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purplepolecat
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 130
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:55 pm
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Brian, thank you for the brief run-down of the varying quality of anime on BD. I am disappointed that a reputable company like Funimation would upscale a standard definition title to HD and then sell it as a Blu-Ray.
This is completely redundant, because BD players (including PS3) will upscale your DVDs to HD automatically. Even some regular DVD players will do this.
I will be scrutinizing the ANN reviews before laying down cash for any future BD releases.
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TsukasaElkKite
Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 3995
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 2:06 pm
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SQUEE MY ANSWER GOT POSTED IN THE HEY ANSWERFANS!
DavidShallcross wrote: | Sure, but summertime Japan also has 85% humidity. My one trip to Japan was in August (because that was when the World Science Fiction Convention was held in Yokohama) and I was dripping with sweat. I foolishly was carrying my passport around in my pocket, and it got kind of soggy. |
Completely agreed. I was sopping wet with sweat when I was there.
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enurtsol
Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14854
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 2:19 pm
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DavidShallcross wrote: |
Quote: | And finally, as a guy living in Arizona, you'll get no pity from me if you can't handle 95-degree heat, |
Sure, but summertime Japan also has 85% humidity. My one trip to Japan was in August (because that was when the World Science Fiction Convention was held in Yokohama) and I was dripping with sweat. I foolishly was carrying my passport around in my pocket, and it got kind of soggy.
On the plus side, this probably contributes to the extremely short skirts some of the Japanese girls and women wear. |
They need to air their crotch....
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wandering-dreamer
Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 1733
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:30 pm
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Wait, so you helped write a play where you run around in a diaper singing?
You've got guts man, that's all I have to say.
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chronoclast
Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 97
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:41 pm
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purplepolecat wrote: | Brian, thank you for the brief run-down of the varying quality of anime on BD. I am disappointed that a reputable company like Funimation would upscale a standard definition title to HD and then sell it as a Blu-Ray.
This is completely redundant, because BD players (including PS3) will upscale your DVDs to HD automatically. Even some regular DVD players will do this.
I will be scrutinizing the ANN reviews before laying down cash for any future BD releases. |
There are advantages to upscaled Blu-rays though. An upscale on a Blu-ray disc should look better than a DVD upscaled in real time by a player for a couple reasons.
1.) Blu-ray discs have a lot more room on the disc which means there are far fewer compression artifacts, macroblocking, etc.
2.) They can use filters to make it look better. Those can cause problems though if they aren't used correctly. That's the problem Funimation have had with their upscales, they've excessively filtered them which caused them to have detail blurred out and to just look like crap overall. Too much filtering does more harm than good.
Another advantage all Blu-rays, upscaled or not, have is lossless audio. That's a major improvement over DVD's compressed audio.
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LordByronius
ANN Columnist
Joined: 06 Feb 2002
Posts: 861
Location: Philippe for America! He is five.
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 4:21 pm
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Yamagata002 wrote: | For the Flake of the Week, I have to say Gunbuster (Top o Nerae! Gunbuster). The ditz part excludes Strain. I think Brian knew what it was but wants people to play the guessing game with this for fun. |
(actually can i tell you a terrible secret)
(i had no idea what he was talking about at all)
(i saw gunbuster when i was like 16 which was 10 years ago so i totally forgot about the time-dilation element of the story)
(please don't tell anyone about this)
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DangerMouse
Joined: 25 Mar 2009
Posts: 3990
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 4:29 pm
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jmfsilenthill wrote: |
Quote: | ...you can guarantee that anything put out by Bandai Visual will look utterly damn amazing (Wings of Honneamise, Akira) and will make your HDTV shudder with paroxysms of videographical delight |
Yeah no kidding. BV's blu-rays are always of the highest quality,even in terms of simple packaging, but the prices are WAY too high. I wish Funimation would put the same amount of effort into their blu-rays: I wouldn't mind paying a little more for them. |
They do but only when it's a real HD show/movie, it's their upscales of older shows that have been the problem and even they should be better if they used the filters better.
chronoclast wrote: |
purplepolecat wrote: | Brian, thank you for the brief run-down of the varying quality of anime on BD. I am disappointed that a reputable company like Funimation would upscale a standard definition title to HD and then sell it as a Blu-Ray.
This is completely redundant, because BD players (including PS3) will upscale your DVDs to HD automatically. Even some regular DVD players will do this.
I will be scrutinizing the ANN reviews before laying down cash for any future BD releases. |
There are advantages to upscaled Blu-rays though. An upscale on a Blu-ray disc should look better than a DVD upscaled in real time by a player for a couple reasons.
1.) Blu-ray discs have a lot more room on the disc which means there are far fewer compression artifacts, macroblocking, etc.
2.) They can use filters to make it look better. Those can cause problems though if they aren't used correctly. That's the problem Funimation have had with their upscales, they've excessively filtered them which caused them to have detail blurred out and to just look like crap overall. Too much filtering does more harm than good.
Another advantage all Blu-rays, upscaled or not, have is lossless audio. That's a major improvement over DVD's compressed audio. |
Yeah.
