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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4591
PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 1:07 am Reply with quote
Unless something looks blatantly like ass or is compromised in some sort of glaring way, I've never understood most of the hyper-videophile behavior among decent chunks of anime fandom myself. So much of it seems to be based on pointing out technical flaws in single screencaps viewed at your usual monitor-viewing distance...which simply isn't how these shows are generally watched in the first place, at least not by me. For one thing, the act of a moving picture smooths out a lot of flaws by default: I own the Media Blasters Moribito Blu-rays, and even after reading about certain specific issues, I just flat-out don't notice them. (At least from what I remember, I never noticed much about FUNi's original FMA singles releases, which supposedly look pretty bad too.) When you're sitting a good 6-7 feet from a television, even if your vision is better 20/20, your eyes just aren't going to resolve most of these finer details. Yeah, there may be banding and macroblocking going on, but if I can't see it without shoving my face six inches from my TV, why should I care?

(The main problem for me is that my OCD side tends to remember these issues when I see someone mention them, and it keeps niggling me to "Buy the new version! It's better!" Though unless Viz's Moribito release is a massive improvement, I'm not going to waste the money.)
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chronoclast



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 97
PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 2:10 am Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:
Unless something looks blatantly like ass or is compromised in some sort of glaring way, I've never understood most of the hyper-videophile behavior among decent chunks of anime fandom myself. So much of it seems to be based on pointing out technical flaws in single screencaps viewed at your usual monitor-viewing distance...which simply isn't how these shows are generally watched in the first place, at least not by me. For one thing, the act of a moving picture smooths out a lot of flaws by default: I own the Media Blasters Moribito Blu-rays, and even after reading about certain specific issues, I just flat-out don't notice them. (At least from what I remember, I never noticed much about FUNi's original FMA singles releases, which supposedly look pretty bad too.) When you're sitting a good 6-7 feet from a television, even if your vision is better 20/20, your eyes just aren't going to resolve most of these finer details. Yeah, there may be banding and macroblocking going on, but if I can't see it without shoving my face six inches from my TV, why should I care?


The things in screenshots that videophiles complain about, of which I am one, we see during playback. That's why we complain about it because for us it hurts the experience of watching it.

Compression artifacts, ghosting, banding, macroblocking, combing, aliasing, etc. are not fine details, I can see them sitting 8 feet away while watching the disc on my 60 inch TV. I could see the video problems on the Media Blasters Moribito BDs for example.

A lot of things affect whether you'll see video problems. Eye sensitivity, display size and quality, whether your display has been properly calibrated, player accuracy, etc.

My point here is not to dismiss video complaints as people just complaining over still frames. Generally that's not true. Complaints help push companies to improve the quality of their releases and that's good for everyone.
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Norbie



Joined: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 126
PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 11:20 am Reply with quote
chronoclast wrote:


My point here is not to dismiss video complaints as people just complaining over still frames. Generally that's not true. Complaints help push companies to improve the quality of their releases and that's good for everyone.


What's an example where people complained about an issue and the company improved their releases due to complaints?
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ultimatemegax



Joined: 26 Jan 2010
Posts: 412
PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 4:37 pm Reply with quote
Norbie wrote:
chronoclast wrote:


My point here is not to dismiss video complaints as people just complaining over still frames. Generally that's not true. Complaints help push companies to improve the quality of their releases and that's good for everyone.


What's an example where people complained about an issue and the company improved their releases due to complaints?

In anime, Aniplex is now putting English and Japanese audio in LPCM format instead of the English audio being in Dolby Digital on SAO/Fate/Zero due to complaints. Sentai also asked the Japanese side to only send over 1080p masters once it was clear their encoder/authors had no idea how to re-interlace things properly. Viz now hires Justin for some shows as well after they got hammered over video quality on a lot of releases (before Sailor Moon as well).

It's rare, but sometimes the companies take some improvements (Sentai's video is still too bright as is any disc not authored by Justin/Aniplex's JP partners) in NA regions.
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chronoclast



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 97
PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 11:50 pm Reply with quote
Norbie wrote:
chronoclast wrote:


My point here is not to dismiss video complaints as people just complaining over still frames. Generally that's not true. Complaints help push companies to improve the quality of their releases and that's good for everyone.


What's an example where people complained about an issue and the company improved their releases due to complaints?


More examples:

Funimation's early BDs had all stereo audio as lossy and complaints got them to switch to lossless. The same thing happened with Sentai early on.

Funimation's early in-house upscales on BD had heavy filtering like DNR used on them, Samurai Champloo being the most complained about. The complaints got them to lessen the filtering starting with Ouran Host Club and they fixed Champloo on it's re-release too. They stopped doing in-house upscales altogether a couple years ago though.

Sentai during the first half of 2013 ramped up their release output but they didn't hire more people for the increased workload. This caused all sorts of errors and glitches to happen on a lot of their releases. They weren't doing quality control. The complaints piled up until they finally hired more people and got their act together. The occasional error/glitch still happens but nothing near as bad as during that time period.
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6871
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 3:09 pm Reply with quote
Norbie wrote:
What's an example where people complained about an issue and the company improved their releases due to complaints?
Funimation also seems to have stopped messing with (shrinking, squishing, freeze-framing, etc.) ending credits videos in cases where they don't have creditless versions available, or where credits play out over actual dialogue and action after complaints about Ragnarok the Animation, Sekirei, My Bride is a Mermaid, Birdy the Mighty Decode, and others. I guess somebody finally learned the ancient and exceedingly difficult technique of "run the credits on a black screen after the episode ends."

chronoclast wrote:
The things in screenshots that videophiles complain about, of which I am one, we see during playback. That's why we complain about it because for us it hurts the experience of watching it.

Compression artifacts, ghosting, banding, macroblocking, combing, aliasing, etc. are not fine details,
At the same time, the screenshotters and videophiles take concern over "fine details" way too far. From the discussions on some sites, I get the impression that some people watch anime for wood grains, wall textures, individual blades of grass, roof tile lines, and film grain. And that's how the download scene winds up with 50 GB releases of 24-episode series that consist of 15 GB of anime and 35 GB of grain. Yes, some companies (anime distributors and otherwise) do take DNR way too far to please ignorant normals, but killing a little grain at the cost of a few irrelevant background details isn't going to ruin the experience in the way that obvious encoding mistakes and artifacts will.
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