About to buy Bleach seasons 1-3, is there a particularly better mastered release?

[Chainmax]

I've been in an anime buying kick, my last acquisition having been the Cowboy Bebop Remix collection. My eye has now turned to the first three seasons of Bleach. Now, being an older member I have read and seen many horror stories of terrible masterings, mostly involving awful telecines in various shapes and forms.

This show is comparatively new (Wikipedia showing 10/05/2004 as starting date), but just in case I wanted to ask you guys if there is any release from any region that is better mastered (higher video bitrate, has 5.1 AC3 or DTS audio, has been telecined better, or anything else you can think of) than the rest, or if, say, the Uncut Standard Edition boxsets from Amazon are good enough. This is due to the fact that I'll be ripping them for practice and also to not use the originals, and I don't want a jigsaw puzzle like Disney's release of X-Men is turning out to be. Thanks in advance.

[Motenai Yoda]

seems that r2j relase is good. but some scene can be in vfr, opening and ending too.

[mastrboy]

for anime you should usually stay away from non R2J dvd releases, i just compared Death Note R1 and R2J and it's not even funny how fucked the R1 version was, generally the vob files where 4-500 mb smaller pr episode and blurrred to oblivion, the color/gamma of them where also very different (think cold vs warm presets you can find on tv's/pc display's)

I'm not even going to elaborate about how bad season 1 of Naruto is as i just get a huge headache each time i remember it...

[Nightshiver]

Lol. Just look at the different sources there are chainmax. There's definitely no 5.1 release of Bleach and there sure as hell isn't any DTS. You're thinking way to highly of the anime company's. They don't release stuff like that very often. Sure, the old anime gets released with a 5.1 master, but nothing of the new stuff like Bleach or Naruto or One Piece. It's all stereo and it's all going to stay that way until all those series end so that the company and re-release them in surround sound or on Blu-Ray. "Uncut" for Naruto and Bleach is a misnomer. If you're trying to get any of the new series of anime or long running season animes, R2 is ALWAYS going to be better than R1, that's the way it is with anime.

I also wouldn't compare Disney shit of X-men to Japanese animation, as Janime is FAR higher quality. X-men is also not anime, it's labled a cartoon even if it is animated. Japan doesn't mess with quality, unlike America.

[Chainmax]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I didn't expect such a strong opinion towards Region 2 (I assume R2 = R2J) releases, but then again I have not bought that much anime on DVDs. So region is settled then. Now, has there been any re-releases for Bleach (like, say, Evangelion got the Renewal/Platinum editions) or is there a single one so far? Finally, what's a good reliable place you would recommend me to buy these from?

Motenai Yoda, your post has made me curious, so I was wondering if you could tell me where to read up on what to expect of Bleach R2 encoding-wise.

Nightshiver, I was not actually comparing Japanese and United States animation/mastering quality. I was illustrating the point that I'd rather not have to deal with something as screwed up as X-Men is turning out to be for me. I actually have a thread on it here in the second page.

[Mug Funky]

if a series was produced digitally, there'll not be a real need to remaster - it's in the highest res it ever will be unless it was produced in HD from the beginning (which is unlikely, but not impossible).

the only benefit you might get is 16:9 versus 4:3 centre-cut versions, or anamorphic rather than 4:3 letterbox. if something's originally 4:3 you can bet it was never made in HD and there will be no extra resolution in a future BD release.

... and yes, the US product is often a bit messed up. i suspect they courier the masters via carrier pigeon.

[Chainmax]

Hey Mug Funky, long time no see :)

I understand what you mean, but what about cases like Evangelion or CowBoy Bebop? Both are cases where their latter versions are considered to be better than the first editions. It could just be a case of higher video/audio bitrate or better telecine, which is more than enough, right?

[Mug Funky]

those were made the old fashioned way, when men were real men, women were real women, and both men and women slaved away painting cels which were photographed and telecined.

digitally produced animation is most likely drawn in the size the destination will be - usually in SD square pix (in PAL that'd be 768x576 or 1024x576. in NTSC the numbers aren't so clean - usually 720x540 or 960x540). the fancy stuff would be done in pure SD sizes, so there'd be a lot of work and not much benefit from re-doing all the post from original elements for a BD release.

[Lyris]

it's not even funny how fucked the R1 version was, generally the vob files where 4-500 mb smaller pr episode and blurrred to oblivion, the color/gamma of them where also very different (think cold vs warm presets you can find on tv's/pc display's)

The reason for that is that some (?) Japanese studios master to a white point of D93. So for those discs, the "Cool" color temperature, for once, is the correct one to use.

Whereas Western studios use D65 which usually means "Warm" is the right Greyscale preset.

[mastrboy]

The reason for that is that some (?) Japanese studios master to a white point of D93. So for those discs, the "Cool" color temperature, for once, is the correct one to use.

Whereas Western studios use D65 which usually means "Warm" is the right Greyscale preset.

I see, quite interesting, i don't usually have the R1 and R2J version so i never even considered this possibility, that would for me mean that the R1 is "always" broken... (Where lucky getting hold of death note r2j and r1)

You wouldn't know of a way to restore the color/whitebalance to D93 in avisynth also? :script:

[Nightshiver]

No, there have not been any "re do's" like Rebuild of Evangelion 1.11 That's just silly to think there is. Evangelion was a special case, and the creator of that anime series had the chance to re-image his creation with a larger budget, which he did not have the last time. It's pretty safe to say that kind of re-do isn't ever going to happen for any other series, especially not a series that's still ongoing. The problem is that just a simple google of "Bleach on DVD" will give you the answers you are looking for.

Masterboy, you can easily change color with several different filters in avisynth. Use the search. Why are you asking him to post a script when he didn't say that he used one? An easier way of correcting that kind of color issue would be to probably use ColorMill in VirtualDub. Most modern TV's (Plasma, LCD) also have option's in them to warm or cool colors.

To find the R2 dvd's you're going to have to use an asian anime site, like yesasia or the like. And they are going to be more expensive than their R1 counterparts, just to forewarn you.

[Motenai Yoda]

I don't think is a white point only question, r2j should use a rec.601 colorimetry while r1 use rec.709.
also some (or most) non japaneses relases have a process of inverse-telecine (or blend or fps-filedbased-conversion) and re-telecine;
in short is common that is a re-work from a r2j relase (somewhere from r1 relase too if we are talking about euro r2) with post-processing as de-noise and sharp too...
and all is recompressed.
in particular about the vfr of bleach's relase, it was telled me by a fansubber some (4 or 5?) years ago about the box1.

[Chainmax]

If that is the case, then ColorMatrix should help, in this fashion:

mpeg2source("file-to-be-encoded",info=3)
Colormatrix(hints=true,"interlaced=true") so it can get the hints from d2v
add "interlaced=true" if source is interlaced

, right? In any case, running the VOBs through DGIndex should tell the colorimetry used in the footage.


And Nightshiver, you were right about R2 being more expensive: Bleach S1 costs ~U$$20 on Amazon and ~U$$43 on YesAsia, yikes. :eek:


Motenai Yoda: I see, gonna try to get in touch with some fansub groups and see what comes of it. Thanks. http://smilearchive.com/s/otn/wink/thumb.gif