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technoblue

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Everything posted by technoblue

  1. technoblue
    I think the review made a good case for the quality of the HD content. As for the source, yeah, Animeigo and Funimation were working from the same HG film stock. And Animeigo's remaster was done decades ago! I agree with the reviewer and think that a lot of the inconsistencies in the Funimation release are just signs of the film's age. So I think Funimation brought their "A" game. Apart from the audio, which I've already noted is a low point for me, I found it interesting to read that the episode bumpers were removed. I wonder why that was done? At the end of the day, though, I'm too much of a fan to skip this and I can see myself adding it to my HD Macross collection. I'll probably wait until it goes on sale or something.
  2. technoblue
    As a counterpoint, there is an in-hand review of the new blu-ray over on this site: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=340685&page=11
  3. technoblue
    Getting early confirmation on the height from Takara was pretty cool. It also shows how well customer service works for those living in Japan. Yeah. Now that I have some combiner teams in my collection, I can say I am one of those rare fans that prefers to display teams together in bot or vehicle mode. Rarely in combined mode and only if it is a smaller toy like you say. Having a scaled down MP Raiden doesn't bother me much at all. I actually like how we are getting detailed trains, bots that scale between MP Sideswipe and Ironhide, and a combined toy that is on the short side. The G1 combiners weren't huge gestalts either, so I wonder if this is just coincidence or if it is something that Takara is doing intentionally? Trying to tap into that G1 combiner toy nostalgia? Anyway, let's pour one out for the scale purists. And for sure, that price definitely makes one stop to think---and that isn't a bad thing. If the other train team members are priced similar to Shouki, I figure more fans will jump ship for the 3P option. Or maybe some will pick and choose their favorite train bots and abandon the new combined mode altogether? I guess we'll see.
  4. technoblue
    I'm pretty sure MW members were fitting the super parts from Michael's VF-25G to the YF-25 Prophecy back in the day.
  5. technoblue
    Yeah, it is hard to say without any Windows 10 numbers. On this side of it, I would suggest waiting for AMD's fix and running the benchmark again afterward to see if the numbers show any improvement. The best case is that you pull a few more frames for 60+ fps at 1080p---a nice place to be. The worst case is that nothing changes.
  6. technoblue
    Oops. I forgot about that moment. 😅 The shorter story arc makes a lot more sense if 2205 is a reimagining of the classic movies The New Voyage and Be Forever Yamato. That also means the Dark Nebula Empire is the big baddy instead of the Bolar Empire.
  7. technoblue
    Same. I read over on Cosmo DNA that there was two distinctive chapters for the new series but I wasn't aware of the episode count. Edit: The shorter episode count now has me wondering if 2205 is going to introduce any Yamato 3 events (like how Ark of the Stars introduced the Gatlanteans) or if it will be solely focused on a retelling of The New Voyage story.
  8. technoblue
    Blitzwing is unique since he is the one triple changer with Diaclone origins, per TFWiki. I agree that MFT’s Thunderbolt does a very good job capturing his G1 likeness and I was impressed by the tank tread transformation when I got my copy. It is too bad they couldn’t fit in retractable landing gear on the nose in fighter mode, though. I do think that would have been a nice feature to carry over from the original toy. That one nitpick aside, I’m happy I picked up Thunderbolt too. Looking at the photos @mikeszekely shared in his review, Poison/Octane looks like the odd bot out. It makes me wish he was a smidge taller so that all of MFT’s released triple changers were the same height in bot mode.
  9. technoblue
    Heh. You guys make a good point. That's a choice I would have been okay with too.
  10. technoblue
    Knowing how much I scrutinized Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings and how critical I was of The Hobbit, I'm glad that I'm watching The Expanse before reading the published novels. Last season didn't ruffle my feathers too much. The only thing that felt odd was the obvious change in direction that the writers implemented when they had to strike Alex Kamal's character from team Rocinante due to the scandal that popped up around the actor. I'll have to wait to read the books to see where Alex ends up there. In the TV universe, his part of the story is over.
  11. technoblue
    That part is why I was glad I stuck with the anime. The comedy sometimes came out of awkward situations, but overall the story wasn't poking fun at her.
  12. technoblue
    It's been some time since I've sat through the entire series, and I remember it had some cringe-worthy moments. Overall though, I agree with @Hikaru Ichijo SL, it was pretty good in the end. I definitely understand not wanting to push through the cringe, though.
  13. technoblue
    RGB LEDs make everything better? Even Macross? Inconceivable!
