Anime on Demand - Good news and bad news

I'm not sure people who just rant angrily in a directionless way ever solved any problems in the world. The fact that Crunchyroll charges UK viewers for a full subscription (which still isn't even that much money) has nothing whatsoever to do with AoD, who are directly targeting our country.

Presumably as far as they paywall goes, they weren't making enough profit from the free viewers on the previous platform. If they were, surely they'll bring it back. I don't think it requires much analysis to see that CR is currently bigger than AoD is. Anyway, they've already responded to that point.

R
 
Just Passing Through said:
The good news is that Anime on Demand is back up, new servers, new design, new front end.

The bad news is that it's completely behind a paywall. Subscribers only. There's a two week free trial if you want to give it a shot.

While it was affiliated with ANN, the SD content at least streamed for free.


Oh well, back to Crunchyroll.
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Basically it requires finding an adequate solution to free content that wasn't there with ANN - effectively it cost money per stream that was not being recouped as any advertising revenue would be too low.

So free content will return - but it just takes a bit of time to re-evaluate how that works or how it's justified. Outside of Hulu no territory has a CPM on a website just now so it takes a bit of thinking as you can imagine.

It is a point that has been raised and obviously one that I care about though so watch this space on it :).
 
Project-2501 said:
No free content at all? Thats pretty poor.
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There will be actual free content back as I was saying - at the very least you need to be able to see Episode 1 of a show to evaluate if you want to see any more of it.

I'm aware of this and have flagged it up already - apologies for anyone currently irked though :).

Andrew
 
Paradox295 said:
Y'know.. I'd have to say Do Not Buy This. The video quality is awful.

Seriously, it's less than 1000kbps on the 720p. Look at the sample video, there's so many artifacts =/
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The encoding should have been fixed, if it hasn't flag up the files excluding the [C] one and let me know which. The relevant encoding monkey will then be flogged and a permanent solution will be found!

Andrew
 
I wasn't looking for a please or thank you on this (though it never hurts) - but there is a difference between being angry and being offensive.

That asides I've explained separately why there's no free content immediately - this will change.

Based on what I have pointed out above, that providing the full series just now with no valid advertising system to at least break even on costs - what would you suggest we did :)?

A logical and well worded suggestion works far better than please or than you or the below.

Andrew
PS I believe the above proves I'm out of Primary 1 PR on any number of levels - sorry if we've not been direct enough in contacting folk ^^;.

ConanThe3rd said:
I dunno, the structure of your free service, which will be the first basis anyone gets when they access your site for the first time (if they aren't scared away with [c]'s awful opening) and the basic service Crunchyroll provides, is sort of the thing you outline at the start.

That's PR 101.

Course, this is the UK anime industry where it's more likely that they're stuck in PR Primary 1. You're informing people on how to use your service, not writing a serial that is to air 5 nights a week and needs cliffhangers to keep people watching.

And critical response 101 is - You've got to get mad, nothing ever changed because of "Please" and "Thank You" no matter what your folks told you. They're nice words to say, don't get me wrong, but they do not change nothing in this world.
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I know I'm a vanishingly small subset of a Venn diagram left over from the 20th Century, but I want to own my anime on pre-recorded media, and I want to try before I buy.

For me, the free and legal streams are a lifeline as there is no anime on TV anymore.

Since I got broadbanded up, I've lost count of the number of shows that I've purchased on disc because I first saw them on Crunchyroll, Funimation (before they region blocked the UK), Youtube, and prior to the freegal experiment begun with the Tower of Druaga and Blassreiter, by less than legal means. I want to know what it is that I'm buying before I buy it (which incidentally makes just making episode 1 of a show available a pointless exercise). Do you think I would have bought Baccano on the strength of episode 1?

I can tell you right now that because I watched them on Anime on Demand, I'm setting aside moneys now for the eventual DVD or Blu-ray purchase of Steins;Gate, Deadman Wonderland, Usagi Drop, and Nichijou. Hopefully they'll come to the UK. But that is because I watched them in their entirety for free. Paying a subscription is one less series a year that I can buy. And I do not rent. The last media I rented was the pilot episode of the Highlander TV series on VHS back in 1992.

