My thoughts and comparisons of groups subbing the anime I'm watching this season. Note that most of this is based only on the first one or two episodes, so group quality may change throughout the season. The tag listed next to each title is my current group of choice for that anime.
You can also find screen shot comparisons for a lot of current anime on ji-hi.net.
Comparisons Available
Kiddy Girl-and
Kimi ni Todoke
Kobato.
Letter Bee
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza
The Sacred Blacksmith
Sasameki Koto
Seitokai no Ichizon
Shin Koihime Musou
Shugo Chara! Party!
Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
Yumeiro Patissiere
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Kiddy Girl-and [ANBU]
[Himatsubushi]
• Includes honorifics in the dialogue.
• Scene timing is a bit off.
• Dialogue styling is small, uses a thin font and outline, and is right against the bottom of the video frame, which makes it a little hard to read. An SRT script is also included, though.
• No typesetting, uses notes to translate on-screen text.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke, includes kanji.
• Video is 720p. Contrast is really high, killing detail. There's a lot of artifacts and macroblocking during fast motion scenes. Station logo was removed.
[SHiN-gx]
• No honorifics in the dialogue.
• Timing has an error during some overlapping dialogue and some scene bleeds.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Encoded from a different source and has lower contrast and more detail than Himitsubuchi's encode. Needed to be cropped, there's black borders on the sides. Station logo was removed.
[ANBU]
• No honorifics in the dialogue.
• Timing is full of scene bleeds. Timing is much better in later episodes.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Has a bit more detail than SHiN-gx's encode. Station logo is left in.
[Mochi] dropped
• Includes honorifics in the dialogue. Leaves "nee-san" untranslated.
• Scene timing on some lines is a bit off and it also makes lines continuous across scene changes.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Has the same amount of detail as ANBU's encode. Station logo is left in.
Comments: I don't care much either way about the honorifics but Mochi's timing errors are a lot less annoying than ANBU's.
[AnCo^2]
• Translation has a few differences from the other groups. Includes honorifics in the dialogue. Leaves "nee-san" untranslated.
• They misspell Ascoeur's name as "Ascouer" most of the time.
• Dialogue styling is very small.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed. Uses overlays to replace the Japanese text with English where possible.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Has a bit less detail, is blurrier, and has more artifacting in high motion scenes than ANBU's and Mochi's encodes, probably because it's from a different source. Station logo is left in.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Kimi ni Todoke [ANBU-Frostii]
[Eclipse]
• Subs all of the background dialogue at 3:15, the others only subbed part or none of it.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed. Translates the most text. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. More is cropped off the edges than the other encodes. Station logo is left in.
Comments: They translated "sawayaka" as "lively," instead of "refreshing" as in SFW's, Mamiko's and FMS-Sunberries's versions, which seems more fitting. Also, WTF at all the triple exclamation points.
[SFW]
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 576p with less detail than Eclipse's and Mamiko's 720p encodes. Looks like a line darkening filter was used. Colormatrix wasn't flagged in the H.264 stream so you have to manually set ffdshow to use BT.709 in the RGB conversion options or else the colors are a bit off. Station logo was removed.
• They switched to 720p for ep2 onward and also re-released ep1 in 720p but I haven't watched it.
[Mamiko]
• Scene timing is a frame off.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Translates the least text.
• OP/ED aren't subbed.
• Video is 720p, looks nearly identical to Eclipse's encode but cropped less and at a lower file size. Station logo was removed.
• No chapters.
Comments: The audio is track #1 in the MKV instead of the video. This shouldn't really matter but I've heard of a few cases where it's caused problems.
[FMS-Sunberries]
• Released a v2 of ep1, which I'm using to compare.
• No honorifics in the dialogue. There's a few grammar errors involving commas and some unnecessary ellipses.
• Timing has some scene bleeds, scene timing is off by a frame or two.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed, doesn't translate as much text as Eclipse. Looks sloppy, only very basic styling is used.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with English translation only.
• Video is 720p. Needed to be cropped, there's black borders and edge noise. Station logo was removed.
