The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[omarchafa]

Wasn't Cowboy Bebop also done in cels?

[Naiera]

It was. Anything pre-2000 is, really. Then came digital animation, which was usually done in SD, and now it's digipaint, where they add the colours on computer but draw by hand.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by omarchafa

Wasn't Cowboy Bebop also done in cels?

Yeah everything was, but the episode "Pierrot le Fou" was actually done digitally to experiment with digital colours. Even though it was 480p Upscaled, Nakamura's key animation still stands strong.

So pretty much everything before the 2000s was on cels. The period from 2000 to 2005 or so was weird for anime- everything was going digital, and most series looked weird in that transition, there were exceptions- Bones and Sunrise series were best in this regard, but yeah.

Bottom line is if it was before 2000 it was on cels (and maybe some digital CGI thrown in).

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Yeah everything was, but the episode "Pierrot le Fou" was actually done digitally to experiment with digital colours. Even though it was 480p Upscaled, Nakamura's key animation still stands strong.

Some parts of Bebop were done in standard definition 30p and 60i, mainly the cgi shots.

[svenge]

There was some discussion a month back on whether or not the US release of The Garden of Words had the "wrong brightness" problem, but it wasn't really resolved.

With that in mind, I managed to find Sensuifu's screencaps of the Japanese release. Could someone with better eyes than mine look them over and compare with the US release's screenshots?

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by svenge

There was some discussion a month back on whether or not the US release of The Garden of Words had the "wrong brightness" problem, but it wasn't really resolved.

With that in mind, I managed to find Sensuifu's screencaps of the Japanese release. Could someone with better eyes than mine look them over and compare with the US release's screenshots?

First and foremost, since I have both the JP and US BD releases have some direct comparison shots.

Yes, it does have problems with brightness, but that's only the beginning of it's problems. It also suffers from old Sentai syndrome, in that the BD itself is just not up to par at all. Some poor compression, banding which is particually aggressive during fade in/outs and constant weird vertical lines across the screen are some problems with the video side of things. There's also the Sentai quality dub which is pretty darn bad. I also had a quick look at the subs as I'd recently noticed how heavily Funimation edited (and memed) the subs for the Steins;Gate movie compared to the JP BD, and whilst no radical edits have been made, I did question why Sentai changed some of lines as I thought they worked better in the original script.

TLDR; On an A/V level, unless Sentai fix and reissue the movie like they did with Children Who Chase Lost Voices, grab the Japanese release if you can.

[svenge]

Thanks for the info, Mangaranga. It's disappointing that the Sentai BD is like that, but I don't have the 50 bucks it would take to get the Japanese BD. That, and it's not my favorite Shinkai work to begin with anyhow so it's not that high a priority.

[Girls With Guns]

Does the Japanese release of GoW have English subtitles? Huh, I guess it does - I somehow missed that. Gotta get me the JP release for sure, then.

[omarchafa]

Wow, is Funimation on crack or something? Those subtitles are absolute garbage compared to the Japanese version. GTFO, what the hell is that supposed to mean?

[Girls With Guns]

Originally Posted by omarchafa

Wow, is Funimation on crack or something? Those subtitles are absolute garbage compared to the Japanese version. GTFO, what the hell is that supposed to mean?

And this is a prime example of why I prefer to import whenever I can. Fortunately I do already own the Japanese S;G Movie releases.

[omarchafa]

It's a good thing I imported the Steins Gate movie instead, Funimation really screw up on this one. At least the dub was actually good, but not worth the purchase.

[jala12]

I noticed that the subtitles for the movie referred to Mr. Braun as Mr. Brown, despite the fact that the subs said Braun in the TV series blu-ray...

[omarchafa]

So much for being professional at making subtitles. This is why most fansubs are still better than the "pros" because they actually know what they are doing. Even the official subs from the Japanese release of the movie still has issues.

[Naiera]

I don't think you can say that MOST fansubs are better. There's a reason why the pros are the pros, save for a few bad apples, of course. A lot of fansubbers think they're much better than they are.

[Girls With Guns]

The pros can go suck an egg though if their job is to localize or westernize the subtitles for all of those mindless international viewers that have to be spoon-fed something they will understand or can "relate" to...

[professorwho]

Well, Steins;Gate's dub script was written by J. Michael Tatum, and really kills the dub. Tatum also wrote the infamous Free! Eternal Summer dub, so that's that. The acting is fine, but the script ruins it. It really depends on who writes the script, much like saying "the animation is good" instead of finding out which key animator did which scene. It's not FUNimation themselves, it's the writers. The translators do a literal translation, then the writers rewrite it to fit two lines of subs, and to make more sense, and add memes and stuff. So blame the WRITERS, not the translators. Look to see who is the writer, not the translator, and then judge them.

Just a bit of knowledge if the industry. (I've worked on Fandubs as a writer and an actor- hell, I've even auditioned to join FUNimation! They have to let you audition, they don't just let anyone. So I have some idea how it works.)

[mp3dom]

Originally Posted by Naiera

What's the best Place Promised release? UK or HK?

I don't have references about HK release, but to my eyes, UK was filtered (sharpened and a small amount of digital grain added).

Originally Posted by professorwho

Yeah everything was, but the episode "Pierrot le Fou" was actually done digitally to experiment with digital colours.

"Brain Scratch" is another episode who was digitally animated.

[Ccharmanderk]

Originally Posted by mp3dom

I don't have references about HK release, but to my eyes, UK was filtered (sharpened and a small amount of digital grain added).


"Brain Scratch" is another episode who was digitally animated.

Who the hell adds digital grain? Unless it's a deliberate artistic choice from the creators like it was in stuff like Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann, there's no point.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by Ccharmanderk

Who the hell adds digital grain? Unless it's a deliberate artistic choice from the creators like it was in stuff like Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann, there's no point.

One fairly recent example in live-action was Ronald D. Moore's BSG reboot, which was shot digitally but then "grained up" in post-production to add to the "verité," handheld documentary-style feel of the series. The BDs of that show have a disclaimer at the start of the first disc of each season alluding to this fact (to stave off confusion/complaints from new viewers, I assume).

But yeah -- in these types of situations, it's almost always a creative choice to digitally add grain when it's a "modern" show filmed in high-definition.

[vincentric]

Do any Wolf's Rain DVD v BD comparisons exist? Recently ordered the complete BD set for it and can dig up my old Bandai DVDs in the next few days to compare for anyone interested.