Anime Moves To DVD

Robotech_Master writes: "In the wake of other Japanese animation vendors moving select titles to DVD-only, AnimEigo recently announced it would be releasing all future titles (including the remastered subtitled Macross series due out by the end of the year) on DVD only, due to the fading VHS animé market no longer being able to support itself. This article explains why in economic terms, and the implications for the larger video market overall." This is a fantastic article. I still can't believe I'll have Macross before BTTF.

Anime DVD Reviews

I have a website I'm working on that has reviews of Anime DVDs. People might find it interesting. It's at:

http://www.xalien.com/anime/ [xalien.com]

Hope you like it.

DVD player multi-region hacks

A list [reviewer.co.uk] of DVD players that are multi-region hackable (with hacks), for those of us that can't wait for country specific releases :-)

Finally!

I pre-ordered Urusei Yatsura on DVD over a year ago from Animeigo. 40 episodes of the TV series on DVD, woo-hoo!

On topic, when Animeigo first started this project, they were talking about squeezing a bunch on each disk and selling the series for what would calculate out to $50 or so each DVD. A bunch of people freaked out, saying that they had been trained to expect each DVD to cost $20, no matter if it was a half hour documentary or 4 hours of Anime.

This brings up an interesting point: People have been trained to pay for media, not content. Even though they are getting what they would pay $200 for on VHS, they complain because they equate DVD Disc with a set price.

This is the same thing that Napster is showing in our culture. People don't have a problem with sharing MP3s, but physical CDs are another matter. We still (for the most part) purchase bunches of CDs (at the price we've been trained to expect) when we like the music, even though we might have already downloaded the specific song off Napster or Gnutella.

There's more

In addition to the points raised in the article, there's another thing to consider: It's expensive to produce VHS releases - More expensive than producing DVD (though cheaper than LD.) I realize that Audio CDs cost more than tapes, but never mind that.

DVDs seem to be about the same price as VHS, or a touch more, and they cost less to make per unit; The packaging is pretty cheap, especially in lots of a zillion, and it's all lighter and takes up less space, plus you can fit more on a DVD (including promotional material for your other productions) and more in the keepcase (including promotional... oh, you get the idea.)

DVD is also convenient because you don't have to go back and forth between analog and digital. You do a transfer from the final editing copy of the film (anamorphic, we hope) along with appropriate audio. The audio can then be fucked around with to do Dolby 5.1 or what have you, but usually you get standard Dolby encoded in the normal two uncompressed PCM audio tracks on anime. It's kind of amusing to watch my Sony receiver light up blue when the Dolby Demo Clip pops on, or the menu loads, and that stuff is in 5.1, and then the blue light goes off and the display reads PCM 44.1KHz. :)

"animeondvd"

A rather good site I get my Anime DVD news from is:

http://www.animeondvd.com/ [animeondvd.com]

Nothing wrong with the occasional Anime post on slashdot, but I agree that it should be its category.

Re:It was bound to happen.

There is a snandard for DVD. Just some cheap DVD players that came out around last Christmas didn't bother to support dual-layer DVD's. The Matrix is dual-layer, so any player that can't support it will act weird. If I remember right, the GE and RCA under $120 or so players were the ones with this problem. The local Best Buy saw almost a 100% return on these.

I'm glad more companies are supporting Anime on DVD. So far, my collection only includes what is out on DVD. I refuse to pay $25 for 2 episodes subbed, and $30 for 2 dubbed of Neon Genesis VHS when I can buy 4 episodes subbed, and dubbed in English, French, and Spanish for $15 on DVD.

Now all we need is the average street price of all DVD's to come down to compete with VHS movies. I've been supporting DVD since late 1998, and so far, only good things have happened. (Special editions of movies, lower prices, better quality, no more flipper movies, etc...)

LD wasn't so perfect

Besides the obvious size, weight, and fragility issues, LD did have a few other problems.

First of all, it only stores composite video. So you automatically have half the potential resolution of DVD.

And then there were all the manufacturing problems. Laser rot was probably overrated (it could have been due more to old players than old discs), but there were lots of bad pressings done at the infamous Sony plant. In fact, ADV's first Evangelion disc was the only disc I ever had to take back and exchange because of speckling!

Chroma noise was a problem too. I've seen all too many LDs with speckly oversaturated reds and browns due to chroma noise.

And then there was the crosstalk problem. Most LD mastering had gone to a form of CLV which reduced crosstalk, but not 3M. And guess which pressing plant Animeigo chose? So on an out-of-alignment player, you get to see ghost sync bars dancing across the screen.

A good mastering of a DVD will outshine a good mastering of an LD any day. I just wish they had gone with more than three colors for the subtitling spec.

Anime -- yuck!

I vote for establishing an anime category in Slashdot, so that users like me can opt out.

--Bud

Price

This is truly a wonderful thing, When I bought lodoss wars on dvd for instance, it was 43 dollars (US), on vhs, that set is about 170. Also, we wont be seeing the remastering debacles that have been occuring with the likes of evangelion, i remember being told it would be out last october, but it has been delayed due to "remastering probs" from vhs. toodles.