Beez Entertainment Discussion

I've never purchased a Beez release before but the prices for Haruhi were pretty good at play.com and hmv so I decided to grab my first Beez title over here in the UK (Was going to import the US versions, but oh well).

Question is though for Mr. Beez-man himself :)
I pre-ordered Haruhi 1 over at HMV yesterday (special edition) and 2-4 on play.com yesterday as well (also special editions)

Hopefully I'm guaranteed to get all 4 SE's as I know certain e-tailers have a tendency not to take things down when they've actually sold out of their supply.

Do you know how sales are going at the moment and if you've advised retailers like HMV and play to stop taking orders after a certain time?
 
Thanks ever so much for taking the time to write such a thorough reply, Andrew. I'll have to pose some counter-questions to a couple of things when I've gone through it again in great depth. Everything I wondered about distribution is finally understood now =)!

And now for something completely different...

I'm not sure how much of a part you have to play in the video encoding part of your releases, but I'm wondering if you could tell me whether or not the NTSC masters you get from Japanese companies (?) are converted into PAL by either "2:2 pulldown", or "2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown"? The more I read into video encoding the more I notice all the artifacts and generally annoying things that come from NTSC and PAL encoding, but one thing that really bugs me is the 4% speed increase that I see in video that's used the "2:2 pulldown" method. "2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown" takes away that 4% speed increase, so I'm hoping you use that to turn the NTSC video that you receive into PAL.

Thanks in advance if you can answer that. :D
 
Tasker said:
Here's a question... When are you going to give the masterer/producer/manufacturer of your DVDs a slap?

I just bought disk 9 of Eureka Seven and i'm bloomin sick of buying Beez disks that are out of audio sync, not to mention the fact that the interview with Crispin Freeman has no audio 'whatsoever'. :x

Still, at least it's not bad as disk 6. I'd rather have an entire disk out of sync by a small amount than have a single episode out by 2 whole seconds, even if it is annoying.

-Edit- Sorry if that came over as a bit harsh, i'm having a bad day and i'm a little piddled off, but the points still stand though.
Click to expand...

Hi Tasker,

Very sorry to hear this problem - to my knowledge the production team managed to miss it this time. I'm very sorry for the pain that has been suffered and can guarantee any problems will be limited from now on at best.

I'm passing on the notice to them along with one I received a while ago as well and trying to get some kind of replacement scheme sorted if at all possible. All offending parties will be given a slap for it.

In fact: Anyone affected by these problems please drop me a PM and I'll see what can be done, if not in replacements then some kind of apology to be arranged!.

We're starting to share masters with Madman now where possible (like Haruhi) so in future these problems should be a thing of the past! And if they're not I'm going to have to execut...I mean 'replace' factory workers....

- Andrew
 
Elaniel said:
I've never purchased a Beez release before but the prices for Haruhi were pretty good at play.com and hmv so I decided to grab my first Beez title over here in the UK (Was going to import the US versions, but oh well).

Question is though for Mr. Beez-man himself :)
I pre-ordered Haruhi 1 over at HMV yesterday (special edition) and 2-4 on play.com yesterday as well (also special editions)

Hopefully I'm guaranteed to get all 4 SE's as I know certain e-tailers have a tendency not to take things down when they've actually sold out of their supply.

Do you know how sales are going at the moment and if you've advised retailers like HMV and play to stop taking orders after a certain time?
Click to expand...

First of all congratulations on pre-ordering them - given they are limited to 500 units that's a very sensible move to make!

Retailers should know the stock is limited and it all shows up at Pinnacle how many orders have been made - so when that is exceeded retailers will stop taking orders! Safe to say your preorders are secure at the moment!

Given release isn't until may, retailers will lodge their pre-orders with us shortly I would suspect so I'll update then, initial interest is pretty high though thankfully!

- Andrew
 
melonpan said:
Thanks ever so much for taking the time to write such a thorough reply, Andrew. I'll have to pose some counter-questions to a couple of things when I've gone through it again in great depth. Everything I wondered about distribution is finally understood now =)!

And now for something completely different...

I'm not sure how much of a part you have to play in the video encoding part of your releases, but I'm wondering if you could tell me whether or not the NTSC masters you get from Japanese companies (?) are converted into PAL by either "2:2 pulldown", or "2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown"? The more I read into video encoding the more I notice all the artifacts and generally annoying things that come from NTSC and PAL encoding, but one thing that really bugs me is the 4% speed increase that I see in video that's used the "2:2 pulldown" method. "2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown" takes away that 4% speed increase, so I'm hoping you use that to turn the NTSC video that you receive into PAL.

