Video:

The vide quality on this set was very nice, for the most part. I had very bad video problems in the first three episodes or so. Everytime anything moved (blink, nod, whatever) lines filled the screen (think Cowboy Bebop during gun fights, only much worse) It seems that I am the only one who had this problem, so you don't have to worry too much. After that though, everything was good. There was one scene with macro blocking, but it only lasted a split second. There was a little pixelation in a few scenes, mostly the background while people are driving.

Audio:

I only watched the dub, but everything seems really good. The soundtrack on NOIR is one of the best I've ever heard on an anime. The music really helps set the mood of the story.

Subtitle:

didn't check the regular subs, but the song subs were cool.

Comment:

This is a grat show. It starts out a little slow, but its definitely exciting enough to keep you entertained. Women with guns, what could be better? It starts to get really good about halfway through, but by the time I got to the end, it left me wanting a little more. The no blood thing is not bad for the most part, but its hard to tell when people are injured. For example, when Kirika got shot in the arm it just looks like a little scrape, but it is so bad that she can't hold her gun. Little things like that bothered me. Overall though, a very exciting, very good show. I definitely reccomend this one.

Video:

I thought the video was great quality. I have a widescreen HDTV and a widescreen laptop, and this show is in widescreen, so I thought it looked great. I didn't notice the pixelation that the others talk about. Maybe I was just staring at the shapely Anime women shooting guns everywhere.

Audio:

Holy cow! 5.1 audio for both the Japanese and English tracks. I have a 7.1 system and this rocked my socks off. The sound is as well engineered as many Hollywood shoot-outs. I have to say that the English language actors really blow, but the Japanese actors are great.

Subtitle:

These are amazingly accuarate. In the whole series I only remember two instances of Engrish. They are ripped from region 1 discs, so it's the American subtitles who are to blame.

Comment:

THis is truly one of the best anime series ever made. I know that's a big thing to say considering the series is only 3 or 4 years old, but it has one of the most intriguing stories. If you like the Bourne Identity/Supremacy movies and are a big fan of La Femme Nikita, Alias, and Bond, you'll flip for this. It has great mystery, kick ass action, some of the most clever ways I've ever seen people be killed, and it has a surprisinlgy touching love story. Anime Lesbian Assassin Lovers! How can you go wrong? (I should stress that the lesbianism is not overt. It's just hinted at. Go find some Hentai if that's what you want.)

Video:

Pretty good considering this has a decent amount of action. It gets a little pixelated during parts with al lot of action, but it's not noticable enough to ruin your experience(unless you have a really picky eye).

Audio:

Nior has exellent music that fits the mood perfectly. The sound quality very good in this set.

Subtitle:

The subs are very good from what i've seen. No engrish here folks. Also, the english voice acting is pretty good in this set, and i would recommend watching it that way considering this show doesnt have a lot of dialogue but rather relies on suttle facial expressions.

Comment:

Overall this is a great set with awesome packaging. The box art is amazing and captures the feel of the series, which is dark and mysterious. For most of the series the whole story is shrouded in mystery. The series starts of slow, but dont worr,t he action picks by the second half and gets pretty exicting.

Video:

Pretty good can get a little pixely(if thats even a word) during quick action scenes, otherwise unnoticeable to the average joe being me. Might be because they stuff all those episodes on 3 discs, including intro's endings and previews.

Audio:

5.1 Japanese - Great i watched with the subs 5.1 English - Checked it out once in a while, it seemed like a decent dub

Subtitle:

Awesome subs, nice yellow without any errors, just perfection

Comment:

Nice box set, has some extra's and is flawless in the audio subtitle department.

Video:

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed in this department... FX was getting better and better with their newer and newer releases... and then I have to see all this pixelation during the action scenes. As mentioned in another review, this problem is prominent in the first DVD especially. I can live with it, and you can too, likely... but my standards for FX are getting very high, and this doesn't meet them.

Audio:

Well... they dropped the ball in the video department, however, the audio is -phenomenal-. The gunshots, mouseclicks, soundtrack, and voice acting are all phenomenal... and you won't miss a beat in this transfer. Big kudos to FX here.

Subtitle:

Very well done on the source... and this is clearly just a transfer of that. Easy to read, and easy to follow. If you prefer the japanese voice track on most of your anime, you have nothing to worry about here.

Comment:

Noir is a fun, mysterious, action-filled series. It's not as epic as X, Escaflowne, or Berserk... but it has a nice style to it, and I was entertained through and through. I recommend it, though it's not easily as re-watchable as most other shows in my collection, if that influences your buying habits at all.

