It all started in 2009 when the P4 ER was just starting. I watched about 30 episodes before I decided that I wanted to play P4 for myself and then did so. Flash forward earlier this year in 2012, I found myself wanting to revisit P4 and thought, what better way to do it then watching the P4 ER!

I got a few episodes in before I asked myself this question; wouldn’t it be awesome to have a physical copy of this? You know, for when the zombie apocalypse comes and all cloud storage as we know it is gone!? Although I don’t see how having the P4 ER on Blu-ray would help me in that situation... That’s not the point! Right, the point is I have always had a soft spot for physical media and I thought doing this would be a fun side project. Also once I start something, it must be finished… it must.

I present to you the Persona 4: Endurance Run Blu-ray set!

Now to talk more about the technical stuff, stop reading here if you’re not interested.

So I took all 155 episodes and put them on 5 Verbatim inkjet printable Blu-ray discs. The first 4 are 50 gig dual layered while the last is a standard 25 gig disc. Most of my original content was done in the first week. Accurate calendar intro's for each episode, unique outro's for each disc, Blu-ray menu, disc and case art. What took the most amount of time was downloading all the episodes (at the best quality GB offers) and having to go through each one, formatting them with new borders to retain their original aspect ratio (640x360) to be displayed in 720 x 480. I then had to batch convert them all to H.264 Blu-ray standard to burn.

For those wondering “Why didn’t you make em 1080p brah!” I did try to convert them to higher aspect ratios and tested them out on some bd-re’s, but I realized that they looked like crap, so I decided to keep the original aspect ratio. The very beginning intro and outro's to each disc are presented in 1080p, as burning with Toast allows you to have different video formats that can play continuously on a disc. I was originally going to leave the little calendar intro's for each episode in their native 1920x1080 resolution but, realized that Toast 11 only allows 99 tracks per disc. So i had to bake them in to each episode as I was giving them new borders.

I had originally intended to make the Blu-ray menus much more complex with moving graphics and such, but after much research I found out the software today to do this is either very limited, or very very expensive. Adobe Encore was the cheapest I could find that offered more complex Blu-ray menus, but it is not sold as a standalone product. Paying $800 for the entire Adobe Premiere Pro suite for one program just didn’t seem like a good idea. So good ol’ Toast 11 it was.

I am happy with how it turned out. The Blu-ray disc images are big, like almost 48 gigs each. Maybe if Giant Bomb ever got some licensing deals sorted out with Atlus they could offer them to the GB fans, but I highly doubt that would ever happen...

INVESTIGATION TEAM GO!

It all started in 2009 when the P4 ER was just starting. I watched about 30 episodes before I decided that I wanted to play P4 for myself and then did so. Flash forward earlier this year in 2012, I found myself wanting to revisit P4 and thought, what better way to do it then watching the P4 ER!

I got a few episodes in before I asked myself this question; wouldn’t it be awesome to have a physical copy of this? You know, for when the zombie apocalypse comes and all cloud storage as we know it is gone!? Although I don’t see how having the P4 ER on Blu-ray would help me in that situation... That’s not the point! Right, the point is I have always had a soft spot for physical media and I thought doing this would be a fun side project. Also once I start something, it must be finished… it must.

I present to you the Persona 4: Endurance Run Blu-ray set!

Now to talk more about the technical stuff, stop reading here if you’re not interested.

So I took all 155 episodes and put them on 5 Verbatim inkjet printable Blu-ray discs. The first 4 are 50 gig dual layered while the last is a standard 25 gig disc. Most of my original content was done in the first week. Accurate calendar intro's for each episode, unique outro's for each disc, Blu-ray menu, disc and case art. What took the most amount of time was downloading all the episodes (at the best quality GB offers) and having to go through each one, formatting them with new borders to retain their original aspect ratio (640x360) to be displayed in 720 x 480. I then had to batch convert them all to H.264 Blu-ray standard to burn.

For those wondering “Why didn’t you make em 1080p brah!” I did try to convert them to higher aspect ratios and tested them out on some bd-re’s, but I realized that they looked like crap, so I decided to keep the original aspect ratio. The very beginning intro and outro's to each disc are presented in 1080p, as burning with Toast allows you to have different video formats that can play continuously on a disc. I was originally going to leave the little calendar intro's for each episode in their native 1920x1080 resolution but, realized that Toast 11 only allows 99 tracks per disc. So i had to bake them in to each episode as I was giving them new borders.

I had originally intended to make the Blu-ray menus much more complex with moving graphics and such, but after much research I found out the software today to do this is either very limited, or very very expensive. Adobe Encore was the cheapest I could find that offered more complex Blu-ray menus, but it is not sold as a standalone product. Paying $800 for the entire Adobe Premiere Pro suite for one program just didn’t seem like a good idea. So good ol’ Toast 11 it was.

I am happy with how it turned out. The Blu-ray disc images are big, like almost 48 gigs each. Maybe if Giant Bomb ever got some licensing deals sorted out with Atlus they could offer them to the GB fans, but I highly doubt that would ever happen...

INVESTIGATION TEAM GO!

