Hardly any difference, the R2J has more image and an ever so slightly better encode (higher bitrate) but they both come from the same problematic analog master.
The first R1 disc (at least, can't remember about the rest) is a composite transfer though, and has hardsubbed on-screen text. The Korean R3 is probably the best deal; cheap and basically the same as R2. I think I also have DVDSubber scripts for it somewhere if anyone's interested.
Both releases are from composite masters throughout. Korean set still isn't a bad buy, Lain is Geneon so it's probably still priced outrageously. What I really dislike about the R1's is that they don't have the Devices after the credits, they're compiled seperately.
No, the R3 and R2 are from component sources. Look at most of the R1 caps, there's dot-crawl on the right of the screen that isn't there on the R2. And in cap 3 you can spot some rainbows around edges that again are missing from the R3/R2.
I don't know what's going on at the right of the screen but they both have composite video artefacts and all the same flaws (I compared them directly to confirm this). They're from the same source.
They're probably from the same original master, but the R1 one was processed through composite connections at some point before encoding (possibly when they added the hardsubs.) The other versions do not have any composite artifacts.
I have the first 3 dvds, but still need to buy the 4th dvd, but it doesnt seem to come down in price EVER. I bought the first 3 from region 4, which were on sale but dvd 4 was out of stock during that sale. Havent seen it bargain-priced ever since.
I was there, the big BNB blackout of november, 2008. We lost many that day...
