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Blu-ray thread.


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The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:08 pm Reply with quote
I'm making this thread so people can ask about the specifics of the blu-ray version for a show. With the bulk of BD releases being put out today being upscales and not a lot of people having the A/V know-how, a lot of buyers remain very weary of them, especially with there being a number of not-so-good releases. Even with that being the case, though, many people want to embrace the new HD world we're entering, but they need to do so with training wheels on. So with ANN having a community filled with people who enjoy buying anime and also having many people knowledgeable in the ways of High Definition, I feel this thread is very much needed.

I believe the most common questions buyers have are the following: Is it worth double dipping if you already have the DVD, but an upscaled BD is released later on? Is the BD really that much better than the DVD, or is there no remarkable difference and I'm better off saving those ten dollars?

I predict these to be the most common questions asked because ultimately they're all that matter, at least to those less familiar with the intricacies.

So with all that said, let the questions begin.
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The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:18 pm Reply with quote
I'll christen this bad boy.

1) The Burst Angel Blu-ray, how good is it? I'm a collector through and through and can find the singles for about $6 less than the Blu-ray version, so the BD has to be greatly superior for me to go for it over the singles.

2) When people start receiving their Tears to Tiara BDs can you post about the quality of it? It's just that having 13 episodes per disk worries me a little bit even though I know nothing of blu-ray disc capability. Maybe 13 per disk isn't a problem, but I'd like to know before I drop $50 for it.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:19 pm Reply with quote
Almost all BDs of old shows, I'm talking before 2000, back when things were on film (you remember film right?) should be real HD remasters. Before you start thinking LOL OLD STUFF CAN'T LOOK GOOD, yes it can. They're HD scans of analog material that can come out looking fantastic, far better than any previous transfer could ever hope to look. Of course, being older, the likelihood of these being available for sale in the West is slim, but I'm sure some of us buy releases from Japan every now and then.

-Worth It- Char's Counterattack, Gundam F91, Patlabor 1, Patlabor 2, the Five Star Stories, and Memories were some of the ones I've seen, all highly recommended and all beautiful. I've yet to check out AKIRA or the Patlabor OVAs/TV. Riding Bean recently got a BD release as well, destroys the old DVD transfers.

-Can Be Worth It- Lupin III movies Castle of Cagliostro and the Secret of Mamo looked marginally better, as do the Galaxy Express 999 films. If all of Zeta Gundam had been shot on 35mm like the OPs were, the full 1080p would have been miraculous. But the main part of the show was 16mm, and probably tops out at 720p. Do watch the OPs in full HD, it's breathtaking.

-Not Exactly Worth It- Bubblegum Crisis' BDs really make a lot of that OVA sharp and pretty, but as Justin pointed out in one of the ANNcasts, it also helps show a lot of the cheapness of the OVA at points. They're not movies after all, so it's to be expected. Looks immensely better than the old DVD transfers.

Keep in mind when the older DVDs were produced. Something like Tenchi Muyo in Love was a single layer disc that looks absolutely putrid for a DVD, so a BD replacement is absolutely worth it. If it's a remaster from something on film, chances are it's going to look great: color correction, sharper lines, bringing out more detail in the hand-painted cels. If it's a recent digital anime, the benefits will be much harder to notice, especially if you don't have a full 1080p screen.
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jmfsilenthill



Joined: 31 Aug 2009
Posts: 1863
Location: Chinese cartoons are srs biz
PostPosted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:42 pm Reply with quote
The King of Harts wrote:
I'll christen this bad boy.

1) The Burst Angel Blu-ray, how good is it? I'm a collector through and through and can find the singles for about $6 less than the Blu-ray version, so the BD has to be greatly superior for me to go for it over the singles.

2) When people start receiving their Tears to Tiara BDs can you post about the quality of it? It's just that having 13 episodes per disk worries me a little bit even though I know nothing of blu-ray disc capability. Maybe 13 per disk isn't a problem, but I'd like to know before I drop $50 for it.


Here is a pretty good review of Burst Angel. Seems to be a pretty good improvement over the dvds.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Burst-Angel-The-Complete-Collection-Blu-ray/6158/
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Sheleigha



Joined: 09 May 2008
Posts: 1670
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 12:26 am Reply with quote
I'm VERY picky when it comes to buying anime on blu. I'll buy my live action and CG on blu, but when it comes to animation of any kind, I still to DVD still (although I do buy those classic Disney Diamon Editions).

For anime I currently only own Ponyo and Eva 1.11. I will continue to buy the Eva movies in blu and Miyazaki ones as well, and may even double dip for those ones.

For the rest of my collection, well, some I don't expect to even COME out on blu ever (Sailor Moon etc.) and even then they can only clean up old anime like that so much, it would have to be fully restored like the Disney classics.
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luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:24 am Reply with quote
Just finished Samurai 7 on Blu-ray. That show looked and sounded great.

I'd recommend all of Bandai Visual USA's BD products as well (Gunbuster vs Diebuster, Freedom, Yukikaze, etc) Those are definitely the pride of my hi def collection.

Did you want to know about Japanese imports as well?
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Cabal17



Joined: 14 Mar 2009
Posts: 63
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:18 am Reply with quote
jmfsilenthill wrote:
Here is a pretty good review of Burst Angel. Seems to be a pretty good improvement over the dvds.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Burst-Angel-The-Complete-Collection-Blu-ray/6158/

Blu-ray.com is pretty poor when it comes to anime bluray releases, their theatrical film bluray reviews are great though. For anime they're overly forgiving and don't really compare them to the DVDs. All the Funimation upscales scored decently, mainly because they were unaware of the detail loss.

