Hurin

Whats so confusing? That someone would actually take the time to: 1) Notice this. 2) Think that something was "wrong" with it or could be "improved." 3) Suggest an alternative for a problem that does not exist. 4) Pat self on the back as savior of the Macross World "Other Anime" sub-heading. -- PENDING Seriously though, just another "suggestion" by Togo, backed up by Agent One. . . and yawned over by the rest of us. Rinse. Repeat. So Togo, what do you have cookin' up for us next week? Will you suggest that the "Newbie Questions" thread be re-spelled "Noobie?" Because, that's about as important as changing the sub-heading of the Other Anime forum. I don't think someone who wanted to post about Star Wars would see "Star Trek" there and say: "Woops, I'd best go somewhere else." Half of me thinks you guys are just yanking us around with all these "suggestions" or that you're having fun with that last bit of Star Trek drama around here. . . but the other part of my mind boggles at the idea of someone actually sitting around and coming up with stuff like this. So, you're either both just messin' with us and hoping for a response (like this one!) or Togo just has way, way, waaaay too much time on his hands. But, based on his other threads here in the feedback area, I'm assuming it's the latter. Let's dust this one off again: H

Now, maybe it's been this way for a while and I just noticed it. . . but has anyone else cracked up recently at Graham's new "custom title?" H

Here you go. . .

Well, even though I originally said it, I think most of the infrastructure on the Macross and elsewhere is designed to maintain/arm/disarm/fuel valkryies while in fighter mode. So, landing in Gerwalk is probably discouraged. Going from gerwalk to fighter mode while not in-flight seems difficult. Though, I used to think a valkyrie couldn't transform from figher to gerwalk while on the ground. But I was enlightened by those more knowledgable (or who watched DYRL more closely). So I could be wrong here too. H

Heh! We're talking about a CF here! This may be the only CF to have ever taken a scratch and not immediately exploded right there on the spot. CF = Star Trek red shirt. H

Well, if I'm interpreting the scene right, Hikaru doesn't actually leave at that point, but continues to loiter around as Roy gets killed. But yes, I wracked my brain trying to come up with something too. I'll happily change it to something closer to the original Japanese meaning if someone can come up with an english phrase that sounds appropriate! Thanks for the feedback and the kind remarks! H

Sorry man, but I don't think they were ever that cheap. The cheapest I ever saw them was $54.99. Though I might recall $50 at some place in Asia (online). H

Since nobody looks at the Reviews section any more, I thought I'd point out the existence of this new review by yours truly here. The re-subtitled version of the R2 DVD should be along shortly (hopefully no more than a week if not by the end of this weekend). H

