bandit29 Posted September 23, 2007 Share Posted September 23, 2007 Oihan, I'd go for the HDTV instead of the 'Valks. Watching your sports, playing your games, watching movies and whatever else you can do with HD will blow you away. Heck, I didn't even watch sports until I got my set but it's just a blast. I didn't enjoy spending the money on the HDTV but it was well worth it. I don't think I could say the same for a 50-Cent inspired 25th anniversary valkyrie that just well, sits there... This man speaks the truth!!!! I just upgraded from a 30" 1080i CRT to a 46" 1080p LCD... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoryHolmes Posted September 23, 2007 Share Posted September 23, 2007 I just upgraded from a 30" 1080i CRT to a 46" 1080p LCD... How noticable is the differnce between 1080i and 1080p? Since I don't use HDMI on my 360 (my only HD source at the moment) I can only get 1080i and am curious about the difference in quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oihan Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it! I think I'll wait 2-5 months and then get that TV I was looking at. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Necron_99 Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 (edited) YES!!! http://www.bandaivisual.us/pdfs/PressRelease_Jin-Roh.pdf https://www.dot-anime.us/mall/shop/dvd?EcLo...h.quickReturned Jin-Roh goodness!!! Edited September 24, 2007 by Necron_99 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 24, 2007 Author Share Posted September 24, 2007 Don't get too excited just yet. Bandai Visual's first big foray into high def anime was Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise on Blu Ray and HD DVD and from the reviews I've read it is not worth the money or worth the upgrade. If they want someone to dump $70+ on one movie they'd best remaster the hell out of the movie or offer tons of extras and bonus material rather than just push it out in a new format. Royal Space Force on HD was devoid of special features and bonuses, not remastered and pretty much priced triple what it should have been. From the look of the links you gave Jin Roh appears to be heading down that same road. Edit: I hope HD Anime does not start up like this... it feels like the early '90s all over again when anime was overpriced, under featured short playtime stints released in glitzy plastic VHS boxes priced at $50 a pop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketchley Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Uh... BV has released, and is in the process of releasing more than Honneamise and Jin-Roh: http://www.macrossroleplay.org/forums/index.php?topic=1371.0 (near the bottom of the first post; a list of titles currently being advertised on the back of Newtype.) To be honest, extras don't appear to be the norm with DVD releases; it's pretty much hit and miss with them. The same appears to be holding true of the BD releases so far. This all goes back to the market, and the demand for such things. My guess is that there really isn't that much, which equates to few (if any!) extras, and overall high costs per unit. Japan is an expensive country to live in, after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 24, 2007 Author Share Posted September 24, 2007 That doesn't hold up though. Sony is releasing Tekkonkinkreet next week on Blu Ray with extras for $25. If Sony can release anime on next gen media for under $80 then BV can as well. This is also next gen. People expect next gen, high def, fully restored and remastered picture and sound for their money. Royal Space Force, BV's first real hd media release, pretty much fails at that. It's picture quality is not up to par and most reviewers rate it "average". "Average" picture quality in a $80 HD media release with no extras is unacceptable to me. It's overpriced shovelware, simply burped onto next gen media simply to have it on next gen media. Even if "Japan is an expensive country to live in" you want to feel you got your money's worth. $70+ for a glorified reissue of the original DVD is a complete waste of money IMHO. BV really needs to get their act together on the next gen thing in order for people, even hardcore fans, to embrace their releases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danth Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 I was thinking about getting the new Wings of Honneamise DVD, because I want to see the movie, and despite the fact that BV is a shitty company and screws everything up. But I didn't know that the Honneamise HD-DVD/Blu-ray wasn't remastered. This brings me to a question for people who know how this DVD stuff works. For a given anime, is there some digital master somewhere with a super high resolution that gets compressed when they put it on a DVD? And for a HD release, could they go back to that same master and just compress it less? I'm asking because, for an HD release to make any sense, they'd have to have some high resolution source to go back to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilSpex Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 I`m looking at picking up a 2nd Toshiba VHD deck for 1000 yen. I can get 10 movies for another 1000 yen. Good deal? It`s still the only format that does true 3D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Looks like all Bay's griping was for nothing, although the writers' strike could still affect things. Story The article is really more about Paramount's relationship with Dreamworks, but buried within in this key paragraph: Even if he leaves, Spielberg will remain the crown jewel of the acquisition for many years. He and