Upcoming UK Anime DVD Artwork!

[Just Passing Through]

There are some screencaps and comparisons back on pages 69 and 70 of this thread that show the Euro BD on two discs being virtually indistinguishable from the Japanese. I'm not concerned about that at all.

A few still shots aren't much to go by to tell the overall quality.
I'm looking at Kaze stuff on Amazon FR and I'm seeing things like half of Fate Zero on one BD and Garden of Sinners movies 5-7 on one BD (despite 5+7 being 2hr long). Clearly someone at Kaze likes over compression. I dread to think what they must look like considering they are all darker shows where banding and such would be much more obvious.

Let us also consider that the Uncompressed files on Japanese Blurays are about 6-7gigs per episode. Assuming Kaze are actually using all of a BD50 for the first 13 eps (Which they probably won't, nobody other than NISA seems to) the eps will be around 3 gigs each, possibly less.
I'm guessing KAZE have the MangaUK approach, reduction in quality/production cost to offer a lower price point. (I mean seriously, look at their pricing.)

Boom. That's my main concern - frankly, I'm not convinced that they'll look better than my Beez DVDs upscaled.

It's going to look better due to being progressive instead of interlaced, also no PAL speedup.
I also expect the colours on the BD would look better than a washed out looking DVD.
Other than that, I have no idea how big the difference would be. I've never actually seen Code Geass in SD.
Just be sure it will look better though, the only shows I have seen which look better on DVD instead of BD are Shakugan no Shana 1/2.

If only this were 3 discs and 100% not sub locked, then I wouldn't have to worry.

Don't really want to pre-empt my review, and I've only watched the first 8 episodes as yet, but I have to say that the Code Geass Blu-ray looks pretty darn impressive. Just to qualify my point of view by saying that I thought their release of the first Berserk movie on BD was downright mediocre, with some DVD level banding. With Code Geass, in the first eight episodes, I noticed just one instance of light banding, at the corner of a darker scene, I also haven't noticed any aliasing yet. Colours are rich, detail levels are good with the proviso that I don't know what the original resolution that the show was animated at. The text in the credit sequences, the title card, the eyecatch all look like 1080 line resolution, while the anime itself seems to vary between 540 for most of it, to 720 for some close up scenes. I also have failed to notice any aliasing thus far, which may make it an even better quality release than the Black Lagoon BD. I've also had the Kaze DVDs (which are pretty good) to compare, and it blows that away completely. Uncompressed stereo is very nice too. 8 out of 25 episodes down, and my fears about compression have been laid to rest.

As for the sub locking, on the bright side, the Britannian Empire has invaded Japan, erased the local culture, and replaced most background signs with English, which given Kaze's usual subtitling, is a good thing.

 

[Reaper gI]

Don't really want to pre-empt my review, and I've only watched the first 8 episodes as yet, but I have to say that the Code Geass Blu-ray looks pretty darn impressive. Just to qualify my point of view by saying that I thought their release of the first Berserk movie on BD was downright mediocre, with some DVD level banding. With Code Geass, in the first eight episodes, I noticed just one instance of light banding, at the corner of a darker scene, I also haven't noticed any aliasing yet. Colours are rich, detail levels are good with the proviso that I don't know what the original resolution that the show was animated at. The text in the credit sequences, the title card, the eyecatch all look like 1080 line resolution, while the anime itself seems to vary between 540 for most of it, to 720 for some close up scenes. I also have failed to notice any aliasing thus far, which may make it an even better quality release than the Black Lagoon BD. I've also had the Kaze DVDs (which are pretty good) to compare, and it blows that away completely. Uncompressed stereo is very nice too. 8 out of 25 episodes down, and my fears about compression have been laid to rest.

As for the sub locking, on the bright side, the Britannian Empire has invaded Japan, erased the local culture, and replaced most background signs with English, which given Kaze's usual subtitling, is a good thing.

As regards to picture quality checking, the on screen text is probably the best test, every news article etc. a character is reading should be in legible engrish.

