Blu-Ray versus DVD: the ongoing format war and DotW discussion

Through for completeness' sale it'd also worth noting, there is still the English dub, which Oda Nobuna would have on a home video release. CR doesn't have all that many dubbed shows.

(Oda Nobuna has a bunch of pretty nice Sakuga, would probably look better on bigger than 480p.)

That's a point, but given it's an older Sentai dub, I'm not sure how much value that even holds.
 
@IncendiaryLemon There are older Sentai dub and newer once? Such a huge diffrence in quality? (Where's the cut between old and new?)

@HWR
Haha, it's nice, if there were one perfect version to have. Since I sometimes like both Englisch and French dubs and then add some artwork hunt I easily end up with up to 5 versions of the same anime... @_@
 
@HWR
Haha, it's nice, if there were one perfect version to have. Since I sometimes like both Englisch and French dubs and then add some artwork hunt I easily end up with up to 5 versions of the same anime... @_@
Haha every collector is different I guess :D I'm not too fussy when it comes to artwork personally, but I do appreciate it when it's really nice. AL usually have some really nice artboxes.
 
Last edited:
@HWR
Disc-wise I certainly loved Beez' DVD box releases back in the day, got French, English some sometimes German along with Japanese all on the same disc. (Even Italian, should I had wanted to practice that.) But packaging wise they were either really spartan or a shelf space nightmare.
My latest craze was Zankyou no Terror (US LE, US single, UK Ultimate, French box, German LEs). And knowing me, Anthem is the next best candidate for a three-some. (Let's see if I manage to actually ditch the German one.)
I would have loved to go for a craze Hyouka, too (Got US and JP and still eying the japanese LE boxes...), but seems like AL won't do me the favor for making a CE (let along Ultimate) for it, given it's already marked it as a Funi-UK title. .-. But knowing me, I'd most like get another US copy, if it falls into the Anime Classics line and not directly into the SAVE and gets a complete set with a new cover. If other countries would have released them, I probably would be getting those too. (Why'd KyoAni not simply release an artbook for it already. Key illustration hunting for niche titles really is unnerving. .-.)

He's wrong, age has nothing to do with a Sentai dub being bad. It's just any with Kyle Jones as the ADR Director that are bad, with two exceptions.
Oh, I see quite a list of newer titles on this person's ANN entry. Found Sunday without God pretty decent though. Illya S1 was also kinda ok. oo (.... And a dozen of titles in my collection/watch list I haven't yet touched, hm.) What exactly makes his work so bad? Which are two exceptions?
 
I remember posting about this on UK-A a while back... Media Blasters is the reason I don't buy DVD's anymore

Attached is a DVD vs Bluray

View attachment 1393

Yeah Media Blasters returned with terrible logic. Why on earth would they consider DVD-R for their discs? Heck I'm glad some shows are coming to Blu-ray, but even those are flawed with the MPEG audio or something.
 
Yeah Media Blasters returned with terrible logic. Why on earth would they consider DVD-R for their discs? Heck I'm glad some shows are coming to Blu-ray, but even those are flawed with the MPEG audio or something.

I was going to say "at least they do Print on Demand now so you can get shows that were otherwise out of print"

But I gave up caring after waiting 6 months for TRSI to get a show in stock as Media Blasters were dragging things out.

-------------

A Good Mastered DVD are only that... Good.

But even newer releases (most recent Sakura Trick for me) you can still see the DVD copy is a little more faded. And (in general) the Subtitles seem to have a better appearance on Bluray

I would love to know how many people are watching DVD's and saying they're Fine when they're watching them through a 1080p TV and an up-scaling DVD (or more likely Bluray) player
 
I would love to know how many people are watching DVD's and saying they're Fine when they're watching them through a 1080p TV and an up-scaling DVD (or more likely Bluray) player

I am, I am! So that's one. Blu-rays are generally better, but decently coded DVDs are fine. Some NTSC-PAL coded vintage discs, and some early US interlaced DVDs I have to watch on a CRT set, but most modern anime DVDs are watchable scaled up. And in some cases, Lucky Star, Ganutsuou, and FLCL, I'd much rather watch the DVDs than the up-scaled DNR destroyed, Blu-ray rubbish. All things being equal, I'd much rather have the Blu-ray, but I'm not going to suddenly say that the DVDs that I've been happily watching for 15 years now look like pants, as they were good enough before to watch.
 
