Anime Haul - Post New Pictures!

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Naiera

FLCL is simply one of the best shows ever. It's a beautiful, deep, infinitely re-watchable work of art with the best soundtrack of any anime ever.

Agreed, love the show and pillows soundtrack, as well. I still don't own the BD though. What's the best version, picture quality wise, to get if any with eng subs preferably? From what I understand q-tec borked things up with the BD upscale.

[vincentric]

Some stuff from RS and Amazon today -



$10 for Shana, even with crappy vid quality, was like, why not

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Agreed, love the show and pillows soundtrack, as well. I still don't own the BD though. What's the best version, picture quality wise, to get if any with eng subs preferably? From what I understand q-tec borked things up with the BD upscale.

Just get the FUNi release. It's a HUGE upgrade from the DVDs. Not least as far as the sound goes.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by vincentric

$10 for Shana, even with crappy vid quality, was like, why not

You should probably sometime grab the Geneon singles or the FUNi distributed sets (Which contain the OVA, which was dubbed. It's missing from the Geneon singles and FUNi's own release.) instead. Despite the issues those discs have, they still look far better than that awful upscale FUNi used from the JP masters. I don't have a way of capturing BD screenshots, but a while back I did a comparison between the FUNimation DVD (Which were made from those awful BD's) and the Geneon DVD (The singles, the FUNi distributed sets re-use these discs.).

Geneon | FUNimation
Geneon | FUNimation
Geneon | FUNimation
Geneon | FUNimation
Geneon | FUNimation (Sorry for the lack of proper framing)
Geneon | FUNimation

I also did a comparison here.

The Geneon DVD's have less banding, and retain more detail as the FUNimation release smudges and smears everything.

(I took the screenshots above (Not from screenshotcomparison) via the print screen key in full screen in Media Player Classic. Resolution is only 1366x768 as my laptop unfortunately maxes out at that resolution.)

Originally Posted by vincentric

Agreed, love the show and pillows soundtrack, as well. I still don't own the BD though. What's the best version, picture quality wise, to get if any with eng subs preferably? From what I understand q-tec borked things up with the BD upscale.

The Synch-Point DVD's or the FUNimation DVD (Which apparently wasn't made from the gawdawful Q-TEC upscale). Also here's screenshots of FLCL. Everything is smudged and smeared into oblivion. Even before I knew much about video quality I thought this looked absolutely atrocious. It was what made me realize BD isn't always better unfortunately. When done wrong, a BD can look worse than a DVD.

[Naiera]

I very highly disagree with Big's assessment of the FLCL Blu-rays. The DVDs look like turds compared to the Blu-rays

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Naiera

I very highly disagree with Big's assessment of the FLCL Blu-rays. The DVDs look like turds compared to the Blu-rays

Which DVD's, Synch-Point's (Which had some artifacting issues-wish the FLCL Mania thread was still around for that "Zeh goggles" screencap....), or FUNi's? Sadly have never seen good big screenshots for FUNi's DVD. Saw some smaller ones that looked good, maybe they're like what was on iTunes which I remember people in the Mania thread praising (And it was not what the BD's were like).

(Also I prefer people shortening my username to BOA.)

[pikagreg]

Just got home from PSX to this. I was really happy with how good the condition was for this set, the previous owner took really good care of it. Also got my Sailor Moon replacements from WB

[Girls With Guns]

I'm confused here too - the comparison above between the Geneon and Funi DVDs - the Funi DVD pics look way better to me than the Geneon DVD - much less blur and sharper lines - the Geneons look like I need a new prescription in my glasses, lol... isn't that the total opposite of what BoA was trying to show??

[vincentric]

I really don't remember how the FLCL DVD looks like. I have the old three volume version of it in storage somewhere (or I think I may have sold them, lol) that I haven't seen in ages. I'll probably just get the Funi BD for cheap one of these days and call it a day, I have a co-worker who owns the Funi DVD and may ask to borrow it for a comparison. But that's looking ahead way too far.

As for Shana, I'll probably just stick with the cheap save funi bd, am not a big enough fan to throw more money at some dvds for it.

While on the subject though, I remember seeing the Sentai Select release for Appleseed containing more banding than the Geneon DVD -

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=314

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Girls With Guns

I'm confused here too - the comparison above between the Geneon and Funi DVDs - the Funi DVD pics look way better to me than the Geneon DVD - much less blur and sharper lines - the Geneons look like I need a new prescription in my glasses, lol... isn't that the total opposite of what BoA was trying to show??

But the FUNi DVD also contains much more banding. This is especially noticeable in the 4th comparison shot.

Anyway, if you can't see the problem, look at how a fansub group (Not going to name which because forum rules) described the upscale for Shana II (Which was even worse than S1's) and why they decided to drop the project (This was before FUNi got it out).

So, after taking a closer look at the BD RAWs of Shana 2, we're going to drop the project. Why? Cause the TV Rips look better than the BD. This is by far one of the worst BDs I've seen to date. But Shana I looked like shit too! Yeah, and the only reason I finished it is because no matter how it was encoded, it still looked better than the TV Rips and DVD Rips. Anyways, take a look at these two screenshots after the break. Notice Ike's eye and the loss of quality throuhgout.

