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Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episodes 3 & 4

Honey & Clover Episodes 18 & 19 plus bonus episode F ("You are the king of fashion / Fujiwara Design SPECIAL is this sort of story")

Gasaraki Episode 22
 
Samurai Girls 1-4

Not as bad as I was expecting. I mean while objectively Samurai Girls is not very good, with its typical (but occasionally amusing) harem antics and non-existent plot, I actually enjoyed watching the first four episodes. I can think of a few reasons for this. There's the sexy character designs from niθ (Nitro+, Blassreiter); that unique, sumptuous art style; and, well, the boobs.

Kaze's Blu-ray, though, leaves something to be desired. Why are the subtitles locked when they aren't on Sentai's Blu-ray release? Why do the sign and dialogue subtitles refresh together? I've never, ever seen that before. And why do I get booted right back to the start of the disc when I resume watching, as opposed to continuing from where I left off as with just about every other disc I own?
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Samurai Girls 1-4

Not as bad as I was expecting. I mean while objectively Samurai Girls is not very good, with its typical (but occasionally amusing) harem antics and non-existent plot, I actually enjoyed watching the first four episodes. I can think of a few reasons for this. There's the sexy character designs from niθ (Nitro+, Blassreiter); that unique, sumptuous art style; and, well, the boobs.

Kaze's Blu-ray, though, leaves something to be desired. Why are the subtitles locked when they aren't on Sentai's Blu-ray release? Why do the sign and dialogue subtitles refresh together? I've never, ever seen that before. And why do I get booted right back to the start of the disc when I resume watching, as opposed to continuing from where I left off as with just about every other disc I own?
Click to expand...

I have a few NIS America blu-rays that do the same thing. To say it is annoying is an understatement :twisted: .
 
Hmm, I watch NISA discs on my computer so I have never had that, but I have had it with Star Driver on my PS3, and it also has the absurd flickering subtitles whenever song subs appear which drive me bananas (especially as there are songs in pretty much every episode). It seems that one or two of the blu-ray production companies are not properly following the standards somewhere.

I still haven't remembered to check my US Redline disc for the resetting issue on my PS3, perhaps I'll do that this weekend. Perhaps we can figure out some commonalities and make sure the correct people are informed, though in Kaze's case the locked subtitles issue in particular seems to be an active choice they prefer not to comment on.

Could you timestamp the next flickering subtitles issue from Kaze's Samurai Girls? I'd like to compare that with the US version (just in case; I don't usually read sign subs when there is gratuitous fanservice nearby so it might be less obvious than the crazy sequences of flashing words in poor Star Driver).

R
 
The only NISA Blu-ray I've watched is Katanagatri, on my BD-ROM drive, and I don't recall having an issue with that. Redline dumps me back at the start of the disc whenever I stop and resume playback, as do some Beez discs, but that's about it out of the hundreds I've watched.

The "flickering" subtitles happens whenever there's sign subs and dialogue subs on screen at the same time and one of them changes. In case it's not clear exactly what I'm talking about, I'll try to explain more clearly. Say you have a sign sub translating text on screen while characters are talking. If another character speaks the sign sub will flicker off and back on again in sync with the changing dialogue subtitles. So as I'm reading the dialogue subtitles I can see the flickering out of the corner of my eye. It's only mildly annoying but I've literally never seen it happen before.
 
Arakawa Under the Bridge & Katanagatari (the first set certainly had this problem but I can't remember if the second set also had it).

As for Redline - I have the UK blu-ray but haven't watched it yet.
 
Katanagatari blurays booted me back to the menu too. I think it might depend what software/hardware you are watching on, and if you;re ona PC what method you may be using to bypass region encoding.

A lot of the NISA blurays definitely have the locked subs issue, but at least they acknowledge it on their site.
 
Rui: if you'd like to check Sentai's Samurai Girls BD for the flickering subs issue, episode 5 at 08m55s would be a good place. A sign sub for on-screen text is refreshed several times to add ellipses, and each time the dialogue subtitle flickers in unison. It looks awful.

Also, the subtitles in episode 6 are about one second early. What awaits me on disc 2, I wonder? So much for wanting to support UK Blu-ray releases.
 
been watching recent episode of Another, while rounding it up with Amagami SS plus. Will get round to Ano Natsu soon.

