Ehh, a bunch of stuff here... First have to mention that Playstation 3 has been on fw 2.50/2.52 for about a month now, never got around to post some screenshots for this update... Quite a few features have been added, but it doesn't have big impact on home theatre area, therefore I'm not bothered with this update.
Two big features in this updates are:
1. You can now turn off PS3 or the controller within a designated period time: 10 min, 20 min, etc
2. Video can now played sequentially, and quick scene access has been added.
So much for the firmware, then move on to live with playstation, it's the new version of folding@home, it added the ability to access google news. Other than that, it's the same as the older version, but somehow I cannot see molecule folding now...
Next is the home beta, got it on my PS3 yesterday. After experiencing it with 1 night, I think it's utterly crap... First if you use component cable, you're screwed with 480p only. Then it asks for 3G of space... After going into the home beta, I found that it's just a virtual community, kind of like the one on wii. You can currently access four places (mall, home theatre, bowling, central plaza) outside of your home, and none of these are really appealing or even functioning; stores in mall don't seem open yet, home theatre - you got to watch socom free video, the same video all day long, and not to mention the subpar video quality, bowling - you can play some small games, all generic games just to wasting your time, and central plaza has nothing going on unless you want to socialize with people. Basically, home is just a big advertisement environment for SONY.
And lastly, yesterday afternoon, I just experienced BD Live, which is another disappointing experience. I got Kung fu Panda from paramount, and Wall-E from Disney. These are the two big animation features from summer this year. I watched Wall-E first, which turned out to be mediocre at the best, better than cars and the incredibles. (forgot to mention that upon inserting the disc, it wants to download a 21MB update... I think it's mandatory, so if you don't have Internet, you might be not able to watch the disc, at least for BD Live machines??) As for the BD live Disney provided, you have to go to www.disneybdlive.com to register first, which is so hard to register, took me about half an hour to finally go thru, turns out that I have a bad screen name... After registering, I found nothing interest... Plus using a remote control chatting? Way too absurd! Next, I watched Kung fu Panda, which turns out to be a way better movie. As the BD live features, it's a lot easier to use, you don't need to register... It's more like what they provided on HD-DVD. You download some content to your local storage, then view it. Currently there are only two features, and the downloads are so small, less than 2MB, which wonders me why the f*ck they just include all the stuff on the disc, it's pointless to download!!!
Next you’ll be greeted with a Dolby TrueHD demo, this demo is the 5.1 channel version, I think on the Dolby sound of High Definition disc, they have a 7.1 channel version.
Disc1 menu stuff:
The menu is done quite well, especially the animated buttons are used which I’ve never seen anyone else has been utilizing this feature to the fullest. These buttons here really demonstrates the possibility of animated buttons.
A title menu is also provided:
BDInfo scan on first disc:
Disc Title: MACROSS_ZERO_BOX_01
Disc Size: 30,412,255,224 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
PLAYLIST REPORT:
Name: 00001.mpls
Size: 30,241,155,072 bytes
Length: 1:32:32 (h:m:s)
Total Bitrate: 43.57 Mbps
Description:
SUMMARY:
Disc Title: MACROSS_ZERO_BOX_01
Disc Size: 30,412,255,224 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
Playlist Count: 3
Total Length: 1:33:23
Total Size: 30,392,266,752
Total Bitrate: 43.39
Video: AVC / 36.57Mbps / 1080p / 23.976fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Japanese / Dolby TrueHD 5.1 / 2235Kbps / 48kHz / 16-bit
The disc size is 28.3 GB, Video is 1080p 24fps, and audio is 1600K Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and 1536K LPCM 2.0. The three episodes on disc 1 don't look too good... Some scenes are very soft and fuzzy, colors aren't very vivid. Overall they don't look like 1080p HD or even 1280 High Vision that much, it might be somewhere 960*540 since there's a scene in the first episode where they examine the body part of the human bird, they show a screen with this resolution... (960*540 is 1/4 of the size of true 1080p resolution).
Two interesting findings while watching this show again is that Sheryl's earring appearing in a scene where Mao had a conversation with Sara.
Another one is in episode 3 when the island people were watching TV, they showed Kawamori's earlier work - Earth Girl Arjuna, although it's only a split of second...
