The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Naiera]

We are very interested!

[PissedOffPeoN]

This is the only review for it that i could find http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/71988...mplete-series/ not much of a review but its something.

[vincentric]

Cool cool. I'll post more about it around Thursday when the set gets delivered (barring any unforeseen delays). Am also curious to find out if there's any PQ difference between the old Bandai DVDs and the ones included in the BD set.

[omarchafa]

Ahh..Tamako Market JP BD, why?

[Show spoiler]
General
Unique ID : 199820470213980776969767633868285625752 (0x965405D03C2AA3DC8F81BAA1EF3D4598)
Complete name : K:\Tamako Market\Tamako Market - 02 [BD Lossless].mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 3.33 GiB
Duration : 24mn 13s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 19.7 Mbps
Movie name : TAMAKOMARKET_1.Title0_1
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-04 02:52:03
Writing application : mkvmerge v8.6.0 ('A Place In Your World') 64bit
Writing library : libebml v1.3.3 + libmatroska v1.4.4
DURATION : 00:23:18.770000000
NUMBER_OF_FRAMES : 641
NUMBER_OF_BYTES : 55310
_STATISTICS_WRITING_APP : mkvmerge v8.6.0 ('A Place In Your World') 64bit
_STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC : 2017-05-04 02:52:03
_STATISTICS_TAGS : BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
Attachment : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 24mn 13s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 38.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 24mn 13s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No

All 12 episodes besides episode 2 had video sizes at the 6-7 GB range. Episode 2 was encoded at half the quality because of the 30 min documentary they wanted to fit on a 25GB disc. Well at least the encode is flawless, nothing wrong with it. Remember that lower bitrates don't always mean bad video quality. At least in this case the max bitrate stayed at 38Mbps.

[Lambadelta]

Did anyone ever make a comparsion between the Blu-rays of FUNi's Code Geass release and Kaze's?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Lambadelta

Did anyone ever make a comparsion between the Blu-rays of FUNi's Code Geass release and Kaze's?

Kaze's release was like this- 12 or 13 episodes per disc. I don't think anyone has, but I'm sure the FUNimation release is better by default because of less episodes per disc (I think about 7).

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Lambadelta

Did anyone ever make a comparsion between the Blu-rays of FUNi's Code Geass release and Kaze's?

Was going to but never got around to it. I posted some screencaps of the Kaze release here and Sensuifu posted a whole bunch more of the FUNi release here.

I noticed one of our pics matched up very closely, here's a quick side by side of it -

Kaze Geass | FUNi Geass

In spite of the bitrate differences, the two releases seem to have identical PQ.

And regarding Wolf's Rain, I was unable to get Amazon to price match it when it dropped to $19.99, there was also a limited order quantity of 1 placed on it and I couldn't even re-order it. I ended up getting Best Buy to price match it instead and will just return my copy from Amazon.

[omarchafa]

Well I just got Sound of the Sky from Rightstuf, published by Nozomi.

Alright here we go:

[Show spoiler]
General
Unique ID : 180757827626025902186850727036091002011 (0x87FCB0F86DFAB1ABA963A124326E6C9B)
Complete name : E:\Temp\Video\SOUNDOFTHESKYBD1\SOUND_OF_THE_SKY_BD 1.Title7.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 5.35 GiB
Duration : 24mn 17s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 31.5 Mbps
Movie name : SOUND_OF_THE_SKY_BD1.Title7
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-11 01:52:39
Writing application : DVDFab 9.3.1.2
Writing library : libebml v0.7.8 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 24mn 16s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Nominal bit rate : 30.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 35.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.603
Writing library : x264 core 148 r2638 7599210
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=1 / keyint=23 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=23 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=29999 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.50 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=34999 / vbv_bufsize=27000 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 24mn 17s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Each episode is in the 5-6 GB range, which is very impressive. Only 7 episodes per disc. Disc maxes out at 45 GB, each one.

No let's compared:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209474

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209475

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209471

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209476

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209477

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209478

I gotta say, well done Nozomi. They handle the dark scenes beautifully. The encode is virtually flawless.

