Defective or Disappointing UK Anime Discs

[NormanicGrav]

So to summarise:

- Audio issues (JP Audio mainly) can be fixed since it's down to the encoder.
- Capture Errors are not a huge issue since it was worse beforehand and you guys had to make a tough decision for the end result.

That sounds fine by me. Which then leaves the other issue: what about the audio skip then (which Mangaranga mentioned)? I assume that was also down to the encoder or is it unrepairable?

No problem at all - this project was close to me and we spent a lot of time on it including a whole re-encode of the video to raise the bit-rate based on feedback so I like to clarify what's going on before folks burn me at ye olde stake!

Will have a post re MCM tomorrow - expect some sales, some license announcements and a lot of cool promo for Space Dandy!

Best,

AP

Can't wait for the sales result (and also the license announcements)!

 

[anime_andrew]

So to summarise:

- Audio issues (JP Audio mainly) can be fixed since it's down to the encoder.
- Capture Errors are not a huge issue since it was worse beforehand and you guys had to make a tough decision for the end result.

That sounds fine by me. Which then leaves the other issue: what about the audio skip then (which Mangaranga mentioned)? I assume that was also down to the encoder or is it unrepairable?[/quote[

I'm looking into the audio skip mentioned because we flagged all errors and they should have been fixed especially as I'm very sure (it was months ago of course though) that we checked the fixes too and they were done!

Best,

AP

 

[Mangaranga]

I've looked into the audio issue as we used what was supplied - it sounds like based on investigation it may be a decoder issue on that one as one reviewer suggested that (for us it's quieter but not tinny nor could the authoring house replicate it on multiple QCs).

Re capture errors - I'm afraid what you linked are issues that were there even on the source material for the first one and the second isn't a capture error but a fix to a tape that was drastically out of sync that had to be lifted from the TV eps. We were supplied no moving video for that portion so the authoring house had to patch in under a minute of DVD footage and yes it shows - but it beats no movement at all and being stuck on that frame.

On the video front - much as I'm normally the first to launch off the handle if something isn't ideal, the two points raised are very isolated things that you won't find elsewhere and I strongly don't believe they take away from the overall experience. Let me look into the audio point again to be sure - but would be interested to hear from others too .

Best,

AP,
Sorry if I've missed anything, but have just finished two weeks of SLA and am exhausted, but have MCM prep to do tomorrow inc all the PR!

Tinny may not be the right way to describe it, it's just got no punch to it. It's got some sort of echo effect going on and it definitely doesn't sound right. To me it's really noticable, and that in itself is discouraging me from rewaching with Japanese audio again. On the video capture errors - is it safe to assume that's the reason why that clip in episode 10 is now also low quality (originally it skipped frames for a second or two, but now it's a 10 second low quality clip). In the same episode the English audio also goes in and out of sync depending on the scene, so something must've been up. Was it not possible to go back to the licensor and request fixed materials? I mean, footage being missing isn't exactly a minor thing.

Oh, and please don't take this as me ripping into you Andrew. I really do like you and your team, and I appreciate you shedding some light on the situation, I just can't help feeling kind of disappointed - especially when Aniplex will begin releasing what is pretty much the Japanese BDs in a month.

 

[anime_andrew]

Tinny may not be the right way to describe it, it's just got no punch to it. It's got some sort of echo effect going on and it definitely doesn't sound right. To me it's really noticable, and that in itself is discouraging me from rewaching with Japanese audio again. On the video capture errors - is it safe to assume that's the reason why that clip in episode 10 is now also low quality (originally it skipped frames for a second or two, but now it's a 10 second low quality clip). In the same episode the English audio also goes in and out of sync depending on the scene, so something must've been up. Was it not possible to go back to the licensor and request fixed materials? I mean, footage being missing isn't exactly a minor thing.

Oh, and please don't take this as me ripping into you Andrew. I really do like you and your team, and I appreciate you shedding some light on the situation, I just can't help feeling kind of disappointed - especially when Aniplex will begin releasing what is pretty much the Japanese BDs in a month.

Nah - nothing personal in it, just exhausted after SLA but wanted to address this now rather than later! Basically though - even with the "reduced price" GL sets from AoA - you're still paying £155.05 after discount for the whole set, not including import tax and shipping. For the issues at hand - I'm really sure it's not worth the inflation especially given difference in packaging quality and extras. Each to their own on that frontier though but basically a resupply was off the cards, AoA is swamped just now so if a resupply had been possible you'd be faced with far more ??? levels of delays while we tried to resolve things that way sadly or we would have.

Re the lack of punch - that's very likely the way we got the materials and had to integrate things in. Fixes were made to negate that the best we could after but sounds like there's still some encoder issues kicking around we can't fix on this side. I'd really need to do some battery tests to be sure - which I'll do asap.

Like I say - at end of the day I appreciate the intense examination too - it drives us to do better everytime. But to be clear - the things being picked up on are not like Durarara nor Cowboy Bebop. Like I said before, we went to a great deal of effort including upping bitrate to the max that was sane following feedback - so a lot of work went into this and I'll explain anything that pops out to folks too .

Best,

AP

 

[megagold5]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

 

[antonusklesk]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

I didn't post a picture, but mine is also like this. So that's at least three of us with this issue with the third tray.

Strange thing is I'm sure it wasn't like that when I received it, only after standing up for a while did it go like that for me - like the glue is too supple.

 

[jonno394]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

I'm sorry but that post really made me laugh at work, I can't wait to see mine!

