV audio for the entirety of your life...

The stereo soundtrack on the DVD sounds better than the hollow 5.1 upmix though...