The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[BigOnAnime]

The Aniplex logo is there because they handle the international rights, that's who Crunchyroll licensed it from. VIZ Media distributed the series for CR in the US, they do not hold the actual license.

[Naiera]

The UK release of 86 is a lot better.

[Glorian]

I assume To Your Eternity is the same way (UK release being better)? Never heard anyone say so, but it falls in the same category as 86, so I figure it is.

[SpaceDandy]

About Neo Tokyo, the two short scenes with frame blending are also in the HDTV & streaming copies. As to grain and framing, here's a single frame comp. Another release will not fix the existing scan, it's the way it is.

Originally Posted by peppapigstan

the grain here looks super uniform, i spotted similar grain structure in some caps of the Neo-Tokyo FRBD but could just be me

Since most post-prods who re-grain footage do it wrong and add grain in the black borders, I doubt. Even MediaOCD did this oopsie as recently as with Journey to the Fall, regraining the ES BD. Anyway you could look at the luma of the first and last row of pixel at the edge of the frame and see if there's artifical grain there - no chance they would have masked that.

On the topic of Memories, here's some trivia on its masters:
- Q-TEC Akasaka remastered it again in 2021, Discotek may have missed the timeframe there.
- There are two JP BDs:
-- 2009 (BCXA-0091): radioactive garbage.
-- 2014 (BCXA-0810): uses Panasonic proprietary 12-bit MGVC technology (w/ 96 kHz audio ), and hence completely overlooked

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by Glorian

I assume To Your Eternity is the same way (UK release being better)? Never heard anyone say so, but it falls in the same category as 86, so I figure it is.

I'd like to know this as well. I bought the US release at the time as it was the only available but I'd happily double dip on the UK versions of this outstanding show if they're better.

It's also worth noting that the US hasn't yet received a season two release.

[MasterAS]

Originally Posted by Citizen Bane

How does the US release of 86 printed by Viz compare to the UK version printed by Crunchyroll (and maybe Aniplex since they're on the box)?

I think the UK set has more extras iirc

[peppapigstan]

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

On the topic of Memories, here's some trivia on its masters:
- Q-TEC Akasaka remastered it again in 2021, Discotek may have missed the timeframe there.
- There are two JP BDs:
-- 2009 (BCXA-0091): radioactive garbage.
-- 2014 (BCXA-0810): uses Panasonic proprietary 12-bit MGVC technology (w/ 96 kHz audio ), and hence completely overlooked

Interesting, any more info on the 2021 JP remaster?

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by MasterAS

I think the UK set has more extras iirc

That's good to know. Would anyone happen to know if the UK release of To Your Eternity Season One has any video or subtitle improvements over the US release?

[SteamfloggerBoss]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Some stuff about Angel Heart found on the Discotek Media subreddit.https://www.reddit.com/r/discotekmed...heart_arrived/https://www.reddit.com/r/discotekmed...rived/mqbezfy/https://www.reddit.com/r/discotekmed...h28/?context=3

Got around to starting this. It's definitely not great. Reminds me of other blu-rays of series from this general time period so I wonder how much experience the reddit user has. I know nothing about disc encoding, but I doubt more would have helped. I have Japanese BDs of shows from this era that are just as bad and are a ton of discs. It's really unfortunate but kind of comes with the territory. I certainly have *worse* blu-rays in my collection.

The series itself is fantastic and I'm glad it got released.

[SpaceDandy]

Shin Cutey Honey (France - DYBEX)
Authoring: AV Media Bcn
Gallery (ep1)





Bitrate (ep1) (Avg: 25.71 Mbps)
Media Info:

[Show spoiler]

File size                                : 5.84 GiB
Duration                                 : 25 min 20 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 33.0 Mb/s

