Jaysgba
Combat Butler
Run out of money? I assumed all anime fans were too young for that to happen.
UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread
- Thread starter jonno394
- Start date
qaiz
Pokémon Master
The younger ones are more susceptible to the dark and impure urges of anime, if infected by the anime bug, its effects on ones wallet can be devastating. Ramen noodles and a dose of cola is all one seeks in such situations as a means to survive, at this stage their will is weaker than ever. In this state waifu is all one desires, and the question of who is best girl haunts them for eternity.
This is the conclusion every market came to as well there - with Criterion and Arrow regularly doing 4K restorations so presumably holding a 4K master but not doing 4K BD that's a sign. Honestly the fact neither of the two biggest games consoles plays them natively (XBOX ONEXXXXXX will but isn't out yet and is lagging so far behind PS4 in install base that it won't make enough difference) makes me worry that it's the HD-DVD vs BD fight all over again just this time the fight is 4K BD vs Getting an installed userbase.
Re people complaining - that's bound to happen and as you say, nobodies fault UK-side for it sadly but that's life. New theatrical and a hard & fast date for 2017 is going to help I'd say though and a good retail reach for it won't hurt either
.Best,
AP
It's slated not far off that - it's definitely in early Q4 from us but we're doing a booklet so worth noting your box will rattle somewhat or maybe not fit if they use a 15mm spine (off the top of my head).
Best,
AP
Seronas
School Idol
Oooo, I'll patiently wait then! Was just hoping to start watching the series soon as I've heard good things about it. If a show is available on BD I tend to buy the entire thing (if it's released somewhere) before I start watching it so I can see it for the first time in BD-quality.
Captaaain universe
Completely Average High School Student
Hi. I'm captaaainuniverse and I'm an animeholic. I once lived patch & parrot days streaming anime all day surviving on mikado choclate and milkshake. I have a job now but I have a CR paid membership and I'm buying like 2 bluray collections a week. I have elfen lied and outlaw star collections i haven't finished watching. If I don't find help I will view again. If you can not help me, or animeholics like me, you can donate to the animeholicsannonymous fund. Not in money of course, but in dakimakura, to keep them in their dark corners so they don't bother decent people
sniper_samurai
Railgun
The current model Xbox One, the Xbox One S has a 4k bluray drive on it Andrew. The only model Xbox that doesn't is the original version.This is the conclusion every market came to as well there - with Criterion and Arrow regularly doing 4K restorations so presumably holding a 4K master but not doing 4K BD that's a sign. Honestly the fact neither of the two biggest games consoles plays them natively (XBOX ONEXXXXXX will but isn't out yet and is lagging so far behind PS4 in install base that it won't make enough difference) makes me worry that it's the HD-DVD vs BD fight all over again just this time the fight is 4K BD vs Getting an installed userbase.
Re people complaining - that's bound to happen and as you say, nobodies fault UK-side for it sadly but that's life. New theatrical and a hard & fast date for 2017 is going to help I'd say though and a good retail reach for it won't hurt either
Best,
AP
serpantino
Thousand Master
At least we get blu-rays from AL almost all the time, unlike some companies.
I'm still not sure of the virtues of 4k. I doubt it'd be visibly different from a decent 1080 screen at most people's viewing distances, unless it's large enough that you can't see the whole screen in one go (which isn't my thing due to gaming.) For newer anime I'm not convinced the difference is going to be massive as it's all computer drawn anyway, there's just going to be a point where it's aliased.
I'm still not sure of the virtues of 4k. I doubt it'd be visibly different from a decent 1080 screen at most people's viewing distances, unless it's large enough that you can't see the whole screen in one go (which isn't my thing due to gaming.) For newer anime I'm not convinced the difference is going to be massive as it's all computer drawn anyway, there's just going to be a point where it's aliased.
HellCat
Death Scythe
Shortly, yes
AP
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
4k will be a thing. It's as inevitable as HD. But not right now. It's a niche within a niche within a niche. At the moment only the big summer blockbuster titles are getting 4k disc releases in the West. Some boutique labels are toying with the idea, but the fact that finally, finally Region Coding is a thing of the past, and with fervent collector demographic shrinking, there's less incentive for localised releases if a single country released a 4k disc which will play in other countries. Your Name's JP release having English subs is a case in point. This might finally be a global market.
Maybe if companies like Anime Limited do a Gundam Origin jobbie and provide a local outlet for foreign distros when it comes to 4k anime, that might be the best we can hope for in the near future.