Video:

This series is rip from R1 dvd so the picture is very clear however there're too many ep. in one disc that make you see many pixelation in action scene especialy action scene in the dark and in disc one too, I try to check on disc 3 (cause it is only 8 ep.) and I found disc3 is the best. but it's not big problem this series still great

Audio:

both of eng. and jap. is great

Subtitle:

I can't see any problem.

Comment:

This is my favorite series I really love the story and I really love this box set it's very nice however I think Fx should be make it on 4 disc and that will be perfect cause Noir is the action animation so there're many action scene. This series is the best for you to collect it .

Video:

Slight pixelation as mentioned by others, not a problem in the main as at this price its worth it so it is still a 5 especially if you watch this on normal tvs, you CAN grab the ADV versions if your that fussy but I don't know about them, Otherwise no real problems to speak of.

Audio:

Great sound which possibly why the video had to suffer a bit. Voices are fine no problems I could hear anyway. Love the music for this series as its really cool. There are 3 soundtracks(I think) out if you like the rushed classical style with vocal harmony - kinda hard to explain really. I think another series(that I can't think of the name at the moment) has similar music but Noir music is something that once heard you will recognize again.

Subtitle:

No problems that i can see with this at all as it's a R1 rip and their usually fine - easy to read

Comment:

A long anime with little fun. this anime has a seriousness along the lines of the current(in Japan) Yugo and and Area 88 sort of very real world like, rather than in your face light hearted comedy. a mix of slow and fast pacing that makes it kinda seem movieish, which is both good and bad - it may be too long for some people, and to others the development of the characters breaks the action scenes up very nicely. This is a anime which is boardcast on cable in the US so look out for it and check out a few episodes to see if you like it as it dark and serious but a cool anime to watch.

Video:

Has some pixelation in some scenes. Most the first disc. The series suffers because of the dolby digital 5.1 surround sound on a 3 disc series like this.

Audio:

Great audio with 5.1 sound but would have prefered normal stereo so the video would have been perfect.

Subtitle:

No engrish.

Comment:

Not a bad series. Interesting plot but like i said, the video suffered in some parts but mostly the first disc. Recommended. Pixelation was not bad, the only really bad scene was on the first episode where the main character is running through some bamboo.

Video:

Sometimes the video didn't looked that clean, especially in night sequences. It was a very good R1 rip I'll tell you that, comparing other new series out there!

Audio:

Great audio, both japanese and english tracks sounded perfect!

Subtitle:

I saw the series entirely in Japanese with subtitles and I didnt saw any problems with the subs. Perfect R1 ripped subs!!

Comment:

This is one of the best new series!!. Its all drama and action and I love it!. I love the characters, they all add their unique style to the series. The story development is great. The story is quite a shocker also. I love this series everyone should give it a try and like always FX did a fantastic job!. Don't hesitate, ORDER IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Video:

Okay, the current set in circulation is pretty good in quality. Probley arround a 4 out of 5 in quality. They are not perfect, as there is a bit of pixilation and a brief glimpse of macroblocking in a few scenes. Overall the video is vibrant, sharp, and great looking when in play, especially on a low def tv, where the sets flaws are hardly noticable. The reason for the differance in reviews is that FX released two versions of the set. The unofficial "remastered" (they did not anounce it as being remastered, but it is) set is now in circulation. If you look at the "screenshots" section of the review on this site, you will see where I posted screen caps of the "remastered" version in the exact same frame as the "first release" screens captured by Llark. The differance is very clear that the current release is much better. Note to PS2 users: We began to watch this set on my PS2, and the video showed up VERY VERY interlaced, making for a big distraction when watching the series. However, on my PC, it played fine, with no real trace of the interlacing.

Comment:

Overall the set is not perfect, but is is pretty much on par with all other well-done HK perfect collections.

Video:

YES! 5/5! There is no pixelations and the colors are crystal clear.

Audio:

The sound is nearly perfect in both languages except one or two times when it can sound like parasites in the background.

Subtitle:

A pretty good translation with only one or two errors.

Comment:

Noir is a great serie with an intrigue unequalled yet and an animation quality so good than it makes it a must-have!!!

Video:

Ive heard a lot of people get alot of pixelation etc... with this title. (mine came from IA first batch). The video is fine nothing wrong with it what so ever, i use Mitsubishi 710 diamond (monitor)( it is two screens in one), geforce 3( with hardware acceleration), power dvd 5.

Audio:

very good a clear for the english dub, the voices are ok. Audigy 2 ZS, megaworks

Subtitle:

im tooo lazy to watch subtitles

Comment:

A very good series, some of the music is similar to hack sign. I recommend this series to all people.