TV Rip | BD Rip

The TV rip has far more detail, while the BD smudges and smears everything. This is what's happening on FUNi's release of S1 compared to Geneon's. The lines are being smudged thanks to heavy DNR to make it look HD.

[CouncilSpectre]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Nice. I'm not going near it, since I have the US releases, and then there's that crazy, crazy price

I see the price has gone back up now, but Zavvi dropped it to £69.99 for a short while so I managed to jump on that.

A risk, Zavvi packaging and an UE for sure, but amazingly it arrived in perfect condition!

[pikagreg]

Ended up buying those One Piece sets yesterday. They are pretty nice looking. Also got my DMR stuff from the point scare thing.



Also thanks courtesy to GWG ;p



Now I just need to figure out how to play UK dvd on PC <_<

[Sylontack]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Now I just need to figure out how to play UK dvd on PC <_<

You'll have trouble with that considering they're Australian, not UK (different region ).
But for the quickest and cheapest fix just use VLC. VLC is an awful media player for general use (plus you always have to deinterlace video yourself which is stupid) but I used to use it for region locked DVDs all the time as a kid and it almost always worked.
There are much better options out there but if you're looking for quick, easy and cheap just go VLC until you find the time to get a better fix (but remember to deinterlace or it'll look awful, and that's not PAL encoding's fault. US DVDs had even uglier interlacing in my experience).

[pikagreg]

Originally Posted by Sylontack

You'll have trouble with that considering they're Australian, not UK (different region ).
But for the quickest and cheapest fix just use VLC. VLC is an awful media player for general use (plus you always have to deinterlace video yourself which is stupid) but I used to use it for region locked DVDs all the time as a kid and it almost always worked.
There are much better options out there but if you're looking for quick, easy and cheap just go VLC until you find the time to get a better fix (but remember to deinterlace or it'll look awful, and that's not PAL encoding's fault. US DVDs had even uglier interlacing in my experience).

Just opened it and it played fine on the Media Player Classic that I already had on my PC from awhile back. Need to finish what I am watching first though ._. lol And yes it is Australian ;p sorry~~~~~~~

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Ended up buying those One Piece sets yesterday. They are pretty nice looking. Also got my DMR stuff from the point scare thing.

[Show spoiler]

Also thanks courtesy to GWG ;p

[Show spoiler]

Now I just need to figure out how to play UK dvd on PC <_<

Easy peasy. Make MKV to rip, VLC to play back. If you see combing artifacts, just experiment with VLC's de-interlacing options. What usually works best is either IVTC or Yadif 2x. (EDIT - late reply, looks like you're good to go here, so nvm)

And man, your One piece sets were delivered quickly, they haven't even prepped mine for shipment yet -

[pikagreg]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Easy peasy. Make MKV to rip, VLC to play back. If you see combing artifacts, just experiment with VLC's de-interlacing options. What usually works best is either IVTC or Yadif 2x. (EDIT - late reply, looks like you're good to go here, so nvm)

And man, your One piece sets were delivered quickly, they haven't even prepped mine for shipment yet -[/IMG]

Not sure if its everywhere but Amazon has "Same-day delivery" here and the One Piece sets were eligible. It just ended up getting delayed to one-day shipping for whatever reason.

Edit: Nvm just saw you were in CA lol I just left Dublin to head back to SoCal ;p PSX was in San Francisco and it was pretty fun!

[CommanderShiro]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Just got home from PSX to this. I was really happy with how good the condition was for this set, the previous owner took really good care of it. Also got my Sailor Moon replacements from WB

[Show spoiler]

How much did you pay for the Eva set?

[pikagreg]

Originally Posted by CommanderShiro

How much did you pay for the Eva set?

~$100 I was holding off for a cheaper set originally but this one was in really good condition so I just said screw it and bought it.

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by pikagreg

Not sure if its everywhere but Amazon has "Same-day delivery" here and the One Piece sets were eligible. It just ended up getting delayed to one-day shipping for whatever reason.

Edit: Nvm just saw you were in CA lol I just left Dublin to head back to SoCal ;p PSX was in San Francisco and it was pretty fun!

Awesome, must've missed it during checkout, on a similar note, I've gotten Sunday delivery service before. And man didn't even know there was a Playstation event going on in the city, hope you got some cool free stuff!

[pikagreg]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Awesome, must've missed it during checkout, on a similar note, I've gotten Sunday delivery service before. And man didn't even know there was a Playstation event going on in the city, hope you got some cool free stuff!

Everyone got a PSX shirt, lanyard, and beanie. There was a bunch of booths giving out shirts too. The conference was pretty lackluster outside FF7 trailer and Ni No Kuni 2 but the event itself was pretty fun. Lots of devs there who were excited to talk about their games and a bunch of photo booths setup with cosplayers and cool sets.