The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[jala12]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I have it. Posted screenshots on page 68.



The Italian release has the best PQ:

Interesting. Do you recommend that I pick up the HK release now or wait for a possible NA release? Maybe that version won't have banding.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by jala12

Interesting. Do you recommend that I pick up the HK release now or wait for a possible NA release? Maybe that version won't have banding.

Wait for a possible NA release. The HK release doesn't have any extras at all, not even a trailer.

The banding is baked into the master, so a NA release would also suffer from banding unless the distributor does a scene by scene debanding or license the Italian master.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Your Name Taiwanese Blu-ray (34998 kbps 24fps).

https://forum.gamer.com.tw/C.php?bsn...nA=1754&tnum=5
There’s gonna be a replacement program for the Taiwanese release, but only for the bonus disc. From what I understand from the statement below (through Google Translate), the distributor basically said that their constant bitrate encode is better than the Japanese encode with its variable bitrate, despite all the evidence that shows the contrary.



They also defend their choice of using 16 bit PCM audio, which they claim is better than 24 bit DTS-HD audio, by referring to this:

The worst part is that they don't know the difference between a 1536kbps DTS core and DTS-HD.

You can’t make this shit up. Not even Manga UK or Kazé would come up with this kind of crap.

At least we got a nice picture of HDCAM SR tape:

[Johndvs]

Hello guys. Does anyone have comparison shots for SAO the first season? Im interested in buying it but would like to know if the bluray is really worth the extra money compared to the dvd release.

[Naiera]

It’s high definition anime, so the difference is there, but how big it is, I guess, is subjective. It’ll be about the same as for all other new anime series.

[NLScavenger]

Cowboy Bebop: Dybex versus Anime Limited @ caps-a-holic.com

Dybex release is encoded by mp3dom.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Cowboy Bebop: Dybex versus Anime Limited @ caps-a-holic.com

Dybex release is encoded by mp3dom.

It should be noted that the UK caps were taken with deinterlacing on, so all those weird little artifacts messing up details and edges aren't really in the stream. Still inferior in terms of compression and the annoying gamma shift.

I would get the Dynit/Dybex and do custom subtitles but I've grown a bit tired of having to do that lately so I'll just stick with the UK release until they remaster it again. (There's still a lot of room for improvement, just compare it to Outlaw Star. In particular I've never liked the dull and washed-out colors of the Bebop remaster.)

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Cowboy Bebop: Dybex versus Anime Limited @ caps-a-holic.com

Dybex release is encoded by mp3dom.

They should add the Funi to that comparison now for shits and giggles.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by UseY0ur1llusi0n

They should add the Funi to that comparison now for shits and giggles.

Made a screenshot comparison with the Funi Blu-ray. I think I need to throw up.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/121427

Bitrate:

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Nothing like a good dab of vaseline in the morning.

[Yuripa]

Damn the blur on the Funi edition is insane, the cards on the 3rd screenshot are really revelating about how bad Funi is at encoding thing.

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Originally Posted by Yuripa

the cards on the 3rd screenshot are really revelating about how bad Funi is at encoding thing

It's actually DNR with a layer of faux grain coated on top. (I know that sounds criminal, but it's true)

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=1714

[iznogoud]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

It should be noted that the UK caps were taken with deinterlacing on, so all those weird little artifacts messing up details and edges aren't really in the stream. Still inferior in terms of compression and the annoying gamma shift.

No Sir, you guess wrong. they are not taken with yadif on or any other deinterlacing option.
i'm wondering were did you get that information? obviously not from caps members body/nik themselfs. and they are most of the time in the chat. so you can ask them everything...

[Ccharmanderk]

The degraining-regraining on the Funimation release confuses me. The only reason you'd reduce or remove grain in a remaster is to produce a cleaner looking image, which is something Funimation is very much in the business of doing, hello Dragon Ball Z season sets/earlier orange bricks. So removing the grain and then applying a false layer over the cleaned image completely defeats any intended purpose behind the reduction in the first place. It's just a whole lot of wasted effort for an inferior image.

[Naiera]

What companies such as FUNi do to video doesn’t have to make sense. A lot of the people who do this sorta work simply have no idea how to do it properly.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Ccharmanderk

The degraining-regraining on the Funimation release confuses me. The only reason you'd reduce or remove grain in a remaster is to produce a cleaner looking image, which is something Funimation is very much in the business of doing, hello Dragon Ball Z season sets/earlier orange bricks. So removing the grain and then applying a false layer over the cleaned image completely defeats any intended purpose behind the reduction in the first place. It's just a whole lot of wasted effort for an inferior image.

I believe Funi used the grain plate to "hide" all the severe damage from their overly aggressive scratch removal pass. On every screenshot there's line work and detail that's been disfigured into a smeary blob.

I could somewhat understand the degraining of DBZ because it was sourced from 16mm prints several generations removed from the original negative, but the Cowboy Bebop remaster was already clean and not very grainy since it was sourced from a well preserved 35mm negative. There were absolutely no justifiable grounds for the DNR and scratch removal pass. The sad part is that the grain plate Funi used appears to be grainier than the natural finely resolved grain on the Dybex Blu-ray. Of course it doesn't show up on most screenshots because of the crap compression.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by iznogoud

No Sir, you guess wrong. they are not taken with yadif on or any other deinterlacing option.
i'm wondering were did you get that information? obviously not from caps members body/nik themselfs. and they are most of the time in the chat. so you can ask them everything...

I don't have to guess because a) I know what deinterlacing artifacts typically look like, and b) I own the UK release. Here's one of the caps IVTC'd through madVR: https://i.imgur.com/2SApaoF.jpg

[Hamdan]

I am really confused whether I should pick up the Gundam blu-ray series from the US or the UK, I mean I like the UK sets more, but does anyone know which sets have the best PQ and audio quality ?

[Naiera]

They share encodes.

I’ve decided to go with the cheaper US sets that also take up less space on the shelf.

[NLScavenger]

Yep. UK MSG '79 TV series sets use video encodes from the US sets, US G-Reco set uses video encodes from the UK/FR set. Pretty sure the UK/French Movie Trilogy and Zeta Gundam also share video encodes.

Screenshots:
- UK/FR Movie Trilogy (Average bitrates: Movie 1: 30000 kbps, Movie 2: 29962 kbps, Movie 3: 30000 kbps)
- UK/FR Zeta Gundam (Zeta screenshots are like 1% too bright because of the software I used. Will redo them when I get UK ZZ part 1 hopefully this week.)

With regards to the audio there are a few differences. The UK/FR Movie and Zeta sets have DTS-HD MA audio instead of PCM, but it doesn't really matter because they're both lossless. In addition, the UK/FR Movie Trilogy set has the original theatrical mono track that's missing on the US set.

The UK sets are nice, but they're sooooooooo behind.