Zinjo

I have a few caps of that, which part were you looking for? It is a fairly long sequence (in terms of frames) with several subtitles on it. And yes, I like it too...

It is possible that this animator convinced Kawamori to make Michel a French character, thus one could surmise his name to be Michel Brun aka Michael Brown in English. Given the good relations Japan and France have had over the years (particularly with respect to anime), it is not impossible.

There is another action shot with a character superimposed over the scene, so this one is the best "clean" shot of it so far...

Depends which ones you want? I have frame captures in 1080x720. That is where I got the images for the new Walls I created HERE. I also have the show in 1920x1080, but the MP4 has errors in it, so I can't get good frame caps at that resolution...

No one would dispute Keith's status on Mac 7, however I would like a reference to a planned NA release of 7. That would be a new tidbit of info AFAIK...

A couple of new Walls of the Frontier. Resolution 1280x1024. Will make different resolutions upon request.

Where did you read that? I read he based his choice on bringing Max back based on his popularity at a US convention, hardly a basis for a NA release plan. Kawamori stated in his interview in the August Newtype (translated into English for the November issue of Newtype USA) that Macross Plus was written as a "Foreign" (to the Japanese audience) film, while M7 was designed to be like a Manga show. Hence why Mac Plus didn't do as well as M7 with Japanese audiences, but was huge here. Hardly out of "left field". yeah, well so did Sailor Moon, Pokemon and Digimon. That's all we need is for the franchise to be compared to those pre-pubescent productions, with a proliferation of songs few in NA can understand... M7 was so heavy laden with jpop music that despite the enormous music licensing fees a distributor would have to incur, most of the casual NA anime audiences would have a difficult time understanding what spiritia is and how it is affected by jpop... Many of the themes in M7 are very asian (understandable considering the target audience) and quite foreign to outsiders to the culture. I doubt it would utterly fail, but I have strong doubts it would garner enough market share to profit from the costs of distributing all 49 episodes.

Shouta, Which application did you use to encode the MP4?

Hmmm, you may want to cut down on the speed reading, I've made that point twice now and a third aint coming... Macross Plus and 7 are an "analogy" for the question you originally asked about a statement I made regarding the differences in Western and Japanese tastes. True enough. However, if said people didn't like the DE then why even bother taking the time to watch the show in the wee hours of the morning or PVRing the episode, just to "not" like it again? Your argument is a double edged sword, my friend... However, I do agree that the numbers for episode 2 will be a greater gauge as to how popular the show may or may not become.

New to the forums? Coming in 2nd in the time slot ratings is a fairly positive afirmation of the episode. However, I do concede (as stated in the context of the statement out of which you quoted "a" sentence) that the 2nd place ranking could just as easily be due to fan "buzz" as a result of the DE version shown back in December... Then there is the reality that Macross Plus was far better received here than in Japan, compared to Macross 7.

LOL...

Actually, if you add the time the new scenes took, then that will give you an idea of how long a "complete version" would be. Personally, I find it interesting that Western fans prefer the Deculture Edition over the Japanese fan preference of the MBS version. There is still a culture gulf between both fanbases or the "buzz" affect worked as well as expected, by broadcasting the DC edition early. The DC and MBS versions are essentially the same episode with different focuses. Combined they give us a full introduction to the three main characters and their demeanors.

If you guys are using the aniserv 800MB 1920x1080 Bluray version of the episode, the MP4 is flawed and doesn't play properly on many common players. I've tried a few programs to get into the guts of the container and all have come back as "file not found" or "format error". The 1080x720 release works fine. If anyone hasn't downloaded the Community Codec Pack, get it! It is what most MKV releases are using these days...

The whole song is pretty amazing. The video is on youtube Japan. It's a no brainer. Show the Deculture edition as Episode 1A and "First Contact" as Ep 1B. I suspect if there wasn't a need to allow time for commercials, all the scenes would have been combined into one episode. I am hoping BW & BV release the first episode on DVD completely edited together, because both give keen insights into the characters. DEC centered more on Alto and Lanca, while FC centered more on Sheryl. Combined they give a complete first impression of the 3 main characters. Tru dat! "Triangle" is becoming a close second for me though...

MP4 is a high compression container. If it were an AVI file it would probably be at the 600MB mark, since that container it "lossless". For standard DVDs you will need to down convert it to 720x480 for it to properly play on a standard dvd. However coming from an HD source the video quality will be outstanding compared to a source from a standard resolution DVD. The other alternative is to burn it to a PS3 Bluray compliant format and then burn to a DVD (whether it will fit on a DVD 5 or DVD 9 is another question). VSO's ConvertXtoDVD does a pretty good job of creating DVDs with H264 codec sources, not sure if it handles the audio files, but I suspect it should be fine.

They did... The first episode aired was the Deculture edition. This one was an excuse to shoehorn in more charactrer revealing scenes about Michel and Sheryl and the concert as well as to showcase the flashy new openning with the show's theme... Essentially they could have edited it more along the lines of the civilian activity during the initial first contact battle and treated it like Part 2 of the Deculture's Part 1. They could have removed Lanca's changing scene, her arrival at the concert hall on the tram, her wandering around lost while the boys were in the park, etc.. All the redundant scenes that were already told in the deculture edition would be expendable and at the same time keep the deculture version of episode 1 on the MBS website for fans who wanted a recap.

DYRL all the way baby!! I never understood how the pilots could get away with flying in space with common pilot jumpsuits?? It was nice to see that in the Macross universe there was more than one type of uniform for the troops to wear. Mac Plus took that even further. Unfortunately Mac 7 went back to the SDFM formula in that respect for military characters... The character designs were more polished, the mecha looked less like anime magic and more mechanical, etc...

Those must be from Sakuracon in Seattle, the only con that Iknow of that has occurred since the release of the Deculture Edition.

They own the "Macross" trademark in Canada too, however it wouldn't take a full blown court battle to rip it out of their cold dead hands... It takes proving to the Canadian Trademark Board that they have no legal claim to the name, however there is a time limit on how long that window will stay open, 5-6 years I believe, then it requires a bit more effort... I suspect they own a similar trademark in latin countries as well considering a portion of their fanbase is latino.

I expect there are a few groups working on it, but it takes time and unlike the last early offering of subs for a Macross F show, I'd rather wait for quality work. When Central Anime was subbing Mac 7, they sometimes took a week or two to get out the next episode. Real Life commitments from the members, actual translation time, etc.... This is nothing new...

Well if they are trying to unpack the MP4 of the Blueray encoded version, good luck! The uploader screwed something up in the encode and most unpackers crash or won't even see the file...

I remember it being designated as the "M25", not "Battle 25".

Would love to, but that damn subtitling is getting in the way. I got a great screenshot of the VF-25 and Battle 25 without any text, but nothing clean with all three main characters in front of that shot... I don't miss the teasing of Alto on the shool roof and the editing of some scenes are definitely choppy. I still liked the simultaneous concert and VF-171 battle scenes. I think the episode could be perfect if both were edited together with solely the story in mind. Much of the deculture edition really worked, however the boiled down version of "First Contact" also had it's strong points as well.

Mmmm, upgraded Macross Class Battle fortress, Yeah baby!

Wow, you can definitely tell Kawamori had the final cut! Actions sequences were very much like Zero. I enjoyed it very much, however the Deculture episode was longer because it was a teaser episode without any commercial time allotment.