Comments about Cowboy Bebop BD release

[anime_andrew]

Of course, some players might hide the glitch. People upset about it should probably drop Anime Limited a message to make sure they're considered when the corrected copies are produced (and keep suggesting to their friends to buy copies, so that the second print run happens sooner!).

R

I assume there's been no official word on how to go about getting a replacement disc at this time?

Not yet, but we'll post as soon as we have fixed discs in hand (almost no point in doing so beforehand really). We're also working on it to avoid any issues with future releases!

If concerned drop us a PM on Anime Limited's FB and Kerry, who runs marketing will note it all down. I'm really pushing into her turf here by answering but I just enjoy chatting to people ^^;;;!

Best,

AP

 

[anime_andrew]

It's an outstanding release for the most part. For one thing, I don't think I've ever seen such a small chipboard box; they could've tossed off a cardstock slipcase but they went the extra mile and gave us something of real quality. The booklet was a nice suprirse, and while the content isn't fantastic (just b&w line art), it's notable for being a rare example of a tangible physical extra for a UK release. And the subtitles are perfect: white, a nice font, and on the small side. I won't be reading them for this particular show since for me Steve Blum IS Spike, but it's encouraging for future releases.

Duly noted and we're keen on the font too so will be aiming to keep it via our timer in future!

The only disappointments are the video glitch, that weird thing mentioned elsewhere about the disc returning to the menu after using "Play All" (had this on a Beez disc...), and the lack of chapter stops which means I can't skip past the opening credits, the end credits, or the next episode preview. Seriously, this is something that anime distributors have been getting right since the early days of DVD, so there's really no excuse.

Indeed and we'll be keeping an eye on it in the future too - sorry for that!

I'm also not entirely sold on the cover design - too much redundant text and the Anime Limted logo is hideous (seems UK distros are competing to see who can come up with the ugliest, most obtrusive logo). Guys, see this? The clean, almost text-free cover? The discreet plain text logo? Just copy that template and I'll stop moaning. Honest.

Duly noted again and we'll look into it - we're pretty happy with our logo to be fair, although we can always evaluate a better global positioning for it in the future if that makes things better for folks! Can't say we're going to rip that format off wholesale but the points are duly noted going forwards.

Ah, I can't believe I finally have Cowboy Bebop on Blu-ray, at a great price, a whole 13 years after I bought the first of those awful looking Bandai DVDs. And I even woke up this morning to a £1.49 refund from Amazon because they lowered the price between the time they sent my copy and the release date. It just keeps on giving.

\o/!

Andrew

 

[Rosencrantz]

The only disappointments are the video glitch, that weird thing mentioned elsewhere about the disc returning to the menu after using "Play All" (had this on a Beez disc...), and the lack of chapter stops which means I can't skip past the opening credits, the end credits, or the next episode preview. Seriously, this is something that anime distributors have been getting right since the early days of DVD, so there's really no excuse.

Indeed and we'll be keeping an eye on it in the future too - sorry for that!

This is probably my biggest niggle once we get past the video/numbering.

It's very odd/inconvenient to not have chapter stops where they have always been on 99% of Anime.

I'd also like to add that when selecting say episode 3 from the menu I would normally expect episode 4 to start after 3 finishes rather than being kicked back to the main menu. Makes it very hard to watch stuff if you don't do a whole disc at a time (Not had a chance to watch my copy yet bar a few tests so I don't know much about this paly all problem)

 

[Mangaranga]

If you're answering questions Andrew can I ask why the audio commentaries are set up the way they are? (I did ask this on Twitter)
If I'm watching episode 1 for example, and I want to watch with the commentary, why can't I just switch to the audio track on the fly like any other normal release. It's not like the audio or subtitles are locked so what is the point in making certain audio streams inaccessible during normal playback? That's Kaze level annoyance there.

 

[Just Passing Through]

If you're answering questions Andrew can I ask why the audio commentaries are set up the way they are? (I did ask this on Twitter)
If I'm watching episode 1 for example, and I want to watch with the commentary, why can't I just switch to the audio track on the fly like any other normal release. It's not like the audio or subtitles are locked so what is the point in making certain audio streams inaccessible during normal playback? That's Kaze level annoyance there.

I wish I had a Blu-ray Player that had a disc display like my Sony DVD player. On Manga's Cat Planet Cuties release, the episodes with commentaries are physically recorded twice on the discs, once with the commentary, and once with Japanese/English audio. It's impossible to change audio tracks on that quite obviously, and it's also wasteful of disc real estate, and results in unnecessarily compressed video.

