Cine Asia Sale

[Shingster]

I was supposed to post screengrabs from the UK BD matched up to the DVDBeaver ones for the HK/US discs a while back, but never did. I'll definitely do that tomorrow.

[Yi-Long]

I was supposed to post screengrabs from the UK BD matched up to the DVDBeaver ones for the HK/US discs a while back, but never did. I'll definitely do that tomorrow.

You lazy bum...

[Shingster]

I've just remembered why I was so lazy, DVDBeaver don't put any fucking thought into their choice of grabs, many of those grabs were a right bitch to match up to!

I've matched my UK grabs to their US grabs the best I can, but seeing as their US grabs don't quite match up to their HK ones then neither do my UK ones. Anyway, I thought it would be best to put all the grabs in one rar file to download here.

Basically the UK and US BDs are extremely close, in these grabs you can percieve just a fraction of a more salmony tone to the UK and the black levels are also a fraction lighter on the UK, but it's possible that these differences were introduced by different methods of taking screengrabs (I use virtualdub, not sure how DVDBeaver take theirs or I would have strived to use the same method). Plus it's also worth bearing in mind that DVDBeaver have compressed their grabs more than I have (again I was going to try and match their compression, but it seems they've used a different level of compression on each grab rather than compress them all at the same quality level).

I'm torn between the nagging feeling that the HK release is possibly slightly over-saturated but a bigger feeling that the UK/US releases are under-saturated, as if the difference in colour tone between the pre and post-invasion halves has been neutralised somehwat. You can clearly see that the HK release goes through a much bigger colour shift (during the bleaker 2nd half there's less difference in saturation between the HK and US/UK releases), which makes more of a statement that the Japanese invasion is now a bleaker time for HK.

So there you go, the UK release is at worst just a normal, everyday "lesser quality" transfer, there is no major fuck up, it's no different to the differences you'd see between releases in the good old days of DVD. If people want to boycott the UK/US release because they prefer the quality of the HK release or they're waiting for a cheaper port of the HK BD in another Asian territory then great, but no-one in their right mind should use the UK/US releases to advocate piracy. That's not making a statement, that's just someone being an embittered prick because their native release isn't the best in the world.

[bradavon]

The USA one looks the best to me, colour wise. The HK doesn't look realistic and the UK too drab but frankly they all look fine and the UK is much cheaper, so that's the one I'd get. If prices were similar then fine but prices differ wildly.