DarkDream High Quality Anime Archive + Future Release Plans

Initial D - Extra Stage OVA (Uncut) is now available for download.

Enjoy!

^^Many Thanks.

I will be very busy until the weekend, so I will just throw up a movie or two either today or tomorrow and decide what my next set of plans are this weekend.

Quest For Camelot is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Once Upon A Forest re-encode is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Cats Don't Dance re-encode is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Appreciate the releases. Thanks a bunch! Any idea of when you'll do Attack on Titan? Don't need an exact date - just a very rough estimation would be nice.

Scyrous wrote:

Appreciate the releases. Thanks a bunch! Any idea of when you'll do Attack on Titan? Don't need an exact date - just a very rough estimation would be nice.

Since they are making more episodes, I'm holding off until they are all done.

Initial D - Second Stage is now available for download.

Enjoy!

Well now that I had some time to work on some things, I went to see if the new custom filter settings I mentioned for Initial D Stage 2 would improve the quality of Spiderman and the Initial D Stage 3 movie.

Read about it here if you don't know what I am talking about.

https://blackstaranime.forumotion.com/t158p150-darkdream-high-quality-anime-archive-future-release-plans#1668

It turns out that it improves the quality and details of those as well, but while doing it and carefully examining them frame by frame, I noticed something I didn't notice before. So I played with the settings of my custom filter even more and got it to look even better, and this time the issue is fixed. So I get the better quality and detail without the side effect I didn't like. It was a minor thing that you may not have even noticed without being told what to look for, but my OCD kicked in and I just had to fix it lol.

I'm glad that even though Initial D Stage 2 was finished, that I didn't release it before I noticed that. I had time to re-encode the entire Stage 2 before it's release.

Since this filter setting change to improve output quality will require more than just changing a single line in the spiderman scripts, I will have to remake them all and adjust a couple things accordingly. Because of this, and the fact its got more than twice as much episodes as Initial D First Stage, I will work on it after First Stage is done. After First Stage is done, I will not allow myself to take on anything else until Spiderman is finished, I promise. I need to get Spiderman done and out there already. This time, the wait paid off though, you will get a little more retained details and a little bit better looking video.


So current plans are this.

I'm going to go ahead and improve the Third Stage movie with these new settings, and release a re-encode of it. I will also raise its audio bitrate from 320kbps to 384kbps. It's running through the encoder now and should be done in about 12 hours unless I choose to run it through again with a different sharpness level.

Finish up the Initial D First Stage that I started on.

Remake scripts to finish up and release Spiderman finally.


I also wish to get rid of some of the grey in my archive and get some of these re-encodes/re-uploads out of the way. I will go ahead and get the movies section out of the way next since Hentai is all updated and done, and movies is a quicker section to re-upload. Their smaller in size and the re-encodes only take about an hour or two to finish.

I have about 8 movies re-encoded in higher quality than I did them in years ago, that are ready for upload, and I will slip them out between releases.

DarkDream787 wrote:

I'm glad that even though Initial D Stage 2 was finished, that I didn't release it before I noticed that. I had time to re-encode the entire Stage 2 before it's release.

And here i was thinking it might have fallen in your priority list.

DarkDream787 wrote:

I need to get Spiderman done and out there already.

I have got a feeling this is going to be the best one can have.

DarkDream787 wrote:

I'm going to go ahead and improve the Third Stage movie with these new settings, and release a re-encode of it. I will also raise its audio bitrate from 320kbps to 384kbps. It's running through the encoder now and should be done in about 12 hours unless I choose to run it through again with a different sharpness level.

Finish up the Initial D First Stage that I started on.

Thanks for the headsup.

DarkDream787 wrote:

I also wish to get rid of some of the grey in my archive and get some of these re-encodes/re-uploads out of the way.

Wanted to ask what needs fixing in Ranma, Inuyasha and Rurouni Kenshin.

sameer wrote:

Wanted to ask what needs fixing in Ranma, Inuyasha and Rurouni Kenshin.

I cant know or give you an accurate answer unless

1. I know which source (DVD, or Blu-Ray) your referring to.

and or

2. I have it ripped to my computer to examine it, or a good several screenshots are given. The screenshots wont be as accurate to go off of though.

^^If i am not mistaken only Ranma got blu-ray release. I assumed you might already have watched the three series.

For Inuyasha i have the a-S version and there is some bad deinterlacing in some fights, some loss of detail in highly detailed scenes. This is from the top of my head.

For Ranma and Rurouni Kenshin, i have very old rips which needs replacing.

sameer wrote:

^^If i am not mistaken only Ranma got blu-ray release. I assumed you might already have watched the three series.

For Inuyasha i have the a-S version and there is some bad deinterlacing in some fights, some loss of detail in highly detailed scenes. This is from the top of my head.

For Ranma and Rurouni Kenshin, i have very old rips which needs replacing.

