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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.
A list of DVD players that are multi-region hackable (with hacks), for those of us that can't wait for country specific releases :-)
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.
http://www.animeondvd.com/
Nothing wrong with the occasional Anime post on slashdot, but I agree that it should be its category.
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.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
--Bud