The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Gowho]

Originally Posted by Misioon_Odisea

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…

It would explain why it's so cheap but then again, do we know if there were any corrections on the Japanese discs?

[Misioon_Odisea]

Originally Posted by Gowho

It would explain why it's so cheap but then again, do we know if there were any corrections on the Japanese discs?

I found this video, if it helps. This should give us some hints on what to look for when the U.S. sets are released:

OK! I gotta talk about the Dandadan BLU-RAY

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Misioon_Odisea

I found this video, if it helps. This should give us some hints on what to look for when the U.S. sets are released:

OK! I gotta talk about the Dandadan BLU-RAY

He only checked volume 1 with episodes 1-3 which don't have any changes.

[Misioon_Odisea]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

He only checked volume 1 with episodes 1-3 which don't have any changes.

Well, you got me. I thought I spotted a couple of differences in them at first glance, but checking back again, it appears that the TV side is just a few frames behind the BD version for this video. Sorry, this was the closest I could find for a direct comparison between the TV and home video versions of the series to date. Maybe any significant changes or overhauls might possibly start popping up in later episodes, but I don't think any comparisons have been made for those yet.

Still, regardless of those differences, we should keep a lookout for the disc's general competences in both audio and video encoding anyway, which are not looking promising given the recent flubs with The Colors Within. Here's hoping I end up being wrong again with my worries and it turns out all right.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

He only checked volume 1 with episodes 1-3 which don't have any changes.

Which he also got wrong, as we can tell from comps posted over a month ago that the very first scene has at least one redraw.
Also check out the second shot (title card) for that sweet sweet blurred chroma on the JP BD.

[LostWallDog]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Which he also got wrong, as we can tell from comps posted over a month ago that the very first scene has at least one redraw.
Also check out the second shot (title card) for that sweet sweet blurred chroma on the JP BD.

Thanks for this. I received the GKIDS Blu-ray a couple of days ago. Comparing that shot of Momo, the GKIDS release uses the home video master.

Also of note, each episode uses English for the Opening credits, as well as for the episode titles at the beginning and in the NEPs, baked into the video not a subtitle. Ending credits still in Japanese. The opening & ending included as extras on disc 1 is the Japanese version, not a clean version.

[BigOnAnime]

So, our "favorite" Blu-ray.com anime "reviewer" will be incorrect once again when he talks about how inferior streaming is to Blu-ray for the 9,000th time, while also being incapable of flipping a disc over and looking at barcodes in the center to figure out if BD-25 or BD-50 discs are being used. He continues to set the fields to 0, implying Blu-ray uses 0GB of data.

I only really am able to notice this if there's a direct comparison, but it remains sad how many Blu-rays are looking inferior to Crunchyroll's streams, especially when CR doesn't offer the home video versions for titles they simulcast, that went away with the FUNimation website and HIDIVE stopped offering those too (though HIDIVE's video quality is meh).

[lilwolf555]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

Which he also got wrong, as we can tell from comps posted over a month ago that the very first scene has at least one redraw.
Also check out the second shot (title card) for that sweet sweet blurred chroma on the JP BD.

To call myself out like a complete noob.. is this a good thing? In the title card shot the JPBD is the least sharp thats evident (on the text), yet on shots in general the blu is noticeably sharper.

I am naive on a lot of the terms and things to look out for and would love to educate myself on it.. is there a resource somewhere to read up and learn about the various mastering quirks?

Edit: Nevermind.. actually Crunchys looks better in a lot of shots I closely looked at barely.. Strange. Blu will still be better imo due to handling motion scenes better I bet

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by lilwolf555

To call myself out like a complete noob.. is this a good thing? In the title card shot the JPBD is the least sharp thats evident (on the text), yet on shots in general the blu is noticeably sharper.

The blurry title card on the JPBD is not a good thing. The colors are blurry and muted due to the use of a lowpass filter. The filter is also applied to the end credits.

I am naive on a lot of the terms and things to look out for and would love to educate myself on it.. is there a resource somewhere to read up and learn about the various mastering quirks?

These are far from complete unfortunately and don't cover things like lowpass filtering:
https://guide.encode.moe/encoding/video-artifacts.html
https://bakashots.me/guide/index.php

[mjk]

Originally Posted by LostWallDog

Thanks for this. I received the GKIDS Blu-ray a couple of days ago. Comparing that shot of Momo, the GKIDS release uses the home video master.

Also of note, each episode uses English for the Opening credits, as well as for the episode titles at the beginning and in the NEPs, baked into the video not a subtitle. Ending credits still in Japanese. The opening & ending included as extras on disc 1 is the Japanese version, not a clean version.

