Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie 4K UHD (1982) coming from Discotek

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by aurian

I think this might be going out of print. Prices going up and most places sold out.

Discotek is still having stock issues, so I dunno. You can still buy it at Rightstuf, however.

[aurian]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Discotek is still having stock issues, so I dunno. You can still buy it at Rightstuf, however.

I bought their last one they were selling on Ebay.
Amazon has it for $60.00 from a marketplace seller.
Best Buy sold out.

[Kedrix]

Amazon has this one for $24, it's the cheapest I've seen (at least in recent memory).

[Mushi Minion]

Originally Posted by Kedrix

Amazon has this one for $24, it's the cheapest I've seen (at least in recent memory).

Rightstuf had it at $20.97 as a weekly special. I bought it the same day you posted this, actually.

[Kedrix]

Originally Posted by Mushi Minion

Rightstuf had it at $20.97 as a weekly special. I bought it the same day you posted this, actually.

Darn, I wish I knew that they had it for cheaper, I ended up getting a used copy for $21 and some change and didn't even get a slipcover. Oh well....

[Tech-UK]

Folks, does the BD feature the same DNR'ed transfer as was used for the 4K release?

And does the BD feature the Yello soundtrack?

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

Folks, does the BD feature the same DNR'ed transfer as was used for the 4K release?

And does the BD feature the Yello soundtrack?

No, the 2015 BD is a remux of the Japanese 2010 Blu-ray Box encode. It doesn't have the Manga UK dub with the Yello soundtrack.

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

No, the 2015 BD is a remux of the Japanese 2010 Blu-ray Box encode. It doesn't have the Manga UK dub with the Yello soundtrack.

Thanks Is it worth picking up? I watched my 4K copy again the other night, and after now watching other anime from the same era, my god, the lack of grain is disturbing. Yes, the HDR is pretty, but I just couldn't get passed the fact of it looking so scrubbed

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

Thanks Is it worth picking up? I watched my 4K copy again the other night, and after now watching other anime from the same era, my god, the lack of grain is disturbing. Yes, the HDR is pretty, but I just couldn't get passed the fact of it looking so scrubbed

Worth picking up. Picture isn't scrubbed to hell.

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=93...08&i=0&l=1&a=0

[Telemachus]

The Cobra Blu ray is a solid 8.5/10 PQ, should have more grain but it still has grain. The UHD is a 5/10 if I'm being generous, the insanely bright HDR makes it an unwatchable disc for my eyes though. The first time I watched it I couldn't even recognize certain scenes anymore and I've watched the film dozens of times. The Crusher Joe movie had about the same level of DNR as Cobra UHD has, but the SDR vs HDR is why I can actually watch Crusher Joe still.

[Tech-UK]

Thanks both ah, I didn't think of looking on caps! Interesting comparison with the DVD.

The BD seems to be crushing/loosing details in darker areas of the picture, this cap for example: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&...=90416&i=7&l=1

But it's nice to see a field of grain across the image.

Finding it at a decent price doesn't seem to be easy, after shipping, import taxes etc. I may bite later on. I'm still waiting to pickup Arcadia of My Youth BD at a decent price, which I haven't yet seen, but after watching Galaxy Express 999 the movie and Adieu, Captain Harlock is on the radar more so than double dipping on Cobra BD. The Cobra series, looks great, and I love that. The audio sounded kinda rough though.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

The Cobra series, looks great, and I love that. The audio sounded kinda rough though.

If you're talking about the Blu ray for the 31 episode series, the original mono is really nice to my ears. I think it's from optical tracks which is also what LaserDisc had, the LaserDisc had an isolated score track I heard once and it was way better quality since it was from master tapes not optical. The 5.1 track is not good, very thin, it's just too much artificial sounding in parts, similar to the Lupin movie remix tracks. I actually watched the entire series in 5.1 before I realized it had the old mono. I think there was a stereo track too but I'm unsure about the lineage.

I would love to know if the Cobra Movie Blu has the theatrical dolby stereo track, it has one, but I can't tell (it's also lossy). The TrueHD sounds about the same as the 2.0 in pro logic so I always go with that since it's lossless.

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

If you're talking about the Blu ray for the 31 episode series, the original mono is really nice to my ears. I think it's from optical tracks which is also what LaserDisc had, the LaserDisc had an isolated score track I heard once and it was way better quality since it was from master tapes not optical. The 5.1 track is not good, very thin, it's just too much artificial sounding in parts, similar to the Lupin movie remix tracks. I actually watched the entire series in 5.1 before I realized it had the old mono. I think there was a stereo track too but I'm unsure about the lineage.

I would love to know if the Cobra Movie Blu has the theatrical dolby stereo track, it has one, but I can't tell (it's also lossy). The TrueHD sounds about the same as the 2.0 in pro logic so I always go with that since it's lossless.

Yep. I was listening to the 5.1 track, with it being the lossless option, and it did sound thin and artificial somehow. I did switch to the mono lossy DD track, and it did sound a little better, but still sounded a little 'off', compared to other anime that I have on BD, around that era. If they were sourced from optical tracks, perhaps that is why I picked up on them, not sounding as 'clear', they sounded somewhat 'compressed', although not in terms of the codec compression, but the actual audio, if that makes any sense!

