DarkDream High Quality Anime Archive + Future Release Plans

Steel Angel Kurumi is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Well, it looks like Steel Angel Kurumi 1080p is going to happen. I think it's very acceptable looking after finishing the first episode and I personally will probably prefer the 1080p. I will start running it through the encoder by Friday night. I would think 48 hours would be long enough for it to finish encoding. So, lets see if we cant try for Wednesday next week at the latest for the upload of Season 1 in 1080p. If I am not busy this weekend, I will shoot for Monday.

I haven't forgotten about the Lionsgate release of The Last Unicorn to go with the Shout release I uploaded. I will get that up soon as well.

Steel Angel Kurumi (1080p) is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Sorry everyone, I finally got around to watching a TV series called Dexter and I am literally so addicted to it I cannot stop watching it. I have used all my free time to watch it and am already at season 6 out of 8 in a week. I'll either take a day off to do Steel Angel Kurumi Season 2 or I will just get it over with and encode it right after I finish. I will see if I can get the encodes done by this weekend.

I finished watching all the episodes. I was disappointed in the ending but it was a great show to me.

I will get back to work on Steel Angel Kurumi Season 2 on Monday.

Steel Angel Kurumi season 2 is done. I just need to finish up the subtitles. I should be able to have it up really soon.

Steel Angel Kurumi 2 is now available for download.

Enjoy!!

Well the source DVD looks pretty nice and turned out pretty damn good for Steel Angel Kurumi 2. From the looks of things, a 720p scale release is more than likely going to happen next. I will tinker with some scripts when I get the time and let everyone know. If I decide to pass on 720p upscale, I will get to work on the Encore OVA next.

Yeah, I am going to go ahead and do the 720p upscale for Steel Angel Kurumi 2. It actually looks so nice that it possibly even rivals the Blu-Ray in quality with even more fine detail retention than the Blu-Rays had for Season 1. I may even be able to get a nice 1080p scale out of this.

Looks like I can have it done by tomorrow and ready to put up within 2 days.

Steel Angel Kurumi 2 (720p) is now available for download.

Enjoy!!

Next thing I will be working on is the Steel Angel Kurumi Encore OVA. I was going to do the OVA before Season 2 since those couple episodes connect with season 1 according to the numbers in the DVD set. I ultimately ended up deciding to do Season 2 first because the OVA Blu-Ray is going to be quite a bit of work compared to Season 1 and Season 2.

The Blu-Ray has all of the episode combined into one long episode, while the DVD has the episodes all separated. I will have to separate the 4 with exact frame counts and the same frames as the English DVD's so I can sync the English audio to the Japanese Blu-Rays. I will then have to possibly retime the subtitles as well. The most time consuming part will probably be the audio syncing if its not the going through frame by frame to make them match up.

I don't know how much time it will take. Luckily its only 4 episodes I believe, so it wont take me a super long time. I'm not really in the mood for frame by frame work at the moment so I will begin work on them possibly this coming Friday or Monday.

The Steel Angel Kurumi Encore OVA is almost all ready to go. I got all the subtitles done and am finishing up syncing the audio now. The video I will run it through the encoder tonight.

Steel Angel Kurumi Encore OVA (720p) is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Steel Angel Kurumi Encore OVA (1080p) will probably get uploaded tomorrow instead of a few days, since 1 day is plenty of time to seed a torrent the size of the 720p release.

Steel Angel Kurumi Encore OVA (1080p) is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Now that Steel Angel Kurumi all seasons and OVA is completely finished I am thinking about doing the Wolverine anime 720p and 1080p or Duel Masters 720p. I also have The Last Unicorn (Lionsgate Release) Blu-Ray and The Iron Giant Movie Blu-Ray pretty much ready to go through the encoder as well. I will know for sure whats next after I enjoy my weekend.

