Defective or Disappointing UK Anime Discs

Re: Defective UK anime discs

Well, Manga UK do release more than anyone else so in their defense they probably aren't quite as uniquely sloppy as the list implies. However, there are limits to how many times it's reasonable to forgive the same problem and I'm surprised by how many of the errors are audio or subtitle related - are they QCing the discs with the sound off? :(

R
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Manga UK is what, 2 people fulltime? Maybe a couple more wandering in and out of the offices. Dragon Ball Z Season 4 is 743 minutes, 2229 minutes with all three soundtracks, two subtitles tracks, and they need to check audio and visual on 5.1 and 2.0 set-ups. Proper QC would require checking the discs on a variety of players, different brands of DVD and Blu-ray, as well as games consoles and computer drives...

Not excusing them, but explaining why a some flaws sneak through. QC becomes 10 times as hard if you actually dislike what you're watching as well. My guess is that with Manga using Madman masters for their releases, they're relying on Madman doing the QC for them.

And if a mega company with more money, employees and dedicated QC departments like Paramount can screw up on the Star Trek TNG Blu-ray release, then why not Manga?
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Some of the flaws don't even need a playthrough to spot as they're clear from the menu. I hope someone at Manga is roasting Madman on a regular basis for this. QC is the first thing people skip when cutting costs, but if the quality drops too low nobody is going to want to keep buying the product.

R
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

House of Five Leaves from Beez.

I hope someone can confirm this, as it's an audio thing and not a video thing, and I'm not as great with audio problems.

Anyway, I think the stereo is screwy on about half the episodes. I've only seen the first disc as yet and am sure that episodes 3 and 4 are affected, and skipping through the rest of the episodes I noticed it on episodes 5,6,7, and 12, as well as most of the OP credits, all the ED credits, and all the next episode previews.

Anyway, it sounds like a phase inversion problem, but one that is added to the correct audio, instead of in place of. Stereo works with audio from two speakers combining to centralise dialogue and keep effects and ambience to the sides. Phase inversion reverses this, making audio sound hollow and enveloping rather than smooth and central. In the affected episodes, its as if a phase inverted track has been added to the correct audio track, so dialogue is centralised and pushed to the sides, while music and effects get pulled to the center as well. The bright side is that the dialogue is always clear and central regardless, so the episodes are watchable. But in the affected episodes, the stereo effect can sound muddied and hollow, and that makes the music sound weird.

And the authoring is crap. If you try and skip the copyright screen after selecting your language, it will play all three copyright screens before getting to the main menu. And if you press the menu button during playback, you have a better than 90% chance of crashing the disc and having to play it again, instead of jumping back to the main menu. Like Kaze discs, it also locks the player timer, although fortunately not the subtitle button.

But like I said, audio is a bit of a subjective thing for me, so I'd be grateful if someone can confirm or refute this. Although those episodes did sound like crap to me, 'sound like crap' isn't much of an error report.
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

My hearing absolutely sucks, but even I noticed a problem specifically during one of the endings (IIRC) when I watched it where the audio sounded terribly garbled; it was almost an echo effect so what you describe might be possible. I didn't notice it with the prevalence you describe, but PAL speedup always sounds gross to me so I might just have blocked it out.

I didn't experience the playback issues on my setup, thankfully. However, if you haven't watched The Tatami Galaxy yet please be warned that I noticed something similar during one of the opening sequences in that so you might have a second dose coming up.

I actually have the US version of House Of Five Leaves now, so I can compare when I have time. Because of my hearing issues though, I'll struggle to separate problems with background noise and weird-sounding sped-up noise. Perhaps if I record a short clip from both someone with superior ears can verify the issue?

R
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Rui said:
My hearing absolutely sucks, but even I noticed a problem specifically during one of the endings (IIRC) when I watched it where the audio sounded terribly garbled; it was almost an echo effect so what you describe might be possible. I didn't notice it with the prevalence you describe, but PAL speedup always sounds gross to me so I might just have blocked it out.

I didn't experience the playback issues on my setup, thankfully. However, if you haven't watched The Tatami Galaxy yet please be warned that I noticed something similar during one of the opening sequences in that so you might have a second dose coming up.

I actually have the US version of House Of Five Leaves now, so I can compare when I have time. Because of my hearing issues though, I'll struggle to separate problems with background noise and weird-sounding sped-up noise. Perhaps if I record a short clip from both someone with superior ears can verify the issue?

R
Click to expand...