• No chapter for the OP, but there are for the other sections.
[ANBU-Frostii]
• Typesetting is hard-subbed. Translates one less sign than Eclipse
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Has the same amount of detail as Eclipse's encode. Cropped less than Eclipse's but no borders or edge noise. Station logo is left in.
Comments: Translates "sawayaka" as "cool." I prefer their phrasing and dialogue styling to Eclipse's.
General Comments: I've actually switched back to Eclipse from ANBU-Frostii because the quality difference isn't big enough to make up for the huge gap in speed. I'll probably just archive ANBU-Frostii whenever they finish, or BD rips if anyone does them.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Kobato. [gg]
[gg]
• No honorifics in the dialogue, uses English name order.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with English translation only.
• Video is 480p. Station logo is left in.
[ES]
• There's a missing line at 3:18. No honorifics in the dialogue, uses Japanese name order.
• Timing has scene bleeds and other scene timing errors.
• Dialogue styling has the font jammed against the bottom of the frame and the large shadow on it is ugly.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed, less text is translated than in gg's version.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with English translation only.
• Video is upscaled 720p with less detail than gg's 480p. Station logo was removed.
Comments: I stopped watching this part way through when it became apparent that it was inferior to gg's release in every way.
[Yuurisan-Subs]
• Honorifics are included in the dialogue. A few lines read awkwardly.
• Typo at 13:16.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke, as well as the insert song.
• Video is 480p. Has the same amount of detail as gg's encode. Station logo is left in.
[DmonHiro]
• Released a v2 of ep1, which I'm using to compare.
• Uses gg's scripts muxed with a D-BS2 encode. (gg uses the analog BS2 broadcasts?)
• Scene timing is a bit off.
• Video is upscaled 720p. Has less detail then the other encodes. Looks like it was sharpened. Station logo was removed.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Letter Bee [Commie]
[Commie]
• Uses the CR scripts.
• Timing is full of scene bleeds, I'm guessing it's just the CR timing. There's occasional three-line subs starting with ep3.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED aren't subbed. Apparently they'll be releasing subbed versions later.
• Video is 720p. TVO station logo is left in.
• Uses ordered chapters to link the OP and ED into each episode.
Comments: I'm wary of how well the ordered chapters will work since the next episode preview is shown during the start of the ED song and so its file begins after that, part way through the song. So unless the audio timing matches up exactly, there'll be an audible skip at the chapter point. Ep2 has a very small skip, which probably isn't noticeable unless you're listening for it. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse in later episodes.
[KSN]
• Released a v2 of ep1, which I'm using to compare.
• Their translation matches up with CR's as far as I can tell but their editing isn't as good. A bunch of lines read awkwardly and there's some grammar errors.
• Timing doesn't have scene bleeds like Commie's but there's a three-line sub at 7:49 and a few other little errors.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed except for the group logos.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Needed to be cropped, there's black borders and edge noise. There's more blocking and artifacts in dark and high motion scenes than Commie's encode even though the bitrate is much higher. Station logo was removed.
Comments: Wow, not only did they put a hard-subbed group logo on the title screen, they also put one with the animation studio and broadcaster logos. They must think quite highly of themselves.
[Mochi]
• Translation matches up with CR's but there's a lot of unnecessary ellipses.
• Timing is good, no scene bleeds.
• Typesetting is a mix of soft- and hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Needed to be cropped a bit more, there's edge noise along the top and bottom. Colors are slightly off, looks like they used ColorMatrix() in their AviSynth script. TVO station logo is left in.
• Audio is mono? Not sure if it actually is or if it's just showing up that way because it's HE-AAC and could be using parametric stereo.
• File size is absurdly high. Mochi's ep1 is 340 MB, compared to Commie's ep1 at 180 MB (this includes the OP and ED files), yet there's no noticeable difference in video quality. Checking the H.264 stream header, Commie's was apparently encoded at crf 18.0, which is already very high quality.
[Okashii-Azayaka]
• Translation matches up with the others but there's a lot of grammar errors.
