Toho Kingdom

I've recently rekindled my interest in daikaiju films, and have been watching some of the Shout Factory DVDs of Gamera. They look pretty good for a DVD of a movie this old, but the digital artifacts around edges and text, and the over-inflated size of the DVD-resolution subtitles bugs me. The Blu-Rays are pretty cheap, but the reviews at Blu-Ray.com (see http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Gamera-Ul ... ray/98373/ and http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Gamera-Ul ... ray/98372/ ) give them pretty horrid reviews as far as picture quality. I searched through the forums here, and found no concrete consensus of the quality of the Mill Creek BDs for showa Gamera.

What seems to be the consensus on whether or not upgrading from the SF DVDs to Mill Creek BDs is worth it? Are the BDs simply the same source that SF used but in HD? Or do they suffer print-quality problems that the SF DVDs dont? Sorry if this information is already on these forums, but the one thread I found that people discussed the quality didn't seem to have a clear-cut answer.

Thanks all!

I haven't actually watched the Blu-rays in forever, but from what I remember there is a visible increase in detail, but no English audio or special features. I'd say they're cheap enough that it's probably worth the upgrade, but you might want to hold onto the DVDs if you care about the dubs or extras.

I would call the Mill Creek Blu-rays a cheap complementary companion to the Shout Factory releases. The picture quality on the Blus are still better than the DVDs (mainly from the higher resolution, I can't recall if the colors were changed any), but the Blus are still pretty under-standard, and they're missing the dubs and extras from the Shout DVDs as omgitsgodzilla mentioned. They're great for a casual viewing with the original language, but the Shout DVDs will still be the definitive ones to keep in your collection.

Considering they're only 1080i, lack the dubs (some movies even had two), and that the DVD's look pretty good upscaled, the answer is: No, not really. Unless you find them cheap, or have a really large HD TV, I wouldn't bother.

I kept whatever Gamera DVD's I had before I bought the Blu-rays. I got the 2 collections on eBay for quite cheap and I have the 90's Gamera Trilogy from ADV (DVD) and Mill Creek Bluray. I find there is usually always a reason to keep previous incarnations due to extra's that might not get ported forward.

I'm not a huge videophile, so the kind of stuff I usually read on Bluray.com's reviews is irrelevant to me, but in this case it really depends on how much you enjoy the Showa Gamera films.

If you really need to upgrade to Blu-Ray, they're not awful pickups. However, hold onto your DVDs as they contain special features and other things the BR's don't.

UltramanGoji wrote:I'm not a huge videophile, so the kind of stuff I usually read on Bluray.com's reviews is irrelevant to me, but in this case it really depends on how much you enjoy the Showa Gamera films.

If you really need to upgrade to Blu-Ray, they're not awful pickups. However, hold onto your DVDs as they contain special features and other things the BR's don't.

That's great advice!

I'm a videophile. Visuals are important to me - if I'm watching a favorite movie, I want to see whether the screws in a mech's exterior have standard, phillips or torx heads. I'll likely pay to upgrade to Blu-ray (or beyond to UHD, in the case of Pacific Rim) if it lets me see that, but if a re-release is no clearer in detail or color than the previous release, I'll usually pass. But there are some movies that I've double-, triple- and quadruple-dipped on, because each release added a new level of color and clarity that wasn't there before. In technical terms, that means I've bought the VHS version, the DVD version, the Blu-ray 1K scan version, the Blu-ray 2K or 4K scan version, and I'll probably pick up the UHD version when it's released.

Some people honestly don't see a difference between VHS and Blu-ray. I know people who can't taste the difference between mozzarella and aged sharp cheddar cheese. For those who can't see, or don't care about the ability to see individual hairs on (showa) King Ghidorah's manes, this discussion about upgrading to Blu-ray probably seems foolish to you, and that's okay. Enjoy what you have!

Ironically, the biggest lure for me to upgrade to Blu-Ray is actually space!

