Macross DYRL 3d bluray speculation

[Renato]

Don't they have the original cels somewhere? I know japanese film (and anime) industry are terrible at keeping master tapes etc. but one would think they'd have them for stuff as "new" as Macross Flash Back 2012

What?? I don't get this at all.

1- People here OWN cels from anime.

2- If they're terrible at keeping master tapes, how on earth could they track down cels?

3- FB2012 is almost 25 years old.

[Keith]

Don't they have the original cels somewhere? I know japanese film (and anime) industry are terrible at keeping master tapes etc. but one would think they'd have them for stuff as "new" as Macross Flash Back 2012

Actually, especially during that period, a lot of cel's usually just ended up being thrown away/sold off. Given the video editing style used in FB 2012, it's doubtful it was ever put down on anything higher than videotape stock. So I doubt there's any film sitting around.

[Xard]

Ahh, I thought those were just replica cels. I feel stupid now

Well, I guess that means we're out of luck with FB2012 footage... I don't really care as long as DYRL itself gets BD release

[Macrossnalds Employee]

In general I don't think older productions work well in high definition. Personally I only buy new films shot on HD on bluray, as older films either end up very grainy with all those imperfections you were never meant to see visible or remastered and super sharp which isn't how I remember the films when I originally saw them. Remastering old films takes away from the nostaglia factor. the HD remaster of DYRL? on DVD was dissapointing to me, I still go back to my Perfect Edition LD in CAV when I want to watch it. However I am glad I picked up the HD set because of the cool extras included.

A good example of an older movie looking better on an older format is Star Wars. The definitive LDs were the pinnacle release of the movies imo, cleaned up but still recognizable as the films I remembered as a kid and still with a strong feeling of nostalgia that is totally lost with me on the special editions and likely will not be present in the Star Wars blurays either.

To me the ultimate media collection would be a variety of formats with most pre 2000 movies on the best possible laserdisc (or Hi-Vision!) transfer, post 2000 on either a well mastered DVD or blu ray with the occassional D Theatre DVHS tape when it is available for that title and a mix of LP and CD for audio archives. To have the right content on the right format means never having to repurchase and satisfies me more than just rebuying on the latest format for everything.

So in short I will not buy a DYRL bluray (or a weird and awkward 3D release that I doubt would happen) release because the remastered DVD taught me a lesson, some movies have already peaked years ago.

[Keith]

Depends on the quality of the remaster, and the quality of the source available. Disney has been able to do incredible things with their remasters.

[Macrossnalds Employee]

I think you have slightly missed my point Keith but even if the remaster is amazing its a drasticly different product to what was originally screened and what I remember. Its personal preference but I prefer to see a film more or less as I originally saw it for nostalgia purposes. This means complete with imperfections but with the softness of analogue video.

[Keith]

I think you have slightly missed my point Keith but even if the remaster is amazing its a drasticly different product to what was originally screened and what I remember. Its personal preference but I prefer to see a film more or less as I originally saw it for nostalgia purposes. This means complete with imperfections but with the softness of analogue video.

I get your point, I just think you are confusing "hey, I watched this on a 9 inch black & white tv hooked up to my VCR playing at EP, and that's how it must always look" with shoddy remastering. A proper remaster that doesn't DNR & EE everything to hell, and manages to bring out more detail that was originally there is a "good" thing. Smearing detail out & sharpening the lines however I agree is a "bad" thing. The trade off for this is of course grain, but then how can you claim grain is bad, and digital smoothing is also bad in the same breathe? If you want to skip out, that's fine, but the fact of the matter is, SD sources only look passable on SD displays. As far as me goes, I'll take extra detail + natural grain any day o fhte week over most SD sources. Your argument is almost like saying you prefer matted widesreen presentations to anamorphic, or some other such nonsense.

Regardless, I think we can all agree that there's absolutely no point in making something into 3D that was not originally 3D. And more DYRL blurays for those of us who want them!

