AFAIK, 1. Partly it was a play on words: (Tsunami being a giant wave, Toonami presented as a giant block of animation)
There was also some effort to emulate the Japanese broadcast style, changing the scheduling of commercial breaks, etc...
2. Partly it was an effort to showcase animation influenced or sourced from Japan that were not officially recognized as anime.
3. Partly it was an effort to put the shows aiming at the older teen demographic in a single, easy to promote, package.
I think the original management idea was for #3, but there are a few anime fans on staff at Cartoon Network who saw an opportunity to build on the ideas from #1 and #2.
I think it might also have something to do with the main protagonists of Lupin almost all being thieves or gangsters.
Lupin does not glorify crime, but at the same time does not vilify it. In many ways it is the same kind of characterization that was popular from movies such as The Saint, or Oceans 11.
That in itself is enough to give them calls from aggreived parents unless they try to apply the show to a more mature audience.
----
And last I checked, CN also seemed reluctant to show the last few episodes of Zoids Chaotic Century.
It will be edited at the same level as Cowboy Bebop was, ie hardly at all.
Tenchi Muyo was originally broadcast on the CN Toonami Block, and as such had to be edited to a rating of TV-PG or below. When they added it (and other shows like Outlaw Star) to the Adult Swim lineup, they didn't bother re-editing the shows to aim for a more mature rating.
From what I've heard, the only reason for adding the previous Toonami shows to the AS lineup was because the opportunity to fill the block came up before they were ready with newer material.
Since then (the start of Adult Swim), Williams Street productions has gotten a somewhat better hand on their editing policies regarding these shows. If they give it the same level of respect they've show so far for newer shows like Yu Yu Hakusho, then I think it will be a respectable edit.
(There will always be people who want to gripe about every little change)
It was designed to reduce support costs, which is why a few companies like Packard Bell first started using the restore disk approach instead of shipping the standard media. It also makes it easier to include drivers and utilities specific to the system in with the media without violating any prior license agreements with the respective companies.
I think once MS got the idea that some companies were already doing it (making restore disks instead of shipping the raw media) they decided it would be a good idea for every OEM to try and do the same.
I cannot say that MS makes it an absolute requirement for OEMs to now bundle recovery disks; but they highly encourage the practice for any company that ships over a set volume of units. And I was a contractor for a department of Agilent that basically was "encouraged" to go that route with a specific product line (they were already leaning in that direction).
Re:Did you see the part about...
on
More on Longhorn
·
· Score: 2
No, just "based on WinNT Technology"
FTC regulations prohibited MS from using the word "New" in NT after the third year it was out, that's why NT "doesn't stand for anything" now, even though it stood for "new technology" before.
"National Cristina Foundation (NCF) provides computer technology and solutions to give people with disabilities, students at risk and economically
disadvantaged persons the opportunity, through training, to lead more
independent and productive lives."
Their start was in providing computers as educational assistance to
disabled or impoverished students, but they have expanded over time to
promotion of community assistance at the grassroots level, and providing
adult education, training, refurbished computers and even job opportunities
for project participants and volunteers.
1) Operating systems are relics of the past.
They are also relics of the future. FWIW.
2) I should be able to access data anywhere, agreed. They problem is convincing the rest of the world that my data needs are more important than their feature and special formatting needs.
3) I understand where he is trying to go, but he still misses the point, my data should come to me in any form I darn well please. Making it "easier for the masses" does not neccesarily make it easier for the individual.
4) I can't seem to get to the scopeware site at the moment.
Otherwise I would like to see what he has come up with
5) I shouldn't care that it requires a relic of the past to work, what I should care more about is its portability and usability on and with the other relics I have accumulated. Even in our modern age of end-user focused computing, new technology is still best adopted first by the enthusiasts; because they are usually the ones explaining to everyone else why such technology is worth changing over to.
(See the recent Tivo thread).
Mr. Gelertner was presented on a the TechTV (cable network) show "Big Thinkers" a while back (they do repeast occasionally). And the show did look a bit into the work that I presume has led up to scopeware. He seemed in his own way as knowledgeable perceptive and opinionated as most people see as traits of RMS; take that as you will.