It's not a PAL speedup problem, but a problem with the way that the audio channels are encoded for stereo. If I remember, the first NISA release had mono audio anyway and they had to issue a recall.

the audio sounded terribly garbled; it was almost an echo effect
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I mean. It's a problem that would be more obvious with stereo heavy audio like music and effects, not with dialogue, and HOFL is a dialogue heavy piece. It also depends on what you watch it on. I first watched it on my old CRT set, but that's got a Prologic setup with surround speakers, and while episode 3 did sound weirder than the first two, it wasn't ringing too many alarm bells. It was when I watched it on a home cinema that I got close to the speakers to try and figure it out.

The same thing happened with Brave Story. Up till this year, I never had the chance to watch it on home cinema, it was always on the other TV, and I never realised. This year when I finally had a proper listen is when I realised. It's a shame as the movie actually has a featurette on Skywalker Sound (where the film's audio was mixed), which the 5.1 cock-up really kills.
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Yeah, I have the fixed NISA discs. It's weird that I only noticed the problem on the Beez version during one ending. I'll pop it on the list (along with Tatami Galaxy) and if anyone with good hearing wants to analyse it in more depth I'll link it in.

R
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Durarara had similar issues and is from the same late Beez sub-only period. Notably, all the mentioned titles are Siren shows and probably mastered by them.

On the subject of PAL speedup, Madman pitch correct (judging by Durarara, Siren clearly do not).
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Shiroi Hane said:
Durarara had similar issues and is from the same late Beez sub-only period. Notably, all the mentioned titles are Siren shows and probably mastered by them.

On the subject of PAL speedup, Madman pitch correct (judging by Durarara, Siren clearly do not).
Click to expand...

Didn't notice any audio problems of that sort with Siren's Durarara, although volume 1 some subtitle issues. Notably Siren's Durarara release contains the English dub, so the disc were obviously remastered. Obviously so, since Beez discs are pan European, while Siren's are English/Japanese only.
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Durarara is the first time I can recall being really aware of the pitch change, possibly because I was very familiar with the opening theme and I think the music playing on the menus was normal pitch making it even more obvious.

I hadn't even considered that Siren's release was dubbed - it was also released there a couple of months after the UK, like the US. I was just thinking about them all being Siren licenses.
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Anyone else having issues with the Totoro BD Subtitles?
Of all the times I tried to switch to sub track 1 throughout the movie, there was only two instances where the subtitles actually appeared.
Every other time it was as if they were still off.
Using the popup menu to change to Japanese with Subtitles didn't work either, and left me with the Japanese audio with no subtitles.
Sub track 2 on the other hand doesn't appear to work at all (Tried during the movie and the OP/ED sequences and it didn't work once), so I have no idea what that is for.

For me it wasn't much of an issue as I was satisfied with the Dub, but I was wondering whether anyone else was experiencing the same problems.
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Sub 1 and Sub 2 on the Totoro disc are identical, the same stream repeated over, and both worked fine for me on my Panasonic Blu-ray player. Did you try selecting Japanese with subs before starting the film, how did that work for you? What player are you using?
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Just Passing Through said:
Sub 1 and Sub 2 on the Totoro disc are identical, the same stream repeated over, and both worked fine for me on my Panasonic Blu-ray player. Did you try selecting Japanese with subs before starting the film, how did that work for you? What player are you using?
Click to expand...
I didn't try before starting the movie, but I was getting these issues whilst trying to switch tracks during the film.
Using a Toshiba BDX3200 with regionfree firmware, I'll try it on my PS3 later when I feel like dragging it out of my cupboard.

Edit: I played around with turning subtitles on/off in a few scenes at the start of the movie. No issues on the PS3, and both sub tracks work. Maybe player specific issue? I'll test it on my 3200 again later.
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

Having rewatched Ghost Hunt recently and been forced to switch back to the dub, worth mentioning that there is something very wrong with the Japanese audio track, probably phasing issues again.

Checking now, it may actually only be the first disc. No, tell a lie - the first OP on disc 2 sounds like it's been put through a flanger.
The discs in volume 2 are at least better, although there is still a quite marked difference in the OP between the English and Japanese tracks.

I asked about it at the time, although no-one else seemed to have the same problems:
http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthread.php?p=1588018
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

I bought Tokyo Godfathers from Amazon the other day and when a character speaks Spanish there's no subtitles.....anyone else have that problem?
 
Re: Defective UK anime discs

That's the way it's supposed to be. It's from the homeless girl's point of view, and it's recognising the fact that she can't communicate with the Spanish speaking woman.
 
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