Forum - View topicAre FUNimation Blu-rays a rip-off?
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freshkazuki
 Posts: 235 Location: Texas |
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I've only bought 3 Funimation Blu-rays: Afro Samurai Season 1, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Part I, and Full Metal Panic the Second Raid. Amazon had the Samurai Champloo blu-ray box on sale for $32.99 and I was gonna buy it but then I started reading the reviews for it. And that opened up the pandora's box for me.
So now I'm a bit confused. So is my Fullmetal Panic blu-ray not really HD? So if a 480 native is upscaled, is it really HD? Or is it just an illusion? I have an dvd player that upscales to 1080i. If I watch my Samurai Champloo dvds on it is it just the same as watching the Blu-ray version that Funimation put out? It seems like Funimation should print some kind of disclaimer on their blu-rays stating the native resolution of the show. Or is there a list you can look at to know if an anime was originally made in HD? |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2094 |
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According to their panel at Anime Expo, starting soon all FUNi Blu-Rays will have info on the back saying if the show was aired HD or SD. As for shows released prior, you can probably check on animeondvd's website and find out which shows are HD or SD.
I'm not sure about any of the others, but I do know FMA Brotherhood aired in Japan in 480, and the FUNi BD is the same scale. |
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Cabal17
 Posts: 63 Location: Texas |
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I know that the second season of Gunslinger Girl, Shigurui, Eva 1.11, Afro Samurai and its sequel, and the Fullmetal Alchemist movie are all true HD.
And I think Samurai 7 is true HD too. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood isn't true HD, it was animated at 525p or something like that. Now to answer your question, if you have an upscaling DVD player, the DVDs for Samurai Champloo would look better than Funimation's blurays because they went over board with DNR causing detail loss. Last edited by Cabal17 on Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ZenErik
 Posts: 392 Location: Boston |
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Depends. The Ouran Host Club upscale actually looks quite good. Yes, most DVD players upscale these days, but due to compression on the average DVD transfer the colors will not be as vibrant. Things look more crisp and sharp even without edge enhancement (which is often over used on these upscales, ugh).
There are some other things I have read about why BD upscales SHOULD BE better than DVD upscales, but I cannot remember exactly what. One major problem is that sometimes the people making the BD upscale do go overboard with things like DNR and end up making the BD version LESS detailed than the DVD release. |
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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Gack. No. By that standard there is almost no HD anime. Very, very little anime is produced at 1080p at the moment, but let's try to keep the issue of upscales and what resolution anime is produced separate, as it's easy to know when something is an SD upscale, while knowing what resolution something is produced in is a guessing game. The "not true HD" moniker leveled at FMA Brotherhood could well be used on most anime produced today. It's pointless. It aired in HD, and the BDs (JP and US) are made from 1080p masters. For whatever reason someone noticed that FMA wasn't very sharp and everybody jumped on the bandwagon, while failing to notice that much of the "HD" anime they were watching was the same or little better. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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No. Honestly, unless Funimation is lying on the cover it's not a ripoff. It's just that the customer didn't do the research.
All Funimation says they are selling is BD. They don't say they are selling BDs that were originally using 1080p content. Aside from that, as mentioned in many cases the BDs look better than the DVDs anyway. They are at least put in with a higher bitrate. Personally, I only buy the BDs where I've researched and found that the quality is good. As I use a PC for viewing, my upscaling is top quality. Like anything else I look for reviews. Doing less than this is lazy. I don't buy anything that I buy without knowing what I'm getting (unless it's so cheap that I don't have to care if it doesn't work or not). |
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KanjiiZ
 Posts: 661 Location: Central Coast |
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@Zen: It is quite easy to make the DVD's of Ouran better in Blu-Ray. Those original DVD's looked terrible!
You should do some research. If they released an anime like say, Blue Gender you'd be pretty dumb to believe that show could be made in HD. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Audio-wise, the FUNi Blu-rays have lossless dual language tracks so they're absolutely better than the DVDs. Trouble is, the video people working on Champloo's BDs saw fit to apply a bunch of noise-reducing algorithims to the picture to get rid of grain; a process which occurs at the cost of removing detail. Why they even thought they had to remove it in the first place is bizarre, as Champloo being a digital production had the grain imposed purposefully by the animators themselves. It isn't so much that they've damaged the viewing experience with Champloo here (there are screen caps available at www.asianblurayguide.com, it's substantially affected but not unwatchable), it's that FUNimation really alienated dedicated HD fans; the people who are first in line to support HD releases of great shows like Champloo. I think the incompetance on display here is indicative that FUNimation sees more of a profit in pandering to trends in marketing HD than actually doing a good job with the material. And you know what? I'm not surprised, just disappointed. There is good news though. The productions that have the most to gain from an HD presentation (films like Sword of the Stranger, EVA 1.01) are also the ones that involve the least from FUNimation and come recommended pending any further "contributions".
So wait, are all shows animated at lower resolutions and upscaled or are you just saying only native 1080p does not a good image equate? |
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freshkazuki
Posts: 235 Location: Texas |
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ok, the conclusion after reading about it a bit and seeing what everybody here had to say is:
I'm gonna stay away from Funimation Blu-ray releases until things get a bit clearer, no pun intended. It almost seems like they are deceiving, if not outright lying, about their blu-rays. I'm not going to buy anymore of them until they give me more info on what exactly I'm buying. It almost feels like there's something illegal going on. |
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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EDIT: typo. Last edited by braves on Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:42 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ZenErik
Posts: 392 Location: Boston |
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Go to the Mania forum, and you will find people complaining if it is a bad release. READ REVIEWS. Not too difficult... |
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hissatsu01
Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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I'm saying that very little "HD" anime is actually animated at 1080p. Be it 960x540, 1280x720, or some weirdo resolution in between. Saving time and money is the most likely reason. |
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OldCharlieStoletheHandle
 Posts: 1288 Location: Mastic Beach, NY |
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Another clue as to whether a FUNImation release is upscale or not is the list price, it seems if it's an upscale the MSRP is identical to the DVD release.
I recently bought a blu-ray player and had the same concerns and I second (or third or fourth) the recommendation to check reviews. For instance, when I saw I could get Claymore on blu-ray from Amazon for much less than I could get the DVD set froim TRSI even on a 40% sale I checked reviews which indicated that FUNImation did a good job on the upscale on that title so I bought it. I will only buy an upscale if I don't already own the title and I can tell from reviews whether there were problems. |
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Vinnems
Posts: 32 |
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A pity Japan is remastering more of its shows with HD remasters. FOr anyone who has seen the Disney BDs of their classic movies (like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc.), animation looks absolutely breathtaking when properly master for high definition.
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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The incompetence falls upon the consumer, not the business. "Caveat emptor" doesn't apply to a business. Any anime fan who bitches about FUNimation's offerings are at fault for believing anime has always been in HD. Why, because it comes from Japan? Worse, we get fans who make comments like this:
1280x720 is HD by definition. I can't count the number of times I've seen people bitch because a raw was done at 720 and people think FUNimation is upscaling to "make it HD". The only reason why FUNimation (and hell, just about everyone else out there) upscales its content is so the BD player isn't doing the upscale to 1080. This is done because not all BD players are the same and those "$50" BD players do a horrendous job at upscaling from any resolution. So, at 1080(p), the video is basically passed directly through without requiring further processing. It's quite simple: if one doesn't believe in the quality of the product they're about to purchase, then don't purchase it. One final note: FUNimation isn't lying about the content's resolution. It is HD. Their fault is failing to disclose the product was an upconvert of a non-HD format (which they've announced will be available on future BD releases). However, Google can fix this lack of information very quickly. |
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