Appleseed: Ex Machina' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Kenneth's review of 'Appleseed: Ex Machina' has been posted. He was disappointed, saying the movie is brimming with ambitious CG animation, but falls short. The HD DVD version boasts a video transfer that bests the standard DVD, but which suffers from softness, banding, and compression issues. The audio tracks are impressive, but lack the clarity of lossless tracks. This title is inspiring debate online and he suggests you give it a rent and decide for yourself.

Full review here:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/1260/...exmachina.html

[Master X]

Cant wait for amazon to ship this

[Trastan]

Mine should come today; I can't wait. It may not be the best transfer, nor have the deepest plot, but it sure is a lot of fun, and still awfully good looking. I only wish Vexille would have come to HD-DVD as well.

[KanYozakura]

Watching it for the second time tonight, great flick. Much better than the first one.

Just a quick question...the review states a Japanese DD 5.1 track, but the back only states Japanese 2.0, with the English dub being the only 5.1 track. Is it hidden, or is the case wrong?

[Trastan]

Hmm, the Japanese track had better be in 5.1 DD or I'll be pretty disappointed. No English dubs for me.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Trastan

Mine should come today; I can't wait. It may not be the best transfer, nor have the deepest plot, but it sure is a lot of fun, and still awfully good looking. I only wish Vexille would have come to HD-DVD as well.

Vexille did come out as HD DVD but only in Japan and without English subs or English audio. I have it in my collection. It's the only HD disc release available, i.e. there was no BD release.

[SoupRKnowva]

So kannisto, i know you've got the special edition Appleseed disc from japan thats like 80 bucks....any chance of a PQ comparo between that one and the Warner release? id love the movie, but would be willing to pay the extra if the disc looks that much better

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by KanYozakura

Watching it for the second time tonight, great flick. Much better than the first one.

Just a quick question...the review states a Japanese DD 5.1 track, but the back only states Japanese 2.0, with the English dub being the only 5.1 track. Is it hidden, or is the case wrong?

It's a misprint on the back cover -- the Blu-ray case had the same error. Thanks as always for posting!

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by SoupRKnowva

So kannisto, i know you've got the special edition Appleseed disc from japan thats like 80 bucks....any chance of a PQ comparo between that one and the Warner release? id love the movie, but would be willing to pay the extra if the disc looks that much better

I would comment on the quality difference if I had the Warner release but I didn't buy it currently because I've been spending quite a lot on discs lately and I figured I wouldn't really need 2 versions of this movie. If I get it later I can comment then but right now I can't really compare them without having seen the Warner version... Sorry!

[ShinLupinSan]

Originally Posted by SoupRKnowva

So kannisto, i know you've got the special edition Appleseed disc from japan thats like 80 bucks....any chance of a PQ comparo between that one and the Warner release? id love the movie, but would be willing to pay the extra if the disc looks that much better

I'd love to know this also....the special edition is really appealing since it includes every version of the film with Subs and TrueHD audio on the HD DVD version. But PQ is the main interest for me....and since I grabbed the film on HD DVD from amazon for $16 it's hard to justify the roughly $100+ this set will cost with shipping if no one can confirm which version has better PQ.

The US release is a VC-1 encode while the Japanese release (according to Kannisto's impressions thread) is an MPEG 4/AVC encode....so it's entirely possible that it looks better than the US release. I wish someone could at least confirm if the Japanese release has the following problems...


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1006227

I got the disc a week ago and quickly pop it in my PC for a quick PQ evaluation. Big mistake Watching this about two feet away from my Dell2408WFP the first thing that I noticed is the minor aliasing happening in the picture. Not to mention some banding in the background and also in some closeup shots Some artifacting and blocking during fast motion (Did I mention this is an action anime?) especially when Deunan and Brialeos are in Notre Dame. Overall the PQ lacks that 3D look and its soft, soft, soft

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/1260/...exmachina.html

The picture lacks the refined detailing and crisp resolution I've come to expect from high definition CG -- the picture is consistently hazy, random nighttime scenes are a bit blurry, and several shots are completely out of focus. As it stands, linework and edges are dull, clothing textures lack definition, and smaller objects look only marginally better than they do on the standard DVD side of the disc. While daytime exterior scenes are vastly improved, they still exhibit a mild softness that robs the transfer of the three-dimensional pop found in top tier releases like 'Ratatouille' and 'TMNT.' The transfer's flaws smack of overindulgent DNR and compression inadequacies.

