Macross Frontier and Fansubs

[The346L3]

Does anyone know if the 1080p version shows more details? (It should, but you never know.) Screenshots will be nice.

For example, I compared Thora's 720p and 1080p versions of Utawarerumono and the difference is very very slight. (Of course, the show itself does not have very detailed art.) I'll stick to the 720p until we get 3840x2160 resolution.

Wow thats amazing, just looked it up and supposedly its gonna start "shipping" in 2010, whatever that means. Anyway Id loved to make some screenshots, so I was wondering if you could tell me what times those screenshots were taken at?

[Tobi54]

I've read through the past couple pages seeing my problem was addressed at all earlier. I've seen a lot of conflicting comments though, so I need to know:

Are the song lyric subtitles hardsubbed into all the Thora episodes and therefor impossible to remove or can it be done? Because this is all I want to do since both song and speech subtitles happening and the same time lags up the video for me.

I have no problem with Thora's subs otherwise and although I've seen various grammatical errors here and there it doesn't bother me enough to want something else, it is just that I don't need the song lyrics anymore. They were nice when watching the show first time through, not anymore.

Also keep in mind I am not an expert about subs and how all this works so I might not understand all the jargon.

The karaoke subs are hardcoded to the THORA rips, I figured out by messing around with the files a few months back, so those can't be removed.

[Tobi54]

Does anyone know if the 1080p version shows more details? (It should, but you never know.) Screenshots will be nice.

For example, I compared Thora's 720p and 1080p versions of Utawarerumono and the difference is very very slight. (Of course, the show itself does not have very detailed art.) I'll stick to the 720p until we get 3840x2160 resolution.

There's a noticeable difference, but it all depends on your viewing set up (display, viewing distance etc), the 720p rips look softer in comparison to the 1080p ones, Frontier benefits from the amount of CG work used, which can really be apreciated better at higher resolutions, if the show was mainly 2D I would probably stick with the 720p rips, but for me 1080p was worth it.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Thought Shinsen were dead!

Graham

apparently they have lost a good portion of their staff. but they're up to ep 22 HD only meaning .mkv format. SD eventually.

I dont know. Anyone know where i can gett a good dvd blu-ray rip?

edit:

that doesn't have crap all over the screen. Reading about thora subs kinda turns me off.

Edited August 16, 2009 by BeyondTheGrave

[Master Dex]

The karaoke subs are hardcoded to the THORA rips, I figured out by messing around with the files a few months back, so those can't be removed.

I ran a test with the K-Lite Codec pack to verify this. My test just consisted of my turning the subtitles on and off during play. I found that all the subtitles for the songs, English and Japanese karaoke turned off only if the song was during the episode, like a character singing. I found however you are correct with the OP and ED subs. When I turned all subtitles off I still see the Japanese karaoke subs during the opening and ending songs but the English ones are gone. This means they hard subbed the karaoke lyrics to the opening and ending but any other song lyric subtitles are soft subbed.

This means I can use Aegisub to edit and delete any song subtitles so the episode doesn't lag during songs. Another part of my test proved is it that causing the problem because when no subtitles were on screen during parts that always lagged with song subs, the video ran smoothly. I hope that getting rid of the song subs will be enough since the video never lags when normal speech subs are displaying and there is no song. I'll find out by testing the edit on a copy of one of the episodes, therefor if I mess up, I can start over and if it works I can do it to the main files.

nhyone: Thanks for the tip, the above test I ran was based on your suggestion of course. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Aegisub seems able to edit the sub files in the episode without separating them from the video file itself, so I'll proceed without doing so unless I find out I cannot save the edits without separating the sub files. EDIT: Looks like I will have to separate the files in order to edit them properly, no problem, I'll look up one of the programs mentioned earlier. Looks like my editing will work though.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Master Dex

[Master Dex]

Ooh... in running my test I realized something. The episodes only lag during the songs on Media Player Classic. They plan just fine on Windows Media Player though. I've found out why too, when they play on Media Player Classic the Japanese Karaoke subs are animated (they darken in color each syllable as the person sings the line) but in Windows Media Player the animation doesn't happen, it just displays the subtitles.

So I was wrong, it isn't the song subtitles causing the problems, it is the animation in the song subtitles! So for some reason WMP doesn't show those animations so the episode plays just fine there. I wonder if there is a way to turn off those animations... That is a little more advanced for me than just deleting subs... At least they play fine in one player, I don't have to do anything then.