Video:

Great video when there's little to no motion. Sadly enough, Noir is an action-heavy series, and the sequences are gorgeously choreographed at that. Too bad it's hard to enjoy them with the heavy amount of interlacing you can see in the video. 3.5Mbps video rate, which I would consider not so great (like FX's Cowboy Bebop set).

Audio:

Clear Japanese audio track, great ED song.

Subtitle:

Easy to understand, yellow subs. I think there were a few subs that were slightly mis-timed or dropped, but nothing bad.

Comment:

The video ruins the set, although the strength of Noir's story kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the 2nd half (when things really pick up). Wish FX would keep video quality more consistent with its sets.

Video:

On my Widescreen Sony TV this DVD set looks pretty bad. Aside from the pixelation (which in and of itself is not so bad), what really destroys the video presentation of this set is the "ghosting" of the video image in action scenes. Whenever something moves (even if it's not fast) there is a jagged-edged "ghost" imprint of the previous frame. It's not just something you see if you pause the video either. It is incredibly noticible while in regular play. It completely takes you out of the show. I thought that we were well past amatuer mistakes like this, FX. This is just inexcusable.

Audio:

No complaints about the audio at all. Both English and Japanese tracks are great. Perfect.

Subtitle:

The subs are perfect.

Comment:

Seriously, come on, FX, this is really sad. When MAC can put out incredible R1 rips (the Crest of the Stars set is immaculate), but you have trouble with stuff like Noir and Argentosoma. Man, I'll be hoping that MAC puts out everything themselves in the future.

Video:

If nothing is moving, or just moving slowly, the transfer is very nice (no bleeding, sharp, good color, clear). When images are moving at a reasonable rate (which for this show is very often) there is very, very noticable blocking. I don't believe that this is an overcompression issue so much as a poorly compressed rip. Like they didn't quite set other parameters right. Bit rate on it was generally around 5MBPS which would give way better results than was shown here. I did a few checks and on disc 2 the bitrate actually went up to around 7 for 2 whole episodes. Of a DVD9, pretty well all available space was used up, barring about a 1/2 GB. I'm trying to be fair here, but the bad blocking on pretty well every fast moving scene was ridiculous and unforgiveable. Compare to a transfer handling as much or more action like Blue Gender, this is an example of doing it wrong. In response to a previous review, I am only watching on a standard definition TV set, and the issues are just as noticable. The sample images posted do clearly show the problem.

Audio:

No sound issues per-se, but if you watch episodes one after another (as I do and I suspect most others), the language resets to english dub on my player.

Subtitle:

No issues at all.

Comment:

The image issues (which I classify as very major) make it hard for me to comment too fairly on the overall set. Errors that occur that this frequently are too difficult to "get used to" like you can with standard noise, edge enhancement, or bleeding.

Video:

The video quality is decent. Decent as in good, better-than-average, but quite a ways from perfect. I'd say it looks like a mediocre digisub ripped from DVD's. There's a lot of mosquito noise and macroblocking around fast-moving edges (reminds me of a badly-compressed jpeg image). [See screenshots] Solid colors aren't completely solid. The colors kinda shift around (think DivX compression). I noticed all this when watching the set on HDTV and my computer screen. If you have a regular television, and if you're not a video nitpick like me, I'd doubt you'll notice anything serious. And even if you do watch it with a HDTV, you won't notice anything if you sit a good, healthy 10 feet away from the screen. ;-)

Audio:

Sounded great on my home theatre system. I don't usually pay much attention to sound. [Though I must say the music from Noir is some of the best I've heard.]

Subtitle:

R1-ripped. I didn't see any mistimings, misspellings, or dropped lines. The subs were yellow and more squat-looking than on other DVD's I've seen. My X set has the same kind of subs though, so that's probably the font they use these days.

Comment:

The menus, although rather simple, are very easy to navigate. [See screenshot] Extras: Disc 1 - Creditless open and ending Disc 2 - same as the first disc Disc 3 - Production sketches

Video:

noticed minro pixelation during a few fighting secnes, mostly dark fighting scenes. either than that it was great

Audio:

both tracks are nice although sometimes I had trouble understanding what they said due that they talked with a low voice

Subtitle:

60% of the subs match the dubbed version, the rest are similiar, very close, subs are clear yellow subs. All subs there, no missing lines nor mistakes.

Comment:

nice little set to have. those that don'T want to pay a bundle to get the series but still have great quality buy this set, it's perfect.