Can't Disregard, it was actually relevant to the discussion...
From what I recall, (and part of my peeve about the whole movie idea) was that it was not planned on being a real fight between Bats and Supes, but the standard Team-up story relying on the old cliche that at first they would not recognize each other as hero-types. ( Easily done with S&B because the have been developed as
diametrically opposed personalities).
My real peeve was that they seemed to have chosen a director with no prior experience with the genre, and little to no interest in making use of prior DC works in creating a good script.
How that becomes relevant to this thread, is that DC has fairly consistently answered the question (of who would win a Batman vs Superman fight) several times over the years. It would be childs play to simply adapt one of the better stories from that group into at least half of a feature film. (The other half could be filled with special effects and
other box-office eye candy).
That Hollywood still sometimes loses that clue (don't mess with an established franchise) tells me who would win:
They would both team up and kick Wolfgang Petersen's ass.
A simple rule: if it says collectible or limited edition on it, it's guaranteed to be overpriced, and usually crap... IN AMERICA
You overlook that other countries do not need to abuse those terms like we do in the US. Much of the time (in the Japanese Anime merchandise market) buyers are used to a character or product brand being used all over the place. The "Scooby-Doo" mugs would not be considered collectible, precisely because nobody would conceive of not having mugs, pens, posterboards, lunchboxes, T-shirts, etc... without the characters plastered all over the place as standard promotion.
In that environment, an extra effort is often made for higher quality or some form of intrinsic value to be added to a "limited edition" product to insure that it is set apart from the standard deluge of promotional items. This becomes even more applicable in an area where the promotion is taken outside the normal area of expertise of the company, character, or creator.
No, Microsoft stole no BIOS from any company.
They were supplying the DOS that worked with IBM's BIOS implementation.
You are thinking of Compaq? (or Phoenix Technologies), who was able to successfully reverse engineer IBMs BIOS because it was designed to work with standard (at the time) components which IBM had no proprietary controls on.
Outlaw Star was a complete rip-off of anime in general. That didn't keep it from being a good show that could stand on its own merits without being compared to everything that had come before it.
Besides, (looking at the website) you could apply the same arguement in claiming Firefly takes ideas from Andromeda or Farscape, which are more likely to be in the notice of ratings minded TV execs than some show that happened to make a splash on the Cartoon Network.
FWIW I agree with your comments that ATI's drivers do not necessarily suck, IMO it is a matter of how the are installed.
But, the point is the user should not have to jump thru hoops to that extent to get a peripheral working.
I own three ATI cards (8MB AIW Pro, AIW Radeon, and AIW 8500DV, with the latter two still in use). I have successfully upgraded over older drivers, but that is still hit and miss whether everything the card can do will still work afterward.
I have had other devices (sound card, motherboard) that have failed or worked adversely after an upgrade, but those are usually fixed by reinstalling the older driver, in some cases I've had to uninstall the new driver first, and at least once I have had to restore the system from a backup image.
Only with the ATI cards has there consistently been such an expectation of user interaction. That's the real problem. If the standard instructions don't work or make sense, you can check forum threads at sites like www.rage3d.com for good advice on how and why to install the drivers in a particular order, and what caveats to watch out for.
The drivers in the past have been adequate, the drivers in current release are actually quite good, but the install/uninstall process has serious flaws that force the user to do much of the decision making that should be automated as part of the process.
ATI still has to improve that process to a point where following the instructions amounts to running the setup program, and letting it take care of dependencies and legacy issues. They have to deal with the idea that a lot of users don't care to follow instructions; particularly when those instructions have the reputation of an arcane ritual. When they do that, it will do much to help the reputation of thier drivers.
> or Windows XP based on New Technology Technology
Actually no...
Due to FTC regs, they cannot use the "New" anymore becuase the underlying OS is not new anymore. They can still use "NT" as long as they claim it doesn't have a real meaning anymore.
