The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Naiera]

Gotto dam

[pikagreg]

I appreciate the Penguindrum comparisons. That is a lot of work though it's nice having all of the info in one place.

[Kyle15]

Made the right call skipping that US disc. Atrocious indeed!

[The Collector FX]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

Made the right call skipping that US disc. Atrocious indeed!

It'd be way too expensive anyway as it's been OOP for years. Anime LTD did us all a huge favor of having a new release with much better PQ so that we don't have to buy Sentai's old release with aftermarket prices.

[Tylerfan]

Three new ones:

Cardcaptor Sakura (Anime Ltd.): https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Cardc...295604/#Review
Vision of Escaflowne (Classics): https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-V...289479/#Review
The Code Geass movie trilogy steelbook: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Code-...228289/#Review

[pikagreg]

Didn't realize it was OOP. Time to sell that lol

[professorwho]

CCS: The site review has so many inaccuracies and strange takes, lol. I wrote mine when I received it, but never bothered taking screencaps, so I’ll get to that (along with other stuff, I guess).

Escaflowne: The FUNimation discs did not have "additional DNR" applied compared to the UK discs, the compression is just inferior.

[Tylerfan]

Three more recents:

Honey and Clover
Season 1: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Honey...242643/#Review
Season 2: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Honey...263745/#Review

Sailor Moon Complete First Season (2022): https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sailo...313823/#Review

Belated edit: Here is Rental Magica as well: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Renta...317253/#Review

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by Tylerfan

Honey and Clover
Season 1: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Honey...242643/#Review

The presentation isn't as impressive as some standard-definition upscales available (such as the effort by Funimation on Fairy Tail).

The reviewer is actually an idiot.

[SteamfloggerBoss]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

The reviewer is actually an idiot.

Same person that wrote the bizarre Card Captor review...

[One-Eye]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

The reviewer is actually an idiot.

Yea, he seems to be doing all the anime reviews now and some of them have inaccuracies even in the review summaries (don't get me started on Vinland Saga). I just ignore all anime reviews on the site now.

[Mangaranga]

Speaking of Vinland Saga, did anyone pick up the LE? Did Sentai use the Home Video masters this time around?

[Ccharmanderk]

Originally Posted by One-Eye

Yea, he seems to be doing all the anime reviews now and some of them have inaccuracies even in the review summaries (don't get me started on Vinland Saga). I just ignore all anime reviews on the site now.

The only use these reviews have is the screenshots, honestly.

Which, speaking of, glad we finally have a convenient place to see the quality of the new Sailor Moon set. One of my Twitter mutuals posted a thread a while back when it released but it's much easier to just point to the review page and say "look at this".

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Ccharmanderk

The only use these reviews have is the screenshots, honestly.

Which, speaking of, glad we finally have a convenient place to see the quality of the new Sailor Moon set. One of my Twitter mutuals posted a thread a while back when it released but it's much easier to just point to the review page and say "look at this".

Though other times not useful. There's no screenshots from the HD-native second season of Kaiji. The review falsely claims the entire thing is upscaled from an SD source.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Kaiji...285057/#Review

I don't want to be harsh, but it's annoying to see how often there's a lack of basic research, including stuff on the packaging (Ex: Claiming something is from Sentai Filmworks instead of Maiden Japan-they're separate companies, main link is they share the same office space and both use Section23 Films for distribution). Said lack of basic research can lead to false information spreading or misleading people making contributions on this site leading to false ones being made for the listings.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Though other times not useful. There's no screenshots from the HD-native second season of Kaiji. The review falsely claims the entire thing is upscaled from an SD source.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Kaiji...285057/#Review

Love how it also doesn't mention that it's 1080i30 for seemingly no reason other than likely being encoded from a telecined TV Broadcast master.
Yes, I'm still salty about that as it's unwatchable with the constant judder in my eyes.

[Mangaranga]

Madman's AU release of Tower of God is confirmed to be a self encode.



Encoding settings.