Along with this I have Maison Ikkoku to finish off, and begin on my Slayers set.
 
Thanks, that's perfect.

Ok, ignoring locked/unlocked subtitles as I think everyone knows how to do these and they just nerf the discs deliberately, here are my findings in terms of technical failures:

Samurai Girls (US version)
NO flickering subtitles when multiple subtitle tracks with different timings are used.
Subtitle timing in episode 6 seems fine (spot checked only).
Disc position IS remembered (PS3).
Discs authored by: Seraphim/Sentai.

Star Driver 1-2 (US version)
Flickering subtitles when multiple subtitle tracks with different timings are used.
Disc position isn't remembered (PS3).
Discs authored by: Bang Zoom Entertainment

Redline (US version)
Disc position isn't remembered (PS3).
Discs authored by: Uncredited, but only Bang Zoom Entertainment are credited for the English work so I'm suspicious. Has similarly annoying unskippable logos at the start on different chapters which I had to fast forward.

If anyone other than me is deeply interested in this, can spin it off into a blu-ray griping topic in the hope that studios will learn to improve their product.

R
 
Haruhi S2 1-3

I've been enjoying the hell out of my chronological/2009 broadcast order (re)watch so far, and now I'm two episodes into Endless Pain... er, I mean, Eight. Those two episodes were fantastic, but it is with trepidation that I proceed. I just don't see how there's another six episodes of worthwhile content in there, and I'm weary of finding out and potentially souring the experience. But I can't skip episodes, so all I can do is break them up with episodes of another show and pray to whichever deity will listen.

Going back and forth between my Bandai Entertainment S1 DVDs and Manga UK S2 DVDs has been an eye-opener. The video quality of Manga's discs is definitely better; this is the first time I've really noticed the benefit of the higher resolution of native PAL.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Haruhi S2 1-3

I've been enjoying the hell out of my chronological/2009 broadcast order (re)watch so far, and now I'm two episodes into Endless Pain... er, I mean, Eight. Those two episodes were fantastic, but it is with trepidation that I proceed. I just don't see how there's another six episodes of worthwhile content in there, and I'm weary of finding out and potentially souring the experience. But I can't skip episodes, so all I can do is break them up with episodes of another show and pray to whichever deity will listen.

Going back and forth between my Bandai Entertainment S1 DVDs and Manga UK S2 DVDs has been an eye-opener. The video quality of Manga's discs is definitely better; this is the first time I've really noticed the benefit of the higher resolution of native PAL.
Click to expand...

i understand the endless 8 Is annoying but for some reason i think ( im going to get negative points for saying this ) it is clever in a way. i wish they'd finished the anime to the end of the manga.

im on season 5 disc 2 of dragonball z and i have 4 more seasons and 7 more movies of z and then its GT. iv watched dragon ball to season 5 of z and now iv got my new tv and ps3 im always playing dead space and playing around on the ps3
 
animefreak17 said:
fabricatedlunatic said:
Haruhi S2 1-3

I've been enjoying the hell out of my chronological/2009 broadcast order (re)watch so far, and now I'm two episodes into Endless Pain... er, I mean, Eight. Those two episodes were fantastic, but it is with trepidation that I proceed. I just don't see how there's another six episodes of worthwhile content in there, and I'm weary of finding out and potentially souring the experience. But I can't skip episodes, so all I can do is break them up with episodes of another show and pray to whichever deity will listen.

Going back and forth between my Bandai Entertainment S1 DVDs and Manga UK S2 DVDs has been an eye-opener. The video quality of Manga's discs is definitely better; this is the first time I've really noticed the benefit of the higher resolution of native PAL.
Click to expand...

i understand the endless 8 Is annoying but for some reason i think ( im going to get negative points for saying this ) it is clever in a way. i wish they'd finished the anime to the end of the manga.

im on season 5 disc 2 of dragonball z and i have 4 more seasons and 7 more movies of z and then its GT. iv watched dragon ball to season 5 of z and now iv got my new tv and ps3 im always playing dead space and playing around on the ps3
Click to expand...

I definitely think Endless Eight was clever, but I think flaunting cleverness at you for 5 episodes of identical fluff, when they could've made 5 original episodes instead was just... I'm not even sure what to say here, not 'lazy' because they re-animated and re-recorded each ep, so I guess just 'insane' will do :p
 
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