The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread - Page 101 - Blu-ray Forum

klasma · 06-29-2018, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Space Adventure Cobra 4K UHD: https://imgbox.com/g/vVn74xizni *Dunno who made these screencaps*

I wonder why there's a hex pattern in #5.

NLScavenger · 06-29-2018, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by klasma

I wonder why there's a hex pattern in #5.

Looks like a raster effect that's supposed to mimic a CRT screen.

professorwho · 07-01-2018, 07:55 PM

Let's change things up a bit...

Kingsglave Final Fantasy XV

Disc size: 34.9GB

Feature size: 29.4GB (this is due to an insane amount of dubs and subtitles in various languages, but that still doesn't justify the smaller file size)

Video:
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
24.9 mbps AVG
??? mbps MAX (MediaInfo doesn't show what it is, so sorry)
20.1GB

Audio:
Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 640 kbps
English DTS HD-MA 5.1 16-Bit 2280 kbps

First, I'll tackle audio. I'm not sure what is the "native" language of the film, though I have an idea. The people credited for motion capture, and animation are Japanese, but the film was advertised by having big name American and British actors doing the voice acting. Plus, some scenes were animated by other studios other than Square Enix's Visual Works, so it's a huge mess in terms of who made what. Regardless, I think it was pathetic to not include a lossless Japanese track, as many people would play Final Fantasy XV with those voices, and it's more consistent (Luna and Regis have different English VAs in the game than here), plus it's better acted. Despite big names like Sean Bean and Aaron Paul, they have some terrible voice acting. I switched to Japanese and it felt much better. The lip-sync was produced for the English voice acting, and the Japanese dubbed over it. This brings back Sakaguchi's statement about how English voice actors are not as talented due to not being trained for timing compared to their Japanese equivalents.

The English track is technically good, but I wish there was a DTS Japanese mix. This is the same disc used worldwide, so there is no "magical JP release to save the day" sort of situation. Also, why are the French and Portuguese tracks in DTS but not Japanese? That is so stupid. I have no problem with them being lossless, but the lack of a JP track like that is lame. Sound quality is good between them both, but the English track gets the slight edge due to less compression. They both sound similar, but that still is no excuse for the lack of a lossless JP track. (Notice a pattern here?)

(Sony's been doing this with almost every release now. Portuguese and/or French get lossless tracks when they shouldn't, eating up the bitrate and forcing the audio to be 16-Bit and the video to be a lower bitrate.)

Video is good. Being a completely CGI film produced higher than 1080p there is no reason it should look bad, and it doesn't. It's well encoded without any artifacts from what I can notice, but the bitrate is standard Sony. It's almost as if it's an automated process... there is no reason it should be this low when there is quite a bit of space left on the disc. Visually the movie is inconsistent. Some bits look stellar, with some of the best CGI I've ever seen, but the majority of the film is like the game, but slightly better. The visual styles are inconsistent, but it overall looks nice.

Next up, Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV, eventually... I'm tired of typing right now...

UseY0ur1llusi0n · 07-02-2018, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Space Adventure Cobra 4K UHD: https://imgbox.com/g/vVn74xizni *Dunno who made these screencaps*

[Show spoiler]

Literally my worse fear ever -- this mimics exactly what I thought anime on 4K UHD would come to.

Naiera · 07-02-2018, 11:46 AM

Seeing him cry like that makes me a little happy.

crazymanwitt · 07-02-2018, 01:53 PM

Hi everyone, I'm Currently watching funimations Sakura quest Blu-Ray and on disc1 episode 5 from 1h 54mto 1h 54m 17sec the 5.1 audio switches to mono, the group of characters are talking and the audio seems fine then all dialog switches to mono then returns to normal. Can anyone else confirm this? I'm going to check the DVD copy later to see if it's on there as well, also noticed the opening and closings are not translated, instead opted to put the credit scroll at the end of each episode like a sentai disc

Edit: can confirm this issue is also on the DVD aswell

professorwho · 07-02-2018, 05:57 PM

professorwho · 07-02-2018, 06:07 PM

Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV

Feature size: 19.0GB

Video:
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
35.9 mbps AVG
38.0 mbps MAX
17.6GB

Audio:
Japanese LPCM 2.0 24-Bit 2304 kbps

Encoding wise, it's the same disc Aniplex released in Japan, so it's top notch. Virtually no artifacts and/or issues. But, it still doesn't change the fact it looks like sh*t. Yeah, the character designs are atrocious and just looks ugly. Standard A-1 Pictures garbage. They've only made a few good looking and well animated series, but this is below average.

