DekaRanger – Master License

I recently decided, on a whim, to rewatch 2004’s Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. I’ll be getting to the show itself soon, but while clicking around eBay while watching I found something nice. This is the Master License, a special version of the Dekarangers’ SP License henshin device used by their boss Doggie Kruger. Doggie uses it to become the ultra-badass DekaMaster whenever he feels his subordinates are in too deep.

Since Dekaranger is based around a police detective theme, the SP License is based on a detective’s badge holder. The normal SP License has a white door with black text, but the Master License goes with an all-black color scheme with the text outlined in gold. In its closed form, it has a good size, feeling pretty good even in my adult sized hand. It may actually be 1:1 scale to the show. In use, the license has three operating modes, selected by a slider switch on the side. This switch physically releases 3 layers of flaps depending on where it’s positioned, giving the illusion that the interior of the license changes for each mode. It’s a clever effect, and works really well. Also, the classic cool move with a detective’s badge is to snap it closed by flicking your wrist, which the license will do, though it may take a bit of practice to flick it shut with all three flaps open.

The first mode is “Change”. This is the mode used to actually transform into DekaMaster. The Master License features a variant of the Dekaranger badge that incorporates Doggie’s rank insignia. Below, you have a sticker showing DekaMaster’s ID information. It also includes a blank ID sticker if you wanted to fill your own info in and make the license truly yours. There is a small bit of Engrish here. DekaMaster’s sword is named D-Sword Vega (his rival had its counterpart Sword Altair). This is misspelled as D-SWORDBEGA on the Master License. When you open the license in Change mode, you get the standard henshin effect, but there is a wolf howl mixed in since Doggie is, literally, a dog alien from the planet Anubis. Pressing the button again just produces a police siren by itself, as it does in the show when the Dekarangers flash their badge at the end of their intro speech.

The second mode is phone. This is where the main functional difference is between the Master License and the standard SP License. Opening the license in Phone mode causes it to make a phone ringing sound until you press the button again. On the standard SP License, pressing the button again just yields a series of beeping sounds. On the Master License, you randomly get one of 11 voice clips from the 5 main Dekarangers, which is pretty neat. This is probably the main reason to opt for the Master License over the standard version.

The final, and most interesting mode, is “Judge”. The Dekarangers use this mode to request a verdict from the galaxy’s highest court, whether or not the Alienizer suspects are approved for “Delete”. Opening the license causes it to say “Judgement Time!” and make a ticking clock noise. Pressing the button again causes it to deliver its verdict, indicated by one of two sound effects for guilty or innocent. Of course, since there’s no galactic court for the toy license to contact, it just randomly decides this. The ratio is heavily weighted toward guilty though, since in the show itself they only on rare occasion did not get approval for delete. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a Sentai series if they didn’t blow up the monster. This also makes it more amusing to “judge” your friends and relatives if they don’t realize the odds are so stacked against them.

Overall, I think this is a pretty clever changer. Like the show it comes from, it is pretty unique among Sentai changers. It is neither the traditional wrist changer, nor exactly the more modern phone changer. The real standout is the entertaining Judge mode, justifying your harsh and violent sense of justice… except when it randomly decides not to. I wouldn’t spend a fortune on it though. Regardless of the variant you get, it’s probably not worth more than $40 sealed. If you get a chance to pick it up at a reasonable price though, I recommend doing so.

The Blu-Ray Format

I’ve been paying attention to the progress of HD media formats since the HD format war kicked off in 2006. I was determined not to buy anything until things shook out and one format emerged as the standard, and it seems like most of the world agreed. Eventually, things tipped in favor of Blu-Ray, and in March 2008, HD-DVD met its end. This is when I consider the true kickoff to Blu-Ray (BD) as the next-gen optical disc format.

However, I still didn’t move. Most of my DVD collection, by far, is anime. For whatever reason, I feel more compelled to “collect” anime than I do American movies. The anime industry hadn’t (and still hasn’t) moved onto BD in a major way. Unlike DVD, whose ability to have multiple audio and subtitle tracks on one disc was a massive advantage for anime, BD doesn’t offer anything much more to anime than an increase in quality. Also, BD is reportedly terribly expensive to license and produce, causing the small independent companies that release the bulk of anime in the US to tread carefully. However, it finally came that something gave me the push I needed — Gundam Unicorn was being released simultaneously worldwide, but only on BD.

With my preorder for Unicorn in place, it was time to get myself a BD player. I considered the PS3, but I have next to no interest in the PS3’s game library at this time, and James Rolfe’s impressions of controlling it as a BD player as well as configuring the audio were less than inspiring. So, I hit the Internet to find out what a good stand-alone BD player was. Since DVD is still a huge part of my viewing, I went with the Panasonic DMP-BD60P-K, as its DVD upscaling ability was praised much more than its Sony counterparts.

I’ve gathered 7 BD discs in the past month, 4 live action films and two anime releases (including Gundam Unicorn). I only have a 720p TV right now, viewing the BD as a bit of an investment in the future, but even then I can clearly see the difference. Not only are things generally sharper and more detailed, but the compression is much better. Gone is the macroblocking in dark scenes and the cross-luminance rainbows in fine detail. When it comes to the actual quality of the show, I have no gripes about BD.

