The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[Girls With Guns]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Many thanks. Will stick with FUNi version then but UK physical extras are nice for those that want it.

Yeah, I only bought the UK Claymore for the nice packaging - rigid box, digipak, and the book. I already own the US set and knew it was going to be the same discs, but wanted the UK release because it is so much nicer. Same reason I also pre-ordered Your lie in April 1 & 2 and Serial Experiments Lain from the UK, even though I already own those US releases.

[Z-95]

Dunno if anyone has mentioned the new US 5 Centimeters per Second release yet, but I finally got into looking at the video files and this looks like a GOOD release.

For the movie data, the video and English dub streams look to be identical to the Japanese Blu. It includes the 4.0 Japanese track as well (it is encoded as DTS-HD MA while the Japanese domestic release was 4.0 LPCM).

Most of the extras use the Japanese Blu video and audio streams as well with the exception of the Storyboards which are a new AVC encode instead of MPEG2 (at least I think my ripped version was from the Blu and not a DVD one I have).

The only missing bits are the old ADV dub and the Making Of extra that was only on the ADV DVD.

(This makes the 6th different version I have of this movie now--I should get around to watching it some day )

[Spoofer]

Originally Posted by Z-95

(This makes the 6th different version I have of this movie now--I should get around to watching it some day )

Haha, my personal rule is that I can only buy/upgrade a show/film twice, after which I absolutely must watch it before any further upgrades. XD

The International BD for 5CM was my 3rd purchase, I believe. ADV, CrunchyRoll/Bandai, then the International. I figure the domestic BD has nothing new to offer, so I'll stick with what I've got.

[Z-95]

Originally Posted by Spoofer

Haha, my personal rule is that I can only buy/upgrade a show/film twice, after which I absolutely must watch it before any further upgrades. XD

The International BD for 5CM was my 3rd purchase, I believe. ADV, CrunchyRoll/Bandai, then the International. I figure the domestic BD has nothing new to offer, so I'll stick with what I've got.

You're just mainly missing lossless audio with those (the international Blu uses lossy Dolby).

I've got ADV, Bandai, and UK DVDs and JP domestic, JP international, and US Blus now .

[Z-95]

Also, some info on the new Yosuga no Sora Blus from Anime Works/Media Blasters:

General
Unique ID                      : 182270155441485367561824775903581172596 (0x891FF47D0FBF6FD18A76FD8AE6C5F374)
Complete name                  : M:\Anime\In Solitude Where We Are Least Alone (2010)\01 - Distant Memories.mkv
Format                         : Matroska
Format version                 : Version 4 / Version 2
File size                      : 3.69 GiB
Duration                       : 25 min 44 s
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 20.5 Mb/s
Encoded date                   : UTC 2017-03-09 18:14:07
Writing application            : mkvmerge v9.8.0 ('Kuglblids') 64bit
Writing library                : libebml v1.3.4 + libmatroska v1.4.5

Video
ID                             : 1
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 25 min 44 s
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 19.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 30.0 Mb/s
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                         : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate mode                : Variable
Frame rate                     : 23.976 FPS
Standard                       : NTSC
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.382
Stream size                    : 3.41 GiB (92%)
Language                       : English
Default                        : No
Forced                         : No
Color range                    : Limited
Color primaries                : BT.709
Transfer characteristics       : BT.709
Matrix coefficients            : BT.709
CHECKSUM                       : 140a541ad996d8718db9f46a209c9310c510f730

Audio
ID                             : 2
Format                         : PCM
Codec ID                       : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration                       : 25 min 44 s
Bit rate mode                  : Constant
Bit rate                       : 1 536 kb/s
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                     : 30.000 FPS (1600 spf)
Bit depth                      : 16 bits
Stream size                    : 283 MiB (7%)
Language                       : Japanese
Default                        : Yes
Forced                         : No
CHECKSUM                       : 7a615643edf31a89ce8992e1965157c8e7c7e895

Text
ID                             : 3
Format                         : PGS
Muxing mode                    : zlib
Codec ID                       : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                  : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                       : 25 min 43 s
Bit rate                       : 6 111 b/s
Count of elements              : 691
Stream size                    : 1.12 MiB (0%)
Language                       : English
Default                        : Yes
Forced                         : No
CHECKSUM                       : 6c796b212e3740949fd55996bc5cfbec6d6135cc

Menu

The files are split by arcs which I further split by episode to get the above. Bitrate a little on the lower side but still much better than the 700 MB episodes on the single-layer DVD-Rs they put out previously. Also the discs are region free despite their region A labeling.

[Spoofer]

Originally Posted by Z-95

You're just mainly missing lossless audio with those (the international Blu uses lossy Dolby).

I've got ADV, Bandai, and UK DVDs and JP domestic, JP international, and US Blus now .

... crap. Didn't realize it was lossy, lol. Wth? Did they intentionally gimp it because it was an international release? Was the Japanese domestic one lossless? EDIT: Oh, I see you said it was LPCM above. Bleh.

Well, right now I'm in a small apartment with thin walls and don't have a good sound setup, so no big deal atm, but maybe one day down the road I'll pick it up... for a fourth time... ^_^;;

[svenge]

Originally Posted by Spoofer

... crap. Didn't realize it was lossy, lol. Wth? Did they intentionally gimp it because it was an international release? Was the Japanese domestic one lossless? EDIT: Oh, I see you said it was LPCM above. Bleh.