Sound is in LPCM (my prefered audio codec), and it's crystal clear. No problems here. Flawless sound, no compression detected. Japanese only, which is fine by me, but for people who played the game in English, it may come as a surprise.

This is just filler. While technically well encoded, it's still bad. The stories here should've been flashbacks in the game you played, as playing a game would be more fun than watching this filler. Lame.

Mangaranga · 07-02-2018, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gpn

This wouldn't be the first time Kadokawa did this. They gave crappy composite masters to ADV for Full Metal Panic and Geneon for Girls Bravo. Geneon actually went back to them and got better better masters after there were complaints for the first disc of GB.

Kadokawa was my initial blame for who the fault lies with, but the video masters provided to @anime FR and Crunchyroll were not from Kadokawa.
Don't have an answer to that one either but I'd assume TV Tokyo handed out the video materials for the show. I don't think people are stupid enough to believe that this was merely an accident on the Japanese side though, nor should people assume Funimation and their QA people didn't notice it either.

professorwho · 07-02-2018, 06:51 PM

Here's another Re:Zero US/UK shot (off screen but it still shows how bad it is)

きもちわるい。。。How disgusting...
(kimochi warui)

Mangaranga · 07-02-2018, 09:03 PM

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex JP/KR BD vs UK

Honestly went in expecting this to be the worst looking thing ever, but realistically, outside of being 24p and being slightly brighter, the French encodes show all the same problems as the JP/KR BD. It doesn't even suffer from excessive visual noise that BDs from other companies like Funimation do. If the brightness were corrected and the video was encoded as interlaced I genuinely think it would've been perfectly comparable to the Japanese BD.

Not to say it's without it's flaws though. The KR BD uses the R1 subs, whereas the Manga BD seems to use completely different subtitles which feel (to me at least), a lot more basic and simplified in comparison. Whilst there is quite a lot of crossover between the dub and the R1 sub script as is, I almost got the impression based on the timing and subtitles themselves that the new ones were an edit of the dubtitle script so that it didn't sound like a dubtitle script...

professorwho · 07-04-2018, 02:57 AM

Andrew of Anime Limited responds:

Quote:

Woah there. At the risk of being taken out of context on ANN twice in a month, I just wanted to pop in briefly to this before it escalates any further.

I’m very sorry to hear if my first reply was ambiguous or the silence has lead to query how it’s been handled. To clarify - what I have been saying all along is that I need to look into it before I formulate a course of action.

Let’s summarise the scenarios briefly here:

A) If I promised we would fix things -> This would have worked _*if*_ we were certain materials exist in the international licensee side that would allow things to be fixed. If it isn’t and we have to wheel back? That’d be even worse frankly and I’m not going to give false hope where there is none for example.

B) If I said I will never fix it and then we do somehow for our standard edition (or just didn't) -> That would also be a no go for all of us at Anime Ltd on either count. If you’re buying a premium product from us then it makes sense if a standard version comes out with fixes to significant issues with the premium version, then steps should be taken.

C) If we promise we are looking into it, do look into it, form a solution then present something -> Which is indeed what we’re doing. As it became clear after the first phases of checking that it wasn’t a simple “someone done goofed” during the authoring process, we’ve been hard at work to establish what has happened and (more importantly to me) if/what the fixes are before we come back. As this does involve more than just talk to the authoring company (in this case Funimation for the UK) - it takes longer.

If my lack of communication since the initial messages has been taken as me ignoring folks or refusing to do anything, then I’m sorry too!

###

We make an effort to correct things because it is the right thing to do and unfortunately this actually draws a lot more unrelenting criticism and negativity than the alternative that many companies go for by not engaging - which often means complaints just pass by long term (doesn’t make that a cool strategy mind you!)

TL;DR - I still care as much as before - just want to have something definitive to say before I actually enact anything

.

Source

I think it's rather good. I will admit I doubted Andrew in part due to him being quoted out of context. That is unfortunate and the biggest issue we humans have, so I'm glad that's cleared up.

It does not guarantee anything, but I am glad that is being looked into.

