×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
Answerman - Why Do Older DVDs Look So Bad?


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
fuuma_monou



Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 1817
Location: Quezon City, Philippines
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:36 am Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
One of these days I will have to break out my laserdisc player and see how good my LD's of Iczer One, Outlanders, El-Hazard, and Tenchi Muyo look today.


They'll most likely look like crap on an HDTV.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Sakagami Tomoyo



Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 940
Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:45 am Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
I like to hope that current or future software enhancements can to compensate for NTSC to PAL conversion issues, in the same way that interlacing artefacts can be diminished. Panning shots become especially worthy of panning, one could say.


Fix issues with a PAL video that was converted from NTSC? Not likely. A good video specialist going frame by frame might be able to salvage it, but an automated tool is unrealistic. Not a huge amount of point either; it'd be a rare video where there are no NTSC copies to be found but a PAL video converted from NTSC is available.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4426
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 10:24 am Reply with quote
WingKing wrote:
This is an uncomfortable topic. I have a fair number of older anime DVDs (including the Media Blasters Utena release that Justin mentioned) that I haven't tested out since I upgraded my home entertainment system last year, and now I'm suddenly nervous that a big chunk of my collection might be obsolete. .


A thought I've had in the back of my mind has been figuring out what to do if DVD players are no longer made. I hadn't put much thought into what if older discs that I haven't watched in years now look bad, and for some of those discs, it has been so long since I've watched them that I would need to rewatch them to have any idea how they hold up.

Then the problem becomes whether I can replace them, or if it is worth it. As was mentioned, Haibane Renmei actually looks worse, and Last Exile is something of a question mark since it only had a DVD rerelease that may or may not be any better. Then there are a number of others that either never received a rerelease, or those have been out of print for years. Add in the cost factor, and I'm leaning towards just toughing it out of an old disc looks bad by today's standards.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 12:07 pm Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
A thought I've had in the back of my mind has been figuring out what to do if DVD players are no longer made. I hadn't put much thought into what if older discs that I haven't watched in years now look bad, and for some of those discs, it has been so long since I've watched them that I would need to rewatch them to have any idea how they hold up.


I am sure good working DVD players will still be sold at thrift shops and donation centers long after manufacturing for them has ceased. People are still using these places to buy VCRs and CRT TVs.

I think it'll be a long time before these electronics companies stop making DVD players though. They had only recently stopped making VCRs.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9840
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 12:32 pm Reply with quote
Since Bluray players are backwards compatible, you will be able to watch DVDs (and listen to CDs) as long as disks are a thing. I keep my DVD player hooked up because it is a five disk changer and using it means I don't have to interrupt a Bluray (which only remembers a single disk).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7580
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 12:51 pm Reply with quote
Fruits Basket is probably a bad example since IIRC it had a higher-then-normal episode count per disc, and I think also one of their discs with multiple angle credits.

I also remember here being fans and haters of particular authoring houses like SpeeDVD and NIghtJar.

0nsen wrote:
For Haibane Renmei the source is really bad. The Blurays look like they were taken straight from some old VHS.

They were upscaled by the much maligned Q-Tec and filtered a lot.

leafy sea dragon wrote:
To be honest, I completely forgot about Multi-Angle until now. I remember seeing the button on the remote and wondering what it was for, as most of my DVDs didn't have such a thing.

Porn. It's for porn.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger ICQ Number My Anime My Manga
leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 1:08 pm Reply with quote
Shiroi Hane wrote:
Porn. It's for porn.


Ah yes, I can see the appeal of Multi-Angle for that. But would that make the porn more expensive to shoot?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18187
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 1:28 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Shiroi Hane wrote:
Porn. It's for porn.


Ah yes, I can see the appeal of Multi-Angle for that. But would that make the porn more expensive to shoot?

The ones that I saw done that way would only have a couple of minutes out of a 15-20 minute scene that were Multi-Angle (you'd see an icon pop up on the screen when it was available) so it probably wasn't that much more expensive to do. Besides, it was typically only done for the classier titles (which tended to cost more anyway) and provided an advertising point in a heavily competitive market.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
dragonrider_cody



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 2541
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 1:55 pm Reply with quote
Shiroi Hane wrote:
Fruits Basket is probably a bad example since IIRC it had a higher-then-normal episode count per disc, and I think also one of their discs with multiple angle credits.

I also remember here being fans and haters of particular authoring houses like SpeeDVD and NIghtJar.


Yeah, the original Fruits Basket release only had four volumes. So each disc had between seven and eight episodes. It did also have the alternate angle, which ruined the video quality on a number of Funimation releases with lower episode counts. They were still struggling with getting four to five episodes discs to look good, so slapping seven or eight on a disc with alternate angles was a really, really bad idea.

It's not really a bad example though, as Justin went over some of the reasons that lead to its bad quality. This particular release looked bad even on a CRT TV, and is a complete mess on an HD one.

I remember that a few of the ADR studios briefly launched DVD authoring services, with very mixed results. I've heard that Ocean's studio was quite bad, and Bang Zoom could be very hit or miss. And I think many of us can still remember that constant problems with a number of Bandai discs, in which some wouldn't even work on most DVD players.

ADV and Geneon generally had pretty solid discs. ADV did theirs in house, while Geneon's were generally outsourced. They did have some occasional quirks, but they've held up pretty well over the years. I have some decade old+ Geneon and ADV discs that have better video quality than some fairly recent releases from older studios.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 2:17 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
I think it'll be a long time before these electronics companies stop making DVD players though. They had only recently stopped making VCRs.


