Blu Ray vs DVD: Does it make a big difference to anime?

Re: Upcoming UK anime DVD artwork!

With DVD to VHS, the barrier for entry wasn't high at all. You just needed the player, and it would work on existing TVs with existing cables. BD to DVD was a higher barrier, requiring upgrades to a HDTV with new cables etc...so we're still waiting for things to catch up, though HDTVs are the standard now thankfully. The format war didn't help either I'm sure, what with consumer confusion caused by the existence of HD-DVD and Blu-ray all at once until early 2008.
 
Re: Upcoming UK anime DVD artwork!

To be honest, the only reason I ended up owning a HDTV to begin with is because all of my younger brother's richer friends had one, so he kicked and screamed for one, so Mum caved in and rented one. Then I realised no one was really using the HD, so I bought a blu-ray player to justify having a HDTV.

I may have a little HDTV of my own in my room now, but I never would have explored HD in the first place if not for my little brother wanting the same things as his much better well-off friends.
 
Re: Upcoming UK anime DVD artwork!

Ath said:
With DVD to VHS, the barrier for entry wasn't high at all. You just needed the player, and it would work on existing TVs with existing cables. BD to DVD was a higher barrier, requiring upgrades to a HDTV with new cables etc...
Click to expand...
Eh, not really, although obv. that's the line people would be selling.
 
Re: Upcoming UK anime DVD artwork!

I'm thinking this thread could use a split somewhere...
For a lot of people their first DVD player was a PS2, and they weren't exactly cheap. My first DVD player was second hand and didn't have a remote. My parent's didn't have a DVD player until I passed that one onto them (after finally buying a remote for it) when I replaced it (with a PS2, ironically) and they only got a HDTV when the CRT packed in.

--edit--

For that matter my parent's still don't have a BD player. They have my dodgy old PS3, but don't have any BDs anyway..
 
Re: Upcoming UK anime DVD artwork!

You also still "needed" your VHS player if you were in any way inclined to record TV programs, unless you wanted to really go big or go home given the price of early DVD recorders. These days you can just junk all of your old stuff and not have to take up extra room with new equipment.
 
There is now a subtle join in this topic on page one where I seamlessly blended the discussion from the artwork thread in with this one >_>;;

R
 
Re: Upcoming UK anime DVD artwork!

Shiroi Hane said:
For that matter my parent's still don't have a BD player. They have my dodgy old PS3, but don't have any BDs anyway..
Click to expand...

My parents still have a CRT TV and they only got a DVD player about 7 years ago. They still have a working VHS player.
 
Tell the truth, two years ago I was happy with my CRT TV and DVD player. We had two TVs, one 4:3 CRT that's 20+ years old now and still going strong, and a 16:9 widescreen CRT that is 15 years old and still going strong. The DVD has always been hooked up to that.

The plan was to keep going with those until one died, and then replace it with a flat panel set. Then someone in the house, who shall remain nameless, put their foot down and demanded a satellite dish instead of Freeview. I did my research and found that most SD satellite boxes were crap. Found a TV with built in Freesat instead, which happened to be a 1080p LCD panel. Since I was halfway there, I got a Blu-ray player as well. All of a sudden I'm in the HD age, and I've never looked back.

I still use the CRT TV to watch DVDs on, especially anime DVDs which I've found upscale badly in comparison to live action discs, especially for the majority of my collection, which is from that pre-2010 period where everything was NTSC-PAL converted.

But anime Blu-rays look gorgeous. I can't get past 1080p 24fps playback, even for SD upscaled material.

The fact of the matter is that I wasn't planning on upgrading. It's just that I had no choice in the end. I think a lot of people are in that position. It's made worse in that broadcast television is still mostly SD. Few people get to see the benefits of HD first hand. Even now, when I channel hop, I click through 1,2,3,4, and 5, not 101, 102, 103, 104 and 5. I still tend to forget that the main four terrestrial channels are in HD, unless there's something I plan ahead to watch, like Doctor Who or a movie.

It needs to be a two pronged change. One will happen naturally as more and more CRT TVs die and are upgraded, but the other needs to be broadcaster led, with more free to air channels in HD, at the moment it's just the main four, plus NHK World and RT on satellite, and they need to be top loading the EPG with them, so people click on them first, not as an afterthought.
 
We still have a VHS player. We still have a lot of retail VHS tapes that haven't been replaced, stuff taped off the TV that is not even available to replace plus family videos that were transferred to VHS from cine film using an converter we hired and later stuff that was transferred from VHS-C and DV tapes that were wiped for re-use.
 
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