[nhyone]

Wow thats amazing, just looked it up and supposedly its gonna start "shipping" in 2010, whatever that means. Anyway Id loved to make some screenshots, so I was wondering if you could tell me what times those screenshots were taken at?

The timing (in mmss) is part of the filename. You need to get close to it, pause it then single-step through the frames to get the right one.

[rankafan]

So I was wrong, it isn't the song subtitles causing the problems, it is the animation in the song subtitles! So for some reason WMP doesn't show those animations so the episode plays just fine there. I wonder if there is a way to turn off those animations... That is a little more advanced for me than just deleting subs... At least they play fine in one player, I don't have to do anything then.

And that, folks, I'm sure, is really why Thora hardcoded those karaoke-style subs: not to annoy you, but because these Advanced SubStation Alpha style subs are essentially 'scripted', in practice meaning half of the players out there either can't do em at all, or can't do em fast enough real time.

[The Shade]

And that, folks, I'm sure, is really why Thora hardcoded those karaoke-style subs: not to annoy you, but because these Advanced SubStation Alpha style subs are essentially 'scripted', in practice meaning half of the players out there either can't do em at all, or can't do em fast enough real time.

Well, that explains why the fansubs I watched never really worked that well. I was also using MPC, never even though to switch player. Each time a song would come up, like Rankafan & Master Dex said, the video would slow down, but the audio would continue as normal. This made for a very infuriating experience. Glad to know that, if I ever encounter a similar situation in the future, there's a workaround for it.

[tuipo]

Well, that explains why the fansubs I watched never really worked that well. I was also using MPC, never even though to switch player. Each time a song would come up, like Rankafan & Master Dex said, the video would slow down, but the audio would continue as normal. This made for a very infuriating experience. Glad to know that, if I ever encounter a similar situation in the future, there's a workaround for it.

I has problems with 720p (video lagging behind audio), but now I use the CoreAVC profesinal codec, and even M Frontier with 1080p and external subtitles with karaokes plays fine with MPC.

[Master Dex]

I has problems with 720p (video lagging behind audio), but now I use the CoreAVC profesinal codec, and even M Frontier with 1080p and external subtitles with karaokes plays fine with MPC.

I'll have to keep that in mind. I was so used to using the K-Lite Codec pack because it had everything I thought I needed (including MPC).

However I am fine with using WMP for Frontier due to this problem. I just got so used to MPC because it works easier with matroskas usually.

EDIT: First post on Page 47, woot! That doesn't really mean anything but I like the number 47, lol. It is the quintessential random number! This page isn't really random though.

Edited August 17, 2009 by Master Dex

[Major Focker]

EDIT: First post on Page 47, woot! That doesn't really mean anything but I like the number 47, lol. It is the quintessential random number! This page isn't really random though.

OT: i take it you've seen Claymore? lead character is #47

back on topic, MF doesn't lag on my desktop but does on the laptop. i do hope there's a way to turn off the japanese lyrics and the karaoke animations while leaving the english lyrics on screen, albeit unanimated. btw, is there a way to edit subtitle font sizes? it's a tad too big on on a 46" screen.

[Master Dex]

OT: i take it you've seen Claymore? lead character is #47

back on topic, MF doesn't lag on my desktop but does on the laptop. i do hope there's a way to turn off the japanese lyrics and the karaoke animations while leaving the english lyrics on screen, albeit unanimated. btw, is there a way to edit subtitle font sizes? it's a tad too big on on a 46" screen.

OT: No, but I consider myself apart of the 47 society these days (I don't think they have an actual membership). Star Trek plays up that number a lot too.

You can split the sub, audio, and video files with MKVextractgui or something similar and then edit the sub files with Aegisub to delete all the song lyric subs. The karaoke subs for the opening and ending are hard subbed so those won't go away, but most of the song lyric subtitles during the episode can be deleted. After that you probably will need a program that can mux the files back together into an .mkv container. If you just split the sub files out of the episode it only makes a copy and the original episode will still have the unedited sub files inside it. Like I said earlier though the crazy lyric animations don't play in WMP if you can stand that player so it will work there without needed to get rid of anything, which is easier. I'd like to get rid of whatever causes the animations, then I could play it in MPC without lag. However I am not quite sure how that stuff works.