No, most hardware companies and studios are still stuck in 2008 mode of thinking that Blu-ray is a "small niche-fad among die-hard home-theater fans", and not that it's essentially wiped the major disk sales off the face of retail.
Except that they usually only measure home-theater sales in terms of DVD--not Blu--sales, and at retail outlets like Target and Best Buy, which have slashed their shelves to only the most current wide-releases. And then cry that "Disk sales are down!"

So, yes, it'll be a long time before hardware companies join the rest of us who found out seven to eight years ago that Blu players play DVD's too, if there was something that was just on DVD.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
toddc



Joined: 23 Jul 2007
Posts: 164
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 2:33 pm Reply with quote
How cruel of you to use Angel Cop as an example of a crappy old DVD, since we have no fancy new release and perhaps never will.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:08 pm Reply with quote
Sakagami Tomoyo wrote:
Not a huge amount of point either; it'd be a rare video where there are no NTSC copies to be found but a PAL video converted from NTSC is available.

But what would happen if the original masters to New Dominion Tank Police were to be lost, and the Manga UK release were to be all that remained of such a classic? We must always bear contingencies in mind!
Key wrote:
The ones that I saw done that way would only have a couple of minutes out of a 15-20 minute scene that were Multi-Angle

Not that I mean to venture too far from our pristine piste, though I admit I would admire the dedication of any director who can depict a continuous, 20-minute carnal scene without hesitation, repetition or deviation...


Last edited by Zin5ki on Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
DangerMouse



Joined: 25 Mar 2009
Posts: 3983
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:09 pm Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:
Yeah, I've wondered about this recently myself. I'll double-dip on pretty much anything that gets newly released on Blu-ray, even if it's nothing more than an upscale, just for the sake of having it on that medium too, but I've never thought about more recent DVD releases being a marked improvement. I own a ton of old Geneon and Bandai disks, including things like Trigun and Last Exile that have only seen DVD re-releases, and it'd be nice to know if upgrading is something seriously worth considering. I mean I'm sure that sort of info is buried in the vaults of Fandom Post or something, but I don't have the inclination to seek it out for who knows how many disparate releases. On the other hand, maybe ignorance is bliss...I bleed enough money buying this stuff as-is. Very Happy


Yeah it seems a little tricky finding out, and then there's also the handful of ones that got somewhat newer (like some ADV's releases) or even enhanced DVD re-releases in the middle years like Trigun, before these current modern DVD re-releases.

Same here, I'm already and will continue to double-dip on good blu-rays for almost all of the great old anime if they do them. Just got the MKR one, have many of the others like Lain, Gungrave, Escaflowne, Noein, etc., have gotten all the Gundams so far, and have Big O pre-ordered, etc.

Can't wait for Wing, and there's a lot of others I hope make it over like Outlaw Star's which looks pretty fantastic so hopefully it won't take another decade. And more coming like I hope that the soon to be released Gun X Sword one doesn't take forever.

Trigun hasn't gotten a blu-ray yet in Japan, but Last Exile did quite a while back (2011) but in an expensive complete set, on the plus side it's actually a pretty decent upscale. No subs but it did have the English dub (and the German dub).

It's a shame Funi had to pull back on releasing their blu-ray of Last Exile after it initially went up on Rightstuf and still haven't been able to do it even a couple of years after the Japanese set has been out, hopefully they eventually are able to go back and actually do it. I'd buy it day one.

0nsen wrote:
The best looking DVDs I've got are 576p, though. Not 480p. And really, DVDs from around 2000 just look horrible. So horrible, in fact, that I can't rewatch my Armitage III DVD anymore. And no one released that masterpiece on BD yet!!


Right there with you, I'd love to get a full blu-ray remaster of the Armitage III series. This would be one of my most wanted things! Smile


Last edited by DangerMouse on Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:50 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
leafy sea dragon wrote:

Ah yes, I can see the appeal of Multi-Angle for that. But would that make the porn more expensive to shoot?

The ones that I saw done that way would only have a couple of minutes out of a 15-20 minute scene that were Multi-Angle (you'd see an icon pop up on the screen when it was available) so it probably wasn't that much more expensive to do. Besides, it was typically only done for the classier titles (which tended to cost more anyway) and provided an advertising point in a heavily competitive market.


Even though porn on physical media was pretty much finished off by the Internet, their legendary "advantage" in the VHS-Beta wars made their industry pride still try to jump onto any new format technology the minute it was announced. (If it's not already on 4K UHD, they're eyeing it as we speak.)
DVD was a natural, since it let the viewer jump to (and out of) scenes without destroying the tape, they were easier to store, and yes, for the big-budget companies, showing off every tech-bonus toy a DVD could do, like "trailers" and "bonus galleries" was the big selling point for why to buy one of the strange new things for the first time.
Same with Blu-ray when that format first appeared, and "XXX It's Not Avatar 3D" when Blu3D first appeared.

....

....Er, not that I would know about such things, of course. Embarassed
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Ouran High School Dropout



Joined: 28 Jun 2015
Posts: 440
Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:44 pm Reply with quote
0nsen wrote:
So horrible, in fact, that I can't rewatch my Armitage III DVD anymore. And no one released that masterpiece on BD yet!!

Hear that! Armitage is easily in my top ten for old DVDs I'd love to see on BD from a native HD master, along with Roujin Z and the Satoshi Kon/Makoto Shinkai features.

As for old anime DVDs...when my BD copy of Scrapped Princess arrived, I couldn't resist popping in the original Bandai DVDs. It'll take weeks to get that horrible image out of my head! But, as Justin said, old analog CRT TVs concealed a multitude of sins vis-a-vis old anime DVDs, which explains why I don't remember the show looking so bad.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5  Next
Page 3 of 5

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group