From what I've heard Burst Angel loses detail, but does look a lot better than the DVDs simply because the DVDs had a ton of compression artifacts on all the CGI.
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 11265
Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 12:23 pm Reply with quote
luffypirate85 wrote:
Did you want to know about Japanese imports as well?

I have a question about the JP GitS 2: Innocence BD. I was very disappointed to find out that the U.S. version decided not to encode any kind of lossless audio, whereas the JP version has lossless 6.1. And in looking up some info, I notice the JP BD also has English subs, but very little in terms of extra features. At some point, I would consider importing this, but only if the subs were good. Do you have any idea on their quality?

Also, I rented Sword of the Stranger from Netflix a while back and was absolutely blown away by the A/V quality (as well as the movie itself). Unfortunately, it looks like the disc is either in low stock everywhere or may be even going out of print. Would anyone know where I could find a Like New or better copy for around twenty-ish dollars?
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The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:06 pm Reply with quote
Cabal17 wrote:
From what I've heard Burst Angel loses detail, but does look a lot better than the DVDs simply because the DVDs had a ton of compression artifacts on all the CGI.

Would you say that it's a significant enough improvement that if you were a collector like myself, you'd forgo the singles and get the BD?

Tony K. wrote:
Also, I rented Sword of the Stranger from Netflix a while back and was absolutely blown away by the A/V quality (as well as the movie itself). Unfortunately, it looks like the disc is either in low stock everywhere or may be even going out of print. Would anyone know where I could find a Like New or better copy for around twenty-ish dollars?

GoHastings has one for $21.20. There quality usually ranges from good to like new, so it can be a crapshoot. However, using the store locater and your location Frisco, Texas, there are two stores near you with one in Denton and one in Greenville (this one actually looks pretty far), so you can go to those and see if they have one in stock and you can see for yourself.
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GARlockSpiral



Joined: 20 Jun 2009
Posts: 24
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Any word on how good the Full Metal Panic series is on bluray?
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 11265
Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 4:16 pm Reply with quote
The King of Harts wrote:
GoHastings has one for $21.20.

I actually go to school in Denton on Mondays and Wednesdays. Don't really feel like looking for the place, though, and I think I can get lucky by either buying it from Right Stuf during a Bandai sale or Deep Discount during their semi-annual coupon thing and not pay tax on top of it.

GARlockSpiral wrote:
Any word on how good the Full Metal Panic series is on bluray?

There's a pretty in-depth user review on Amazon here. Just scroll down, and it's the highest rated one.
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Cabal17



Joined: 14 Mar 2009
Posts: 63
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 4:30 pm Reply with quote
The King of Harts wrote:
Cabal17 wrote:
From what I've heard Burst Angel loses detail, but does look a lot better than the DVDs simply because the DVDs had a ton of compression artifacts on all the CGI.

Would you say that it's a significant enough improvement that if you were a collector like myself, you'd forgo the singles and get the BD?

I can't really say, I have the show on DVD and I've only seen screen captures from the bluray. I haven't bothered to find the exact shots on the DVDs to compare since I don't care for the show enough to upgrade.
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jsc315



Joined: 09 Aug 2004
Posts: 925
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 7:51 pm Reply with quote
luffypirate85 wrote:
Just finished Samurai 7 on Blu-ray. That show looked and sounded great.

I'd recommend all of Bandai Visual USA's BD products as well (Gunbuster vs Diebuster, Freedom, Yukikaze, etc) Those are definitely the pride of my hi def collection.

Did you want to know about Japanese imports as well?


Yea Samurai 7 look beautiful. As well as Gunbuster in HD but I really did not care for the ending of it all that much.

If you really loved Samurai 7 I highly recommend cheeking out Seven Samurai http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Samurai-Criterion-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B003KGBISY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287017096&sr=8-1

This was the movie that inspired the anime. I own the DVD collection and It looks amazing and very impressive how well they restored this classic. I have already pre ordered the blu-ray version. The movie did come out in 1954 so it is a bit old but its definitely a great movie especially if you are into Samurai movies. But if you want to see what inspired the series then check it out.
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varmintx



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1197
Location: Covington, KY
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:30 pm Reply with quote
Tony K. wrote:
I have a question about the JP GitS 2: Innocence BD. I was very disappointed to find out that the U.S. version decided not to encode any kind of lossless audio, whereas the JP version has lossless 6.1. And in looking up some info, I notice the JP BD also has English subs, but very little in terms of extra features. At some point, I would consider importing this, but only if the subs were good. Do you have any idea on their quality?
From DVDBeaver: First Release and Absolute Edition. And, as an aside, I know it sucks that the US edition only has the DD tracks...but they're pretty damn good lossy tracks.

I swore I'd stop buying discs that didn't have lossless audio...but then Grindhouse came out...and I got it for $14...and, well, damn it, NOW I'm going to stop buying them...I swear. Smile
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Nocturne123



Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Posts: 268
PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:57 pm Reply with quote
I have the Blu-ray of Akira and it looks phenomenal. Definitely worth it. It's a little on the pricey side though some places.
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