 

[Just Passing Through]

Don't really want to pre-empt my review, and I've only watched the first 8 episodes as yet, but I have to say that the Code Geass Blu-ray looks pretty darn impressive. Just to qualify my point of view by saying that I thought their release of the first Berserk movie on BD was downright mediocre, with some DVD level banding. With Code Geass, in the first eight episodes, I noticed just one instance of light banding, at the corner of a darker scene, I also haven't noticed any aliasing yet. Colours are rich, detail levels are good with the proviso that I don't know what the original resolution that the show was animated at. The text in the credit sequences, the title card, the eyecatch all look like 1080 line resolution, while the anime itself seems to vary between 540 for most of it, to 720 for some close up scenes. I also have failed to notice any aliasing thus far, which may make it an even better quality release than the Black Lagoon BD. I've also had the Kaze DVDs (which are pretty good) to compare, and it blows that away completely. Uncompressed stereo is very nice too. 8 out of 25 episodes down, and my fears about compression have been laid to rest.

As for the sub locking, on the bright side, the Britannian Empire has invaded Japan, erased the local culture, and replaced most background signs with English, which given Kaze's usual subtitling, is a good thing.

As regards to picture quality checking, the on screen text is probably the best test, every news article etc. a character is reading should be in legible engrish.

Oh, I have paused playback several times already to read an alternate history book that a character might be reading, to find out the exploits of King Henry X and so forth. I've only come across one line of Engrish so far.

 

[Mangaranga]

Don't really want to pre-empt my review, and I've only watched the first 8 episodes as yet, but I have to say that the Code Geass Blu-ray looks pretty darn impressive. Just to qualify my point of view by saying that I thought their release of the first Berserk movie on BD was downright mediocre, with some DVD level banding. With Code Geass, in the first eight episodes, I noticed just one instance of light banding, at the corner of a darker scene, I also haven't noticed any aliasing yet. Colours are rich, detail levels are good with the proviso that I don't know what the original resolution that the show was animated at. The text in the credit sequences, the title card, the eyecatch all look like 1080 line resolution, while the anime itself seems to vary between 540 for most of it, to 720 for some close up scenes. I also have failed to notice any aliasing thus far, which may make it an even better quality release than the Black Lagoon BD. I've also had the Kaze DVDs (which are pretty good) to compare, and it blows that away completely. Uncompressed stereo is very nice too. 8 out of 25 episodes down, and my fears about compression have been laid to rest.

As for the sub locking, on the bright side, the Britannian Empire has invaded Japan, erased the local culture, and replaced most background signs with English, which given Kaze's usual subtitling, is a good thing.

So they are locked again ;_;
Come on, it's a UK (Region B) release, there's no reason to lock them. Even Madoka didn't have them.
At least I still have the BD rips where I don't have to put up with this.
As for the resolution it was animated it, it's from 2006 and looking at it, I agree that it was probably animated at around 540p.
Not sure about being higher res for up close shots though.

Other than this big locking problem, is there anything else wrong with it subtitle wise?
If I get it, I'll probably watch it subbed this time seeing as I watched the dub the first time.

This also destroys any hope left that Children who chase lost voices will have unlocked subs, so I am considering just going for the Sentai BD. At least I can be sure that has the commentary track too. (Can anyone confirm if KAZE has it?)

 

[Just Passing Through]

Don't really want to pre-empt my review, and I've only watched the first 8 episodes as yet, but I have to say that the Code Geass Blu-ray looks pretty darn impressive. Just to qualify my point of view by saying that I thought their release of the first Berserk movie on BD was downright mediocre, with some DVD level banding. With Code Geass, in the first eight episodes, I noticed just one instance of light banding, at the corner of a darker scene, I also haven't noticed any aliasing yet. Colours are rich, detail levels are good with the proviso that I don't know what the original resolution that the show was animated at. The text in the credit sequences, the title card, the eyecatch all look like 1080 line resolution, while the anime itself seems to vary between 540 for most of it, to 720 for some close up scenes. I also have failed to notice any aliasing thus far, which may make it an even better quality release than the Black Lagoon BD. I've also had the Kaze DVDs (which are pretty good) to compare, and it blows that away completely. Uncompressed stereo is very nice too. 8 out of 25 episodes down, and my fears about compression have been laid to rest.

