## Info
**Title:** Bleach
**Original title:** BLEACH γγͺγΌγ
**Genre:** Action, Adventure, Supernatural, Shounen
**Original language:** Japanese
**Country:** Japan
**Year:** 2004-2012
**Author:** Tite Kubo
**Director:** Noriyuki Abe
**Studio:** Studio Pierrot
**Episodes:** 366
**Original format:** NTSC DVD 480i Top Field First, 4:3 up to episode 167 and anamorphic 16:9 from episode 168 onward
## Technical Details
**Video source:** R2J DVDISO
**Video base:** MPEG-2 720x480 NTSC interlaced
**Video output:** 640x480 4:3 ep. 001-167, 854x480 16:9 ep. 168-366
**Video codec:** HEVC Main10, 10-bit
**Frame rate:** VFR ~11.988-59.94 fps, dedup=2
**Audio:** JPN / ENG / ITA FLAC 2.0 16bit/48kHz
**Subtitles:** ENG ASS, ITA PGS Full + Sign & Songs where available
## The Project
### Video
The video is based on the Japanese R2J DVDISOs, chosen to preserve the geometry, timing and look of the original SD master. The official Blu-rays are based on the same already-processed SD material and upscale it to 1080p with questionable results; working from the DVDs makes it possible to process the source before that later chain.
The key point is VFR. The NTSC Bleach DVDs alternate, sometimes within the same episode, between telecined sections and sections with real interlaced motion. The pipeline analyzes the content segment by segment: film material is handled with IVTC, real interlaced motion is handled with bob deinterlacing, and the final timeline is written through Matroska timecodes.
This was done with a pipeline written specifically for hybrid NTSC anime sources. Film segments use dedup=2: when two consecutive frames are a visual hold/duplicate, only one frame is kept and the removed frame's duration is transferred to the timestamps.
The video restoration uses two main chains, both applied after resolving the interlace/telecine structure.
**Ep. 001-167**
Light processing on the 4:3 master: ringing and mosquito-noise reduction, dehalo and final debanding. The goal is to clean the signal while keeping lines and textures consistent with the DVD.
**Ep. 168-366**
Stronger processing on the 16:9 master, where haloing and ringing are more visible, especially dark haloing up to 9 px away from the primary lines: line-art cleanup, dehalo through a dedicated 1x AI model and final debanding.
### Audio
The Japanese tracks come from the R2J DVDISOs. The English tracks come from the ASC release up to episode 167 and from OkayRaws from episode 168 onward. The Italian tracks come from the Italian Blu-ray DTS-HD MA audio.
The Italian audio required the most extensive work. The Japanese DVDs and Italian Blu-rays often have different structures and timing, with scenes present in the DVD source but absent from the BD. The tracks were cut and realigned episode by episode; when needed, missing portions were filled from the most coherent source in order to cover the full DVD timeline and avoid gaps or drift.
Audio processing was done in 32-bit float during processing, cutting and segment concatenation. The final master is FLAC 2.0 16bit/48kHz: the 16-bit conversion uses SoX VHQ resampling and Shibata noise-shaped dithering.
### Subtitles
English subtitles up to episode 167 come from ParanDark. From episode 168 onward, Flomp, SGKK and Judas were used as the base, with manual time alignment where needed.
Italian subtitles are PGS from the Italian Blu-rays. They were cut and realigned to the final DVD/VFR episode timeline while preserving the bitmap PGS format.
## Comparison
[Draknodd vs R2J](https://slow.pics/c/adWqnaDP?canvas-mode=fit-height)
## VFR Report
[S01E01](https://postimg.cc/NKDps54f)
[S09E01](https://postimg.cc/dh64sLBL)
[S16E24](https://postimg.cc/hXspDfrX)
## Notes
Software (written by me) and used for this release:
*[anime_vfr](https://github.com/simonefil/anime_vfr)*
Used for the VFR video workflow: hybrid NTSC source analysis, local IVTC/bob decisions, dedup=2 on film segments, final Matroska timecode generation and preparation of the VapourSynth pipeline used for the encode.
*[RemuxForge](https://github.com/simonefil/RemuxForge)*
Used in both Split and Remux mode. In Split mode, it was used to divide the MKVs extracted from the DVD ISOs into episodes while preserving cuts, chapters and VFR timing. In Remux mode, it was used to import audio and subtitles from the other sources, calculate alignments, apply cuts/delays/audio fills where needed, rewrite PGS subtitles to the correct timeline and produce the final mux with FLAC 16bit/48kHz audio.
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