director Michael Bay have signed on to make "Transformers 2," scheduled to hit theaters in the summer of 2009. So, in a Hollywood where sequels keep getting shoveled out until they stop making money, Transformers will continue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 24, 2007 Author Share Posted September 24, 2007 Well, if something was original on film, as in theater release film, then it is in "film resolution" which varies from studio to studio project to project. Once something is "mastered" for video release from those film masters it is sort of "set" in that resolution until it is remastered larger or smaler. Most modern studios will master in HD these days at 1920x1080. If a studio has an HD master it can run that to Blu Ray, HD DVD or like media or downgrade it to 720x486 NTSC for release on regular R1 DVD (PAL being slightly different). That downgraded version will have the same "look" of the high def master but will lack the detail. At the same time any artifacts, be they digital or physical (dust, film scratches, fading, etc) will usually be muted in the down conversion but the will be quite visible in the full HD master. On top of remastering something a studio can restore it as well, that is take steps during the remastering process to eliminate and clean up all those artifact issues. Depending on how the film was shot this process can be easy or very expensive and difficult. Most old movies where shot on film (as opposed to digital today) and that film degrades over time. So many older movies are not in very good shape and thus require quite extensive remastering and restoring to actually "look good" in HD. And that is where most studios "fall down"... they fail to restore their older movies and they just rip them to HD with minimal cleanup. Then when they master a regular standard def DVD from that "lazy master" it looks pretty good because all the junk and artifacts from the bad mastering can't really be seen in regular DVD resolution... but when you rip a HD release from one of those "lazy masters" all that horrible picture crap transfers right over. A prime example is the notorious Blu Ray release of The Fifth Element. They made a HD master of the movie years ago for the standard def DVD releases and it looked just fine... but when they used that same master for the Blu Ray release it looked like total crap because it was a "lazy master" and it contained tons of artifacting, grain and other poor picture qualities. They then went back and completely remastered the movie from the film to create a new, cleaner HD master with which they used to re-release The Fifth Element on Blu Ray again and the difference was very noticeable. In many cases a lot of the "first batch" of HD media releases used old standard def DVD masters and it showed. They where blurry, grainy, had artifacts and just plain looked bad... you were buying a HD movie for the HD and instead were getting what looked like a regular DVD upconverted. Many studios have realized this and are taking steps to make sure that sort of "shovelware" doesn't get out all that much... but it still does because studios are still releasing "quickie" shovelware titles all the time from old masters. It's the nature of the business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danth Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Well, if something was original on film, as in theater release film, then it is in "film resolution" which varies from studio to studio project to project. Once something is "mastered" for video release from those film masters it is sort of "set" in that resolution until it is remastered larger or smaler. So you're telling me the HD/Blu-ray versions of Wings of Honneamise are just upconverted DVD rips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 24, 2007 Author Share Posted September 24, 2007 No, they are simply using and older master. The same older master that they probably used to make the original RSF DVDs from. The master is higher resolution than the original DVDs that were made from it. The "problem" was that that older master lacks the quality to be used as an HD master. They should have spent more time and money cleaning that existing master or remastering the material from it's original film stock again to achieve a cleaner, clearer, better print with which to make their HD release. As it stands now pretty much every movie on Blu Ray / HD DVD that has NOT been in the theaters in the past couple years but HAS come out on DVD in the last 10 years or so was made from a master that was originally made to produce DVDs. Those masters are higher resolution and markedly better quality than the DVDs they mint from them but in many cases those masters are not up to par for use as an HD master. As an example: Army of Darkness on HD DVD. They remastered that movie in the late '90s early '00s for DVD release. The master that they created for that DVD run was the SAME master they used to make the current HD DVD's from. That master is... "average". The picture quality is so-so and it shows a lot of "age" and grain. These things are not all that noticeable on a standard def DVD so for that purpose that master was fine... but when they reused it to master the HD DVDs the HD picture was only marginally better than the regular DVD. On the opposite side of the fence take the new movie Hot Fuzz. It was shot in HD, mastered in HD and they had a pure digital HD master from which to craft the standard def DVDs and the HD DVD. The standard def DVDs look good but the HD DVD looks simply amazing... and that is because they had perfect, pure source material to create a