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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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
BelldandyGrace 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