• Scene timing is a frame off. Leaves gaps between subtitles instead of making them adjacent.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Needed to be cropped, there's black borders and edge noise. Looks like a difference source from the other encodes. Station logo was removed.
• No chapters.
[Moggert]
• Uses the CR scripts. Apparently ep2 onward will use edited versions.
• Timing is full of scene bleeds, same as Commie's.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED aren't subbed. Apparently ep2 onward will have them translated.
• Video is 720p. Has a tiny bit more detail than Commie's encode but the file size is also larger. Needed to be cropped more, there's black borders and edge noise. Looks like it was sharpened a bit. Colors are slightly off, looks like they used ColorMatrix() in their AviSynth script. TV Tokyo station logo was removed.
• No chapters.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza [Shinji-w.0.0.f]
[Shinji-w.0.0.f]
• Uses translation checked and retimed versions of the CR scripts.
• Timing has a small error at 6:00 where a line disappears early, otherwise good.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with simple fill karaoke. Their little spinning hourglass animation is broken in ep2.
• Video is 720p.
[Mamiko]
• Released a v2 of ep1, which I've not watched; info below is for v1. Apparently they switched to the less-censored Tokyo MX raw and increased the dialogue size.
• Some of the scene timing is off.
• Dialogue styling is tiny, really close to the bottom of the video frame, and horribly ugly.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed, doesn't look as good as Shinji-w.0.0.f's.
• OP/ED aren't subbed.
• Video is 720p.
• Audio is 44.1 kHz instead of the usual 48 kHz.
• No chapters.
Comments: I don't think I've ever seen dialogue styling this ugly before. Seriously, yellow with a maroon outline and black shadow? Whoever thought that was a good idea should be slapped.
[Doki]
• Uses edited and retimed versions of the CR scripts.
• Their editing is bad. One example, at 3:37: They replaced "Oh. Y-yes." with "Oh yea."
• Timing is full of scene bleeds. Some of the typesetting is a frame off.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed, doesn't look as good as Shinji-w.0.0.f's. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED aren't subbed.
• Video is 720p. Needed to be cropped, there's black borders and edge noise. Station logo was removed.
Comments: I haven't watched the whole episode on CR, but I get the impression that they made the script worse instead of better.
General Comments: Like Railgun, this is another show that looks mostly upscaled, yet some bits are blurrier at 480p.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
The Sacred Blacksmith [Nuke]
[gg]
• "Tamahagane" is left untranslated. No honorifics in the dialogue.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with English translation only.
• Video is 480p, AT-X station logo appears occasionally.
[KyouNoSolstice]
• Released a v2 of ep1, which I've not watched, without marking it as v2 in the file name. v1 CRC is 09FF20D8, v2 CRC is 4E4B1F82. Apparently the v2 fixes some font issues.
• Translates "tamahagane" as "raw steel."
• Dialogue styling uses a thin, serif font. Needs to be bold to not be annoying to read.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke that's really hard to read.
• Video is 480p, has less detail than gg's encode, and has a couple text crawls across the bottom. Station logo was removed.
Comments: For some reason, there's four editions in the MKV chapters yet they're all identical. The encode is also variable frame rate, yet I didn't notice any jerkiness in gg's and Nuke's releases so I'm not sure why they used vfr. Unless they encoded from a raw, rather than transport stream source, and it was already vfr.
[Nuke]
• Also leaves "tamahagane" untranslated, as well as the terms during the forging. No honorifics in the dialogue. There's a typo at 8:50, a backslash got left on the end of the line.
• Released a v2 patch for ep1 that translates the forging terms and removes the trailing backslash.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 480p. Ties Moetaku's encode for most detail (with the largest file size) but their deinterlacing filter didn't do quite as good a job as the other encodes so there's a few jaggies at times. Also has the same text crawls as KyouNoSolstice's encode and the video gets jerky during the first one. Tokyo MX station logo is left in.
