Akira comparison *PIX* - Page 3

I agree. Having seen AKIRA dozens of times from VHS, LD, and DVD I am very pleased with the transfer. Saying this blu-ray looks soft is just silly. To me it looks like a film print and that is what I want from my blu-ray's.

-Will

I don't think it looks much softer than I would expect to see. It may be soft, but the rest of the picture looks pristine to me. In order to sharpen the image, wouldn't EE have to be utilized?

I'm curious about that, too. What is the purpose of windowboxing?

yep. i mean, look, there's essentially no detail in this movie that should not have shown up in the DVD. so the fact that this BR looks like the dvd, except with better color, WAY less noise and no EE is about as good as i could imagine it looking. this movie has always had a soft look to it -- on dvd, on ld, on vhs, anywhere i've seen it. it's from 1988. i don't care what they did with sleeping beauty. this isn't sleeping beauty, this is akira, and to me it looks exactly the way it should.

It used to done to compensate for TV overscan, so that you get the entire picture with nothing being cutout by your TV. It was more common with Japanese DVDs and anime. However as more and more HDTV are now LCDs and Plasma displays, overscan is becoming a thing of the past. They should retire windowboxing scheme.

No, they just needed to skip the noise reduction. When the guys who made the transfer say they used NR, it isn't as sharp as it could be. That's just sort of what NR does.

There are some NR artifacts on the transfer, they just aren't constant. It's nowhere near as bad as, say, FUNimation's transfer of the Dragonball Z movies, but it still isn't perfect.

May not be perfect buy I think it's close.

-Will

Dirt & scratch removal is not the same thing as DNR. DNR is applied to filter the entire image of a layer of high frequency detail. Dirt and scratches are often painted out individually. Not the same thing at all.

I'm watching the MGM Hong Kong release of Army Of Darkness on DVD at the moment and it's windowboxed the same as Akira. It's not even an issue to me.

Josh Z: Reading it a second time, you're probably right. The article could well have been talking about actual human-aided scratch removal (which was also done on the Pioneer restoration), but the wording still made me nervous. FUNimation's bragging about how their Dragon Ball Z HD telecine "removed millions of scratches and pieces of dirt" with no actual scratch removal stage in the transfer has seemingly made me a little paranoid. For that I apologize.

But, if you need proof that DNR was used on this transfer:



If that isn't DNR, I'd love to know what it is.

(Screencap can be found in this review.)

Do a search on ebay for some of the cels that are for sale from "Akira", they look nice and sharp. Putting them to film added grain, but shouldn't have blurred them up like you can see in some of the shots on page 1.

just got this in the mail when i got home from work. i'm watching it right now on my calibrated xbr960 - i won't deny based on the above screencaps that there's a little bit of dnr going on, however, if you guys think this isn't a good transfer, you're crazy. despite the bit of dnr, the image is very filmlike, smooth, sharp but not unnaturally sharp.

also, the 192/24 soundtrack is AMAZING. purists won't like all the new foley work - and there is a good bit of it, but it sounds ridiculous. if i didn't know it was 192/24 and someone told me it was just uncompressed 48/16, i'd certainly believe them. it's definitely not a night and day difference, or even all that noticeable a difference. but the soundstage is absolutely huge, the dynamic range is crazy, the clarity is flawless, with plenty of bass but not too much bass. the new mix is also extremely aggressive, maybe a little too aggressive, which is basically the only fault i'd site. an overall epic disc.

Cool

DISCLAIMER: I have not read the thread nor have I seen the disc.

As a professional video person the second set of comparison pictures caught my eye. There is a person on a conveyor and under the person is a set lines in a arced pattern. This pattern is similar to one of many test patterns we use for testing video response.

Note the DVD lines that are ≥ 45° (CCW) vs. the same ones in the Blu-ray version. The DVD ones smear and blend together, the ones on Blu-ray are nice and distinct. This implies much greater video bandwidth (detail) and that is as it should be for the Blu-ray.

Sorry for the interruption, now back to your regular arguing .

to the 192/24 audio most surrond sounds cant even processe that format so you are not going to notice but if we all a system that could, i would think it would be big difference.

my ps3 is decoding it correctly and outputting it as 192/24 5.1 LPCM to my onkyo 605 and it sounds like butter. i'm just saying there's no way i'd be able to tell the difference between this and a well-mastered 48/16 truehd/dts-ma/LPCM track. and i'm not listening on a small system. i have full-range floor standing polk audio l/r speakers and timbre matched multi-driver center and surround speakers. by no means is it a top-of-the-line or even high-end system, not by a long shot, but it's no HTIB. all things considered, i'd say the surround mix on the blade runner final cut is better than this one - it's more subtle, dynamic and directional. and it's like 1/3 of the data as in this one. i just don't think there's much you gain by going beyond 48/16.... nevertheless, it does sound phenomenal.

Honneamise is the new Criterion.

Yeah, but doesn't Criterion put like a lot of extras on discs (well, at least their DVDs, I don't know about their Blu-rays.)

Maybe so, but the transfers aren't made from the cells unfortunately. They are made from dusty films of those cells. And that's a very big difference.

I'm not saying that the disc wasn't DNR'ed. I received my copy yesterday, but so far haven't watched more than 2 minutes of it on a small monitor to verify that the TrueHD track was working with my equipment. I really have no opinion on the video transfer yet. All I mean is that the quote you pulled doesn't sound to me like an admission of guilt.

Not saying it's going to be perfect, just that some of those shots don't look very sharp, and some of them do. This shot for example seems very blurry, and I don't think that was intentional for this scene:

Nobody. Sorry if I'm being dramatic, I just wanted to establish what got me so upset that I wasn't thinking straight.

Several people on forums, review sites and the like (not just here) have said it looks "fantastic", "pretty much perfect", and all sorts of other overly excited things. I disagree. It's not a bad transfer, and heaven knows I own worse, but it's neither as good as Bandai Visual has done in the past, nor as good as the film deserves. Even if Akira is soft by nature, there are DNR artifacts, and particularly on a release touting its' own prestige and quality, I find that inexcusable.

And why would Akira be any softer than Patlabor, Honneamise or Memories? Not trying to be difficult, I'm just curious if there's any part of the creation process I don't know that would lead to it being overly soft? I'll be renting the disc to see for myself if it's worth the investment. For $50 with several key DVD extras missing, I think I can be just a little greedy in asking for a perfect transfer.

joekun, my guess is that the shot with Kaneda and co. in the station was an optically printed effect, with the kids themselves overlaid on the original animation of the police at their desks. That would explain the heavy outlines (matte lines), and also why the shot is soft, and yet has a lot of grain. Maybe there were just too many layers of cels, and they couldn't properly photograph it all at once?

That shot of Keneda and the kids looks intentional, as if the kids are the focus, not the rest of the room or the cops.

I say that we make a big deal about this, just like people did with sleeping beauty (a few random shots had wonky focus). We should definitely boycott this release and demand they re-do it. [/sarcasm]

I do not know the technical background aspects of the film but here are some possibilities.

Some of the softness can be from various factors:

1. Film stock that was used could have been very different from other productions of the time.

2. Lenses that were used could lend a softer look.

3. The animators smoked like chimney stacks and all that atmospheric haze got in the way of the lens. ;}~

4. The originating source that was used for the (re)master(s) had deteriorated a degree and caused some softness.

5. The auto DNR software initially used before hand restoration fudged a bit.

6. Akira has always had some softness to it. -The pioneer release has such strong EE that I think that perhaps which ever elements used were a tad soft.

7. Combination of all of the above.

8. Insert you own theories here...


One thing from the various shots I've seen, still debating the hefty price tag, the color rendition is fantastic and a major plus for the video aspect, many claim the audio is an awesome upgrade as well but hopefully it hasn't been cooked.

Best Regards
KvE

I've never seen this movie. Would you recommend I buy the BD version?

Might as well see the movie in the best presentation available. Trust me you won't be disappointed.

I'd recommend renting any movie first that you haven't seen.

Well I'm a fan of anime in general. Haven't seen too much but from the little I've seen it's really a unique experience. It's hard for me to put in a short post but it just transports me to another place more so than other types of movies. I can't get enough.