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Initial D World - Discussion Board / Forums > Initial D General Discussion > Bluray Screenshots for 3rd and 4th Stages

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 1 2015, 08:17 AM

So yeah, Avex really screwed the pooch on Initial D. The "bluray" boxsets are a pretty blatant insult to loyal Initial D fans everywhere. We've already seen from screenshots here on the forum that the bluray versions of First Stage and Second Stage were just shoddy upscales from secondary sources (that is, they look exactly like what would happen if I took my DVDs and ran them through a filter to make them 1080p from 480p), but so far no one's posted up shots from Third Stage or Fourth Stage. Third Stage was a movie composited onto actual film, so the original film source should have been around. As we can see from things like Mobile Suit Gundam, upscaling from 32mm film actually looks freaking amazing, so I was curious as to how it was handled. Perhaps if Third Stage was done right, there would be hope!

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

user posted image

Image size reduced, original size: 1440 x 810. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

Shoddily cropped and upscaled from a secondary source. Keep in mind that when Third Stage was released to home video, it was 4:3 letterboxed as anamorphic widescreen was not yet widely accepted (and VHS tapes were still a viable home video format). So they took the original secondary source (a VHS master? This certainly isn't the original film source!!), cropped off the black bars, and upscaled it. Absolutely disgusting. The chroma blurring almost makes my eyes sore looking at it it's so bad. I'd rather just watch my DVD, thanks. Cheaper and arguably better quality since at least it's not being upscaled.

So how about Fourth Stage? This was one of the first all-digital composite series OB Planning did, but unfortunately it had gotten caught in the rift where anamorphic widescreen was becoming commonplace but was still not a standard, so it ended up being 4:3 letterboxed on DVD. It wasn't until OB Planning handled Wangan Midnight that they finally moved to anamorphic. So since this series was digital, surely they had the original masters around to scale up from, right? I mean, it can't possibly be true that every Initial D bluray is just a shitty upscale from--

user posted image

Image size reduced, original size: 1440 x 810. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

Yep! Shitty upscales from interlaced source, done poorly just like everything else in this crappy boxset. Even better they didn't even make an effort to correct the luminance issues from episodes 1-2, something that should have been simple for them to do. That they didn't even make that minor correction shows just how little effort was put into this. Way to go, Avex. I'm glad I didn't shell out for this and I feel truly sorry for those who did.

Posted by: xiao Dec 1 2015, 08:54 AM

Oh god, motherf#cking Avex!! also, bloody motherfscking Funimation too, for not having the drive (because lelelelel Initial D doesn't make moneyz, but we still hold on to the license because kekekeke~ =P) to go to OB Planning directly and tell them to hand over the frickin' Premier/CelShader files and do it themselves... *sigh* adios 4th Stage~ and rest in peace 5th and Final......

Mucho thank yous for the breakdown N1, most def not gonna buy this shiz till Avex gets humans instead of pandas to do their BD mastering.

Posted by: kyonpalm Dec 1 2015, 08:54 AM

I'm completely speechless.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 1 2015, 09:12 AM

QUOTE (xiao_la @ 18 minutes, 11 seconds ago)

Mucho thank yous for the breakdown N1, most def not gonna buy this shiz till Avex gets humans instead of pandas to do their BD mastering.

At this point I'm not sure the masters exist anymore. Doing a transfer from 32mm is not terribly difficult from a technical standpoint (you just need access to the equipment), yet they did not use a 32mm film source for Third Stage and instead chose to use a secondary source (whether that was a VHS master or a DVD I do not know).

Yes, it could simply be an egregious lack of effort...but it could also be a case of missing masters. I would almost believe that they're working with VHS masters entirely except for Third Stage being a movie and all. Star Trek: The Next Generation had the issue where all their masters were VHS, and for the blurays CBS Digital had to literally re-create every episode by hand using film layers (because thankfully Paramount still had the original film components of each episode, even if the final composite was only ever on a VHS). This would make sense for First Stage and Second Stage (since 1st was a TV broadcast and 2nd was a home-video VHS release) but falls apart for Third Stage (a theatrical film) and Fourth Stage (a digital composite in the DVD era).

Whichever it is, it does not excuse that they advertised the bluray boxsets as having 'advanced high-definition remastering'. See here from their Amazon page:

QUOTE (Amazon Japan)

1最新の映像技術により過去のざらついたえいぞうがハイクオリティが画質で再現!
2最新の高品質マスタリングシステム「FORS」を採用!
これまでにない迫力のあるサウンドを実現!

"Using the latest in image technology the old grainy footage is reproduced in high-quality imagery! Using the latest high-quality mastering system 'FORS'! Sound with impact never before heart can be realized!"

Absolute fucking horse shit.

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 09:26 AM

You get Initial D PIT2?

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 1 2015, 09:31 AM

QUOTE (alex1287 @ 4 minutes, 59 seconds ago)

You get Initial D PIT2?

