×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
School Rumble S2 DVD quality?




Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Anime
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Daichi09



Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:15 pm Reply with quote
I'm a little worried with how Funimation is bringing out School Rumble Second Term.

They are cramming 7 whole episodes onto one disk, so they can release it as a 2 Disk half season set.

Here is an early review of it.

http://www.fanboyreview.net/2008/10/07/school-rumble-season-2-part-1-early-look/

This guy doesn't seem to be worried about the video quality. (Although I'm sure it's a lot worst then the Region 2 disks.) However, this guy does point out that the audio quality is lacking.

Without looking directly at bitrates, if you do the math on this guy's disk size, each episode only takes up about 1GB on the disk. This doesn't sound like great quality mpeg2 video. A season 1 disk seems to be closer to 1.5 GBs per 24 minute episode. That's some considerable quality loss somewhere. I think they could of easily stretched it out onto 3 disks and we wouldn't have any problem at all.

Anyway, I don't know if I really wanna support a crammed release like this. I love the show, but this is almost as many episodes per disk as some HK releases. (Okay, an HK might cram a bit more on a disk, but this is getting very close.)

Well, I'll at least get it from Netflix to see really how bad it is before I decide on purchasing it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
asimpson2006



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 3151
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:24 pm Reply with quote
Daichi09 wrote:
I'm a little worried with how Funimation is bringing out School Rumble Second Term.

They are cramming 7 whole episodes onto one disk, so they can release it as a 2 Disk half season set.

Here is an early review of it.

http://www.fanboyreview.net/2008/10/07/school-rumble-season-2-part-1-early-look/

This guy doesn't seem to be worried about the video quality. (Although I'm sure it's a lot worst then the Region 2 disks.) However, this guy does point out that the audio quality is lacking.

Without looking directly at bitrates, if you do the math on this guy's disk size, each episode only takes up about 1GB on the disk. This doesn't sound like great quality mpeg2 video. A season 1 disk seems to be closer to 1.5 GBs per 24 minute episode. That's some considerable quality loss somewhere. I think they could of easily stretched it out onto 3 disks and we wouldn't have any problem at all.

Anyway, I don't know if I really wanna support a crammed release like this. I love the show, but this is almost as many episodes per disk as some HK releases. (Okay, an HK might cram a bit more on a disk, but this is getting very close.)

Well, I'll at least get it from Netflix to see really how bad it is before I decide on purchasing it.


I watched the first episode so far of Season 2 and it looked fine and sounded fine in English. I'll finish it off next week when I get time.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:33 pm Reply with quote
The Season 1 boxset and One Piece boxsets crammed the same amount in their discs, and the video quality's good for me. Unless you're the type who goes out of his way to look for the smallest of errors, but I'd never understand that, doesn't that take the fun out of the show?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
DuelLadyS



Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 1705
Location: WA state
PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:05 am Reply with quote
I've got lots of anime DVDs with 6/7 episodes per disc, from various companies... and I can't name one that had a noticable quality drop from a 4 episode disc. Maybe i just don't know what to look for. Personally, I kinda like being able to save the shelfspace, although I wonder if extras content will suffer due to episode cramming.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
asimpson2006



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 3151
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:51 pm Reply with quote
DuelLadyS wrote:
I've got lots of anime DVDs with 6/7 episodes per disc, from various companies... and I can't name one that had a noticable quality drop from a 4 episode disc. Maybe i just don't know what to look for. Personally, I kinda like being able to save the shelfspace, although I wonder if extras content will suffer due to episode cramming.


