AIR TV on Blue-Ray Disc

[Minoto]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone had the opportunity to view the Blu-ray version on something other than a PS3?

I downloaded the 1.80 upgrade for my PS3 today, and it has a number of improvements including PSX/PS2 game and DVD upscaling to 720p/1080x as well as Blu-ray downscaling to 720p. That last feature had me hoping that AIR would finally look clean, but no luck. It fixes the problem where Blu-ray discs with 1080p streams got downconverted all the way to 480p for people with early HDTVs that maxed out at 720p, but doesn't seem to do anything for discs that are encoded at 720p to begin with, as we assume AIR to be -- it's as jaggy as ever. The DVD upscaling works nicely, though, resulting in the DVD version looking much better than the Blu-ray version...sigh.

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever confirmed this to be unique to those of us using PS3s for playback, or if it really is a fault with the Blu-ray version itself, caused in the original upscaling process.

[zrdb]

Originally Posted by andiyar

Wait... you're complaining that R2 DVDs, authored specifically for the Japanese market and for sale only in the Japanese market, don't have English subtitles or language tracks? Forgive me as I say this, but that strikes me as rather stupid.

Japanese DVDs (ie, R2, and specifically anime) contain exactly what their target market desires - high quality video and audio, with often very attractive packaging, in both limited and normal editions. They are authored in Japan, pressed in Japan, and sold in Japan. Their target market are Japanese. Why on earth would they contain any semblance of Ango-Saxonification? They aren't available except by restricted import from their country of origin!

To make a corollary, it's like complaining that R1 DVDs from America - let's say TV show DVDs - are a pain, because they don't have an Arabic audio track or subtitle stream, despite the video quality being better than DVDs available in the U.A.E (if you were an Emirates citizen, of course). It is an incredibly irrelevant argument - you aren't the market, you never will be the market, ergo, they can't be expected to cater to you at all.

Yes, R2 disks often have better video quality - although in the case of Air, I"m betting it'll be the other way, thanks to the prowess of Pony Canyon. R2 disks often also have much more attractive packaging, and come with neat extras. But first and foremost - they're R2. Japan. Anyone outside of Japan has their own DVD region to buy from, with disks to cater to their market. What R2 do and don't include is, quite frankly, their own business - and with their pricing structure, even if they did include english substreams, I can't imagine they'd get much of a return.

Oh, and as an aside, I'm not a fan of the region scheme used by the DVD forum, nor of the similar scheme by the Blu-ray consortium. I buy R1, R2 and R4 disks (a benefit of region-free DVD players being legal here), and watch them all - but I'm also aware of the original market intentions of the producers of said disks.

Best,


-Andiyar

You're missing the boat here-I KNOW R2 dvds don't have english subs-what I was complaining about is that it's a pain in the ass to add subtitles to the video.

[andiyar]

Originally Posted by zrdb

You're missing the boat here-I KNOW R2 dvds don't have english subs-what I was complaining about is that it's a pain in the ass to add subtitles to the video.

Pointing at this:

Originally Posted by zrdb

R2 dvds can be a royal pain in the tailpipe-the video is usualy better than most R1 releases-but no english subs and no dub!?!?!?!

indicates otherwise. My apologies if I have misunderstood you, but your post doesn't seem to indicate what you've stated

I personally have never had much trouble adding subtitles to DVDs - I have been, for instance, adding substreams to the Kanon 2006 DVDs as I get them, substreams that I've taken from Eclipse's releases. Takes a little bit of time, but isn't all that hard, at least I don't find it so. Your mileage may vary, of course, as may your software tools


-Andiyar

[sayuritokyo]

This was back in December 2006. I wonder how much it costs now..

Spoiler for saving space:

[angelofragnarok]

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/c...e=UTF8&index=0

Can anyone tell me what this is? I'm really into AIR, but I can't seem to find any details about this item anywhere. I'd rather not drop $200 without knowing what I'm buying. >.<

[musashiken]

Originally Posted by angelofragnarok

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/c...e=UTF8&index=0

Can anyone tell me what this is? I'm really into AIR, but I can't seem to find any details about this item anywhere. I'd rather not drop $200 without knowing what I'm buying. >.<

It's the first press limited edition of Air TV on Blu Ray.

It contains all 12 episodes with the 2 special episodes. Seems like they made a new opening sequence for the Blu ray release.

It has some extras like an extended version of the new opening, an illustration gallery pics, and Japanese subtitles.

The movie is not included inside though.

I suppose that if you're an Air fan, it's alright to buy it. But for a Blu Ray box set, having the movie included would have been a lot better.

Well AFAIK, this is the first anime TV series I heard of that's released on High Definition. Japanese companies are still busy releasing anime series on standard DVDs. Only certain anime movies are released on High Definition.

[andiyar]

@ angelofragnarok

As musashiken has said, Air on Blu Ray is the original series mastered onto Blu Ray, with the two Air in Summer episodes. They've also created a new extended OP and a few other goodies. The bad news is, though, the entire set isn't actually HD. The episodes were upscaled from SD into HD, resulting in a 720p picture. The only actual HD content on the disks are the new OP sequences, which are present in 1080p. Also, I've read (and been told) that the upscaler wasn't exactly stellar, so that the picture increase on this set is so small as to be almost irrelevant compared to the R2 DVD release.

So. It depends, really, if you want Air on Blu Ray enough to ignore the lack of an English translation and the subpar video present. I came within a whisker of buying it myself, until I realised I didn't have a Blu Ray player, wouldn't for a while, and then ADV releasing the R1 made me change my mind completely. But hey, YMMV.


-Andiyar

[Cloud668]

I have bought the bd set recently, and as andiyar said, sometimes the video just isn't that great, usually the edges of the foreground animation is seen pretty clearly, but it doesn't exactly ruin the mood (to me at least).

[mandarb916]

Was wondering if anyone had both AIR on DVD and on Blu-ray. I'm in Japan for a bit and was thinking about getting the AIR BD box-set if the quality is significantly improved over the DVD version since I wouldn't have to pay exorbitant markup through places like playasia and what not.