perfect HD master. A movie like Army of Darkness (and Royal Space Force and just about every anime movie made before the year 2000) were all shot on film, old film that has degraded. They were previously mastered into high resolution masters for DVD release and without a large expenditure of money and manpower those older movies will most likely never have a good, high quality HD remastering that would create a good, high quality HD media release of that movie. It's all business... and businesses will reuse their old masters to create new material, especially for "fringe" things that won't really turn that big of a profit. Heck, even when some movies don't have a current master a studio will rush the remaster which results in a sub par HD master ergo sub par HD media. It's all in how much you are willing to spend to get something looking as good as it possibly can... and by all accounts BV spent little to no time and released a product not really worthy of being called a "HD" release. Yes the movie is in 1080p... but it doesn't look it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danth Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Okay, thanks for the explaination, JsARCLIGHT. If I understand correctly, old masters have a high enough resolution, but they're not in the best condition and may need restoration (esp. for HD DVDs) . And a master comes in between the original film and the dvds. I had no idea what a "master" was, and I still don't, really. Is it digital? Who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 24, 2007 Author Share Posted September 24, 2007 Effectively a "master" is the main copy... THE copy that every other copy is made from. A master should be the best quality that the material can be, because every copy of the master will progressively lose quality. Hence why when you have people "remaster" and existing master without going back to the source film you tend to lose quality rather than gain it. When you are dealing with standard DVD you can get away with so much it's not funny, the same goes for broadcast standard definition television. Until HD came along productions could "fudge" so much and get away with so much lazy efforts because the resolution of standard def things just can't display any minor anomalies or blips that a large resolution print would suffer from. Now that everything is going high def they can't get away with as much anymore... yet they still lazily produce things. As I said it's mostly a matter of money, as in they don't want to spend fifteen million dollars restoring The Last Starfigher for it's HD DVD release (which was last week) when they could just use the old master they made for the standard def DVD release some 6 years prior. And today everything is digital. If someone where to go back and make a new HD master of DYRL from it's original film stock that new master would be 100% digital. In the past masters where cut to tape and all sorts of other media. Today it's all gone digital because digital doesn't degrade sitting in a pile in a closet like most movie masters wind up doing. Heck, the existing master of DYRL that Bandai used to make the past DVD release is probably digital. The question always comes down to how much care was taken in the "digitizing" or "mastering" process and how much effort was made to clean and restore the film footage during the remastering process, because even when going from film to digital you can still botch the transfer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha OTS Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 As I said it's mostly a matter of money, as in they don't want to spend fifteen million dollars restoring The Last Starfigher for it's HD DVD release (which was last week) when they could just use the old master they made for the standard def DVD release some 6 years prior. Awww crap. That was one of the HD titles I was considering picking up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 25, 2007 Author Share Posted September 25, 2007 I was also all revved up to buy it until I found out it used the old master. The two reviews I've read of it describe the picture as, once again, "not worth the upgrade". It's really sad that these companies are just barfing all these titles out onto the market with no really decent remasters. What compounds the situation are the handful of truly outstanding HD media titles out there that really show you what a good HD master can produce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRAND CANNON Posted September 25, 2007 Share Posted September 25, 2007 With hopefully being able to enter the HD DVD realm in the near future, is there a place where I could reference titles to check if they are actually HD or are only cheap restorations such as above? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 25, 2007 Author Share Posted September 25, 2007 The place I put all my chips in are the reviews at High Def Digest. They have been spot on for all the stuff I've seen and bought. Like myself their reviewers are nit-picky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRAND CANNON Posted September 25, 2007 Share Posted September 25, 2007 Good stuff. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandit29 Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 How noticable is the differnce between 1080i and 1080p? Since I don't use HDMI on my 360 (my only HD source at the moment) I can only get 1080i and am curious about the difference in quality. The only difference I can tell is that 1080p is smoother. Really noticeable when playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma or Tekken 5 DR Online. But I also went from a 30" CRT to 46" LCD which is a big jump in terms of picture quality. Anyone pick up Underworld: Unrated on Blu-ray? Very good release. Video is razor sharp. I'm only using an optical cable for audio and the sound is freaking amazing. When the bullet casings hit the floor they sound like they are in the room with you. http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?i...amp;show=review Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilSpex Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 But I also went from a 30" CRT to 46" LCD which is a big jump in terms of picture quality. yeah a big jump backwards u mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandit29 Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 yeah a big jump backwards u mean? sure douchebag.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha OTS Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 Did anybody else here send in for that Xbox360 HD DVD free movies offer? It's been over 4 weeks since I sent in for it. I'm getting antsy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myk Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 yeah a big jump backwards u mean? Huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 27, 2007 Author Share Posted September 27, 2007 Did anybody else here send in for that Xbox360 HD DVD free movies offer? It's been over 4 weeks since I sent in for it. I'm getting antsy. I sent in for mine. It's part of the greater Toshiba offer and from all reports I've read the Toshiba offer is taking a laborious amount of time to process. The small print says to allow 8 to 10 weeks but it's not uncommon for it to take 4 to 6 MONTHS to receive your HD DVD's. Many people say they have received "delay notice" post cards in the mail. I found a 800 number online that you can call to check on your "order", let me try and find it again. Oh and I bought mine on August 1st, the first day of the offer, and mailed it the next day... I have yet to receive anything in the mail. HOWEVER my PS3 Blu Ray movies got to me in under 4 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted September 27, 2007 Share Posted September 27, 2007 I sent in for mine. It's part of the greater Toshiba offer and from all reports I've read the Toshiba offer is taking a laborious amount of time to process. The small print says to allow 8 to 10 weeks but it's not uncommon for it to take 4 to 6 MONTHS to receive your HD DVD's. Many people say they have received "delay notice" post cards in the mail. I found a 800 number online that you can call to check on your "order", let me try and find it again. Oh and I bought mine on August 1st, the first day of the offer, and mailed it the next day... I have yet to receive anything in the mail. HOWEVER my PS3 Blu Ray movies got to me in under 4 weeks. Four weeks? I sent away for mine back in July, and I haven't got anything yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 28, 2007 Author Share Posted September 28, 2007 Have you called them to see what your status is? I posted the number for the Blu Ray deal either in this thread or in the PS3 thread a few weeks ago. I'd give them a call if I was you, everyone I have seen has received their Blu Rays in about 4 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandit29 Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 If you don't have the 1800 number for the Blu-ray deal try here: https://portal.archway.com/run/Lookup?key=BVISTA mine are still "processing" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 If you don't have the 1800 number for the Blu-ray deal try here: https://portal.archway.com/run/Lookup?key=BVISTA mine are still "processing" Thanks, that helps a lot! I only have a cell, no home phone, so I always think that I'll wait until after 9:00 to call, and I always forget. This web version was a lot easier for me. And I'm still in process too. In fairness, it does say to allow 4-10 weeks, so maybe JsARCLIGHT just got lucky? Or maybe it has to do with where you live? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilSpex Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 Huh? Any CRT has higher resolution than any LCD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted September 28, 2007 Author Share Posted September 28, 2007 Most of the posters on the next gen media forums I browse have claimed to have received their Blu Rays within 4 weeks on the PS3 offer. All I can think of are that the movies you chose are very popular and you're stuck in a "waiting list". I picked a lot of movies that I'd guess very few people wanted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha OTS Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 Any CRT has higher resolution than any LCD. Wuh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 Most of the posters on the next gen media forums I browse have claimed to have received their Blu Rays within 4 weeks on the PS3 offer. All I can think of are that the movies you chose are very popular and you're stuck in a "waiting list". I picked a lot of movies that I'd guess very few people wanted. It's funny, but no sooner than I post in this thread than I get a card in the mail that basically said my movies are backorderd and aren't expected to ship until 11-2. Kinda nice of them to let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Hingtgen Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 Any CRT has higher resolution than any LCD. If that were true, I would have bought one of the many CRT HDTV's at Best Buy a year or two ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts