#### Big thanks to: * **WPR**: for helping out with the dubs * **ZeroCool**: for providing the LD audio * **NLScavenger**: for providing the JP DVD * **RainingTerror**: for providing the 2010 JP BD * **ghsushsu123**: subtitles (TS) and general help * **Mysteria**: subtitles (TS, editing, timing) * **nedragrevev**: subtitles (TS, TL, editing, timing) #### [Discord](https://discord.gg/PMrccmpYTu) #### Other films in the Ghibli project: * [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind](/view/1425023) * [My Neighbor Totoro](/view/1445155) * [Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro](/view/1700966) ___ ### Laputa: Castle in the Sky (v2) * #### This new version mainly comes with various fixes and revisions to the subtitles. ### Video Owing to the competent further utilization of the quality scan of its film elements, Laputa is in the same boat as My Neighbour Totoro and Nausicaä in that there's not really much an encode could do for it. The video on *some* of the Blu-rays for it looks good overall and doesn't seem to be in any dire need of extra tinkering, so as long as it's from one of the decent ones, the raw BD video ought to please anyone looking for a top-notch version. The encodes currently out there are admittedly fine if your goal is more so to have the movie easily accessible while saving on space as much as possible, but purely regarding PQ, I doubt any simple encode of this one will beat a remux counterpart (barring any future ones that improve or fix something, of course). With this in mind, I went with the 2014 Miayzaki Collection set JP BD for the video in this upload. The 2014 JP BD in a not-so-surprising continuing fashion from previous Ghibli Project uploads looked the best out of all the releases compared. Like with Totoro, it looks much like the earlier JP BD but beats it when it comes to the fine grain and small detail (assumedly thanks to better authoring and the generally higher bitrate), making it the best possible pick in this case as well. An easy thing to see at this point is that the Miyazaki box set has proven to be of decent value for anyone willing to pay for its hefty price tag that imaginably equals half a month's rent in some places. For all us folks unable to cough up the money for the mighty physical set, this upload should hopefully work as somewhat of a substitute for one of the two movies in it that "[student film director](https://i.imgur.com/6j6UICp.png)" Mamoru Oshii admits to liking. ### Audio If you're curious about the specific characteristics of any of the tracks across the compared releases, see the spectrogram, waveform, and mastering graph screenshots linked below for the more direct data. Feel free to also send my way any tracks from BDs/DVDs of Laputa that I haven't looked at. I'm always eager to make the comparisons as extensive as possible. #### Japanese 2.0 * **1996 JP LD**: No noticeable issues and basically the same as the 2012 Disney US BD save for the sooner roll-off point at around 20 kHz. * **2002 JP R2 DVD**: Same as the 1996 JP LD but with slightly more drastic low and high-end roll-offs. (448 kbps) * **2003 US R1 DVD**: Same as the 2002 JP DVD except that the first 54 minutes are quieter for some reason. (192 kbps) * **2010 JP BD**: The soundstage is slightly narrower, i.e., the audio contents (mostly music and some SFX) aren't as widely panned to the sides and play more strongly from the center area. The mastering is a bit less bright and has a hint more of low bass compared to the LD mastering. There are also these occasional "amplification edits" that aren't present on the LD version. See the waveform comparisons and you should notice how some sections have been made louder while others have been kept the same (or it could be the older versions are more limited somehow). If they're indeed edits I guess they're supposed to make things stand out more in the mix? * **2011 AU BD**: Same as the 2010 JP BD. * **2011 UK BD**: Same as the 2010 JP BD. * **2012 Disney US BD**: The best iteration of the LD version due to having the greatest range of the audio intact with no apparent issues hindering the quality. Being lossless doesn't hurt either. * **2014 JP BD**: Same as the 2010 JP BD. * **2017 Gkids US BD**: Has amplified sections that largely match the 2010 JP BD, yet strangely enough, has the LD version's wider soundstage. The mastering, while not hugely different by any means, is also unique from every other release. The ED song abruptly ends ~1.5s earlier on this one. From the above releases, I've included the Disney BD, 2014 JP BD, and Gkids BD tracks. I saw them as being distinct enough from each other for it to make sense to include all three for a more comprehensive package. To make it less confusing, try to see the Disney BD track as the original audio, the JP BD track as something akin to a remix, and the Gkids BD track as a kind of hybrid of the two. The Gkids ED song issue was fixed by splicing in the needed audio from the Disney