Edited June 22, 2011 by Keith

[Guvava]

Some old films look incredible in HD, especially if they were recorded on 70mm film. I would look for those that have been converted to HD. A couple examples are:

Gran Prix (1966)

http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Prix-Blu-ray-James-Garner/dp/B004PHE9F6/ref=ed_oe_blu

Also,

2001: A Space Odyssey

[Xard]

As I understand it animation films (at least in Japan) are recorded on 35mm so unfortunately 70mm quality (which is not avalaible even on BDs) is unlikely...

[EXO]

Any animation can be brought up to bluray standards, it just depends on budget. The restored Cinderella edition looked so incredible and clean that some parts look like they were done with CG. That's Disney money on one of their most important properties I'm talking about though. Big West money on DYRL might not be on the same level of production.

[Tochiro]

Agreed, given the right amount of attention, time and money, only theatrical anime can be made to look amazing on blu.

Whether or not you are irked by being able to see some of the flaws more clearly is a personal thing - the blu ray remasters for Bubblegum Crisis actually make it possible to see a few seperate cells in a couple of shots, which i thought only added to the shows appeal given its age. thats the way it would have looked to the staff who were making it, rather than the blurry vhs english dub I ended up having to put up with years later.

And if i have to choose between a subjective sense of nostalgia and seeing something the way the creators originally intended and in the clearest image possible - well the nostalgia gets taken out behind the tool shed, shot in the head and left to rot with the other dead hookers imo.

[Keith]

Agreed. I just hope the popularity of Frontier would prompt Big West & Bandai to pump the necessary cash into DYRL that it needs for a proper remaster. Speaking of which, I know the 7 remaster a couple years ago looked great, and the R2 remaster of the original series stomped AnimEigo's atempt, how well did Plus come out? For all we know, DYRL's existing remaster may actually be limited to the compression used for DVD. Unfortunately, I don't have a region free copy, so I can't compare how it would look upscaled in my PS3.

Edited June 23, 2011 by Keith

[sketchley]

And if i have to choose between a subjective sense of nostalgia and seeing something the way the creators originally intended and in the clearest image possible - well the nostalgia gets taken out behind the tool shed, shot in the head and left to rot with the other dead hookers imo.

Don't forget that one could smear Vaseline on their glasses to get the nostalgic look.

That said, I don't disagree with leaving things unchanged (Ie cleaning up the original, not adding new stuff).

But there have been a few cases where in the process of restoring a film, the director has produced a new cut that is arguably superior. "Das Boot: The Director's Cut" and "Alien: The Director's Cut" come to mind. Of course, animated films don't have the luxury of cut film being edited back in - because those cut scenes rarely get animated in the first place!

[Macrossnalds Employee]

The restored Cinderella edition looked so incredible and clean that some parts look like they were done with CG.

Why do you assume this is actually a good thing?

A reviewer on Amazon for the BD transfer of Nausicaa has a similar point to mine:

On the ugly DVD or VHS transfers is easy to miss the fact that this was a super sloppy production, watch it on a 1080p Projector and ohhh-boy~ you'll know. There are missing cells, miss-colored cells, really harsh analog music editing, i mean it's really a mess of a production and watching it at its best really ruined the magic for me, just saying. For some it might be part of the charm, but being a child hood favorite of mine, it was just too harsh.

You see you science nerds may say that a film in the movie theatre can technically be the equivalent of "4000p" or whatever but the screen is also incredibly huge and much more than 4 times the size of any 1080p display in your home. This means the experience in the theatre is not perfectly sharp or completely flawless, its more organic, softer and the resolution per square inch of screen is actually lower than a blu-ray signal in your home. Movies shot on good old film were never intended to be shown at 1080p on a 50 inch display. To do so shows up all the imperfections, leading to the need to "remaster" the original material, thereby compromising the integrity of the original artwork. Like any artwork, a film is a function of its time, it is directly related to that point in history and when it comes into the public domain it becomes ours, in our memories and experiences from the viewpoint of that time. When Lucas made Star Wars in the '70s, he didn't have the budget he wanted, he couldn't do everything he wanted to but that's the movie we saw, and we loved, in that time. If he did have the budget and creative freedom that he has now we might have ended up with a pile of crap like Episode I and Star Wars would have been forgotten in history. You see good and bad can come from restraint. A lot of the best fashion, art and thinking comes from the poor who have to improvise and rise above. Any remastering is just a what if scenario and not canon to the what was actually made at that time and I am not interested.

This is why I would rather watch Nausicaa, or any movie made before the digital age on a Laser disc, projected with a line doubler. The resolution is a sharp as it needs to be, the video flows organically and in a film like manner everytime because it is analogue. Most later laser discs contain rich digital soundtracks that rival Blu-ray's HD Audio, to me they are the ideal format for anything made in the 20th century. I know a lot of you here don't remember the 20th century but I sure do and it was a time when ooh aah visual perfection was secondary to original ideas and storytelling. Kung Fu panda may look super slick but Nausicaa kicks the crap out of it with its organic designs that are full of with character. It is a movie you can love like a woman you might marry who just makes you happy, you love her so much that pretty looks don't matter anymore.

Edited June 25, 2011 by Macrossnalds Employee

[Xard]

I'm sorry, what? I've read numerous reviews of Nausicaä and Laputa BDs and pretty much all have praised its technical merits to high heavens. Hell, I've been them too and I have no idea where the guy is coming from with "supersloppy production" stuff.

For old tv series and OVAs the problems with missing cells, bleeding frames etc. are often legit concerns because those anime were made for old tv resolutions or VHS.

But high budget theatrical releases like Nausicaä and Laputa directed by perfectionist Miyazaki? Oh please! I'd like to see that Amazon reviewer prove his words somehow because as said I've never heard anyone complain like this about BD release - granted I didn't watch it on projector but as far as I could tell it was fine. Or alternatively he has ridiculously high standards.

And I doubt huge, severe production problems visible on 1080p would not be visible in theatrical release too, if they're so big.

Also, Criterion BD releases of classic films from cinema's early decades look absolutely crisp and wonderful. Remastered perhaps, but all old films (animated or otherwise) are remastered for BDs and usually that happened earlier for DVD releases too. Hell, the first Star Wars Special Edition VHSs from 90s were remastered as bonus material well shows. And I'm not talking about new footage that may be seen as tampering with original work, I'm talking about restoring worsened film footage to the level of colour, detail etc. they had back in the days of premiere.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with remastering per se - see new The Beatles remasters for example.

[Keith]

Why do you assume this is actually a good thing?

A reviewer on Amazon for the BD transfer of Nausicaa has a similar point to mine:

You see you science nerds may say that a film in the movie theatre can technically be the equivalent of "4000p" or whatever but the screen is also incredibly huge and much more than 4 times the size of any 1080p display in your home. This means the experience in the theatre is not perfectly sharp or completely flawless, its more organic, softer and the resolution per square inch of screen is actually lower than a blu-ray signal in your home. Movies shot on good old film were never intended to be shown at 1080p on a 50 inch display. To do so shows up all the imperfections, leading to the need to "remaster" the original material, thereby compromising the integrity of the original artwork. Like any artwork, a film is a function of its time, it is directly related to that point in history and when it comes into the public domain it becomes ours, in our memories and experiences from the viewpoint of that time. When Lucas made Star Wars in the '70s, he didn't have the budget he wanted, he couldn't do everything he wanted to but that's the movie we saw, and we loved, in that time. If he did have the budget and creative freedom that he has now we might have ended up with a pile of crap like Episode I and Star Wars would have been forgotten in history. You see good and bad can come from restraint. A lot of the best fashion, art and thinking comes from the poor who have to improvise and rise above. Any remastering is just a what if scenario and not canon to the what was actually made at that time and I am not interested.

This is why I would rather watch Nausicaa, or any movie made before the digital age on a Laser disc, projected with a line doubler. The resolution is a sharp as it needs to be, the video flows organically and in a film like manner everytime because it is analogue. Most later laser discs contain rich digital soundtracks that rival Blu-ray's HD Audio, to me they are the ideal format for anything made in the 20th century. I know a lot of you here don't remember the 20th century but I sure do and it was a time when ooh aah visual perfection was secondary to original ideas and storytelling. Kung Fu panda may look super slick but Nausicaa kicks the crap out of it with its organic designs that are full of with character. It is a movie you can love like a woman you might marry who just makes you happy, you love her so much that pretty looks don't matter anymore.

Have you just been reluctant to jump into the HD era or what? All of this you are spewing is hater talk, and ignorant hater talk at that. You'd rather watch a non-anamorphic LD projected? Why don't you just convert every movie you want to VHS and watch them on a 6 inch portable black & white tv while playing old Vectrex games on the side.

[Macrossnalds Employee]

I'm sorry, what? I've read numerous reviews of Nausicaä and Laputa BDs and pretty much all have praised its technical merits to high heavens.

Have you read the Japanese fans reactions to Nausicaa on BD? Not high praise at all. Check it out:

My link

Through google translate 1 of the reviews, you can see what their main problems with the release are:

In short the picture is dirty.

Is best understood by frame advance look at the Nausicaa Bluray, severe mottling, the same place (clothes, for example) the color of the

Changes frame by frame. What to say and even feel like looking through a sandstorm. To feel such

Making.

Writing to a producer are listed in the booklet that comes with the Suzuki Bluray, video dared under the direction of Miyazaki

You wrote that you do not clean in the dirty so there is no sense to release in Bluray.

"I want you to respect the basic public at the time," said to have been written and Miyazaki, and when the public was more beautiful.

I think that is dirty from the time that is released in theaters.

Miyazaki's animation was a history of failure if you want pictures of software.

Nausicaa VHS & Beta • The adjustments were barely visible in what I have seen the darker the night.

Laser disk with Laputa was left of the image is turned off or what I thought.

Laser disk with a rough image was Totoro.

Images of the DVD Spirited Away • The color was reddish.

... And so on.

Nausicaa Bluray now also been added to this single page of history and the failure of its video software.

It's a crying shame.

The Japanese fans seem to want remastering like you and most people want, but Nausicaa was not remastered to maintain its original integrity (a conscious decision by Studio Ghibli that I agree with) and suffered for it on the high definition BD format due to it. I hear that Laputa and subsequent releases have been drastically remastered to please fans. This does not meet my standards however.

Now if you take that same unremastered print and transfer it to Laserdisc its perfectly fine, it looks and feels like the film and the imperfections you were not supposed to and never did see, aren't seen, and there is no need for a remaster.

I am not hating, merely questioning the need to remaster old films when perfectly good releases are already available. Spending money and time remastering and repackaging nostalgia takes away from time and money directed at new creations. It's a real shame in my opinion. You can have your 1080p on a 50 inch plasma Nausicaa BD, I'll stick to my laserdisc copy which looks and sounds closer to what was originally seen in theatres than the BD release.

[EXO]

Why do you assume this is actually a good thing?

I'm not assuming that it's a good thing. I meant it as a compliment to the old school animators that put in work that animators wouldn't today unless it's CG. You're trying to twist the words in my post by grouping it with bad CG which we are all aware exists. It's the same compliment I would give to the animators of DYRL and Flashback 2012, the feat that they accomplished would be insurmountable by today's standards without the help of CG. I'll try to spell everything out for you next time.

[Macrossnalds Employee]

Have you just been reluctant to jump into the HD era or what?

No, I'm very much loking forward to picking up Battle: Los Angeles on BD. Am I going to rebuy my entire collection in HD? No, because I don't want all films I own to be in HD.

All of this you are spewing is hater talk, and ignorant hater talk at that.

Please tell me where I've told a lie or been misinformed in this discussion. I believe my arguments are techncically sound and any point of difference is just personal opinion, which I'm entitled to have. You are calling me ignorant which assumes I have made an objective error in my assessment of these formats, which I don't believe I have.

You'd rather watch a non-anamorphic LD projected?

Yes, thats the point of projection with LD, to avoid the pillarboxing you get on a TV by being able to select the aspect ratio and scale you project at. Trust me I can get a very nice and large WIDESCREEN picture with any widescreen (yes, non-anamorphic) LD. Star Wars definitive looks very fine in 2.35:1

Why don't you just convert every movie you want to VHS and watch them on a 6 inch portable black & white tv while playing old Vectrex games on the side.

Why would I want to do that? I seek out the best tech to do the job, not just old because its old.

Edited June 26, 2011 by Macrossnalds Employee

[EXO]

That's awesome. I love hand drawn animation. How about links to a couple of current feature length hand drawn animation as good as DYRL or the remastered Cinderella to make your point complete? Thanks ahead of time!

Any animation can be brought up to bluray standards, it just depends on budget. The restored Cinderella edition looked so incredible and clean that some parts look like they were done with CG. That's Disney money on one of their most important properties I'm talking about though. Big West money on DYRL might not be on the same level of production.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that it's possible to remaster pre- high definition animation to bluray standards. I wasn't out to make this an CG v. non CG animation.

[Keith]

Troll posts are getting pretty trolltastic. How is preserving film in the highest quality possible "wasting money" ? If you're satisfied projecting your LD's on a wall at low res (until laser rot sets in), then by all means, go for it. But implying that remastering & porting older films into HD is a waste is ignorant at best (not I said ignorant, nowhere did I accuse you of lying).

You can quote amazon until you're blue in the face, but never have reviews on the site been considered a serious source of information. Hell, I'd believe 2chan before amazon.

[EXO]

Trolls usually care more about the point of arguing and to prove they are right rather than open their mind to something that they can enjoy or even add to their enjoyment of something they already saw.

Case in point... Aliens remastered Bluray

I was so afraid of what I was going to see. Is it going to be too clear and devoid of all the film grain like Predator?

There's a scene that I always like to use as an example. The scene where Ripley first faces off with the Alien Queen in her incubation chamber. The shots of the Queen were a lot clearer than the shots of Ripley. Obviously they used different filmstock and shot at different speeds when shooting a miniature set. But the fact that they remastered each shot exactly the way they were filmed showed me that someone really cared about keeping the films original integrity. I never noticed this difference in my VHS or DVD copy because of the resolution but I'm pretty confident that that's the way it would have looked in a theatre with a really good projector back in '86.

So it's not like it's impossible for DYRL to be done right and yeah it's possible for it to go the Predator way and be done the wrong way. But unless it's Harmony Gold, which is a company that's always out to make a quick buck as cheap as possible, I don't see why Big West would hire someone to trash a treasure to them like DYRL is.

Just for kicks I dug up a bluray review of the Cinderella remaster on Amazon... since that's where the bar is set... lol.

Next, comes the video. For this release (and the DVD edition), Sleeping Beauty has been digitally restored and as such, there is no dust, dirt, scratch or any other type of film error to be seen on this release. The colors are bold and vibrant and jump off the screen; as designed. It is presented in 1080p, using the AVC codec. For the first time ever on a home release, we are presented with the film as originally intended, in the full 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Previous efforts have all put forth 4:3 letter boxed editions. Disney has done an amazing job in the video department for this title, and if you want an animated movie to show off the power of your HD system, this is certainly a contender. If you really concentrate, however, there are some issues in certain scenes. In one forest shot, for instance, Aurora/Briar Rose, is seen from a distance and is quite blury. I will assume this is a source issue given it seems to be an anomaly over all, but it is still a bit disconcerting given the clarity given to the rest of the film.

As I've said of numerous movies on Blu Ray before, this is the best the movie has likely ever looked, especially on a home theatre.

Now how can you deny remastering with a review like that?

I don't people want to think I'm a Cinderella fanatic. But I've seen it on DVD and when I saw my niece watching the bluray one day I was blown away at how great it looked. So I looked into the process they took to restore it and it seems like it's just that... restored. I was totally convinced that they re-animated some parts with CG but I was glad to see that none of it was lucas-fied SE style...

I'm actually more curious to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang since that's more of a childhood favorite. But if I had to choose one of those Disney princess movies... I'd pick Tangled, a fully CG animated movie over any hand drawn classic of theirs.

[Macrossnalds Employee]

Troll posts are getting pretty trolltastic. How is preserving film in the highest quality possible "wasting money" ? If you're satisfied projecting your LD's on a wall at low res (until laser rot sets in), then by all means, go for it. But implying that remastering & porting older films into HD is a waste is ignorant at best (not I said ignorant, nowhere did I accuse you of lying).

You can quote amazon until you're blue in the face, but never have reviews on the site been considered a serious source of information. Hell, I'd believe 2chan before amazon.

Didn't intend to be a troll, just stating my opinion on HD remastering, obviously it's not a mainstream one but I'll try to respect your opinion (that having films in better quality than was ever seen before is a good thing) if you respect mine and don't call me ignorant. I obviously won't change my opinion, you won't change yours either so conversation over.

Now how can you deny remastering with a review like that?

Well that review is just another persons opinion that I disagree with, perfection isn't necessarily a good thing at all to me, whereas authenticity is very much an important and good thing to me. The original print of Cinderella shown in the a comparible original resolution would be better to me than a high definition cleanup job done in 2011 by people who didn't even work on the original production.

[EXO]

Well that review is just another persons opinion that I disagree with, perfection isn't necessarily a good thing at all to me, whereas authenticity is very much an important and good thing to me. The original print of Cinderella shown in the a comparible original resolution would be better to me than a high definition cleanup job done in 2011 by people who didn't even work on the original production.

We'll just add this guy to the list of people that don't agree with you.

So in your world the bigger sacrilege would be to remaster a classic to HD standard as oppose to pulling these people that worked on the original productions out of their graves, magically revive them and force them to restore said productions. Lol.

[Keith]

I don't think he's getting the point about what a real "remaster" is. On one hand, he's arguing that films shouldn't look better than SD media, but then neglecting the fact that these films were never meant to be seen in said SD media. Films were designed first & foremost to be seen on the big screen. Filmstock intself isn't a medium which utilzes "compression" to carry the media on it. So using his argument, Beta, VHS, LD, DVD, are all mediums which change the original product (unless that product was originally created using equal or lower technology). He's also neglecting to realise that film itself ages. It gets old & dirty. it wears out the more its used. Even kept in the best of conditions, it's going to age. This is why we're currently using digital restoration methods to "restore" these films, not to mention preverse t hem in a more durable format. So no, while you won't see a movie on bluray that looks exactly like it does on LD, nor will either format look exactly like it's filmstock negative counterpart, what you "will" see on bluray is something that looks a hell of a lot closer to what is on that film negative. And that "is" what the creators intented you to see.

Lets go back to DYRL for a sec. The other week, I dug out my HD remaster DVD, and compared that with the first release DVD. First impressions? Wow, this is grainy. So then I popped in the older disc, and sure enough, I didn't see as much of that grain. But what did I see? A much less defined image, blacks were murkier, and detail wasn't anywhere near as accurate. Where the HD remaster DVD faulters at th is point is in its color vibrancy, and that itself would be assuredly corrected in a BR release.

To understand why this happens, you have to understand some fundamentals of both compression, & film degridation. Basically, that same grain was present in "both" versions of the film. Why wasn't it as noticable before? Because the previous release wasn't as cleaned up, and more importantly, the compression on the disc was higher. Especially with SD material, compression turns grain into muck. SD displays hide this somewhat, but HD displays don't lie. And that's the real truth of this HD era we're entering into, whatever you put into something, you will get right back out. If a lot of care & love is put into mastering a movie, it'll show. If a quick slapped together job is done, that will show too. I know I was surprised when I first got itno HD stuff. I walked in somewhat assuming that everything would look better. But sure enough, pop in my AnimEigo release of "Arcadia of my Youth," and I couldn't believe how bad that film looked. It's not AnimEigo's fault mind you, it's the materials they had to work with. Suffice it to say, all non-anamorphic releases have been the first thing to be replaced in my collection.

My point being, don't automatically assume that because something was originally released in SD, that it will always look better there. Sure it's a lot less expensive to believe that, but that doesn't make it true. As for HD remasters, just read the reviews first, there are plenty of people out there that will let you know if something is worth upgrading to or not.