The Toho "HD" thread

For the discussion of Toho DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, streaming services, VHS, and other formats where Toho films and soundtracks can be found.
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The Octopus
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by The Octopus »

Tamura wrote:When Toho commissioned those awful transfers, the lab they sent the job to - Togen - had an Arriscan for a few years already. That's a top of the line scanner still in use today. Toho knew about this scanner - if these transfers were meant to be serious restorations, Toho would have chosen the Arriscan. It's what they used to scan the original and King Kong vs. Godzilla years later.

But because these were just hasty catalog transfers, nothing serious, they picked the Cintel C-Reality telecine... cheaper and real time transfer. Except for more recent models, most scanners work in much slower than real time because the data consists of very heavy image or video files, but with that old Cintel you record in real time directly to tape. Everything about that series of transfers was about saving time and money, and yet 12 years later they've become the forever transfers. What was the rush about? Why haven't they all been replaced? I love that they had the audacity to shoot a documentary about this garbage.
But these movies would suffer from sharper transfers where you can see everything.
BTW before I see someone spout that garbage take about how "these movies would suffer from sharper transfers where you can see everything,"
Errr nevermind.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by The Killer Meteor »

omgitsgodzilla wrote:
The Killer Meteor wrote:The DAM master also seems to have dammage hidden with a jarring freeze frame at one point - it's on the Criterion and MB BDs, and also the 2006 Madman DVD.
Do you remember which part of the film that was? I know there's one bit where the SY-3 is arriving in the cave on the moon that seems to have something missing and/or frames repeated, but I don't remember a distinct freeze frame.
Yeah, that's the bit.

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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by gojimatt »

Quick question: Has anyone else noticed a recurrent image problem with a number of the Toho transfers? I'm not videophile so I'll do my best to explain it. I'm specifically referring to semi-transparent pale-white blotches that travel across the screen from left to right in repeating patterns. A bit like horizontal snow traveling across the screen. It's quite difficult to catch sometimes but I first noticed it on my German copy of GMK from Splendid Film. It lasts roughly ten minutes... ish, basically encompassing the majority of the battle in Yokohama at the end of the film and ending around the time the monsters begin fighting in the bay. I checked it against my Japanese DVD edition of GMK but couldn't see anything, but that might be due to the lower quality of the video compared to the blu-ray. I haven't been able to spot the same problem on my Sony blu-ray copy of the film.

At first I thought it was an issue contained to that one version of the film and that scene alone but since getting a 4K TV and player I've noticed on a few other Toho films. Both the Criterion and Media Blasters versions of Destroy All Monsters shares this problem which seems to last for the majority of the film. It's easiest to spot in the overhead shot of the Ogasawara island at the start of the film. I've also noticed the same issue with my Japanese edition of Godzilla 1984, specifically in the scene where Godzilla attacks the nuclear plant. It's the same on my Kraken Releasing version of the film but like the Media Blasters version of Destroy All Monsters, it's a little harder to spot.

Given that I've noticed this phenomena over discs released by different companies and the fact it pertains to films from different eras and appears to be absent on the Japanese DVD of GMK, I'm assuming it's a problem with the original Toho masters, not the films themselves. Not sure if it occurs with any other films in the series, I'll have to have a more comprehensive look, time permitting. Has anyone else ever noticed this? Any info anyone can provide on this would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by Tamura »

Well these crappy transfers were transferred using a flying spot scanner - in other words, an old time CRT telecine - so this could be an artifact associated with the vacuum tube's light beam traveling from left to right across the film.

