New Robotech Blu-ray coming soon from Funimation

[pengbuzz]

32 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

will this have english subs?

If they do, it had better be roast beef with lettuce, provolone cheese, green pepper and mayo on white french bread.

[Bolt]

40 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

will this have english subs?

🤣

[Bolt]

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

If they do, it had better be roast beef with lettuce, provolone cheese, green pepper and mayo on white french bread.

😂

[CoryHolmes]

15 hours ago, Podtastic said:

I decided that back in the 80's.

Yeah, but I'm a glutton for punishment.  I always hoped for the best, and dug my heels in when the Internet told me I was wrong.

[Big s]

If it’s an English sub it’s gotta have Wensleydale for the cheese

[JetJockey]

On 8/28/2021 at 6:44 PM, technoblue said:

Aw shucks. That's a downer. I'm back on the wait and see side for picking up the blu-ray now. 

I'm waiting too. But I can't see how on this big Blu-ray release that they wouldn't include a 2 channel track since it was on a previous release. Plus I assume most fans of Robotech are older and prefer the old sound effects as that is what was on TV. Not the new stuff.

[rsvictor1976]

I was curious about this release and decided to do the 2 week trial on Funimation since they have the entire series in the new version up already. I have the first digital release on iTunes and compared to this new one on Funimation, I can definitely see the improvement in sharpness (probably baecause it's in HD) and brightness. The sound effects are from the classic TV show that I remember and not that crappy new version they did when the 5.1 mix first came out. But one thing that threw me off is how grainy it is. For a version thats much sharper and brighter, the overall graininess feels like its been added on as a special effect and doesn't seem natural. 

Edit: I also checked out the new digital version on iTunes and can confirm it's the same quality as the one up on Funimation.

Edited October 16, 2021 by rsvictor1976

[JB0]

59 minutes ago, rsvictor1976 said:

The sound effects are from the classic TV show that I remember and not that crappy new version they did when the 5.1 mix first came out. 

So HG CAN give the people what they want!

[technoblue]

As a counterpoint, there is an in-hand review of the new blu-ray over on this site:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=340685&page=11

[TheLoneWolf]

2 hours ago, technoblue said:

As a counterpoint, there is an in-hand review of the new blu-ray over on this site:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=340685&page=11

According to that review, the set still has some of the new (inferior) sound effects in it.  

Quote

But like I said is not perfect, there are a few sfx that I don't like, specifically the sound of the gunpod of the veritechs, the original sound is way better than the base sound they used in the new mix and I said base sound because they change it, in some scenes the gunpod may sound like a laser weapon and in others like a machine gun(a very crappy one) and in other scenes a combination of both...

And after looking at the screenshots he posted, the SDF Macross video is clearly just an upscale of the old AnimEigo release. You can tell because of the oversaturated color contrast that AnimEigo introduced.

Now that Harmony Gold/Tatsunoko Production and Big West are working together, maybe there's a chance that a future RT: The Macross Saga will be released with Bandai Visual's Blu ray video, which was a true 1080p remaster.

[tekering]

8 minutes ago, TheLoneWolf said:

And after looking at the screenshots he posted, the SDF Macross video is clearly just an upscale of the old AnimEigo release.

With all due respect, the resolution and clarity are far beyond what DVD upscales are capable of:

16 minutes ago, TheLoneWolf said:

Bandai Visual's Blu ray video, which was a true 1080p remaster

While I prefer the contrast ratio on the Japanese BDs (which were clearly struck from higher-quality prints), these Robotech Blu-rays are clearly true 1080p remasters as well.

But what of the Southern Cross episodes...?

[technoblue]

I think the review made a good case for the quality of the HD content. As for the source, yeah, Animeigo and Funimation were working from the same HG film stock. And Animeigo's remaster was done decades ago! I agree with the reviewer and think that a lot of the inconsistencies in the Funimation release are just signs of the film's age. So I think Funimation brought their "A" game.

Apart from the audio, which I've already noted is a low point for me, I found it interesting to read that the episode bumpers were removed. I wonder why that was done?

At the end of the day, though, I'm too much of a fan to skip this and I can see myself adding it to my HD Macross collection.

I'll probably wait until it goes on sale or something.

[sh9000]

I mentioned to Amazon that the digital copies cannot always be viewed on Funimation’s site unless you sign up and pay for membership.  Amazon ended up giving me the blu-ray for free.

[technoblue]

26 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

I mentioned to Amazon that the digital copies cannot always be viewed on Funimation’s site unless you sign up and pay for membership.  Amazon ended up giving me the blu-ray for free.

Wow. That’s unexpected but also really cool.

[JetJockey]

Is it confirmed that they couldn't bother to put the original sound effects on this release? I only read the one review in that Blu-ray forum link.

It's also disappointing that they didn't include the upcoming episode teasers. I always thought that was cool. But then I like the Japanese midway point animations too and we didn't get those in Robotech.

Edited November 15, 2021 by JetJockey

[tekering]

8 hours ago, JetJockey said:

Is it confirmed that they couldn't bother to put the original sound effects on this release?

I can confirm that.  Having acquired Funimation's HD release of The Macross Saga, there are two separate audio tracks; both are 5.1 surround, both feature the 2003 Robotech: Remastered audio, and both are identical, as far as I can tell.

8 hours ago, JetJockey said:

It's also disappointing that they didn't include the upcoming episode teasers.

There are plenty of omissions to be disappointed about, but I think the image quality is a far more significant problem.  I've been watching Macross on Blu-ray for nine years now, and this is how I expected the series to look:

With nearly a decade of advances in digital noise reduction, compression algorithms, image scaling and the like, this is what Funimation now gives us:

It's a horribly grainy, over-exposed, blown-out high contrast print, and the backlighting is so inconsistent that the image frequently appears to flicker like an old film projector.

I was excited to hear the show would be released on Blu-ray, because it would mean I could replace my HD upscales of Southern Cross, but...

[ ... ]

...I fear Robotech Masters isn't going to look any better.

[JetJockey]

12 hours ago, tekering said:

I can confirm that.  Having acquired Funimation's HD release of The Macross Saga, there are two separate audio tracks; both are 5.1 surround, both feature the 2003 Robotech: Remastered audio, and both are identical, as far as I can tell.

There are plenty of omissions to be disappointed about, but I think the image quality is a far more significant problem.  I've been watching Macross on Blu-ray for nine years now, and this is how I expected the series to look:

With nearly a decade of advances in digital noise reduction, compression algorithms, image scaling and the like, this is what Funimation now gives us:

It's a horribly grainy, over-exposed, blown-out high contrast print, and the backlighting is so inconsistent that the image frequently appears to flicker like an old film projector.

I was excited to hear the show would be released on Blu-ray, because it would mean I could replace my HD upscales of Southern Cross, but...

[ ... ]

...I fear Robotech Masters isn't going to look any better.

I guess it's time to give up on a definitive Robotech release now. I assume they want us to wait for a UHD version? No reason for stuff to be missing or to have iffy quality visuals. The post in the Blu-ray forum review also mentioned the visuals. Seems like people gave up over there too as there haven't been posts in a while.

Post when you check out the Masters and New Generation. I'll search for some reviews of that box set to see what people are saying.

[Keith]

13 hours ago, tekering said:

I can confirm that.  Having acquired Funimation's HD release of The Macross Saga, there are two separate audio tracks; both are 5.1 surround, both feature the 2003 Robotech: Remastered audio, and both are identical, as far as I can tell.

There are plenty of omissions to be disappointed about, but I think the image quality is a far more significant problem.  I've been watching Macross on Blu-ray for nine years now, and this is how I expected the series to look:

With nearly a decade of advances in digital noise reduction, compression algorithms, image scaling and the like, this is what Funimation now gives us:

It's a horribly grainy, over-exposed, blown-out high contrast print, and the backlighting is so inconsistent that the image frequently appears to flicker like an old film projector.

I was excited to hear the show would be released on Blu-ray, because it would mean I could replace my HD upscales of Southern Cross, but...

[ ... ]

...I fear Robotech Masters isn't going to look any better.

Tried to tell you guys...

[JetJockey]

I guess people should understand Harmony Gold by now. It's like that fool me once line. But still I had high hopes. I found one youtube review of Southern Cross / Masters that said it didn't look that great either. So far the rest of the youtube reviews I saw were unboxings.

[Keith]

4 hours ago, JetJockey said:

I guess people should understand Harmony Gold by now. It's like that fool me once line. But still I had high hopes. I found one youtube review of Southern Cross / Masters that said it didn't look that great either. So far the rest of the youtube reviews I saw were unboxings.

Maybe Robotech fans don't even watch it anymore, they just blindly throw money at re-releases hoping it'll lead to something new.

[TangledThorns]

19 minutes ago, Keith said:

Maybe Robotech fans don't even watch it anymore, they just blindly throw money at re-releases hoping it'll lead to something new.

Not this fan. Learned my lesson after VHS and then DVDs, no more. But yeah, I'm sure there are fans who keep paying for whatever when it comes to Robotech. Sad.

That being said I now entertain myself by trolling HG's Robotech posts on Facebook, lol.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/15/2021 at 9:21 AM, tekering said:

It's a horribly grainy, over-exposed, blown-out high contrast print, and the backlighting is so inconsistent that the image frequently appears to flicker like an old film projector.

I was excited to hear the show would be released on Blu-ray, [...]

Sounds about right.  It's not like Funimation was going to spend a lot of money on digital cleanup for a high-def re-release of a series with an expected sales volume of only a couple thousand copies worldwide.  I'm actually kind of surprised they went to the trouble of doing a new transfer from source instead of just upscaling the last DVD release.

Reminds me of the first few Robotech DVD releases, which were a grainy, faded, occasionally blurry mess.  (IIRC, wasn't that a transfer from VHS tapes rather than from source?)

 

1 hour ago, Keith said:

Maybe Robotech fans don't even watch it anymore, they just blindly throw money at re-releases hoping it'll lead to something new.

Somewhat surprisingly, it's mostly the other way around these days.

Many of the remaining Robotech fans rewatch the series on a regular basis, but they've proven to be a lot less willing to open their wallets for the franchise the way they used to.  The recent Robotech RPG Kickstarter attracted less than 550 backers, and only reached the funding level it did because most of them were collectors buying multiple editions of the book.  

Interest in Robotech on home video kind of dried up after Remastered, since the new audio was poorly received and subsequent editions didn't add any new content of note.  Plus it's been slumming its way around the streaming services for most of that time too.

[Keith]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Sounds about right.  It's not like Funimation was going to spend a lot of money on digital cleanup for a high-def re-release of a series with an expected sales volume of only a couple thousand copies worldwide.  I'm actually kind of surprised they went to the trouble of doing a new transfer from source instead of just upscaling the last DVD release.

Reminds me of the first few Robotech DVD releases, which were a grainy, faded, occasionally blurry mess.  (IIRC, wasn't that a transfer from VHS tapes rather than from source?)

 

Somewhat surprisingly, it's mostly the other way around these days.

Many of the remaining Robotech fans rewatch the series on a regular basis, but they've proven to be a lot less willing to open their wallets for the franchise the way they used to.  The recent Robotech RPG Kickstarter attracted less than 550 backers, and only reached the funding level it did because most of them were collectors buying multiple editions of the book.  

Interest in Robotech on home video kind of dried up after Remastered, since the new audio was poorly received and subsequent editions didn't add any new content of note.  Plus it's been slumming its way around the streaming services for most of that time too.

I don't think many have addressed the strangest part of release is still the SD encode of "The Shadow Chronicles." Did HG lose their own HD masters? How hilarious is that?

[TheLoneWolf]

On 10/16/2021 at 10:55 AM, tekering said:

With all due respect, the resolution and clarity are far beyond what DVD upscales are capable of:

Whoah, you're absolutely right, it's not an upscale. It just looks so bad that I thought it was one. 😲

[tekering]

16 minutes ago, TheLoneWolf said:

Whoah, you're absolutely right, it's not an upscale. It just looks so bad that I thought it was one. 😲

Looking at still images, I wouldn't blame you for making such an assumption; however, watching the sandstorm of HD grain swirling over the image at 30fps emphasizes the 1080p resolution more than the animation itself does, that's for sure.

And again, here's what the Japanese gave us NINE years ago:

Shame on you, Funimation.

[Knight26]

I really want a domestic US release of the Japanese Blu-Ray, with English subs of course.  I have a super hard time justifying $400+ (lowest price I have seen) for the set right now.

These latest examples just prove how little work Funimation and HG are willing to put into this.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Knight26

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/16/2021 at 4:07 PM, Keith said:

I don't think many have addressed the strangest part of release is still the SD encode of "The Shadow Chronicles." Did HG lose their own HD masters? How hilarious is that?

... wasn't Shadow Chronicles produced in 720p, though?

Did they downscale it somehow?

 

 

[Keith]

 

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... wasn't Shadow Chronicles produced in 720p, though?

Did they downscale it somehow?

 

 

Bluray.com claims it was a 1080p master during the original release.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Robotech-The-Shadow-Chronicles-Blu-ray/845/

Whatever haplened, they've only been releasing it in 480i since Funimation lost the original license.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Keith

[Seto Kaiba]

18 minutes ago, Keith said:

Bluray.com claims it was a 1080p master during the original release.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Robotech-The-Shadow-Chronicles-Blu-ray/845/

Whatever haplened, they've only been releasing it in 480i since Funimation lost the original license.

... that is legitimately hilarious.

[M'Kyuun]

Just saw RT at Walmart on Monday. Not sure if it was DVD or Blu-ray; didn't care.  But it's out for those who want it.

[DYRL VF-1S]

On 11/15/2021 at 7:21 AM, tekering said:

I can confirm that.  Having acquired Funimation's HD release of The Macross Saga, there are two separate audio tracks; both are 5.1 surround, both feature the 2003 Robotech: Remastered audio, and both are identical, as far as I can tell.

There are plenty of omissions to be disappointed about, but I think the image quality is a far more significant problem.  I've been watching Macross on Blu-ray for nine years now, and this is how I expected the series to look:

With nearly a decade of advances in digital noise reduction, compression algorithms, image scaling and the like, this is what Funimation now gives us:

It's a horribly grainy, over-exposed, blown-out high contrast print, and the backlighting is so inconsistent that the image frequently appears to flicker like an old film projector.

I was excited to hear the show would be released on Blu-ray, because it would mean I could replace my HD upscales of Southern Cross, but...

[ ... ]

...I fear Robotech Masters isn't going to look any better.

 

6 hours ago, tekering said:

Looking at still images, I wouldn't blame you for making such an assumption; however, watching the sandstorm of HD grain swirling over the image at 30fps emphasizes the 1080p resolution more than the animation itself does, that's for sure.

And again, here's what the Japanese gave us NINE years ago:

Shame on you, Funimation.

I noticed the same things and posted a similar comparison on TFW2005. I have a 110-inch screen with 1080p projector. It's pretty difficult to watch that large with it that grainy. But I do like the 5.1 audio better than the stereo from the SDFM Blue Ray (regardless of sfx etc.)

[sh9000]

I haven't checked out the Robotech blu-ray and I'm not sure when I will but I'm glad that Amazon gave it to me for free.

[tekering]

9 hours ago, DYRL VF-1S said:

I have a 110-inch screen with 1080p projector. It's pretty difficult to watch that large with it that grainy.

The grain didn't bother me on my 136-inch screen nearly as much as the flickering did.  My girlfriend shielded her eyes and asked me to turn it off.

3 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I'm glad that Amazon gave it to me for free.

I'd have given it right back to them.

[Keith]

6 hours ago, tekering said:

The grain didn't bother me on my 136-inch screen nearly as much as the flickering did.  My girlfriend shielded her eyes and asked me to turn it off.

I'd have given it right back to them.

Weird that the flickering popped back up in HG's masters, haven't seen that (that I know of) since ADV released their subbed Southern Cross set many years ago. They even sent out replacements for the affected disc's.

[Gamma00Ray]

For these new Robotech blu ray sets, I'd blame Funimation more than Harmony Gold for the video quality problems. Funimation has been screwing up Dragon Ball Z for the better part of two decades, and they've done some other head scratching things with other anime over the years, including the oddly limited release of the Cowboy Bebop movie steelbook blu ray with surround sound. It's a shame because Funimation can put out a great quality release for the masses when they want to, but for whatever reason they choose not to.

I have a question, since these new Funimation sets use the "remastered" audio (I'm presuming the one from the Protoculture Collection set from years ago), does this mean that the Funimation sets contain the additional content that the old remastered DVD releases has? Such as the nudity. Well, mostly the nudity. Just want to know if there's anything that I'd need to cover the kids' eyes for

Edited July 3, 2022 by Gamma00Ray