Afro Samurai (Japan - Pony Canyon) impressions

[kannisto]

Some more info on the disc itself:

I captured this information with WinDVD9 (TrueHD track was in use):

Video Stream:
Type: H264
Bitrate: 20.000 Mbps
Framerate: 29.970 Hz
Resolution: 1920x1080
Aspect ratio: 16x9

Audio Stream:
Type: Packed PCM
Bitrate: 2457 Kbps
Number of main channels: 6
LFE Channel: None
Sampling Frequency: 48khz
Bits Per Sample: 24

Note sure what the video bitrate reported by WinDVD9 is again, video bitrate seems to be running at higher rates than 20 Mbps most of the time when I check during playback.

There are the following extras:

- Making of (smaller window in the main screen)
Around 11 minutes, the creators and Samuel L. Jackson talking about the movie and the creative process. It's nicely English friendly because some Japanese spoken parts include an overdub with English audio. The Japanese subs on it can be turned off.

- Making of music (smaller window in the main screen)
Only about 5 minutes, RZA and the creators explain aspects of the music score. I don't remember if this part had Japanese spoken parts but if it did they were also overdubbed in English. Japanese subs can be turned off.

- Interview with Samuel L. Jackson (HD)
About 5 minutes. Samuel L. Jackson explains how he got involved with the project and about other related projects etc. This part has forced Japanese subs but the audio is all in English.

- 2 TV spots: 30 sec and 15 sec

In total the extras are about 20 minutes. I already watched them all. I was surprised that they were so English friendly.


I still didn't have time to watch the movie but I've watched about 10 minutes from the beginning. It's very atmospheric and original. Apparently the animation technique used is "cell animation" or something like that which is apparently not very much used anymore these days but it is the style of the original creator.

The movie is blending Japanese Samurai culture with Afro-American culture and music in an interesting way. It seems that there are many highly stylized bloody swordfights taking place. The artwork is very nice on the movie itself as well

[cash]

Hey, kannisto any chance of getting some screen caps?

[Clear]

Is there any chance this would come out in the states on blu now i assume???

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Clear31

Is there any chance this would come out in the states on blu now i assume???

According to IMDB the U.S. rights are held by:

# FUNimation Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)

I don't know whether they are releasing anything in HD so far and what their plans might be.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by cash

Hey, kannisto any chance of getting some screen caps?

I'll try, I have to figure out a new workflow since one of the tools I used previously is no longer available to me since the trial period expired and I'm not willing to pay $100 for it just now. Might take some time...

[kannisto]

I watched this movie a couple of days ago. I enjoyed it quite a lot, it's constantly action packed and moves at a nice pace and there are a lot of really stylistic battle scenes. It's a bit more rich in style than substance, but I found it to be very original overall and thoroughly enjoyable. The artistic merits are high.

As for PQ, it's done with some rather traditional animation techniques and not based on CGI. It doesn't have that kind of 3D pop that CGI titles have, but it looked fine to me. The sound quality (I could only utilize DTS core) was also very good. There were a lot of surround effects. The dialogue parts sound kind of filtered (on purpose I think) which made the dialogue sound less than crisp at times though. The music would probably appeal most to people who like hip hop and related music styles. The song selection is clearly done with good taste though hip hop is not my very favorite style of music.

Overall I was very pleased with this purchase.

I found another way to capture screencaps but the new demux tool I was using claimed that this title is actually 1080i (back cover says 1080p) and all the screencaps I managed to get have clear interlace issues on them - and jpeg conversion made them look worse - they didn't look good enough for posting. The tool clearly indicates 1080p for all other titles I tried with it so it might be that this is in fact a 1080i title. As I watched the movie on my standalone I didn't notice any problems though.

[damanjeff6]

correct me if I'm wrong but since you listed it as Framerate: 29.970, it should be 1080i right?
If it was 1080p, it would have a 23.976 framerate I believe.

Also I read reviews on the US DVD releases of Afro Samurai and I believe there are 2 versions: Edited and Director's Cut. Do you know if it was the director's cut?

http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Samurai-D...dp/B000LP5FWC/
http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Samurai-E...dp/B000LP5FWM/

Also, you watched it as a full movie correct? I believe the US dvd had it split into 5 episodes.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by damanjeff6

correct me if I'm wrong but since you listed it as Framerate: 29.970, it should be 1080i right?
If it was 1080p, it would have a 23.976 framerate I believe.

Also I read reviews on the US DVD releases of Afro Samurai and I believe there are 2 versions: Edited and Director's Cut. Do you know if it was the director's cut?

http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Samurai-D...dp/B000LP5FWC/
http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Samurai-E...dp/B000LP5FWM/

Also, you watched it as a full movie correct? I believe the US dvd had it split into 5 episodes.

The framerate 29.970 is indicated by WinDVD and PowerDVD for all HD DVDs I've tried. For BDs they indicate 23.976. In my understanding that's just related to some basic difference between authoring of HD DVDs and BDs and doesn't actually indicate 1080i in this case. I've read explanations like that in some other forum discussions and it's consistent to what I've seen myself with these PC players.

However, when I experimented with the video stream from Afro Samurai to get screenshots, another tool indicated the video stream as 1920x536 or something, and the resulting stream had some obvious interlacing issues when I played it as "standalone". The same tool indicates 1920x1080 for other discs I checked. I've not used it before so I'm not sure what to make of that finding anyway.