I won't argue with your percieved conclusions, but it seems unless you were actually checking later developments in either format for quality with those two decks as a baseline, then your sample is a bit limited in scope.
1. Bill Gates did not call on IBM, they were already in negotiation with MS to have a version of (MS)-Basic built for that project.
2. BG did not "own" the program to be known as PC-DOS; but he knew the programmer/company to get it from.
3. It was not "earlier that day" it was a separate appointment that Gates helped to set up. The circumstances surrounding the IBM DOS deal took at least several weeks to work out.
4. The developer was Gary Kildall, then head of DRI (not to be mistaken for Digital Research Corp.) who was away on another appointment. His wife (and co-owner of the company) and DRI's lawyer(s) were on hand to meet with IBM. But they thought the NDA that IBM wanted them to sign was too restrictive to agree to without Gary's cooroboration. So that initial meeting fell through, and while later negotiations did work out, the original opportunity was lost; and Microsoft gained a foothold into the OS market.
Side note: People also like to say that Kildall was "out flying" on the day of the IBM appointment, to imply that he preferred leisure over business. But the truth is that he was a licensed private pilot, and found commuting along the west coast in his plane a faster way to get business done than driving.
What does this have to do with the latest rev of MacOS? Only a reflection onto catwh0re's comment:
There is no such thing as "stumbling on to wealth the right way". Success is driven by those who try to make the most of the opportunities they are given.
One can attribute many more failures to Apple's stumbling than successes. It is only to perpetuate the Mac culture that Apple works so hard to make it "look easy" to come up with their products.
Apple does appear to be on a good track with their latest developments (iPod, iMac, and now Jaguar). While I am not a Mac user, I hope they can keep up this trend as it serves to benefit the PC industry as a whole.
Those numbers were also based on a pre-production card, so should not be taken as reflective of benchmarks from a full retail release product.
ATI has also released a newer (supposedly faster) version of thier catalyst drivers in the interim. Which may have additional impact on the performance of the cards once the popular review sites get actual, testable, cards to make use of.
Dubs are not inferior, the process of dubbing in English is...
Anime voice acting tends to be far more melodramatic than live action, which lends to more emotional impact from the dialog. But trying to carry that same level of drama across in translation is interpreted as overacting, which only works in the small percentage of anime situations that are actually trying to be "cartoony".
Because of that, most English voice actors are caught between having to emote to flesh out a character, and not being able to EMOTE, because that takes the character over the top of the storyline. THat is why English voices can seem less emotional, but the better actors are still able to add more subtle undertones to the character to make them seem more "real" to the audience.
Also, up until recently in the West, voice acting for anime was not considered to be a "real" enough acting job to attract a lot of people with both talent and training to be able to sustain a character thru many consistent episodes of a series or OVA. That has slowly changed as studios/teams like the Ocean group and Z-RO limit have become more established and been able to retain their core members thru various projects. The Hollywood interest in anime helps a little, as it gives more legitimacy to the idea of adding (quality) voice work into an actors portfolio; but at the same time it adds a hindrance in Hollywoods habit of substituting "actor with talent who can play the role" with "Big-name actor with box office appeal that we can shoehorn into the role". Hopefully anime will be allowed to become mainstream enough that we can eventually move past that impulse.
In western style dubbing, the process used for ADR is (most often) to have a lone actor reading their lines to studio cues; and taking the best reading from a series of individual takes. The Japanese have traditionally recorded with all the (primary) seiyuu in the studio at the same time, playing out more like the old style radio drama sets.
IMO the Japanese system is better because it allows for greater feedback between the actors/characters while telling the story. The few people I have spoken to in the "industry" however, tell me that the English (Hollywood)
method is preferred because it allows for faster production when you don't have to schedule all the actors at the same time, and it is easier to work around bloopers/misreads when you only have to deal with one voice at a time. Unfortunately the English approach does require a greater effort on the part of the Director to make sure the dialog read actually fits with the scenes and theme of the animation; and it usually takes a few episodes of work (or some outside rehearsal) for the actors to really get into their roles.
More unfortunately, this method is apparently considered efficient enough that it is gaining popularity with some Japanese studios as an alternative method to allow them to meet tight production deadlines.
