UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread

VLC has issues with chroma upscaling and may not use the right transfer matrix; it does not represent accurately the ViZ encode.

On a related note, whoever authored Macross Plus and Naruro used some of the most hideous font and outline I've seen for subtitles in the recent years. Those sharp angled borders are absolutely hideous and are akin the oldest Blu-ray, based on loosely updated DVD software.

AL being cheap with authoring, as usual. And yet premium price.
 
Anime Limited on the left and VIZ on the right, with the VIZ portion captured on MPV player this time. The colour difference seems to be less pronounced on MPV. Again, not a proper expert with the different media players though, so take it with a pinch of salt. I'm sure someone far more technical than me will provide a better comparison.

The main thing is, I can't see much of a difference in terms of the clarity and sharpness of the image. Although, the more I look at the style of the subtitles on AL's release, the more I hate them. I'm leaning towards just picking up the VIZ releases, which would be cheaper in the long run.

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bakura said:
home now, lot's of great announcement's and i finally got to meat @HellCat in person, great weekend.
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He's lying, we all know I'm a particularly obnoxious chatbot!

Always nice to have a face to put to an online name (though in my case the guy next to me shot a side eye hearing me referred to as HellCat.)

AL did have a cool 360 Arcane photo op at their booth, the kinda thing that used to be common at MCM. Was tempted to do it but I'm out of shape currently and I don't need a 360 vid of that.

As for our earlier speculation- EGX regulars weren't impressed. It was basically shoved into a corner and seemed to largely be already released games and the usual free play arcade machines. They even had the official Shadow the Hedgehog bike but with no signage to highlight it. A lot of EGX folk saying they won't bother next time (along with discussion that the continental con scene hasn't fallen off like ours. Golly, I wonder why...😓 )
 
Managed to get my hands on Anime Limited's Naruto set 1 this morning. The upscale is good and going by my unscientific methods, looks very similar to VIZ's upscale.

Now, if I was a dub watcher, I'd be more than happy with this set. However, I don't know what they were thinking with the subtitles. I'd be so curious to know the exact issues they had with the original subtitles to cause the delay. First impressions was "Oh... those subtitles look a bit funny". Then the more I looked at them, the more my eyes weren't agreeing with them.

I can't put my finger on it, the subtitles just look amateurish on Anime Limited's set and the thick black border around the letters isn't helping their case. The only thing that could have made them worse would have been if they were done in comic sans. They also appear to be a little smaller in text size compared to VIZ's subtitles (I'm getting old!). I'm not sure if I could deal with reading AL's subtitles for 220 episodes personally.

AL:

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VIZ:

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I think I'm going to pick up the VIZ sets on payday. I'll probably still end up completing Anime Limited's release because I'm a degenerate and because it's Naruto.
 
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Does anyone know if AL said anything about fixing the Bleach Viz media blu-rays from set 7 onwards? One of the major factors of me not buying the original bleach set was them not confirming if they could fix the low video quality of the later sets.
 
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I dunno why the naruto subs are so small even on my tv they are abit smaller than I’d like I’ll see if I can adjust them on my pc, the viz ones look really bad with almost no outline though so dunno which is better
 
ussjtrunks said:
I dunno why the naruto subs are so small even on my tv they are abit smaller than I’d like I’ll see if I can adjust them on my pc, the viz ones look really bad with almost no outline though so dunno which is better
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TL;DR You can't, bitmap subtitles are fit to the video.

If you use a software player like mpv you could zoom-in on the subtitle plane, but signs and typesetting could be misaligned or even out of the sceen. It's just a botchered author, and no one quality checked the discs as usual. Macross Plus have a similar ugly font, at least the size seem a tiny bit bigger. Neither are ideal.

I do hope for UK fans it does not become the standard for future AL releases. But hey, one year ago I warned you all that the french branch had started to cut cost on authoring and that it may follow on the UK branch. Welcome to the club!
 
