Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence (US release from Bandai) is a BD-25 with Dolby Digital

[jd213]

http://www.fanboyreview.net/2008/12/...ly-lookreview/

Not a good sign, I'd like to support Bandai Entertainment's Blu-ray releases but not if they'll only have lossy audio.

Thankfully both the Japanese releases of Innocence have LPCM 7.1 and Dolby TrueHD (1st and 2nd release, respectively) and both have English subtitles. But I'll be pissed if they keep releasing Blu-rays without lossless audio.

[Afrobean]

It being on a single layer doesn't matter. It's still possible to pull off good quality on single layer.

Anyway, the lack of lossless might be a blow for audio freaks out there, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. I also am not fond of the term "lossy", because for me, that implies that it's bad. Nothing on Blu-ray is BAD, it just might not be absolutely perfect. This is the same ideal people put on The Dark Knight's picture quality; sure, the PQ might not have been ideal, but that doesn't mean it's terrible either.

Frankly, I think people should be glad a movie like this one is getting an American release at all. Anime is pretty niche still. I still find it difficult to believe that Funimation is even selling enough copies of the Dragon Ball Z movies for it to be worth it, and I really don't think the One Piece or Fullmetal Alchemist movies that are coming will sell well either. It's great to see this stuff getting a release, but I don't think people should demand so much of it when it's probably not economically viable on its own as it is. Do you really think the anime subset overlaps with the blu-ray subset that much?

ps I think I'll be getting the US release on this thing; I don't mind a lower quality sound delivery when it's not going to bother me in the slightest, and I like having the choice of hearing the English dub if I feel like it. I'll typically prefer the original Japanese audio, but I don't like not having the choice. That, and I'd rather not have a bunch of cases with English titles and English descriptions, then a single anime BD among them looking out of place.

edit; oh and one more thing:

If you refuse to buy this on the grounds of the audio not being good enough for your tastes, the producer may see low sales and decide not to keep releasing anime titles. Do you want to indirectly contribute to anime titles not getting released as much here as they could be?

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

It being on a single layer doesn't matter. It's still possible to pull off good quality on single layer.

Anyway, the lack of lossless might be a blow for audio freaks out there, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. I also am not fond of the term "lossy", because for me, that implies that it's bad. Nothing on Blu-ray is BAD, it just might not be absolutely perfect. This is the same ideal people put on The Dark Knight's picture quality; sure, the PQ might not have been ideal, but that doesn't mean it's terrible either.

Frankly, I think people should be glad a movie like this one is getting an American release at all. Anime is pretty niche still. I still find it difficult to believe that Funimation is even selling enough copies of the Dragon Ball Z movies for it to be worth it, and I really don't think the One Piece or Fullmetal Alchemist movies that are coming will sell well either. It's great to see this stuff getting a release, but I don't think people should demand so much of it when it's probably not economically viable on its own as it is. Do you really think the anime subset overlaps with the blu-ray subset that much?

ps I think I'll be getting the US release on this thing; I don't mind a lower quality sound delivery when it's not going to bother me in the slightest, and I like having the choice of hearing the English dub if I feel like it. I'll typically prefer the original Japanese audio, but I don't like not having the choice. That, and I'd rather not have a bunch of cases with English titles and English descriptions, then a single anime BD among them looking out of place.

edit; oh and one more thing:

If you refuse to buy this on the grounds of the audio not being good enough for your tastes, the producer may see low sales and decide not to keep releasing anime titles. Do you want to indirectly contribute to anime titles not getting released as much here as they could be?

I think your post is a bunch of drivel. Not having High Definition audio is not acceptable.

imagine a studio releasing a BD which is only 720p, its still HD but you wouldn't buy it would you because it would below the best it could be.

I'm assuming you don't have surround sound, well there was a thread here the other day asking what biggest difference comparing DVDs to BDs was and you know what practically everyone said? Audio.

[Jeff Kleist]

I'll get confirmation on this, as the Bandai screeners take forever to get to me because they're on the slow boat and I'm on the East Coast

Disney did the Japanese release, so this will be a different encode anyway.

This was not done by the Honneamise division that did all of their other discs.

For the record, the specs I had were the same as the Disney disc, I just figured it's a co-production for the new one. The GoFish parts are simply because they inherited the GF master tapes

[GGX]

Originally Posted by Aygie

I think your post is a bunch of drivel.

Agreed. I don't like to settle for "good enough". Especially when its obvious that we could of easily received a superior product.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by GGX

Agreed. I don't like to settle for "good enough". Especially when its obvious that we could of easily received a superior product.

And what if that higher quality would have needed a dual layer and the cost would be too high to produce? What if the production company couldn't afford to master it with that level of quality?

Is it better for something to not be released at all or be released with "good" quality? Yes, "perfect" would be better, but you're not going to get "perfect" by refusing "good".

USA is not Japan. They can't count on anime to sell titles like they can over there. They can't risk investing a lot of money into a product that even by generous estimations would be easily identified as "few".

Originally Posted by jd213

I'm a professional translator and don't need subtitles, so I've purchased dozens of anime Blu-rays here in Japan in the past year, as well as the US releases of Freedom and the Gunbuster/Diebuster Gattai box set. And I already have the first Japanese release of Innocence, so I wouldn't be buying the US release even if it did have lossless. I'm doing more than my fair share of buying anime on Blu-ray, thank you very much. The US won't be getting as much as Japan anyways, there's simply too much of it even if the US market was twice as strong as it is right now.