Kyle15 · 07-04-2018, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by professorwho

Here's another Re:Zero US/UK shot (off screen but it still shows how bad it is)

きもちわるい。。。How disgusting...
(kimochi warui)

Youtube stream elegance much? LMAO

professorwho · 07-04-2018, 04:14 PM

ViCklatereur's Re:Zero video of the French release is up and the screenshots are similarly bad to the US/UK set...

professorwho · 07-04-2018, 04:32 PM

Here are screencaps he took from the French release

professorwho · 07-06-2018, 04:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naiera

I've put the MediaInfo from the first episode of Kobayashi in the spoiler. The entire disc is around 47 GB and the episode totals vary from 6.4 to 6.8 GB. I have no idea if any brightness was boosted, but it looks good. It's strange to see a 7/7 split

where the space was actually spent wisely on one show, while a different current show is a complete pile of crap.

[Show spoiler]

For comparison, here are the stats of Episode 1 of Kobayashi JP BD by Pony Canyon:

MPEG-4 AVC Video 35499 kbps 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

LPCM Audio Japanese 2304 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit
LPCM Audio Japanese 2304 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit (Audio commentary)
LPCM Audio Japanese 2304 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit (Audio commentary)

The two commentaries are:

Cast: Yūki Kuwahara (Tohru), Maria Naganawa (Kanna), Minami Takahashi (Rukoa) and Yūki Takada (Eruma)

Staff: Yasuhiro Takemoto (Director), Miku Kadowaki (Character designer) and Nobuaki Maruki (Chief Animation Director)

FUNi isn't far off from the JP release... except it's lacking the commentaries. TRANSLATE THEM DAMN YOU...

Shiroworks · 07-06-2018, 09:21 AM

Hi, does anyone have checked the Sentai release of Amagi Brilliant Park? Also how is sentai filmworks overall with their releases?

Been reading a few pages on this thread and find it really helpful and interesting.

professorwho · 07-06-2018, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shiroworks

Hi, does anyone have checked the Sentai release of Amagi Brilliant Park? Also how is sentai filmworks overall with their releases?

Been reading a few pages on this thread and find it really helpful and interesting.

Don't have Amagi, but I'm sure it's like every other Sentai release.

Most of their releases are good looking, certainly better than FUNimation releases, but may feature some artifacting.

professorwho · 07-06-2018, 05:44 PM

Kurokami Volume 1
(Bandai)

Disc size: 13.9GB

Feature size: 11.6GB

Episode 1: 3.1GB (File sizes range between 2.77 and 3.1GB, though every episode other than the first is below 3GB and it shows)

Video:
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
17.1 mbps AVG (Episode 4- the lowest, is 15.2 mbps)
35.0 mbps MAX
2.85GB

Audio:
English LPCM 2.0 16-Bit 1536 kbps

Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. Bandai's Kurokami is infamous for the fact it doesn't have the original Japanese audio. I'm willing to bet Bandai was forced to not include it due to some reasons. Just like Sentai's original release of Persona 4, the DVDs are dual audio, though. However, that's not where the problems end.

The video bitrate and file sizes are hideously low. Yeah, I wasn't expecting a 1:1 clone, but this is FUNi territory of lazy. The video is all over the place. One shot looks flawless, next is terrible with tons of banding. Most of the time it looks fine, but the inconsistencies are the worst part. It's a mess.

Audio wise, it is technically perfect. No compression I could hear. (If there's one area FUNi seems to get right, it's audio, as it's harder to screw up than video) The English dubbing is surprisingly good, though. Laura Bailey, my favourite English voice actress plays Kuro and is great. This was the first time I've ever seen the series, so I can't compare her to Shitaya Noriko, or any of the Japanese cast, but I'm sure they're just as good if not better.

I found it at FYE for $3 and I got my money's worth, though I wouldn't go out of my way to find it.

There are some trailers included and they have the worst banding and artifacting I've ever seen. Though, they're just trailers.

professorwho · 07-06-2018, 08:45 PM

Full Metal Panic!
(FUNimation)

Disc size: 43.7GB

Faeture size: 37.6GB

Episode 1: 5.2GB

Video (for Disc 1):
1080p MPEG-4 AVC
25.9 mbps AVG
39.0 mbps MAX
32.8GB

Audio:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 24-Bit 776 kbps
English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-Bit 2968 kbps

This is an in-house FUNimation upscale, and it looks good, but there's one issue that couldn't be fixed. FMP is in 4:3, so here is is forced into a 16:9 window, so you can't stretch it like an idiot would, but this has one side-effect. The OP is letterboxed inside the 4:3 image. This is due to the original source, and unless altered with, this is how it's meant to be seen. Unfortunately, there are some shots that are like that as well, meant to look cinematic, but suck on an HDTV. Yu Yu Hakusho has a single shot like that, as Akiyuki Shinbo was the episode director there, which started a trait he'd carry onto his protege at Shaft (Shinbo hasn't actually directed anything at Shaft for those who don't know). That issue aside, it looks mostly great.