I wonder if something similar was done on the Cowboy Bebop Blu-rays. Although there's certainly no problem with video quality.

 

[Mangaranga]

=I wish I had a Blu-ray Player that had a disc display like my Sony DVD player. On Manga's Cat Planet Cuties release, the episodes with commentaries are physically recorded twice on the discs, once with the commentary, and once with Japanese/English audio. It's impossible to change audio tracks on that quite obviously, and it's also wasteful of disc real estate, and results in unnecessarily compressed video.

I wonder if something similar was done on the Cowboy Bebop Blu-rays. Although there's certainly no problem with video quality.

I'm assuming it's the same as Code Geass where all three audio streams are on the same episode, but only two are accessible. Having a separate episode for it is just stupid and a waste of space.

 

[SnowWolf]

Cowboy Bebop is my first Blu ray I bought for my player and now I've got a small problem. When the characters move quickly I see horizontal lines. I sometimes have this problem with dvds on my laptop.

Could it be because my tv can only go up to 720p or do I need an HDMI cable?

 

[Rui]

Cowboy Bebop is my first Blu ray I bought for my player and now I've got a small problem. When the characters move quickly I see horizontal lines. I sometimes have this problem with dvds on my laptop.

Could it be because my tv can only go up to 720p or do I need an HDMI cable?

These things probably won't help. The lines you see are from the interlaced video (search for interlacing and combing to see some examples). Cowboy Bebop is presented in 1080i rather than 1080p; this is not Anime Limited's fault as I believe the Japanese set was the same. It's less common to have interlaced video on Blu-ray than it was back in the DVD period, but it still happens occasionally.

Some TVs and players can compensate for the effect better than others. Check your equipment's settings to see if there's an option for deinterlacing and the effects should (more or less) disappear.

Your laptop player probably has an option to deinterlace the DVDs you watch as well, buried somewhere in a menu.

R

 

[SnowWolf]

Cowboy Bebop is my first Blu ray I bought for my player and now I've got a small problem. When the characters move quickly I see horizontal lines. I sometimes have this problem with dvds on my laptop.

Could it be because my tv can only go up to 720p or do I need an HDMI cable?

These things probably won't help. The lines you see are from the interlaced video (search for interlacing and combing to see some examples). Cowboy Bebop is presented in 1080i rather than 1080p; this is not Anime Limited's fault as I believe the Japanese set was the same. It's less common to have interlaced video on Blu-ray than it was back in the DVD period, but it still happens occasionally.

Some TVs and players can compensate for the effect better than others. Check your equipment's settings to see if there's an option for deinterlacing and the effects should (more or less) disappear.

Your laptop player probably has an option to deinterlace the DVDs you watch as well, buried somewhere in a menu.

R

How can you tell? Is it written on the back of the case somewhere?

It says 1920x1080p on the back of the Bebop case.

 

[Rui]

I believe that's a typo since the original material wasn't available in that form. It is usually written on the case as 1080i so you can tell

(Except with certain Sentai Filmworks releases where they intentionally degraded the video from 1080p to 1080i to discourage exports, then concealed it on the box...!)

R

 

[Mangaranga]

I believe that's a typo since the original material wasn't available in that form. It is usually written on the case as 1080i so you can tell

(Except with certain Sentai Filmworks releases where they intentionally degraded the video from 1080p to 1080i to discourage exports, then concealed it on the box...!)

R

Andrew did actually post somewhere in response to a reviewer stating that Bebop was 1080i instead of 1080p.
I'll try to find it.

EDIT: Source

Hello!

Sorry for the English reply but I’d rather do that than Google Translate a reply!

1. 1920x1080p

The TV series was created in 4:3 ratio, there has never been a widescreen version officially released. The video is still in 1080 and has been pillarboxed to make it 1920x1080p as labeled on the box

It’s a common complaint but we will not alter the original video formats that were provided us by Sunrise – they’re the ones they used on the Blu-Ray in Japan so we prefer to remain faithful ^^.

2. PACKAGING – RELATIONSHIP TO BEBOP

While I can understand your initial thought that the Digipack to Cowboy Bebop has no relationship to the series barring harking back to the era it was released – there are actually two things that it was chosen for that are a love letter to the series.

i. The 5.1 Surround Sound anniversary edition came out in Japan each disc was contained

ii. The fact Spike and Jet is chasing after a Betacam tape player in Speak Like a Child sparked our trail of thoughts on this too – they come back with a VHS player instead! So our BD release was modeled on VHS tapes for the digipack and the DVD set will be based on a Betamax. It’s subtle but we hope fans appreciate the link into that episode ^^.

