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HD Anime?




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Josh7289



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 1252
PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 11:33 pm Reply with quote
Can anyone point me to a list of all currently release, upcoming, and aired anime in HD? After doing some limited research, I came up with .hack//ROOTS as being aired in Japan in 720p, but only on TV Osaka. Does anyone know of any other HD anime, or HD animation in general?

Thank you if you can turn anything up!
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
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Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 11:42 pm Reply with quote
I believe Samurai 7 was produced completely in HD. To quote the comment from the Encyc. entry:

The Encyclopeida wrote:
Based on Akira Kurosawa's classic movie, The Seven Samurai. Samurai 7 is being produced in High Definition at a price of $300,000 per episode, more than twice what an average non-hi-def series costs.

I can think of a few other titles with that were in anamorphic widescreen or 16:9 ratio, but I don't remember if they were aired with really high resolutions.
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Josh7289



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 11:49 pm Reply with quote
It appears that Samurai 7 is also in HD, and was aired as such in Japan on Animax. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, it is also airing in HD on Dish Network's Animania HD channel, although I can't find anything indicating this on the Animania website.

Still, at least that's another one I can add to the list.

I seem to remember something about Steamboy being on Blu-ray, at least in Japan, but I could easily be mistaken. Any word on this?

Thanks so far.
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adonais



Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 302
PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 4:11 am Reply with quote
Amazon Japan has listed a few upcoming Blu-ray anime releases, including GitS: Innocence, Brave Story, and AIR box set (here's the link for one of them). Also something called "Project PAPO" which I have no idea what it is, but it is sorted under anime. For HD-DVD I only found the Brave Story title. I'm sure there are more, and someone who can read more than a handful of kanji could probably dig up a complete list. I also read (on Anime On DVD I think) about Metropolis supposedly being the first HD title.

For those who follow the BD/HD-DVD progress, it seems that BD has overcome the initial encoding problems (and upped the discs to 50GB dual layer), and the latest releases allegedly come with image quality equalling or surpassing HD-DVD. Sorry, I forget the reference, it was an article I read a couple of days ago.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 6:57 am Reply with quote
Beware though. It's relatively early days for this, and unless the producers have originated the titles in HD 720, or 1080, from the start, what you might get is an up-converted SD NTSC->HD which just isn't the same, believe it. Wink
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Josh7289



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 1252
PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:57 am Reply with quote
adonais wrote:
could probably dig up a complete list. I also read (on Anime On DVD I think) about Metropolis supposedly being the first HD title.

For those who follow the BD/HD-DVD progress, it seems that BD has overcome the initial encoding problems (and upped the discs to 50GB dual layer), and the latest releases allegedly come with image quality equalling or surpassing HD-DVD. Sorry, I forget the reference, it was an article I read a couple of days ago.


o rly? At least they're on the same level quality-wise now. Too bad Blu-ray is so much more expensive...

Anyway, I'd propose that the reason we're seeing so much more anime on Blu-ray now is simply because of the PS3. At least in Japan, that thing by default being in so many houses + the popularity of anime = anime on Blu-ray, at least for now. It's kind of like all the Japanese buying a PS2 for DVD, but now reversed, since it seems they may be buying Blu-ray because of the PS3.

Mohawk52 wrote:
Beware though. It's relatively early days for this, and unless the producers have originated the titles in HD 720, or 1080, from the start, what you might get is an up-converted SD NTSC->HD which just isn't the same, believe it. Wink


I know, so all I really care about is anime produced in HD. If anyone was confused about that, well, that's all I'm looking for. I can upscale stuff on my own if I have to...
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Shiroi Hane
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Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:21 pm Reply with quote
It isn't always obvious either: AIR is being released on bluray but it wasn't actually aired in HD and they are upconverting it (or whatever the term is); the only true HD footage is a new OP for the blueray release.
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adonais



Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 302
PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:02 pm Reply with quote
Shiroi Hane wrote:
It isn't always obvious either: AIR is being released on bluray but it wasn't actually aired in HD and they are upconverting it (or whatever the term is); the only true HD footage is a new OP for the blueray release.

I would think that the issue is whether there is an HD master, or if one can be produced from the source material, not how the shows were broadcast originally. Remastering to HD does not necessarily have to mean "upscaling". I don't know in these particular cases, but I wouldn't automatically make the assumption of the previous posters here; do you know for a fact that some (particular) releases are going to be upscaled rather than remastered to native HD? It all depends on the format of the source material that the studios have (and whether they plan to deliberately rip us off), and I don't have enough information to speculate about that. If someone does, I'd be interested to hear about it.
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daxomni



Joined: 08 Nov 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:49 pm Reply with quote
Can somebody explain why you care which anime is going to be released on HD? I can understand being interested in seeing something like Monsters Inc. or Shrek in High-Def because the source material can obviously look much better than what DVD's can give us, but why get excited about any random anime title? I seriously don't see why anyone would care which anime is going to come out for which format when average anime DVD's in many cases look surprisingly similar to previous LD and even VHS releases. I'll get excited about anime in High-Def once they finally live up to all the old promises of the DVD format. Until then, I just don't see what what's driving all the commotion. Giving us better mastered DVD's is all that's needed to keep me happy for the time being.
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Randall Miyashiro



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
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Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park
PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 7:54 pm Reply with quote
The only tv series I can think of that were mastered in HD are Samurai 7 and GITS. Advent Children will have a new mastered version with extra scenes for Blu-Ray. I won't be surprised if Sony releases the rest of their titles in Blu-Ray in 2007. I agree that buying upscaled versions of SD masters is silly, since built in upscalers do an okay job, an OPPO 970/971 do a good job, and a good DVDO will make it look as good as a commercial upscaler.