I imagine Aegisub can edit subtitle font sizes, but I've never tried it.

[The346L3]

Ok, I got the screenshots. I am really surprised that it looks like the 1080p rip I got is not all that better than the thora 720p version. In fact the thora version might be even better. I also got four more screenshots that I would appreciate having a comparison with. I dont have access to a computer right now that can downscale the images to 720p so I apologize. Other than that these are the raw screenshots I took with mpc.

Edit: Attachments fixed.

Edited August 18, 2009 by The346L3

[nhyone]

Ok, I got the screenshots. I am really surprised that it looks like the 1080p rip I got is not all that better than the thora 720p version. In fact the thora version might be even better. I also got four more screenshots that I would appreciate having a comparison with. I dont have access to a computer right now that can downscale the images to 720p so I apologize. Other than that these are the raw screenshots I took with mpc.

Hmm.. the black level looks off for your images. Did you increase the video playback brightness?

You did right by not downscaling. We should upscale the images to compare instead.

I have captured the images (in JPEG) and put the 1080p and 720p images side by side. I didn't say which is which, though.

(I can upload the PNGs to the board if anyone is interested, but I think the JPEQ suffices for this comparison.)

One note: IE lags when scrolling. The other browsers are able to scroll smoothly.

At this point, we can either conclude (a) there's not much diff even for a big budget anime like MF, or (b) the 1080p is not encoded optimally.

[Major Focker]

I have captured the images (in JPEG) and put the 1080p and 720p images side by side. I didn't say which is which, though.

so which is which? the images on the right look sharper but also more jaggy. the ones on the left are softer and the colors look a tad undersaturated.

masterdex, thanks for the tips. seems like a bit of work though so i'll have to put it off till my next holiday.

[The346L3]

The images on the right are the qyq 1080p version. I went back and checked my source for it and Ive re-examined the screenshots provided there and it seems they all have black lining on the bottom and right edges of the screen, and they do look undersaturated too. For a moment I thought my computer was the problem but then if it was I should have seen noticeable artifacts. Darn looks like the qyq version isnt all that great, anyone have any screenshots of the popgo version? Edited August 19, 2009 by The346L3

[nhyone]

The images on the right are the qyq 1080p version.

No, the one on the right is the Thora version.

[Chronocidal]

Random question about the Lunar subs, if anyone has seen them... is it just me, or does the video just flat bug out every now and then?

I've been working on downloading their set of eps 1-10, and ep2 finished first. I keep getting nasty pauses, where the video just freezes a couple seconds, then jumps ahead appearing extremely distorted, then goes back to normal after a few seconds. I'm wondering if it's my video settings, or just a crappy encoding.

Anyone else see this happen?

I'm probably going to just get the Thora version instead, but as nice as the picture is, I was hoping to keep the file sizes a bit smaller, and get more episodes on a dvd.

Edit: Ok, kinda found my problem.. still buggy, but the H.264 loop fix helped some. Now it only freezes up on stuff like the animated lyrics.

I dunno what I'll do yet, the Thora translation is bugging me something awful. It's not the dialogue they're using (which is fine), it's like they didn't actually bother looking up the opening and closing lyrics... did they use some alternate romanization of the songs, or did they just completely fubar the lyrics? It seems to me like they didn't bother looking them up, so we get the Japanese equivalent of "Scuse me, while I kiss this guy."

Edited September 2, 2009 by Chronocidal

[Jin]

Just a note for people who may have playback issues for subs, if you install the CCCP (combined community codecs pack) you'll usually be problem free.

maybe most of you know that already, but just in case, I'll point that out.

[isamu]

Hi guys. It's been a while since we talked about this subject.

I am FINALLY downloading the Thora Bluray rips in a patch torrent file. It's surprisingly going pretty fast for a 16GB file.

So...can anyone give some impressions of the overall quality of these rips?

1)How are the subtitles? Lots of grammatical errors? Any name mispellings?

2)There are 25 episodes in the series correct? Does that include the pilot episode?

3)Is the image and picture quality really good?

4)Off topic but has anyone seen the Thora BD rips of either Cowboy Bebop The Movie, Escaflowne movie, and GitS movie? How is the picture quality in those?

[Seto Kaiba]

So...can anyone give some impressions of the overall quality of these rips?

I can... I downloaded the THORA blu-ray rips back when they first became available as a batch torrent. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the encoding job, both in terms of the clarity of the picture and sound, and the size on disk of the files themselves. IMHO, it's probably the best fansubbed version of Frontier available.

1)How are the subtitles? Lots of grammatical errors? Any name mispellings?

I didn't note any major spelling or grammatical errors when I watched it all the way through, though there are a couple terminology goofs that occur, generally centered around reaction weapons (which are often called "reactive" weapons in the subs) and fold travel, where the ships are referred to as traveling "in the fold" for some reason. Overall, they did a damn fine job.

2)There are 25 episodes in the series correct? Does that include the pilot episode?

Yes, there are 25 episodes in the THORA release. Episode 1 is the "Yak Deculture" edition, which merges the "Deculture" edition pilot with the broadcast version of episode 1 to produce a somewhat longer-than-usual episode.

3)Is the image and picture quality really good?

In a word... "yes". The sound quality is excellent, and the picture quality is quite good too, though your mileage may vary depending on your monitor's contrast ratio, your video card, and the player you're playing it back on. I got great results using ZoomPlayer 6, a GeForce 7 series video card (in my laptop), and a nice high-contrast LCD. VLC Player produced excellent results as well, except that it may briefly stutter on the audio and have a bit of temporary blocky artifacting on the video if you skip forward too vigorously using the playback progress bar, though it clears itself up after a second or two.

4)Off topic but has anyone seen the Thora BD rips of either Cowboy Bebop The Movie, Escaflowne movie, and GitS movie? How is the picture quality in those?

Can't help ya there.

[isamu]

I can... I downloaded the THORA blu-ray rips back when they first became available as a batch torrent. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the encoding job, both in terms of the clarity of the picture and sound, and the size on disk of the files themselves. IMHO, it's probably the best fansubbed version of Frontier available.

I didn't note any major spelling or grammatical errors when I watched it all the way through, though there are a couple terminology goofs that occur, generally centered around reaction weapons (which are often called "reactive" weapons in the subs) and fold travel, where the ships are referred to as traveling "in the fold" for some reason. Overall, they did a damn fine job.

Yes, there are 25 episodes in the THORA release. Episode 1 is the "Yak Deculture" edition, which merges the "Deculture" edition pilot with the broadcast version of episode 1 to produce a somewhat longer-than-usual episode.

In a word... "yes". The sound quality is excellent, and the picture quality is quite good too, though your mileage may vary depending on your monitor's contrast ratio, your video card, and the player you're playing it back on. I got great results using ZoomPlayer 6, a GeForce 7 series video card (in my laptop), and a nice high-contrast LCD. VLC Player produced excellent results as well, except that it may briefly stutter on the audio and have a bit of temporary blocky artifacting on the video if you skip forward too vigorously using the playback progress bar, though it clears itself up after a second or two.

Can't help ya there.

Thanks for the reply Seto. Can't wait to check it out

[Chronocidal]

I just finished watching the THORA rip set on my 47" tv (HDMI out from a laptop) and I have to agree, the quality of the video was rather astounding. In fact, the CGI was actually a bit unsettling at times, it just looked too real. I watched the whole thing on media player classic, and had no trouble with it.

My one gripe is that while the subs are fine, the karaoke subs seemed horribly mangled to me. Granted, I don't speak Japanese, but what I saw looked like a nasty case of reverse engrish. I've read the romanized lyrics for many of the songs in Frontier, and the lyric subs on the THORA set don't match up.

It's like they shifted word breaks and syllables around, resulting in something like... well, imagine taking the lyrics for "Jingle Bells," and coming up with, "Jin gulbels, jin gulbels, jin gulal the way." It's definitely what the song sounds like, but they aren't real words.

Again, I don't know Japanese.. but their lyrics don't match the lyrics I've read anywhere else.

[miriya]

Hi guys. It's been a while since we talked about this subject.

I am FINALLY downloading the Thora Bluray rips in a patch torrent file. It's surprisingly going pretty fast for a 16GB file.

So...can anyone give some impressions of the overall quality of these rips?

1)How are the subtitles? Lots of grammatical errors? Any name mispellings?

2)There are 25 episodes in the series correct? Does that include the pilot episode?

