Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Triangular Macross Frontier マクロスF Blu-ray Disc Vol.7 review (preliminary)

   

More catch up this time…

   

1. Packaging, goodies.

 

 The first press goodie this time is the so called bromide 3 sheet set – Alto/Ranka/Sheryl. Well, there’s nothing special about the set. They are printed on materials somewhat close to photo paper, but definitely thinner than photo paper. There’s also a warning (do NOT expose these paper under direct sunlight and keep away from humidity) and placing advising sheet coming with the set, which they want you to shed some more money on some holders to hold these pictures.

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Vol.7 include episodes 17 to 19. The story picks up after episode 18. Episode 17 is like the director toying with audience by showing so many death hints to Ozma, but in the end he survives. Episode 18 shows the potential of Ranka, and put Sheryl into a bad situation. Episode 19 is quite a turning point (climax) of the show since Ranka’s reaction is directly related to Vajra.Back to packaging of this volume, the jacket picture has Sheryl and her manager Belldandy Grace on the front, Canaria’s VB-6 König Monster variable bomber on the background. Grace has a very suspicious pose with Sheryl’s medicine in her right hand. I liked this cover better than last one since it depicts the show’s tone quite well.

Disc label:

    

The booklet focuses much on interviews on character designer Risa Ebata and animation supervisor Yūichi Takahashi.

  

 

  

  

2. Spec, Video Quality, Audio Quality, screenshot comparisons...

Here is the spec:

Video

Codec: mpeg4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Audio

Japanese: LPCM 2.0

Audio Commentary

Japanese: LPCM 2.0

Disc

BD 25

Bandai/honneamise manages put 4 episodes (acutal content is 3 episodes, but the way of authoring the disc is that they duplicate the video of episode 4, and put the audio commentary on that one, so it counts as four episodes of space) But anyway, the video bitrate doesn't drop because of that. It still got a beautiful full 40Mbps full bitrate transfer.

2.1 The Video: A-

The videos this time remain the same quality.

 

2.2 The Audio: B+

The audio is again clean and clear, that's all I can say. It has not too much dynamic range. There's very little if not at all channel separation/directionality are present... LPCM 2.0 seems to be standard nowadays, but for this series, 2.0 is really limiting the Blu-ray capability...

 

2.3 The Menus and Subtitles: B

Same as the last four volumes, the menu of this release includes both non pop-up, DVD style always-on menu. Menus are static with no background music; as well as Blu-rays pop-up menu. The pop-up menu is missing the music chapters, the only way you can access the music chapters is thru the always-on menu, which defeats the convenience of what Blu-ray offers. The menu is simple and effective (Not so for the pop-up menu!), navigation is easy and intuitive. But again I would prefer a more Macross related theme...

And again, there's NO subtitles.

 

2.4 The extras: B

Audio Commentary (haven't listened yet..)

Other extras (ads)    . Bandai related ads   . It's not an extra feature rich disc, but there's a 16 page booklet, I'd rather prefer to have an actual print-out of the "extras".

 

3. Content:

needs more work

Final thoughts:

     add later.

Lastly, booklet scans:

JPEG version:

Uncompressed TIFF version (5 parts):

  

  

 

See You Next Deculture

HDTV Heaven vs. SDTV Hell? Detective Conan vs. Haruhi Suzumiya

 
So 4/4/2009 NTV in Japan rebroadcasted the first episode ( ジェットコースター殺人事件 Jet coaster murder case/Big Shrink) of Detective Conan (Case Closed), according to hdanime’s screenshot and comment, it appears to be HDTV, not some SDTV upconversion.

The introduction is 16:9 upconversion shown some aliasing stuff:






Martian Successor Nadesico 機動戦艦ナデシコ R1 vs. R2J HD remaster

 

So I got one of the R2J HD remastered version of Martian Successor Nadesico. First impression about the disc is that this is a problematic release (Yeah I want to cry over this release, it’s that bad…). The biggest problem is the excessive amount of grain, while the remastering certainly bring out the details and restore the colors, the amount of grain is just way too much; Macross TV and movie in this case suffer the same problem, but these two were produced back in the early 80s… While the amount of grain in Macross 7 TV, produce in 1994, is a little better than the two, so I was really expecting at least the same for Nadesico, but it turns out pretty poor. The other problem is too much aliasing(jagged lines). In this case, cardcaptor sakura’s R2J HD remaster (2005) is much better. So video quality is pretty bad in this release, unless you have a really good DVD player or deinterlacing processer, plus grain removal filters, this release is not gonna look easy on the eye. I actually preferred my R1 ADV thinpak set released in 2008, the set doesn’t have the accurate color, nor the amount of details (the details increase in this R2J release is much like You’re Under Arrest the movie), but it doesn’t suffer from aliasing and excessive grain. The audio quality, on the other hand, is as good as Dolby Digital offers, the audio mix is very aggressive, so be prepared some ass-kicking bass on the action sequences. As far as the surround effects goes, it’s pretty typical for a 2.0 original mix remixed to 5.1, which lacks directionality on some levels. Now let’s compare the R1 ADV thinpak released in 2008 with the R2J HD remaster released in 2005. All captures are from the last episode, using KMPlayer, resized to 640*480 to show correct aspect ratio, saved as PNG format to optimize quality.

