Did a spot check at my X set works fine as well. My DVD had no problems loading up and playing all of disc 3. I got the set from here.
Heh...that's why I asked JJ to check it out too when he received my 'defective' dvd. I am just hoping that not all my dvd players are acting up on me.
I did check with a gf of mine earlier in the afternoon, she called me and told me that she bought X and Inuyasha Part 2 from an ebay seller. She checked, well, her 3rd X dvd and Inuyasha could not load up. Error msg. Said she's gonna email the seller since seller guaranteed that it will work on the website, otherwise full refund or replacement.
So I really don't know. Maybe it's just our dvd players which I hope it really isn't. I seriously don't want to go buy another one, considering that I'd already bought 7 dvd players to just watch the FX dvds within the last 9 mths.
Quote:Originally posted by furii
um, i vote no on this 
if you don't like FX don't buy them. personally i've never had a set that wouldn't play on my panasonic dvd-f61 (and that includes the masamune shirow collection which i've heard had problems) so i will continue to buy them, as i'm sure others will.
Ohh, don't get me wrong, I vote no on this aswell. But if this continues Flora's reputation will be worth nothing while it use to be the best company by far. There's no way to know if a set will work and all his new sets over the past months have had a problem with someone. You can't 100% trust the Fx reviews here anymore because you'll never know if it will load up so why need quality reviews
. There are already many people who are only buying MAC till flora gets his act together again and if this will continue then maybe the sellers will even get tired of sending out replacements for every set they sell. I've never had a problem with Fx aswell (except kenshin on my ps2) but I have X, Noir, Rahxephon and Black Jack on my shelf or in the mail and if one of them won't play I will definetly think twice about buying Fx over MAC for a while.
I am wondering what flora's comments on the recent problems are. He can't be happy with all the replacements he has to send out. Maybe JJ can comment on this.
You know, the thing I noticed abt those DVDs that won't play, eg. my first Berserk DVD #2, #3 and X #3, is that under the first layer of the dvds, there are circular streaks. Not sure whether it is the correct way to describe it but that's what I see. :p
The 2nd Berserk set, which loads up really well has no such circular thingy on the dvds at all.
Are those circular streaks the problems then?
Its a misconception that FX has the best video, while some releases are near perfect ie Hellsing, Maison....in video others are not, and most often are really pixelated due to the low bit rate hence His and Her, and Noir being prime examples of not looking too hot.
i agree that i was not terribly impressed with the video quality of noir, especially on the first disc (discs 2 and 3 seemed better). the thing is that MAC seems to take forever in getting their stuff out, and to me that's a big issue. jj seems to get at least 1 shipment from fx a week while mac seem few and far between. for releases that i don't buy in r1 i'd like to see as soon as i can because i've probably already seen it fansubbed and i much prefer watching stuff on my tv. as long as they keep playing for me i'll continue to buy them, but if there is something better i just don't have that FX brand loyalty that maybe flora is banking on.
now that i'm thinking about it, does flora do all of this alone or is there a staff? i know that it might be quicker to do cbr releases but the image quality that you can get from going to vbr is so much greater than what you get with cbr, even if you are just doing 1 extra pass. i wish that either FX would start doing vbr releases or putting them on to 4 dvd-9 discs. i don't mind paying the extra $7, in fact i prefer it if i know i'm getting superior video quality. now too r1 releases are coming on dual layered discs (last exile comes to mind) so that means even MORE compression compared to the standard dvd-5 releases.
i haven't checked, but does MAC use vbr or are they cbr as well? i'll check when i get home if no one knows off hand.
My Cowboy Bebop FX set didn't look too good (3.5-4.0Mbps), and as I posted in another thread I was somewhat unhappy with the extras looking perfect whereas the video quality for the rest of the series was poor in comparison. The quality improved by the 3rd disc, but that disc was also somewhat of a defect (wouldn't play in PS2, barely played in PC DVD w/ some skips and hiccups).
I wasn't too impressed with Triguns video quality either, and Noir, oh my god. What happened to that? There was so much interlacing I could see lines going EVERYWHERE...
Outlaw Star seems to be slightly better (probably because the show itself looks a little outdated), but the 1st disc was somewhat defective as well.
Escaflowne FX looked almost like the VHS version which I had seen a few years ago...
Don't get me wrong, I love the gatefolds on FX sets, the subtitles are great, and so is the audio. The video quality, it seems, could use some work. MAC and MI sets I own usually have better video quality in comparison.
furii, I actually average around 3-4 FX shipments a week ;p
Quote:Originally posted by JunkieJoe
furii, I actually average around 3-4 FX shipments a week ;p
i know, that's why my bank account seems to be draining faster than normal
Quote:Originally posted by TheMarine
Escaflowne FX looked almost like the VHS version which I had seen a few years ago...
Wow, is it really that bad? Hopefully it isn't the remastered version that you're talking about.
MI seems to have a new
Escaflowne TV set out. (It's not listed on this site.) It has both Japanese and English tracks, so I'm guessing that it's an FX rip...? Does anybody know anything else about this MI set?
Quote:Originally posted by isisCdXVi
MI seems to have a new Escaflowne TV set out. (It's not listed on this site.) It has both Japanese and English tracks, so I'm guessing that it's an FX rip...? Does anybody know anything else about this MI set?
I don't know about the MI set, but we just got an FX set of Escaflowne + movie, (from here, Import-Anime) it has both languages and it looks pretty darn good!!
Pah
Escaflowne is fine, l have the R1s and compared to the FX release and its alright, some pixelation but nothing as bad comparing it the VHS which is a slight exaggeration.
Also yes l love to see 26 eps on 4 discs, it makes more sense, better video quality and whats the extra $7 anyway when its so damm cheap in the first place. l doubt Flora would change his methods of encoding since its served him so well.
Finally l noticed that JJ is getting more FXs, but thats obviously because FX is a popular brand and making him more money l suppose than MAC which is fair enough.
Quote:Originally posted by yakumo
Finally l noticed that JJ is getting more FXs, but thats obviously because FX is a popular brand and making him more money l suppose than MAC which is fair enough.
i don't know that it's because it's making him more money, per se. it just seems fx gets shipments out more quickly and regularly than mac and everyone else. in turn it makes him more money but i don't know that that is necessarily the reason we are seeing them stocked so frequently.
yes Furii is right, FX is very prompt, I would have liked to be able to have same service with MAC but thats not the case... so I guess you can say that I sell more FX sets than MAC, but its because I get more of them.