I'm also watching DVD at upscaled 1080p

There's always going to be discord in regards to "quality" just imagine in a few years the enflamed discussions over the inevitable 4K vs 1080p BD disputes, then the 8K vs 4K, the 2D vs 3D holo projections etc
 
three letters - V....H...S. records up to 3 hours of content, slamming that thing into the player has you right where you left off, cheaper then a bag of chips and in it's day practically unenforceable law when it comes to piracy. the cons: if you want a certain episode you'll have to fast forward to it, no skip or menus here darling, and the resolution looks like someone keeps throwing up on the screen, and no copy protection so the missus can tape your wedding video over the entire series of violence jack.

but ye, I personally like BD myself, with newer series/films there's been effort to present it in the best quality, you could fit more episodes on BD, sony is using them with games to fit large file sizes onto, though I would say streaming is catching up and effecting physical sales. if everyone had good internet infrastructure most of us will have huge digital collections that are the best quality. you could buy a 4k TV for a few hundred bucks and have netlfix in 4k, where as a 4k capable player will cost a bomb and the 4k BDs are actually quite rare
 
three letters - V....H...S. records up to 3 hours of content, slamming that thing into the player has you right where you left off, cheaper then a bag of chips and in it's day practically unenforceable law when it comes to piracy. the cons: if you want a certain episode you'll have to fast forward to it, no skip or menus here darling, and the resolution looks like someone keeps throwing up on the screen, and no copy protection so the missus can tape your wedding video over the entire series of violence jack.

Hey, don't knock VHS! Before someone invented Blu-ray, the only way to watch HD video on an HD television was...

 
I've been on a bit of a nostalgia bender and watched the remasted DVDs of the original Transformers series recently and honestly, as much as I love my HD content, DVD's mastered from a high quality source look perfectly fine upscaled. I don't think I'd even bother upgrading these discs if they came out in HD.

I'm not the most knowledgeable videophile but it feels like some DVDs had the interlacing done poorly if that makes sense, where you can sometimes actually see the interlacing lines when they're playing, but those DVDs look shoddy even when they're not upscaled. It feels like the worst offenders in this regard are things that were produced in SD digitally and released in the mid 2000s, which sadly includes some of my favourites like Haibane Renmei, which really can't seem to catch a break with home video releases because the Blu-ray also looks horrid. Maybe they should just redraw the whole show...
 
I find that things often look better in my memory than when actually watching them, although the experience of watching things tends to be superior to the experience of remembering them (with some exceptions, especially with older things).

It wasn't my intention, but that statement seems like it could apply to more than just film/TV.

I suppose there are practical benefits to certain formats but you could argue that even a seemingly "inferior" format has the potential to offer a unique experience and that itself might be of value.

A remake/redrawing of Haibane Renmei would be pretty interesting (and even if it didn't go so well, at least the original would still exist). Maybe they could even do a reboot, with double the tea drinking and 20% more existential philosophy.
 
Somewhat odd topic, which I assume was sliced out of another thread? My general thoughts would be;

If it was animated in HD it'll look best on BD. The DvD version will benefit from the higher quality starting material so it will still look very good upscaled to 1080p.

If it was animated in SD you need god tier authoring to make the BD look good, and as we know very few shows came out without issues when upscaled and there's generally a good argument that the DvD version is best.

If it was originally Cel Animated then BD is favoured as you can obtain a higher bit rate for the image, though I suspect there may be appoint where more bit rate doesn't really matter.

Authoring skills and number of episodes per disc have an effect of course, fewer episodes per disc can only make Authoring easier as you have more space to work with and don't need to compromise.

At a high level it's basically a case of don't try to add quality that doesn't exist in the case of upscaling, and avoid losing quality because you trying to squash things, be that fitting them onto DvD's or too many episodes per disc.
 
Kind of interested to see this topic has its own thread now. I wouldn't have expected it to be something folks really had much discussion over.

Assuming you're tying this into the whole discontinuation of DVDs discussion, it's probably worth noting this is also a show that's streaming on Crunchyroll in HD, which most people here have a sub to. If I'd watched it on there and didn't like it so much, I will have saved a tenner, if I did like it a bunch, I wouldn't be satisfied owning a DVD copy, especially given I'd watched it in HD the first time. Buying this DVD, even if cheap, doesn't seem like a good investment, at least to me.

Just spotted that some posts have been moved out of the bargains thread into this one. I wasn't actually seeking to make a connection between the two discussions (nearly made a terse reply to Rui's post in the bargain thread before deducing what had actually happened. Hoo hoo! Nearly a nasty accident, as they say!)

What's worth pointing out here is that the argument put forward there has a pretty obvious flip side. The DotW is usually worth a punt for folks like me who can't or won't stream. Considering I have days where a two minute video on Youtube will take forever to buffer and load, the thought of watching anime via similar means doesn't really appeal.

But, I think it's like everything where consumers' ideas of what constitutes a bargain are concerned. Pays yer money, takes yer choice. I'm far happier paying a tenner to check out a show I've heard good things about but don't feel especially enthusiastic form even if it's not in HD.

In a couple of rare cases, I've picked up a DotW and decided I wanted it on Blu Ray. Kids on the Slope and Moribito come to mind. I've got the option then of Ebaying the DVDs, at least. It all depnds how likely I think it is that I'll watch the show again.
 
Back
Top