3)Is the image and picture quality really good?

4)Off topic but has anyone seen the Thora BD rips of either Cowboy Bebop The Movie, Escaflowne movie, and GitS movie? How is the picture quality in those?

Where are you getting these? I want to rip them too.

[isamu]

I just finished watching the THORA rip set on my 47" tv (HDMI out from a laptop) and I have to agree, the quality of the video was rather astounding. In fact, the CGI was actually a bit unsettling at times, it just looked too real. I watched the whole thing on media player classic, and had no trouble with it.

My one gripe is that while the subs are fine, the karaoke subs seemed horribly mangled to me. Granted, I don't speak Japanese, but what I saw looked like a nasty case of reverse engrish. I've read the romanized lyrics for many of the songs in Frontier, and the lyric subs on the THORA set don't match up.

It's like they shifted word breaks and syllables around, resulting in something like... well, imagine taking the lyrics for "Jingle Bells," and coming up with, "Jin gulbels, jin gulbels, jin gulal the way." It's definitely what the song sounds like, but they aren't real words.

Again, I don't know Japanese.. but their lyrics don't match the lyrics I've read anywhere else.

Ahh nice nice! Thanks for the impressions Chrono. You've got me excited! How did you enjoy the show itself?

Where are you getting these? I want to rip them too.

BTJunkies.org is your friend

[Gubaba]

I didn't note any major spelling or grammatical errors when I watched it all the way through, though there are a couple terminology goofs that occur, generally centered around reaction weapons (which are often called "reactive" weapons in the subs) and fold travel, where the ships are referred to as traveling "in the fold" for some reason. Overall, they did a damn fine job.

Enh, they did a good job, I think, not a "damn fine" one. I haven't watched the whole series with the THORA subs, but whoever did them (I believe they're from the Aone/Gekkostate/Menclave versions...?) in the episodes I saw definitely flubbed a few lines...and of course, I can't think of any good examples now...

The subs are pretty good, and better than a lot of the Frontier subs. But I don't think anyone's done a REALLY good sub job yet.

[Sketch]

Is there a BRDrip fansub that has been released without all the idiotic scene-destroying karaoke?

[waters7]

Quick question guys.... Does anybody know how to convert an .mkv file to .avi or any other format that will allow me to burn the file to a DVD?

Thanks in advance

[David Hingtgen]

http://www.pspvideo9.com/ I know it works, but it took long enough (and I have a decently fast PC) that I didn't deem it worth it to do another two-dozen eps, and I don't remember the settings.

[MastaEgg]

You should be able to do it with ffmpeg.

[Marzan]

Just finished downloading the Thora 720p and have gladly confirmed what many of you had been saying about the quality of the audio and video. Superb. Looking forward to soon connect my Mac to my new Sony flatscreen and see Frontier as it's meant to be seen.

Just one question. Apart from the 25 videos, there are two files: one ending in ".md5" and the other in ".nfo" which I cannot open. Anyone can tell what they contain and how I can open them?

Thanks...

[David Hingtgen]

Ignore them. Delete them.

[getfresh]

I found this many years too late. Hi, I'm getfresh from SHS. I did the typesetting and effects for this release. I really appreciate all your comments, positive or critical. I started watching Macross in the 1980's as Robotech aired on TV. I Have seen every series, movie, OVA, etc... I've subbed DYRL, 2012, Frontier, and FuFonFia. Macross is a deep love for me, and other fans getting enjoyment from me wasting my youth working on it really makes it worth it. Thank you all.

[guyxxed]

On 10/4/2024 at 11:56 PM, getfresh said:

I found this many years too late. Hi, I'm getfresh from SHS. I did the typesetting and effects for this release. I really appreciate all your comments, positive or critical. I started watching Macross in the 1980's as Robotech aired on TV. I Have seen every series, movie, OVA, etc... I've subbed DYRL, 2012, Frontier, and FuFonFia. Macross is a deep love for me, and other fans getting enjoyment from me wasting my youth working on it really makes it worth it. Thank you all.

Nice to hear from you, getfresh.  Speaking as someone who's entire experience of Macross for years came from fansubbed files, I really appreciate the time and effort everyone put into making those available.  If not for those files, I may never have bothered keeping up with the franchise despite it being one of my early, formative loves.  At least not until current days where official versions are starting to surface.  Thank you!