As for the sub locking, on the bright side, the Britannian Empire has invaded Japan, erased the local culture, and replaced most background signs with English, which given Kaze's usual subtitling, is a good thing.

So they are locked again ;_;
Come on, it's a UK (Region B) release, there's no reason to lock them.
At least I still have the BD rips where I don't have to put up with this.
As for the resolution it was animated it, it's from 2006 and looking at it, I agree that it was probably animated at around 540p.
Not sure about being higher res for up close shots though.

Other than this big locking problem, is there anything else wrong with it subtitle wise?
If I get it, I'll probably watch it subbed this time seeing as I watched the dub the first time.

They must have definitely reanimated the eyecatch and the credits text then, because those are definitely 1080. The eye-catch is Japanese text that disintegrates into tiny golden sparkles which fade to white. On the Blu-ray you can see those sparkles shrink down to a single pixel, and it's wholly different from the eyecatch on the DVD.

Kaze still can't do signs and dialogue subtitles simultaneously, which is why it's a good thing that most signs and onscreen text in this show is English. You might have to be quick on the pause button to get the name of the next episode in the previews. Or you could just wait until the next episode and read it then. I don't think it's a licensor requirement with Kaze. I think they're just set in their ways of how they author discs, and as with any corporate monolith, they aren't going to change unless God tells them. They're going to keep locking discs as long as those settings are standard on their disc authoring machines. Tiger and Bunny is another show to be grateful for when it comes to English signs and text in the show.

 

[Mangaranga]

They must have definitely reanimated the eyecatch and the credits text then, because those are definitely 1080. The eye-catch is Japanese text that disintegrates into tiny golden sparkles which fade to white. On the Blu-ray you can see those sparkles shrink down to a single pixel, and it's wholly different from the eyecatch on the DVD.

Kaze still can't do signs and dialogue subtitles simultaneously, which is why it's a good thing that most signs and onscreen text in this show is English. You might have to be quick on the pause button to get the name of the next episode in the previews. Or you could just wait until the next episode and read it then. I don't think it's a licensor requirement with Kaze. I think they're just set in their ways of how they author discs, and as with any corporate monolith, they aren't going to change unless God tells them. They're going to keep locking discs as long as those settings are standard on their disc authoring machines. Tiger and Bunny is another show to be grateful for when it comes to English signs and text in the show.

If it's not a licensor requirement, why would you deliberately want to make your discs as user unfriendly as possible.
It's also sad to hear that Kaze still can't do full subtitles properly.
It doesn't exactly make me want to go out and buy their releases when they are worse than what I already have.

Edit: Is the audio 5.1 or 2.0 out of interest?

 

[Just Passing Through]

They must have definitely reanimated the eyecatch and the credits text then, because those are definitely 1080. The eye-catch is Japanese text that disintegrates into tiny golden sparkles which fade to white. On the Blu-ray you can see those sparkles shrink down to a single pixel, and it's wholly different from the eyecatch on the DVD.

Kaze still can't do signs and dialogue subtitles simultaneously, which is why it's a good thing that most signs and onscreen text in this show is English. You might have to be quick on the pause button to get the name of the next episode in the previews. Or you could just wait until the next episode and read it then. I don't think it's a licensor requirement with Kaze. I think they're just set in their ways of how they author discs, and as with any corporate monolith, they aren't going to change unless God tells them. They're going to keep locking discs as long as those settings are standard on their disc authoring machines. Tiger and Bunny is another show to be grateful for when it comes to English signs and text in the show.

If it's not a licensor requirement, why would you deliberately want to make your discs as user unfriendly as possible.
It's also sad to hear that Kaze still can't do full subtitles properly.
It doesn't exactly make me want to go out and buy their releases when they are worse than what I already have.

Edit: Is the audio 5.1 or 2.0 out of interest?

