Crunchyroll began streaming Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica today, so I watched the first episode during lunch. I was curious to see how it looked at 1080. I took several screencaps; click on them to see them full-size. They look nice, but they’re not razor-sharp. I would guess that the video was upscaled from 720. (The monitor screen is 1920 x 1200, hence the letterboxing. (The images from Madoka’s dream were letterboxed to begin with.))
More screencaps below the fold.
The upper image is from a 720 fansub, enlarged to 1080. The lower is from the Crunchyroll’s 1080 stream. I didn’t do any image manipulation beyond changing the resolution of the former. Which screencap is crisper?
Gosh, such a difference…the difference between the two is pretty large – so much so, in fact, that I think it would effect one’s experience with the show. What’s with the loss of color?