Comments: I like the way some lines are phrased a little more than in gg's subs. But hopefully Tokyo MX doesn't keep putting text crawls across the episodes.
[AniYoshi]
• Leaves "tamahagane" untranslated but has a note explaining what it is.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 480p. Has a tiny bit less detail and a bit more artifacting than Nuke's encode, probably not enough to notice in motion. Stays smooth during the text crawls. Tokyo MX station logo is left in.
• Audio is AC3. This is kind of dumb; if you're going to transcode from the transport stream's AAC, at least use a better format like Vorbis.
[Moetaku]
• Leaves "tamahagane" untranslated. Has a couple grammar errors.
• Dialogue styling uses a thin, serif font. The alternate color for overlapping lines is really dark and even harder to read.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is upscaled 576p. Has as much detail as Nuke's encode. Stays smooth during the text crawls. Colors are off when using BT.709, looks like they used ColorMatrix() in their AviSynth script. Tokyo MX station logo is left in.
• Leaves in a few commercials related to the series.
General Comments: Nuke, AniYoshi, and Moetaku are all very similar in quality and each has different little flaws to nitpick. I'm sticking with Nuke because I like soft-subbing but the other two are also decent choices.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Sasameki Koto [Formula]
[Akibiyori]
• Released a v2, which I'm using to compare, without marking it as v2 in the file name. v1 CRC is 3B1EBFB0, v2 CRC is 93F889CF.
• Uses translation checked and retimed versions of the CR scripts. There's still lots of unnecessary ellipses, though.
• There's a few timing errors, where lines appear a bit late.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed except for the next episode title. Uses soft-subbed notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 480p (v1 was upscaled 720p). Looks like it was sharpened a bit, causing minor aliasing along edges. Colormatrix wasn't flagged in the H.264 stream so you have to manually set ffdshow to use BT.709 in the RGB conversion options or else the colors are a bit off. Station logo was removed.
Comments: What's the point of hard-subbing if you're not using any effects? Just to make sure the kanji displays properly is a pretty crappy reason.
[PalSub]
• Uses the CR scripts.
• CR's timing for this show is horrible. Scene bleeds aside, they also put mutliple lines together in the same subtitle a lot even though they don't overlap.
• Styling is the default white with black border and shadow, used for everything.
• No typesetting.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with English translation only.
• Video is upscaled 720p. Has a bit more detail than Akibiyori's encode. Needed to be cropped a bit more, there's edge noise along the top. Station logo was removed.
• No chapters.
Comments: Apparently a zero effort combination of the CR script with a raw from Share or PD.
[Chihiro]
• Translation matches up with CR's; a number of lines are even word-for-word the same.
• Grammar errors at 8:07 and 16:08 on the quotations and there's some unnecessary ellipses.
• Timing has one line that starts a bit late and one where the scene timing is a frame off.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Doesn't translate as much text as Akibiyori but the stuff it skips isn't important.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 480p. Has slightly more detail than Akibiyori's encode. Colormatrix wasn't flagged in the H.264 stream so you have to manually set ffdshow to use BT.709 in the RGB conversion options or else the colors are a bit off. TVA station logo is left in.
[SHiN-gx]
• Translation matches up with the rest, just edited a little more liberally. No honorifics in the dialogue. A couple little grammar errors. Yet more unnecessary ellipses.
• Timing has a bunch of errors from about 3:50 to 4:38, with lines appearing early or late. Some scene timing is off by a frame. The amount of lead-in/lead-out time added to match scene changes seems a little excessive.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with karaoke, including kanji. Second subtitle track uses simple karaoke.
• Video is upscaled 576p. Has less detail than Chihiro's and Formula's encodes. Looks like it was sharpened but I didn't notice any extra aliasing or haloing. Colormatrix wasn't flagged in the H.264 stream so you have to manually set ffdshow to use BT.709 in the RGB conversion options or else the colors are a bit off. No station logo, not sure if it was removed or not there to begin with.
[Formula]
• Translation is less literal on some lines but retains the same basic meaning as the other groups. Includes honorifics in the dialogue.
