Defective or Disappointing UK Anime Discs

Neil.T said:
I actually rewatched Gyo yesterday just to see that again. :D


Fun fact: The film's director, Takayuki Hirao, said in an interview with NEO magazine (issue 103):

I can be nothing but happy with the unexpected number of "gross" and "I never want to see it again" responses.
Mission accomplished, then.

Mission accomplished, then.
Click to expand...

Damn that man for toying with me this way! Well, at least the disc was very cheap. Come to think of it I should have also cottoned on when I was buying it and saw that it was an Aniplex thing being sold for this little. I should have known something was amiss. :-D

There was also bit where they were sitting in the plane on the runway and the stewardess said something like "Could you turn that off? The plane is about to land", even though it hadn't taken off yet. I sometimes got the impression that the translator was doing these things on purpose. :-D
 
I believe there were a fair few people involved with GYO who never worked again. Just desserts, or hideous injustice? Discuss. Or don't.
 
Lord Bacchus said:
This is an old one, but I don't see this specific issue listed under it so here it is. I recall the Angel Beats Blu-ray (possibly the same on the DVD too) has a major subtitle clusterfuck on the final scene of the last episode. Basically it starts playing music in the background whilst both characters are talking to each other, and the result is that it translates both the character text and the music at the bottom of the screen in the same colour, so text literally obscures half of the entire screen and becomes difficult to read because the music and the dialogue are the same colour. It just kills the enjoyment of that entire scene.
Click to expand...

@Lord Bacchus gave me a good excuse to rewatch Angel Beats! :D

It's the DVD version I have. Just to confirm, it doesn't have the exact problem as the Blu-ray version described above. It does have a few problems of its own, though:


DVD list

Angel Beats (Manga UK): Dropping subtitles on episodes 10 and 11 (disc 2). Subtitles blink when overlapping (all episodes). Discs and inner sleeve are mislabelled with the episode split for the Blu-ray version.


Actually, I've been wondering about something for a while: why is it that Blu-ray subtitles sometimes blink when overlapping but sometimes they don't?
 
Neil.T said:
Actually, I've been wondering about something for a while: why is it that Blu-ray subtitles sometimes blink when overlapping but sometimes they don't?
Click to expand...

I believe this is an issue with some of the expensive authoring software used by a few of the big houses our anime distributors outsource to, though it's been known for years and still happens. It may also be combined with multiple issues with BD Java (which offers extra features on discs with the tradeoff that it breaks other things, like being able to resume playback the next time you watch, leading to an inconsistent user experience where some discs can resume and others can't for no apparent reason).

As you say, it's perfectly possible to do it properly and not have the subs blink so it's aggravating that the situation even exists.

R
 
Rui said:
I believe this is an issue with some of the expensive authoring software used by a few of the big houses our anime distributors outsource to, though it's been known for years and still happens. It may also be combined with multiple issues with BD Java (which offers extra features on discs with the tradeoff that it breaks other things, like being able to resume playback the next time you watch, leading to an inconsistent user experience where some discs can resume and others can't for no apparent reason).

As you say, it's perfectly possible to do it properly and not have the subs blink so it's aggravating that the situation even exists.

R
Click to expand...

I wondered what that was! I noticed I wasn't able to resume playback on AL's Gurren Lagann discs and just assumed it was my player screwing things up. Good to know, but it seems like a problem that companies should have ironed out by now considering Blu-ray has been around over ten years already.
 
Rui said:
I believe this is an issue with some of the expensive authoring software used by a few of the big houses our anime distributors outsource to, though it's been known for years and still happens. It may also be combined with multiple issues with BD Java (which offers extra features on discs with the tradeoff that it breaks other things, like being able to resume playback the next time you watch, leading to an inconsistent user experience where some discs can resume and others can't for no apparent reason).

As you say, it's perfectly possible to do it properly and not have the subs blink so it's aggravating that the situation even exists.

R
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that whilst possible, it was actually very difficult. Hence why the sub blink thing is so pervasive.
 
Neil.T said:
Wow, just like @Lord Bacchus, I had assumed that the resume issue was a player-related thing as well. (I've noticed it mostly with Kaze BDs.)

That's really interesting, @Rui. Thanks! :)
Click to expand...

I use a PS4 to watch Blu-rays, and I have also noticed another correlation relating to the discs which don't allow for resumed playback. Usually when you insert a Blu-ray disc into a PS4 or a PS3, the tile which you click on to play the disc will say the name of the thing on the disc and have a small image of it. On many of the ones which refuse to resume playback though, it just appears with a plain disc image and simply says "Blu-ray disc". I'm wondering if that has something to do with the issue during the authoring process which prevents you from resuming a disc after you've stopped it.
 
Lord Bacchus said:
On many of the ones which refuse to resume playback though, it just appears with a plain disc image and simply says "Blu-ray disc". I'm wondering if that has something to do with the issue during the authoring process which prevents you from resuming a disc after you've stopped it.
Click to expand...

Yes! I'd noticed that, too, on my Sony BD player.
 
Actually I've noticed that the other day on PS4 but I remember BD resuming fine on PS3, I remember quite well actually working fine with Steins Gate long time ago. But something did change in the software to cause that...?
 
bakum4tsu said:
Actually I've noticed that the other day on PS4 but I remember BD resuming fine on PS3, I remember quite well actually working fine with Steins Gate long time ago. But something did change in the software to cause that...?
Click to expand...

It depends on the disc. If the disc is authoured to use BD Java, which is effectively invisible to the user unless they're into BD technology on that level, the disc won't resume. I believe there are workarounds but this is the general rule. If BD Java isn't used, it will resume but lack whatever features it might have had otherwise. It's bewildering that they managed to make such a complete hash of the BD standard (imagine how many forum rows would be ended if the subtitles were more configurable!) after years of DVD setting an example.

I seem to recall having a conversation with someone at Sentai/S23/ADV/whatever once about the issue with flickering subtitles, and (please forgive my memory) it was something about the ridiculously expensive commercial authouring software they use causing the flickering and houses being unwilling or unable (financially) to change their software solution for an issue which normally doesn't affect many people. Many shows don't have any issues because none of the dialogue overlaps anyway so there's no need to flash the subtitles in the first place. Of course, with anime it does affect a lot of us and it's rather disruptive, especially when background songs are being translated too, and people don't seem to QC the subtitle track to mitigate the issue for a lot of releases. There was some debate over here back when Star Driver (IIRC) was being released as we were trying to work out which country would have a version with subtitles which didn't suck.

It might be a good one to ask as an ANN Answerman submission if anyone feels like writing it up since Justin is bound to know the full story.

R
 
Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (Blu-ray)

There are several instances in episode 7 where part of the dialogue is mistakenly left unsubtitled when watching with subs on. The disc I am using is included in the Webshop exclusive Collector's edition, but I would imagine it is the same in the Ultimate Edition, and the upcoming Standard Edition. It is on disc 1 of 2. I am currently watching through this for the first time, so I will update this with any further issues.
 
Lord Bacchus said:
Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (Blu-ray)

There are several instances in episode 7 where part of the dialogue is mistakenly left unsubtitled when watching with subs on. The disc I am using is included in the Webshop exclusive Collector's edition, but I would imagine it is the same in the Ultimate Edition, and the upcoming Standard Edition. It is on disc 1 of 2. I am currently watching through this for the first time, so I will update this with any further issues.
Click to expand...

notably missing subtitle translations at 2.03:12, 2.27:42, and 2.29:03 on disc 1
 
Neil.T said:
So, what kind of features does BD Java allow?
Click to expand...
Quite a lot actually, it can be used to make more dynamic menus, add interactivity during (normal) playback, implement simple games, fetch resources from the internet.
Sadly, it is often used to implement additional anti-copy protection mechanisms and causes limitations like not being able to resume a disc.
Personally, I think HDMV offers more than enough flexibility.

As for the subtitle flickering, all I know is that the subtitle format on BDs requires you to actively stop each subtitle line.
So, I guess the authoring software in question simply always terminates a line, rather than (directly) repeating the line along with the concurrent line.

In an ideal world the subtitles would have been stored as text on the disc, allowing the user to alter the font, font-size, placement, etc... to their hearts content. But alas, we're stuck with bitmap based subtitles.:(
 
I don't know if it counts as a fault considering it's a copy of the US release from Sentai but Animatsu's Triage X BD release appears to have locked subtitles (Don't know about the DVD version though which I think is also a direct copy of the US release since it's NTSC), and yes I know it's sub only but I figure there are people out there who'd like to turn off the subtitles once in a while
 
Back
Top