Uncompressed PCM 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese on BD, DD 2.0 English and Japanese on DVD

 

[Mangaranga]

Uncompressed PCM 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese on BD, DD 2.0 English and Japanese on DVD

No Commentary tracks? The DVD states they are included.

 

[Just Passing Through]

Uncompressed PCM 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese on BD, DD 2.0 English and Japanese on DVD

No Commentary tracks? The DVD states they are included.

The commentary tracks are in DD 2.0 on the BD as well as the DVD. So far I've listened to 4 out of 5 on the 1st BD, Japanese with English subs. I haven't had a look at the second disc yet, but it has all of the picture dramas as well as the remaining commentaries.

 

[Shiroi Hane]

If it's not a licensor requirement, why would you deliberately want to make your discs as user unfriendly as possible.

The question from their perspective may be, if your audience can't understand Japanese why would you want to turn the subtitles off?

 

[Just Passing Through]

If it's not a licensor requirement, why would you deliberately want to make your discs as user unfriendly as possible.

The question from their perspective may be, if your audience can't understand Japanese why would you want to turn the subtitles off?

I'd like to know how European fans feel about this. If they're as peeved as we are, there's a chance that Kaze might do something about it. But if it's just UK fans who complain, then we're stuck with naff authoring, as UK fans are too small a demographic to have an impact on their decisions.

 

[Mangaranga]

The question from their perspective may be, if your audience can't understand Japanese why would you want to turn the subtitles off?

I might not want to have the subtitles on during certain scenes, equally, I may want to watch the thing with Eng Dub/Subs.
The point is that there is no reason for it and it just makes their releases user unfriendly and annoying.
If you can get a better version for free, why would you want to pay for an inferior, user unfriendly version?
I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for proper non-crippled releases.

It's a shame that the whole reverse importation fears thing is becoming bigger and bigger, as this is causing more releases to be locked, and also appears to be the reason for DVD only/1080i BD releases.
It's like the japanese licensors are trying to make it harder to justify buying legit local releases.
Unless its an old show, or an older show by JC Staff (animated @ 540p Like Railgun/Index), I'm not going buy DVDs at all, and I'm not going to jump over gimped BDs either hence why I rarely buy any UK releases.

I'd like to know how European fans feel about this. If they're as peeved as we are, there's a chance that Kaze might do something about it. But if it's just UK fans who complain, then we're stuck with naff authoring, as UK fans are too small a demographic to have an impact on their decisions.

Fans in European countries don't have the luxury of being able to compare their releases to same language releases in another country.
It just so happens that a lot of the Kaze Titles, if not all of the ones released here, are inferior to the US releases despite the fact that we are a different region code to Japan, whereas the US are not.

 

[Rosencrantz]

If it's not a licensor requirement, why would you deliberately want to make your discs as user unfriendly as possible.

The question from their perspective may be, if your audience can't understand Japanese why would you want to turn the subtitles off?

Generally speaking I turn em off when I want to see something that was obscured by them

and on the flip side I turn them on during an English sound track sometimes when a certain part is too quiet, locked on tends to mean they are locked off elsewhere.

 

[Peachy]

Not sure if these were posted? Sorry for the size:

 

[Mangaranga]

So, after realising that I can't even change between the ENG/JP audio and commentary tracks or use my Top Menu button whilst watching the Code Geass episodes, as well as the fact that you can't continue from where you stopped last, I think i'm going to cancel my order for the Kaze Children Who Chase Lost Voices CE and just buy Sentai's release. Also no confirmation on the commentary track yet either is even more offputting.

Ease of Use/Functionality >>> Fancier Packaging, I can't continue supporting these heavily locked down releases.
I know i'm probably being picky here, but having to use the pop-up menu to return to the main menu?
There's a button for that, why make it unusable?

 

[Rosencrantz]

So, after realising that I can't even change between the ENG/JP audio and commentary tracks or use my Top Menu button whilst watching the Code Geass episodes, as well as the fact that you can't continue from where you stopped last, I think i'm going to cancel my order for the Kaze Children Who Chase Lost Voices CE and just buy Sentai's release. Also no confirmation on the commentary track yet either is even more offputting.

