Forum - View topicNo more PAL issues! DVDO's VP30 is a dream come true.
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Sorry if this is slightly OT, but I've seen the PAL to NTSC question posted here a number of times, and with the possible delay of an R1 Earthsea this might be relevant. Of course there is also the Innocence dubbed version that came out last year. This thread might also be of great interest to PAL anime fans.
Several years back I bought my first DVD player that could translate PAL to NTSC. Although I used this primarily for Channel 4 comedies, and BBC science fiction I did pick up The Little Norse Prince, and Only Yesterday. The video conversion was terrible and within a month I got rid of that RJtech DVD player in favor of a slightly better JVC region free. My JVC did the job decently, but had some major aliasing issues, so last year I decided to get the decent OPPO 970 player which also upscaled to 1080i which was nice for my HD set. Although the PAL DVDs were watchable they would still lose an occasional frame and looked inferior to NTSC DVDs. Last week I bought DVDO's VP30 with the ABT102 card, and my world changed. PAL DVDs now look amazingly clear since my Oppo is outputting an 576i (PAL) image directly into the video processor which then scales it for the television. I no longer have weird jumps in the frame count and the image looks so much better. The second coolest thing about the video processor is it's really powerful zooming capabilities. This is most important with titles that are not anamorphic like Saikano, Armitage, New Fist of the North Star and Betterman. Using my Oppo zoom feature the image would look blurry and there were some serious jaggies when it came to diagonal lines. The VP 30 made the smaller letterboxed image fit the 16:9 screen perfectly with minimal loss. This is perfect timing since I'm currently watching Betterman, and just bought the New Fist DVDs during the TRSI ADV sale. Oddly enough the main reason why I bought the VP30 was to correct my television's 4% overscan. This made the windows bar actually drop below the frame. Although this can be fixed with the Geforce 7 drivers I've been hesitant on buying an 8800 since there have been some issues with the resizing software. Little did I know that the VP would also clear up the computers HDMI signal, making the text easier to read. Of course the underscan correction also works on DVD players ensuring that you get the full image. Although the DVDO is somewhat nifty for us NTSC fans, I can't help but think that it would be a "must own" piece of equipment for PAL home theater anime fans. PAL DVDs look so good that I will now buy the PAL editions if they are cheaper or have extra features. I know that amazon.uk frequently have anime titles for cheap, like the Bebop movie for £4.97, Spirited Away for £6.98, or Steamboy for £4.97. It's also nice to have the 4 HDMI inputs since my Sony SXRD 60" only has two HDMI ins. The other nice thing is that you can use the VP30 for $1600 trade in credit towards the nicer VP50, or forthcoming models which is a nice upgrade policy that I've never seen done before. This is about as good as non-HD anime is going to get. |
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10円
Posts: 605 |
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I find that complaint rather odd because I consider Optimum Asia's Only Yesterday R2-PAL DVD to be one of the best looking anime DVD's I've ever seen in my life, in any format. I too use an OPPO OPDV971H connected through DVI to a SONY MFM-HT205 and I just couldn't believe how impressive the visuals were. In fact I was so impressed that I even asked the R2 forum over on AoD if all R2-PAL discs were this amazing or if it was just this one title.
LCD TV's don't seem to have any of those problems in my experience.
Unless they came from NTSC masters which, according to the folks over on AoD, most do. 
Spirited Away would have been another easy R2-PAL import for me except that I understand it suffers from the red-shift tint issue somewhat similar to the original R2-NTSC version. Let me know what you think if you happen to order it.
Man, for that kind of cash I think I'd rather just upgrade to one or both of the HD formats. Sheesh. |
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Steventheeunuch
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Just to add, I think Only yesterday, along with Howl's are the only PAL (AU/UK) Ghibli films that aren't NTSC conversions, which is a huge shame (because Princess Mononoke, one of my favourite movies ever, looks like utter crap in R4)
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10円
Posts: 605 |
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Man, that's unfortunate. Honestly though, this thread should probably be over on AoD instead of ANN. Most of the folks over here don't seem terribly concerned about region codes or PAL/NTSC issues. The first response to Randal's thread was actually a post asking if this topic was nothing but SPAM (now deleted). |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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I tried rewatching Only Yesterday and must say that the 576i encoding indeed does look much better than the Disney released Ghibli films. I too have heard that most of Ghibli's PAL DVDs (nost PAL anime) are transfered from film to 480 (the US's lower resolution format, hence losing data) then upconverted by the studios to 576 which looks bad when it is once again upconverted in my OPPO to 1080. There is just too many steps involved. There are a few R2 DVDs though like Bloodlust and the dub/sub Innocence that are transfered from film to 576, so the extra resolution is not lost with the extra step (using the inferior NTSC 480 masters).
Although this might not be a big step for most fans in the States since almost everything is released in R1, I can't help that this might be of use for R2 Europe fans who are not familiar with external video processors. I was not personally satisfied with my OPPO's conversion since it would occasionally skip frames since NTSC and PAL have different frame rates. There is also a Y/C delay feature that will fix the "red shift" problem that I've heard other people mention about the Spirited Away release. Granted the final result doesn't look as good as a Blu-ray or HDDVD release, but there isn't anything out there (at least until Freedom) in HD in the States. I'm a supporter of both of these formats, but until there is domestic anime in HD I feel that a good video processor is a better investment. Also many of us have invested quite a lot in standard definition DVDs which do cost more than their HD counterparts. It never occurred to me that this might sound like a promotion or SPAM, and only mentioned it because I didn't even know what exactly a video processor did a year ago even though I consider myself an AV otaku. It wasn't until I began researching HDMI switchers that I came across them. |
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10円
Posts: 605 |
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It's surprisingly impressive and not something I was expecting at all. On more than one occasion my jaw practically fell open as I gawked at the beautifully detailed scenery passing by. My initial motivation for importing the R2-PAL version was limited to Disney's apparent refusal to release an R1-NTSC version, supposedly because it contained a few lines of dialog referring to the onset of a natural reproductive process.
Well, I appreciated it nonetheless. I was looking for a DVI switch a while back but I gave up when most of them came in at $200+ just for a basic 4-to-1 device. It also sounded like most of them didn't fully support the latest in anti-consumer encryption schemes either. Anyway, I was thinking about this device and came up with one serious question for it. Does this thing substantially improve the panning jitter seen in most anime DVD's? If it does then how much should I expect to pay all-in? |
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Mephistophilus
 Posts: 200 Location: Fresno, CA, United States |
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I am probably one of those people that would care about something such as this, and I think you for your advice RM. However, I'm not sure if it's exactly worth it, especially in my current personal state (I wouldn't even think of putting together a home theater system until I was way out of college). I would love to be able to fix a few of these issues I keep coming across, but my current equipment is slightly lackluster and it's not like I'd be able to easily improve it. The jitter 10 yen speaks of is especially annoying, but I guess I have to just deal with it right now (does anyone know what causes that? I'm not even sure why it happens). I'm sure such a device is definitely worth it if you want these features and/or you are an "AV otaku." Still, 2 grand (MSRP) is a bit much in my eyes, even if I was settled down with a job and such. I suppose it wouldn't matter all that much with a $5k HDTV and other equipment already purchased, though. |
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