There is not that many extras with School Rumble 2nd semester part 1. Textless opening and closings, trailers, and an interview with Tenma's Japanese voice actor. The extra's are enough for me, but I would have like to have seem some more interviews with them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4760
PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:16 pm Reply with quote
I don't think there's necessarily any reason that the episodes would be noticeably degraded in quality. Like you said, with over 9 gigabytes per dual-layer DVD, you're looking at a bit over a gigabyte per episode for both audio and video. Now, I happen to have one or two (*looks around sheepishly *) dual-audio series that comprise a bit over 6 gigabytes for a full 26 episodes at a very high-quality video encode. While I doubt standard DVD encoding can reduce episode size nearly that much without a corresponding loss in quality, even if you look at three times the total file size, you're talking about 18 or so gigabytes for 26 episodes, which would conceivably require only two DVDs with about 13 episodes apiece. This is another multiple below that, so I don't see how there could be any visible quality degradation in principle.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kyon27



Joined: 05 Mar 2008
Posts: 95
Location: Lake Stevens, WA
PostPosted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:00 pm Reply with quote
I have found that many 4 episode discs are between 4 and 5 GB including extras. That's small enough to fit on a single layer disc without any compression. So it's not inconceivable that one could fit 6-8 episodes on a dual-layer disc without any problems. I have never seen a disc with more that 5 episodes myself, but I have also never seen one that utilized the entire 8.7 GB of a dual-layer DVD.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Daichi09



Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 3:25 am Reply with quote
Well, I own a lot of R2 DVDs, and the quality is almost always a lot higher then the DVD transfers we get. While I'm sure you can cram quite a few episodes onto one disk and have the quality look fine. But the fact of the matter is, the quality can look and sound better. I've seen some noticeable artifacts on R1 DVDs where they aren't on the equivalent R2 DVD.

The R1 Kanon releases look pretty good for having a slightly smaller bitrate then the R2 release, but just for the fact that the R2 is progressive and not interlaced, it blows the R1 release out of the water. Everything just looks a lot clearer and better in motion, on all sorts of hardware.

I dunno, I'm all for cheaper anime releases, but it just feels like using lower bitrates to squish everything onto much fewer disks is cutting corners where it isn't really needed at all. These are half season boxsets we are buying anyway. Is it all that inconvenient on the users if they stretched thirteen episodes out onto three disks instead of two? The quality wouldn't need to take as big a cut at all with this disc count.

It just feels to me like if everyone is going to disregard possible quality improvements, and allow companies to cut corners like this, we are never going to make the push towards HD anime. Something I'd like to see on American shelves sooner then later.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6897
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:19 am Reply with quote
doctordoom85 wrote:
The Season 1 boxset and One Piece boxsets crammed the same amount in their discs, and the video quality's good for me. Unless you're the type who goes out of his way to look for the smallest of errors, but I'd never understand that, doesn't that take the fun out of the show?
Let's also remember that Funimation released Fruits Basket on 4 DVDs with copious extras and alternate angle data back in 2003. While FB wasn't perfect, it wasn't considered terrible either. So with 5 years of advances in technology and technique (plus the elimination of alternate angles), hopefully Funi can keep quality at a reasonable level. Though I've heard that Ghost Hunt didn't look too great.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
joshuafer



Joined: 03 Jan 2006
Posts: 262
PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:02 pm Reply with quote
This was to funny, I did not expect some of the stuff that happened, since we have only gotten up to manga volume 10 in the US, and to tell the truth I was a little disappointed with the whole spoiler[ Aso / Satuski Love thing, seemed she just gave up, kinda a bummer, I am still rooting for Mikoto and Hanai.] The Flunk out phantom episode was killing me, where spoiler[ everyone's faces looked like that old man, and the scene where the Nurse gave the Basketball team nicknames, and she named Mikoto Tits McGee...hahaha. ] The survival game was still awesome ! Some funny stuff, I wonder how much is filler, in the first season they followed the manga pretty close. I wonder, of course, if they will alter the end, since the manga went past 16 volumes, I believe. Seems to me Luci Christian, as the voice of tenma, is having a real blast. I eagerly await part 2 !
So tell me, you guys watching it ? Enjoying it ?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
lilmanny286



Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:37 pm Reply with quote
i just finished watching that and man...funniest anime ever... it really really really started off insanely with episode 2-3 with the survival game. It was soooo freaking hilarious man. loved the entire series, just too funny.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Anime All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group