I have seen US dubs with the same voice acting quality as Japanese releases, or rather I have "seen" (heard) quality English voice work in recent anime releases (Cowboy Bebop and Excel Saga as examples) that I found as appealing and dramatic as I would from hearing and not understanding the Japanese dialog.
I have also seen enough raw anime to tell that just becuase it is made in Japan is no gaurantee that it isn't crap. Most US anime fans are spoiled (blessed) because they don't get exposure to a lot of the stuff that was not good enough to get picked up over here. Everything you said about English dubs can be equally applied back to the majority of anime that has been produced from Japan.
The real point is not to argue for dubs over subs, or vice-versa; it is to argue for the studios to continue doing a better job with translation, setup, direction and acting in ways that maintain the quality of the original work, or even benefit it in translation. And for anime fans in the West to continue to express our preferences in quality anime to help encourage the Japanese studios to create works in thier own country that can find such mass-appeal overseas.
Some (at least one of which I was aware) of the RAMBUS agreements with Memory Makers were set up to become null and void if the RAMBUS patent claims were ever successfully challenged in court.
Perhaps some of the companies rolling over on the JPEG claims applied a similar loophole in their agreements, hoping that a challenge to Forgent's patent claims would prove a more viable approach than trying to defend thier own company in open court.
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK,
1. Partly it was a play on words:
(Tsunami being a giant wave, Toonami presented as a giant block of animation)
There was also some effort to emulate the Japanese broadcast style, changing
the scheduling of commercial breaks, etc...
2. Partly it was an effort to showcase animation influenced or sourced
from Japan that were not officially recognized as anime.
3. Partly it was an effort to put the shows aiming at the older teen
demographic in a single, easy to promote, package.
I think the original management idea was for #3, but there are a few anime
fans on staff at Cartoon Network who saw an opportunity to build on
the ideas from #1 and #2.
I think it might also have something to do with the main
protagonists of Lupin almost all being thieves or gangsters.
Lupin does not glorify crime, but at the same time does not
vilify it. In many ways it is the same kind of characterization
that was popular from movies such as The Saint, or Oceans 11.
That in itself is enough to give them calls from aggreived parents
unless they try to apply the show to a more mature audience.
----
And last I checked, CN also seemed reluctant to show the last few
episodes of Zoids Chaotic Century.
It will be edited at the same level as Cowboy Bebop was, ie hardly at all.
Tenchi Muyo was originally broadcast on the CN Toonami Block, and as such
had to be edited to a rating of TV-PG or below. When they added it
(and other shows like Outlaw Star) to the Adult Swim lineup, they didn't
bother re-editing the shows to aim for a more mature rating.
From what I've heard, the only reason for adding the previous Toonami shows
to the AS lineup was because the opportunity to fill the block came up before
they were ready with newer material.
Since then (the start of Adult Swim), Williams Street productions has
gotten a somewhat better hand on their editing policies regarding these
shows. If they give it the same level of respect they've show so far for
newer shows like Yu Yu Hakusho, then I think it will be a respectable edit.
(There will always be people who want to gripe about every little change)
It was designed to reduce support costs, which is why a few companies
like Packard Bell first started using the restore disk approach instead
of shipping the standard media. It also makes it easier to include
drivers and utilities specific to the system in with the media without
violating any prior license agreements with the respective companies.
I think once MS got the idea that some companies were already doing
it (making restore disks instead of shipping the raw media) they decided
it would be a good idea for every OEM to try and do the same.
I cannot say that MS makes it an absolute requirement for OEMs to now
bundle recovery disks; but they highly encourage the practice for any
company that ships over a set volume of units. And I was a contractor
for a department of Agilent that basically was "encouraged" to go that
route with a specific product line (they were already leaning in that
direction).
No, just "based on WinNT Technology"
FTC regulations prohibited MS from using the word "New" in NT after the
third year it was out, that's why NT "doesn't stand for anything" now,
even though it stood for "new technology" before.
