5 Centimeters per Second (Japan - Comix Wave) impressions and pics

[kannisto]

I received this Japanese Anime title today (on release day) from Amazon Japan. This is the first HD release from Comix Wave, released on both formats.

5 Centimeters per Second (Byôsoku 5 senchimêtoru) (Japan - ComixWave Films) (18-Apr)
Amazon Japan $37.90 (¥4070)
Warning: Japanese audio and optional Japanese subtitles, no English.

Case pics:



Specs:
Video: 16:9 1080p AVC - target / average bitrate 26499 Mbps
Audio: Japanese only, Dolby TrueHD 2.0ch (24 bit) and DD+ 4.0ch (16 bit) (1.5 Mbps)
Subtitles: Optional Japanese (no English)
Runtime: 63 minutes + 8 minutes of extras

Extras are: Trailer #1 (45s), Trailer #2 (90s), Music Video trailer (5m:35s)
Extras are also in Full HD with Dolby TrueHD 2.0ch sound.

HD-15 disc: 12.8 GB (13 826 162 688 bytes)

I only took a few peeks of the PQ/AQ so far and it looks very beatiful. I'll post more impressions later and I'll try to get some screenshots.

[kannisto]

Some screencaps taken from the video stream with WinDVD9 Plus and converted from BMP to JPG (90% quality setting) using BreezeBrowser. I.e. not lossless caps but should give some indication of the look. I had some trouble with my workflow so I could only take caps from very early part of the movie and some are actually taken from the trailers instead of the original movie because of that problem, but they are in equal quality.

[kannisto]

A couple more:

[Dragoncrest]

Bah...I want english subtitles on these titles

[kannisto]

I watched this last night and I was very impressed with the visual look of the animation and with the emotional depth of the story. Pretty much every frame looks very beatiful, like a painting. I can't recall seeing any Anime before that would have looked this good from the visual point of view.

The story is a kind of love story / drama of some young people growing into adulthood and it's told in 3 separate episodes. It's quite slow paced and poetic / atmospheric and it creates a great atmosphere through the visuals and sounds and the story is very strong in the emotional sense, it's about love, distance, longing and time. It feels kind of longer than 62 minutes as things move in a slow pace. There's quite much dialogue and it's a pity they haven't included English subtitles. I could follow the story pretty well with my intermediate Japanese skills though.

The PQ and AQ were pretty flawless in my view. The video may be encoded as 1080i60 instead of 1080p24 if I interpret the information provided by EVO demux correctly.

This is quite different from most action or sci-fi oriented Anime I've seen... It is highly recommended but I guess the high price and the lack of English subtitles makes it less appealing to most importers. For those who have some Japanese skills and who enjoy Anime titles (even if they are not action or sci-fi oriented stories) it's a must-have.

If you want to read more about the story itself, I think this IMDB review provides a pretty good synopsis:

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur14943233/...s?order=useful

[bruceames]

Too bad about the lack of subs. I would've definitely bought it otherwise.

[ahsoka]

Originally Posted by bruceames

Too bad about the lack of subs. I would've definitely bought it otherwise.

I just watched this and The Place Promised In Our Early Days. I think they are too good to pass up even without subs. The visuals are just amazing... Only understanding a small part of the dialogue, I enjoyed watching these very much.

[SoupRKnowva]

man, i just finished watching this, and i wish for the life of me that i could get it legally with english subs in HD...rather than take the less moral route that i just used....is there no way to get the subs intot he player with the a usb key or something :/ the animation was some of the best ive seen, and i watch alot of anime, it was beautiful..

[kannisto]

I think the realistic methods of using external subtitles currently are all PC based. E.g. finding subs in SubRip format from the internet + using Titledrome to overlay them on top of the video image while playing the HD DVD, or using Nero player on PC that can use external subtitles in SubRip format.

I've been planning on trying these setups on my PC but didn't get very far yet as it's a bit time consuming to experiment with those. I downloaded Titledrome and updated my Nero 8 + HD plugin (as at least the older original version was unstable on my PC) as preparation though.

I couldn't find English subs for 5 Centimeters per Second in the net but I did find them for A Place Promised in Our Early Days.

Another potential method would be demuxing HD DVD to hard disk and remuxing with swapped subtitles, but there seems to be no suitable tool for converting SubRip subs to HD DVD's .sup format, at least I couldn't find any. In practice this would have to be watched from hard disk or some HTPC server anyway.

[SoupRKnowva]

hmm...again, you come through with an amazing description of the possible methods, i just downloaded an hd rip with subtitles in it, but again, i would love to be able to buy it it really was a great show, like it was really "cute" but i liked it..

and unfortunately i use a mac, so it would be all different programs

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by SoupRKnowva

hmm...again, you come through with an amazing description of the possible methods, i just downloaded an hd rip with subtitles in it, but again, i would love to be able to buy it it really was a great show, like it was really "cute" but i liked it..

and unfortunately i use a mac, so it would be all different programs

Yeah, the visuals are great on it I'd love to have a solution for a stand-alone player to get external subtitles added to the video image as there are quite many releases with non-English audio that don't have English subs (or any subs I could read). I just think it will not happen easily because the movie distributors wouldn't probably like it as the language options are sometimes used as a form of region control as well.

[SoupRKnowva]

yeah, external sub would be freakin awesome....the id import so many more movies than ive got now...some movies come with more sub options than youd ever know what to do with, and others do get anything, its weird

[ahsoka]

Thanks for the tips! I had to try getting subtitles for 5 Cetimeters per Second when playing the movie on the PC drive.
I downloaded Titledrome Lite and the subs. Unfortunatly these subs were in two parts so only
the first part can be used. Anyway, they seems to work very well and Titledrome was very easy to use.

[SoupRKnowva]

man....now i almost wish my main palyer was a pc...then i could be legit and watch it with subs...its uch a good movie...when i dop finaly finish my theatre set up i was gonna include a HTPC, and since ive got the addon i can do that...ok im a little happier now...but now im gonna have to buy the movie subless and wait :/

[ahsoka]

I downloaded the English subs for Place Promised In Our Early Days from the same site. Watched the entire movie with the subs and it worked perfectly.
The only thing about the free Titledrome Lite software is that a scrolling message occasionally appears above the subtitles. I wasn't that bothered by it but you might want to get the full version.