Thanks in advance if you can answer that. :D
Click to expand...

Sadly I don't have much to do with the encoding process really, that kind of thing is outsourced usually! To my knowledge it's not the 2:2 pulldown though - I could be horrendously wrong there but last I checked it wasn't for newer titles coming anyway...

Will look into that for a more definitive answer!
 
beez_andrew said:
melonpan said:
Thanks ever so much for taking the time to write such a thorough reply, Andrew. I'll have to pose some counter-questions to a couple of things when I've gone through it again in great depth. Everything I wondered about distribution is finally understood now =)!

And now for something completely different...

I'm not sure how much of a part you have to play in the video encoding part of your releases, but I'm wondering if you could tell me whether or not the NTSC masters you get from Japanese companies (?) are converted into PAL by either "2:2 pulldown", or "2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown"? The more I read into video encoding the more I notice all the artifacts and generally annoying things that come from NTSC and PAL encoding, but one thing that really bugs me is the 4% speed increase that I see in video that's used the "2:2 pulldown" method. "2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown" takes away that 4% speed increase, so I'm hoping you use that to turn the NTSC video that you receive into PAL.

Thanks in advance if you can answer that. :D
Click to expand...

Sadly I don't have much to do with the encoding process really, that kind of thing is outsourced usually! To my knowledge it's not the 2:2 pulldown though - I could be horrendously wrong there but last I checked it wasn't for newer titles coming anyway...

Will look into that for a more definitive answer!
Click to expand...

I look forward to the answer. Many thanks.
 
The vast majority of UK and Autralian releases are NTSC>PAL conversions, complete with unsightly interlacing/ghosting. It's one reason I don't buy many PAL anime DVDs.
 
beez_andrew said:
Elaniel said:
I've never purchased a Beez release before but the prices for Haruhi were pretty good at play.com and hmv so I decided to grab my first Beez title over here in the UK (Was going to import the US versions, but oh well).

Question is though for Mr. Beez-man himself :)
I pre-ordered Haruhi 1 over at HMV yesterday (special edition) and 2-4 on play.com yesterday as well (also special editions)

Hopefully I'm guaranteed to get all 4 SE's as I know certain e-tailers have a tendency not to take things down when they've actually sold out of their supply.

Do you know how sales are going at the moment and if you've advised retailers like HMV and play to stop taking orders after a certain time?
Click to expand...

First of all congratulations on pre-ordering them - given they are limited to 500 units that's a very sensible move to make!

Retailers should know the stock is limited and it all shows up at Pinnacle how many orders have been made - so when that is exceeded retailers will stop taking orders! Safe to say your preorders are secure at the moment!

Given release isn't until may, retailers will lodge their pre-orders with us shortly I would suspect so I'll update then, initial interest is pretty high though thankfully!

- Andrew
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I've got you quoted now. I'll hunt you down though if I don't get them :p LOL (I may put the LOL but I will be absolutely gutted if I don't get them.)
 
I unfortunately had to cancel my pre-orders for Harumi as the amount of issues I have been reading around about Beez's sync issues. I don't want a show that has the possibility of being like that, especially from what I've read that nothing has been done about it to replace DVD's with the problem.

Is this true?
 
Elaniel said:
I unfortunately had to cancel my pre-orders for Harumi as the amount of issues I have been reading around about Beez's sync issues. I don't want a show that has the possibility of being like that, especially from what I've read that nothing has been done about it to replace DVD's with the problem.

Is this true?
Click to expand...

Dealing with it in two parts, regarding sync issues first:

If referring to Eureka Seven I am in the process of arranging something. If not a replacement scheme then some kind of compensation for the problem to help put things right. Hardly ideal but it's really the best I can do on it right now, I'm also investigating if a replacement scheme is possible and pursuing why it happened.

Sadly these things take time when your team is pretty small thus is pretty much always under pressure and working on the next product! I can only apologize to the people patiently waiting at present and say I should have news soon.

--

Regarding Haruhi, it seems a bit premature to cancel it - especially as in the press release I made sure to let everyone know we would be using the Region 4 Madman masters for it, these already are in a PAL format so you will have high quality masters, as the Madman ones are pretty much always very good quality.

As soon as I knew we'd sealed the license I actually pointed out Madman had masters already and we should acquire them for the release ^^;!

