DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Recommended (1 Viewer)

[MarcoBiscotti]

I ordered mine from Play-Asia last year... it's such an elegant and elaborate package! The box itself is about the thickest and heaviest I've ever seen for any DVD collection, it doesn't even feel like cardboard (in fact I'm not so sure it is); I'm not even sure what to compare it to. Beautifully painted and secured by a stylish wrap-around string with a Ghibli logo on a pendant hanging from the end. It has a really eastern asian organic feel to the aesthetic of it. It also opens like a pair of double-doors by pulling the tie-up string forward to open one half of the front of the box and than by gripping the side and swinging the next open with your hand. The keepcases themselves are all single-sized double disc sets in terrific clear see-through amaray cases with much nicer and better suited cover art than any of the Disney versions! Plus it comes with a certificate of authenticity, serial number and a handfull of rare postcards with wonderful reproduction art from the various films featured. There is English text on all the menu screens for the feature disc, and just as many, if not more extras than the R1 DVD's... however unfortunately no English subtitles are offered. Still, the main features are the storyboards and art galleries, etc. for which English audio and subtitles are obviously not necessary. It's definitely highly reccommended!

 

[Adam_D]

*just clicking*

i never saw this movie before, but i love anime and picked this up on recommendation from a friend. all i can say is wow!!

i loved spirited away, princess mononoke and castle in the sky...... for a 20 year old anime film, i found it amazing to see how this film looked (all hand drawn and no cgi).

the movie definatly has a feel for the enviroment that most people will never want to talk about (or like myself never ever think about), but the way it is done will leave you awe struck if you let yourself be absorbed in it.

i highly recommend this film for anyone who likes anime/a good story.

 

[kevin_y]

David Boulet, regarding your review, are you sure the DVD audio is surround? It sure sounds like 2.0 mono to me, both the English and Japanese tracks. The Region 2 Japanese DVD, which I also own, is also seemingly in mono only. DVDfile.com also says the R1 DVD is mono, although some other sites say it's stereo.

 

[Miles]

I'd have to agree w/ you sure seems like 2.0 Mono... while Porco Rosso was 2.0 Stereo

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Well that would explain a lot...

:b

I'll have to double check myself...I listened sitting in my usual center position and the "mix" sounded center heavy but for some reason didn't hit me as "mono" (probably because the 2.0 DD encoding didn't appear flagged as mono on my decoder). I never noticed any surround activity to speak of so maybe you guys are right...I just assumed it was a center-heavy stereo mix.

I'll be sure to double check in the next couple of days (away from home right now)...

back to work on my Bambi review!

-dave

 

[Ernest Rister]

back to work on my Bambi review!

*whipcrack!*

Yah mule! Yah! Yah!

*whipcrack!

 

[kevin_y]

Porco Rosso R1 actually has 2.0 prologic surround.


The English dub also seems to mispronounce "Nausicaa." According to this dictionary, it should be pronounced naw-SIC-ee-uh, not NAW-sic-uh as in the dub. Any expert of Greek mythology here who can ascertain this?

 

[TonyD]

i've been wondering how it should be pronounced, myself.
i wondered because there is an umlaut above the last a.
but that is a german language thing.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

In the film, the characters pronounce her name as "Naushika".

 

[kevin_y]

It is pronounced 'NAH-OO-sheek-uh', to be exact. But that's just the Japanese way of pronouncing Western words.

 

[GeoffBr]

I believe it's technically supposed to be pronounced "Naw-SIK-ee-uh". To grossly oversimplify, the umlaut indicates that two linked letters are two be pronounced distinctly.

My copy of the American Heritage dictionary seems to agree.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

You guys were correct...the audio is indeed mono! I had watched the movie in "ProLogic" mode which routed everything to my center channel...only the sound was so "big" sounding that it didn't immediately make me realize it was a true mono mix...it sounded nice and evenly spread over the front of the room...just with no directionality to speak of. When I finally walked up and put my ears to the speakers I was amazed that only the center speaker was producing any sound...

I've updated the review to reflect this...

 

[Rob Lutter]

Can someone post an image of the R1 DVD? The R2 Japan disc has a MAGNIFICENT picture with none of the softness that you speak of. I could see why they maybe would have softened it as the original source elements have a nice, rich film grain that is SUPPOSED to be there.