Why haven't these transfers been replaced?
Last edited by Tamura on Fri Sep 25, 2020 9:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by gojimatt »

Thanks. That clears things up a bit. Such a shame it appears to be a consistent fault on so many of the films. I guess we won't get anything better until Toho commit to releasing the films in 4K. Whenever that might be. And I guess there's no guarantee they won't mess that up. Quick follow-up question. Given that the Sony version of GMK doesn't appear to suffer from the same problem, does that mean it's a Sony transfer? I was under the impression Toho had forced Sony to use their transfers for their Blu-rays of the Heisei and Millennium films.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by Space Hunter M »

gojimatt wrote:Given that the Sony version of GMK doesn't appear to suffer from the same problem, does that mean it's a Sony transfer?
No. GMK in particular is just so blurred to hell and back that any peculiarities such as what you mentioned would be rendered invisible.

The old Cinemageddon .avi encode of the original HDTV airing of the '08 master is sharper than that hideous BD.

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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by GojiraXDAN »

Yeah that sony GMK blu-ray is very unforunate espeacially when the DVD looks sharper and better than the blu-ray. I actually bought the Japanese Blu-Ray of GMK off a website and that transfer looks much better and sharper. So i don't know who dropped the ball on the Sony Disc. Same with Tokyo SOS.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

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Since Sony has most of the Heisei and Millennium films already, I could see them doing something similar to the Criterion Set. They could negotiate with Toho and ( whoever currently has US License) for RoG and Biollante. Throw in the RoM Trilogy and it would be 15 films just like the Criterion Set. It would be a nice opportunity to get better transfers and accurate subtitles for all these films, but probably won't happen. Also a Toho commissioned dub exists for all these films except for 2000, and Toho seemed to be ok with it, at least as of 2014 when the previous BRD was released. So they would not have to worry about a lack of non Toho produced dubs.

It would also be nice to get Godzilla 1985 finally as well, but most likely won't happen either. It would be a nice set if included all the upgrades, but if not, then there's really no point since it would not improve over what already exists.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

They literally just let their rights to vs. King Ghidorah and Mothra lapse not too long ago, though. I think they may be kind of letting the franchise go.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by Tamura »

Maybe when Mechagodzilla II lapses we'll hear the original version of the dub!
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by Terasawa »

o.supreme wrote:Since Sony has most of the Heisei and Millennium films already, I could see them doing something similar to the Criterion Set. They could negotiate with Toho and ( whoever currently has US License) for RoG and Biollante. Throw in the RoM Trilogy and it would be 15 films just like the Criterion Set. It would be a nice opportunity to get better transfers and accurate subtitles for all these films, but probably won't happen. Also a Toho commissioned dub exists for all these films except for 2000, and Toho seemed to be ok with it, at least as of 2014 when the previous BRD was released. So they would not have to worry about a lack of non Toho produced dubs.
There is a Toho commissioned Hong Kong dub of G2K but it's apparently never been released. One line in the U.S. movie was taken from that dub: "As long as the beer's cold, who cares?" Mike Schlesinger said they'd have used it for the American release had it not been so bad.
Let me put it this way: if the international dub had been even halfway usable, we would not have gone to the time and expense of re-dubbing it. Not just because of the voice work--the dialogue was abominable: Yuki had five different professions and there wasn't a shred of exposition. Toho kindly sent over a subtitle list, and it had scads of info not in the dub, most crucially that Shinoda and Miyasaka were college chums--which made much of the latter's behavior suddenly clear. I had to rewrite almost the entire first reel so the whole darn thing would make sense.
A collection of Heisei and Millennium films through Shout! or Arrow or whoever would be good for two reasons: 1) To have all the films in one collection, and 2) To keep them in print. Sony is the best bet for decent transfers of these movies, although they screwed up in 2014 by using a lot of Toho HD material. Sony has its own HD transfer of Godzilla vs Mothra that blows Toho's version out of the water. If some other company were to pick these movies up, we'd only get that HiVision shit.

For screenshots of the three HD versions of Godzilla vs Mothra: https://postimg.cc/gallery/XnR4GGy

For screenshots of three HD versions of Godzilla vs Destoroyah: https://www.tohokingdom.com/forum/viewt ... h#p1762859
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by o.supreme »

Thanks, I've heard the commentary for G2K before. I knew the Toho dub existed (or at least partially), but thought after Sony's US dub, the Toho one was destroyed. I wonder though how much worse could Toho's G2K have been than all the other Heisei and Millennium dubs since they were all produced by the same company in Hong Kong?