So you can rest assured the video quality will be very good :). Sorry you feel canceling your preorder was necessary though and I hope this helps put your mind at ease!
 
I agree, cancelling is a bit harsh and I should point out that the sync issues ( well for me anyway ) have only happened on the Eureka 7 disks.
 
I really didn't want to get to that point and have to cancel, but for a show I really really like, I wanted to make sure everything was perfect. (The US Versions are already out and there's no complaints with them, so I just wanted to ensure I got copies that don't have issues, or the possibility of issues.)

While I understand it may seem a bit premature or harsh to cancel so outright, it was just me wanting to make sure that everything was all fine and dandy, (as you never really know until the product is in your hand.)

Needless to say, this doesn't mean I won't be buying anything else Beez have released. ( already placed an order for some My-Hime DVD's from HMV.)

Thanks for the explanation on things, and I do apologize for having to do it, but I hope it can be understood I wanted to make sure it was all definately fine and dandy (Plus I couldn't wait anymore) ^.^. I'm an impatient bugger according to my partner :D
 
Elaniel said:
I really didn't want to get to that point and have to cancel, but for a show I really really like, I wanted to make sure everything was perfect. (The US Versions are already out and there's no complaints with them, so I just wanted to ensure I got copies that don't have issues, or the possibility of issues.)
Click to expand...
The masters on the R1 are quite frankly terrible, And I've heard several complaints about that. Beez are using the Madman masters which are of a much higher quality and the only DVD far as I'm aware Beez mixing up the sync on is Eureka Seven in which Andrew has also said that he is going to try and sort out.

Also, Andrew: Since the Haruhi SE release is limited to 500 releases, Is this in contrast to the American release along with the assumed amount to purchase it. Basically, what I'm saying is, Do you think the SE's will still be hanging around the UK as long as the R1 releases are? I don't think its problem for me, at the moment. I'm just making sure so I don't have to rush out and place pre-orders and such.

Thanks in advance. I'm going to the expo in may so I should be able to get it there. :p
 
Apparently Bandai made more Haruhi boxes/items than they needed to, so I'm thinking if these 500 units sell very well then there's chance to get more. Or I could be wrong and Beez have produced all the material themselves.
 
Jayme said:
The masters on the R1 are quite frankly terrible, And I've heard several complaints about that.
Click to expand...
First I've heard. Anime On DVD awarded an "A" to the video quality of all four volumes. And they're particular about that sort of thing.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Jayme said:
The masters on the R1 are quite frankly terrible, And I've heard several complaints about that.
Click to expand...
First I've heard. Anime On DVD awarded an "A" to the video quality of all four volumes. And they're particular about that sort of thing.
Click to expand...

I only watched the three subbed bonus discs (I have the LEs but no interest in the dub so watched in broadcast order). No complaints with the encode on the whole but the codec was clearly throwing a fit during the busy opening credits - lots of artifacting. Nothing too upsetting but noticeable for sure.

Again, no idea if this is a problem on the regular discs.

R
 
I was going to say there was no problem I've seen with the Region 1's. It's great they're using the Madman transfers and not trying to transfter the Bandai discs, shows they're willing to try something new/different.

I'm also fussy about something that's silly. The actual DVD cases. The MVM cases for Geneon releases are these silly spindles where the discs spin on them as they don't grip on the disc (almost makes it look flimsy) and you also lose the artwork on a few of them with the insides having promotions for other shows rather than the spread image on the back of the covers.

How does Beez's releases compare to the Region 1's? Do they do this as well like MVM or keep it pretty similar in comparison to Region 1 releases? Also, which type of DVD cases do they use (it sounds stupid but it means something to me!) :p
 
Rui said:
I only watched the three subbed bonus discs (I have the LEs but no interest in the dub so watched in broadcast order). No complaints with the encode on the whole but the codec was clearly throwing a fit during the busy opening credits - lots of artifacting. Nothing too upsetting but noticeable for sure.
Click to expand...
AODVD's review mentions the issues with the opening, yeah. I didn't notice it myself, but then my set-up is rather modest.
 
Elaniel said:
Also, which type of DVD cases do they use (it sounds stupid but it means something to me!) :p
Click to expand...
Cheap, crappy DVD cases are one of my biggest annoyances. I especially hate the Scanavo cases that Geneon (used to) use; sometimes the hubs are so tight that you have to bend the disc to remove it. A while ago I bought a load of Amaray cases and transferred a lot of my discs to them.
 
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