Advice on Black Lagoon DVDs

L

lavic

Completely Average High School Student
Hi fellow anime fans, first time posting here. I'm not from the UK, but some shabby little European country where anime is still a rather unknown media.
I'm in a little bit of a predicament and was wondering if you could give me some advice. It's rather silly actually, but here it goes.

Black Lagoon is one of my favorite shows and I wanted to own it on either DVD or Blu-ray. (I currently don't have a Blu-ray player, but plan to get one in the near future.)
Now my budget is tight as can be (almost non-existent), but I was lucky to find a store like Zavvi where they have discounts on BDs/DVDs and free shipping.
So I ordered Roberta's Blood Trail on DVD, planning to get the DVD box set of the first two seasons, but I was a bit disappointed with the picture quality (I was already aware that the discs don't come with any extras at all, which was disappointing as well).

Now, I don't have experience with anime DVDs and I am aware that the image on Blu-ray is superior, but still I expected the picture to at least be decent.
I'm sorry to say that I don't know any of the correct technical terms for describing the image, but you can see the picture, and especially on the outline of the characters,
in lots of small diagonal lines. Kind of similar to pixelation. And during the credits, there are shadows around the text. I don't know if that's what you call ghosting.
And the subtitles are ugly as can be. (Of course, after browsing this forum now I am aware that Kaze is a much hated publisher. I can see why.)

This put me off from purchasing the DVD box set of the first two seasons. But now I'm not sure what to do. I'm guessing the best version to have is the American Black Lagoon Complete Series box set (which is not too expensive if the shipping charges don't go overboard).
However, I doubt that I'll be able to find a multi-region DVD/BD player here where I live. (I've asked about it in the store where I usually purchase techy thingies, but they looked at me as if I asked for a space shuttle or something). Ordering one from abroad is
out of the question since my country has a ridiculous import taxes. On the other hand, I came across those out of print DVDs (is it Geneon's?) available for purchase, but they are used and it might cost more in the long run. (I'm not 100% sure if they ship to my country,
I'd have to register first to find out.)

So what would you do in my place? Buy the American box set and hope to find a multi-region player? Go for the used, limited edition DVDs? Go the most convenient route and buy Kaze's Blu-rays?
Or just give up on the whole thing?

And also, is this type of picture quality that I've described something standard when it comes to DVDs or did I just stumble across a crappy one?

Thanks in advance!
 
Hello and welcome - it's lovely to see such an interesting post from a new member!

The pixellated effect you describe might be fixable on your DVDs depending on your player. If you're using a computer to watch the disc, look for 'deinterlacing' settings and try playing with them; other people will be able to explain it better than I can but a side effect of the technology used to display video can cause this issue to show up. It looks worse on certain setups and there are ways to hide it.

I can't speak for the other problem though as I don't own that particular DVD set. DVDs in general tend to be quite varied in quality; some look really good on the right setup and others don't. The video conversion performed to convert Japanese/US video to the UK/Australian standards can sometimes introduce problems as well, and the ugly subtitles are unavoidable unless they're non-removeable.

I personally chose the US sets for Black Lagoon and I'm happy with them. I'm sure we can advise on how to get a multi-region setup, too. First of all, do you prefer to use a computer or a television to watch your anime? It's very easy to play back US DVDs on a computer and BD isn't that much more difficult.

R
 
Hello Rui and thank you very much for the kind reply. I prefer watching anime on my TV set. For me, there's not much point in getting the DVDs and then having to watch them on my PC. After all, most of it it's available online anyway. I did play one of these DVDs on my computer, just to make sure that it wasn't my TV's (or DVD player's) fault, but the image had the same problem. I didn't know about the deinterlacing settings though, so thanks for the tip. By the way, does the US box set contain those goofy omake episodes?
 
It might be worth waiting for the Australian Blu-rays coming in July from Sony. They'll be Region B, and given that it's Sony, they probably won't use Kaze's masters.
 
lavic said:
Hello Rui and thank you very much for the kind reply. I prefer watching anime on my TV set. For me, there's not much point in getting the DVDs and then having to watch them on my PC. After all, most of it it's available online anyway. I did play one of these DVDs on my computer, just to make sure that it wasn't my TV's (or DVD player's) fault, but the image had the same problem. I didn't know about the deinterlacing settings though, so thanks for the tip. By the way, does the US box set contain those goofy omake episodes?
Click to expand...

I don't believe the omake clips are included. It's annoying when things are lost between releases :(

R
 
Just Passing Through said:
It might be worth waiting for the Australian Blu-rays coming in July from Sony. They'll be Region B, and given that it's Sony, they probably won't use Kaze's masters.
Click to expand...

That sounds very promising, thank you very much for letting me know!
 