  14. technoblue
    I filled out the survey last night too and did my best to give props to all the sites I've visited over the years: MW forums, Anymoon, Macross2.net, as well as the company sites (tamashii.jp and arcadia.ac--why not?). For the "wishlist" question, I noticed that they asked about units AND characters, so I went all out. I'd love to see a DX YF-21, VF-11B/C, VF-19 Kai, and VF-11MAXL. An official VF-9A/E release would be sweet (as much as I'm into Xigfrid's transforming model) as would the VA-1SS, and I made sure to mention the TV SDF-1 just for good measure. I also explicitly asked them to keep going with the Macross Hi-Metal R line and called out the HMR Tomahawk, Phalanx, and Qeadluun-Rau, as well. If nothing else, it would be cool if they released every Macross HMR that they've teased. For characters, I would be ecstatic to see more SH Figuarts beyond the Macross idols: Roy Focker, Hikaru, Misa, Claudia, Mirage, Britai, Quamzin, Bruno Global, Max and Milia, Isamu and Guld, Nora and Ivanov, Shin and Mao, armored rank and file Zentraedi...yeah, even poor Kakizaki. For unrepresented idols (at least from Bandai), it would be nice to see them release their own Minmay or maybe Myung and/or Sharon Apple. Having a complete SH Figuarts set of the Fire Bomber crew would be awesome too: Basara, Mylene, Veffidas, and Ray Lovelock. Ah, if only...
  15. technoblue
    That's a nice mobile CPU. It would be interesting to see the Windows 11 numbers, if you get a chance to check out Far Cry on it. Myself, I have a mixed environment at home. An older Ivy Bridge system running an i5-3570k and WIndows 7 (yeah, I want to repurpose this at some point; that i5 processor still has a good life ahead of it), a Ryzen 5 3600 HTPC (a terrific match for 1080p), and a Ryzen 5 5950x that I keep putting off building as other things come up in my schedule. This will become my main replacement desktop once it's finished. I just need to block out the time to work on it. I also have my work laptop and my own M1 Macbook Air that I use for writing projects. The laptops are basically writing tools, though, so I don't really play around with them too much. The last system I built was a month back---the upgrade that I did for my relatives. I moved them from a Haswell-based CPU to a Ryzen 3900x. Like I said, Windows 10 only asked to reboot a few times to collect all the required drivers and then went on its merry way. I think the only thing I had to do was verify a few settings in the UEFI BIOS and install AMD's chipset drivers. That was it.
  16. technoblue
    I haven't been worried about annoying Windows installations since the Windows 9x days. My observation is that Microsoft has been creating a more user-friendly installation process with each release since Windows XP. Windows 10 surprised me, in fact. It was the first Windows release where I switched critical hardware components (the CPU, GPU, and motherboard in a relative's PC) and the OS simply found and installed all the required system-level drivers without mucking things up. Previously, doing something like that would almost certainly have required a fresh Windows install. So when I think about Windows 11, one question comes to mind: Why? I don't really need the UI facelift. I don't have an Android phone, so the promise of that usability feature does nothing for my workflow. I've read that the integrated Linux subsystem components are improved over Windows 10, and that IS cool, but then I have to ask myself, why not just load Linux instead (especially on an older system that doesn't satisfy the TPM requirements)? What I was really hoping for from Windows 11 was some quality of life improvements. For instance, native or improved support for those of us with multi-core (read >4 core) CPUs and large amounts of installed system memory. Improved multi-core performance over Windows 10 would have been a big carrot. Alas, the early reports that I've read note that these enhancements just aren't there at the moment, meaning that this is another thing waving me off. For me, another red flag is the reported day-one release bug that slows down AMD CPUs by 15%. I have two systems built around Ryzen processors here at home and would rather avoid dealing with early adopter issues like this. I'm actually surprised this performance bug wasn't caught during validation and testing. Oh well, I'm okay waiting for six months or even a year to see how things look then.
  17. technoblue
    On tfw2005, the current guesstimate for the gestalt’s height is 35cm or around the same height as FansToys Phoenix. What’s really tempting me is the possibility of having nicely detailed train modes…and the idea of displaying flying trains. Although it’s off topic for Transformers, having a display with different flying trains would remind me of the Galaxy Railways.
  18. technoblue
    lol That would have been a fun way to do a "behind the music" or "where are they now?" episode with a twist of dark humor.