Incidentally, we presented the release style and digipack to the original producer and now President of BONES, Masahiko Minami, who laughed with glee at Tokyo Anime Fair this year and said it was, and I quote, “Very in the style of Bebop.” As high a praise as I’m going to get, so it works for me!

That said, if you have any suggestions for future releases of Bebop for packaging do fire away with an email via the above ^^!

3 HIGHER DISC COUNT != HIGHER QUALITY

Regarding 7 discs vs 4 discs – this doesn’t necessarily actually mean a decrease in quality. As the process in Japan is to author for more discs in general it’s not often considered to drop the disc count in practice despite the business logic in doing so. Using BD50 this does not necessarily mean a loss in quality even if there are more episodes per disc.

I may have misunderstood though so feel free to give some examples of differences in quality due to 7 discs in Japan and 4 discs for the EU release if I’ve missed the point ^^;;;!

Hope this helps and sorry again for the English reply!

Very best regards,

Andrew Partridge,
President, Anime Limited

Andrew does also make the point of talking about Disc count vs Quality. I would agree if it was not for the fact that the files on the overseas domestic releases are compressed to be 50/60% of the size of the Japanese files even if they do not need to be. To bring in a completely unrelated example, The Garden of Words was compressed for its US release (9.6gb versus 14.9gb on the JP BD) and there are parts where it is noticable.

 

[Joshawott]

ii. The fact Spike and Jet is chasing after a Betacam tape player in Speak Like a Child sparked our trail of thoughts on this too – they come back with a VHS player instead! So our BD release was modeled on VHS tapes for the digipack and the DVD set will be based on a Betamax. It’s subtle but we hope fans appreciate the link into that episode ^^.

Anime Limited just won the internet and everything.

 

[SnowWolf]

I believe that's a typo since the original material wasn't available in that form. It is usually written on the case as 1080i so you can tell

(Except with certain Sentai Filmworks releases where they intentionally degraded the video from 1080p to 1080i to discourage exports, then concealed it on the box...!)

R

Andrew did actually post somewhere in response to a reviewer stating that Bebop was 1080i instead of 1080p.
I'll try to find it.

Thanks guy, appreciate the info.

Sadly it looks like neither my BD player nor my TV have any deinterlacing features or maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I would have expected it to be obvious. My player does have a resolution setting for 1080i, but my TV can only go up to 720p. I have a few options:

1) Hold on to it until I need to replace my TV/BD player.
2) Return it and preorder the DVD release.
3) Hold on to it until my laptop breaks down, which I know will only be a few months away and get one with a BD player.
4) Put up with it, end of story.

Edit: Bought an HDMI cable and that's somehow fixed it.

 

[Mangaranga]

Going back to the whole thing with the Bebop Audio commentary setup, I finally got around to buying Anydvd HD so now I can look at the files.
It's exactly the same as the Code Geass commentaries, except for some reason the commentary track is on there twice:

My question still stands, why is it restricted during normal playback on a BD player/PS3?

 

[BDT87]

I feel sad that the previous posts got removed at the start of this thread.
I know this was back in March, but look we have have had a few problems haven't we.
More glitches on Collection 2 of Cowboy Bebop.
Cowboy Bebop DVD Collection delayed and Perfect Blue (Blue-Ray) delayed.
Now I don't want to start another argument again or anything but I hate to say told you so for the people who had a go at me.
They have had a few problems but at least they are sorting it out which is awesome. Just shows don't go all excited until a new company release something.
Can't wait for Gurren Lagann this Spring.

 

[VoxPhantom]

Now I don't want to start another argument again or anything but I hate to say told you so for the people who had a go at me.

Why bother with this post then?

 

[reborn]

Because clearly it is their intention as much as they wish to deny it.

 

[BDT87]

Not really, anyway sticking to the topic.
I wonder if they will pick up the license of the movie. I only just watched it this year and I enjoyed it of what it was.
Be great to have all the franchise on Blu-ray like they will do with Gurren Lagann.

 

[jonno394]

Sony own the rights to the movie (I imported it myself on the back of the two AL BD sets)

 

[NitroEx]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I felt this question isn't important enough to warrant it's own topic.

I was wondering if anyone else on here has sent an email requesting replacement discs for the screen glitch issue and if they've received a reply yet.

I followed All the Anime's instructions (http://www.alltheanime.com/cowboy-bebop-discs/) and sent an email providing the appropriate details but have yet to receive any sort of reply or confirmation and I'm curious if this is the same for everyone else or just me?