SAC DVD 1 Thoughts

[DarkPrimus]

Hey everyone, I picked up the first volume of Stand-Alone Complex today, and I've got a few things to say about it.

I got the collector's edition, and I am both happy and dissapointed with the extras.

Good things:
-Cool slipcase that resembles the ones the Japanese discs came in.
-Came with the OST.
-Reversable case cover. It's the same art, but without the logo on the front, which is nice.

Bad things:
-The cool slipcase is bent at the bottom. This is not a random mistake; it is a packaging design flaw. I looked at ALL the copies at Best Buy, and they were all like this.
-The DVD won't stay in the slipcase very well without the CD in there too.
-The extra disc that the Special Edition comes with? It's no more than the Curse of Manga: Unneeded extra sound settings. While the default disc is Dolby Digital Surround, the extra one is the same episodes, only in DTS. Which, by the way, you can't hear AT ALL if you're using a Dolby set up (trust me, I tried). The greatest insult though, is that they didn't even label which disc is which; you have to put them in to find out. (For the record, it's the one with the circuit board design on it.)

Okay, now for the episodes themselves. As with most of you, I had already seen these back when they were fansubbed. However, seeing them again was a whole different experience. Firstly, the quality of the visuals was razor sharp. Secondly, the sounds. Oh god, the sounds! It was like an audio orgy... I was hearing little details and background noises you wouldn't have even imagined existed from watching fansubs. I could even hear subtle parts of the soundtrack that I couldn't hear before from my mp3s.

I know you're probably going to buy this regardless of what I say about it, but let me be the first to say: the releases so far rule.

[Nilrem]

i'm quite looking forward to this (my set is in the post) as i loved the original film and what i've seen of the series.

Re the DTS - that's normal as the DVD spec calls for DD as the basic sound format with DTS as an optional extra, most players i've seen don't have a DTS decoder built in.
Most if not all players will pass the digital signal for the DTS straight out to an external decoder via a SPDIF optical out or a co-ax digital out if they don't have the decoder built in (they'll do the same for the DD5.1 signal if the player only as stereo analogue outputs).
Again i think that is part of the DVD spec as every player i've seen, even the cheapest models and PC decoder cards have this option.

If you have a DTS decoder try that with the DTS disc as by all accounts DTS can be much superior to DD5.1 due to differences in the way the audio is encoded* (i tried Spirited Away in DD5.1 and DTS and the DTS was miles better).

In fact it was the release of GITS:SAC and Evangelion Platinum that prompted me to splash out on a Sony DTS/DD5.1 speaker setup after much dithering (i've been after one for 3 years but couldn't justify it).


The labling is going to be the big annoyance for me i suspect - i can see that i'll probably end up putting a note in the case to remind me which is which.


*i think one of the differences is that DD has a higher level of compression used for the sound (so takes less space) at the expense of some of the clarity when it comes to the surround speakers.

[DarkPrimus]

By the way, the MSRP for the special edition is $50 (yikes!), but I got my copy at Best Buy, and the price tag was $36.99. Which is much more reasonable.

[EVA fiend]

Cheers for the info.., I don't think I can be bothered to shell out more cash for the collector's edition, even if it is in DTS.., I think I just get the regular version.., :)