[US] Katanagatari

[Buster Darkwings]

Originally Posted by ThomasBellman

It eats into the total disk space, and thus lowers the average bitrate available for video. If you have nine 25-minute episodes on a BD-50, the maximum average bitrate for audio+video is 29.6 Mbit/s. If you use up 8 Mbit/s for audio, that leaves you with 21.6 Mbit/s average for video

Oh, please. A 24-bit 2.0 track is a bump from 1.5 MB/S to 2.4 MB/S, it's nowhere near the max bitrate allocated for audio.

24 bit audio, and likewise 96 or 192 kHz sampling rates, is just the equivalent of Monster or Nordost cables. Marketing trying to hide behind a veil of pseudoscience in order to get you to give the sellers more money.

Using 16-bit is more like using a cable that automatically downgrades the actual quality. And I've yet to see any company that actually uses 24-bit as a selling point.

[Buster Darkwings]

Originally Posted by kakugo

The discs are PCM, too, but I'm under the impression that the difference between lossless and uncompressed isn't all that pronounced for mono/stereo material...

Using DTS MA can actually result in a higher bitrate, since it requires the additional bitrate of a regular DTS track. The 2.0 DTS MA tracks on Ghibli releases are definitely higher than they would have been if they were in PCM. Not sure about other releases, they might be less than PCM if they use a lower bitrate core DTS track, but most probably use whatever encoder defaults, which I imagine are set for an 1.5 MB/S core bitrate.

I think the 2.0 TrueHD track on Bubblegum Crisis saved a few hundred MB on each BD-50, but even Bandai realized there little point in using it and haven't used it since 2007 on 2.0 tracks.

And going back to the 24-bit vs 16-bit argument, it may not make a noticeable difference, but if you're going to be reducing the bitrate from the masters, why even use lossless? Most people can't tell the difference between lossy and lossless, so why bother using anything other than lossy Dolby Digital if reproducing the audio masters as close as possible isn't a concern?

[WTK]

via RACS

First up, NIS sent us a note this week to let us know that they will be taking one more round of orders from retailers for the final pressing of both Katanagatari Premium Edition sets. They have asked us to book our final qnties no later than Nov 8th for delivery around the end of the month. After that, the sets will officially be discontinued and strictly limited to whatever stock we have left on hand...

[jala12]

Hehe, good to know tha the two sets I got will become quite rare soon.

[Keith]

Even better, a RE set should pop up soon too.

[Tratious]

Fuuu...

[Damius]

I already have it so, I'm safe!

[sickVisionz]

So I guess it's safe to say the title was at least as successful as they hoped it would be. I wish them the best of luck.

Despite the baby-sized subs that I can't read at the distance my TV is away from my couch, NISA is the company that I hope licenses my favorite anime series.

[russ869]

Originally Posted by Keith

Even better, a RE set should pop up soon too.

Heh... you wish. ...I mean, I wish too... but let's be serious here.

Unfortunately this means I'm buying after all.

[Faris Kalin]

Originally Posted by russ869

Heh... you wish. ...I mean, I wish too... but let's be serious here.

Unfortunately this means I'm buying after all.

Hmm, so you don't think it was popular enough to warrant a regular version? I didn't think about that. Maybe I should finally bite the bullet and pick up the sets.

Wagnaria got a regular edition, though. It can't have been that popular.