From their mission statement:
"National Cristina Foundation (NCF) provides computer technology and solutions
to give people with disabilities, students at risk and economically
disadvantaged persons the opportunity, through training, to lead more
independent and productive lives."
Their start was in providing computers as educational assistance to
disabled or impoverished students, but they have expanded over time to
promotion of community assistance at the grassroots level, and providing
adult education, training, refurbished computers and even job opportunities
for project participants and volunteers.
That was Tezuka, not Gainax.
The same Tezuka that was inspired by early Disney
animation in the development of his character designs.
1) Operating systems are relics of the past.
They are also relics of the future. FWIW.
2) I should be able to access data anywhere, agreed.
They problem is convincing the rest of the world that
my data needs are more important than their feature
and special formatting needs.
3) I understand where he is trying to go, but he
still misses the point, my data should come to
me in any form I darn well please. Making it
"easier for the masses" does not neccesarily make
it easier for the individual.
4) I can't seem to get to the scopeware site at the moment.
Otherwise I would like to see what he has come up with
5) I shouldn't care that it requires a relic of the past to
work, what I should care more about is its portability and
usability on and with the other relics I have accumulated.
Even in our modern age of end-user focused computing, new
technology is still best adopted first by the enthusiasts;
because they are usually the ones explaining to everyone else
why such technology is worth changing over to.
(See the recent Tivo thread).
Mr. Gelertner was presented on a the TechTV (cable network) show
"Big Thinkers" a while back (they do repeast occasionally).
And the show did look a bit into the work that I presume has
led up to scopeware. He seemed in his own way as knowledgeable
perceptive and opinionated as most people see as traits of RMS;
take that as you will.
Can't Disregard, it was actually relevant to the
discussion...
From what I recall, (and part of my peeve about the whole
movie idea) was that it was not planned on being
a real fight between Bats and Supes, but the standard
Team-up story relying on the old cliche that at first
they would not recognize each other as hero-types.
( Easily done with S&B because the have been developed as
diametrically opposed personalities).
My real peeve was that they seemed to have chosen a director
with no prior experience with the genre, and little to no
interest in making use of prior DC works in creating a
good script.
How that becomes relevant to this thread, is that DC has
fairly consistently answered the question (of who would win
a Batman vs Superman fight) several times over the years.
It would be childs play to simply adapt one of the better
stories from that group into at least half of a feature film.
(The other half could be filled with special effects and
other box-office eye candy).
That Hollywood still sometimes loses that clue
(don't mess with an established franchise) tells
me who would win:
They would both team up and kick Wolfgang Petersen's ass.
A simple rule: if it says collectible or limited edition
on it, it's guaranteed to be overpriced, and usually crap... IN AMERICA
You overlook that other countries do not need to abuse those terms
like we do in the US. Much of the time (in the Japanese Anime
merchandise market) buyers are used to a character or product brand
being used all over the place. The "Scooby-Doo" mugs would not be
considered collectible, precisely because nobody would conceive of
not having mugs, pens, posterboards, lunchboxes, T-shirts, etc...
without the characters plastered all over the place as standard promotion.
In that environment, an extra effort is often made for higher quality
or some form of intrinsic value to be added to a "limited edition" product
to insure that it is set apart from the standard deluge of promotional
items. This becomes even more applicable in an area where the promotion
is taken outside the normal area of expertise of the company, character, or
creator.
Have you not heard of RoboRats? http://www.techtv.com/news/scitech/story/0,24195,3 397528,00.html
It was the next logical step after all...
To have the phone set on 'vibrate' by default.
No, Microsoft stole no BIOS from any company.
They were supplying the DOS that worked with
IBM's BIOS implementation.
You are thinking of Compaq? (or Phoenix Technologies), who was able to successfully reverse engineer IBMs BIOS because it was designed to work with standard (at the time)
components which IBM had no proprietary
controls on.
Outlaw Star was a complete rip-off of anime
in general. That didn't keep it from being
a good show that could stand on its own merits
without being compared to everything that had
come before it.