Rui said:
I don't believe the omake clips are included. It's annoying when things are lost between releases :(

R
Click to expand...

Oh too bad. I was sure I read somewhere that the US Blu-rays included those as well.
 
lavic said:
Rui said:
I don't believe the omake clips are included. It's annoying when things are lost between releases :(

R
Click to expand...

Oh too bad. I was sure I read somewhere that the US Blu-rays included those as well.
Click to expand...

I have the US Combo Pack and they don't have the Omakes but it does have tons of extras and better audio for the Blu-rays in contrast to Kaze's release.

The upcoming Australian combo pack release might be able to include the exact same content as the US version, but at the moment it's unknown.
 
Thanks, NormanicGrav. I'm glad to find that there is an additional option. And I don't mind waiting a couple of months, as long as the prices don't turn out over the top. By the way, which Australian online shop would you recommend?
 
Yep. They are up on devoteddvd as well along with Roberta's Blood Trail. These are what I'm looking to get, but first I'm going to wait and see if they are the same as the us versions or the eur verisons.
 
Emulsion said:
Yep. They are up on devoteddvd as well along with Roberta's Blood Trail. These are what I'm looking to get, but first I'm going to wait and see if they are the same as the us versions or the eur verisons.
Click to expand...

They're either the Euro versions, or they've been reauthored anew by Sony Universal (I suspect the latter) as the US release of Black Lagoon on BD had 24 episodes on 3 discs.
 
Just Passing Through said:
They're either the Euro versions, or they've been reauthored anew by Sony Universal (I suspect the latter) as the US release of Black Lagoon on BD had 24 episodes on 3 discs.
Click to expand...

Never knew the US release was 3 Blu-rays, thought it was 4. Hope they don't use Kaze's discs.

As series one and two are separate, maybe they will use Funimations just re-authored to split it up correctly(I assume this is what you mean be "reauthored anew"). Or could they be doing a fresh encode from scratch.

Which ever way, I will wait to see what Sony Universals release is like.
 
I highly doubt the AU release will use Khazi's Blurays. The US release was 3 BDs because the whole thing was released at once rather than two parts. (Funi's half series generally use 1 BD50 and 1 BD25, so I imagine Universal will do this for BL)
Also I doubt that they will use two BD25s per half like Khazi. I'd like to think that Universal have higher standards than that.
 
Mangaranga said:
Funi's half series generally use 1 BD50 and 1 BD25, so I imagine Universal will do this for BL)
Click to expand...

This is what I'm hoping. Need B coded discs so I can't get Funimations release.

Just have to wait and see. They come out 31/07/14, so still a while off yet.
 
Regarding the Australian release.

A user on Fandom has said the Japanese audio on the Blu-ray of season one is only Dolby Digital 2.0 rather than a lossless track.
 
You're not going to get lossless audio on a DVD release, unless it's PCM stereo and that hardly ever happens, never happened with anime, only music DVDs really. All the Black Lagoon DVD releases get DD 2.0 Japanese. Geneon gave the English dub a 5.1 remix, but Madman only kept it for Season 1, ditched it for Season 2, I think Funimation kept the 5.1 English on their DVD release, Doubt Khazi would have kept it. I don't know what Sony Australia have done though.
 
Just Passing Through said:
You're not going to get lossless audio on a DVD release, unless it's PCM stereo
Click to expand...

I know, that's why I said "on the Blu-ray".

Had a look around and found images of the back covers of the Australian release but they are low res. I could just about make out the English is DTS-HD MA 5.1 and the Japanese is stereo.

The DVD's I don't actually care about as I have Geneons releases.
 
Emulsion said:
Just Passing Through said:
You're not going to get lossless audio on a DVD release, unless it's PCM stereo
Click to expand...

I know, that's why I said "on the Blu-ray".
.
Click to expand...

My goof, I read the thread title first, [edit]thought for some reason that it was the first page of the thread[/edit] and blanked the rest.

EDIT to add. Just saw the post on Fandom Post forums. Yeesh. This series just can't cut a break, can it?
 
Just Passing Through said:
My goof, I read the thread title first, and blanked the rest.
Click to expand...

lol, fair enough.

As there was a little talk about the Blu-rays on the first page I decided to post here rather than create a new thread.

Just Passing Through said:
EDIT to add. Just saw the post on Fandom Post forums. Yeesh. This series just can't cut a break, can it?
Click to expand...

Don't look like it. I don't have a multiregion player other wise I would have got Funimations release.

At the moment I have a choice of the Kaze release without 5.1 or the Australian release with 5.1 but a lossy Japanese track. Personally I prefer the English on Black Lagoon, I think it sounds better and suits the show better, but would still like both tracks as lossless. Would have thought Sony would use lossless for both.

Think I'll wait a little for some more info on the Australian release.
 
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