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dizzon
Joined: 22 Sep 2008
Posts: 338
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 4:50 pm
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DavidShallcross wrote: |
Quote: | And finally, as a guy living in Arizona, you'll get no pity from me if you can't handle 95-degree heat, |
Sure, but summertime Japan also has 85% humidity. My one trip to Japan was in August (because that was when the World Science Fiction Convention was held in Yokohama) and I was dripping with sweat. . |
Sounds like a normal August in my part of the Midwest. I can remember a stretch of a little over a week last year where the temp was around 100 and humidity was between 90-100%, nothing like breaking into a hardcore sweat just walking to the mailbox. So no pity from me either.
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edzieba
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 704
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 5:32 pm
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purplepolecat wrote: | I am disappointed that a reputable company like Funimation would upscale a standard definition title to HD and then sell it as a Blu-Ray.
This is completely redundant, because BD players (including PS3) will upscale your DVDs to HD automatically. Even some regular DVD players will do this. |
It's even worse than that. Funimation not only upscale most of their BDs, they filter the crap out of them. Their main abuse is of DVNR. DVNR is meant to remove noise from old video sources, and when misused (i.e. on almost anything other than ancient VHS or laserdisc rips) it invariably destroys film grain from film sources. Funimation go far, far beyond misuse, to the point where the filter not only eats the grain, but most of the fine detail too. Their Gunslinger Girls BD, for example, looks worse than the R1 DVD.
They also do this with their regular DVD releases, in addition to starving the video bitrate.
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Paploo
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:55 pm
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Work hard with guts young Answerman, and continue to pity fools!
Also, I liked the DR omnibus- cheaper price, and a way to ensure series get finished that might not be making enough sales otherwise.
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Kingakuzutto
Joined: 10 Jul 2009
Posts: 11
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:41 pm
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if i was in the anime industry, i would be an artist. or even a director of an anime series
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Zalis116
Moderator
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6895
Location: Kazune City
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Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:18 am
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prime_pm wrote: |
here-and-faraway wrote: |
Quote: | I think the anime the person seek in the flake of the week is Gunbuster. |
That's exactly what I thought too. |
It's cool
(thus the birth of a meme) |
Save the meme-creation for the imageboard of your choice. Insubstantial 1-liner posts might be more tolerated there than they are here.
Quote: | Sounds like a normal August in my part of the Midwest. I can remember a stretch of a little over a week last year where the temp was around 100 and humidity was between 90-100%, nothing like breaking into a hardcore sweat just walking to the mailbox. So no pity from me either. |
The movers we hired to move my grandma's stuff told us that they briefly had a coworker from Phoenix. He didn't last more than a day or two because he couldn't take the hot and humid Nebraska summer weather.
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mulrich
Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 139
Location: Denmark
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Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:43 am
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Naouak wrote: | I think the anime the person seek in the flake of the week is Gunbuster. |
I agree, it's Aim for the Top! Gunbuster
(May I just rant for a moment about that? I love its sequel, Aim for the Top 2! Diebuster. What the hell made Bandai Visual feel inclined to title it Gunbuster 2? It's just wrong, and every time the title screen comes on, it'll be wrong. Not to be totally anti-American or anything, but is this to suit stupid Americans - I've been to America, I know you're not all stupid, far from, but the stupidity I did encounter... wow - who can't figure out that Diebuster is a sequel to Gunbuster? It is the exact reason I haven't bought the two series. I just can't live with it. That, and the subs for Diebuster are pretty terrible and annoying.)
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leafy sea dragon
Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
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Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 4:38 am
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Regarding Blu-Rays, I can see why there would be a mad dash for Blu-Ray releases of new HD stuff, but I always felt that it was kind of redundant to release old SD stuff on Blu-Ray. The reason is because they were not meant for HD in the first place, and peronally, would look weird.
This discussion immediately reminded me of a Blu-Ray of A Charlie Brown Christmas I spotted at Target. Why would you need to watch that in HD? The visual style is minimalistic; Charles Schulz eschewed detail, instead going for as few pen strokes as possible. Backgrounds are often solid colors. All this extra stuff is not necessary and feels like overkill. It's like using a supercomputer to do algebra homework. Something meant to be viewed at SD resolution should be viewed at SD resolution.
How well are Blu-Rays selling right now compared to DVDs anyway? I would estimate that less than half of American households (the largest market for home video) even have HDTVs; in this household, we don't use HDTVs as we have perfectly functioning SD sets, which I think will keep on going for many years to come. HDTVs right now are far, far too expensive. Most of them I find are over $1000. I think it will take more than two years for the sets to really take off, considering that two years ago, they weren't that much more expensive than they are now.
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Annf
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 578
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Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:04 am
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leafy sea dragon wrote: | Something meant to be viewed at SD resolution should be viewed at SD resolution. |
If you're watching it on an HDTV, it's going to be scaled up to your TV's resolution no matter what, regardless of whether that scaling is done in real-time by your video player or in advance for a Blu-ray encode.
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