HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII (2 Viewers)

[MichaelSMI]

Hi All,

I've spotted RahXephon (6 discs) down at the local rental store, and a movie version (1 disc).. Should I watch the movie first or last?

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Max Leung]

Watch the movie last.

Oh, I've also had a look at the first two episodes of Ergo Proxy (in high-def). I'm not sure what to think of it. Moves slowly, and the plot reminds me of a generic 1984 sci-fi clone - totalitarian society, brain washing, slow-motion action scenes, yadda yadda yadda. In typical anime convention, the main hero is a heroine. Been there, done that. BORING!

But, who knows - it may not suck too badly. We'll see.

Aeon Flux blows it away so far.

 

[Eric F]

How did you get to see Ergo Proxy in HD? You know someone with a WoW-Wow hookup? Ah, wouldn't that be nice?

 

[JohnAD]

Michael:

I'll second Max's suggestion for watching it last. The movie is basically a retelling of the story from a different POV. It does assume you've seen the series first, and since there is a lot of compression of the story, you probably wouldn't get very much out of it.

All:

I watched a couple more of my new anime disks this weekend. On Friday, I watched volume one of Tenjho Tenge. Nothing deep, to be sure, but fun action with a bit of T&A. On Saturday, I watched Ah! My Goddess TV volume one. Very nice, although I was kind expecting Urd to show up. No PQ issues at all, from what I remember.

John.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I don't think URD shows up in the TV at all — or am I thinking of something else? Ahh, anyway, my video card died and I had to get a new one, so my weekend was mostly wasted on PC maintenance.

 

[JohnAD]

Christopher:

Well, she does show up prominently in the OP credits, as does Skuld, so I would assume that they'll be showing up. The TV series is based off of the manga, so I guess maybe they're just taking their time. With 26 episodes, there is a little more room for doing so . With my latest order to DDD, I picked up volume two, so I'll let you know when I get it.

John.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Maybe that was the super-deformed spinoff show &emdash; with Urd and Skuld and a rat, but no Belldandy? I dunno, I dunno, I don't really keep track of these things!

 

[Max Leung]

Eric, it was a fansubbed WMV-HD encoding of a very recent Japanese high-def broadcast. Packaged in a .mkv (Matroska) container with softsubs. You can find anything on the internet if you look hard enough.

(What is WoW-Wow?)

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Japanese digital broadcast-satellite service. I don't know, but I'm sure there must also have been anime broadcasts over the MUSE analog HD BS service [which I believe is still on the air]; MUSE isn't exactly friendly to the computer video encoder, though. There's no digital feed, and things like motion-adaptive interpolation seem like they should just about choke most video coders.

 

[MichaelSMI]

Max, JohnAD,

Thanks - i'll save the movie for last

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Max Leung]

Chris, who knows. You're probably right - and if a lot of the high-def anime is broadcast over the analog HD service that would explain why I have never seen any original digital HD captures - they have all been re-encoded so far.

There has been a lot of advances on the motion-adaptive deinterlacing and inverse-telecine front lately - the best solutions naturally cannot run in real-time on the fast processors (even SMP). And it still involves a lot of hand-tweaking from what I've read...it does explain why some fansubbed anime out there looks better than the officially released DVDs. (Full Metal Panic - Fumoffu, is a glaringly obvious example).

 

[DaveGTP]

Woot, Hi-Def fansubbed anime??!?! I'm interested. I'd like to see some anime without deinterlacing or combing artifacts. Sounds like I need to get the HTPC up and running.

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, watched disc 2 of Excel Saga. Probably the last one I'll watch for a while, since it is the last one I own. (Got it cheap from an ADV sale.) Not quite as entertaining as the first DVD, and with the problem of some stuff just not translating all that well, it doesn't really have that much of a shelf life.

Jason

 

[Max Leung]

WTF? My Special Edition 2nd Gig Volume 4 set did NOT come with the CD soundtrack. It came with the 3 miniatures and the 2 DVDs only. No mention of the soundtrack on the box - I assumed it had it!

Yet, Future Shop's website says it has the CD soundtrack, but no mention of the miniatures.

Amazon.com says it has the CD and the miniatures.

I am mad.

 

[Max Leung]

The AnimeOnDVD review does not mention the CD soundtrack. Amazon.com buyers beware!

http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/d...views/4854.php

Amazon.com says:


Mine came with 3 toys - Jameson, the android maid, and Batou. No CD. Tin case.

Is Amazon.com getting a special deal?

 

[Eric F]

http://www.wowow.co.jp/anime/
http://www.wowow.co.jp/anime/ergoproxy/

Wowow is the digital network in Japan that's running Ergo Proxy in HD. They also have some other series in HD (look for the HD symbol).

Somebody must be capping high-def .TS files, because that's the only way they can make WM9's out of them.

 

[JohnAD]

Max:

It's probably a typo, or Manga changed stuff at the last minute. I doubt that Amazon would get a special deal. I hadn't heard of a second CD soundtrack, although the first season came with a second CD.

Dave:

That just means you need to get a better display device. So far, the only problems I've had are on non-anime disks, and even then, they were minor. Faroudja is the way to go.

Christopher:

Ah, the Adventures of Mini-Goddess series. Yeah, Belldandy and Keiichi only show up a couple of times in that one.

All:

My copy of Samurai 7 volume four came last night, so I watched it today. Four excellent episodes, especially since we are getting to the heart of the action. The picture quality was great - a big contrast between this and Fullmetal Alchemist, where the PQ was acceptable, but not great. I couldn't see any evidence of jaggies at all.

John.

 

[Max Leung]

Again I am disappointed with the PQ of GitS: SAC 2nd Gig volume 4 - a very large number of combing artifacts in many scenes. The 3rd episode with the Tachikomas is almost unwatchable on an HTPC. Oh and there is quite a lot of EE - this has been the case throughout the 1st season DVDs as well.

Unacceptable, considering that Faroudja-based DVD players are not all that common. And, these are supposedly based on hidef masters - meaningless if the monkey-idiot that did the encoding fell asleep and forgot to turn on the progressive frames switch. IDIOTS!

(It hiccups a little on my Panasonic S97, but only a videophile would see that. At least the combing artifacts are gone using it! I feel sorry for the anime fan who cannot afford a Faroudja player...)

In perfect contrast to the above PQ fiasco, I previewed the high def version of episode 3 of 2nd Gig. XVID-HD encoded at 1440x810p. The PQ is perfect. No jaggies, no combing, perfect framerate conversion (no jitter at all when vehicles are predominant), no EE, perfect color rendition with virtually no dithering, no macroblocks. Some banding, but I suspect this is a problem with the original HD masters (Production IG probably did the wrong color space conversions or something). Softsubs are rendered at native resolution - no ugly blocky subtitles. I've never seen anime look this good before. And the alternate opening sequence brings a chill down my spine...

To be honest I am very surprised at the quality of the encode - I usually find XVID encodes to be of subpar quality. Kudos to the person who did the encoding - very very professional.

When a fan re-encode exceeds 95% of all anime DVDs produced there is something very very wrong...

 

[JohnAD]

Max:

I'll check out my copy when it arrives tomorrow.

John.

 

[TheLongshot]

Forgot to mention that Fullmetal Alchemist ended on CN last weekend. Unfortunatly, I missed a few episodes here and there toward the end, so not everything made sense to me. It looked like they did a decent job of wrapping up plot threads, but left things open-ended where they could continue things.

Ok, what's the deal with Edward having all of his parts when he gets resurected by Al, but after Ed does his thing to get his brother back, he ends up in our reality with his automail?


Jason