 

[Buzzkillington]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

Mine also had this problem, except it was both the single disc trays for me and both were down in the corners, one left and one right, flush with the bottom of the digi-pack. I was able to pull mine off and move them into the right spot as the glue seemed really crappy, I was kind of paranoid I would damage it but it was annoying me too much to just leave it.

 

[Southe]

Got mine earlier, mine is nice and secure, but. I really dislike that kind of packaging. I think due to fewer disks the Bebop and DRRR sets work nicely, but the GL one seems a bit flimsy. Might just me. Now i have to rearrange by shelves because the GL set won't fit in any of them =/

 

[Cloud Strife]

Thanks for the responses Andrew. Appreciated, especially after such a chaotic fortnight you seem to have had!

I do think sometimes people nitpick a bit too much. I figured that most of the issues would be source / materials issues and that's understandable. For a 26 episode and 2 film release, I think there are only a few very minor issues that seem to have been picked out.

Should we be excited for anything new from MCM?

No problem at all - this project was close to me and we spent a lot of time on it including a whole re-encode of the video to raise the bit-rate based on feedback so I like to clarify what's going on before folks burn me at ye olde stake!

Will have a post re MCM tomorrow - expect some sales, some license announcements and a lot of cool promo for Space Dandy!

Best,

AP

Thanks for the quick response Andrew, i've just gone ahead with the order from Amazon

 

[Peachy]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

I had a similar issue, third one was right in the bottom far left and the fourth one was twisted, they're easy to pull off and stick back on though, I have to do it every now and then with some of the Studio Canal Collections.

 

[Cel]

My 3rd one is stuck in the top left, everything else seems fine though.

 

[VoxPhantom]

Third is also stuck up in the top left on mine, whilst the fourth is at a 45 degree angle. Not a massive issue though!

 

[jonboy]

The third was also tilted on my set as well! Must be a factory mess up. I managed to straighten it, hopefully it stays there

The digipak design was not a good idea for this. They should have done something like the dark knight trilogy ultimate edition where the discs slip into a sturdy cardboard background.

 

[anime_andrew]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

I'm in full beatings mode for the factory right now - watch this space and will get back to folks as is wholly unacceptable even if in a limited number. I've covered this elsewhere (recent releases) but we specifically asked them to ensemeure no integrity issues or we'd use another way to store the discs. Extremely frustrated that they clearly did not do this.

It is fixable in short term at least by lifting carefully and reattaching where wanted (on 99% of those impacted this is viable) but we're also chasing replacement digipacks as we worked so hard on this release, to see someone else cock it up for us is really depressing and upsetting so we're on finding a solution asap.

Andrew,
President, Anime Ltd

 

[Rosencrantz]

Same issue with the third one on mine too, it's not as stuck down as it should be

 

[megagold5]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

I'm in full beatings mode for the factory right now - watch this space and will get back to folks as is wholly unacceptable even if in a limited number. I've covered this elsewhere (recent releases) but we specifically asked them to ensemeure no integrity issues or we'd use another way to store the discs. Extremely frustrated that they clearly did not do this.

It is fixable in short term at least by lifting carefully and reattaching where wanted (on 99% of those impacted this is viable) but we're also chasing replacement digipacks as we worked so hard on this release, to see someone else cock it up for us is really depressing and upsetting so we're on finding a solution asap.

Andrew,
President, Anime Ltd

Good to see you are on warpath. Can't image how so many got passed like this, I figured they would check these at the factory, particularly for something so expensive.

 

[anime_andrew]

Well, as far as I can see, GL Ultimate is an excellent boxset, with one caviat....Whomever stuck in the third plastic holder needs a good seeing to.

Mine is at a near 45 degree angle. Granted, it is closer to the center, unlike the one posted in the weekly releases thread, but still. Looks really odd.

I'm in full beatings mode for the factory right now - watch this space and will get back to folks as is wholly unacceptable even if in a limited number. I've covered this elsewhere (recent releases) but we specifically asked them to ensemeure no integrity issues or we'd use another way to store the discs. Extremely frustrated that they clearly did not do this.

It is fixable in short term at least by lifting carefully and reattaching where wanted (on 99% of those impacted this is viable) but we're also chasing replacement digipacks as we worked so hard on this release, to see someone else cock it up for us is really depressing and upsetting so we're on finding a solution asap.

Andrew,
President, Anime Ltd

Good to see you are on warpath. Can't image how so many got passed like this, I figured they would check these at the factory, particularly for something so expensive.

What I think has happened is that the glue held on initial shipment to Sony DADC - but what happened is in initial transport it wasn't packed so well and that tray was weaker and came off when ingested into the warehouse. We treat this very seriously though so am on it now!

Andrew

 

[antonusklesk]

As usual wonderful communication Andrew, thanks for the updates.

It's not great but I do sympathise; having suppliers do this sort of thing in any line of business, especially if you specifically asked them not to, is incredibly frustrating - even more so when said line of business is something you're passionate about (a side of the supplier-based frustration I unfortunately can't say I've experienced).

I'm sure they'll try and correct the issue for you though. And despite all the hubbub, I'm loving watching through the show again, which is what it's all about at the end of the day!

 

[Lutga]

Just got mine in the post and thought I'd share pics too

Mine has the exact same issue with the slanted tray as shown above - bizarre that it's the exact same error! Also, I know this is probably very hard to avoid during all the transit of the package, but the spine of the digipack is quite noticeably bent.

I'm very relaxed about these kinds of things - tbh I'm just glad to have the release now, and am more concerned about watching and enjoying it - but can imagine your frustration Andrew about this seeming to affect quite a few people