UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread

While the DVD format is going the way of the dodo, I wouldn't be against SDBD potentially taking it's place. Everything isn't going to be upgraded or remastered into high definition. I'm also not particularly wild about AI upscales becoming the new norm either. While the folks at MediaOCD (i.e AnimEigo and Discotek) have seemingly used AstroRes responsibly to upgrade some titles that had no chance of a proper restoration, I fear we'll see other companies take advantage of the technology to produce shoddy AI "remasters" similar to Interstella 5555 and Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend. I think it's an oppurtunity for older anime to get a new lease on life in a more economical package. Perhaps long running shows like Detective Conan or Gintama might find more success if collecting the series on physical media isn't such a daunting and/or expensive endeavor. Just some food for thought I've been pondering about lately.
 
I'm fine with DVD or SDBD for things that will never be HD. I object to AI upscaling out of principle; a big part of the appeal of anime is the fact that people drew it and put their artistry into it. The results of AI upscaling, in my view, are no longer those artists' original work but a usually inferior facsimile of it. I can accept it to restore previously cut scenes or other such things where bits of an original are no longer available, but I don't think it should ever be used for an entire work.
 
I would always go bluray over DVD as I wouldnt want to watch shows like Demon Slayer or Attack on Titan in 480/576p

And DVD vs SDBD I would still choose bluray because of the higher bitrate and more storage on the disks

Anything I think I'm not sure I'd enjoy or not worth buying a bluray, I'd just stream with dvd being my last chance choice
Agree. I have both the dvd and sdbd sets of Fist of the North Star and the size difference is insane, going from a massive 20 disc box a few inches thick to a 3 disc standard amaray. Plus the picture is cleaner on the bd due to the better codec being used.
 
I'd never buy a DVD if there is an actual HD Blu-ray available. DVD quality isn't really good enough in my opinion. I stop at Blu-ray though; I have absolutely no interest in 4K UHD, and I do not like the revisionist nature of HDR. I'm really irritated when the only way to get a Blu-ray or improved Blu-ray is buying a combo pack with a UHD.
 
Yep, it's Blu-ray-only for me, too - I haven't bought any DVDs since about 2008, other than DVD sets of television or anime series that weren't available on Blu-ray. Even before Blu-rays ever became a thing, I was still bothered by the picture quality of DVDs, even though they were a big step up over VHS, so I only ever actually bought a handful of DVDs through the '90s and '00s. Instead I rented all my DVD movies from Netflix or Blockbuster. That's why when Blu-ray first came into being, I was a very early adopter of the format and upgraded all of my electronics to HD by 2007, and left the DVD format in the dust.

And like @cfx, I'm not that interested in 4K, so I never jumped on that bandwagon like I did with Blu-ray and HD - I own a 4K BD Player, but I have no 4K TV or projector to use it with, and I'm in no hurry to buy anything else 4K unless my current TV or projector die. My first-gen Sharp Aquos 52" HDTV I bought in 2007 is still going strong, and my Epson projector in my theater is HD/3D. I'm a huge 3D fan so I still want to be able to view my 200+ 3D Blu-ray movies in my collection.
 
I'd still buy DVD if it was the better option. Some NTSC DVDs are encoded progressively, and Blu-ray players can play them back at 24p. But, 24p SD on a Blu-ray disc isn't an option, they have to be encoded as interlaced. Some Aniplex DVDs look as good as Blu-ray given the bit rates they used to encode at. I remember choosing to buy the DVDs of A Life On Mars over the Blu-rays as the DVDs were at the correct UK TV broadcast 25fps frame rate, and it's a music heavy show. The Blu-rays had longer runtimes and pitch correction at 24fps

I think the last DVD I bought was Trigun Collection, or Manga's Last Exile Collection a year or so ago, as well as a couple of Deep Space Nine season boxsets, for dying disc reasons in previous purchases of the same, and just an urge to double dip on Trigun. I've gotten to that point where I buy spares of my favourite shows just in case.

I'm 99% Blu-ray now though, although I have bought UHDs like AL's Millennium Actress,. Violet Evergarden, as well as The Abyss and True Lies, as the combos were the only way to get the Blu-rays, and I also wanted the Collector's Editions of the anime. And I do have been sent a few UHD review discs by mistake, a couple of which tempt me to upgrade to 4k to watch.
 
While I like SDBD for saving on space vs DVDs, it does create a single point of failure for an entire series. With DVDs, especially the old single releases from the 00s, having one disc become unreadable means losing three or four episodes. With SDBD you could lose 50.
While that's true, conversely, it also makes it dramatically more likely you won't be able to watch the whole show. 12 discs (for a 50 episode show on DVD) means a 12 times greater chance one or more discs will fail, and then you still don't have the whole show.

The way I see it, if the show matters that much to you, buy 2 copies of the SD BD and you'll both have a backup and it'll still take way less space. Plus, as long as a disc works, you're certain to have the entire show, instead of having a piecemeal of episodes.
 
I'm 99% Blu-ray now though, although I have bought UHDs like AL's Millennium Actress,. Violet Evergarden, as well as The Abyss and True Lies, as the combos were the only way to get the Blu-rays, and I also wanted the Collector's Editions of the anime. And I do have been sent a few UHD review discs by mistake, a couple of which tempt me to upgrade to 4k to watch.
Ah yes, Violet Evergarden. The movie CE set being only offered as a UHD combo pack was the thing that got me to stop buying anime collector's editions entirely, unless they contain video content not available otherwise. I was never big on CEs anyway, but I was buying them for all of VE because the series set has the extra stuff on the discs, and then I got the CE of Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll since I had started with CEs. Then the movie was only the UHD set for the CE and I was upset especially with how much more it cost becuase of it, so I waited and only bought the standard, and replaced my CE of Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll with the standard edition since there was no longer any point to having that CE for me either.

I've bought a few combo packs for non-anime where it's the only way to get a blu-ray that I want, but it irritates me, and I sell, give away, or throw the UHDs in the trash. I have the Macross Do You Remember Love UHD set on preorder because it's probably the only way I can get a subtitled blu-ray of the movie. That one irritates me because it also looks like it's been hit with AI tools.
 
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