Streaming services in Japan are republishing classic anime series and movies in record quantities, often in high definition, sometimes remastered. That's good news for fans of old anime, because many of these shows have been unavailable or available only on imperfect sources like VHS tapes, laserdiscs, or hastily mastered DVDs. For example, the streaming source for the original Laughing Salesman looks vastly better than the DVD box set.
However, the streaming raws can also have problems. Sometimes, the high-definition stream is just an upscale of an old laserdisc or DVD, with no attempt at remastering. They result looks grainy and crude, with thick, jagged lines and blotched textures. Sometimes, the streaming service skimps on bandwidth. This introduces blocking and other artifacts. And sometimes, the streaming raw has encoding mistakes - incorrect frame rates (29.97 fps instead of 23.976 fps) or unnecessary blck borders.
Orphan has a pile of high-definition raws for shows it has already released, but many of them have issues that introduce problems in the subtitling process:
So I have a question to my readers (all three of you): would you like to see high-definition releases of our past shows, even if the raws have black bars or look terrible? Or should Orphan hold out for properly encoded/cropped raws? Of course, if we had a few more encoders, this would not be an issue...However, the streaming raws can also have problems. Sometimes, the high-definition stream is just an upscale of an old laserdisc or DVD, with no attempt at remastering. They result looks grainy and crude, with thick, jagged lines and blotched textures. Sometimes, the streaming service skimps on bandwidth. This introduces blocking and other artifacts. And sometimes, the streaming raw has encoding mistakes - incorrect frame rates (29.97 fps instead of 23.976 fps) or unnecessary blck borders.
Orphan has a pile of high-definition raws for shows it has already released, but many of them have issues that introduce problems in the subtitling process:
- Incorrect frame rate. The high-definition Sangokushi movie streams are at 29.97 fps. This can't be correct: the originals were movies and must have been created at 23.976 fps. The incorrect frame rate not only bloats the encode, it also wrecks all the motion-tracked typesetting. Because the Sangokushi movies required months of typesetting, this is a big deal, at least for me as the typesettter. So far, no one has been willing to re-encode them back to the proper frame rate.
- Lack of cropping. The high-definition raws for the Nine OVAs are at the correct frame rate but are not cropped. The first OVA has been released as though it were a wide-screen movie, with horizontal black bars to achieve the movie aspect ratio of 1.85:1 instead of the HD standard of 1.77:1. The second and third OVAs are square but have been padded with vertical black bars to widen the 1440 x 1080 resolution to 1920 x 1080. In both cases, this wrecks the typesetting from the laserdiscs, which are 4:3.
- Ugly upscaling. The original high-definition releases of all the 60's Toei animation films appear to be simple upscales of DVD sources. They look terrible at 1080p and need to be downscaled to 720p to be tolerable, as was done for Wan Wan Chuushingura. (Toei is now remastering some of its best known titles, like Horus and Hakujaden; we'll see if they keep going.)
I really, really hate upscales or releases with black bars.
ReplyDeleteI usually run stuff like that through handbrake and try to fix it. The framerate thing is trickier. Usually Handbrake handles it beautifully, but sometimes it turns out worse than than it started.
Personally, I think your time would be better spent working on, and releasing, new works. There are so many things out there that have no translations and/or legal releases, that I’d rather more time be spent on that than “perfecting” old releases that won’t even really be all that perfect.
ReplyDeleteWell, if Orphan had some working translators, we would, but they're all gone/retired/swallowed by Real Life.
DeleteI try to avoid perfectionism, it hinders progression.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there were three.
DeleteThree of what ?
Delete" ... readers (all three of you) ..." . it was the third comment.
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ReplyDeleteI think you have to look at each on a case-by-case basis. Is the title popular enough in Japan that it is likely it will receive a better HD release down the road or is it something fairly esoteric and the current HD transfer is probably the only one? Was the HD version upscaled because original film elements have been lost or no longer exist? Would the resulting, corrected (as much as possible) transfer be a marked improvement over what Orphan has already released? I think that taking those types of factors into consideration can help you decide whether or not it's worth it to put in the work on a new release or if the current one will just have to do. You all do fantastic work and I can't stress enough how grateful I am to all involved for giving myself and others interested in older anime the opportunity to see things that we would otherwise never get to watch. You all are appreciated.
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DeleteThanks. I'm also happy that I can help even a bit with fansubbing shows that never even made past the analogue media with no release outside of Japan. Wish we could have more time and more power to fansub even more forgotten anime.
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