Forum - View topicNEWS: Remastered Ranma 1/2 Blu-ray Trailer Compares Differences
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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superdry,
You are NOT going to do this to me and get off on a tangent! We were NOT discussing 5-6 episodes per disc versus 7-8. There won't be a big difference quality-wise there. The issue was "conspiracy theories" about Japanese companies ruining DVD releases in other regions. I'm sorry but that has unequivocally happened in the and with the examples I talked about... That is totally separate from the business of what Viz Video and its authoring studio does with master tapes given to them by the Japanese copyright holders of the Ranma 1/2 anime series. I do NOT personally think that company will do Viz wrong. Viz is a subsidiary of the same company that publishes Rumiko Takahashi in Japan and they have a relationship with the studio that produced the anime series. Some editing issues aside, the previous DVD release of Ranma 1/2 in the States was probably as good as the first-generation Japanese release. Those were early DVD releases and were probably using the same masters the Japanese LD's did. This new release is the first time the series has had a serious visual upgrade since it was originally produced. This has been done with other classic anime (ie, proven cash cows) like Gundam 0079, SDF Macross, and the other two big Takahashi series from the 1980s. Now, what happened with DBZ and Sailor Moon -- different studio/licensing company involved and there's no question they screwed over two American companies that licensed shows from them... To say that bad master tapes weren't supplied on purpose and that releases weren't ruined as a result for North American fans -- that's just not true. It's a two-way street there. Japanese companies should provide better video/audio material to the companies that pay to license their product... and they generally do deliver. It doesn't mean that they're all ethical and that one or two don't have a reputation for less than honorable dealings with foreign licensing companies that try to deal with them in good faith. There are crooks overseas just like there are in North America, South America, anywhere. As a hobbyist who's bought different things from overseas, I've been very fortunate and have dealt with companies and individuals who treated me right. Likewise, I have heard my fair share of horror stories, too, from others who weren't so lucky. |
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Covnam
Posts: 3657 |
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I'll wait for reviews to see how it actually looks at home, and if it's well reviewed, pick up the first set or two. After that, I don't think the quality of the show is really there to justify re-buying the whole thing.
When talking about how the colors look, the red is definitely a brighter color in the remaster shown in this preview. More of a base red color. The dvd comparison here has more of a burgundy red color. But who's to say that the burgundy red of the dvd is the right shade of red? Looking online images of ranma seem to have a much brighter shade of red, though not as bright as the remaster shown here. What I'm saying is, just because it's different, doesn't mean it's wrong. It might just be closer to what was originally painted and was never shown properly. Whether or not you like that, is up to you.
Agreed, I don't understand the desire for grain if it can be properly removed. I can understand not wanting to touch it due to making things look worse, but if it's done well, why leave the grain? If there were higher quality ways to film the cells back then (for the same cost) I'm sure they wouldn't have opted for the poorer quality method. |
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superdry
Posts: 1309 |
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Actually, you were the one who's going off on the tangent due to me missing a word that I should have used/misphrasing in my original post. I never disagreed with you regarding US companies receiving botched or subpar masters since I mentioned in my last post that I know about that stuff. The person I replied to was worried about quality between 7/8 episodes on a disc compared to the JP release of 6 episodes on a disc due to possibly different masters. I wanted to leave out the idea of VIZ receiving subpar masters because the quality difference IF Viz received the same masters used in the JP release would be negligible in the hands of a competent BD authorer. That's what I wanted to point out since some people might not know that. Actually, in my original post, I did use the word "should" which makes my statement not-absolute that VIZ will or has receive(d) the same masters because I don't know. Again, I should have been clearer with my original post. |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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To grain or not to grain, that is the question...
Film grain is residue of the chemicals that capture the light on film in the first place. For digital productions, the grain issue isn't going to be there unless they actually transfer animation files from computer to film like they did before they went all-digital. All wet film stock has grain... Can't do anything about it. It's there to different degrees depending on the type of film stock and its age. For the older 16mm and 35mm films, it's probably better to leave the grain there. If you try to wipe a film to make it cleaner, you'll probably end doing more damage than help. Getting rid of/minimizing scratches and pinholes is one thing but when you try to automate the process of film restoration and don't pay attention to what a machine/computer is doing that's when a lot of problems crop up. The reason why is there are too many cases of important details like ink lines in older animation shot on 16mm and 35mm film getting erased by video noise reduction equipment. When you leave the machine on automatic, it sometimes can't tell the difference between scratches and ink lines on old animated films and end up erasing linework. That's happened quite a few times with releases of old animation where they tried to do cheap restoration work. I've seen this happen with both old American animation from the 1930s and the SDF Macross DVDs released in the US. With older classic films, when you get rid of the grain it tends to make the film look like home video which can work against the experience of enjoying the movie. Grain can actually make looking at an image more pleasant than something ultra-smooth and frankly home-video-ie for lack of a better phrase. Especially if it's a classic film you've seen all your life. In live-action, film grain reduction can also leach off important facial details and make the skin of actors look like wax. That's been reported on many higher-tier (older Hollywood blockbuster) Blu ray releases in the past few years. It doesn't pop up on modern films being shot on HD cameras but the issue occasionally rears its ugly head when badly done restorations of older films surface on Blu ray. Film grain's been there for most of the history of movie production. It's only been the last 10 years with the push towards all-digital that it's disappeared from all but a few recent films that were shot on 35mm film stock. It's really a bad move to try and scrub film grain off of 90+% of the films that have ever been shot. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15315 |
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The only thing that's bugging me is that Viz is still evasive about whether they'll keep the sub script they used for Ranma, or make it a more accurate version with all the cussing.
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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I just don't think anyone understands the concept of film being grainy, and removing it does alter the image. The thing is, it usually can't be properly removed. Toned down when it gets overbearing sure, but fully removing it creates visual issues. The only way to circumvent grain would have been to shoot the cels digitally instead of on an analog medium, but Disney had already jumped to digital animation instead of a weird stopgap like that at the time. And like I said earlier, even Disney's grain removal isn't foolproof, sometimes it even looks goddamn awful like they smudged the entire picture, Aristocats and Sword in the Stone have been absolutely ruined because of that. Luckily, I don't really care for those ones. I'm so glad they didn't mess with The Little Mermaid's image, it looks naturalistic and clean. It'd be nice if you could totally remove grain without harming the picture, but not on this planet. I don't like grain because I couldn't envision a better time than rolling in sand, it's because it signifies the film wasn't messed with in a negative fashion. |
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kuron3kosama
Posts: 25 Location: FL, USA |
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Actually, now that I've acknowledged and moved past the over-saturation, all I care about is if they actually bothered to subtitle the show this time instead of using dubtitles...
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EricJ
Posts: 876 |
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Uh, the Viz disks I have ARE Japanese-translation subtitled (used to watch the dub with the subs on, to compare), or am I thinking of another release? Don't know how that old 90's urban-fan-whine got started, unless it was the confusion over some of the older companies offering subtitles of both the Japanese and English audio (for hard of hearing), which they don't do as much today. (I mean, if you're hard of hearing, does it even matter what they're saying in the American dub??) |
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UseY0ur1llusi0n
Posts: 32 |
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Okay, so Viz is releasing Ranma on blu ray. Now how about they get back to work and finish releasing Monster????????????????????
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rondo
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I just want a release that doesn't have the goobered up audio on episode 1.
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RanmaHibiki
Posts: 5 |
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So the blu-ray is out in a couple of weeks, and I'm really excited. Ranma 1/2 was my first anime, and it has always been my favorite. I've pre-ordered the blu-ray and I've pre-ordered all of the 2-in-1 volumes of the manga that are currently available for pre-order on Amazon.
I'm resurrecting this thread to post a link to a Viz Media unboxing of the Blu-ray and DVD sets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcukCI14WOU If you don't want to watch the full unboxing, skip to the end. They've included the same trailer that was released in December, but you'll notice that the reds in the trailer aren't nearly as hot. They're still more vivid, but all of the detail and shading has re-appeared in things like Ryoga's umbrella and Ranma's shirt. That's really encouraging and gives me a lot of hope that the US blu-ray hasn't been buggered up. I genuinely think that the original trailer video was simply encoded poorly. But for those of you who are still hesitant to pull the trigger, I'll be posting a review on Amazon the day after it arrives (I plan to marathon it), in which I'll be focusing on the transfer more than the content, and I'll share my thoughts here too. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber
Moderator Posts: 11300 Location: Frisco, TX |
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You're better off just making a brand new thread in the Anime forum.
Talkback gets so much traffic due to the high volume of articles/columns that are posted, that I doubt this thread will stay steady long enough to warrant constant attention/feedback from people. And besides, we have a thing called necroposting. Copy and paste (and/or tweak) your post to Anime. I'm sure you'll get a good amount of feedback from more serious/devoted people and less of the Talkback people that like to leave nonsensical and uninformative one-liners. |
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