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Foreign Films/Animation - Anything to know?

J

justingn

Active member
I'm new here, and while not an owner of a K system yet (I'm eyeballing the C1, if they give me a way to back it up in the event of a disk failure), I do have a question that I couldn't find an answer to through search.

I'm a big fan of foreign films and series, from Doctor Who and Top Gear in the UK, to a wide breadth of animation from Japan, and several countries in between. The discs come from a wide variety of sources, too, in a variety of regions (though primarily Region 1/Region A). Do I have anything to be worried about metadata-wise if I import, say, the Japanese BD series of Ghost in the Shell SAC (JP 1080p60)? Or the 1080i50 version of Top Gear or Doctor Who? I'm mainly concerned with the K-system not grabbing metadata of those discs in question, but playback of non-US framerates (25/50fps and PAL/SECAM material) is equally important, not so much the Region Codes (I checked documentation, which mentions I can switch regions up to four times if needed - I can find my own way around region codes, so that isn't an issue).

Otherwise, is there anything else I need to know about how the K-system handles foreign material? Issues like: is it possible to set defaults for subtitles/language tracks across a TV series, can I add/edit metadata based on language tracks (voice actors in English vs Japanese), etc?
 
Shouldn't be a problem... the cover art and meta data should come through for most foreign titles, and for the few that don't you have the option of editing the data yourself or sending in the DVD to be added to the database. When it comes to region codes, however, there are issues to be aware of, most notably the "four region changes only" for the reader hardware. If you have more than one foreign region from which you constantly import, you'll hit that limit pretty quick unless you have more than one reader.

If you were just importing DVDs (not BR), a tip might be to watch for a Kaleidescape Reader (no longer produced, but still around) to come up on the marketplace. These change hands cheap as most people don't really need them, but I think they're fantastic. A spare machine that's sole job is to import disks anywhere on your network. If you have one of these in addition to your M-class player, you could leave the Reader set to the foreign region.

I'm curious why you'd buy blu-ray editions of foreign shows like Doctor Who. Do you really notice the quality of TV series to be so much higher that it's worth the extra space and the BR disc presence hassle-factor? I'd buy my foreign anime and old TV series on DVD personally.
 
josh said:
I'm curious why you'd buy blu-ray editions of foreign shows like Doctor Who. Do you really notice the quality of TV series to be so much higher that it's worth the extra space and the BR disc presence hassle-factor? I'd buy my foreign anime and old TV series on DVD personally.
Click to expand...

For most anime and series, I do stick with the best-mastered DVD version available. For the newer stuff though, or anime with a lot of hand-painted scenery on fine original source material, the BD version can be worth the upgrade. Case in point: FLCL, the re-release of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex TV Series (it was mastered for DVD from 1080p60 digital masters, so the BD version just uses those compressed to H.264), and the new Doctor Who/Top Gear series (I love the look of Series 6 with Matt Smith on BD, personally). Studio Ghibli films (Ponyo, Howl's Moving Castle) are easily some of the best looking Blu-Rays on the market. Older series like Cowboy Bebop and Dragonball Z simply don't warrant the upgrade, though.

As for the Region Restrictions, I'm not too worried. Push comes to shove, I can likely duplicate the disk on my PC (region-free DVD/BD/HD-DVD drive) to rewrite-able media; I own the original version, but if switching regions becomes a frequent issue, it's a suitable, if time-consuming workaround. I love the idea of the K-Scape reader, but since my income/rent limits me to the newly-revamped Cinema Series, I don't think I'll be able to make much use of it I'm afraid.
 
You can set language (audio & subtitle) defaults, but personally I find the implementation a little oppressive.

When playing movies:
I prefer to hear movies in their original language. If that's not [English], show [English] subtitles.
I prefer to hear movies dubbed into [English] (no subtitles).
Click to expand...

...which would probably be fine if it didn't [usually] go back to default when automatically moving between episodes. It seems to be worse on BDs, with up-to a second of skipping to black/menu in between. None does the same thing, but changes to whatever the disc defaults are set at.
 
Transepoch said:
You can set language (audio & subtitle) defaults, but personally I find the implementation a little oppressive.



...which would probably be fine if it didn't [usually] go back to default when automatically moving between episodes. It seems to be worse on BDs, with up-to a second of skipping to black/menu in between. None does the same thing, but changes to whatever the disc defaults are set at.
Click to expand...

Dang, so it's system-wide and not specific to each series/movie? Ah well, a quick button press fixes that.
 
Transepoch said:
Not system-wide, the default is per player.
Click to expand...

Ah, sorry, old IT habit of mine. Digging a little deeper: say I make a "Justin's Anime Series" collection, and edit the language options. If I access that Collection on another player, would my settings be preserved? Likewise, if someone navigates to a title contained in that collection (but without opening the collection specifically, like they opened the title from the master title listing or via search), do the settings go back to the player defaults instead?
 
Collections won't matter, just the player.

Though if you can think of a single-button solution to changing them, with all the variability of which subtitle and audio track is which, please pass it along.
 
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