My shelves can hold more Blu-Rays than DVDS, so if a movie is out on Blu-Ray and has the exact same/more features as the DVD, I'll upgrade. I'll hold onto the DVD if the Blu-Ray is bare-bones or is over $20.

UltramanGoji wrote:Ironically, the biggest lure for me to upgrade to Blu-Ray is actually space!

My shelves can hold more Blu-Rays than DVDS, so if a movie is out on Blu-Ray and has the exact same/more features as the DVD, I'll upgrade. I'll hold onto the DVD if the Blu-Ray is bare-bones or is over $20.

I often upgrade for the same reason. Also because I have a very nice DVD shelf and to get another would be too expensive and I don't want to just get any old additional shelf, so I sometimes end up selling movies I no longer watch just to make room.

I've compared the shout dvd and mill creek blu ray on my pc side-by-side and the mill creek look much better.... higher bitrates, higher resolution.

the downside is they're compressed by 50% compare to the original japanese blu ray since the japanese print were around 20gig each and the mill creek are around 10gig each.

I actually re-burned my blu ray gamera with English dub added to all of them.

The Mill Creek subs are riddled with at lead one major typo each movie. Nobody gave a fuck about doing spellcheck for a Blu-ray.

LegendZilla wrote:The Mill Creek subs are riddled with at lead one major typo each movie. Nobody gave a skreeonk about doing spellcheck for a Blu-ray.

Likewise, virtually every page of a Toho Kingdom forum thread are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, and I don't see people bitching about fellow members "not giving a skreeonk about doing spellcheck" here.

That's because this is just a bunch of nerds having informal conversations, not subtitles on an officially licensed home video release by a legitimate company. And to be fair, I think those typos might've been on the Shout! Factory DVDs as well, but I can't remember well enough to say for sure.

kevenz wrote:I've compared the shout dvd and mill creek blu ray on my pc side-by-side and the mill creek look much better.... higher bitrates, higher resolution.

the downside is they're compressed by 50% compare to the original japanese blu ray since the japanese print were around 20gig each and the mill creek are around 10gig each.

I actually re-burned my blu ray gamera with English dub added to all of them.

Of the eight Showa Gamera, four films are put on each disc. Even a dual-layer Blu-ray only holds 50GB, so 10GB per movie seems about right. If Mill Creek had ponied up for a four-disc dual-layer set, then you could have seen equivalent picture quality to the much more expensive Japanese releases.

However, the first two Heisei Gamera films are also crammed onto a single singly layer (25GB) disc and they look pretty good.

omgitsgodzilla wrote:That's because this is just a bunch of nerds having informal conversations, not subtitles on an officially licensed home video release by a legitimate company.

Who do you think applies for/gets hired to write those "officially licensed home video" subtitles, at those legitimate home video companies? Do their I.Q.s and grade school English GPAs magically go up when they clock in for work?

Let me distill that post to absolute basics: the Toho Kingdom forums aren't a professional setting with high standards for the presentation of one's thoughts, grammar- and spelling-wise. We're not getting paid for this; it's not our job. We're just shooting the shit. Subtitlers are not.

omgitsgodzilla wrote:the Toho Kingdom forums aren't a professional setting with high standards for the presentation of one's thoughts, grammar- and spelling-wise..We're not getting paid for this; it's not our job.

What kind of people only display high standards when they're being paid to?

People doing a job in exchange for wages? A job that they aren't doing 24 hours a day every day? A job that demands more formality and meticulousness than is expected in everyday life on their down time?

Like what are you even driving at buddy, I'm just gonna stop before this thread gets derailed any worse. I think it's reasonably obvious why one would have higher expectations of subtitles on a licensed DVD/Blu-ray than of casual posts on message boards; you're clearly just being willfully obtuse at this point.

omgitsgodzilla wrote:That's because this is just a bunch of nerds having informal conversations

I'm glad that this is what we do here, LOL.

Unfortunately, I was the poor sucker who bought Mill Creek's GAMERA LEGACY COLLECTION: 1965-1999 set, the subtitles are so pissy poor. Shout! Factory's Gamera DVDs are the gold standard.