So, this means that it should look overall decent, but that they took certain steps to make it less appealing as a reverse import given its low price point? Overall, I think I can deal with that. I'd like to encourage Toho's "anti-Aniplex" strategy of making their new in-house releases actually affordable.

[professorwho]

Dan Da Dan S1E2 CR vs GKids BD (comp by me)

Elevated gamma errors should not be returning in 2025

[Mangaranga]

TohoKids are in utter shambles as of late. That makes the third release in a row to deviate from their usual output quality with no consistency between them either. My Hero Academia was (apparently) a bad encode with dubtitles and no Signs/Songs track, Colours Within was lowpassed and had screwed audio, and this suffers from the gamma bug. What the hell is going on over there? If it's going to be a case of Russian Roulette every time a new release of theirs comes out then I have absolutely no interest at all in picking up any of their releases.

[NLScavenger]

MHA You're Next home video was distributed in partnership with SDS, so SDS probably used whoever authors for Universal or Warner Bros. Encode was decent iirc; main issue is the subtitles.

[Misioon_Odisea]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Dan Da Dan S1E2 CR vs GKids BD (comp by me)

Elevated gamma errors should not be returning in 2025

How unfortunate. You know, every day, I'm yearning more and more for Deaf Crocodile Films to join the market for modern animated productions from Europe and around the world outside of Japan and the United States. They could really give GKIDS a well-deserved run for their money in that market segment.

Just recently, GKIDS has re-entered the non-Anime World animation scene after another prolonged hiatus, which is great and all, it's where they should have stayed all along, but if they're going to chronically mishandle their disc releases like this in general, then I think I would like to see more reliable labels to bring those works over instead, ones that can do things right all the way, since that kind of foreign and specialty animation is what I am chasing after the most on physical media nowadays, and because that kind of material is almost never picked up by anybody else anymore, I really don't want to see these kinds of chronic problems continuously show up on every one of these titles I want to buy that GKIDS releases on disc.

[Show spoiler]

…That is, if GKIDS even releases them on disc at all, to begin with.

[Gowho]

Don't they still rely on Shout for the disc work and Shout still uses Duplitech for Authoring?

If so then that might be the main issue since some of their BDs had problems.

[lilwolf555]

Is the gamma issue also present on the JPBD? JP comps I can't tell like the obvious issue on the Gkids comp.

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by lilwolf555

Is the gamma issue also present on the JPBD? JP comps I can't tell like the obvious issue on the Gkids comp.

Not present on the JPBD.

[mjk]

Maybe the comparison shot poster earlier doesn't really expose the depths of the issue, but I had too look VERY hard to find a difference. The still from the US Blu-ray was every so slightly brighter, but even on my very best screen it was something I would literally never notice if I wasn't doing a direct comparison? Are there other shots where it's more of an issue?

[KingOfBunnies]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Dan Da Dan S1E2 CR vs GKids BD (comp by me)

Elevated gamma errors should not be returning in 2025

Feel like there was a better shot that could have been used to show the elevated gamma.

[lilwolf555]

Originally Posted by KingOfBunnies

Feel like there was a better shot that could have been used to show the elevated gamma.

Originally Posted by mjk

Maybe the comparison shot poster earlier doesn't really expose the depths of the issue, but I had too look VERY hard to find a difference. The still from the US Blu-ray was every so slightly brighter, but even on my very best screen it was something I would literally never notice if I wasn't doing a direct comparison? Are there other shots where it's more of an issue?

First time doing any of this, so please let me know if anythings wrong.

Got Gkids blu today and decided to do more comps. While I do not have the JP blus I... 'acquired' them by other means that seem hardly, if any, compression was used.

https://slow.pics/c/Zb9FOFAW

Metadata for reference:
US: Bit rate : 33.5 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 38.0 Mb/s
Audio: Bit rate mode : Variable / Constant
Bit rate : 2 067 kb/s / 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 : Lossless / Lossy
Stream size : 357 MiB (5%)

JP: Bit rate : 36.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 40.0 Mb/s
Audio: Bit rate : 1 422 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 11.719 FPS (4096 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 244 MiB (4%)

Edit: The DTS HD MA audio on the US blu sounds VASTLY cleaner than the FLAC on the JP rip I found. Didn't think I'd notice a difference due to low technical difference but level matching even my fiance immeditely noticed the DTS mix sounded better.

This COULD be due to the DTS HD track natively working better with the Neural X upmixer on my 7.2.4 setup vs FLAC to Neural X conversion