Sorry I missed this post initially, if I've missed any others in the past and you want them answered people drop me a message and I'll do so - work is as always busy so I can be prone to missing some xD!
melonpan said:
Andrew, two questions if I may:
I'm sure you're completely aware of the Macross situation in America, but I'm wondering if Harmony Gold have the rights to Macross in all English speaking countries, thus stopping any European release? It's a ridiculously huge shame more Macross isn't going to come out for English speaking people after Plus was released by Manga.
Regarding the rights to Macross - I'm not sure I know what you mean here really. To my knowledge Harmony Gold hold the rights primarily to the Robotech Saga (that Manga has also distributed) that was made up of Macross and others. I'll ask Jerome about it next time I speak to him but I know there are a bundle of problematic licenses in the Macross bag - not to do with Harmony Gold in particular though.
Newer shows like Macross Frontier however I'm less sure about - they may be easier to get ahold of. Certainly one I'd be interested on!
melonpan said:
On the Gundam issue, you mentioned using the new Japanese HD masters of Gundam in a future release. Now, it's blatently obvious that Japan are milking the end of the DVD format by releasing HD material on DVD, when they should have at the very least released a Blu-ray edition alongside the DVD release or just a Blu-ray edition on its own, that's what HD is for... Now I'm guessing you'd love to do a Blu-ray release of Gundam over here, but I'm positive the Japanese licensors wouldn't allow any Blu-ray release of anything before its been released in Japan (ignorant reverse importation fears by the Japanese licensors), but really, is there any hope what-so-ever of a Blu-ray release before a Japanese release. With Funimation over in the US holding Blu-ray rights to at least some of their titles (what's mentioned on the press releases (Shigurui at least)) I would assume it's just a matter of acquiring HDCAM's instead of Digibeta's so they can give a native HD release instead of an upscale, which would be hard as the Japanese have to send it [the HDCAM], and of course they have to be willing to send it, and then there's the question of the HD masters even existing. Anyway what I'm getting to is the fact that now HD masters for the original Gundam, Gundam Wing (you've released this on DVD already so there's scope here for something...), SD Gundam and Z Gundam (I'm no Gundam expert but I guess that's Zeta Gundam) exist, you already said Zeta can't be released, but the other three, is it just a matter of acquiring the HD masters, then you have free reign to release it as you please on Blu-ray, or do you have to get approval from the Gundam committee before being able to release something, which one would assume is illegal for them to stop you releasing it on Blu-ray once you own the rights to release it in Europe, so all they can do is hold up the materials.
Sorry the post is long and convoluted but I hope you get the gist. And I guess this is extended to other series as well where HD masters are available, and a company has Blu-ray rights to the series (like in the case of Funimation's future (tentatively confirmed) release of Samurai 7 on Blu-ray).
Thanks in advance.
I get the gist of what you're saying - but ideally the end goal (several years down the line for it to be set in stone though) is that there shouldn't be a need to release it first in one country or another but everywhere at once like with Freedom, Gunbuster vs Diebuster and several others that I know but can't talk about yet lined up for the next year!
With titles like Gundam, where possible and financially prudent - in my opinion at least - you'll start seeing worldwide releases including Gundam when the time is right.
Regarding rights, all HD rights are actually often sold separately to SD DVD which means you have to pay more for them etc. So it's in fact illegal to just bung out a HD release of a show without permission sadly!
Hope this helps and sorry for such a slow reply!
. So something to look forward to 