BD track. #### English 5.1 & Dual-Mono Choosing the right track could prove difficult for those wanting to watch the dub as there are four unique tracks in total to choose from. The first and one of the more uncommon ones of these is Laputa's first-ever English language dub, produced back in the 80s by Magnum Video Tape & Dubbing. Having been originally made for the sole purpose of in-flight entertainment, it is unsurprisingly OOP these days and often harder to come by than the later Disney dubs. The two home video releases to ever include it are the 2002 JP R2 DVD and the 1996 JP LaserDisc, from which [ZeroCool](/user/PeePeePooPoo69) graciously provided the audio for me to use here. The quality of the LD track was as good as it could get for this old mono dub, but how it was straight from the LD, it wouldn’t completely sync up with the JP BD video. To fix this, I went through the track and made sure it synced up. Where it gets more complicated, then, is with the three versions of the 1998 Disney dub: ___ #### **1. 2003 version** * Despite having been produced in 1998, the first (and last) official release to include this original version of the Disney dub was the company's 2003 US R1 DVD. * Has a new purely orchestral film score by Joe Hisaishi that was also apparently approved by Miyazaki. * A big chunk of the sound effects has been replaced with new sounds, with the old ones either removed or mixed down to a nearly inaudible level. * Has a good amount of new dialogue lines interspersed throughout. ##### **Other notes:** * The mix is at parts rather low-intensity compared to the other versions. It's to the point where a few scenes feel almost like theater plays due to the music and ambient/effect sounds accompanying the dialogue being too sparse and/or too quiet, and on occasion, the dialogue can even sound overpowering to some degree. One way to possibly alleviate this could be to make other channels louder, it's just that tinkering with the levels of a multichannel mix is apparently often a balancing act. * Compared to this version's closest variant, the 2011 version, the audio in the center (Ch. 3) and back channels (Ch. 5 & 6) has a tiny bit more energy in the whole 6 kHz - 15.5 kHz region, which *might* make the dialogue and music sound airier and spacier for some people. Also has a somewhat less pronounced LFE channel (Ch. 4), so some bigger sound effects, although relatively newly made, can lack some impact and sound more lightweight in comparison to the later versions. * Didn't at first fully sync up with the JP BD video but has now been properly synced. * Had one ~220ms-long glitch that has been fixed. ___ #### **2. 2010 version** * First released on the 2010 Disney US DVD and then in a lossless format two years later on the 2012 Disney US BD. * Has Hisaishi's original film score from the 80s. * Has the original sound effects from the 80s. * Removes a majority of the dialogue added in the 2003 version. ##### **Other notes:** * [Most likely](https://pastebin.com/raw/n4Z1gEbR) a 6.1ch [DTS ES-Matrix](https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-dts-es-1846890) mix in a 5.1ch configuration. * Closest to the original Japanese mix. Go with this if you already know you prefer the original over the remixes. * ED song sounds a lot nicer. It seems to have been upmixed again from scratch as it's timed more like the JP tracks and the EQ split of the channels is different from the 2003 and 2011 versions. * The center channel on both this and the 2011 version has additional reverb on the dialogue in scenes where reverb is used. Not easily noticeable, however. ___ #### **3. 2011 version** * First released on the 2011 UK BD. * Has the new orchestral film score. * Has the original sound effects. * Removes a majority of the dialogue added in the 2003 version. ##### **Other notes:** * Except for the things mentioned up to this point, nothing worth noting at the time of uploading. I'll update this if anything interesting comes to light. ___ All the info in the list should be OK, but please let me know if you find anything to be incorrect or misleading. ### Subtitles THORA's script, which uses the official translation, was first QC'd to a smaller extent by me, then checked and edited by [Mysteria](/?f=0&c=0_0&q=Mysteria), and lastly, largely modified and polished by [nedragrevev](https://github.com/nedragrevev/custom-subs). The title card sign was done collectively by me, Mysteria, ghsushsu123, and nedragrevev. ED TS was done by nedragrevev. Included as a legacy option are THORA's subtitles with the new TS added but otherwise unaltered. Let me know if you find any errors! Don't use VLC. ### Comparisons [Japanese 2.0](https://slow.pics/c/05Gk7HWf) | [English 5.1](https://slow.pics/c/OJwejCYN) | [English Dual-Mono](https://slow.pics/c/xOzA4rU0) | [Video (by RainingTerror)](https://slow.pics/c/PrAd69yG) (JPN MGVC BD = 2014 JP BD) ### Specifics (tracklist in comments ↓) [MediaInfo](https://pastebin.com/XThzEYPS)