Video:

the quality is perfect, no skips, no framedrop, NOTHING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!, its just perfect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Audio:

the sound is dead on, top sound quality especially with surround sound, very cool music.

Subtitle:

the subtitles aren't that bad, for the most part its understandable, so you can still enjoy the story.

Comment:

Ghost in the Shell S.A.C is one of my favorite collections of all time. I love the storyline and the characters, it keeps you engaged all the time. I recommend this title to anyone who likes sci-fi action mixed with cool technology.

Video:

I give video a 4, but this is generous. The first disc looks very nice, as good as a HK disc with around 9 episodes crammed on it can look. Discs 2 and 3 get pretty bad. On my HD Sony widescreen a TON of pixelation and blockiness is apparent. By the end of the 3rd disc any scene that has any movement tends to have some kind of noticeable break up. On my third disc, on the episode at the Sunflower Organization, there were three instances where the video went totally wacky and cut to black (definitely not part of the show). Honestly, the 4 may be too high. The video is anamorphic, but whatever.

Audio:

I tested out the English 5.1 and the Japanese 5.1, and both were great on surround sound in the loud scenes. Lots of talking though, and that's just center channel-centric. Good and clean though.

Subtitle:

It's all there. There's LOTS of talking though, and it's all very complicated and political, so you're really going to have to pay attention to what's going on because all this political talk comes at you very fast. Be aware that you'll be reading the bottom of the screen without looking at the pretty animation for a lot of the talking-heads scenes.

Comment:

An incredible show. Very detailed, very fun, and very confusing the first time around. They do a good job of tying everything up by the end, but you'll need to watch it a couple of times to catch everything that you missed the first time. Quite honestly, this is the first show in a long time that bummed me out when I reached the final episode just because I wanted more. Yes, there is the 2nd Gig series, but unfortunately that's not out as of press time here ;) I would recommend this set, only because it's the best of what's out now. I'm picky about good video, but you might not notice everything wrong that I did on the last two discs. So, final word is "great show, but they could have done much better with the video on discs 2 and 3." HK is starting to get sloppy again in this department.

Video:

To my eyes, this looked really good. I'm not knowledgable about bitrates and such, but I didn't notice any outstanding problems. Of course, there are digital artifacts here and there, just like on non-import disks ... for instance, gradients might separate out a little if you have an isolated light moving into shadow. As I see this all the time on DVDs, I can't hold that against this particular set. If I wanted to get picky, MAYBE there's a tiny bit of pixellation for one of CG tachikomas on the OP of the third disk ... I'm being super nit-picky here.

Audio:

I listened to the Japanese track. It sounded fine on my TV speakers and through headphones. (I don't have a super setup or anything.) I didn't find anything to complain about.

Subtitle:

No problems other than the nature of the beast ... subs just simply fly by in this series.

Comment:

I was happy to find interviews with Kenji Kamiyama (director) and Atsuko Tanaka (seiyuu for Motoko) as extras on disk 1. Unfortunately, you find the same interviews repeated on disks 2 and 3. (You also get a textless OP and ED as extras on each disk.) At least they're good interviews! And overall, I was very happy with this set. I watched this on a 20-inch Toshiba with a Panasonic S27U. I wish I could give a more reliable indication of the audio; at least this is something, as no one has reviewed this set yet.