**Due to issues with contrast on this one, it has been superseded by [//www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=499455](//www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=499455)** There are five previously-available versions of this that I am aware of: 1) MKV file based on the Indian Entertainment bootleg DVD. Really good quality and properly converted to progressive frames, but with annoying watermarks from Indian Entertainment. 2) AVI file apparently based on VHS. Picture has a lot of ghosting and is improperly deinterlaced (blend mode), resolution is 528x368, and audio is a lousy 96 kbps. Nonetheless this was my preferred version due to the lack of watermarks. 3) WMV file (LD rip) that was available on Winny and similar services. I've never actually seen this one, and it is probably long gone from file-sharing services. 4) RMVB file from da-anime.org. 320X240 capture of the hardsubbed U.S. Manga Corps VHS tape. Very little to recommend about this one, except perhaps nostalgia value for those who grew up with that VHS version. :) 5) AVI of an Italian (DVD?) source, entitled "La Foresta delle Sirene". Has the original audio track and an Italian dubbed track. Certain intertitles and other content are translated into English (!) (e.g. the very first intertitle says "FEBRUARY 1936" instead of 一九三六年二月). Godawful blend deinterlacing. So when I happened upon an LD version online at a good price, I couldn't resist buying it. The laserdisc itself is in pristine condition, with no scratches whatsoever, and I made a new capture. Details: - Captured with the Micomsoft XCAPTURE-1 through composite (LD video is natively composite, unfortunately) at 720x480 with Lagarith lossless codec and PCM audio. - The main feature is telecined, so I was able to inverse telecine it to restore the original progressive frames. Unfortunately, the studio logo and credits were interlaced, so, after YADIF deinterlacing them, I had to convert them to 23.976 to match the rest of the film. I was able to get a pretty good result nonetheless by using YADIF's bob mode to get a fluid 60 fps, then converting from that down to 23.976, so there is no jerky motion on these sequences as there was initially when I used the default 30 fps YADIF mode. - Video was compressed using x264 at CRF 18.0 with the Veryslow and Animation presets, and audio was compressed to 192kbs AAC in iTunes. - I added the U.S. Manga Corps subtitles I transcribed myself, along with a more literal fansub that came with (2), a Russian fansub I found online (on which I did my best to get the timing right without actually editing each individual timecode), and the Italian audio track from (5) above, so there are quite a few options here, though I did not go so far as to include the English subs from the Indian Entertainment release ("You were attacked by a mink, right?"). :)