Yeah, it's a blink-and-you-miss-it scene. Rather pointless really since none of the other action sequences in the film depict anything remotely as violent as that.

Well, I wrote them one last time to see what's up.

In case they simply ignore me, does anyone know of a good way to start a petition that might be taken seriously? I ask because I've never started one myself and I think I may have to (assuming no one else has already).

I've never started a petition myself, but have signed a few. The only petition hosting site that I could remember is this one:
http://www.petitiononline.com/create_petition.html
But I guess we should first be sure that no one else has started one up yet.

Yeah. I know what you mean. I'm afraid of starting one myself as I've not done so before and am afraid of screwing the whole thing up and I'm also afraid that, if one already exists, another petition for the same thing might screw its chances at getting the amount of signatures it needs.

I just watched it for the first time today (with the English track, haven't listened to the Japanese tracks yet), and honestly I didn't notice that much of a problem, although I do agree the sound effects should have been mixed a little louder.

What did concern me is a video quality issue. I don't think it's just my setup, but I noticed a ton of pretty bad gradient banding throughout the whole movie. I'm not sure why I haven't really heard about this, but IMO, it almost ruins the otherwise near-perfect video transfer. Is this just an inherent flaw in MPEG-2 encoding? The only other DVD I can recall noticing gradient banding on is Futurama season 2, so I wouldn't think so.

What type of display are you watching on? Do you see color banding or huge bright halos around the fish in Finding Nemo as well? Certain fixed-panel digital displays (especially LCD) sometimes have insufficient bit depth to properly display all the subtle color gradations in some forms of animation.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the problem here (I still don't have the disc), but it's one possibility.

I remember how much people complained and complained about all sorts of artifacts on the Finding Nemo DVD that I was simply not seeing on my 6-foot wide DLP projection screen. Then I added a small LCD monitor for a secondary display in my room and that same disc looked like ass on it.

I don't remember having any complaints about Finding Nemo, but I'd have to watch it again. I watched Appleseed on my 27" Sharp flatscreen tube TV in 16:9 mode with a Panasonic RV32.

What is the OAR for this movie? There's a UMD version at 1.78, might grab that instead.

tks

Yeah, that should be the right ratio.

I just hope this gradient banding gets fixed on the hopefully upcoming fixed version, although I doubt it (and assuming it's not just me). It's so frustrating to spend money on an LE just to find out it has these flaws that almost ruin it.

Ok, here's a screen shot from about 3:08 on the DVD which is one of the most noticeable times for banding, although it's more apparent in motion:


Here it is with enhanced contrast:


I'll probably write an email to that rightstuf address tomorrow and include these screenshots.

Is the banding present in the Japanese release as well? I might just be inherent in the render (a la Stand Alone Complex).

Just got a reply from Rightstuf:

Translation: We dunno what's going on.

Well, I took a look at my screencaps today on my work computer, and they were a lot darker, so the banding wasn't very noticeable in the first pic, but it was very distracting when I watched it on my TV, which should be calibrated. Isn't anyone else with the disc seeing banding all over the place? Please tell me I'm not crazy.

Hey Roc, I haven't heard from them, but I'll the Geneon/Pioneer # I got from someone again just to bug them (310.952.2406). I would suggest others do the same since it's easier to be annoying in voice than it is in text.

As for the video issues bis22 is referring to, they bother me as well, but not as much as the audio problem does. Try listening to the DTS Japanese track during any action sequence and you'll know what we're talking about. Granted the audio problem is MUCH less severe on the English audio track.

The banding is bothersome during dark scenes as you noted in your screen shot. It would appear to me that it is not a display induced rendering problem, rather a problem with the encoding of the video itself. If you notice, the banding always appears as if it is radiating from some point in the upper middle of the picture. My theory is that this problem is consistent throughout the movie, just more prevalent in some scenes and nearly undectable in others (generally brighter scenes).

The R2 version I watched still had this radiated banding problem, just much less noticeable. The problem with this sort of banding issue is that it flattens the image IMO, rather than looking 3D as they have tried to do with DoF focusing tricks.

The head crushing scene is the worst IMO.

Fixed

I stand corrected. :P

















Oh and thanks, mmccking. I'll try calling them when I get a phonecard as I live in PR and that's long distance for me.

So have we all forgotten the problem yet? Stupid Geneon...

We have not forgotten...but Geneon did.

As the saying goes "money talks", and mine said "I'm willing to buy it even though it has obvious audio and video problems".

I just want to shut him up!

Maybe we should do something to tell them we haven't forgotten...?

But what? Keep calling/e-mailing/harassing them? Will they listen this time?

I think they have already swept it under the rug by now. I dobut they are going to fix it, unless they smell a class action lawsuit or something more stimulating.

That'd be great but I think lawsuit would be too frivolous?

So I'm guessing this was never fixed (such as with newer copies) and never will be...?

Dang, you got my hopes up. I guess there's always Blu-Ray...