Disney kinda missed the boat on one extra.... there's a commentary track by Hideaki Anno (Miyazaki's life-long friend and GAINAX crack-induced director of such projects as 'Neon Genesis Evangelion') on the R2 that I would have LOVED to have had translated with subtitles. The subtitled Ghibli history doc certainly does sound nice however

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Rob,

do you have the Japanese version? What type of display do you have? keep in mind all my comments pertain to how the image looks at 1.6 screen-widths distance from a 106" diagonal 16x9 image. And the image really is beautiful...anyone with a smaller HDTV screen or diret-view 4x3 would be very impressed with the image (even I was impressed...just noticed a bit of DNR noise at the 106" scale)

Reason I ask is that I had heard reports of how "good" the Japanese Porco Rosso DVD was...well...when Jason (from HTF) brought his disc over to do some A/B...the new R1 Miramax DVD *smoked* the Japanese disc on every point...better detail, image stability...less MEPG noise...less ringing from EE...and no silly screen area wasted to windowboxing. Wouldn't have believed how much better the R1 disc was except that I saw it with my own eyes.

I hope in the next few months to get a dvd drive for the PC and get some webhosting space...but I don't want to spend any $$ to rent server room! grrrr.

p.s. if you're able to rent or barrow the new R1 version I'd love for you to do your own A/B eval and post back here!

 

[TheLongshot]

Rob,

When I went to David's place, I was actually very surprised that the R1 Porco Rosso dvd beat out the R2. It wasn't a huge victory, but it was pretty big. The R2 on Porco has a good amount of edge enhancement, which is less apparent on the R1. Also, the colors seem to be slightly better. Not to mention that the R2 is windowboxed. It does have me considering picking up the R1.

Jason

 

[Rob Lutter]

Ah, but the Nausicaa disc just came out in Nov 2003... PR came out way before that, iirc. Perhaps I'll post some pics from the R2 later and I'll let you compare it to yours (might be easier that way, heh).

 

[Rob Lutter]

Here are some images from the R2 to compare with. They're uncompressed and about 1MB each...

http://www.elitistotaku.com/r2naus/r2naus1.BMP

http://www.elitistotaku.com/r2naus/r2naus2.BMP

http://www.elitistotaku.com/r2naus/r2naus3.BMP

http://www.elitistotaku.com/r2naus/r2naus4.BMP

If you'd like any particular scene, I'd be happy to get that too.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Rob,

those screen-captures are beautiful. Folks please look at them!

My guess without being able to do an immediate A/B of your disc to the R1 is that the R2 might be cleaner...my biggest question would be the DNR thing during pans.

As far as detail and clarity go...it looks close...and I'd really need to see the two images on the same system to compare (don't have a DVD drive to take screen-caps right now...wahh!!!), but the R2 looks just gorgeous based on your captures. Thanks for not re-sizing in the vertical domain (leaving exactly 480).

Of course, the R2 images also show the dredded windowboxing...and no matter how good the image might be in every other regard I just don't think I could stand watching a film windowboxed that way on my screen (for some reason I find it excrutiating)...maintaining OAR via letterboxing is one thing...but black running around all 4 sides of the picture is another!

Rob, if you're able to grab a copy of the R1 disc (c'mon...your an animation fan...just get it to compare for heaven's sake!) could you do some screen captures the same way and post the results so we could a/b? Pretty-please?

dave

 

[TheLongshot]

I was watching my copy a couple of nights, and I'd have to say it probably looks as good as your screenshots. To be honest, I don't think the film could look much better than it does on the R1.

Jason

 

[Edwin-S]

The colors on the R2 screenshots seem way darker than the colors on the R1 version. Black level seems to be a lot higher on the R2 version. The color differences could be due to differences in system calibration, but I'm not sure if that is actually the case. The R2 image also seems slightly sharper than the R1 version, but that could also be due to system differences. I did calibrate my set using Avia, but I have never had the set professionally calibrated, because there is no ISF calibrator available where I live.

The R2 definitely looks better colorwise but the R1 colors seem to be closer to another version of this movie that I own.

I think I actually prefer the windowboxing on the R2 version. There is definitely more of the image showing. The R1 cuts off a fair bit of image from the sides, top, and bottom of the frame. All in all, the R1 is still a good reproduction of the film.