Questions on some older R2's... Iczer-3, Video Girl Ai, Lodoss

[BBQmyNUTZ]

Anyone own the R2 releases of any of these shows? If so, how do they compare quality wise to their R1 counterparts? Component masters?

[Buster Darkwings]

The R2s of Lodoss are ancient encodes with lots of constant MPEG noise, the kind that you see in old DVDs from the 90's. They might be from component masters though, I'll have to check them out again.

I don't have the Den'ei Shojo R2s, but I'm pretty sure they don't use component masters. They at least don't have the hardsubbed song lyrics on the R1s, though.

I'd love to have both of these series on Laserdisc since I could have LPCM sound and not have to worry about the DVDs having much better video, but ironically both series have widespread laser rot issues.

[Thanatos]

Not very helpful, but I have the Video Girl Ai R2 but not on me. I recall it not having rainbows like the R1. Plus it had the little bonus omake segment not on the R1.

I remember some intensely anal-retentative website (gave an "F" to any non-anamorphic anime movie release) reviewing the disc, so maybe you could find that site for detailed spec analysis.

Was Iczer-3 ever released on R2? I thought it just had LDs.

[Buster Darkwings]

Originally Posted by Thanatos

Not very helpful, but I have the Video Girl Ai R2 but not on me. I recall it not having rainbows like the R1. Plus it had the little bonus omake segment not on the R1.

I remember some intensely anal-retentative website (gave an "F" to any non-anamorphic anime movie release) reviewing the disc, so maybe you could find that site for detailed spec analysis.

Heh, Catspat's Animephile. I knew right off the bat what site you were talking about.

http://catsspat.dyndns.org:2080/anim...-72/index.html

Unfortunately, it confirms my suspicion that the R2s are composite as well. But they do have LPCM audio, so maybe I'll hunt them down after all...

[BBQmyNUTZ]

Well, I guess I'm saving myself a few hundred bucks then... :lol:

@Thanatos:

Yes, Iczer-3 got a 2 volume DVD release... I think it was released before Iczer-1, unless I'm on crack. They're pretty hard to come by, though... and I have no idea what they look like. I may try to track them down anyway, since the R1 is so ridiculously bad.

BTW, I finally got around to picking up that German release of Vampire Hunter D you put me on to a while back. Cropping aside, they did a hell of job with it.

[Njr Scrawl]

Was Iczelion ever released on R2? I remember it had a VHS release from ADV, but never got to DVD.

[BBQmyNUTZ]

Originally Posted by Wrath of the Njr

Was Iczelion ever released on R2? I remember it had a VHS release from ADV, but never got to DVD.

Yes, it was released on R2. Never really liked it though, so I never picked it up.

[Buster Darkwings]

Well, it's quite possible that Video Girl Ai still looks better in R2 despite it being composite. Viz probably dumped whatever VHS masters they had for the R1, which were probably edited in composite as well, so you get an additional layer of artifacts. I've seen both the R1 and the R2 of Mata Mata Saber Marionette J, and while the R2 is also composite, it looks infinitely better than the R1.

[Thanatos]

Oh, Viz TOTALLY used whatever previously English-version finished video masters they had for Video Girl Ai, why else are the credits exactly the same as the VHS tapes and there's pixellation around the hardsubbed song subtitles? The R1 of Ai isn't a pretty pony. Key the Metal Idol is even worse because not only do you get ghosting and a lack of real song subtitles, you get bonus massive artificating due to shoving three hours of interlaced video and extras on the DVD, and the R2s are only have LESS ghosting and better encoding.

I think Catspat needs an enema, but I'll agree with him that titles like these and 3x3 Eyes really deserve better. Don't give me a bonus CD, give me a new telecine!

I'll be the last to praise Viz (denying us other backcatalog titles like One Pound Gospel and Grey Digital Target), but at least we got a composited rainbowed mess DVD on Ai and not an actual VHS tape dumped onto DVD like Mangle's Macross Plus movie!

[Buster Darkwings]

Yeah, Key was terrible. I treasure my LD box of that series. With a decent Y/C filter (like the Monster/Entech SVSI-1 or CVSI-1), LDs look much better than DVDs that use old composite masters on my setup.