Less problematic (but equally distracting) are a series of light artifacts, minor aliasing issues, and heavy color bands that litter the image from beginning to end.

[SoupRKnowva]

Originally Posted by kannisto

I would comment on the quality difference if I had the Warner release but I didn't buy it currently because I've been spending quite a lot on discs lately and I figured I wouldn't really need 2 versions of this movie. If I get it later I can comment then but right now I can't really compare them without having seen the Warner version... Sorry!

thats totally alright kannisto, i wouldnt expect you to buy both, especially with how many movies you buy, but alas, i had to ask, your my go to man when it comes to imports...but if you ever do get the opportunity to compare them, definitely let us know what you think

thanks
soup

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by SoupRKnowva

So kannisto, i know you've got the special edition Appleseed disc from japan thats like 80 bucks....any chance of a PQ comparo between that one and the Warner release? id love the movie, but would be willing to pay the extra if the disc looks that much better

Kannisto -- if you'd be willing to part with your import copy for a few days, I'd be more than willing to make a direct comparison between the two for our readers. I could load an official review if there is a difference, or simply reply in this thread if they looked the same.

Contact me if you'd be willing to send us your copy to review. Thanks!

[ASIA911]

I don't know about you people but this transfer is way better than you'll see on a DVD version. The transfer isn't the problem. The problem is from the production rendering and how they want it to look. But no doubt about it. The Blu-ray and HD version is much better than the DVD version.

If Ken is disappointed with the HD or Blu-ray version. He's going to be even more disappointed with the DVD version. Ain't got nothing to do with the transfer.

Some people here still don't understand this is NOT PIXAR or Final Fantasy kind of CGI. It's a cell shaded CGI. I think they are still experimenting with this since this is a great improvement over the first movie which uses an even more flatter cell shading. Hopefully the next movie they'll have a more solid cell shaded version locked down and be more consistent.

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by ASIA911

I don't know about you people but this transfer is way better than you'll see on a DVD version. The transfer isn't the problem. The problem is from the production rendering and how they want it to look. But no doubt about it. The Blu-ray and HD version is much better than the DVD version.

If Ken is disappointed with the HD or Blu-ray version. He's going to be even more disappointed with the DVD version. Ain't got nothing to do with the transfer.

Some people here still don't understand this is NOT PIXAR or Final Fantasy kind of CGI. It's a cell shaded CGI. I think they are still experimenting with this since this is a great improvement over the first movie which uses an even more flatter cell shading. Hopefully the next movie they'll have a more solid cell shaded version locked down and be more consistent.

The DVD version does look much worse, that's for sure! But keep in mind that 3 stars is still a decent score for a high-def release. After all, 3 stars is an above-average rating. Our system compares high-def titles to their own brethren -- if we compared every BD and HD solely to the DVD, they'd all get 4 to 5 stars. If 'Ex Machina' looked as mediocre as its DVD counterpart, I would've given the video a meager 1 star.

As far as the CGI vs. Cel-shaded CG debate goes, each type of CG animation should still be ported to BD or HD directly from the source, making the picture as near to perfect as one could imagine. 'SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers' is also a cel-shaded CG high-def release and it looks much, much better than 'Ex Machina.' And it had a lower budget, a smaller team, and more limitations to overcome. My best guess is that the problems 'Ex Machina' suffers from are most definitely transfer and compression issues that can be traced to Warner Brothers (the distributor) rather than the animators or Appleseed's production company.

Thanks as always for posting! I hope that helps clarify the review a bit as well as my criteria for the video score.