Besides, (looking at the website) you could apply the same arguement in claiming Firefly
takes ideas from Andromeda or Farscape, which
are more likely to be in the notice of ratings
minded TV execs than some show that happened to
make a splash on the Cartoon Network.
FWIW I agree with your comments that ATI's drivers do not
necessarily suck, IMO it is a matter of how the are installed.
But, the point is the user should not have to jump thru
hoops to that extent to get a peripheral working.
I own three ATI cards (8MB AIW Pro, AIW Radeon, and AIW 8500DV,
with the latter two still in use). I have successfully upgraded
over older drivers, but that is still hit and miss whether
everything the card can do will still work afterward.
I have had other devices (sound card, motherboard) that have
failed or worked adversely after an upgrade, but those are
usually fixed by reinstalling the older driver, in some
cases I've had to uninstall the new driver first, and at
least once I have had to restore the system from a backup
image.
Only with the ATI cards has there consistently been such
an expectation of user interaction. That's the real problem.
If the standard instructions don't work or make sense,
you can check forum threads at sites like www.rage3d.com for
good advice on how and why to install the drivers in a
particular order, and what caveats to watch out for.
The drivers in the past have been adequate, the drivers in
current release are actually quite good, but the install/uninstall
process has serious flaws that force the user to do much of the
decision making that should be automated as part of the process.
ATI still has to improve that process to a point where following
the instructions amounts to running the setup program, and letting
it take care of dependencies and legacy issues. They have to deal
with the idea that a lot of users don't care to follow instructions;
particularly when those instructions have the reputation of an
arcane ritual. When they do that, it will do much to help
the reputation of thier drivers.
> or Windows XP based on New Technology Technology
Actually no...
Due to FTC regs, they cannot use the "New"
anymore becuase the underlying OS is not new
anymore. They can still use "NT" as long as
they claim it doesn't have a real meaning
anymore.
Hmph, IIRC it was called OS/2-NT before
MS changed back to a Windows centric focus.
From what I heard, David Cutler left DEC
to work on some ideas he had to go beyond VMS.
Which model decks? What year were they purchased?
I won't argue with your percieved conclusions, but it seems unless you were actually checking
later developments in either format for quality
with those two decks as a baseline, then your
sample is a bit limited in scope.
1. Bill Gates did not call on IBM, they were
already in negotiation with MS to have a
version of (MS)-Basic built for that project.
2. BG did not "own" the program to be known as
PC-DOS; but he knew the programmer/company to
get it from.
3. It was not "earlier that day" it was a separate
appointment that Gates helped to set up.
The circumstances surrounding the IBM DOS deal took
at least several weeks to work out.
4. The developer was Gary Kildall, then head of
DRI (not to be mistaken for Digital Research
Corp.) who was away on another appointment.
His wife (and co-owner of the company) and DRI's
lawyer(s) were on hand to meet with IBM. But they thought
the NDA that IBM wanted them to sign was too restrictive
to agree to without Gary's
cooroboration. So that initial meeting fell through, and
while later negotiations did work out, the original
opportunity was lost; and Microsoft gained a foothold
into the OS market.
Side note: People also like to say that Kildall
was "out flying" on the day of the IBM appointment,
to imply that he preferred leisure
over business. But the truth is that he was a
licensed private pilot, and found commuting along
the west coast in his plane a faster way to get
business done than driving.
What does this have to do with the latest rev of
MacOS? Only a reflection onto catwh0re's comment:
There is no such thing as "stumbling on to wealth the
right way". Success is driven by
those who try to make the most of the opportunities
they are given.
One can attribute many more failures to Apple's
stumbling than successes. It is only to perpetuate the
Mac culture that Apple works so hard to make it
"look easy" to come up with their products.
Apple does appear to be on a good track with their latest
developments (iPod, iMac, and now Jaguar).
While I am not a Mac user, I hope they can
keep up this trend as it serves to benefit the PC industry
as a whole.
http://www.dvdforum.org/faq-dvdprimer.htm
I don't know about elementary school, but it looks like a They Might Be Giants Song. http://www.crosswinds.net/~lyricsarchive/round7/gr eg7.html
Okay, leave us in suspense then...
