Interview With Bandai Visual's President, Tatsunori Konno

M

melonpan

Death Scythe
A very interesting article here I read this morning, I thought there's something very interesting I should highlight in it, however.

ICv2 said:
Is your ideal for the future to release a region 1 DVD at the same time you're releasing the region 2 in Japan?
Actually, the DVD market will go into HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Disc, and those next generation DVDs don't have region codes, so, it's going to be the same thing.

So in the future with high definition, you can release essentially the same product?
That's correct. So Japanese fans will get products with English subtitles at the same time as Americans do.

That's true in America too, you know if you buy a Die Hard DVD you'll have French or Spanish or Chinese subtitles on it.
Actually it's a bit of a project, but if we can we'd like to put many languages on a high-def disc, because they have a lot of capacity to put languages in. So we may put English, French, Spanish, Chinese on one disc, produce it in Japan and ship it world-wide.
Click to expand...

The full interview can be found here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10937.html

It highlights some very interesting things and includes some very interesting facts and figures.
 
Re: Interview With Bandai Visual's President, Tatsunori Konn

I read this interview this morning, and got the distinct impression that BV know very little about the anime market outside Japan. They seem to have decided to put english subs on japanese discs and sell them in the US and are now stuggling to sell these discs to a hostile market.

Secondly, I would be vastly surprised if either High Definition format replaced DVD and BVs assumption that it will is one of the main reasons for their decision to release discs in the US. The mass market is gradually moving away from disc based media and HD TVs, whilst increasingly common, aren't that widespread.
 
Hmm, very interesting to see Bandai Visual catering for the more 'hardcore' fans and cutting down on the time it takes to get new material outside of Japan. Only time will tell to see how well the idea gets put into practice!
 
Re: Interview With Bandai Visual's President, Tatsunori Konn

Noratav said:
I read this interview this morning, and got the distinct impression that BV know very little about the anime market outside Japan. They seem to have decided to put english subs on japanese discs and sell them in the US and are now stuggling to sell these discs to a hostile market.

Secondly, I would be vastly surprised if either High Definition format replaced DVD and BVs assumption that it will is one of the main reasons for their decision to release discs in the US. The mass market is gradually moving away from disc based media and HD TVs, whilst increasingly common, aren't that widespread.
Click to expand...

Funimation are starting with Blu-ray as well, and they have the biggest share in the American market, so BV can't be that wrong.

When you say the mass market is moving away from disc based media and HD TV's.. so what are they moving to? There's no alternative to disc based media, and the next decade or so is going to be catered for with even more disc based media, with Holographic media discs being actively researched and the next stage to that, protein coated discs (which can store 100TB I think it is). HD will just be implemented as the years go by. Non-HD TV manufacturing will gradually be stopped (like VCR's) and analogue will be switched off.
I don't understand how you can say the market is moving away from these things, when that's all that is available; maybe I mis-understood your comment o_o
 
Re: Interview With Bandai Visual's President, Tatsunori Konn

Cheeky, they already have out the idea into practice in R1. In exchange for better audio and video quality, they've cut out dubs and charge 1.5 - 2 times as much as anyone else.

DaNiMe said:
Noratav said:
I read this interview this morning, and got the distinct impression that BV know very little about the anime market outside Japan. They seem to have decided to put english subs on japanese discs and sell them in the US and are now stuggling to sell these discs to a hostile market.

Secondly, I would be vastly surprised if either High Definition format replaced DVD and BVs assumption that it will is one of the main reasons for their decision to release discs in the US. The mass market is gradually moving away from disc based media and HD TVs, whilst increasingly common, aren't that widespread.
Click to expand...

Funimation are starting with Blu-ray as well, and they have the biggest share in the American market, so BV can't be that wrong.

When you say the mass market is moving away from disc based media and HD TV's.. so what are they moving to? There's no alternative to disc based media, and the next decade or so is going to be catered for with even more disc based media, with Holographic media discs being actively researched and the next stage to that, protein coated discs (which can store 100TB I think it is). HD will just be implemented as the years go by. Non-HD TV manufacturing will gradually be stopped (like VCR's) and analogue will be switched off.
I don't understand how you can say the market is moving away from these things, when that's all that is available; maybe I mis-understood your comment o_o
Click to expand...

Holographic discs are vapourware. People have been saying they're just around the corner for years despite the fact no real progress has been made in creating one.

The real shift is to VOD and downloads, more the former than the later unless the gap between PC and TV can be adequetely bridged. What's happened to the music industry is slowly beginning to affect other aspects of the entertainment industry. Besides, people have built up significant DVD collections, which they do not want to replace. With HD DVD and Blu-ray they won't have to, but if we get any subsequent generations we will have to do so. I'm not saying either format will die out, there is still a demand for HD media, which will grow as more people buy HD TVs and start watching stuff in HD (something that an awful lot of HD TV owners don't actually do), but DVDs will still exist alongside them for those who don't really care about the difference in quality. Blu-ray is the new laser disc.

P.S. The switch from analogue to digital is a seperate issue. Analogue will be dead in five years time regardless, thanks to the government's desire to sell off more bandwidth to phone companies. Some in the industry are worried that the government might sell off so much bandwidth that it will become impossible to broadcast HD over Freeview
 
Basicly, the insuation that I get is guy is spewing utter bullcrap the whole time.
Because I totaly want to waste some 40$ to get undubbed dvds.