I watched those series way before I encoded and or cared about the video and its quality. I didn't know a thing I know now back then when it comes to this sort of stuff. Even if I did watch it, I wouldn't have been looking out for that kind of stuff back then. I was just happy to have it on DVD and DVD was supposed to be better than VHS, that's all I cared about back then. It always looked fine to me when watching it on my TV. It's not until I first tried encoding that I noticed DVD video looks different and plays back different on the computer. I'll never forget when I first learned what interlacing was and how annoying those lines were many years ago lol.

I wanted to do Rurouni Kenshin years ago. I even started it, but abandoned it because it was long and I wanted to do other things to get things out faster since I was a newer encoder at the time. I'm glad I did though. I recall losing my entire hard drive once as well and I think I lost all the files. If I would have encoded it 5-6 years ago when I wanted, around when I first started encoding, I would have over did it with the filters and hardly did it the justice it deserves, even if it did look better than some others. I just didn't have the required knowledge to get it how I wanted to back then due to being new.

I love all 3 of those series, but it will be a while before I get to them that's for sure. I usually do series over 100 episodes when I know I wont be busy or am in the mood for the nonstop work it will be. It's usually in summer when off college I do those kinds of releases.
My next large project that's over 100 episodes will be either Yu-Yu Hakusho Blu-Rays or 90's Batman The Animated Series DVD's at the moment.

^^My belief of blu-rays being better than dvd is being shattered on the video front for some old anime series.

90's Batman The Animated Series is already started, can't wait to hear that op music again. Also excited about the episodes themselves.

DarkDream787 wrote:

Since they are making more episodes, I'm holding off until they are all done.

Alright, now you've lost me.

It's not going to be until October 2017 before all episodes of Attack on Titan season 2 have aired. That, combined with the fact that a JP Blu-ray release + US Blu-ray release is going to take another several months (but most likely atleast one year), it doesn't seem to add up. That's assuming you'll be doing a dual audio release, but still. It's going to take a long time regardless.

Given all that information, it doesn't seem logical for Attack on Titan to be #1 on your priority/order/future plans list. Or anywhere near a top-spot for that matter. Or am I missing something here?

Your right, Attack on Titan is not on my priority list at the moment nor did I say that it was #1 on my priority list anywhere. If your going off of the list on the first page of my archive then there's 2 things to consider.

1. I clearly say this "((( This is mostly to let you know what I intend on releasing in the future )))
Not a promise of the order of release!"

Which means do not assume everything is going to come out in the order that list shows or that I am prioritizing one thing over another. It's mostly there to show what I want to encode for sure in the future and asap.

2. I made that list a year ago when I was encoding alot, which was before I stopped for almost a year, and I haven't changed it since my return a month or so ago. I been focusing on getting things back up since KAT is gone, more than whats coming next.

Thanks to your making me think of that list, I better go alter it right now.


My priority has been to get things back up after the loss of KAT, and finishing up what I had almost done or was working on before I had stopped encoding for almost a year. Initial D just sort of popped up out of nowhere as something for me to work on is all. It started out as just a movie request, and I ended up hooked on it after watching it, plus someone offered to donate every disc if I would encode it. That's why I threw it upfront out of nowhere. That and apparently a good quality version was hard to find.

so DarkDream curious what source you would use for dragon ball series. Is it going to be Dragon Box or Funimation DVD Season Sets.

sameer wrote:

so DarkDream curious what source you would use for dragon ball series. Is it going to be Dragon Box or Funimation DVD Season Sets.

For Dragonball I might just use the funimation sets that are in blue boxes. If I ever get the ratio to get the Japanese Dragon Boxes on ADC, I will check those out and compare.


For Dragonball Z I don't really know for sure yet. I think I remember the USA Dragon Box sets had pretty messed up colors that were inaccurate. I remember alot of people trying color correction projects with them.

I would have to check and compare everything and see what I can do to get the best version for myself.

If I had to pick right now without comparing sets, I would go with MADMAN PAL sets for Saiyan, and Namek Saga's (Ocean Dub) and the uncut Level Set Blu-Rays that are still 4:3 and well done (Not those ruined widescreen ones) for Saiyan and Namek Saga (Funimation Dub + Ocean Dub)

The rest I will use the Funimation Singles, unless the Region 2 Japanese Dragon Box sets are better quality.

^^oh, ok. And what about GT.

-- Edit --

Sorry, forgot you don't intend to do GT.

Where did I say I wouldn't do DBGT? Just because it's not on the list right now, doesn't mean Id never do it.

I only have the Yellow boxsets from Funimation for DBGT. Those are what I would use.

^^ofc i understand your to do list isn't set in stone. Sorry if that statement irked you.

O.o I'm not irked lol

A Troll In Central park higher quality re-encode is now available for download.

Enjoy!!

An American Tail - Fievel Goes West higher quality re-encode is now available for download.

Enjoy!!