I found a review on amazon for the S,more release of Galaxy Express 999 tv series and as expected it does not look good.Here is the full review,read in horror and disappointment.
Well, I received the set today and I believe my worst fears were realized. The video quality is exactly the same as the streaming version. Macro blocking. Muddy colors. Compression noise. I've essentially paid for what I can watch for free on-line (most Anime streaming services have offered this series for several years now). The only difference is, I don't have to watch commercials on the DVDs. Small consolation for this price.
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Video quality -
In a word, horrible. With the hard coded subtitles, there are a ton of compression issues surrounding the text. The text is easy to read, but anything under the text is made massively ugly. There is color banding in solid colors (black background looks alive). Finer detail is lost due to compression. I'm almost positive that S'More just took the streaming video and slapped it onto DVD. That's how they were able to cram 10 episodes onto a single disc.
Menus -
The menu is OK. It's simple. You can watch all episodes or choose a single episode from the menu. It is functional.
Extras -
The listed extras are listed as scripts from the show. This is the only extra available, and as odd as it is to say, this is BRILLIANT. They are PDFs of the dialog from each episode, which was used to create the subtitles. Yeah, silly to have this since I can just watch it subbed here, BUT... I have the R2 DVDs without subtitles, so I could, in theory, print these out and follow along (if I didn't understand what was being said anyway). They aren't anything super amazing for most people, but I appreciate them.
Audio -
Galaxy Express 999 was recorded in 1978. It was dialog driven and mono. The mono track is doubled for stereo here, but it is just a mono track. It sounds just as good as the R2 DVDs, which is good. I would say this is the only place the DVDs shine.
Packaging -
There are 4 discs, 2 per DVD case with 2 DVD cases. The disc artwork is exactly the same on each disc. It's just a still from an episode of the show. This is sort of how the R2 DVDs were done (they took a screen shot and just outlined a character on the disc). The cover artwork is nice and the spine artwork is good as well. The title, Galaxy Express 999, looks just like the Discotek releases of the 3 Galaxy Express movies, which is a good touch (though probably demanded by Toei)
The cardboard box that hold the two discs is nice, but nothing amazing.
Other oddness:
There are no chapters. The only chapters are the beginning of each episode. If you don't want to watch the opening credits, you have to fast forward. Hitting NEXT will take you to the next episode.
Each episode is preceded by the Toei logo. Further proof this is just exactly the same files used for the streaming service.
The end credits pause for 1/2 a seconds before it starts. No idea what happened there, but it's kind of annoying.
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