This is effin' impressive.

Any chance you could put the files for the jacket/sleeves online?

Um...wow. 

That is damn awesome, duder.

Well done. You sir are my hero.

HOW MUCH!!?!?!

This is... incredibly impressive. Love the back of the box quotes "Bear witness..." I see what you did there.

If I had to change something, I would have made the title P4ER, or maybe just P4E for Endurance Run. They did P4A for the animation and P3P for portable. But, whatever man. It's perfect as is. I'd pay real moneys for that.

That is...pretty fucking impressive mate. Man, I'd so buy a copy of that even though it seems unnecessary...but MAN.

thats crazy and impressive

My gawd... it's everything I ever dreamed it would be...

Pretty amazing, it looks fantastic!

I will don't understand why people want to watch someone else play a entire videogame. Could someone explain it to me? I'm really curious.

Amazing job!!!!

That is the best fan made ANYTHING i have ever seen.

OH MY GOD.

(I still need to finish watching that endurance run)

You should send a box set to Vinny and Jeff!

Well motherfucker...

You will make me one of these right now, young man!! For free too! You can't sell something this beautiful, you have to give it to the people!

P.S. 48 gigs images?! WTF?

I had the idea first!

Seriously though, that's awesome. Well done.

I would totally buy a set like this if someone made it. There is no way it would get made officially and there is no way I could download all the episodes myself to make it (tiny download speed and limited access times to internet) but id love to have it on a shelf since I loved it.

good god man... we are not worthy

This is the best kind of crazy.

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

I will don't understand why people want to watch someone else play an entire videogame. Could someone explain it to me? I'm really curious.

Its for people who have a lot of time on their hands and love witty banter, the kind of weirdos that like Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

I would buy a Blu-Ray player just for this alone. Pretty freaking awesome.

Holy hell... 
 
That's awesome, dude!

You done good.

Holy crap is that impressive, great work

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

I will don't understand why people want to watch someone else play a entire videogame. Could someone explain it to me? I'm really curious.

Persona 4 is incredibly story driven, and if you skip all the episodes where they just grind and fuse personas, it's pretty much the equivalent of watching a tv show, or a long anime. Except Vinny and Jeff are there to comment on everything, which will make anything more entertaining. If anything, you should watch a few episodes of the Best Of on youtube, maybe that will clear up why people fell in love with it and beg for more.

Oh dude, I'd pay out of the nose for this.

If they sold that on the WM shop, I would buy two! Wait, make that three!!

Wow, I would so buy one of those!

This is pretty much the coolest thing ever and has me looking at blu-ray writers online.

I would definitely buy this. This is spectacular!

This... I want this... SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO badly.

WHAT DO YOU WANT? I WILL GIVE YOU ANYTHING...

Holy shit, that's awesome!

Duuuuuuuuude. That is amazing. Hats off to you, good sir.

if it ever came out in a place I could purchase it would easily spend up to 100 dollars

This is incredible.

Gosh Dang Perfect.  
 
I love you. You're a wonderful person.

Wow, this is pretty awesome. I think the only way to host those BD images is to make a torrent or pay for some webhosting. That or parting it out to some file sharing site, which isn't that ideal.

@MikeFightNight: Any chance you could put up the Blu-Ray ISOs somewhere?

YOU BRILLIANT BASTARD!

You might be my hero.

Not sure on the legality of this as I don't think you can sell these copies without permission from Whiskey Media and/or Atlus. It's still awesome!

@Bocam said:

@MikeFightNight: Any chance you could put up the Blu-Ray ISOs somewhere?

wait like some gigantic p2p thing? Even all of us dedicated fans would be hard pressed to seed the hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes. Plus I think whiskey media would think that was infringement. Someone should ask them if they're cool with it though even if torrenting giant 40+gb isos would fail spectacularly we could at least try xD.

SO AMAZING

Anyone who has not watched the OG Endurance Run, watch it, right now. Stop whatever you are doing, it is not as important, go watch it, take some crystal meth so you can marathon all 100+ hours of it at once. It is probably the best thing this site has ever produced. It was like watching your favourite TV show every day, for over 6 months. It was the highlight of my day.

I would buy that so fast. I'm actually watching through the original Endurance Run right now, I'm on like episode 18. I always forget just how hilarious the girl rolling on E sitting in her desk it. Cracks me up every time. "I AM THE MUSHROOM QUEEN"

I would like to thank everybody for all their kind words! I started this as a dumb thing just for myself and a few friends, but I am happy to see that others can appreciate it too!

Here is all my money, please take it.

This is awesome.

Insert meme image of Fry throwing money at stuff.

Absolutely incredible job. You should definitely make/send a copy to Jeff and Vinny. I imagine there might be some problems with Atlus/Whiskey Media about selling copies, otherwise you could probably make quite a bit from the GB community, including myself. Would love to have a physical copy like that.

Holy shit dude! That's amazing work right there. I would love to make my own copy from it, but I sadly don't have a blu-ray burner. So, can I send you money and just get a copy from you? =P

Yeah I'm totally going to do that now. Fucking rad.