• Grammar error at 15:58 on the quotation. Odd that they formatted the earlier quotation right but not that one.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes to translate most on-screen text.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 480p. Has a bit more detail then Chihiro's encode. Colormatrix wasn't flagged in the H.264 stream so you have to manually set ffdshow to use BT.709 in the RGB conversion options or else the colors are a bit off. TV Tokyo station logo is left in.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Seitokai no Ichizon [SS-Eclipse]
[SS-Eclipse]
• Timing had one small error where a line appeared a bit late, otherwise good.
• Dialogue styling is a bit small and close to the bottom of the video frame. But an SRT script is also included.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed but looks really nice.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 576p, I'm assuming it's an SD upscale.
Comments: I don't care enough about this series to bother comparing other releases.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Shin Koihime Musou [Commie]
[Commie]
• Uses the CR scripts.
• Timing has scene bleeds, probably from CR's timing. There's a three-line sub at 24:26.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED aren't subbed.
• Video is 480p.
• No chapters for the OP or ED, but there are for the other sections.
[DmonHiro]
Comments: Upscaled 720p with the CR scripts. Not bothering.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Shugo Chara! Party! [Kirakira]
[Kirakira]
• Uses edited and retimed versions of the CR scripts.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Doesn't translate as much text as Fubuki but gets all the important stuff.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Uses hybrid vfr to keep anime sections at 23.98 fps and video sections at 29.97 fps. Station logo is left in.
• Chapters include two editions, one for the full episode and another that uses ordered chapters to play only the OP/ED, Dokki Doki and Pucchi Puchi sections.
[Fubuki]
• Seems to use edited and retimed versions of the CR scripts; most lines are identical. Includes a Russian translation as well.
• Dialogue and typesetting for the Pucchi Puchi titles don't match even though the Japanese for them is the same. Also mistranslates "jikoshoukai" in the dialogue as "accidental introductions." ("Jiko" and "shoukai" can mean "accident" and "introduction" when used separately but "jikoshoukai" means "self-introduction" and is written with different kanji for the "jiko" part.)
• Typo in the Party OP at 1:25 and a grammar error at 18:33 in ep1.
• Most of the scene timing is off by a frame or two and there's some scene bleeds.
• Has both multi-colored and single color scripts. Some of the multi-colored dialogue styling can be a bit hard to read, depending on the background colors.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Releases both 720p and 1080p versions, except they're actually 1280x716 and 1920x1076. It looks like they just re-encoded a couple different raws from Share for each version, so they're not the same. The 1080p is the better of the two but not because it's higher resolution. Details for each below.
720p: It's blurred really horribly, which killed a ton of detail. (Compare: Fubuki, Kirakira, Chihiro) There's a lot of flickering – it's especially noticeable on text – from the deinterlacing filter. Needed to be cropped a bit more, there's black borders on a few parts of the OP. The entire episode was decimated to 23.98 fps, including the video sections which should be 29.97 fps. Some of the anime sections were improperly decimated and are really jerky. Station logo was removed.
1080p: Contrast is way higher than it should be, which killed some detail but not nearly as much as the blurring in the 720p. Needed to be cropped, there's black borders. The entire episode was decimated to 23.98 fps, including the video sections which should be 29.97 fps. Station logo was removed. They stopped releasing 1080p versions after ep1, apparently out of laziness from what I read on their site.
• Audio is a bit late and out of sync for both 720p and 1080p.
• No chapters except for one at the beginning.
[Chihiro]
• Includes only the OP/ED and Dokki Doki parts of the episodes.
• Typesetting is hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p. Has the same amount of detail as Kirakira's encode. Looks like they slightly sharpened it and used ColorMatrix() in their AviSynth script. Needed to be cropped a bit more, there's a black border along the left edge in some parts of the OP and edge noise along the top. They used blend deinterlacing instead of interpolation which, in the non-anime sections, leaves a ghosting effect on fast motion but doesn't make lines as jagged. Though there's only a few bits in the OP where the ghosting is noticeable since they only included the Dokki Doki section. Seems they've switched to interpolation for those parts. Station logo is left in.