An American buying it on import from Japan doesn't translate to a sale on the American side. The point I was trying to make was that if they don't see sales in America, they won't put as much effort into producing here. If we prove there is demand for this stuff, we might be able to get more and better things, with better quality releases.

And if other companies look at Bandai and notice Bandai isn't selling enough copies of this film, they too will likely scale back commitments to the format (at least in the American corner of the world). I want these companies to be interested in the format, I want to encourage them to produce more. This is why I've bothered to buy up all of the Dragon Ball Z movies. I'm a fan of Dragon Ball Z, but I could easily do without the movies... they're not very good in all truth. I intend to buy any anime on BD that even comes close to looking interesting to me, because if no one buys the first-out-of-the-gate stuff, it could slow the chances for other, better things in the pipeline.

Refusing to buy because quality isn't ABSOLUTELY perfect is ridiculous. If everyone took that stance, the companies would stop producing ANYTHING. All of our collections would consist of the same dozen or so films that combine perfect picture quality with perfect sound and perfect extras. By not buying, you're not encouraging them to step up the quality; by refusing to buy, you're telling them that you do not want to own this movie and that the market interest isn't as high as they thought.

If you refuse to buy a movie on any grounds, they're just going to think you don't want to own the movie. They don't know "oh they just want higher quality, let's risk more money on the project when we already think it won't sell very well."

ps the comparison of:

720p:1080p
"lossy" audio:lossless audio

is a poor one. You may not like it, but basic surround is an established standard for audio on Blu-ray and is seen in more than a few titles. A better comparison would be 1080i:1080p. But even so, the logic still stands: you refuse to buy this, and you might as well be telling the company to stop producing anime for USA altogether; they will not read your motives into your actions, they will just assume no one wants this movie.

[MOONPHASE]

im happy that it now has the english dub in it but dolby digital? come on Bandai your previous releases had such great audio

[GGX]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Is it better for something to not be released at all or be released with "good" quality?

I'd rather have nothing.

The studios need to put the work into proper high-definition releases. That includes high bitrate video encodes and lossless audio. End of story.

[K_man2001]

Blu-ray currently is prmarialy just upconverted movies period. It is not like the studio went out and reshot all of these films in Hi-Def quality. Rarely is a film even remastered from the original film to upconvert the pixel rate (If you want to see a quality reprint check out the TV show filmed in the 1990's and remastered in and around 200, with season 2 finished in 2007, fully remastered from the original film stock "Twin Peaks" TV show David Linch made an almost blu-ray quality print with his dilligent work, as well as turning this stereo TV serial into a DD 5.1 dvd set) (VERY freaking IMPRESSIVE). Personally My player and my Yamaha amp will both upconvert video. So give me uncompressed audio or there is no freaking reason to pay 2x3 times the price of a regular DVD. I know a lot of morons who have bought multiple copies of DVD because it is a special ed, directors cut, or now Blu-ray with really no added benifit. At least with 5.1 Lossless I am getting something for my money. Otherwise keep you old disks and play them on an upconverted player or save you money. You can buy a quality upconverting Pioneer Elite player for under $99.00 and get a better picture and save your money otherwise.

There is very little Bl-Ray vdoe worth the money but with a hot amp and lossless sound you can experience a real quality differance. I run a Yamaha 7.1 sysyem (waiting for some 7.1 lossless (besides Pans Labryinth) to really experience the sound that you will notice. But for now I do hear the sound differance with the 5.1 Lossless MA disks, the pictures has inproved but not to the point to pick Blu-ray as the winner when comparing audio to video on a good lossless disk.

Stargate Blu-ray was a bad joke, grainy crap and just no effort even went into making it a better picture. Glad I only paid $9.99 and actually like the dvd that I had lost, I feel like suing them for calling it blu-ray, but since it will not play on a DVD player they can get away with calling it a blu-ray disk.

But as they say "There is a sucker born everyday and if you look at the Blu-rays being resold today it proves the point. Are you one of those suckers?

[jd213]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

If you refuse to buy this on the grounds of the audio not being good enough for your tastes, the producer may see low sales and decide not to keep releasing anime titles. Do you want to indirectly contribute to anime titles not getting released as much here as they could be?

I'm a professional translator and don't need subtitles, so I've purchased dozens of anime Blu-rays here in Japan in the past year, as well as the US releases of Freedom and the Gunbuster/Diebuster Gattai box set. And I already have the first Japanese release of Innocence, so I wouldn't be buying the US release even if it did have lossless. I'm doing more than my fair share of buying anime on Blu-ray, thank you very much. The US won't be getting as much as Japan anyways, there's simply too much of it even if the US market was twice as strong as it is right now.

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

I also am not fond of the term "lossy", because for me, that implies that it's bad.

Its called lossy because the process done to compress/decompress the audio causes loss in quality. This is a fact not a derogatory nickname. Lossless is exactly that: Losseless audio.

We don't pay extra for lossless and it downgrades to lossy for people without the necessary receivers so why not include it on every title?

[singhcr]

This is a clear-cut situation of Bandai being cheap.

We have a right to complain when there is already a BD presentation out there with lossless sound, and we get a US release that is lossy and extremely expensive? What sense does that make?