It's the same for me with TV. I pay for a licence, have Freesat, and Freeview, and if I see anything that I love, movie or TV show, I'll get it on disc. I pay for my Broadband connection, take advantage of the free and legal content, and if I see something I like...

I understand the need to monetise content, and in fact support it, as the greenback makes the planet spin. But there's that speculate to accumulate cliche as well. I think Crunchyroll have the right model, in that SD material is online for free, subsidised by advertising (and apparently by investors) although at some 320 or 380, it's even less than SD. It's good enough to watch, just as I watch crappy video piped through heavily compressed Freeview streams with stereo sound, before buying the programme on better quality disc with 5.1 audio. On CR 480 and 720 material is subscription only, which is fine by me. If I want to see anime of that quality, I'll wait till it's on disc.

The advantages of that are two-fold. One, it gets luddites like me, and I think I'm not the only one, buying the shows on disc eventually. Two, it kicks the fansub 'industry' in the nads, providing legitimate free streams diminishes the illegal content online.

I think the provision of free and legal content is an investment in the fan community, it's a sign of loyalty in the hope that the loyalty will be returned. It's getting your product noticed. After all, you're not getting this stuff on TV. Rather than go solely for the profit motive, this should be seen as a long term investment. The anime industry as a whole should be subsidising free and legal content online as a means of combating the illegal stuff.

I would hope that Anime on Demand adopts the Crunchyoll model. By all means keep the 720 streams as premium content, the 480 streams as well if need be. but the majority of the catalogue should be free to stream at sub 480 resolution, subsidised by advertising, and if possible, the industry. Even Crunchyroll has the odd show each season that is subscription only, but the majority is free in this way.

I also know that this isn't going to happen, as the fanbase, and subscription base in the UK is probably too small to support this.

Speaking personally, as someone who will spend his free money on permanent media, not renting... Prior to last week, I was watching the majority of my online anime on Anime-on-Demand. Now I'm watching Crunchyroll, and Nozomi's streams on Youtube. I'm also lazy. I want the easiest option, which frankly is free and legal streaming. If the free option should fall away... As I said, I save my money for the DVDs.
 
Why so much negativity anyway?

I've always supported Anime On Demand even at it's early stages because I knew that Andrew and his team will make improvements to it as time passed on.

I've enjoyed most of the anime they have provided so far and because my money will go towards the UK anime industry, I will happily continue to support it and tell my friends about the service.

Sure there have been problems but every single one of them have been quickly resolved for me and it's thanks to the AoD team's response.
 
I signed up for the trial and i'm liking it so far. I love how I can watch it on my iPod when i'm not near my pc. So depending how the next 2 weeks go I might keep a paid subscription.
 
kaze_andrew said:
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I'm sure there's economical reasons Kaze has decided to do this, what I'm going to say, however, there's also economical reasons why fans, who have previously watched shows on AOD and may even have expressed a desire to buy the shows after their streaming on the site, may now just go back to the less legal areas of the internet and go right back to where they were now that the easy option has been effectually barred and they will probably be OK with just the "fansubs".

Let's put it this way, I watched all of Tiger and Bunny because it was simulcasting, I watched in SD with adverts on (not that those adverts launched half the time) and I endured the various, shall we call them, "incidents" that caused episodes to delayed a few days to a week (this got especially egregious closer to the show's climax, week long "Oh god, what's going to happen next?!" feeling and all. By the end of it, I was convinced (and I still am) that I would do anything to get the show on Blu Ray and DVD once the show has been released over here.

The next season (or was it the one after?) Persona 4 is announced and I bought a season pass the moment the show started. Now, I understand what happened with Persona was not Kaze UK's fault in the slightest, but I did not renew my season pass when it expired some four weeks after (Something AOD will absolutely need to do if it's going to a purely subscription based model will be a clear subscription description) because I felt I was being punished for Kaze France's actions and, also, that the services that were now being rendered (a week delay) were now not acceptable.

