Now for a little good and bad news. The good news, obviously, is the low price, which is far more attractive than the $80 it costs to import Ghibli BDs from Japan (retailers either kill you on the price or the shipping). The bad news is the bitrate, which on the Sentai disc is one-half the rate of Ghibli's Japanese release. The picture seems to lose a little subtlety in the color and light, and although it's minor, the difference is there. That said, the US Blu-Ray trumps the previous DVD versions with ease.
I've included some photo comparisons, courtesy of DVD Beaver's review, so you can judge for yourselves. As expected, the many extras from Central Park Media's 2002 DVD is missing, but this was to be expected. The Ghibli BDs in Japan have few extras, in order to fit as much movie, as high a bitrate, as possible. So I think we'll survive, and collectors will have reason not to sell their older versions.
More photo comparisons after the jump; Sentai Filmworks (US) disc on top, Studio Ghibli (Japan) disc on bottom:
4 comments:
Bad news also about the yellow subtitles. Horrible.
Totoro from Studiocanal in England arrived on Blu-ray and they have ruined the film by using yellow subtitles.
Haven't gotten to watch it yet, but did notice that they misspelled Isao Takahata on the back of the case. Iaso Takahata... the level of incompetence in the distribution business is staggering.
I agree. When I asked Studiocanal why they chose yellow subs they answered that all Ghibli films have them. Well, not all Studiocanal have yellow subs, only two in fact. So they obviously don´t know their own products. I also pointed out for them that Ghibli films in Japan have white subs.
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