[vincentric]

Have a quick trio comparison between the FUNi BD, FUNi DVD, and the Bandai DVD of Wolf's Rain. All capped at the exact frame, the BD image is native 1440x1080 and the DVD ones are native 720 x 540 bicubic upscaled to 1440x1080.

Bandai DVD looks like ass, FUNi DVD looks surprisingly good, and the FUNi BD looks surprisingly even better -

Bandai DVD | FUNi DVD | FUNi BD

Planning to go more in-depth with more dorky comparisons in next post as I hunt for banding, compression, etc. Not to mention check and share the amount of data on disc. Don't want to speak too soon but from the quick look of things FUNi seems to have gotten the BD upscale done right.

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Yeesh. Looks like another Q-Tec smudge-job. Did funi actually upscale that themselves?

Edit: Ah, that explains it. lol

[vincentric]

An guessing that they did but am not sure. The BD upscale actually looks decent to me for an older digipaint show but I'll try sharing more trio comparisons asap for you all to check out and decide for yourselves.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by UseY0ur1llusi0n

Did funi actually upscale that themselves?

They did quite alright with FMP back in the day

[vincentric]

Alright, have some more WR comparisons.

Bandai DVD on the left, FUNi DVD in the middle, and FUNi BD on the right -











Am seeing less compression in the FUNi DVD resulting in a cleaner image and improved line detail over the Bandai DVD, the FUNi DVD does contain a lot of edge halos though. The FUNi BD clears up the image a little bit more and contains slightly tighter line detail, the edge halos from the DVD are also reduced but still somewhat visible. The overall BD upscale is a sublte improvement but a good one to me I didn't notice any banding or compression issues and best of all, saw no ugly aliasing as well. But as always I'll leave it up to you all to decide what looks best.

As for the BD data amount the 30 eps are split 9-9-9-3 across four discs with each ep containing 4.6/4.7 GB | around 3.7 GB for the video and 1 GB for the audio -

[Naiera]

Thanks for this. It does look like the best release (obviously), though by no means a very good looking show either way. I never watched or owned it, so the sale the other day was nice

[vincentric]

No problemo. As for the show it's been nearly a decade since I last saw it in full, looking forward to re-watching it. Working on the comparison caps did bring back some fond memories, the op/ed songs in particular still sound very good to me.

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Originally Posted by Naiera

They did quite alright with FMP back in the day

And don't forget Samurai Champloo. They actually fixed their original vaseline-smearing debacle, albeit quietly. But at least those had grain... This? this just looks like smudged garbage. lol.

[vincentric]

Wasn't the grain in Champloo digitally added post production by design? Wolf's Rain didn't have any grain added to my knowledge the upscaled BD of its low res digipaint is likely the best it's ever going to look.

[Naiera]

Digitally created shows don't have grain unless added for artistic reasons. Grain is something that is inherent to film.

[Ccharmanderk]

Upscales of older digipaint productions are always gonna be a bit of a crapshoot depending on the show. I think that's about as good as Wolf's Rain is likely to look outside a recomposite, which I don't think is likely to happen at this point. It's certainly a solid step up from either of the DVD releases, particularly that Bandai version.

Speaking of upscales, any word on what the Scrapped Princess Blu-ray is like? Those old Bandai singles I recall looking pretty dire, so I'm hoping the Blu-ray is solid enough.

[zrdb]

Originally Posted by Ccharmanderk

Upscales of older digipaint productions are always gonna be a bit of a crapshoot depending on the show. I think that's about as good as Wolf's Rain is likely to look outside a recomposite, which I don't think is likely to happen at this point. It's certainly a solid step up from either of the DVD releases, particularly that Bandai version.

Speaking of upscales, any word on what the Scrapped Princess Blu-ray is like? Those old Bandai singles I recall looking pretty dire, so I'm hoping the Blu-ray is solid enough.

I just got the SP bluray set and it's really pretty decent for what it is-as I have the old Bandai dvd set to compare it to I'd say on a % basis it's about 35% better pq wise compared to the dvds.