Ease of Use >>> Fancier Packaging, I can't continue supporting these heavily locked down releases.
I know i'm probably being picky here, but having to use the pop-up menu to return to the main menu?
There's a button for that, why make it unusable?

No your right, why lock off basic functions of a DvD/BD player? I can understand if subs are locked on you can't just rotate through the audio but locking off features like top menu, zoom, a-b etc is just stupid.

 

[teonzo]

So, after realising that I can't even change between the ENG/JP audio and commentary tracks or use my Top Menu button whilst watching the Code Geass episodes, as well as the fact that you can't continue from where you stopped last

This really sucks. Can you comment about the image and audio quality of those BDs, please?
Code Geass is one of my favourite series and I was going to double dip, but after reading about all these troubles I'm wondering if it has sense.



Teo

 

[ayase]

It's times like this I'm glad all I ever do is select the audio / subtitle options I want from the menu and hit "play all"... As long as I can still pause, I'm good.

 

[Mangaranga]

So, after realising that I can't even change between the ENG/JP audio and commentary tracks or use my Top Menu button whilst watching the Code Geass episodes, as well as the fact that you can't continue from where you stopped last

This really sucks. Can you comment about the image and audio quality of those BDs, please?
Code Geass is one of my favourite series and I was going to double dip, but after reading about all these troubles I'm wondering if it has sense.



Teo

Video quality is ok, I haven't noticed any terrible banding issues like I did with Black Lagoon, and nothing else really jumps out at me. In regards to Audio, it may just be me but the English audio sounds a bit quieter and lower quality than the japanese track (Probably just the recording though, like how Black Lagoon sounds like it was recorded in a cupboard).
The Japanese audio commentary's are included however you can only select them from extras section at the main menu, you can't switch to it normally mid episode, and pressing the pop-up menu button returns you to the main menu whilst watching.
When it comes to subtitles, Kaze STILL has trouble displaying more than one subtitle stream at the same time, however it isn't as much of an issue here as it has been before due to there being fewer instances of two sub streams needing to be displayed at the same time.

Take note that this is taken from eps 1-3, watching on an old Samsung HDTV in 720p and using the TV Speakers.

The visual upgrade is probably worth it from the DVDs, it's just whether you want to put up with this unnecessary lockdown mess.
Unfortunately It's either buy the Kaze discs and deal with it, or wait it out and see if anyone in the US picks up the rights and gives it a proper BD release, something which we shouldn't have to do.

 

[Just Passing Through]

So, after realising that I can't even change between the ENG/JP audio and commentary tracks or use my Top Menu button whilst watching the Code Geass episodes, as well as the fact that you can't continue from where you stopped last

This really sucks. Can you comment about the image and audio quality of those BDs, please?
Code Geass is one of my favourite series and I was going to double dip, but after reading about all these troubles I'm wondering if it has sense.



Teo

Video quality is ok, I haven't noticed any terrible banding issues like I did with Black Lagoon, and nothing else really jumps out at me. In regards to Audio, it may just be me but the English audio sounds a bit quieter and lower quality than the japanese track (Probably just the recording though, like how Black Lagoon sounds like it was recorded in a cupboard).
The Japanese audio commentary's are included however you can only select them from extras section at the main menu, you can't switch to it normally mid episode, and pressing the pop-up menu button returns you to the main menu whilst watching.
When it comes to subtitles, Kaze STILL has trouble displaying more than one subtitle stream at the same time, however it isn't as much of an issue here as it has been before due to there being fewer instances of two sub streams needing to be displayed at the same time.

Take note that this is taken from eps 1-3, watching on an old Samsung HDTV in 720p and using the TV Speakers.

The visual upgrade is probably worth it from the DVDs, it's just whether you want to put up with this unnecessary lockdown mess.
Unfortunately It's either buy the Kaze discs and deal with it, or wait it out and see if anyone in the US picks up the rights and gives it a proper BD release, something which we shouldn't have to do.

If you want a second, or rather earlier opinion...