But with 4k, it might be less a format war than it is a medium war, disc versus streaming. I can fully imagine the studios wanting to control ownership of their highest quality content to the point where they no longer publish it on disc, only make it available to stream.
Maybe if companies like Anime Limited do a Gundam Origin jobbie and provide a local outlet for foreign distros when it comes to 4k anime, that might be the best we can hope for in the near future.
But with 4k, it might be less a format war than it is a medium war, disc versus streaming. I can fully imagine the studios wanting to control ownership of their highest quality content to the point where they no longer publish it on disc, only make it available to stream.
serpantino
Thousand Master
That fabled digital future they want. The UK has no chance of that with BT still monopolizing the UK industry and no real incentive to upgrade.
I complained for 2 years about the increased burden on my local exchange which cut my speed in half and left me hovering around 1mpbs most evenings. They refused repeatedly to do anything about it & kept piling on new connections and congesting it until eventually it caught fire and destroyed the exchange and spread across 2 miles of underground cable. I still smile when I think of how expensive it must have been for BT and now my internet is about 2mbps faster than it was the day I moved in. I'm still only ADSL Max and of course BT has no intention of upgrading the area so 4k streaming or even downloading isn't realistic.
sniper_samurai
Railgun
Same thing happened here in Ireland with Eircom holding a monopoly on the lines. The government passed a law that other companies could get the exchange unbundled so they could add their own hardware and another law forcing them to upgrade the infrastructure, with a focus on rural areas with a population over 1000.
Because of that I've gone from 56k dial up to 100mb fibre over the last 12 years.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Similar situation here. BT keep selling me Infinity, fast download speeds and the like, and given that I'm in London it shouldn't be a problem. Except that FTTC depends on the quality of the final connection, and the connection between the cabinet and my house is ancient and seasonally faulty. Ever since I've had ADSL Broadband, I've complained about the connnection dropping, noise on the line in spring. Disconnecting it clears the line so that whenever a BT engineer comes to check the line, he finds nothing wrong. But within a few minutes to an hour, the noise is back. But once summer comes, and the dampness of winter has evaporated, the connection is fine until the following February. I can get 6MB at best, but for streaming you need stability, and for a third of the year I don't have that. But just try explaining that to BT! The final 100 yards of connection to every property needs an upgrade from wire to fibre.
Yami
Thousand Master
That depends on what you mean - people may watch HD when it's the default option (i.e. BBC1 HD, streaming) but how many actively care? I'm sure we all know people who will happily sit through a standard definition broadcast, even when the HD equivalent is available, and just not bother switching over. The only real way to measure that is to compare physical sales and, while data isn't readily available, the most recent I could find (2014) has DVD sales on 124.9m to Blu-Ray's 17.3m. I think it's probably likely that as physical media further declines in favour of streaming that Blu-Ray (and high-priced, collector's product) will hold as the market caters towards a demographic where quality is the primary concern. But I will be very surprised if 4K UHD reaches anywhere near the numbers that Blu-Ray does/did. I've been buying Blu-Ray since they first came on the market in the UK, but even I'm not sold on 4K - I'm unconvinced that I'll ever own a TV large enough for me to tell the difference between 4K UHD and a well-encoded Blu-Ray. Heck, a lot of theatrical projections are still only from 2K DCPs.
Ironically, it might actually be the lack of region coding that's holding back some boutique labels from releasing product on 4K UHD. With the physical market declining, studios are becoming more open to licensing films out to labels such as Criterion and Arrow - but usually these releases have to be region-locked, so the studio can licence it out to different labels in different territories. 4K UHD changes this dynamic, which may be another reason why it hasn't happened yet.
As one person mentioned earlier, the Xbox One S (the small model that came out last year) does have Ultra HD Blu-ray playback support. Sure the PlayStation 4 Pro doesn't (because apparently Sony felt it would affect the sales of their UHD players) but there's rumours of another PlayStation console (probably PS5) in a few years time.
Honestly Your Name's Ultra HD Blu-ray has the possibility of not looking too great in 4K, but I do think it might grab the interest of the Ultra HD collectors if you guys do manage to release it. Same goes for Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt since it's a compilation film. Of course as you say the figures is five-digits, but it's worth revisiting in the next two years.
crashmatt
Death Scythe
I think that's a good point, it may be worth revisiting in a few years time when the install base is higher and access to 4k is cheaper. I suspect the next generation of consoles will dictate how popular 4K becomes.