  19. technoblue
    I would suggest that you keep watching. There are some really good episodes in the latter half---The Elder and Akakiri are stand outs here. Lop and Ochō reminded me of something from Studio Gainax. In any case, starting with episode five the different animation teams appear to settle in on a common juxtaposition of Jedi versus Sith. I didn't have as negative an opinion of Tatooine Rhapsody; however, I do agree that it was the weakest short story of the bunch. It felt like it needed more time in the creative oven because it had all of the Star Wars ingredients, but it didn't get the mix right to completely suspend my disbelief. I mean, it was all right. It's just that at the end of it, I had a so many questions and I felt like it would have been cool if there was another episode to fill in the gaps:
  20. technoblue
    Good review. Thank you, @mikeszekely. For full sets, I only have Generation Toy, Master Made, and now Newage Devy. I gave away my copy of Combiner Wars Devy (the Takara release) and I've never had G1 Devastator (even as a kid). I did pick up the first two Magic Square Constructicons because I was into the unique style (from teaser photos) and the subtle differences in articulation and scale. However, yeah, the most obvious oddity is the color palette. The Magic Square Constructicons look washed out. I'm not sure if this is intentional or due to the bare nylon plastic that they use. Honestly, I'm not really well-versed in the debate about nylon versus other plastics. I am keen to see if Magic Square will do metallic or toy-style repaints like they have done for other figures. If those are announced, then I may wait for them. Of course, it is taking a while to get a glimpse of the next Constructicon pair, so maybe I'll just stay the course. The transformation is challenging and the instruction are not anything special. I can see how they could get frustrating. I was able to work through parts of it on my own but I needed a video to help me through my first bot to alt mode conversion. There was one bit with folding and tabbing the leg pieces to build the cab that I goofed up and another part with the arms that I plain missed. On a related note, the tabs that slot in to hold everything together in alt mode work okay on my two bots, but they also do not inspire confidence. My main concern is with how the tabs will hold up over time and repeat transformations. I guess we'll see how that goes. Overall, I like it but Magic Square is introducing next-level complexity so fans ought to know what they are getting into.
  21. technoblue
    I think there's a good chance that you're right. 😉 The question I have is, how will the new series team revisit the Galman/Gamilon connection in 2205? The scene with the captive Gamilon-looking group seems to indicate that they want to put their own spin on it. I'm looking forward to seeing that play out. And, as I noted earlier, I think what it implies could have more of an impact than the setup Yamato 3 put together.
  22. technoblue
    duplicate post....
  23. technoblue
    Maybe? The war with the Comet Empire ends in 2203, so that leaves two years for recovery and reconstruction. The allied contingent suffered major losses and isn't just focusing on rebuilding the fleet in the two years from 2203 to 2205. Thinking off the top of my head, they have to rebuild colonies, outposts, trade routes, the moon, other decimated infrastructure and so on. The time vault exponentially sped things up in this regard. Without access to that technology, Earth and Gamilas have to make concessions somewhere? This is assuming the benefit of other far future sci-fi engineering and production processes. Anyway, the show could pull something out of its hat and say otherwise, but my perspective for now is that Earth and Gamilas are doing what they can but are not close to being 100% meaning that an interstellar conflict would put both of them at a disadvantage. +1 I also like how the team working on 2205 is trying to keep a consistent design philosophy with 2199 and 2202. The new ships that we see in the preview appear to have a direct lineage to the agile Earth ships that we saw early on in 2199, but with improved armor and armaments, and the latest in automation technology. The Gamilas ships look derivative of their own earlier vessels too, and it will be very cool to see them in action because I expect there's more to them than what we can see at first glance. As for the Andromeda and the other Andromeda-class vessels, I guess this is where both 2202 and 2205 are doing their own thing? In the original Yamato 2, the Andromeda was sunk at the Battle of Saturn and it was the only vessel of its class at that point in time. IIRC, Yamato 3 teased additional WMG-equipped ships but these were brief glances. I don't remember if they played key roles like the Andromeda in Yamato 2.
  24. technoblue
    What's giving me pause is all the talk about the high-levels of DNR that were applied to the TV series. This could be really annoying if Nozomi ends up using the Japanese HD elements as their source without any tweaks. Anyway, I'm still thinking it over but there's enough content in the "lovely angel" pledge where I may end up going for it before the crowdfunding ends.
  25. technoblue
    lol Yuki is being given command of the supply carrier Asuka. Sanada is given command of the combat carrier Hyuga. The Yamato is being refit and new personnel are being assigned to her. I think Kodai is still in command, even though he and Yuki were listed among those reported dead at the end of 2202? But this was before Akira, Yuki, and Kodai found their way out of Teresa’s universe with the Yamato.
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