• Audio is a bit late and out of sync during the ED, at least for ep1.
[DmonHiro]
• Includes only the Pucchi Puchi parts of the episodes.
• Video is 720p, which is upscaled for the Pucchi Puchi sections.
Comments: I haven't actually watched this, but I'm assuming it's just the CR script combined with a raw.
General Comments: Fansubber bias gogogo! Obviously I prefer my version (Kirakira) or else I wouldn't bother making it in the first place.
This show is a mix of SD and HD material. The anime sections (Dokki Doki and Pucchi Puchi) are SD while the rest is HD. Technically, the Party Time and Bravo Bravo videos are also SD but there's other HD material in the OP and ED sections with them. The HD parts are full 1080i (it's broadcast interlaced so it's not 1080p) but the amount of detail lost from downscaling to 720p is tiny and is more than made up for by getting rid of residual combing not caught by the deinterlacing filter and other small artifacts.
tl;dr 1080p versions aren't upscales but 720p looks better overall.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra [Commie]
[Commie]
• Uses the CR scripts. Changes "Church of Drowning in God's Grace" to its untranslated form, "Shindeki Church."
• Timing looks like the CR timing but cleaned up with Aegisub's post-processor. Has fewer scene bleeds than Underwater's release.
• Dialogue styling is freakin' huge. Big and readable is good, sure, but I think this is a little excessive.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED aren't subbed.
• Video is 480p. Has a slight bit more detail, is sharper, and is cropped less than Underwater's encode.
• No chapters for the OP or ED, but there are for the other sections.
• Leaves a commercial in.
[Underwater]
• Uses the CR scripts.
• Timing looks like the CR timing but cleaned up with Aegisub's post-processor. Still has some scene bleeds, though.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• OP/ED aren't subbed.
• Video is 480p. It's slightly blurrier with a tiny bit less detail than Commie's encode. It's also cropped more.
Comments: The lower video quality is just due to encoding from a BS11 transport stream instead of an Animax one. They could easily switch to Animax.
General Comments: I dropped this show so I won't be doing any more comparisons for it.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun [Chihiro]
[Chihiro]
• Released a v2 of ep1 that tweaks the subtitle styling. v2 CRC tag is wrong, actual CRC is 518AF309.
• One grammar error (which got fixed in the v2) and two awkwardly phrased lines that I noticed, nothing big.
• Dialogue styling has barely any left/right margin, some lines go right up to the edge of the video frame.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Translates more text than Mazui.
• OP/ED are hard-subbed with karaoke.
• Video is 720p, also releases 480p versions. Station logo is left in.
Comments: I'm glad to see Chihiro's editing has improved. Seems like their releases have been getting better each season.
[Mazui]
• Released a v2, which I'm using to compare.
• Dialogue is missing some commas and has some unnecessary ellipses.
• Scene timing is off by at least a frame, sometimes more.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed.
• ED is soft-subbed without karaoke, includes kanji. No OP in ep1.
• Video is 720p. Station logo was removed.
Comments: They leave Kuroko's "Onee-sama" untranslated but then omit the kid's "Onee-chan" at 21:29.
[Nuke]
• Translation has some differences from Chihiro's and Mazui's translations. Leaves "ojou-sama" untranslated.
• There's a few grammar errors and awkwardly phrased lines.
• Dialogue styling has barely any left/right margin, some lines go right up to the edge of the video frame. Secondary dialogue is put at the top of the frame instead of using an alternate color.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes for some on-screen text. Translates the most text.
• ED is soft-subbed without karaoke. No OP in ep1.
• Video is 720p. Station logo is left in.
[Ayako]
• Released a v2 of ep1, which is not really a v2 for the 720p since they only released 400p Xvid for v1.
• Missing line at 16:32. Leaves "ojou-sama" untranslated.
• Usually spells it "judgment" but in one case spells it "judgement." Uses tildes (~) on the ends of sentences for extended syllables, once combined with a period. Also has some unnecessary ellipses.
