Rokushin Gattai God Mars Blu-ray Report

 

So apparently one of the Japanese Blu-ray manufacturer has gone out of mind and released something super unacceptable: putting DVD spec’ed video onto Blu-ray disc. The title is Rokushin Gattai, they managed to put 32 episodes of 24min onto one disc, for a total of near 800min. The video is encoded with 4 episodes in one segment, with 480i resolution and average bitrate around 8Mbps. I guess they just went back to the DVD master, and re-encode the master with Blu-ray AVC codec.

So they managed to put the entire series – a total of 64 episodes onto two BD50 discs. Accompanied with the Blu-ray, there’s also the so-called Blu-spec CD, but apparently they are just regular CDs…

DISC INFO:

Disc Title:     BDROM
Disc Size:      48,717,101,283 bytes
Protection:     AACS
BD-Java:        No
BDInfo:         0.5.6

PLAYLIST REPORT:

Name:                   00000.MPLS
Length:                 12:56:28 (h:m:s)
Size:                   48,679,630,848 bytes
Total Bitrate:          8.36 Mbps

VIDEO:

Codec                   Bitrate             Description    
-----                   -------             -----------    
MPEG-4 AVC Video        7454 kbps           480i / 29.970 fps / 4:3 / High Profile 3.2

AUDIO:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description    
-----                           --------        -------         -----------    
Dolby Digital Audio             Japanese        448 kbps        2.0 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps

FILES:

Name            Time In         Length          Size            Total Bitrate  
----            -------         ------          ----            -------------  
00000.M2TS      0:00:00.000     1:12:49.631     4,381,095,936   8,021          
00001.M2TS      1:12:49.631     1:12:47.763     4,452,089,856   8,154          
00002.M2TS      2:25:37.395     1:12:47.596     4,534,542,336   8,306          
00003.M2TS      3:38:24.991     1:12:47.830     4,574,717,952   8,379          
00004.M2TS      4:51:12.822     1:12:47.629     4,711,397,376   8,630          
00005.M2TS      6:04:00.451     0:48:31.842     3,151,982,592   8,660          
00006.M2TS      6:52:32.294     1:12:45.928     4,570,017,792   8,374          
00007.M2TS      8:05:18.222     0:48:31.875     3,026,233,344   8,314          
00008.M2TS      8:53:50.098     1:12:47.396     4,581,703,680   8,393          
00009.M2TS      10:06:37.494    1:12:47.229     4,529,362,944   8,297          
00010.M2TS      11:19:24.723    1:12:47.563     4,679,147,520   8,571          
00011.M2TS      12:32:12.287    0:24:15.921     1,487,339,520   8,173          

 

June 2011 Blu-ray Purchase - Back to the future with Delorean bundle and its case

 

 

I got this from Amazon for $24.99. Not too shabby, although there’s better price as of this writing. The one I got is with the hotwheel Delorean 2011 model.

 

 

 

I guess the package is what the so-called older ones with shorter size? The discs come with digi-pak. The disc holders is yet another new creative type. It took me 10 minutes to figure out the correct way to handle these…

 

The disc holder has 3 fixed spots to hold the disc, there’s no traditional center button to push, instead you get two clip thing at the bottom. You need to use your index finger to hold the center of the disc, then push the disc against these two clips and lift the disc up. It’s another bad packaging, I never like digi-pak in the first place anyway. But it’s better than Fox’s Planet of the Apes 40th anniversary packaging (This one is from Universal). I haven’t decided if I should transfer these 6 discs to the 6-disc empty case I bought earlier. Digital copies are pretty much useless to me. If I ever need a copy, I would rather rip the disc and encode myself.

22mm 6 Disc Blu-ray Case (DV6R22BR) Review

 

So I finally ordered these 22mm thick 6 Disc Blu-ray cases. These are pretty much a double case with two flaps on each side to make the total 6 holders. There is booklet holder, but it won’t let you put very thick booklets. Overall the build quality seems pretty decent, but they are pricey.

 

 

 

The Blu-ray logo is stamped only, there’s no silver engraving like the retail ones. But I’m OK with it. If you are so desperate to have the silver logo, I guess maybe a silver sharpie will do?

 

The hub does not feature a push button type. I don’t like this design since they require you to apply force on both sides evenly to get the disc out. But once you figure out the trick, it’s pretty easy to remove the disc. Many retail cases use this type too unfortunately.

 

The one I ordered is a 5 case bundle. I’m currently using one of these to hold the Planet of the Apes 40th Anniversary collection (5 discs) since the original packaging uses rubber holders… I would like to fill the empty one with the 2000 remake, but I’m waiting for a better release… Oh, I still need to make a cover…

 

Here is a Photoshop template I created, 300dpi. Note that the total wrap around width for the case is 279mm, while the standard A4 paper is also 279mm! This means you need to print the entire paper without edges! I haven’t figured out how to print it without any margin on my printer (EPSON Artisan 725), the boarderless option only zooms the entire image…

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, let’s look at a pathetic Eco green case some studios been using lately…

 

Blogger DVD/BD Reviews Page

 

 

My semi-professional DVD and Blu-ray Disc reviews crammed with pictures! Reviews start from new to old.