I "found" Initial D PIT.2. Thankfully I did not spend money on it as it isn't worth the discs it's pressed on.

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 09:33 AM

Amazing

this is 10bit or 8bit?

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 1 2015, 09:43 AM

Not that it matters because it looks like absolute garbage and no, I'm not going to share it, but here's the tech specs:

http://pastebin.com/NWeswA6u

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 09:46 AM

Cool <3 Can you upload all this in MEGA? I want show this in my TV how this look's.

Posted by: Tessou Dec 1 2015, 10:18 AM

QUOTE (alex1287 @ 32 minutes, 39 seconds ago)

Cool <3 Can you upload all this in MEGA? I want show this in my TV how this look's.

Learn how to read. I'm out of hands to palm my face with at this point.

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 10:38 AM

QUOTE (Tessou @ 19 minutes, 36 seconds ago)

Learn how to read. I'm out of hands to palm my face with at this point.

What, I wrong write?

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 1 2015, 10:41 AM

QUOTE (alex1287 @ 54 minutes, 53 seconds ago)

Cool <3 Can you upload all this in MEGA? I want show this in my TV how this look's.

QUOTE (Nomake Wan @ 57 minutes, 39 seconds ago)

Not that it matters because it looks like absolute garbage and no, I'm not going to share it, but here's the tech specs:

http://pastebin.com/NWeswA6u

You want it, go find it yourself. I'm not wasting hard drive space and bandwidth on this trash.

Posted by: Tessou Dec 1 2015, 10:46 AM

QUOTE (alex1287 @ 8 minutes, 18 seconds ago)

What, I wrong write?

N1 specifically said he's not sharing because it's garbage, and you still asked him to.

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 10:54 AM

Understand, I'm sorry for this

I misunderstood. Can you tell me where you've downloaded?

Posted by: Tessou Dec 1 2015, 10:55 AM

No. He said he's not telling where he shared it because it's a waste of time. The Bluray cut of Initial D was a badly done cash grab, end of story.

Buy the DVDs.

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 11:01 AM

QUOTE (Tessou @ 5 minutes, 22 seconds ago)

No. He said he's not telling where he shared it because it's a waste of time. The Bluray cut of Initial D was a badly done cash grab, end of story.

Buy the DVDs.

Ok, understand. I will not ask, and I do not want to upset people stupid questions.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 1 2015, 11:30 AM

The DVDs are cheaper and better quality. Just buy those and be happy. Don't mess with the blurays, they truly are crap. This is your final warning from someone who actually knows what he's talking about. Don't waste your time, hard drive space or bandwidth trying to find them.

Posted by: alex1287 Dec 1 2015, 12:07 PM

Ok you have right, and I'm sorry again

Posted by: goseiba525 Dec 2 2015, 08:50 AM

HD remaster digest
user posted image

Image size reduced, original size: 1687 x 968. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

Much better than your screenshots.
I guess it is a fake BDrip.

Posted by: Falbere Dec 2 2015, 09:37 AM

goseiba525 PIT Box? I know you bought quite some from the official source. But if that is the case. The screenshots looks amazing!
是官网买的蓝光么？？ O.O
第一和第二部也这么高清吗？我也要看看第四步的有没有啊
Translate: Do you also have 4th stage to show?

N1, where did you get yours from? You might have get scammed Nomake.

Posted by: Seri Dec 2 2015, 09:39 AM

I may have found it through some shenanagans involving what N1 has posted.

Posted by: Tessou Dec 2 2015, 10:23 AM

Believe nobody, not even yourself.

Posted by: kyonpalm Dec 2 2015, 10:27 AM

QUOTE (Tessou @ 3 minutes, 47 seconds ago)

Believe nobody, not even yourself.

I'll believe those smoking hot screencaps goseiba just posted.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 2 2015, 11:01 AM

I WANT TO BELIEVE

No, seriously. I want to believe that 3rd and later weren't done as shittily as 1/2 were. 'Cause yeah, those shots from the digest actually look good and aren't cropped like shit.

As for getting 'scammed', it's hard to get 'scammed' when I didn't spend any money.

Goseiba, any chance you could get a shot from Fourth Stage episode 2?

Posted by: Tessou Dec 2 2015, 11:43 AM

QUOTE (kyonpalm @ 1 hour, 16 minutes ago)

I'll believe those smoking hot screencaps goseiba just posted.

Bracing for Fourth Stage letterboxing.

I was referring to N1 posting from a potentially bad source, not goseiba's screencaps of what look like a true BR source.

Posted by: xiao Dec 2 2015, 11:56 AM

QUOTE (Nomake Wan)

I WANT TO BELIEVE

Great Niko song is great~ ♪

Also, after about a decade... I just noticed Toru's car is giving the old Tofu~beater props...

Hachi-roku Gokuro...... te nani wo hanashitai yo Toru-san!? baaaaakana~ Hachi-tofu no gutter-drops wo Texas ga hou ga ii da!www Custom-purate no ka?www Warai wo tomaranai yo~www (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))www

(using a compy running Vista'98 ME... thus no IME... orz)

Posted by: goseiba525 Dec 2 2015, 07:22 PM

QUOTE (Falbere @ 9 hours, 44 minutes ago)

就买了box3的。box2现在价格都炒得翻倍了，还是等人分流吧
user posted image

QUOTE (Nomake Wan @ 8 hours, 6 minutes ago)

Image size reduced, original size: 1920 x 1080. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

4th stage is also a disaster.

Posted by: kyonpalm Dec 2 2015, 07:43 PM

RIP. At least Third Stage looks good. It's the prettiest stage, after all.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 2 2015, 08:12 PM

It should be considering it was a 32mm film.

Thanks for the shots. Too bad about the luminance issues. Nao Tomori is awesome.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

Posted by: Falbere Dec 2 2015, 09:05 PM

On the bright side 4th stage is better than anything on the internet right now. I might still get it.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 2 2015, 11:07 PM

QUOTE (Falbere @ 2 hours, 2 minutes ago)

On the bright side 4th stage is better than anything on the internet right now. I might still get it.

But why? Those screenshots from Fourth Stage prove that they're just upscales. See the jaggies around the body seams on the car? See the chroma leaking from the traffic cone in the first shot? I can literally take my DVDs, run them through some snazzy filters, and get the same output. It's obvious they're using secondary sources for that, so it's not 'better' it's just 'already upscaled for you'.

Posted by: Tessou Dec 3 2015, 12:39 AM

QUOTE (Falbere @ 3 hours, 34 minutes ago)

On the bright side 4th stage is better than anything on the internet right now. I might still get it.

Buy the DVDs. Any current player will upscale it for you and your flawed vision will not be able to see the blatant artifacts consistent with a shitty "Bluray" cut of Fourth Stage.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 3 2015, 03:57 PM

Now, keep in mind that these are both not quite perfect examples. I don't own the blurays, and while I do own the DVDs for 4th Stage they're in a box somewhere with all the rest of my stuff ever since the fire back in February. So without access to those primary sources, I have this broadcast of 4th Stage from Animax HD of the 'HD remaster', and this encode someone else did of the DVDs. The Animax broadcast is in 1080 native, whereas the DVD is 480 and my media player is doing the upscaling using MadVR. Compare for yourself.

user posted image

Image size reduced, original size: 1920 x 1080. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

If I can find the DVDs I'll have a better example but that should give you a pretty good idea.

Posted by: BOZZ Dec 4 2015, 11:39 PM

Kinda sad to see that not much effort was put into making the Blu Ray release (although I've seen screenshots from before and they were pretty bad) of Initial D, well besides Third Stage which looks pretty darn good judging from those screenshots that goseiba posted.

Posted by: Nomake Wan Dec 12 2015, 10:15 PM

While I of course still don't have my hands on the blurays themselves, I did scrounge up my DVD and nabbed a TV rip from when Animax re-broadcast the series in HD. I assume Animax was using the bluray source for that, so this should be a close comparison.

My DVD screenshots were taken in MPC-HC and are rendered with madVR set to maximum-performance upscaling using 60FPS deinterlacing, then cropped down to 720p. While I could put a script together to get the upscaling to look better I probably couldn't do it in realtime so I didn't bother. This is close enough. The ones with the ANIMAX logo are the 'HD' ones, obviously.

user posted image

Image size reduced, original size: 1324 x 720. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

Posted by: alex1287 Oct 2 2016, 08:13 AM

Check this guys

3rd Stage and Battle Stage BDrip from PIT 2

YOUTUBE ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnRuhZlKCsM )

YOUTUBE ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rghagbbytOI )

YOUTUBE ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIAAJZ95P7U )

Posted by: Tessou Oct 2 2016, 10:29 AM

I'm only interested in full Battle Stage rips from the BD.

Posted by: alex1287 Oct 2 2016, 11:45 AM

3rd Stage is looking good and I wanted for this with Battle Stages

interesting how with Extra Stage 1&2

Posted by: Ellis_Carl Mar 6 2019, 03:28 PM

would you share this animax rip, if you can?
thanks in advance if you can reply

Posted by: Nomake Wan Jun 1 2019, 04:27 PM

QUOTE (Ellis_Carl @ Mar 6 2019, 03:28 PM)

would you share this animax rip, if you can?
thanks in advance if you can reply

Just saw this post. No, because I deleted it. I only ever had a single episode of it anyway, so it's not like I could've shared the whole series or anything. Sorry 'bout that. Plenty of people are uploading blurays though so check out the other threads.

Posted by: Ellis_Carl Jun 6 2019, 07:52 AM

Yeah, i'm following them. Thanks for the reply

Posted by: waishie Sep 23 2019, 04:31 AM

Avex banned all cool videos on youtube