So Close, Yet So Far

Remastered copies of the first Rurouni Kenshin TV series DVD have begun filtering out to retailers, and into the hands of consumers that mailed their defective original version discs back to Media Blasters for a replacement. Rather than a simple re-mastering, the new second pressing of Rurouni Kenshin TV series DVD volume 1 is an entirely new version of the disc, which unfortunately still doesn’t entirely correct the flaws of the original disc. The first issue Rurouni Kenshin DVD suffered from audio phase inversion and the left & right audio channels reversed. The new pressing DVD corrects the phase inversion flaw, and corrects the audio channel stream on episodes 2-4, but episode 1 still has reversed audio channels.

The original DVD was a single layered (DVD-5) disc. The new pressing is a dual-layered (DVD-9) disc, resulting in clearer, better image quality. Unfortunately, this is the only way to distinguish first pressing and second pressing DVDs. The first pressing discs have a silver underside. The dual layered discs have a gold underside. There are no distinguishing markings on the DVD packaging to distinguish between the first issue pressings and the new pressings.

Other differences between the original and new issue disc: the new issue disc includes fresh subtitles that correct spelling errors in the original issue; the new disc includes a straight video track instead of branched opening and ending credits, meaning that the opening & ending sequences no longer need their own loading time; the new issue disc has removed some of the images contained in the image gallery section of the original DVD release.

Source: Anime on DVD