The movie on 4K sounded fine, listening to the JP 5.1 track, and yeah, I see that the BD has a lossy JP 2.0 track, and I am also curious as to whether that would be the original Dolby Stereo track. And whether or not the TrueHD track is just an upmix of the 2.0 track, if original, or the 2.0 is just a downmix of the 5.1

I know that the JP 4K release of the movie has a 2.0 LPCM 96/24 track, as discussed with professorwho in this thread here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=350397&page=2 and whether that is from the original track, and just upsampled, and I can see in this thread previously or in another thread, that it wasn't ported over for the US 4K, due to storage issues.

[NLScavenger]

All the home video releases of the series use audio from an optical soundtrack. Yesterday the audio ripped from Betamax recordings of the original broadcast of episodes 25 to 31 was uploaded somewhere, which sounds much clearer because the original broadcast used the magnetic soundtrack.

As regards to the movie audio: LaserDisc releases use optical soundtrack, subsequent releases use a magnetic soundtrack that cuts off at 44.1kHz. The "96kHz" UHD track also cuts off there. It's speculated to come from the drama album.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

As regards to the movie audio: LaserDisc releases use optical soundtrack, subsequent releases use a magnetic soundtrack that cuts off at 44.1kHz. The "96kHz" UHD track also cuts off there. It's speculated to come from the drama album.

So the 5.1 was from different sources (drama CD for music, tape for voices etc.)? Do you know if the 640k Dolby stereo track on the Discotek Blu is a downmix of this or is it a unique track? The Japanese set had stereo as one of the alternate tracks if I remember but I never heard it. I also saw the DVD once which had 2.0 but can't remember how it sounded.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

So the 5.1 was from different sources (drama CD for music, tape for voices etc.)? Do you know if the 640k Dolby stereo track on the Discotek Blu is a downmix of this or is it a unique track? The Japanese set had stereo as one of the alternate tracks if I remember but I never heard it. I also saw the DVD once which had 2.0 but can't remember how it sounded.

The place where I got the information about the film's soundtracks from didn't mention anything about the 5.1 track, so I would guess that it's an upmix and therefore not worth mentioning.

The audio drama is the entire film's audio (voices, music and effects fully mixed) released on vinyl and cassette in 1982 (releasing the entire film's audio on LP/cassette was a thing back then).

The 2.0 track on Discotek BD and 2010 JP BD should be from the audio drama.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

The place where I got the information about the film's soundtracks from didn't mention anything about the 5.1 track, so I would guess that it's an upmix and therefore not worth mentioning.

The audio drama is the entire film's audio (voices, music and effects fully mixed) released on vinyl and cassette in 1982 (releasing the entire film's audio on LP/cassette was a thing back then).

The 2.0 track on Discotek BD and 2010 JP BD should be from the audio drama.

Do you happen to know the reason why the Discotek Ultra HD didn't have the 2.0 track anymore? Was the 96k PCM track on the import a fold or something? I figured either that or Disco wanted max space for the encode which is why they left it off or they weren't allowed to add an old one (or it didn't sync or something weird).

[Saturn2888]

Originally Posted by professorwho

I sit 15 feet away from a 55 inch

I sit 6-7' away from a 97" LG OLED, and all these DNR issues are very apparent. They're always "in your face" to the point where I can't focus on enjoying the movie 'cause they're always there.

Every single edge has a temporally unstable shimmer to it.

I've had many Blu-ray discs that look incredible. Forget 4K, they have a really nice with lots of film grain. It looks like I'm watching something that cost a lot of money to produce. You can see all the work and effort of the artists.

But when they remove film grain like in this release, it looks cheap and AI-upscaley. It doesn't look like a native 4K release, and it makes it hard to enjoy what I'm watching because many of other releases have done film grain correctly (by not touching it).

I can "fix" film grain with my TV's processing if I choose to, but I cannot bring back the original image quality when film grain is removed. That's the issue. And this is the only 4K release. Discotek's version is just as bad because they're working with the same master.

Worse yet, these are 4K releases (as close to digital masters as you can get), and they're super pricy. I think folks like us buying these expensive releases deserve better.

If they wanted to re-scan all cell elements digitally and produce a new master, no big deal, but this was shot on film, they're scanning in that film, and they're messing it up.

I'm more than disappointed considering the TV show didn't have this smoothing pass. I'm also upset it seems like all 4K anime releases have this issue.

[Saturn2888]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

The Cobra Blu ray is a solid 8.5/10 PQ, should have more grain but it still has grain. The UHD is a 5/10 if I'm being generous, the insanely bright HDR makes it an unwatchable disc for my eyes though. The first time I watched it I couldn't even recognize certain scenes anymore and I've watched the film dozens of times. The Crusher Joe movie had about the same level of DNR as Cobra UHD has, but the SDR vs HDR is why I can actually watch Crusher Joe still.

What HDR mode is your TV in where the HDR is blasting you?

What I mean, is your TV tone mapping the image or rolling off? Is it an LCD or OLED. What's the peak brightness? What brand?

[Telemachus]

I have a 2023 LG OLED, I dunno about explaining any of that other stuff Lol but the Cobra UHD was unbearable. The only other Discotek release I returned was Street Fighter on UHD because of the ugly color grade.