[Show spoiler]

ID : 1
ID in the original source medi : 4113 (0x1011)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference fra : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2 h 47 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 30.1 Mb/s
Nominal bit rate : 33.0 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) : 0.605
Stream size : 35.1 GiB (91%)
Writing library : x264 core 157 r2969 d4099dd
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.40:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=24 / lookahead_threads=4 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=1 / keyint=23 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=23 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=33000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=35000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.60
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Original source medium : Blu-ray

Thanks to the brave individual who took the plunge for everyone else. I've also personally ordered a copy.

[zakurowrath]

Has anyone watched the German release of Spice and Wolf by nipponart?

Curious if it's a better upscale or does it use the 720i native master from Japan? (does 720i actually exist? )

Just started the series with the Funimation Blu-Ray and the video quality is bad, like how exactly did they upscale it, the dull colors, the artificial sharpness, just... oof

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by zakurowrath

Has anyone watched the German release of Spice and Wolf by nipponart?

Curious if it's a better upscale or does it use the 720i native master from Japan? (does 720i actually exist? )

Just started the series with the Funimation Blu-Ray and the video quality is bad, like how exactly did they upscale it, the dull colors, the artificial sharpness, just... oof

FUNimation for some reason decided to upscale their DVD masters rather than try and license the Blu-ray masters. It's such a massive shame we still don't have the HD materials for an HD native show.

And then S2, they screwed up the audio by making the Japanese audio tinny and the dub is in mono due a botched mix.

Originally Posted by Sensuifu

I did an audio check (S2) and the results were interesting. Looking at the phase analysis and listening to it in realtime, the dialogue part of the dub audio is indeed in mono. However, other parts (op/ed, bgm, backing/fx tracks) seem to be in stereo (possibly dual-mono).

The problem is the mix. While some parts are in stereo, the dialogue ruins the stereo separation by attenuating the rest of the soundtrack because it runs a bit hot. In other words, the dialogue's volume level is louder than the rest of the audio track, so that means all the nuances and miscellaneous sounds beside the spoken dialogue is drowned out (not surprising since they're likely only using 2.0 sources). Because they've encoded this as a 5.1 track, everything is now focused onto the Center Channel. This means any channel separation will be slightly, if not barely audible once downmixed to the center. I'd chalk this up as a mono release.

As far as the JP audio track goes- as suspected, it runs an average of 7-10dB below the dub track. The thin sound is partially due to a lack of bass management/equalization and the volume level being below normal. Though the phase analysis shows stereo separation compared to the dub and has better dynamics even with the lower volume.

https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...ge6#post119710

[Member-571539]

Sharing this here from the InuYasha thread.

Originally Posted by zakurowrath

Just got my All The Anime shipment in from their summer sale and wow, whatever material they use on their chipboard boxes really absorbs the ink so well, I really hope they continue the whole original series including the movies, Final Act and even Yashahime in the collectors boxes!



Ask for the image quality, seeing it side by side, who is it that pointed out that Viz used the wrong color space a couple posts back, that's is quite noticeable

Viz's US release on the Left - All The Anime's UK Release on the Right:



















And the frame skipping is gone, that's so nice, I do hope in the future Viz goes back and fixes the color space and frame skip issues.

The only thing missing from the UK boxset is the textless openings and closings, maybe all of them in a bonus disc down the line, guess we'll see.

If you own a Region B or Region Free player, I say go get it, I'm double dipping but for a childhood anime series close to my heart, well worth it for me

[SteamfloggerBoss]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

FUNimation for some reason decided to upscale their DVD masters rather than try and license the Blu-ray masters. It's such a massive shame we still don't have the HD materials for an HD native show.

And then S2, they screwed up the audio by making the Japanese audio tinny and the dub is in mono due a botched mix.https://fandompost.vbulletin.net/for...ge6#post119710

It really is amazing how consistently awful Funimation is. Is the Japanese BD good? As it is one of my favorite series I've been thinking of getting the Japanese BD and adding subtitles after ripping but that only makes sense if it's good.