DJ-samurai7 said:
Does anyone know if AL said anything about fixing the Bleach Viz media blu-rays from set 7 onwards? One of the major factors of me not buying the original bleach set was them not confirming if they could fix the low video quality of the later sets.
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I believe the only thing we know so far regarding that is someone at Anime Limited (not sure exactly who) said they are looking to see if they can do anything with the later upscales.

My plan with Bleach is just to get up to episode 167, as after that is when the really bad VIZ upscale starts, and then see if AL do anything. I definitely wouldn't bet on it though.
 
I missed out on this panel and I'm trying to catch up. My main questions would be: is Anime Limited committed to releasing Gundam for the foreseeable future? Are they going to keep the back catalog in print? It seems like many titles have been out of stock for quite some time (and are possibly out of print).
 
kevers7290 said:
I missed out on this panel and I'm trying to catch up. My main questions would be: is Anime Limited committed to releasing Gundam for the foreseeable future? Are they going to keep the back catalog in print? It seems like many titles have been out of stock for quite some time (and are possibly out of print).
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From what I could tell AL are still very committed to gundam and there are definitely more titles in the pipeline.
 
Just a small thing. But I spotted a typo on the back of the Naruto set 1 information sheet. It says sets 3-4 are sold separately, rather than 2-4 sold separately (which is what it should read).

I'm guessing no one else got set 2 included! I can't believe no one triple checks this stuff.

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BrokenPhoenix said:
I can't put my finger on it, the subtitles just look amateurish on Anime Limited's set and the thick black border around the letters isn't helping their case. The only thing that could have made them worse would have been if they were done in comic sans. They also appear to be a little smaller in text size compared to VIZ's subtitles (I'm getting old!). I'm not sure if I could deal with reading AL's subtitles for 220 episodes personally.

AL:

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VIZ:

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I think I'm going to pick up the VIZ sets on payday. I'll probably still end up completing Anime Limited's release because I'm a degenerate and because it's Naruto.
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Wait, what? The AL subtiles are a huge improvement over those Viz subtitles, even though they are the exact same font - the thick black borders have specifically been added so they can be easily read against backgrounds of any color. Subtitles with thin or no black borders can be extremely hard to read when the backgrounds are very light or white. This has been the bane of subtitle readers for years and years, we have always been critical of subs with little to no outline and have been pushing for these thicker outlines, so it's a cause to celebrate! I don't care for yellow or other colored subtitles either, and I do prefer the smaller sized subtitles, so they don't hide as much of the video image. I'm in my mid 60's now but I guess my eyesight is not failing me as of yet... :cool:

I suppose the smaller subs might be more of an issue if you are watching anime on a tiny phone screen, but I generally avoid using my phone to watch anime. I have plenty of much larger screens at home to use - the 120" projection screen in my theater room especially makes anime viewing an awesome experience!
 
Girls with Guns said:
Wait, what? The AL subtiles are a huge improvement over those Viz subtitles, even though they are the exact same font - the thick black borders have specifically been added so they can be easily read against backgrounds of any color. Subtitles with thin or no black borders can be extremely hard to read when the backgrounds are very light or white. This has been the bane of subtitle readers for years and years, we have always been critical of subs with little to no outline and have been pushing for these thicker outlines, so it's a cause to celebrate! I don't care for yellow or other colored subtitles either, and I do prefer the smaller sized subtitles, so they don't hide as much of the video image. I'm in my mid 60's now but I guess my eyesight is not failing me as of yet... :cool:

I suppose the smaller subs might be more of an issue if you are watching anime on a tiny phone screen, but I generally avoid using my phone to watch anime. I have plenty of much larger screens at home to use - the 120" projection screen in my theater room especially makes anime viewing an awesome experience!
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Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I find the VIZ subtitles easier to read as I sit a fair distance from my TV (my TV is 55") and I find them easier on my eyes.

Maybe there's something up with my TV settings that is making it harder for me with the AL subtitles; I'll perhaps have a little play around with my TV settings/adjust my viewing distance to see if I can get them to agree with me.

Unfortunately, I've always had f*cked vision and have lived in glasses my entire life. Maybe it's the glasses' fault 🤓
 
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