Unfortunately, this thing was developed by Sony, and we all know nothing can be straightforward with them. The biggest problem with BD is the different spec levels or “profiles”. Depending on when your player was made, it may or may not support features which are mandatory on current players. The first players used profile 1.0, which is pretty much just a very high quality DVD. Nothing fancy. Profile 1.1 introduced “Bonus View”, which is an embedded picture-in-picture which can be used for commentary or to show storyboards with the movie, or whatever else they come up with. Profile 2.0, which is supposed to be the “final” profile (for now) introduces BD-Live, the ability for BD discs to connect to the Internet to pull down additional content, participate in live events, or even upload user-created content related to the film.

Now, the profiles also updated the hardware requirements for the player. Profile 1.0 players didn’t really need anything a DVD player didn’t have, aside from it being beefed up with a blue laser diode and processors that could handle BD’s compression formats. Profile 1.1 began to require 256mb of storage, as well as secondary audio and video decoders that would be necessary for the Bonus View feature. Profile 2.0 began to require Internet connectivity (ethernet, wifi or both) and 1gb of storage, both to accomodate BD-Live. Now, all of those things were options even during Profile 1.0, and expensive players might have them. The PS3 certainly did. However, if your older player lacks the necessary hardware, no amount of firmware updates is going to qualify it for the higher specs. Indeed, if it lacks the Internet connectivity, you probably can’t update the firmware anyway, so it’s a moot point.

So, multiple software versions and a list of hardware features. Sound like anything you know? Yeah, it’s the “system requirements” you see on the box for every piece of computer software you ever bought. Make no mistake, your BD player is a computer, and if your setup doesn’t meet its requirements, you may not be able to play a newer disc. Or, at least not be able to take advantage of all its features. That’s what you always wanted right? System requirements for a damn movie? To cope with this, you will often find some sort of warning on the packaging of BD discs informing the customer that the BD disc is made to the highest possible standards, and that if certain features don’t work the customer’s player probably doesn’t support it. Warner Bros even puts a little paper insert into the case to make sure you notice this message. What a joke. I honestly laughed when I first saw this.

One other issue we have isn’t really Sony or the BD format’s fault, but a matter of needing to maintain backward compatibility with older equipment. Most people understand that they need to upgrade to an HDTV to see the HD video on Blu-Ray. What they may not realize, or may be unwilling to do, is replace their surround sound receiver. So, although BD supports shiny new lossless audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio, all BD discs also need to support secondary Dolby Digital or standard DTS tracks for older receivers. The player must be configured according to the capabilities of the receiver to output the proper audio track. This is what bit James with his PS3, needing to tell it to output plain old PCM audio instead of the straight compressed bitstream coming off the disc. My Panasonic player’s factory defaults are for the lowest common denominator, so it will work out of the box with any receiver, at least on some level. If your receiver is more capable, you can consult a confusing as hell matrix in the manual which tell you what combination of settings will yield what results. Oh, fun.

And what about the anime? It seems the anime industry is taking Steve Jobs to heart and considering BD a “bag of hurt”. There are only a few dozen anime releases on BD in the US, and many of them are DBZ movies from Funimation. Obviously, Funimation will have no trouble making that investment back with a sure-fire cash cow like DBZ. Going forward, I see some new titles like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood slated for release on BD, but then neither season of Gundam 00 got the BD treatment. Some shows like Claymore and D.Gray-man were released on BD sometime after their DVD release, which is confusing and frustrating. Very little catalog material from any company has been upgraded, though you can get Samurai Champloo on BD, and Disney released a few Ghibli films on BD to coincide with the release of Ponyo.

BD also has the problem of needing to contend with the changing nature of consumers, and the push to put everything online. Many are heralding the end of physical media entirely, pointing at successful ventures like iTunes or Netflix’s Watch Instantly. Videophiles however are not, and will not any time soon, be satisfied with the quality of streaming or downloadable video. BD is just so high bandwidth that it can afford to have obscenely high bitrates, because it rests on a 50GB disc. The masses of people are not videophiles though. This may leave BD in a similar position as LaserDisc occupied. The masses may well stick with DVD or online video due to low cost and/or convenience, while videophiles put up with the expense and hassle of configuring their BD equipment and juggling discs. Just as videophiles were willing to put up with bulky, awkward and expensive LDs, but the masses were perfectly content with VHS.

So, overall, I consider my BD player an investment in the future. As things come out on BD, I’ll be able to pick them up in that format, enabling me to enjoy the higher quality, and enjoy it even more once my existing TV ages out and gets replaced. The pickings for anime at the moment, however, are horribly slim. Fans of American movies though, you can get just about whatever you want. As long as it’s not Star Wars or anything else George Lucas controls, because he’s being a dickhead again. If you don’t consider yourself a videophile, it may be worth your while to wait and see how this whole online video thing shakes out. Before long, you may be able to pull any movie you want off Netflix right from your TV, and never look at a physical disc again.