Line detail is good, and doesn't have the artifacts like Black Butler. The animation is rather poor, but you can see the team tried to replicate several "cinematic" effects, like lens distortions and depth of field. It's kind of distracting because it's early digipaint work from 2002, so keep that in mind. The real issue is banding. It's not actually that noticeable, but it's there. It's the "best" kind of it, as you have to look closely to notice. For someone who isn't knowledgeable in this area, or is just invested in the show, it isn't an issue.

According to BOA, this is better than the JP release, which used a different upscale. This is 1080p, compared to the JP 1080i. I remember he said something about the OP being slowed down, but I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The JP release averages 34.92 mbps, whereas this is 25.9 so it's certainly lower, but being an older title with simple animation and background art that's not very detailed, you can get away with a lower bitrate.

Audio is same as always. FUNi rarely screws up audio- Code Geass and Spice and Wolf being the only 2 I can think of- so it sounds nice. The Japanese track is louder and has better stereo separation, but the Dub has additional effects/voice filters. Around the 9 minute mark in Episode 1, Sosuke is in a plane and there's an effect to replicate the voice bounding around the sides of the plane (I can't think of another way to describe it). I like these effects, and I wish the Japanese team did similar efforts. Otherwise, music is exactly the same and despite a difference in bitrate, they sound equally as clear. Just choose which language is your preference. (I like this dub, it's not as serious as the Japanese track, but it fits the show. Chris Patton is hilarious as Sosuke, and Luci Christian is great as Kaname as well.) Both tracks have their pros and cons, so you should experiment and see which one you prefer.

This is probably the best the series will ever look, so pick it up. FMP is in a great place now, as we finally have the continuation we needed, so check it out. It's on Crunchyroll as well.

The UK set by Anime Limited uses the same discs, as well.

07-02-2018, 01:53 PM	#2006
crazymanwitt Active Member Top contributor Member since:Sep 2008 4K collection:193 Blu-ray collection:1729 DVD collection:518 iTunes collection:6 Blu-ray reviews:72 Trading Score:8	Sakura quest Hi everyone, I'm Currently watching funimations Sakura quest Blu-Ray and on disc1 episode 5 from 1h 54mto 1h 54m 17sec the 5.1 audio switches to mono, the group of characters are talking and the audio seems fine then all dialog switches to mono then returns to normal. Can anyone else confirm this? I'm going to check the DVD copy later to see if it's on there as well, also noticed the opening and closings are not translated, instead opted to put the credit scroll at the end of each episode like a sentai disc Edit: can confirm this issue is also on the DVD aswell Last edited by crazymanwitt; 07-02-2018 at 05:01 PM. Reason: Update

07-02-2018, 09:03 PM	#2011
Mangaranga Senior Member Member since:Oct 2014	Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex JP/KR BD vs UK Honestly went in expecting this to be the worst looking thing ever, but realistically, outside of being 24p and being slightly brighter, the French encodes show all the same problems as the JP/KR BD. It doesn't even suffer from excessive visual noise that BDs from other companies like Funimation do. If the brightness were corrected and the video was encoded as interlaced I genuinely think it would've been perfectly comparable to the Japanese BD. Not to say it's without it's flaws though. The KR BD uses the R1 subs, whereas the Manga BD seems to use completely different subtitles which feel (to me at least), a lot more basic and simplified in comparison. Whilst there is quite a lot of crossover between the dub and the R1 sub script as is, I almost got the impression based on the timing and subtitles themselves that the new ones were an edit of the dubtitle script so that it didn't sound like a dubtitle script... Last edited by Mangaranga; 07-02-2018 at 09:13 PM.