When I browse what is on tv it is obvious what is native HD and what is upscaled. The best is when commercials come on since a few are done in HD and are mixed with the non HD fair. Even though the tv claims the signal is 1080i or 780p much of the syndicated and local programming is just upscaled.

I've spent the last month looking for the smallest text on SD DVD anime to test the power of SD. The smallest font I could find was on the Moon Phase main menu. The copyright info (flipping between this and that right now) is about the same size as the font that I'm seeing on the ANN page, but is almost unreadable on the DVD which is going through HDMI and being upscaled to 1080P. There are things on the ANN page, like the All Times are GMT, or the Powered by php, which would be unreadable if this page were captured to a DVD. Most subtitles are displayed in a font size that is bigger than the ANN banner, since most SD tvs cant handle much smaller. I love FUnimations smaller text, but companies like Geneon make their titles readable on a 9" screen.

DVD tech can't display anywhere near the capability as HD. I agree that most SD masters won't look any better if they are just upscaled, so I'm looking forward to HD remasters. This is the same thing we went through with DVDs where some titles like Mospeada look so much better on DVD compared to LD (I compared the two masters) while other shows like Southern Cross look awful. As long as the negatives are in a vault we can always hope for new masters. There are a few other titles like Kenshin which also had poor DVD masters, so I hope they get a new HD release in the future.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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Location: Wales
PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:21 pm Reply with quote
daxomni wrote:
Can somebody explain why you care which anime is going to be released on HD? I can understand being interested in seeing something like Monsters Inc. or Shrek in High-Def because the source material can obviously look much better than what DVD's can give us, but why get excited about any random anime title?


Things like this are a good reason to want something better than DVD as there are times where the DVD bitrate is just not enough even with SD material (although the problem in this case could possibly be one of encoding. There were similar issues with the Haruhi OP as well)
Shows broadcast in HD, and there are some anime that are now, have resolutions higher than that allowed by DVD so cannot be represented at their best on DVD.
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Josh7289



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 1252
PostPosted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:28 pm Reply with quote
Alright, this thread has been dormant for a few months, but it's coming back...

Has there been any change in this HD situation so far? Are there any confirmed HD disc releases for North America, yet? And is Blu-ray still the choice for HD anime in Japan?
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covah



Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:20 pm Reply with quote
I'm pretty sure Ergo Proxy was made in HD. but as far as I know, there's no legal way of getting your hands on them.
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Randall Miyashiro



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
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Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park
PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 4:31 am Reply with quote
At amazon.co.jp Casino Royal is the highest ranking Blu-Ray at 233 for DVDs. King Kong is the highest ranked HDDVD at 1897. Paprika is ranked number 5 for Blu-Ray at 607, The fifth place slot for HDDVD is at 5,238 in general DVD. There are 11 Blur-Ray titles in the top 500 in the States, and only 6 for HDDVD. It's pretty clear that HDDVD is doing very poorly in Japan if it can't get even 5 titles in the top 5000 DVDs! Blu-Ray has also gained a bit of ground in the US since the PS3s release although the Toshiba HD-A2 has dropped below $400, and the nice XA2 is priced at the same point as the cheapest Blu-Ray player. I found that the higher ratio of Blu-Ray and HDDVD titles in the top 500 in the US than in Japan a little surprising, although I'm not sure if this is due to a higher ratio of people who are HD owners shop online (I hear retailers are having problems selling HD at MSRP) or if people in Japan tend to buy more standard definition DVDs, or if there is actually a higher ratio of people who own HD formats in the States.

I'm looking forward to finally getting some anime on HD, since I've so far resisted the temptation on buying the Japanese releases. I hope Bandai Visual USA will release there catalog in both formats in the States like they are in Japan since I tend to lean a bit towards Blu-Ray since it's clearly winning in Japan. It is odd that most of the people who I know either own both, or neither format and have not really taken a side.

As I mentioned on another thread I believe it's a good time to buy a video processor if you have a high end television and a ton of standard DVDs since there are no domestic HD anime titles yet. It really helps get rid of digital artifacts, diagonal jaggies, frame skips, lip sync issues, CUE errors, Y/C delay (red shift) issues, overscan issues and of course upscales a standard definition image to HD, as well as accepts a 576i PAL signal, does a nice 50hz to 60hz conversion, and doubles as an HDMI switcher. It does really help in those jerky pans that occur with an upconverting DVD player or a television's internal scaler. I also notice less interlacing problems, especially in those older Pioneer DVDs that would get those weird horizontal lines when things moved fast. Although a nice video processors can get pricey (I really wanted the Crystalio II, but at $5500 it costs more than my television) you can get a decent video processor for a little over $1200 which is about the price of a good Blu-Ray Player, but more useful to my current setup. I think it's much better investing in something that will make your old DVDs look better instead of buying an expensive Blu-Ray player, especially since the high end HD models don't really look much better (from what I've read) than the cheaper Toshiba (a great deal, although the format is losing) or PS3 (a great deal and a game system).
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10円



Joined: 17 Jan 2007
Posts: 605
PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:38 am Reply with quote
Randall Miyashiro wrote:
It does really help in those jerky pans that occur with an upconverting DVD player or a television's internal scaler.


Can you go into more detail on just how far "help" goes in this context?

Randall Miyashiro wrote:
Although a nice video processors can get pricey (I really wanted the Crystalio II, but at $5500 it costs more than my television) you can get a decent video processor for a little over $1200 which is about the price of a good Blu-Ray Player, but more useful to my current setup.


Was $1200 the price you paid?
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