DVD Reviews:

 

 

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交響詩篇エウレカセブン ポケットが虹でいっぱい Eureka 7 the Movie Pocketful of Rainbows – BD-Live experience report 2

First of all, the updating frequency has been slowed down. From July to the end of August, we got six extra videos, but in September, we got nothing. Now in October, we got an audio commentary for the movie. Let’s see how the implementation of this audio commentary goes.

 

交響詩篇エウレカセブン ポケットが虹でいっぱい Eureka 7 the Movie Pocketful of Rainbows – BD-Live experience report

The disc is released by Bandai under their premium label Honneamise. So how’s the experience different from the previous US Hollywood based BD-Live? Here is the report. This post also touches upon the menu, etc, with a focus on the BD-Live features, I guess.

 

プラネテス Planetes Blu-ray Box - the first full featured BD-J title from Bandai Honneamise (Blu-ray Review)

プラネテス, Planetes Blu-ray Box is the first full featured BD-J title from Bandai Honneamise, looks like Bandai has finally got the Java stuff together.

 

舞-HiME COMPLETE (Mai-HiME) Blu-ray BOX

舞-HiME COMPLETE (Mai-HiME) Blu-ray BOX is the first TV anime title released in Japan to feature Chinese Audio that I'm aware of.

 

MACROSS ZERO Blu-ray Disc Review

The second disc size is 25.6 GB, Video is 1080p 24fps, and audio is 1600K Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and 1536K LPCM 2.0. Last episode also has a commentary track but I haven't listened to it yet. The two episodes here look better than the first disc, colors are better, object and backgrounds are better defined... There is a 13 min seiyuu interview. The video is 1080i with a high bitrate transfer, but it looks rather soft, almost like from some home video.

 

FUNimation BD review Part III: Samurai 7 Blu-ray Box

The first TV series on Blu-ray by FUNimation seems a little underwhelming to me, especially for the video quality issues. I don’t think this release could justify the name of Blu-ray. I would suggest a rental first, start from episode 6 to see if the bandings are issues to you as they are very very distracting for me.

 

 

 

交響詩篇エウレカセブン ポケットが虹でいっぱい Eureka 7 the Movie Pocketful of Rainbows – BD-Live experience report

 

So in my previous post, I’ve mentioned that this Blu-ray Disc is the first Japanese domestic released title that supports BD-Live. The disc is released by Bandai under their premium label Honneamise. So how’s the experience different from the previous US Hollywood based BD-Live? Here is the report. This post also touches upon the menu, etc, with a focus on the BD-Live features, I guess. There are two discs in the limited edition, I’ll talk about mainly disc1 which has the BD-Live on it; disc2 is just a Bonus disc which I don’t have lots of stuff to say… For the BD-Live content, I’ll put the screenshots along with disc2, you’ll see a reason why I go for this order in the end…

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.

show/hide

 

   

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

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

キラッ Macross Frontier マクロスF Blu-ray Disc Vol.5 review (preliminary)

   

Another late review…

 

 

 

1. Packaging, goodies.

After this volume, I have officially collected the first half of the show, in a sturdy chip-board Blu-ray Box. It is the second BD-BOX in my collection, first being Spiderman Trilogy, but that one unfortunately came with a flimsy paper box. show/hide

With all the first press goodies:

The box is a little better in construction and well carefully glued than R1 anime DVD-BOXes I have. But since I paid a heck of lot money in it, I would really expect this…

         

 

 

Vol.5 include episodes 11 to 13. The story continues to weaken, episode 11 is somewhat interesting with the one choice Alto has to make on his birthday; episode 12 starts with a very Do You Remember Love way (Zentradi commanders have semi-resemblance to the original Britai (Vrlitwhai), Exsedol, and Kamjin), then quickly switches to Macross 7 way especially that sound pods mounted on VF… episode 13 has a very misleading title – Memorial Global which makes everyone think that Captain Global will return and somehow we’ll see Hikaru or Misa…

Back to packaging of this volume, the jacket picture has Ranka and Brera on the front, Macross Global and VF-27 on the background, which pretty much gives what happens in these three episodes:

 

Disc label:

    

The booklet focuses on two parts this time, first part is the character designs of Alto’s family, second is the Vajra.

There are more backgrounds than usual in this booklet:

 

Other stuff are the same as previous volumes, it add one pamphlet of Macross related ads (8 total), Blu-ray disc operation menu, and a Bandai online membership voucher.

   

The Bandai ads have some Blu-ray releases, include Zeta Gundam, Eureka SeveN, and Akira.

   

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. There’s not much actions in episode 11, but episode 12 and 13 make that up with some interesting and quality dog fighting.

 

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... Episode 12 is pretty much advertisement for Ranka’s Single, they managed to throw all her songs in it…

 

2.3 The Menus and Subtitles: B

Same as the Vol.2, Vol.3 and Vol.4, 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