Well, right now I'm in a small apartment with thin walls and don't have a good sound setup, so no big deal atm, but maybe one day down the road I'll pick it up... for a fourth time... ^_^;;

It don't think it was intentionally gimped, but with the addition of the Shinkai interview along with "Voices of a Distant Star" and "She and Her Cat" (i.e. about an hour of extras that weren't on the original JP BD), it may well have exceeded the size of a BD-25 were it to have lossless audio.

Considering that CoMix Wave did the BD distribution themselves and aren't exactly the largest company around, cost considerations are certainly a possibility.

[Drake2222]

So reading thru this thread and the general anime thread, I think I have the basics, so would folks say the following is true?

Noir - U.S. - blu ray pretty good, maybe slightly under the japanese release
Ergo Proxy - U.S. - good?
Noein - has PQ issues?
Last Exile - has pq issues
Psycho Pass - U.S. has banding issues
Gankutsuo - poor PQ?
Captain Harlock - manga / pillars - I assume this is good looked fine to me
Mushi-Shi - don't think I've seen anything on this, at least with english subs

any better versions of the ones above? (other than the japanese version of course). And i guess another question might be, are some transfers so bad that the dvd version is preferable?

thanks!

[Yuripa]

Originally Posted by Drake2222

So reading thru this thread and the general anime thread, I think I have the basics, so would folks say the following is true?

Ergo Proxy - U.S. aniplex - good

You did not read well, Ergo proxy is Funimation, not Aniplex.

[Drake2222]

Originally Posted by Yuripa

You did not read well, Ergo proxy is Funimation, not Aniplex.

Good catch, I must have been looking at my Welcome to the Space Show box for that one

[vincentric]

Originally Posted by Girls With Guns

Yeah, I only bought the UK Claymore for the nice packaging - rigid box, digipak, and the book. I already own the US set and knew it was going to be the same discs, but wanted the UK release because it is so much nicer. Same reason I also pre-ordered Your lie in April 1 & 2 and Serial Experiments Lain from the UK, even though I already own those US releases.

Good stuff, am no longer into packaging as much as I used to be but was pretty crazy for it during DVD days, loved those Paul Champagne art boxes.

While on the subject of Ergo Proxy BD PQ how does the FUNi US release compare to the MVM UK one... bitrates, same or worse than the JP release, etc.?

Edit: Last but not least, do Berserk (1997 series) DVD v BD comparisons exist? If not if interested I can provide some comparisons of the MVM UK BD and the Media Blasters US DVD.

[svenge]

Here's a condensed BDINFO scan for Miss Hokusai:

Disc Title: MISS_HAKOUSAI_BD
Disc Size: 43,579,958,271 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: Yes
Playlist: 00000.MPLS
Size: 26,836,396,032 bytes
Length: 1:30:25.461
Total Bitrate: 39.57 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 29985 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3574 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: Japanese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3790 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitle: English / 26.116 kbps
Subtitle: English / 15.953 kbps

[FeelsBDMan]

Well, had a glance over Sentai's release of Shirobako Collection 1. I'm no videophile so I'm not sure I see the entire picture.

Looks to be about 3.4GB each episode (3GB video, 300-400MB audio). Generally seems alright since the show features a lot of talking but some scenes seem to struggle. Better then Crunchyroll 1080p obviously but it feels like corners were cut to stuff 12 episodes onto a single 50GB BD.

Screenshots
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/575/33370453476_6c905b9fd7_o.png
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3927/3...2415737d_o.png
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/607/33...512b75b0_o.png
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2924/3...ee9ed662_o.png
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/659/33...144e13d1_o.png
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2913/3...b5511e0f_o.png
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3759/3...a760afb0_o.png

Would be interested to see the difference with the JP BD.

[SeaFox]

^ last link is broken on clickthrough, but copy/paste of the URL works.
Do you have any shots of these darker scenes that have issues?

[FeelsBDMan]

Originally Posted by SeaFox

^ last link is broken on clickthrough, but copy/paste of the URL works.
Do you have any shots of these darker scenes that have issues?

Hm, on closer inspection maybe they don't seem as bad as I thought. I'll chuck on another few screenshots, not sure if there's banding here. Someone better at this can probably check

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by FeelsBDMan

... but it feels like corners were cut to stuff 12 episodes onto a single 50GB BD.

Can't be done any other way. 12 episodes on one BD50 is WAY too many.

[Clark Kent]

The real problem are the outdated AVC encoders used by Funimation and Sentai Filmworks. Their encodes come straight out of 2008 and aren't up to snuff with the work being done by the latest encoders from studios like Fox and Warner.

Changing authoring firms for Funimation and Sentai would solve about 90% of their encoding problems. They won't because better places like Deluxe Digital are far more expensive.

[Naiera]

Still too many episodes per disc.

[FeelsBDMan]

SNAFU by Sentai had some pretty top notch encoding and that was only around 4GB an episode if I recall correctly. So 12 episodes on one disc is doable but only with a monolingual audio track. Two or three discs is obviously still the way to go.

[zrdb]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Can't be done any other way. 12 episodes on one BD50 is WAY too many.

Tell Sentai that for me.