I mean they are passable, but imagine if those who took the same care to do Sony's G2K did dubs of all the other Heisei and Millennium films. I'd definitely enjoy watching them in English more than Japanese (like I do the classic Showa films), whereas now, the dubs are so bland for all the Heisei and Millennium films, I prefer to watch them all in their original language, except G2K, that one in cheesy fun in English, and recall to mind the theatrical experience.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

I don't know about destroyed, but Toho doesn't seem to have any interest in providing it to anyone when the Schlesinger cut exists.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by heiseigodzilla425 »

One minor thing worth mentioning: if another distributor released the Heisei or Millennium films they likely wouldn't have any English titles, credits, or on-screen text. Not a deal breaker, but certainly worth mentioning. A decent reference for this is the US BDs for Return of Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Biollante, which both had international versions with English visuals back in the day.

It should also be noted that, for King Ghidorah through Mechagodzilla II, Sony's BDs use Sony's version of the English visuals, not the international visuals (though, Mechagodzilla's end credits are vaguely designed to mimic the international credits). Fragments of the international visuals for King Ghidorah and Mothra have turned up, but I personally think that Toho hasn't maintained these in the HD era (similar to how they didn't have an HD version with English visuals for Biollante when Echo Bridge did their release). For Spacegodzilla and Destoroyah, Sony's BDs use the export visuals. The Millennium films tend to be a mixed bag in terms of the sources used, but in general, the export visuals are patched into the Japanese master (Megaguirus is a great example, since you can see an obvious difference in the sources used whenever a scene with on screen text appears).

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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

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o.supreme wrote:Since Sony has most of the Heisei and Millennium films already, I could see them doing something similar to the Criterion Set. They could negotiate with Toho and ( whoever currently has US License) for RoG and Biollante. Throw in the RoM Trilogy and it would be 15 films just like the Criterion Set. It would be a nice opportunity to get better transfers and accurate subtitles for all these films, but probably won't happen. Also a Toho commissioned dub exists for all these films except for 2000, and Toho seemed to be ok with it, at least as of 2014 when the previous BRD was released. So they would not have to worry about a lack of non Toho produced dubs.

It would also be nice to get Godzilla 1985 finally as well, but most likely won't happen either. It would be a nice set if included all the upgrades, but if not, then there's really no point since it would not improve over what already exists.
It'd be 16 films if such a set included Godzilla (1998).

Btw, I looked it up and, release date-wise, that film came out in America before Return of Mothra III came out in Japan, so that's where it would go if it was included - and I think it should be included, for Godzilla: Final Wars' sake, if for no other reason.

Does anyone think all 40 episodes (in chronological order, of course) of Godzilla: The Series could (or should) go in the set, also (that is, if Sony had anything to do with it at all)? If so, then it should also (and obviously) go after the 1998 film and before Rebirth of Mothra III.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

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heiseigodzilla425 wrote:One minor thing worth mentioning: if another distributor released the Heisei or Millennium films they likely wouldn't have any English titles, credits, or on-screen text. Not a deal breaker, but certainly worth mentioning. A decent reference for this is the US BDs for Return of Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Biollante, which both had international versions with English visuals back in the day.
Hopefully everyone's OK with 107 lines of dialogue subtitled in Japanese when someone besides Sony releases GvMGII. :)
It should also be noted that, for King Ghidorah through Mechagodzilla II, Sony's BDs use Sony's version of the English visuals, not the international visuals (though, Mechagodzilla's end credits are vaguely designed to mimic the international credits). Fragments of the international visuals for King Ghidorah and Mothra have turned up...
To illustrate this point:
Spoiler:
Japanese version (Toho BD):
Resized Image
Export version (Manga VHS):
Resized Image
"US version" (Sony BD):
Resized Image

Japanese version (Toho BD):
Resized Image
Export version (Manga VHS):
Resized Image
"US version" (Sony BD):
Resized Image
To keep this as simple as possible, there are at least two elements for this film. One, for the Japanese version, has Japanese language credits and expository supers ("1992 A.D. 東京", etc.). The next element is likely textless except for the Japanese main title (which is seen in the export, original TriStar, and Sony's Blu-ray releases) and part of those green date supers. (That said, the final two date supers are identical in the Japanese, international, and American releases.)