Now we come to this; a new website that is obnoxiously streaming half of the opening to the worst show the site whenever the site is accessed and the abolition of the previously established (and standard, given crunchyroll) "SD Free to Air" Model.

I'm sorry, but I can not in good concious agree that this is a good model any more if more delays to the tune of what happened with T&B and Persona 4 (and that's to say nothing of Future Diary, which I didn't watch but I'm sure people where going nuts over the delays to that) is now going to come with a subscription to it.

It's been a cool six months, but it's clear Kaze has fallen pray to the same curse that took AnimeCentral, Rapture and any attempt to air anything more academic than Pokémon on Disney XD and it'll be all but a timely manor before AOD becomes just another mark in the minds of the fan-base like Toonami and Seiko Exciting.

So my suggestion is SD as the free option with adverts, HD as the subscription model, but it's clear that's not going to happen or it's going to happen to such a limited degree that it's not going to be worth it.
 
Point 1: Glad you changed the home page video (though I wonder why on earth you need a video anyway)

Point 2: I get the feeling that just the first episode as a sampler is not going to do anything to stop anyone from going to "BT Vision" and getting the show (In HD). It's not that the first episode is available in both resolutions, it's that the show is available in any resolution without a subscription.
I honestly don't care if what you'd do is put a week delay on the free version (ala CR), just as long as the option to watch the whole show without a subscription is there.

Besides that, most shows need the three episode test (not saying you should only allow three episodes as a sampler)
 
Just Passing Through said:
Do you think I would have bought Baccano on the strength of episode 1?
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If I hadn't bought blind, I'd have been sold the moment Wakamoto Norio opened his mouth. That the rest of the series was so good was a bonus! I'm perhaps even more tragic and old school in that I don't tend to be interested in trying before I buy, though with new subtitled DVD pickings dwindling these days (amidst a sea of rereleases) I've found some space in my schedule to stream a couple of shows per season, which I use to watch series I'm most itching to see to avoid being bombarded by spoilers online.

However, in my case I'm in favour of paying up front for the privilege since I might not ever have the chance to pay down the line. I streamed Tiger & Bunny from AoD, but I liked it so much more than I'd expected that I ended up buying the special edition English-subtitled blu-ray singles from Japan. AoD didn't get anything out of that arrangement at all in the long term (though as thanks I am going to buy the Kaze release as well when it appears because it's such a smashing show). I'm not a saint and if something is available acceptably and legally for free, I'm unlikely to start paying for it unless there's a good reason. Withholding content for paying subscribers seems a reasonable enough compromise.

I think part of the problem is competing with the idea that anime should be free. If AoD had been pay-only from the outset, it wouldn't seem like something was being taken away. Digisubs and CR (which is a much more heavily invested in) model shouldn't really create a trend on their own, but it's apparent that they do.

If I'm understanding it correctly, AoD is struggling to make the ad-supported method pay at the moment. I think it's folly to put too much stock in requests like "make everything free" or "make everything simultaneous only" or "make everything HD only", as everyone has their own personal cocktail of requests and at the end of the day it has to be a profitable exercise overall or we may as well have no anime.

In honesty, I have heard people say before that they would prefer to download rips than watch the hobbled free streams, or people who use adblocks and other techniques to break the system, so it's a thorny issue. The existence of certain groups who deliberately clone simulcasts just to avoid paying cannot be ignored. For every JustPa, there seem to be a number of people who aren't willing to play ball with the ad-supported or paid model. It's worse for us as the UK is such a small and lame market that people behaving this way makes more of a difference.

Anyway, in terms of suggestions here are mine for odd things that would make a nice difference:

More Kaze content up on the site, not limited to stream-only series (i.e. glorified DVD advertisements in the form of streamed episodes for subscribers, to sweeten the deal). Funimation seem to be doing a lot with that, and I am always linking people to their legal Hetalia streams to promote the series in ways words cannot. I'd like to be able to bully my friends into trying Vampire Knight etc in the same way! It's also a good way to bulk up the catalogue and make a subscription seem like better value.