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 25 min 20 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 26.3 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 35.0 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.530
Stream size                              : 4.66 GiB (80%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS XLL
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name                          : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 25 min 20 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 007 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 364 MiB (6%)
Title                                    : Stereo
Language                                 : French
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 25 min 20 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 274 MiB (5%)
Title                                    : Stereo
Language                                 : French
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #3
ID                                       : 4
ID in the original source medium         : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                                   : DTS XLL
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name                          : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 25 min 20 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 1 567 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 284 MiB (5%)
Title                                    : Stereo
Language                                 : Japanese
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #4
ID                                       : 5
ID in the original source medium         : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 25 min 20 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 274 MiB (5%)
Title                                    : Stereo
Language                                 : Japanese
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Text #1
ID                                       : 6
ID in the original source medium         : 4608 (0x1200)
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                                 : 22 min 8 s
Bit rate                                 : 38.4 kb/s
Count of elements                        : 574
Stream size                              : 6.09 MiB (0%)
Language                                 : French
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Text #2
ID                                       : 8
ID in the original source medium         : 4609 (0x1201)
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                                 : 5 s 943 ms
Bit rate                                 : 25.4 kb/s
Count of elements                        : 2
Stream size                              : 18.4 KiB (0%)
Language                                 : French
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Always pleased to be reminded how gorgeous 35mm OVAs from the mid 90s tend to be.

[Citizen Bane]

Nice screen caps

[Rosenkreutz]

Would anyone be able to provide a breakdown of the differences between the various NA releases of Blue Submarine No.6? Bandai had the four individual DVDs (one for each episode,) a Special Edition, the Anime Legends Collection and the Toonami movie cut. As for Discotek, they had a DVD, BD and the DTS DVD re-release.

Based on the information I could find; the film version is missing about 15 minutes and some dialogue in the dub is censored. I'm uncertain if the individual DVDs are also censored or not, but the Special Edition release appears to be uncensored and also includes a lot of special features. I think the Anime Legends release might just be a re-release of the Special Edition, but I can't say for sure. The BD and regular DVD released by Discotek lack the uncensored dub, but this was corrected on the DTS DVD. However, the DTS DVD lacks any special features.

Additionally, does anyone know how well the BD release compares to the DVD releases in terms of visuals? If I recall correctly, digipaint animes often tend to look better on DVD than on BD. However, if it does look better on BD then I suppose I could always just splice it together with the uncensored audio from one of the DVDs. I saw someone mention that the Bandai DVDs had a lot of dot crawl and that they were inferior to that of the Japanese DVD, the latter of which Disoctek used for their DVD release. Thus, I’m guessing the best option would either be the DTS DVD or the BD spliced with the DTS audio, at least for the dub anyway.

[BigOnAnime]

The Japanese Blu-ray and thus Discotek's Blu-ray are a smeary Q-TEC upscale. Bandai Entertainment's DVDs were plagued with dot crawl.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...6#post12568516

The Discotek DVDs meanwhile used the JP DVD masters and look better, sadly it's long OOP as Discotek has completely abandoned the format. Additionally, to get all the special features, you need both the original Discotek DVD and the Blu-ray, so you'll need all 3 releases from them. This show could use a re-release to solve that problem, combine the best of everything onto one single Blu-ray release. This was one of Discotek's earlier releases when they didn't put that much effort into them as they do now. Today it'd be an SDBD or upscale of the Japanese DVD masters, include every extra they can find and are allowed to use, and it would have both the uncut and edited dubs.

[peppapigstan]

Originally Posted by peppapigstan

Interesting, any more info on the 2021 JP remaster?

Would like more info on the Memories 2021 JP remaster

[Rosenkreutz]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Additionally, to get all the special features, you need both the original Discotek DVD and the Blu-ray, so you'll need all 3 releases from them.

So the BD and first DVD by Discotek feature different special features? Do they include everything from the Bandai Special Edition release?

[BigOnAnime]

Yes, which was strange.

Originally Posted by chronoclast

Curiosity got me so I bought the DVD. First thing, the dub is is the same edited Toonami version as on the BD. That irritates the hell out of me. I really don't appreciate being told completely wrong information by a company rep. How hard is it for them to check their own product? I even gave them a list of the edits. The only way now to get the uncut dub is either buy the Bandai DVDs or watch it for free on Hulu.