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07-01-2018, 07:55 PM	#2003
professorwho Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Apr 2017 4K collection:102 Blu-ray collection:645 Blu-ray reviews: 63 Trading Score:7	Let's change things up a bit... Kingsglave Final Fantasy XV Disc size: 34.9GB Feature size: 29.4GB (this is due to an insane amount of dubs and subtitles in various languages, but that still doesn't justify the smaller file size) Video: 1080p MPEG-4 AVC 24.9 mbps AVG ??? mbps MAX (MediaInfo doesn't show what it is, so sorry) 20.1GB Audio: Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 640 kbps English DTS HD-MA 5.1 16-Bit 2280 kbps First, I'll tackle audio. I'm not sure what is the "native" language of the film, though I have an idea. The people credited for motion capture, and animation are Japanese, but the film was advertised by having big name American and British actors doing the voice acting. Plus, some scenes were animated by other studios other than Square Enix's Visual Works, so it's a huge mess in terms of who made what. Regardless, I think it was pathetic to not include a lossless Japanese track, as many people would play Final Fantasy XV with those voices, and it's more consistent (Luna and Regis have different English VAs in the game than here), plus it's better acted. Despite big names like Sean Bean and Aaron Paul, they have some terrible voice acting. I switched to Japanese and it felt much better. The lip-sync was produced for the English voice acting, and the Japanese dubbed over it. This brings back Sakaguchi's statement about how English voice actors are not as talented due to not being trained for timing compared to their Japanese equivalents. The English track is technically good, but I wish there was a DTS Japanese mix. This is the same disc used worldwide, so there is no "magical JP release to save the day" sort of situation. Also, why are the French and Portuguese tracks in DTS but not Japanese? That is so stupid. I have no problem with them being lossless, but the lack of a JP track like that is lame. Sound quality is good between them both, but the English track gets the slight edge due to less compression. They both sound similar, but that still is no excuse for the lack of a lossless JP track. (Notice a pattern here?) (Sony's been doing this with almost every release now. Portuguese and/or French get lossless tracks when they shouldn't, eating up the bitrate and forcing the audio to be 16-Bit and the video to be a lower bitrate.) Video is good. Being a completely CGI film produced higher than 1080p there is no reason it should look bad, and it doesn't. It's well encoded without any artifacts from what I can notice, but the bitrate is standard Sony. It's almost as if it's an automated process... there is no reason it should be this low when there is quite a bit of space left on the disc. Visually the movie is inconsistent. Some bits look stellar, with some of the best CGI I've ever seen, but the majority of the film is like the game, but slightly better. The visual styles are inconsistent, but it overall looks nice. Next up, Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV, eventually... I'm tired of typing right now...

07-02-2018, 11:46 AM	#2005
Naiera Blu-ray Duke Top contributor Member since:Jun 2012 Location:Denmark Home Theater Gallery:2 Trading Score:24	Seeing him cry like that makes me a little happy.

07-02-2018, 06:07 PM	#2008
professorwho Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Apr 2017 4K collection:102 Blu-ray collection:645 Blu-ray reviews: 63 Trading Score:7	Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV Feature size: 19.0GB Video: 1080p MPEG-4 AVC 35.9 mbps AVG 38.0 mbps MAX 17.6GB Audio: Japanese LPCM 2.0 24-Bit 2304 kbps Encoding wise, it's the same disc Aniplex released in Japan, so it's top notch. Virtually no artifacts and/or issues. But, it still doesn't change the fact it looks like sh*t. Yeah, the character designs are atrocious and just looks ugly. Standard A-1 Pictures garbage. They've only made a few good looking and well animated series, but this is below average. Sound is in LPCM (my prefered audio codec), and it's crystal clear. No problems here. Flawless sound, no compression detected. Japanese only, which is fine by me, but for people who played the game in English, it may come as a surprise. This is just filler. While technically well encoded, it's still bad. The stories here should've been flashbacks in the game you played, as playing a game would be more fun than watching this filler. Lame.

07-02-2018, 06:51 PM	#2010
professorwho Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Apr 2017 4K collection:102 Blu-ray collection:645 Blu-ray reviews: 63 Trading Score:7	Here's another Re:Zero US/UK shot (off screen but it still shows how bad it is) きもちわるい。。。How disgusting... (kimochi warui)

07-04-2018, 04:32 PM	#2015
professorwho Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Apr 2017 4K collection:102 Blu-ray collection:645 Blu-ray reviews: 63 Trading Score:7	Here are screencaps he took from the French release

07-06-2018, 09:21 AM	#2017
Shiroworks New Member Member since:Jul 2018 Location:Lima	Hi, does anyone have checked the Sentai release of Amagi Brilliant Park? Also how is sentai filmworks overall with their releases? Been reading a few pages on this thread and find it really helpful and interesting.