If you have series where you have the UK streaming rights but only (say) French resources for the subtitles, I'd like to see a section for that anyway to test the market here. Locking by both language and region is one of my biggest bugbears about anime streaming in general, since I can buy foreign-subbed anime from all kinds of countries on physical media. My French is pretty terrible, but I'd still find it an interesting side project.

I'm really pleased to see the new player and to be free of the pain of ANN's terrible server stability record, and thank you to Andrew for being so quick to take feedback on board.

R
 
Another idea for free streaming would be the schedule model that Nozomi use.

They put up an episode or two of a series on Youtube for everyone to watch, then next week they put up another two, and so on and so forth, but after three or four weeks, they start taking down the first episodes so at the most, there's only a block of eight episodes viewable at one time, and once the series finishes streaming it vanishes from public view.

You could have the episodes always available for subscribers, but once a month, you can stream a selected show for free to everyone in this way, and they can tune in regularly, like it's a TV channel, until the show expires.

It all depends on what the point of Anime on Demand is...

If it's purely to monetise online streaming, then the subscription model is best. Once you have enough of a subscriber base to turn a profit, lock the content away and concentrate on maintaining the subscribers. The free trial is one way to entice potential subscribers, as is the free episode 1s. But I doubt that of those subscribers, there will be enough of them willing to buy physical releases...

For if the point of this exercise is to expand the fanbase and at the end of the day sell DVDs and Blu-rays (which given Kaze's announcement of the acquisition of physical rights for several of the AoD shows I assume it is), then locking away the content is going to harm that aim.
 
Well, here's the final question;

If AOD isn't viable on the merit of a two tier Adverts and Subscription model, is removing the Advert tier and pinning everything on the subscriptions really going to do turn it around?

Because I'm only going to subscribe by season and for shows I like (so they better be on time not like how P4 (again, not Kaze UK's fault but the end of the day that's how that how it is) and Future Diary wound up. It'll only take a couple of seasons of pap (and it'll happen) to have AOD even more out on it's arse.

At least with the SD + Advertisement tier you got the advert revenue.
 
The rotating content idea is an interesting one. I recoil from it instinctively because I'm disorganised about viewing, but it does work and turns the showings into more of an 'event'. I go to NicoNico Douga every week on Saturday without fail to get the latest injection of Fate/Zero, and to begin with the only reason I started watching it at all that way was because I knew it was a one week limited showing for each episode. Whereas I have wanted to see Kemono No Souja Erin for ages on CR but in the back of my mind I'm convinced it will still be there next time and I end up going for the flashier content. I'd buy it in a heartbeat if a DVD set appeared, but when I'm online my attention span suddenly becomes incredibly short.

More suggestions would be on the subscription types. As well as the season pass (which I don't really like, because I don't think in seasons), I'd like to see some more choices. Monthly would be nice. I'll probably go for an annual all-in pass if I'm happy trying the site out as I'm lazy, but I imagine people with less disposable cash would be open to more options. Even some kind of pay-per-viewing arrangement might be interesting? Or buying credits they can top up, so they don't feel it's a waste if a season comes and goes and no shows were to their taste?

Oh, also, getting Brave10 for next month would be awesome (totally pointless plug to sweeten the idea of subscribing for me).

R
 
Also, given the industry wide backing behind AoD, Beez, MVM, Manga and Kaze, where are the sample episodes from these distributors to promote their latest releases,

where are the Girl Who Leapt Through space, Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom, Welcome to the NHK, and Samurai Girls episode 1s to sell those shows to us fans?
 
For the promotional videos for existing releases, it's also really important, I think, to have purchase links on the same page. I can't even count how many times I have heard someone talk about how this or that series is obscure or not available, only for me to point out they can buy it on Amazon for £6. Sometimes the name is different for the English version so they didn't realise, and sometimes they just never thought to check at all because it seemed unthinkable to them that something underground like Naruto would be on Amazon. If subtle prods towards legal channels to buy the home video version are included then it ties in the streaming with the buying a lot better. And then you could have an affiliate fee (or hopefully, cross-advertising once the UK specialists realise they're getting sales traffic).

