Animeigo SuperDimension Fortress Macross DVD boxset issue?

[kyatsu]

i bought this set when it first came out and i dont watch it that often. it's been eight years since i bought it and i found cracks around the center hole of the dvds. do you guys have the same problem? kyatsu

[Duke Togo]

I've heard people complain about the cracking before. Was it really 8 years ago that it came out?

[kyatsu]

my bad. seven yrs ago. i am pretty upset cuz the set wasnt cheap. i was happy that i bought it back then cuz it was restored and i prefered the japanese audio with the sub more than the english dubbed. man, i found that four discs are cracked. not very happy with animeigo right now about the quality. kyatsu

I've heard people complain about the cracking before. Was it really 8 years ago that it came out?

[Duke Togo]

Still, 7 years, can't believe its been that long. Does the cracking make the discs unplayable?

[kyatsu]

well, you can play it on a dvd player and its ok. but once you are done watching it and you want to put it back in the dvd case, thats where the problem will start and always going to be. the dvd will only get worst when you try to take out of the casing and putting it back in. also, you cant play it on your laptop because you have to snap the dvd into the dvd player on the laptop (i watch movies all day at work on my laptop while i work). i think the quality of the animeigo macross dvds are very bad. if you compare it to a regular dvd, you can see how thin it is. kyatsu

Still, 7 years, can't believe its been that long. Does the cracking make the discs unplayable?

[JB0]

Geez, it's been a while since I messed with mine...

I should bust them out and check them. Then immediately burn backups.

Only disk I've ever had crack on me was a Tyrian 2000 game CD. It was just sitting in the box, I pulled it out to listen to the music, and it split in two.

[markramsay]

Geez, it's been a while since I messed with mine...

I should bust them out and check them. Then immediately burn backups.

Only disk I've ever had crack on me was a Tyrian 2000 game CD. It was just sitting in the box, I pulled it out to listen to the music, and it split in two.

just don't put them back in the case, use a protective sleeve, and i haven't heard of laptop cd drives that you have to snap the disk into in years. i use mac, and they just pop in an out of the side like a car stereo...

[Strife]

I wonder if the Harmony Gold re-release exhibits the same problem... does anyone have both versions handy to compare please?

Edited March 21, 2008 by Strife

[Keith]

The HG disc's are from the same stock. This issue came up a few years ago, and at the time, I immediately switched the style of case that I keep mine in. I also remember hearing that there isn't any encyption on the AnimEigo disc's, so you should be able to burn copies from any DVD Burner.

[kyatsu]

i know i can burn a backup copies of the discs, but i am just talking about how expensive it was for me to get the set (mind you it was around $250-$300) and i was making like 10 bucks an hour back then. since i paid a lot of money for the set, i expect a good quality product in return you know? i really cant believe how brittle the dvds are. kyatsu

The HG disc's are from the same stock. This issue came up a few years ago, and at the time, I immediately switched the style of case that I keep mine in. I also remember hearing that there isn't any encyption on the AnimEigo disc's, so you should be able to burn copies from any DVD Burner.

[VT-102]

I use these cases for my DVDs. The hubs are easier to open and close leading to less disc damage...

http://www.american-digital.com/prodsite/product.asp?p=1045

Edited March 21, 2008 by VT-102

[kyatsu]

at least by buying these casing, it will prevent the five good discs from cracking. man, but still four are badly cracked. kyatsu

I use these cases for my DVDs. The hubs are easier to open and close leading to less disc damage...

http://www.american-digital.com/prodsite/product.asp?p=1045

[Mercurial Morpheus]

Yeah, it is an issue, and Animeigo is known for having a crappy icehouse. Still, it's not that big a deal. At least one of my discs is cracked. It's just the hub though, and doesn't affect playback.

As for price, remember that you were paying to compensate licensing, translating, and remastering fees, not authoring fees. The actual boxset costs only about five bucks to produce

[Mr March]

It's a known issue, but I've not had it happen to my discs. Still, I think people are overreacting on this one. Yes, all us pre-order costumers paid a lot of money for these sets, but it's not the end of the world. By the time our discs become so bad as to become unplayable, SDFM will be available on a much better home video format with far superior audio and video quality to DVD. Or, fortune allowing, will be on digital download.

[Heron]

It's a known issue, but I've not had it happen to my discs. Still, I think people are overreacting on this one. Yes, all us pre-order costumers paid a lot of money for these sets, but it's not the end of the world. By the time our discs become so bad as to become unplayable, SDFM will be available on a much better home video format with far superior audio and video quality to DVD. Or, fortune allowing, will be on digital download.

No doubt. I mean it is 7-8 years old. Look at all those 360 machines or a computer. Material things breakdown over time. Always do.

[Beltane70]

Age isn't a factor in this. A few of my discs had small cracks in the hubs when I got the set new. If you look at the discs, they're a bit thinner than most.

[kyatsu]

the macross discs are very thin or weak if you compare it to a regular blank dvds. for a company like animeigo, i expect a better quality dvds than these. i used to be a big fan of animeigo becaue they were the anime company that produced good sub and they were the best back in the good old days. i dont thnk i can say the same as now. kyatsu

Age isn't a factor in this. A few of my discs had small cracks in the hubs when I got the set new. If you look at the discs, they're a bit thinner than most.

[Duke Togo]

I dunno, nobody else had or was going to put the time and effort into SDF Macross that they did. We got lucky.

[Mr March]

For what Animeigo was actually capable of doing, they did a great job. This isn't a major distributor with deep pockets producing product that is going to sell to a lot of consumers. Animeigo had to actually plan this DVD release carefully and had to demand top dollar for the sets just to turn a profit. A certain number of pre-orders had to be met before they even committed to go ahead and they couldn't afford to use the best of everything, including materials. Their release probably made future products like the ADV set possible. DT is right, we got lucky on this one. It could have easily never have happened; VERY easily.

[EXO]

now I'm just waiting for a blue-ray version... haha. I could probably hold off on a blu-ray SDF... DYRL has all the detail anyway...

Macross Frontier better come out with a blue ray version though...

[Duke Togo]

Do you really think we'll get a Bluray release, though?

[TheLoneWolf]

Why not? It would another opportunity for ADV / Harmony Gold to milk the SDF Macross license again.

The only thing I wonder is just how much will the old SDF Macross footage be able to take advantage of the Bluray format.

[Duke Togo]

Yeah, but what kinda product will you be getting on Bluray? It was my understanding that HG had not used Animeigo's work in their own releases (not sure if this was audio and video or just audio).

And do I really need a HD release of a 25 year old animated tv show? Is it *really* going to look any better than it does now? I've seen some older animation that just didn't look so hot in HD.

[TheLoneWolf]

I think ADV's SDF Macross dub used Animeigo's remastered video. If's so, then HG definitely has posession of it now.

I agree that SDF Macross probably wouldn't benefit from an HD release. But there's nothing to stop ADV from dumping the SD master onto a Bluray disc and selling it as is.

[Duke Togo]

I think ADV's SDF Macross dub used Animeigo's remastered video. If's so, then HG definitely has posession of it now.

I agree that SDF Macross probably wouldn't benefit from an HD release. But there's nothing to stop ADV from dumping the SD master onto a Bluray disc and selling it as is.

But they used a different, low quality audio, did they not?

[JB0]

And do I really need a HD release of a 25 year old animated tv show? Is it *really* going to look any better than it does now? I've seen some older animation that just didn't look so hot in HD.

Actually, SDF really DOESN'T need a BR release.

The film grain is the ultimate determination of whether there's a point or not in this case. If you can see film grain, you've hit the limits of your source footage and a higher resolution transfer is meaningless.

The film grain was visible in SDF. Of course, Animeigo stripped it out during the remaster, then added some of it back in, but the fact remains that the DVD transfer has a higher resolution than the original footage does.

I don't know about the audio quality, though. Presuambly more space would help that, but BluRay is overkill.

I suspect, with no real proof, that part of the reason for ADV's lower quality(as compared to Animeigo) audio track is because they reduced the bitrate to fit more content in, since they have the glorious upsampled-from-mono, 5.1-even-though-there's-almost-no-subwoofer-content dub track.

If I owned the ADV disks, I could make more than a guess.

[Duke Togo]

It sounded like, and someone who owns it please correct me on this, but it sounded like the ADV release used an altered audio track. Effects changed and what not.

[Gubaba]

It sounded like, and someone who owns it please correct me on this, but it sounded like the ADV release used an altered audio track. Effects changed and what not.

I have the Volume One of the ADV set, and I didn't notice any difference. I haven't watched it in a while, though.

[TheLoneWolf]

According to one of Hurin's earlier posts, both the English and Japanese audio tracks are inferior in comparison to the Animeigo release.

* ADV's english dub soundtrack replaces many of the signature Macross sound effects with generic sound effects not found in the original anime. This can be quite unnerving for someone looking forward to hearing the distinctive "buzz saw" sound of a VF-1 Valkyrie's gunpod and instead hearing a generic "laser gun" sound more appropriate to an American cartoon from the 80s.

* The Japanese soundtrack on the ADV release is markedly inferior to the Japanese soundtrack on the Animeigo release. The ADV japanese soundtrack, while it does retain all original sound effects, is much less vibrant and more distorted by hiss and noise than is the near-perfect Animeigo Japanese track. It has been reported on Macross World Forums that the Animeigo team took it upon themselves to obtain the original high quality soundtrack tapes from Big West for use on its remastered DVDs. Whereas, where Harmony Gold was able to use the remastered video that Animeigo produced with the ADV english dub, they were not able to use the audio tapes provided by Big West.