Which one did you get your first kiss from,
SOME GIRL, or OTHER GIRL?
And no, I'm not gonna pay you for a hint...
Those numbers were also based on a pre-production card, so should not be taken as reflective of
benchmarks from a full retail release product.
ATI has also released a newer (supposedly faster)
version of thier catalyst drivers in the interim.
Which may have additional impact on the performance of the cards once the popular review
sites get actual, testable, cards to make use of.
Dubs are not inferior, the process of dubbing in English is...
Anime voice acting tends to be far more melodramatic than live action, which lends
to more emotional impact from the dialog. But trying to carry that same level of
drama across in translation is interpreted as overacting, which only works in the
small percentage of anime situations that are actually trying to be "cartoony".
Because of that, most English voice actors are caught between having to emote to
flesh out a character, and not being able to EMOTE, because that takes the character
over the top of the storyline. THat is why English voices can seem less emotional,
but the better actors are still able to add more subtle undertones to the character to
make them seem more "real" to the audience.
Also, up until recently in the West, voice acting for anime was not considered
to be a "real" enough acting job to attract a lot of people with both talent and
training to be able to sustain a character thru many consistent episodes of a
series or OVA. That has slowly changed as studios/teams like the Ocean group
and Z-RO limit have become more established and been able to retain their
core members thru various projects. The Hollywood interest in anime helps a
little, as it gives more legitimacy to the idea of adding (quality)
voice work into an actors portfolio; but at the same time it adds a hindrance
in Hollywoods habit of substituting "actor with talent who can play the role"
with "Big-name actor with box office appeal that we can shoehorn into the
role". Hopefully anime will be allowed to become mainstream enough that we
can eventually move past that impulse.
In western style dubbing, the process used for ADR is (most often)
to have a lone actor reading their lines to studio cues; and taking the best
reading from a series of individual takes.
The Japanese have traditionally recorded with all the (primary) seiyuu in the
studio at the same time, playing out more like the old style radio drama sets.
IMO the Japanese system is better because it allows for greater feedback between
the actors/characters while telling the story. The few people I have spoken to
in the "industry" however, tell me that the English (Hollywood)
method is preferred because it allows for faster production when you don't
have to schedule all the actors at the same time,
and it is easier to work around bloopers/misreads when you only have to
deal with one voice at a time. Unfortunately the English approach does require
a greater effort on the part of the Director to make sure the dialog read
actually fits with the scenes and theme of the animation; and it usually takes
a few episodes of work (or some outside rehearsal) for the actors to really get
into their roles.
More unfortunately, this method is apparently considered efficient enough that
it is gaining popularity with some Japanese studios as an alternative method
to allow them to meet tight production deadlines.
I have seen US dubs with the same voice acting quality as Japanese releases,
or rather I have "seen" (heard) quality English voice work in recent anime
releases (Cowboy Bebop and Excel Saga as examples) that I found as appealing
and dramatic as I would from hearing and not understanding the Japanese dialog.
I have also seen enough raw anime to tell that just becuase it is made in Japan is
no gaurantee that it isn't crap. Most US anime fans are spoiled (blessed) because
they don't get exposure to a lot of the stuff that was not good enough to get picked
up over here. Everything you said about English dubs can be equally applied back
to the majority of anime that has been produced from Japan.
The real point is not to argue for dubs over subs, or vice-versa; it is to argue for
the studios to continue doing a better job with translation, setup, direction and acting
in ways that maintain the quality of the original work, or even benefit it in translation.
And for anime fans in the West to continue to express our preferences in quality anime to
help encourage the Japanese studios to create works in thier own country that can find
such mass-appeal overseas.
Some (at least one of which I was aware) of the RAMBUS agreements with Memory Makers were
set up to become null and void if the RAMBUS patent claims were ever successfully challenged
in court.
Perhaps some of the companies rolling over on the JPEG claims applied a similar loophole
in their agreements, hoping that a challenge to Forgent's patent claims would prove a
more viable approach than trying to defend thier own company in open court.