07-06-2018, 05:44 PM	#2019
professorwho Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Apr 2017 4K collection:102 Blu-ray collection:645 Blu-ray reviews: 63 Trading Score:7	Kurokami Volume 1 (Bandai) Disc size: 13.9GB Feature size: 11.6GB Episode 1: 3.1GB (File sizes range between 2.77 and 3.1GB, though every episode other than the first is below 3GB and it shows) Video: 1080p MPEG-4 AVC 17.1 mbps AVG (Episode 4- the lowest, is 15.2 mbps) 35.0 mbps MAX 2.85GB Audio: English LPCM 2.0 16-Bit 1536 kbps Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. Bandai's Kurokami is infamous for the fact it doesn't have the original Japanese audio. I'm willing to bet Bandai was forced to not include it due to some reasons. Just like Sentai's original release of Persona 4, the DVDs are dual audio, though. However, that's not where the problems end. The video bitrate and file sizes are hideously low. Yeah, I wasn't expecting a 1:1 clone, but this is FUNi territory of lazy. The video is all over the place. One shot looks flawless, next is terrible with tons of banding. Most of the time it looks fine, but the inconsistencies are the worst part. It's a mess. Audio wise, it is technically perfect. No compression I could hear. (If there's one area FUNi seems to get right, it's audio, as it's harder to screw up than video) The English dubbing is surprisingly good, though. Laura Bailey, my favourite English voice actress plays Kuro and is great. This was the first time I've ever seen the series, so I can't compare her to Shitaya Noriko, or any of the Japanese cast, but I'm sure they're just as good if not better. I found it at FYE for $3 and I got my money's worth, though I wouldn't go out of my way to find it. There are some trailers included and they have the worst banding and artifacting I've ever seen. Though, they're just trailers.

07-06-2018, 08:45 PM	#2020
professorwho Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Apr 2017 4K collection:102 Blu-ray collection:645 Blu-ray reviews: 63 Trading Score:7	Full Metal Panic! (FUNimation) Disc size: 43.7GB Faeture size: 37.6GB Episode 1: 5.2GB Video (for Disc 1): 1080p MPEG-4 AVC 25.9 mbps AVG 39.0 mbps MAX 32.8GB Audio: Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 24-Bit 776 kbps English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-Bit 2968 kbps This is an in-house FUNimation upscale, and it looks good, but there's one issue that couldn't be fixed. FMP is in 4:3, so here is is forced into a 16:9 window, so you can't stretch it like an idiot would, but this has one side-effect. The OP is letterboxed inside the 4:3 image. This is due to the original source, and unless altered with, this is how it's meant to be seen. Unfortunately, there are some shots that are like that as well, meant to look cinematic, but suck on an HDTV. Yu Yu Hakusho has a single shot like that, as Akiyuki Shinbo was the episode director there, which started a trait he'd carry onto his protege at Shaft (Shinbo hasn't actually directed anything at Shaft for those who don't know). That issue aside, it looks mostly great. Line detail is good, and doesn't have the artifacts like Black Butler. The animation is rather poor, but you can see the team tried to replicate several "cinematic" effects, like lens distortions and depth of field. It's kind of distracting because it's early digipaint work from 2002, so keep that in mind. The real issue is banding. It's not actually that noticeable, but it's there. It's the "best" kind of it, as you have to look closely to notice. For someone who isn't knowledgeable in this area, or is just invested in the show, it isn't an issue. According to BOA, this is better than the JP release, which used a different upscale. This is 1080p, compared to the JP 1080i. I remember he said something about the OP being slowed down, but I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The JP release averages 34.92 mbps, whereas this is 25.9 so it's certainly lower, but being an older title with simple animation and background art that's not very detailed, you can get away with a lower bitrate. Audio is same as always. FUNi rarely screws up audio- Code Geass and Spice and Wolf being the only 2 I can think of- so it sounds nice. The Japanese track is louder and has better stereo separation, but the Dub has additional effects/voice filters. Around the 9 minute mark in Episode 1, Sosuke is in a plane and there's an effect to replicate the voice bounding around the sides of the plane (I can't think of another way to describe it). I like these effects, and I wish the Japanese team did similar efforts. Otherwise, music is exactly the same and despite a difference in bitrate, they sound equally as clear. Just choose which language is your preference. (I like this dub, it's not as serious as the Japanese track, but it fits the show. Chris Patton is hilarious as Sosuke, and Luci Christian is great as Kaname as well.) Both tracks have their pros and cons, so you should experiment and see which one you prefer. This is probably the best the series will ever look, so pick it up. FMP is in a great place now, as we finally have the continuation we needed, so check it out. It's on Crunchyroll as well. The UK set by Anime Limited uses the same discs, as well.

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