As many of you know, I have been re-subtitling the fx (region-free) DVD of Macross: Do You Remember Love? While doing so, it occurred to me that, since I was putting so much time and effort into this movie, I might as well re-subtitle the best quality DVD available. So, I sent away to YesAsia.com. Two weeks later, it arrived. UPDATE: The subtitles for this Region 2 DVD are now available. First, there is something to be said for owning an official release of this film. It deserves our support as much as possible. More profits for official Macross products may in fact encourage more Macross projects and products. But, aside from that, I'll stay away from the politics of bootlegging and just get to the review. . . Package Contents Right off the bat, you realize you're holding something "official" because there is more than a DVD inside. The DVD comes with a couple postcards and some liner notes. The DVD case, of course, also has the Bandai/Emotion logo on it. ADDITION: I recently found another thread with good pics of the DVD contents. You may want to check it out. The First Big Surprise Part of me always wondered why the bootlegs of DYRL aren't just straight "rips" of the official Bandai/Emotion release. I still don't have an answer for that. . . but I can confirm that the transfer of this film is not the same one used for the fx DVD. Part of me harboured some doubt that there would be any difference at all. But, rest assured, there is. . . Video Quality The video quality of the bandai/emotion release is absolutely stunning. Now, the fx DVD was no slouch either. Indeed, I found it hard to believe that the fx release could be improved upon to any great degree. However, the bandai/emotion R2 DVD is noticably brighter and a bit more vibrant. Brightness The Bandai/emotion release is quite a bit brighter by default than the fx release. Some might be concerned that blacks might appear more gray in this release. However, I didn't notice this in anything but the opening sequence (where the Macross emerges from the shadows). . . and if such a thing is a concern, you can adjust your TV's picture/brightness levels to compensate. The increase in brightness without appearing to wash out shadows and other details really makes this movie shine. Color and Vibrancy The Bandai/emotion relase excels here. I had no idea that there were so many different colored lights flashing on the Macross in the opening sequence! Here, you see them all. On the fx DVD, the different colors are harder to make out. The rest of the movie does appear marginally more vibrant. I would constantly be astounded at how bright and vibrant everything looked, and think to myself: "The old fx DVD never looked like that!". . . but then I'd compare to the fx DVD and find that (aside from the brightness), the fx DVD wasn't actually that far off the mark. But a difference is noticable. Overal Quality There was a bit of "banding" and "noise" on the fx DVD that I really now only notice when I compare it to the official Bandai/Emotion DVD. Once again, the opening sequence shows this most clearly as the Macross emerges from shadows. In the fx DVD, there are horizontal gray bands of "noise" as the Macross emerges. These are (thankfully) absent on the Bandai/Emotion DVD. Such things are not as apparent in other parts of the DVD. But if this opening scene is any indication, you can rest assured that the Bandai/Emotion DVD is a less noisy transfer of the film. As a matter of fact, according to an MPEG analyzer, the bitrates between the two films are substantially different: Bandai/Emotion: 9200000 bps fx: 7700000 bps Sound Quality Both the fx and Bandai/Emotion have a Dolby Prologic surround mix. However, the Bandai/Emotion one is surpisingly superior. I expected a subtle difference, not a huge one. I got a huge one. I was always mildly annoyed by the level of hiss in the fx DVD's sound stream. As you turned up the volume to really enjoy the movie on your home theater, the hiss really became noticable in quiet scenes. In the Bandai/Emotion release, there is no discernable hiss at all! Interlacing Issues So far, as expected, the R2 Bandai/Emotion release is in the midst of a clean sweep. Though, in image quality, the fx DVD isn't too terribly far behind. But, here is where there is a surprising (and for R2 owners, disappointing) result for the Bandai/Emotion DVD. As has been noted from time to time across the web, the Bandai/Emotion release is interlaced. Of course, so is the fx release. However, the fx release seems to have been mastered to DVD in such a way as to make it much more friendly to PC DVD playback software and/or HTPCs (Home Theater PC). Whereas the Bandai/Emotion DVD quite frankly doesn't get along with PCs as well as its knock-off cousin. Let's get one thing straight: The R2 Bandai/Emotion DVD plays very well in table-top (stand-alone) DVD players and it looks wonderful on my own Panasonic RP-62 DVD player (progressive). The problems I'm describing here are only really visible when the Bandai/Emotion DVD is played on a computer. You may want to visit this site for a primer on video interlacing before continuing on. . . you've been warned! When played back on a computer, the R2 Bandai/Emotion DVD shows a lot of interlacing issues. I tried three different computer with three different video cards and four different DVD decoders. First, the NVIDIA DVD Decoder with an NVIDIA 6600GT video card showed some "jumpiness" around static objects (such as the red text under "Macross" in the opening sequence) and angular backgrounds. So, I tried the Cyberlink DVD decoder. This solved the "jumpiness" issue, but at the expense of an annoying flickering in some scenes (especially the opening sequence where the camera pans across the Macross bridge). So, I tried another computer with an NVIDIA 6800GT video card and saw the same things. Finally, I tried my laptop with an ATI 9200 video card and the WinDVD Decoder. This was the worst experience of all as I saw a lot of combing and other issues. Basically, solving one interlacing-related problem caused others to appear. No tweaking of settings alleviated all problems. So, I decided to investigate: When the raw MPEG files of the Bandai/Emotion release are played back in "Flask". . . it shows that the software player is constantly jumping back and forth between interlaced and progressive mode. This indicates that the film stock was transferred to video with some odd, problematic, or bad 3:2 pulldown flags. In other words: They converted the film to video poorly. Oddly, the fx DVD does not exhibit this behavior. The playback is listed as "interlaced" and never switches to "progressive" throughout the playback. This would explain why its playback is so much smoother and more stable when I view it on my HTPC. I suspect that whoever created the fx DVD went about encoding it to DVD video differently than did Bandai/Emotion. Fx may have even used an inverse-telecine method before encoding it that results in better deinterlacing when played back. Now that I know what to look for, I can sometimes see very vague signs of these de-interlacing artifacts on the Bandai/Emotion DVD even when playing back on my table-top DVD player. But, the signs of them are slight and I doubt anyone would notice them if they hadn't read this and then compared the same scenes to the fx DVD. Table-top DVD players (especially good ones) simply do a much better job of de-interlacing DVDs than do computers in almost all circumstances. Computers show de-interlacing problems a lot more severely, on the whole, than do stand-alone players. Some day, I hope to try to do a inverse-telecine process on the Bandai/Emotion DVD myself and thus get the best of both worlds together on one DVD. But that's a project for the future. Right now, I'm still working on subtitling the fx DVD. And, I've already got a rough version of the Bandai/Emotion DVD re-subtitled. But, it needs a bit of tweaking. ADDITION: I brought these problems up over at the animeondvd.com forum. Some very helpful people further explained and confirmed this DVD's issues. Conclusion If not for the de-interlacing problems with the Bandai/Emotion DVD, I'd say that the R2 DVD is nearly perfect and would highly recommend that those with the monetary means (about $75 when imported from Japan) track down a copy and replace their fx copies as long as they would be able to view it. Though, obviously, to view this DVD, you will need a region-free DVD player, or you'll need to extract the DVD to your computer's hard drive (while simultaneously removing the region code). But, if you choose to extract to your hard drive, I highly recommend that you then re-burn it (now region-free) to a Dual-Layer DVD and view it via your home theater system. Playback on a computer ranges from tolerable to downright messy depending on your DVD playback software. So, in a nutshell, I'd highly recommend this DVD to those who can re-burn it to a Dual-layer DVD (or possibly two DVDs). I also recommend this DVD highly to those who have a table-top DVD player than can play Region 2 DVDs. However, if you will be buying this DVD solely to watch on your computer, I would recommend that you stick with the fx DVD as it does not suffer the de-interlacing artifacts that the Bandai/Emotion DVD diplays on computers.