The Japanese HD DVD and Blu-ray releases of Afro Samurai are the Theatrical Cut. The Director's Cut was released here only on SD DVD.

This Theatrical Cut is one continuous movie. I think it was originally a TV series with 5 episodes but this movie version has everything in one seamless piece.

[damanjeff6]

Originally Posted by kannisto

The framerate 29.970 is indicated by WinDVD and PowerDVD for all HD DVDs I've tried. For BDs they indicate 23.976. In my understanding that's just related to some basic difference between authoring of HD DVDs and BDs and doesn't actually indicate 1080i in this case. I've read explanations like that in some other forum discussions and it's consistent to what I've seen myself with these PC players.

However, when I experimented with the video stream from Afro Samurai to get screenshots, another tool indicated the video stream as 1920x536 or something, and the resulting stream had some obvious interlacing issues when I played it as "standalone". The same tool indicates 1920x1080 for other discs I checked. I've not used it before so I'm not sure what to make of that finding anyway.

The Japanese HD DVD and Blu-ray releases of Afro Samurai are the Theatrical Cut. The Director's Cut was released here only on SD DVD.

This Theatrical Cut is one continuous movie. I think it was originally a TV series with 5 episodes but this movie version has everything in one seamless piece.

Thanks for the info, I just got the blu ray version today. I checked the video myself and I do see the interlacing (false advertising of 1080p on the cover ). I skimmed the movie a bit and found a part where they have a sex scene with breasts showing so probably nothing was censored/editted out. Like you said, it's one continuous movie... I wonder if they cut out anything while merging all the eps (besides credits.) Anyways, quality looks great

[kannisto]

Now Xploited Cinema has this for $52.95:

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/af...e-p-13574.html

[gunz4sale]

Originally Posted by kannisto

Now Xploited Cinema has this for $52.95:

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/af...e-p-13574.html

is amazon jp cheaper?

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by kannisto

Now Xploited Cinema has this for $52.95:

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/af...e-p-13574.html

This one is tempting, I'll put it on my To Get list.

Kannisto, is that the Vardia RD-301 recorder you have? Does it have an option for English menus? (my Navy brother is porting in Hong Kong next month and I wonder if he can buy it there for me).

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by bruceames

This one is tempting, I'll put it on my To Get list.

Kannisto, is that the Vardia RD-301 recorder you have? Does it have an option for English menus? (my Navy brother is porting in Hong Kong next month and I wonder if he can buy it there for me).

Yeah, that's the RD-A301. The menus are only in Japanese and quite complex, mainly because of all the options available for editing TV recordings etc. The large manual is only in Japanese too. I only figured out the main functionalities so far, having some difficulties grasping the more advanced stuff but I don't need the advanced capabilities so much (at least so far). I don't think they are sold in Hong Kong though, it's very much tailor made for Japan market I think.

So far I've filled my hard disk there with movies from a HD movie channel (WOWWOW) that had a free trial period. I will subscribe to that channel later on when I have watched the already recorded movies and some of my disc buffer. The downside with the Japanese HD movie channels is large forced Japanese subs on all non-Japanese movies. They are also copy protected but they can possibly be moved to blank HD DVD-R that is intended for video recordings and has some kind of special DRM capabilities that prevents further copying. I haven't bought any blank discs yet as most B&M shops here "wisely" sent even the blank discs away when they got rid of their HD DVD hw. I have to locate a reasonably priced source for blanks. Not nice to pay close to $30 for a blank HD DVD-R DL disc to be able to store a movie on it unless the movie is something very special and not available otherwise in HD.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by gunz4sale

is amazon jp cheaper?

Disc price in Amazon JP is clearly cheaper but when you add international priority shipping it becomes more expensive. If you order many discs at a time, Amazon JP may become more reasonable in terms of total price including shipping. Makes also sense to compare HMV Japan's total price when ordering multiple discs with Amazon's and Xploited's.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by kannisto

Yeah, that's the RD-A301. The menus are only in Japanese and quite complex, mainly because of all the options available for editing TV recordings etc. The large manual is only in Japanese too. I only figured out the main functionalities so far, having some difficulties grasping the more advanced stuff but I don't need the advanced capabilities so much (at least so far). I don't think they are sold in Hong Kong though, it's very much tailor made for Japan market I think.

So far I've filled my hard disk there with movies from a HD movie channel (WOWWOW) that had a free trial period. I will subscribe to that channel later on when I have watched the already recorded movies and some of my disc buffer. The downside with the Japanese HD movie channels is large forced Japanese subs on all non-Japanese movies. They are also copy protected but they can possibly be moved to blank HD DVD-R that is intended for video recordings and has some kind of special DRM capabilities that prevents further copying. I haven't bought any blank discs yet as most B&M shops here "wisely" sent even the blank discs away when they got rid of their HD DVD hw. I have to locate a reasonably priced source for blanks. Not nice to pay close to $30 for a blank HD DVD-R DL disc to be able to store a movie on it unless the movie is something very special and not available otherwise in HD.

I wouldn't be using the hard drive at all but rather using it as a burner only (hooked up to my HD DVR). Have you tried to burn any DVD discs in HD?