Older Anime on Blu Ray

[Hexadecimal*]

Just a quick question that I'm hoping someone will have some insight on.

Sailor Moon is going to get a re-release on both DVD and blu ray. I don't have a blu ray player and don't really have any urge to get one. However, my computer can play them and I was thinking about getting the blu ray Sailor Moon set.

I was just wondering if there'd really be any difference in picture quality? This anime is super old and I can't imagine that the animation would look drastically better. Unless maybe they're doing some special restoration work like what Disney has done on a few films.

Does anyone know? Besides Card Captors I can't think of any fairly old series that has gotten the blu ray treatment for their to be comparisons on.

[Psychospacecow]

Cowboy Bebop got remastered in Blu-Ray. I never got it so I can't really say anything past that, but its a thing.

[Spherix*]

Sometimes they're just upscales, and not necessarily any better than what your viewing hardware or software can do. Sometimes they've been remastered. You've just got to look for reviews to see if it's worth it -- or in some cases, actually worse, because of the filtering that's been applied. Filters may make something look better, but information is inevitably lost in the process.

If it's old enough to be cell animation, and they still have the original cells, they could theoretically record them at a higher resolution. However, anime cells tend to be lost, stolen, or sold. Japanese companies haven't historically been very good at keeping track of and holding onto production assets. There's a lot of outsourcing, and the people or companies they outsource to often keep the production assets.

I took a quick look through the Blu-Ray section of RightStuf's online catalog, and saw a number of older series and movies, and some of them specifically mention being remastered. Others are probably upscaled. I usually just Google for the title and "blu-ray review", but often the reviews on www.blu-ray.com will tell you the technical details, and whether the blu-ray release has any added value to it.

Although the Sailor Moon Blu-Rays have yet to be released, it would appear that they're expected to be remastered, and a good collector's item. That's not going to necessarily help the low-quality animation that was common in that era, however. Really depends on how much you enjoyed the original.

[GameWizard001]

Found this article on Blu-ray.com regarding Limited Edition sets. The article says that the set is expected to follow the same line as Ranma 1/2's re-release set and said it was done beautifully. Don't know the validity of that as I've never see the show Ranma but it sounds like it will be good quality remastered job.

Here is the article: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=14005

[Hexadecimal*]

Sometimes they're just upscales, and not necessarily any better than what your viewing hardware or software can do. Sometimes they've been remastered. You've just got to look for reviews to see if it's worth it -- or in some cases, actually worse, because of the filtering that's been applied. Filters may make something look better, but information is inevitably lost in the process.

If it's old enough to be cell animation, and they still have the original cells, they could theoretically record them at a higher resolution. However, anime cells tend to be lost, stolen, or sold. Japanese companies haven't historically been very good at keeping track of and holding onto production assets. There's a lot of outsourcing, and the people or companies they outsource to often keep the production assets.

I took a quick look through the Blu-Ray section of RightStuf's online catalog, and saw a number of older series and movies, and some of them specifically mention being remastered. Others are probably upscaled. I usually just Google for the title and "blu-ray review", but often the reviews on www.blu-ray.com will tell you the technical details, and whether the blu-ray release has any added value to it.

Although the Sailor Moon Blu-Rays have yet to be released, it would appear that they're expected to be remastered, and a good collector's item. That's not going to necessarily help the low-quality animation that was common in that era, however. Really depends on how much you enjoyed the original.

Thank you very much! I think I'll wait for the reviews and see if the changes are significant enough to make the purchase really worth it.

EDIT: Thanks to GameWizard for his info as well; I had a reply window open and didn't notice he'd posted until after I submitted my message.