The Anime Blu-ray Video Quality Thread

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by FeelsBDMan

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

I see what you mean. Not super bad. A lot of it would come down to if the blockiness shimmers/flickers, drawing attention to it. As for this, Funi would have boosted the brightness and made the banding a whole lot more noticeable.

[PrimusD]

Originally Posted by zrdb

Tell Sentai that for me.

They were told loudly enough to release the second half of the series on two discs.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by FeelsBDMan

SNAFU by Sentai had some pretty top notch encoding ...

They've had some fine releases. Though bitrate-starved I thought Shirobako was nice, and so were those Grisaia discs as well.

[vincentric]

Captured a few Berserk DVD (US Media Blasters) v BD (UK MVM Entertainment) comparisons for those interested. The DVD screencaps were taken at native 720x540 then upscaled to 1440x1080 using a bicubic filter. The BD screencaps are native and untouched.

The BD looks noticeably brighter and less saturated than the DVD, am honestly unsure which appearance is the most accurate one but my eyes tell me that it's the BD. The brighter contrast reveals more detail in darker areas of the image (comparison 3) while the less saturated color also reveals more detail (in the reds of comparison 4 and 5) that were previously clipped by oversaturation on the DVD. Again though am not sure which presentation is the correct one, my eyes prefer the brighter and less saturated but more detailed look of the BD but will leave that decision up to you all. Beyond subjective preferences the BD contains a clear and objective improvement over the DVD in terms of compression and resolution. Macroblocking is pretty much eliminated while resolution sees a great boost, banding is also a non-issue, overall the BD looks great to me.

01 - US MB DVD | UK MVM BD

02 - US MB DVD | UK MVM BD

03 - US MB DVD | UK MVM BD

04 - US MB DVD | UK MVM BD

05 - US MB DVD | UK MVM BD

The 25 eps are spread out across 3 discs. The episode layout on the discs are printed incorrectly at 9-8-8, the actual layout of the episodes are 9-9-7. As for stats, each episode contains 4GB of data. 3.3 GB for the video and 700 MB for the audio.

Disc1

Disc2

Disc3

[Mangaranga]

I posted about this somewhere way back when AOL initially shipped Berserk, but the BD, as per usual for Madman's self authored work (e.g. Fate/Zero, 009, SAO II), suffers from that same gamma issue. I did have comparison shots too which I should really find, but yeah...

[Ajc228]

I was curious about the picture quality of two releases. The first is the Funimation release of Wolf Rain? Funimation is touting it as a "remaster" but I know it's one of those early 2000 digipaint shows so can anyone vouch for the quality compared to old DVD release. The other one is a bit older but does anyone know about the quality of the Australian DVD release of Monster by Siren Visual? Any info would be helpful. Thanks.

[Drake2222]

Huh, just noticed that on the cover of the U.K. release of Oblivion island, they say full "lenght" film, oops! I assume that, aside from the slight cropping on the U.S. release of 1.78 (bluray.com says 1.85 for UK assuming it's correct), that the transfers are probably the same

[Sylontack]

Originally Posted by Ajc228

The other one is a bit older but does anyone know about the quality of the Australian DVD release of Monster by Siren Visual? Any info would be helpful. Thanks.

I mean I'm not directly comparing it against anything but here goes:
The release doesn't look particularly good, but I also don't think the series is going to look any better. It's a gritty looking 2004 series, it's probably never going to look great- but the Siren Visual DVD doesn't specifically look bad from the discs I've watched, and the people they use for their releases (DRRR, Monster, Penguindrum for example) do a good job.
Basically it doesn't look great, because it's not a great looking show, but the DVD is as good as it's probably going to look.

[Xenonas]

Originally Posted by Mangaranga

I posted about this somewhere way back when AOL initially shipped Berserk, but the BD, as per usual for Madman's self authored work (e.g. Fate/Zero, 009, SAO II), suffers from that same gamma issue. I did have comparison shots too which I should really find, but yeah...

Here's a comparison I found between JP BD and UK BD: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comp...7897/picture:0 . I can confirm that it is 100% accurate as I did a comparison of my own but screenshotcomparison.com is acting weird and doesn't let me upload my own captures. It's brighter than JP release but that has been a thing with a lot of western anime releases so I'm not complaining. Compression is a-ok too. Well worth the money.

[Mangaranga]

Originally Posted by Xenonas

Here's a comparison I found between JP BD and UK BD: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comp...7897/picture:0 . I can confirm that it is 100% accurate as I did a comparison of my own but screenshotcomparison.com is acting weird and doesn't let me upload my own captures. It's brighter than JP release but that has been a thing with a lot of western anime releases so I'm not complaining. Compression is a-ok too. Well worth the money.

I would say nice find, but that's said comparison I posted way back when it came out! Nice to know it has so many views though~

[Ajc228]

So this may be a broad question but would anyone be able to list some anime titles that got better encodes in the U.K. than their US counterparts? I'm considering buying a all region bluray player but I need to justify the cost by knowing that I will get better video quality via other regions than the U.S. For instance, I know that Outlaw Star U.K. Release by Anime limited has a great transfer that Funimation might screw up. I guess more specifically: Does Anime Limited do quality bluray authoring in general and are there any particular British or European licensors that generally have a higher standard of video quality than the U.S. companies?

[Naiera]

Anime Limited has some releases (DRRR, Baccano) that have video quality identical to the Japanese/Aniplex of America releases, just at much, much lower prices, but most often, UK releases have the same video quality as their US counterparts. Escaflowne is also slightly better in the UK.

There are a few others. I'll get back to it later, if no one else chimes in. It's not a vast amount though.

[Yuripa]

Dynit in Italy (Sometimes even better than Japan *Madoka*)
Peppermint in Deutchland (Aniplex partner).
Somes French editors (IDP).
Those 3 have almost always better Video quality than Sentai/funimation, unfortunately no english sub/dub on theirs releases.

That's all I have in mind for the moment.

[NLScavenger]

Yep, Dynit is quite good. Their Gurren Lagann release has excellent PQ. There have been a few occasions where they've done the disc authoring for other companies, but I don't know how often this has occured. I do know the French Blu-ray of Ergo Proxy from Dybex was authored by Dynit.

Kazé Germany apparently does good releases with much higher bitrates than Kazé France/UK, but their releases also command a much higher price, e.g. German One Punch Man three volumes €42 each versus French entire season for €45.

[kk1]

Also it's not just better quality or cheaper prices for the same quality, some stuff just doesn't have have a US release like The Tatmi Galaxy, Samurai Flamenco or only has a DVD release like World Conquest Zveda Plot. And from memory I believe someone here has said the Australian release of Penguin Drum has much better quality.

[Naiera]

Outlaw Star is another UK release with video quality that is exactly the same as the Japanese release, and thus superior to the FUNi one.

Actually, I think that's all

[Ajc228]

(Dr. Nick voice)THANKS, EVERYBODY! Based on this info, it looks like I'm gonna spring for a all region bluray player.

[Drake2222]

Anyone know if the April 2017 standard blu ray Gankutsuou release will the same as the prior transfer?

[Naiera]

It definitely will.

[Drake2222]

Originally Posted by Naiera

It definitely will.

Ah well, at least the release will hopefully expose more people the series.

And then we'll just wait a few years and have Criterion or Masters of Cinema redo it, easy enough!