On another note, I have the higher quality re-encodes of the entire Initial D series done. They are certainly quite a bit better than my older uploads of them. I am currently holding off on uploading it because its possible I can make Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Final stages in higher quality by downscaling Blu-Rays for a couple stages to 480p. I know for sure Fifth and Final will look better, the others I will have to examine and compare.
Someone has offered to get the Blu-Rays for Third, Fourth, Fifth, Final, Extra and Extra Stage 2 Blu-Rays. I will give it about a month or so to see if they are going to go through with it or not. If I get them, I will upload the higher quality re-encodes with Blu-Ray downscales and then afterwards I will do the entire series in 720p afterwards. If I do not get the Blu-Rays, I will just upload the higher quality DVDRips. If for some reason I will be getting the Blu-Rays, but need to wait a bit more, I will hold the DVDRip upload a bit longer, unless it will be many months wait.

I have decided to go ahead and encode the Wolverine anime. I wanted to try and sync the USA DVD's with the Japanese Blu-Ray and got a bit carried away while doing the work over the weekend. Wasn't my plan, but hey it's what happened. I hate pausing my work in anything I do that's interesting until I finish or get far enough into it that I accept a break lol. I just couldn't stop once I got started.

It was a major royal pain in the ass and multiple hours work going through frame by frame, counting lengths of frames removed or added, and adjusting subtitle times accordingly. After 2 days of hard work, I actually got it all done and it syncs perfectly frame for frame and adjusted subtitle times sync as well.

I noticed this anime is REALLY soft/blurry looking, even on the Blu-Rays. I got this looking really nice in 576p and pretty good at it's native 720p resolution sharpness wise. 1080p is still debatable and I will decide on that later when I play around with it to see I can get it acceptable looking to me sharpness wise. Right now I only have the other 2 resolutions ready to go and to be checked.

The scripts should be ready to go pretty soon. I am hoping by today. I am waiting for test and compare 720p episode to finish that had different scripts used on them, so how long this will be I am not 100% sure yet. I can pretty much guarantee at least one release can be ready within the week if all goes well. It's possible I can get them all done in the week. Time will tell.

It looks like 2 of the episodes from the Wolverine series are going to require some special treatment. This will require me to check it frame by frame and to watch the 2 episodes from beginning to end to make sure everything gets done right. I have one of the two episodes finished already. The second one I will work on it tomorrow. I am not in the mood for frame by frame work today and I have alot of things I need to get done in my personal life today. If I can get time for it tonight, I might just finish it tonight. Then its all a matter of sending the scripts through the encoder.

This extra work will add another days work to it for me. Because of this and possibly not having it ready by Friday like I hoped, I will upload a movie in the meantime. I have Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children (Complete) running through the encoder right now. I should be able to get it up by tonight or in the morning no problem, unless I notice something wrong in the finished encode.

Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children (Complete) 720p is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children (Complete) 1080p is now available for download.

Enjoy!

I will finish up that final episode of Wolverine that needed frame by frame work tomorrow. Once it is done and goes through the encoder, I will put them up for download. If I can get 1080p looking acceptable I will throw that in as well.

After that, it looks like I will be getting the rest of Initial D finished now that I have Final Stage DVD's. I re-encoded Stages 1-5 and the Extra Stage in higher quality. I got ahold of Final Stage and extra stage 2 on DVD, so once those get done, I will be putting up a large batch torrent with higher quality re-encodes and now the Final Stage and Extra Stage 2 will be included as well since I never had them up separately before.

I also got ahold of the Japanese Blu-Rays and French Blu-Rays, so after that batch work is all done and ready to go up, I will work on 720p and 1080p releases for the entire series.

All that leaves left is the two Battle Stages. I just need to get ahold of the DVD's. I will see if I can save for them sometime soon. If anyone can help, that would be appreciated and I will get those done asap.

I was feeling kind of sick yesterday and didn't get anything done. Today however, after about 4 hours of pain in the ass frame by frame work, the final episode of Wolverine is done. It should be done encoding in about 12-18 hours, maybe less. If it turns out like it is supposed to and I do not see any adjustments left to make, I may just have it ready to put up tomorrow.

Wolverine 720p is now available for download.

Enjoy!

It looks like I will indeed be doing a 1080p release as well for Wolverine. While it is not what I hoped exactly, when viewed in fullscreen, it looks more sharp/clear and overall better than the 720p encodes scaled by media player to fit 1080p screen. With this soft/blurry source, just about any added sharpness/clearness is a step up.

It wont be amazing, but it will be more sharp/clear than the source material is after I'm done with it, which is a big plus with how strong of blurring the source seems to have in it.

thx