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The above two are the most obvious example. The first one is the R1 ADV release, and the second is the R2J HD remastered version. The aliasings, unless you view on a very small screen, don’t do any zooming, otherwise it’s way too obvious. So is the amount of grain…

Now the openings (from now on R2 first, R1 second):

R2J:

R1:

The R1 release’s framing is a little higher than the R2J HD remastered version.

main feature:

R2J:

 

 

R1:

R2J:

R1:

Ruri actually overshines Yurika in this series, but I still like Yurika better.

R2J:

R1:

Well, can the current you meet with yourself from the past? This anime provides a possible answer (twist).

R2J:

R1:

That’s not Nadesico.

R2J:

R1:

R2J:

R1:

This show is very text heavy.

R2J:

R1:

The ending is kind of rushed, but a good happy ending for the main characters.

R2J:

R1:

Another very obvious set of aliasing on the chest of the robots. A show that incorporates both super robot and real robot genres, Gekigangar 3 is an anime show in this show that Akito beloves, and eventually everyone aboard Nadesico become to like it…

R2J:

R1:

 

The end.

What 'bout my star? Macross Frontier マクロスF Blu-ray Disc Vol.6 review (preliminary)

 

Trying to catch up this time…  

  

1. Packaging, goodies.

This release is a new start after last one with the BD-BOX. The second half of the series start from this volume. show/hide

The first press goodie continues from the ones in volume 3. This time is the Part 2 Ranka Version. And it’s from May to August, contains year 2009 and 2059. The illustrations are nothing special, they all appeared in TV before unlike Sheryl ones.

  

Vol.6 include episodes 14 to 16. The story continues to be weak, episode 14 is somewhat like episode 7, which has awesome fighting involving saving Ranka. Episode 15 the first half is summary, second half the story continues to move on. While the summary isn’t boring, the story still drags on. Episode 16 is the experiment of Ranka’s sound force against Vajra, after this episode, the role of Ranka and Sheryl completely switches...

Back to packaging of this volume, the jacket picture has Luca and Nanase on the front, Luca’s VF-25 and Ghost on the background, which doesn’t quite depict what these three episodes showing. The relationship between Luca and Nanase isn’t developed well in this series anyway:

 

 

Disc label:

 

    

The booklet is all over the place this time, it has some mecha VF-27, UN spaceships, and last four pages are all scenes (so called art gallery) in the series.

  

 

  

 

 

2. Spec, Video Quality, Audio Quality, screenshot comparisons...

Here is the spec:

Video

Codec: mpeg4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Audio

Japanese: LPCM 2.0

Audio Commentary

Japanese: LPCM 2.0

Disc

BD 25

Bandai/honneamise manages put 4 episodes (acutal content is 3 episodes, but the way of authoring the disc is that they duplicate the video of episode 4, and put the audio commentary on that one, so it counts as four episodes of space) But anyway, the video bitrate doesn't drop because of that. It still got a beautiful full 40Mbps full bitrate transfer.

2.1 The Video: A-

The videos this time remain the same quality. Episode 14 feels much like episode 7 which has awesome fighting. Episode 15 shows some bad animation, I believe the Blu-ray release didn’t redo the scene when Ranka and Sheryl sing What ‘bout my star in front of Alto.

 

2.2 The Audio: B+

The audio is again clean and clear, that's all I can say. It has not too much dynamic range. There's very little if not at all channel separation/directionality are present... LPCM 2.0 seems to be standard nowadays, but for this series, 2.0 is really limiting the Blu-ray capability...

 

2.3 The Menus and Subtitles: B

Same as the last four volumes, the menu of this release includes both non pop-up, DVD style always-on menu. Menus are static with no background music; as well as Blu-rays pop-up menu. The pop-up menu is missing the music chapters, the only way you can access the music chapters is thru the always-on menu, which defeats the convenience of what Blu-ray offers. The menu is simple and effective (Not so for the pop-up menu!), navigation is easy and intuitive. But again I would prefer a more Macross related theme...

And again, there's NO subtitles.

 

2.4 The extras: B

Audio Commentary (haven't listened yet..)

Other extras (ads)    . Bandai related ads   . It's not an extra feature rich disc, but there's a 16 page booklet, I'd rather prefer to have an actual print-out of the "extras".

 

3. Content:

needs more work

Final thoughts:

     add later.

Lastly, booklet scans:

JPEG version:

Uncompressed TIFF version (5 parts):

  

 

 

 

See You Next Deculture

The last? DVD-BOX purchase – Gun X Sword AND more…

 

So I have finally finished collecting all seven volumes of Gun X Sword. This will probably (hopefully?) be my last DVD-BOX purchase unless there will be really cheap good boxes… The main reason to have this one is due to Japanese DTS 5.1 surround track and Houko Kuwashima’s involvement. I’ve also bought the two CDs, so this is the definite collection for me.

 

Next is the so called ex-driver/sakura wars movie double pack. Well, it isn’t really double pack, the two movies are individually packed and sealed in their retail package. This is a really surprise to me. But it’s good to me, maybe I could sell the Sakura Wars movie since I already have the limited edition

 

And lastly, Macross II movie version by Manga. I finally managed to find a cheap used copy on Amazon. This is my first time ever to buy a used copy DVD, and it turns out to be fine. The art work is slightly damaged on the UPC due to someone intentionally punched two holes maybe to mark it as used? The disc looks like brand new to me, and insert is kept.

Download the scans: