Hurin

Not to mention: NO REWINDING and instant chapter/scene selection! The #1 reason VHS tapes are hanging in there. . . people are idiots. It's not because DVDs aren't infinitely better than VHS, it's because so many people are technically illiterate and unskilled to the point where plugging something new into their TV is a daunting task. Especially for those over fifty. Throw in the fringe benefits of digital sound and surround sound, and many people are scared off. That's a far different thing, however, than saying that VHS is sticking around because everyone feels it's "good enough" or even nearly as good as DVD. People just fear change. H

Ali Sama, Some people are very into visual quality. I happen to be one of them. Having taken apart my 53" HDTV, performed mechanical and electronic focus, service mode convergence on each CRT, and otherwise tuned the thing up to near-perfection, I can tell you that a true HD source on a well-maintained HDTV is breathtaking. I suspect that you are watching non-HD material or material that isn't natively HD and/or watching it on a crappy HDTV or one that is not calibrated correctly. If you can swap back and forth between baseball in standard definition and baseball in HD and not see an incredible difference in detail and color saturation (and an overall tremendous increase in the "you are there" feeling), then you can't be helped. Regardless, as I said, some people are videophiles and get excited about improvements in home theater technology. Your point seems to be that HD is "over-rated" and unimpressive to you. You might as well barge into a conversation about comic books and state that you don't like them, or wander into a high-end steak house and state that good steak isnt important to you and is "over-rated." In each case, you'd be entitled to your opinion. But nobody is going to give a sh*t. H

Sorry to hear about the fire! Regarding re-buying for tampo printing: Yes, I'm one of those sick bastards who would re-buy my entire collection if they released them with quality tampo printing. There is just something so very cool about the "UN SPACY" on the legs. . . without unsightly decal/sticker lines (even though Takatoys stickers and Anasazi decals are very good!). Best, H Edit: Though it's probably unlikely that it'll happen.

If memory serves, Neova did start selling them at like $90 apiece maybe he did do so in anticipation of another release. But if I recall correctly, others drastically discounted their Max 1A prices long before that rumor was started. I believe I picked up mine for around $100 at about the same time. Though, as far as I know, the Max 1A re-release never actually panned out. . . and I'm darn near certain there was never an official announcement of one like we've seen via the Yamato newsletter for the various confirmed re-issues. There has been theories that Yamato did clear some back-stock of the Max 1A and that it was this event that caused people and/or suppliers to believe a new production run of them had taken place. Or. . . something. Best, H

Yeah, I have referred so many people to this thread over the years that I thought this thread deserved its own write-up under the "notes" section for the 1/48s on Macross Nexus. . . here. Just for the record, this is exactly the type of thing that we created the Nexus to do. . . to store this type of information in a form that is less easily lost in "forum churn." Of course, Sebastian gets the nod in the write-up. Best, H

sweet, I was just about to go home and bust out my camera.

Hmmm, looks like Sebastian had used the Forum "attachment" feature to post those images. But they're not showing up anymore. These images were really helpful to a lot of people. Was the "attachment cache" cleared out recently? If anyone has a copy of these images, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll just recreate them with my camera.

For the Macross Nexus, I've attempted to create an exhaustive, chronological list of all Yamato 1/48 releases. I'm posting it here to share and also in hopes that the huge community here can help point out any glaring errors, problems, or additions. I think it's pretty darn accurate. I scoured the forums looking for official release dates and also when MWers actually got their greedy paws on them. I've seen many requests for something like this over the years. . . and some decent ones have been posted. Though, the newest one (with dates) wasn't entirely accurate and also stopped at the Max 1J. And, eventually, it gets lost in the forum churn. So, here's a new one. . . have at it. Note: Was there a 5th Roy 1S release? I have a feeling there was. . . but can't find a reference to it! Note 2: Can't do a table with forum. . . so formatting is a lot worse than the actual doc which is at the Nexus here! Initial Releases 11/2002---VF-1A Hikaru (DYRL) 2/2003---VF-1S Roy (DYRL) 5/2003---VF-1A Max (DYRL) 7/2003---VF-1A Low Visibility (Limited Edition - Non-Canon) 8/2003---VF-1S Hikaru (DYRL) 8/2003---Strike/FAST Pack Armor Set 11/2003---VF-1J Hikaru (TV) 11/2003---Super VF-1J Hikaru (TV) 4/2004---FAST Pack Armor Set (Clear/Transparent - Limited Edition) 4/2004---Super VF-1J Max (TV) 5/2004---Super VF-1J Milia (TV) 9/2005---VF-1A Production Type ("Cannon Fodder") 12/2005---GBP-1S Armor Set 4/2006---VF-1J Stealth (Non-Canon) 4/2006---Super VF-1J Stealth (Non-Canon) 5/2006---VF-1A Low Visibility v2 (Limited Edition - Non-Canon) 7/2006---GBP-1S v2 (Non-Canon Color Variation) Re-Releases 10/2003---VF-1S Roy (DYRL) (2nd release - improved over 1st) 11/2003---VF-1A Hikaru (DYRL) (2nd release - improved over 1st) 12/2004---VF-1S Roy (DYRL) (3rd release) 8/2005---Strike/FAST Pack Armor Set (2nd release) 8/2005---VF-1S Roy (DYRL) (4th release) 12/2005---VF-1J Hikaru (TV) (2nd release) 1/2006---VF-1S Hikaru (DYRL) (2nd release) 3/2006---VF-1A Hikaru (DYRL) (3rd release) P.S. Blaine23 had a pretty good list of releases with dates that got things rolling. Thanks Blaine!

Yeah, I know, already edited. *turns red* Edit: Sorta relieved actually. I didn't want to say it, but I thought it looked terrible!

NM. Idiotic post where I thought that the images on those scanned pages were actually the new toy instead of comparison shots of the old 1/72 scale. Edit: Never owned a 1/72 YF-19. So I didn't recognize it. Late Edit: I'm just thankful I sat here and thought about how odd it was that the site update didn't mentioned the photos (and then went to check out the 1/72 for comparison) before going to bed. Lest the early-riser crowd spend all morning ripping me a new one for my idiocy!

For IVTC-ing? I tried several automated and script-based solutions (though perhaps not that exact one). Those automated solutions only work where there's a discernable pattern. But with the R2 DYRL, it's just all over the place. I recall one set of conglomerated scripts and apps that actually did analyze each frame and tried to determine if interlacing artifacts were present on an individual field-by-field basis. But it wasn't possible to tune it well enough. . . so it would throw out good frames and keep some bad ones. So I just started doing it by hand. . . and then burned out.

It has been considered. But to get it done right, it takes about a hundred man-hours. And that's not really in the cards for me for a while. And besides, every time I mention it to MW friends, they say something like: "Well, why would you want to sub Zero. It wasn't that good!" Now, I'm only going to point this out because some do-gooder will probably do it less politely if I don't. . . you could have just PMed this! Best, H

Yeah, that's normal. I don't know where it comes from though. It might actually be the name of the audio stream that Bandai/Emotion used. H P.S. Thanks!

The need to check that box came about during an IPB upgrade. But if memory serves, the upgrade happened a long time ago. H

You have to check the box that saves your outgoing PM in your Sent box before sending. Otherwise, no record is kept. H

Well, interlaced material can be mastered correctly to look right on progressive displays. . . . they just need to have proper pulldown flagging done and it needs to be consistent. It seems like Anime and animation in general seem to cause confusion when they are mastered. Most animation is actually done as film because they then only have to draw 24 frames for every second rather than 30 (for video). . . and that's an appreciable savings of labor by the end of an hour or two. But when they master it to DVD, something gets confused or screwed up and they don't get the flagging right. For DYRL, to me it looks like someone just dumped the Laserdisc into a video capture device, converted to MPEG-2 and said: "Here's the DVD". . . it's attrocious. If you actually take the MPEG-2 stream apart and look at the individual fields, they are themselves mangled (they actually show interlacing artifacts. . . which should only appear at playback when the fields are combined improperly). Yet, the fx bootleg DVD plays back fine on a computer. It is interlaced and is flagged consistently as interlaced. . . so no problem there. The sound is worse, and the picture is a tad less vibrant, but it sure does look better on a computer! H

Well, the mastering problems with the Bandai/Emotion release of DYRL are bad enough that I notice them at any distance from just about any size screen. But again, you won't see the crappiness unless you're playing it through a computer. Most tabletop DVD players do a decent job of adjusting for the bad 3:2 pull-down flags and garbage frames. H

It's not the projector, it's the computer (HTPC) he's using. If you are feeding your projector from a "table top" DVD player, you won't really see it (unless you really look for it). H

Well, it's always nice to know that I'm not just making it up!

Okay, last question. I'm not trying to be a pain here and after this I'm just going to start googling this stuff on my own (I've been remiss in keeping up with this stuff). . . If HDCP won't work over analog, and therefore someone with only component (analog) inputs on their HDTV can't use it, what is the point of there being analog/component outputs on a Blu-Ray DVD player?

Blu-Ray DVD drives will not have analog outputs that are HDCP-free? I thought the whole point of HDCP was to prevent digital bit-for-bit copying of high-res/HD material. Wow. I didn't even know that HDCP would work over analog. H

JsArclight, I wasn't IVTC-ing and re-encoding in order to try to attain a pseudo-HD experience. Trust me, I know you can't get more real detail/pixels/resolution from a low resolution source. I was remastering and IVTCing to remove the terrible interlacing artifacts and faulty 3:2 pull-down flagging that manifests itself on the Bandai/Emotion DVD when it is played back on a computer (as detailed in my review of the DVD here). I stopped because I assume that if/when they do an HD transfer from film, they'll do it right and my work will be moot (and vastly surpassed by HD resolution). At least, I think you were addressing my prior post. If not and I mis-interpreted, my apologies. H

For the record, I decided to forgo the thousand man-hours or so it was going to take to IVTC and re-master the Bandai/Emotion (official) DVD release of DYRL because I'd hate for them to release a (fixed) HD version about thirty minutes after I finished. That, and my eyes started bleeding. H

Every wondered how to go about contributing to the site? Well, here you go. . . FAQ - How Do I Submit Content? Best, H

Yeah, it's from Tenjin's Valkryies book. H