Well I caved in and bought the new US blu-ray release in SD. Both the English and original Japanese episodes look pretty dreadful. I mean really bad. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than the UK set, but they’re all bad. The motion on the new blu-ray is particularly problematic. I wouldn’t be shocked if I learned they transferred them from the PAL tapes. The motion is really odd, and the image is very blurred in general, with very bad aliasing. I think the French set is the only worthwhile set, but sadly of course it’s not in English, and rather pricey now I think.
I do like that the original Japanese episodes are included, and they do look different than the English episodes (slightly different aspect ratio and colors), but neither is particularly watchable.
I really expected nothing less tbh. I bought it too just for the sub aspect since I plan to do a separate remaster of the Japanese version.
The master Discotek used is the same as the UK DVD, except… worse. I think it’s an early version that Fabulous Films had initially done (The UK DVD was originally slated for a fall 2008 release before they delayed it to its February 2009 release; I speculate they weren’t satisfied and did further editing). The audio on all Episodes after the 9th are worse than the UK DVD (especially Episode 11), though they’re definitely the same audio masters - FF did some lowpass filter cleanup to them. The intro and end credits on the US DVD are taken from the 8th Episode (you can see the opening shot of X-Bomber through the interlacing on some episodes). The UK DVD similarly transplants the opening and ending from Episode 8 but with some color correction, plus the respective intro audio is left intact rather than transplanted like the US DVD.
Could be that Enoki or Fabulous Films accidentally, or purposely, sent them this inferior master. It’s pretty common for Japanese distributors to screw over American releases to curb reverse importing. FWIW I really don’t think Discotek did these edits, because I follow a lot of their video editors on twitter, and they’re pretty competent in what they do. Yet, I really don’t think Discotek sees this show as a particular “best seller” and didn’t put a whole lot of work into it; their releases of the show are pretty bare bones.
Of course, the PAL version is going to be better since PAL holds more resolution; but it’s still the same bad looking 3rd or 4th Generation 16mm master but minorly improved. Discotek really could only interlace the dub to 29fps in order for the disc to be playable on most American players (not all have PAL compatibility, region locked or not, which there’s 0 excuse for in this day and age). The Japanese version is slightly better, but it’s washed out with a cyan hue to all of the episodes; all I can really say is that it’s really more use to my project than the UK DVD. I think it’s a 2nd or 3rd generation print; it’s still fairly sharp unlike the US DVD. With some contrast upping and color correction, it looks presentable with the French footage, which is more than I can say about the UK DVD. Knowing Japan’s piss poor record of preservation; I’m in no way certain the original masters for the show even exist anymore.
The French DVD is by far, the best out there, but it’s missing some bits present in the English/Japanese versions; thus this Herculean pain in the ass project since the Japanese and UK DVD’s are my only other sources to fill in those gaps.
Toei, in particular, is notorious for the way it deals with western distributors. For example, they refused to lend the footage of some Transformers OVA to Madman Entertainment. Madman had to use a low-quality fan sub for the release. Pretty much the only company they get along with is Funimation, but that’s probably because Funimation’s CEO has an uncle who works at Toei.