Second disc:
BDInfo scan for second disc:
Disc Title: MACROSS_ZERO_BOX_02
Disc Size: 27,580,221,172 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
PLAYLIST REPORT:
Name: 00002.mpls
Size: 22,059,085,824 bytes
Length: 1:05:50 (h:m:s)
Total Bitrate: 44.67 Mbps
SUMMARY:
Disc Title: MACROSS_ZERO_BOX_02
Disc Size: 27,580,221,172 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
Playlist Count: 7
Total Length: 1:58:11
Total Size: 49,589,047,296
Total Bitrate: 55.94
Video: AVC / 36.01Mbps / 1080p / 23.976fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
PLAYLIST REPORT:
Name: 00004.mpls
Size: 4,116,940,800 bytes
Length: 0:12:54 (h:m:s)
Total Bitrate: 42.51 Mbps
Description:
FILES:
Name Size Length Time In Time Out
---- ---- ------ ------- --------
00008.M2TS 4,116,940,800 0:12:54.774 0:00:00.000 0:12:54.774
VIDEO:
Codec Bitrate Description
----- ------- -----------
MPEG-4 AVC Video 38897 kbps 1080i / 29.970fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
AUDIO:
Codec Language Bitrate Description
----- -------- ------- -----------
LPCM Audio Japanese 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1536kbps
CHAPTERS:
Number Time Length Avg Video Rate Max 1-Sec Rate Max 1-Sec Time Max 5-Sec Rate Max 5-Sec Time Max 10Sec Rate Max 10Sec Time Avg Frame Size Max Frame Size Max Frame Time
------ ---- ------ -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- --------------
1 0:00:00.000 0:12:53.773 38,935 kbps 44,162 kbps 00:12:52.505 40,064 kbps 00:12:48.501 39,472 kbps 00:12:43.496 162,391 bytes 344,807 bytes 00:12:53.172
2 0:12:53.773 0:00:01.001 7,821 kbps 0 kbps 00:00:00.000 0 kbps 00:00:00.000 0 kbps 00:00:00.000 32,618 bytes 32,618 bytes 00:12:53.840
STREAM DIAGNOSTICS:
File PID Type Codec Lang. Code Lang. Name Seconds Bytes Packets Bitrate
---- --- ---- ----- ---------- ---------- ------- ----- ------- -------
00008.M2TS 4113 (0x1011) 0x1B AVC 774.77 3,767,072,462 20,486,697 38,897
00008.M2TS 4352 (0x1100) 0x80 LPCM jpn Japanese 774.77 148,756,800 929,730 1,536
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.
So to conclude this review:
1. The content: A-/B
A- for the first four episodes, and B for the last episode. The show starts quite promising, but the last episode pretty much ruins the energy it builds up for the previous four episodes. As for the three important elements in all Macross works, the show includes triangle relationship, song, and VF fighter. The song isn't heavily emphasized this time though, which makes it quite unique. As a Macross fan, I'm a little disappointed with this aspect.
2. The Video: B/B+
B for the first three episodes, and B+ for the last two episodes. Video quality wise, these aren't demo material, but there’s no obvious flaws such as aliasing and banding. Animation wise, I think the production value is really high, there are quite a few dogfight scenes enough to get your adrenaline pumping. The three mode fighter, gerwalk, battleroid are heavily used, and the fights are quite unique. The only downside is that the fighter movements are a bit awkward, they act almost like no gravity and rather video game like...
3. The Audio: A-
The audio is in Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1, but I can only get Dolby Digital 5.1 due to limitations on my equipment. This is the only work that has a surround mix in all Macross series. (Well, count ADV’s Macross English dub as one if you really want to.) And the surround effects are pretty good. This mix isn't very aggressive, the dynamic range is rather narrow, bass is a bit low. The mix provides enough directionality, and all the dialogues are clear. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with this soundtrack, although it's not some demo material, either.
4. The Extras: B
The extras are Macross Zero Zero which is a special video for apple Genki kun; Seiyuu comment video after last episode; and audio commentary (Shoji Kawamori with Shin and Sara’s seiyuu) for last episode. The longest running feature the seiyuu commentary video which runs for 12min. It's a talk between the four characters (Shin, Mao, Sara, and Aries). The interview doesn't really provide inside view of the work, but rather how they feel towards it. It's not really worth watching.
Shoji Kawamori showed up briefly, but no interview was given.
There’s a pop-up menu which you can return to the previous menu.
Macross Zero Zero is a feature about preview of making of the adventure of Apple Genki kun.
Information has the usual Macross Frontier, Code Geass, Code Geass R2, and keitai sousakan 7 trailer:
Lastly, scans:
And screencaps: