Bullets 'n' Babes

Ip Man will get a UK release on October
http://www.asianblurayguide.com/detail/ ... d_kingdom/

Well, my Akira Blu-ray has finally arrived, rejoice! Gutted it's only the standard edition though Glad to finally have Akira back in my life though, I sold my Manga DVD ages ago due to its stupid HoH subs (damn you, Manga!!!) so have been Akira-less ever since. I doubt I've got the right equipment to fully enjoy the 'hypersonic sound' which is a shame, but will still be cool.

You got yours yet Shing? Standard edition too?

No it's in transit. I have no doubt it will be the standard edition though. I'm reviewing the disc for DVDTimes but I don't even have my blu-ray player at the moment because of the nightmare that is trying to get your player modded for region A+B playback!

You'll definitely like what you see, it looks and sounds phenomenal. I can only listen to the standard 5.1 though, will you be able to listen to the 192kHz 24bit one? From what I've read it sounds awesome *sob*. Great to see the film with no edge enhancement, I seem to remember the Manga DVD having noticeable EE.

Does anyone know why Otomo never made a sequel? I've read that this film is only the first part of the manga, it's a shame he never did, hopefully he will sometime.

P.S. The Kaori death scene still disturbs me

Where are you getting it modified Shing? How much?

I didn't realise there was two versions.

gasteropod wrote:I can only listen to the standard 5.1 though, will you be able to listen to the 192kHz 24bit one?

I think so, according to my manual it's only DTS-HD that it can't handle above 96kHz.

Does anyone know why Otomo never made a sequel? I've read that this film is only the first part of the manga, it's a shame he never did, hopefully he will sometime.

Otomo hadn't finished the manga when he made the film, but the ending to the film is reasonably close to the ending of the manga, it's just better fleshed out and realised in the manga. The anime isn't an adaptation of the first part of the manga, it covers most of the main story arc of the manga but cuts out loads of subplots and relegates some of the main characters (and their subsequent storylines) to small supporting roles. I'm a big fan of the anime but the manga really is just a much richer story, a true masterpiece of Science Fiction.

bradavon wrote:Where are you getting it modified Shing? How much?

Well there only appears to be two places that do a player mod service, Multiregion Upgrades and Blu-ray Upgrades. I sent my Sony s350 to Multiregion Upgrades on Jan 5th, the chap who runs that then proceeded to blank all my emails for the next 5weeks until I basically opened a Paypal dispute to get my money back and threatened to call the police if he didn't return my player. Eventually he gave me a full refund and returned the player.

After that mess I thought I'd try Blu-ray Upgrades, who have now had my player for 7weeks, and every week I phone them up about my player and they say "not this week, next week definitely - it's a difficuly mod for the Sonys". I've told them to either pull their fingers out their arses by the end of this week or I'll have to demand they return the player.

So basically, so far this year I have had my Blu-ray player at home for 2 days, I've sent the player to 2 companies and neither could be arsed to either keep me in the loop or do the job in a timely manner. How much are they charging for this piss-poor service? £180! Cheeky fuckers!!

OMG! That's shocking. You're lucky the first guy didn't bust it. I'd be too wary of that, to send mine off. Especially as my LG BH200 is now very much discontinued (at least in Europe) and obviously being a Combo Player, they're never going to make another one.

Don't you fancy cutting your losses, selling it on eBay and buying a new one?

gasteropod wrote:I can only listen to the standard 5.1 though, will you be able to listen to the 192kHz 24bit one?

Your Amp supports DTS right? If so, you may get better results from the TrueHD down-sampled to Full-rate 1.5Mbps DTS. I'm not sure how the PS3 handles this.

I know for me, it would be better to use the TrueHD and have it downsampled to 1.5Mbps DTS at 96Khz. The DD5.1 will be 640Kbps tops and probably 48Khz. My Amp supports 1.5Mbps (Legacy) DTS and DD5.1, it supports up to 192Khz in Stereo and up to 96Khz in 5.1.

If you can make use of 96Khz somehow, it sounds significantly better than 48Khz (as does 24-bit vs. 16-bit). I cannot talk about 192Khz as I've never listened to stereo tracks long enough to give an opinion (from when I used to collect SACDs and DVD-Audio Discs).

Legacy 1.5Mbps DTS supports up to 96Khz (maybe more in Stereo I'm unsure) and DD5.1 48Khz (at least on DVD). Due to most Amps of a few years ago not supporting DTS 96Khz, the majority are 48Khz. Mines always downsampled where needed but I guess some don't.

I own Genesis's "We cannot Dance" on 2 Disc SE: Disc 1 SACD and Disc 2 DVD-Video with DTS 1.5Mbps/96Khz/24-Bit + DD5.1 448Kbps/48Khz/16-Bit. The DTS sounds staggeringly better, virtually the same as the superior SACD. The DD5.1 by contrast sounds very muddy and muffled. It's been a couple of years since I've been able to listen to the SACD disc, no longer having a suitable player. Disc 2 works in any standard DVD Player with DTS Amp though.

I think so, according to my manual it's only DTS-HD that it can't handle above 96kHz.

I'm pretty sure DTS-HD can, maybe it's your Amp that cannot. I imagine DTS-HD at 192Khz would down-sample to 96Khz too. DTS-HD being a confusing name, as many people incorrectly refer to DTS-HD HR as DTS-HD when DTS-HD refers to both.

If I select the TrueHD track with my PS3 on bitstream mode, it outputs it as 48kHz 192kbps and it comes out my receiver as Dolby 2.0 surround.

If I change the PS3 to linear PCM mode, it outputs it as 192kHz 15Mbps and comes out my receiver as stereo

So basically all I can do is listen to the standard 5.1 track by the looks of it. Watched the whole film earlier and bloody loved it, it's now one of my favourite films. Essential Blu-ray!

gasteropod wrote:If I select the TrueHD track with my PS3 on bitstream mode, it outputs it as 48kHz 192kbps and it comes out my receiver as Dolby 2.0 surround. If I change the PS3 to linear PCM mode, it outputs it as 192kHz 15Mbps and comes out my receiver as stereo

Ah yes. I forgot that was one of the failing of the PS3. Virtually every other BD and HD-DVD Player on the planet has either a DD5.1 or DTS on-board real-time decoder.

Not a derogatory comment on the PS3, just a statement. It's a good job there aren't many discs with "only" TrueHD, some certainly exist and for ages this was also a serious problem with my LG HD Combo Player.

gasteropod wrote:So basically all I can do is listen to the standard 5.1 track by the looks of it.

At least it's basically half-rate DTS quality.

bradavon wrote:I'm pretty sure DTS-HD can, maybe it's your Amp that cannot.

That's what I said, the amp downsamples 192kHz to 96kHz for DTS-HD tracks, it appears to be ok with full Dolby TrueHD though.

I phoned Blu-ray Upgrades up today and they said the player has been modded and they're just testing it now and it should be posted back to me on Monday, finally!

gasteropod wrote:If I select the TrueHD track with my PS3 on bitstream mode, it outputs it as 48kHz 192kbps and it comes out my receiver as Dolby 2.0 surround.

What's the Make/Model of your reciever?

Sony STR-DE495P. It doesn't even have analogue inputs so ages ago when I wanted to check out DVD-A and SACD I couldn't

Definitely stuck with the DD5.1 or LPCM 2.0 tracks for the time being then.

Shingster wrote:I phoned Blu-ray Upgrades up today and they said the player has been modded and they're just testing it now and it should be posted back to me on Monday, finally!

Good luck. Please post what the upgrade is like, when it arrives back.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea will be released on BD in December.
http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news ... 80163.html
http://www.asianblurayguide.com/news/37 ... _december/

Will cost a bomb, we need Ghibli BDs in the UKKKKKKKKKKKK

Without any sort of fucked up NTSC-PAL for the DVD or wrong pitch for the BDs (as a result of this).

Got my copy of Red Cliff Part II today. The HK BD is region free and the pq is very good!

Great, thanks and I presume the watermark is nowhere to be seen?

I only watched the first 30 minutes but no watermark showed up. Guess Mei Ah learned it's lesson
Screenshots (spoiler free): http://www.asianblurayguide.com/capture ... ong_china/

gasteropod wrote:You'll definitely like what you see, it looks and sounds phenomenal. I can only listen to the standard 5.1 though, will you be able to listen to the 192kHz 24bit one? From what I've read it sounds awesome *sob*. Great to see the film with no edge enhancement, I seem to remember the Manga DVD having noticeable EE.

Finally got my review up here. The DolbyTrueHD is indeed an awesome experience, the first time i've been blown away by a soundtrack since watching Suspiria on DVD for the first time after only experiencing the shitty VHS before. The transfer is less impressive and I was torn between a 7 and 8 score for that one, I think it's strong enough to warrant an 8 though.

Nice review, do the Japanese use a different IRE measurement then? Also, you mentioned that the Japanese DD 5.1's rear levels are too high, does that not apply to the TrueHD track as well? I definitely noticed the rear levels being high when watching the film, but was just wondering if it's the same on both tracks.

I see someone's already voted the film a 2/10 on there *sigh*.

The rears are definitely higher in the mix on the DD5.1. In japan they set the level of absolute black at 0IRE, in the west it's set at 7.5IRE so that's why many r2j DVDs appear to have poor black levels on a computer monitor. You can ignore that comment though as it's not relevant in this case, it's something I wrote before I got the disc when I suspected they were using the old masters from the Pioneer remaster and I meant to delete that out. I will do so now!

The sentence now reads: "As mentioned in the film review Akira had advanced black tones for the time, but they're still limited by today's standards, so that and the worn in look of the film leads to some wishy-washy black levels at times, but overall brightness and contrast is very pleasing and shadow detail is very good."

gasteropod wrote:
I see someone's already voted the film a 2/10 on there *sigh*.

Its worth it.