They were correct about the video being sourced from the Blue Fleet box set though. The video quality on the DVD is a lot better IMO. It's not DNR'd and smeared like the BD is.

The audio quality however is worse though that's expected since it's DVD. The dub especially sounds flat. The lossless audio for both English and Japanese is much better on the BD.

DVD audio specs:
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (384 kbps)
Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 (384 kbps)

The DVD and BD each have their own exclusive extras. The DVD has Cartoon Network spots and Bandai Entertainment trailers. The BD has a directors interview, a creator interview, and the English credits. The rest of the extras are the same.

I haven't decided yet which one I'm keeping. There's pros and cons to both.

https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...ge7#post377775

The Special Edition had this going off ANN.

DVD Features: Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese, Dolby Digital Stereo Japanese/English, Creator's Eye Interview, OVA 1-3 Summary, Background Info on Antarctica, Antarctica Playstation Game/Anime Footage, Making of the Playstation Game Featurette, Interviews with Shoji Kawamori, Mahiro Maeda, Satoru Ozawa, The Thrill, and Antarctica Game Creative Staff, Cartoon Network Promo Spots Collection, Trailer Collection, Animerica Feature Spotlight, Cover Illustration Gallery, Character Encyclopedia, Blue Fleet Background Info, Zorndyke Forces Background Info, Key Terminology, Submarine Terminology, "Yukikaze" Music Clip.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/enc...s.php?id=38888

[NLScavenger]

GKIDS release of The Colors Within appears to be chroma lowpass filtered https://slow.pics/c/rdTYds6U

I can hopefully check the German KSM release in the weekend, if Anime Planet is still shipping KSM releases 2 weeks before release date.

[professorwho]

The ironic thing is that the Japanese Blu-ray is not LPF'd at all. I compared it against the Amazon stream when I got my copy on release, and was honestly surprised considering IMAGICA handled compression and authoring. The JP BD has a near perfect encode, as far as I'm concerned: the strong dithering avoids any banding (a blessing that not all Yamada movies were lucky to have), the compression is strong enough to power through the heavy grain and dithering and lacks any noticeable issues in motion or still frames (though the luma seems to be slightly better encoded on the GKids release, but just barely in some select shots). It's such a great release that it stands out in a sea of mediocre JP BDs as of late.

What I find more disappointing is the audio, shown in the last slide of the comparison. Yet another Naoko Yamada film with degraded audio quality on certain releases... I swear her films are cursed

[Biss Skyler Bluray]

Originally Posted by professorwho

The ironic thing is that the Japanese Blu-ray is not LPF'd at all. I compared it against the Amazon stream when I got my copy on release, and was honestly surprised considering IMAGICA handled compression and authoring. The JP BD has a near perfect encode, as far as I'm concerned: the strong dithering avoids any banding (a blessing that not all Yamada movies were lucky to have), the compression is strong enough to power through the heavy grain and dithering and lacks any noticeable issues in motion or still frames (though the luma seems to be slightly better encoded on the GKids release, but just barely in some select shots). It's such a great release that it stands out in a sea of mediocre JP BDs as of late.

What I find more disappointing is the audio, shown in the last slide of the comparison. Yet another Naoko Yamada film with degraded audio quality on certain releases... I swear her films are cursed

Wow, that's unfortunate.

Glad I went with the Japanese Blu-ray over the U.S. Blu-ray, I haven't opened my copy yet but will do when I can.

[Misioon_Odisea]

Originally Posted by professorwho

What I find more disappointing is the audio, shown in the last slide of the comparison. Yet another Naoko Yamada film with degraded audio quality on certain releases... I swear her films are cursed

Yeah, I cringed at the audio snapshot too. I can't believe this Loudness Wars mess is still a thing in this day and age! Rolling my eyes at the disc's other general deficiencies as well. Have to admit, I'm dreading the upcoming DanDaDan set. At this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up using the broadcast masters instead of any available home video masters for that one…