Sorry, I'm totally drunk with excitement at the concept of the UK getting shiny things and the staff who run the shiny things actually listening to our feedback in real time. And not insulting us. It's like it's Christmas!

R
 
What about trying to get rights to dubbed/subbed only content that isn't viable for DVD sales in the UK but could potentially be a part of either the current subscription or a different one for AoD?

That way you're not only getting attention from those who don't watch subs but you're offering a little more variety.

Also pick up those titles which may have been dropped mid-way during DVD release?
 
I was always surprised at the lack of advertisements on Anime On Demand as opposted to crunchyroll (I'll be honest - that's why I chose to watch Nichijou on AOD as opposed to Crunchyroll, because I don't give a damn about where those creepy blue aliens put their coffee machine). However, if AnimeOnDemand has to use advertisements in the future, I wouldn't mind - I already put up with them for Crunchyroll (I was scared away from getting a membership when last time I tried, they tried to set up a direct debit - and I'm against direct debits; I'm more of a one-time-payment guy).

Usually when I try out a new series, I'll watch the first two episodes. For me, this is because I see episode 1 as "setting the scene", then episode 2 is where it kicks off (most of the time).

In regards to the "Passes", I buy season passes with AnimeOnDemand, because I'm not sure I'm going to actually like the shows in a particular season. So I think the "Season Pass/Annual Pass" method works - £9.99 for a season is a good deal once I've been convinced that I'm going to watch the series' in that season (for example, as soon as Un-Go returns and new Mirai Nikki episodes show up, I'm renewing my season pass).

Obviously as a consumer, I'd love for it to be entirely free, but I think that the first episode being free and the others paid for is fair.

One thing I will suggest though is the possible addition of a "Series Pass". Where say, if a show is expected to last multiple seasons, people can buy a pass to exclusively watch that series (with a price that's obviously less than buying 2 season passes) - would that be at all possible? Saying that though, the £9.99 price of a season pass really isn't that much; the average show will last 1 or 2 seasons, so that'd only be £20 over quite a long period...so not sure if a "Series Pass" would be needed? (Well, until AOD stream a 50+ episode show).
 
Just Passing Through said:
Another idea for free streaming would be the schedule model that Nozomi use.

They put up an episode or two of a series on Youtube for everyone to watch, then next week they put up another two, and so on and so forth, but after three or four weeks, they start taking down the first episodes so at the most, there's only a block of eight episodes viewable at one time, and once the series finishes streaming it vanishes from public view.

You could have the episodes always available for subscribers, but once a month, you can stream a selected show for free to everyone in this way, and they can tune in regularly, like it's a TV channel, until the show expires.

It all depends on what the point of Anime on Demand is...

If it's purely to monetise online streaming, then the subscription model is best. Once you have enough of a subscriber base to turn a profit, lock the content away and concentrate on maintaining the subscribers. The free trial is one way to entice potential subscribers, as is the free episode 1s. But I doubt that of those subscribers, there will be enough of them willing to buy physical releases...

For if the point of this exercise is to expand the fanbase and at the end of the day sell DVDs and Blu-rays (which given Kaze's announcement of the acquisition of physical rights for several of the AoD shows I assume it is), then locking away the content is going to harm that aim.
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Yeah, I think this is a very good idea. And while I do sympathize with AoD's need to make a profit, as outlined above I do doubt locking off the free streamers will allow AoD to expand the anime purchasing UK market in any way.

I'm in the same boat as JPT, as I will never pay money to simply be able to stream content on my computer, however if I think a show worthy I will almost certainly buy it as soon as I have the expendable money required (and unlike Rui I never import). But I nearly never (now less than ever before) buy show's that I'm not certain are worthy of that purchase, it's not just anime this extends to almost everything I buy. I only wish to support creators and products that I can wholly approve and want more of, it is true that there are times when I do take risks, but now that I also have less income then previously I find I am rarely taking them.Critic reviews rarely ever seem to reflect my own opinions on shows/films, so I tend not to rely on them. Indeed, trying fully before I buy is the best way to insure someone like me will spend money on your product.
 
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