The second element is the basis for Toho's export prints and Sony/TriStar's video releases. English text in these is handled differently. In Toho's export prints, additional English text (such as credits, more expository information, etc.) is printed in, optically, probably from some B-roll. The versions released by TriStar (VHS, DVD) and Sony (BD) have digitally-rendered credits and text.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by StreamOfKaijuness »

omgitsgodzilla wrote:They literally just let their rights to vs. King Ghidorah and Mothra lapse not too long ago, though. I think they may be kind of letting the franchise go.
It seems that way. It'll be interesting to see if they renew the rights to Godzilla 2000 in 2025.


Additionally, we've already seen what Sony brought to the table with regard to Godzilla box sets. They released these four DVD sets in late 2004 to capitalize on the 50th anniversary:

Image Image Image Image

All of the discs included in those sets were exactly the same DVDs that Sony had released individually, with G2K still lacking the Japanese version. They did not bother to do new subtitle translations for GMK or anything else.

Fast-forward to 2014, when Sony finally released the Japanese versions of the Heisei films and G2K on BRD to capitalize on the latest Hollywood reboot, and they also reissued their same old King Ghidorah/Mothra and GMK DVDs as a triple feature set:

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A year later, in October 2015, they cranked out these budget DVD packs:

Image Image

Vol. 1 was six movies on three DVDs and all of them were dubbed-only just like Sony's previous DVD releases. Vol. 2 was seven movies on four DVDs and they actually left out the Japanese audio from MG'93 even though their previous DVD was dual-language. G2K was again just the US version and GFW was identical to its original DVD, while the other movies had only the Japanese audio with English subtitles without their dubs. Rebirth of Mothra 3 was still left out of the DVDs. What's more, aside from GFW, none of the DVDs in these sets were recycled backstock; they were newly authored, single-sided DVDs containing two movies apiece, and Sony still didn't bother to revise any of the subtitles.

Then a year after that, in October 2016, Sony dipped into the Godzilla/Mothra well one more time by putting all seven of those DVDs from Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 together in one set:

Image

Sony has never been keen to change their existing products when they compile a Godzilla set. If they were to release a BRD box set in the future, their track record suggests that the disc contents would be identical to the BRDs that Sony released in 2014. The last time they licensed a Godzilla movie from Toho was GFW more than 15 years ago, and they seemingly just let their rights to GvsKG and GvsMothra lapse last year, so it's unlikely that Sony would take an interest in G'84 or Biollante now.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by UltramanGoji »

StreamOfKaijuness wrote:
omgitsgodzilla wrote:They literally just let their rights to vs. King Ghidorah and Mothra lapse not too long ago, though. I think they may be kind of letting the franchise go.
It seems that way. It'll be interesting to see if they renew the rights to Godzilla 2000 in 2025.
Speaking of, how would the rights to that work out? Would Sony retain the rights to the US version of the film or would Toho own it entirely?
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by Terasawa »

Toho would still possess the underlying film rights so Sony's version would be useless to them (Sony) without the right to distribute the film in any version. But I dunno what the contracts say and I'm sure no one else here does either.
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Re: The Toho "HD" thread

Post by PuzzledAmphibian »

Do the Toho BDs carry over all the special features from the Toho DVDs? Commentaries, featurettes, interviews, etc. There is one review on the main site for a Toho BD of "Godzilla [1984]" that says there are "a lot of hold overs from the Region 2 DVD."

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