by Dai » Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:51 pm
My UK blu-ray of Shin Godzilla arrived today. I haven't had a chance to watch it all the way through yet (I've seen the HK blu-ray 10 times, so I'm not in a hurry), but I've done some checking and comparisons. Some interesting things to note:
- Both the box and the disc art incorrectly state the audio as Dolby TrueHD. The two discs each have two audio tracks: 3.1 DTS HD-MA and 2.0 LPCM, though (as Manga previously stated) there's only English on one disc, and only Japanese on the other. This decision is all the more bizarre now I see that each disc has two audio tracks. Anyway, my PS4 detects the audio as DTS instead of Dolby, so the error seems to be on the packaging instead of the menu screen. I did a quick comparison with the DTS HD-MA track on the HK-blu-ray, and it seems to be either the same encode or so close I couldn't hear a difference.
- The Japanese disc is v1.0 with the theatrical versions of the special effects. The English disc is v2.0 with the amended effects.
- The Japanese disc only has one subtitle option, which shows both dialogue and text subtitles. As with other regions' releases, dialogue subtitles are at the bottom of the screen, and text subtitles are at the top. I was hoping for a second, dialogue-only subtitle track as an option, so that's a little disappointing.
- Based on the handful of scenes I tried out, the subtitle translation appears to be the same as the HK blu-ray, which appears to have been used on all releases in English-speaking territories.
- On the English disc, text subtitles are at the bottom of the screen.
- The Japanese disc is significantly brighter than the HK blu-ray, bringing out more detail in the night scenes. The English disc actually appears brighter still, perhaps too much and to the point of looking a little washed out. I suspect I'd just need to switch my TV to the darker calibration I use for some NTSC DVDs.
- The discs are locked to Zone B.
- The discs come in a black Amaray case with alternate artwork on the reverse of the sleeve, and a cardboard O-ring.