• Timing seems a bit late on some lines. Could've used some lead-in. A few lines only appear for a very short time as well.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed except for the title and group logos. Uses notes for most on-screen text.
• ED is hard-subbed with karaoke. No OP in ep1.
• Video is 720p. Station logo is left in.
• Audio is AC3.
General Comments: Most of this show seems to be upscaled from SD but the text overlays, like for episode titles and credits, are in HD. Some of the really fine lines on the backgrounds and CG graphics are also blurrier when downscaled to 480p and then back up to 720p whereas other parts are practically identical after the downscaling. (Look at the bricks and fence in these shots from Chihiro's 720p version to see what I'm talking about: 720p original, 720p->480p->720p) So it could be using a mix of SD and HD material for more than just the text, it's hard to say for certain.
tl;dr If you want to make sure you get the best quality, download a 720p version. If you don't care, you probably won't be missing much by downloading a 480p version. 400p and/or Xvid versions will still look noticeably worse, though.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Yumeiro Patissiere [SMS]
[SMS]
• Scene timing could be a little better but there's been very few actual errors in ep1-4.
• Typesetting is soft-subbed. Uses notes for some on-screen text.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke, alternates each episode between English translation only and romaji only. The kanji is part of the OP and ED.
• Video is 480p. Uses a variable frame rate to keep both the 23.98 fps anime and the 29.97 fps video footage in the Yumeiro Magical Essence section smooth.
[Macaque]
• Leaves "onee-chan" and "ojou-san" untranslated.
• Scene timing has a lot of little errors like scene bleeds and such.
• Dialogue styling is a bit small.
• No typesetting.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is upscaled 720p encoded in DivX. (Ew.) Frame rate is jerky; apparently they converted to vfr 25 and 12.5 fps (WTF?) instead of just decimating to 23.98 fps. Colors are really off, looks like something to do with BT.601/BT.709 conversions. Station logo was removed.
• Doesn't include the Yumeiro Magical Essence section after the ED.
• No chapters.
Comments: A new group that's basically just using this show for practice, according to their website.
[Cakie]
• Leaves "onee-chan" untranslated.
• I spotted two grammar errors.
• Subs include stuttering but aren't timed to match it.
• Dialogue styling is small and uses a thin font, which makes it a bit hard to read.
• Typesetting is a mix of soft- and hard-subbed.
• OP/ED are soft-subbed with simple karaoke.
• Video is 480p. Looks like it was sharpened a bit, there's more visible haloing than in SMS's encode. Also has more artifacting in high motion scenes (see: the ED). Station logo is left in.
• Doesn't include the Yumeiro Magical Essence section after the ED.
Comments: I prefer the way SMS phrases the dialogue; some of Cakie's lines don't read as smoothly.
[Wasurenai]
• Leaves "onee-chan" and "ojou-san" untranslated.
• Grammar errors at 4:06, 4:28, 8:14, 10:38, 13:18, 14:12, 14:40, 14:50, 16:16, and 18:45. Typos at 15:07 and 20:05
• Timing lead-out makes lines continuous across scene changes. There's also a bunch of scene bleeds and some other little scene timing errors.
• Typesetting is a mix of soft- and hard-subbed. The dialogue at 11:40 says "Henri Lucas" yet the typesetting says "Henri Ryukasu," which is made even more WTF-inducing by the straight transcription of the kana being "Anri Ryukasu."
• OP/ED are soft-subbed without karaoke.
• Video is 480p. Looks like the contrast was increased, killing a bit of detail. The entire episode was decimated to 23.98 fps, including the video footage in the Yumeiro Magical Essence section that should be 29.97 fps. A couple parts of the ED were also improperly decimated and are really jerky. Station logo was removed.
Comments: The timing and grammar seemed to get worse as the episode went on. Also, some of the lines read awkwardly. I still prefer SMS's phrasing.
General Comments: There's a big clock display in the upper-left corner but all the raws I've seen have that so I don't think there's a source without it.