Apparently it does have two according to the post above. However, I think I'd just land it in gerwalk!

Hmmmm, well, that sounds like those words ("If you say so!") convey something in Japanese that they do not convey in english. Or, to use the old phrase: "Something is lost in translation." Because, I really don't see an english-speaking person using that line to convey that meaning at all. So, really, I think the change in line is justified. I'm glad I'm forgiven though!

Ya jerks! I noticed the shortage about two weeks ago. . . but was waiting for my tax refund before pulling the trigger on an order. Now I had to go ahead and do it early! Not only did you point it out to everyone, but even where I was going to buy them! By the way, that price at TISINC99.COM isn't too bad. Though Kevin at VE once had them on sale for $54.99, at one point he also had them for the same price. Not that I'm comparing VE to TISINC. Kevin/VE is infinitely superior. Better packaging, better price, and better service. The only thing TISINC99.COM seems to have going for them is that they actually have the stuff long after the others have sold out (of course, marked up). Anyways, final thought: Be careful when ordering through the TISINC99.COM web store. . . when I tried to pay via paypal, it tried to charge me twice for sales tax. The Yahoo store added sales tax. . . then the Paypal site added sales tax on top of that. I called them and got it straightened out. . . but if you're in a hurry, you might not notice. H

Yes, that's them. You should get them now since they're discontinued. H

Even though Animeigo isn't selling these anymore, I'd wouldn't worry too much: They can probably replace anything like this well into the future. Try contacting them. H

Uh. . . will I be strung up if I point out that she sounds pretty terrible? Seriously, it's like she's doing an impression of Bill Murray doing his lounge singer act doing and impression of her. H

Sorry that I didn't get back to you soon enough via PM. I didn't go into work today, so I couldn't set up an FTP area for the files. On the bright side, though, I did have a good day of playing Rome Total War! Looks like Mechamaniac took care of it anyways. Cool! Thanks MM! H

I vaguely remembered the Toycom switch to Yamato USA. But I had a reminder when I was in a comic book store for the first time in about a year on Sunday. . . and I saw this incredible sculpted batman statue/figure. It was definitey an American toy. . . but it had "Yamato" on the back. H

Yeah, if you look at the very page you cite, you can see that Disc 5 of the Animeigo SDF Macross DVD series is clearly marked "Macross 5". . . So. . . in answer to your question: No. H

Hey! I know! Let's all keep posting in a thread we all think is lame! That way it will stay at the top of the board longer!

Hmmmm, a plane controlled by AI. That's not exactly unheard of outside of M+. A love triangle (that really doesn't seem to be exploited at all in the trailer). Again, not exactly unheard of outside of M+. So, I'll just sum up: Without a pseudo-rape scene. . . it's not M+. This movie appears to explore a lot of the same ground. But you might as well say that "Saving Private Ryan" was a rip-off of "The Longest Day." H P.S. In case anyone was wondering how this year's Oscar winner will ruin his/her reputation as they always do, we now know.

I can help too. Let me know. H

Congrats Fansub! Glad to hear it! H

Hi! Welcome to MW! Well, Animeigo's release of SDF Macross (the TV series) has some very good subtitles. It would really be hard to improve upon them, in my opinion. Have you checked them out? They're still for sale at the following links for a good price! Box Set 1 Box Set 2 Box Set 3 Now, if you're talking about fansubs in languages other than english, I doubt we'd be much help since MW is a primarily english-speaking Macross website. Best Regards (and again, welcome!) H

fansub2000. The problem is that you extracted the files to: "c:\macross-dvd" rather than just "c:\" So, look closely at the path shown in your screenshot, your files are in c:\macross-dvd\macross-dvd. You've got a macross-dvd folder within a macross-dvd folder. Get rid of that extra level/layer of folders and you should be all set. Your files need to be in c:\macross-dvd\ with no duplicate folder under that. Make sense? H P.S. The contents of your "Demuxed DVD" directory look fine. The icons only look different because you have different programs on your computer than mine and they are associated with the files in there. Also, you have file extensions turned off.