Cuz I won't shell out next to squat to get undubbed GaoGaiGar.
 
Re: Interview With Bandai Visual's President, Tatsunori Konn

Noratav said:
Holographic discs are vapourware. People have been saying they're just around the corner for years despite the fact no real progress has been made in creating one.

The real shift is to VOD and downloads, more the former than the later unless the gap between PC and TV can be adequetely bridged. What's happened to the music industry is slowly beginning to affect other aspects of the entertainment industry. Besides, people have built up significant DVD collections, which they do not want to replace. With HD DVD and Blu-ray they won't have to, but if we get any subsequent generations we will have to do so. I'm not saying either format will die out, there is still a demand for HD media, which will grow as more people buy HD TVs and start watching stuff in HD (something that an awful lot of HD TV owners don't actually do), but DVDs will still exist alongside them for those who don't really care about the difference in quality. Blu-ray is the new laser disc.

P.S. The switch from analogue to digital is a seperate issue. Analogue will be dead in five years time regardless, thanks to the government's desire to sell off more bandwidth to phone companies. Some in the industry are worried that the government might sell off so much bandwidth that it will become impossible to broadcast HD over Freeview
Click to expand...

Interesting indeed. Personally, I would never prefer a download to a physical disc I can hold (with a sexy case, then inside a wonderful artbox), but I can see where you're coming from.

I don't know how Freeview works totally; I think it's broadcast over an aerial is it not? Albeit a more powerful one than the normal one. I was going to say if the government sells off lots of bandwith, it makes it so they will have to invest in more economical ways to use bandwith.... fibre optic cables throughout the country would be a good option to this, albeit very costly, but that's the way forward. Not sure if that has anything to do with what you mean though.
 
I'm someone who is willing to download to rent, but not to own. So I agree with you, but a lot of people do download, particularly TV episodes, it's just a matter of persuading them to buy the downloads legally. Geneon seem to think it's the future, as they've recently announced that they're putting all their HD content on X-Box Live rather than a next-gen disk format.

As for Freeview, I'm no expert on the technology, but it is broadcast over standard TV aerials. Some older aerials don't work but I have no idea why. Freeview works partly because SD digital TV signals take up very little bandwidth, HD signals take up more but no where near as much as an analogue signal. The concern is that if the goverment sells off all the bandwidth in between the frequencies freeview uses to phone companies, there won't be enough bandwidth for the TV channels to switch from SD to HD. As for laying cables, haven't Virgin Media (or one its previous incarnations) already done that in most places? Incidentally, the Korean solution to a lack of bandwidth is universal Wi-Fi coverage rather than more cables, but that's related to the internet rather tha freeview.
 
Noratav said:
As for laying cables, haven't Virgin Media (or one its previous incarnations) already done that in most places? Incidentally, the Korean solution to a lack of bandwidth is universal Wi-Fi coverage rather than more cables, but that's related to the internet rather tha freeview.
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I don't really understand Geneon's move there, to release their HD content solely on Xbox.. not everyone has an Xbox :/ I would hope they could expand that, but then again it wouldn't come over here unless they licensed it to another company here, or maybe it might? That would be good for a lot of people in the UK.

I don't think the cables Virgin laid were fibre optic. BT are currently working on renewing the entire telephone system around the country, called 21CN (21st Century Network), they are pondering the thought of putting fibre optics, but will probably go with new metallic lines, although! A small community, in south Wales ( :p ) got to test out fibre optic cables; lucky them. BT will most probably put metallic cables, which is a bit mistake really, fibre optic cables are the future; but there we go, that's BT for you.

I don't think Wi-Fi coverage for an entire country is best, lots of security issues there; I'm sure Korea has a whole load of trouble, and probably some cyber hacker police :p . I know there's some company called Wimax who set up Wi-Fi for entire cities, it's already going in most major cities, it's like special high speed Wi-Fi, so maybe that's what you mean Korea has.

The thing is, as you probably know, we're behind all the other countries, as usual. The "norm" in SE Asian countries is fibre optic, 100MB lines, and America are catching onto that as well. The closest we'll come to that is maybe by 2010,11,12 etc, when 21CN has been completed, and if BT decide to use fibre optic cables. Of course there's Virgin, who might already have the power to upgrade all their lines to fibre optic, they have the money I should think, just depends if it's worth it for them. They're doing well though I have to admit, they do put a nice package together, albeit pricey and restrictive. I don't know if their lines can go past 20MB, and for non-Virgin people, 24MB is the most we can expect with current technologies.

I love going off-topic : )
 
At the moment the X-Box Live service is the only place where HD downloads are really available. That will change in the future of course.

Yes, I am aware that Virgin's aren't fibre optic. Most were laid before Fibre Optic cables became an affordable option for a cable company of their size. And it's not as if they have the money at the moment to upgrade them, although they recently put themselves up for sale, so that may change. I don't know the details of BTs prospective upgrade, other than that's urgently needed. We're lagging behind on Broadband speeds, because our telephone infrastructure is older than most. Most people struggle to get beyond a couple of gig as a result of that.

Re: Korea I'm not talking about Wimax, although they might use that, I'm talking about the fact that Korea has far more Wi-Fi spots than anywhere else, and that some people use that rather than regular net access. They of course have universal fibre optic too. It's to be expected, there big business pays for the infrastructure and unlike here everyone uses it. Not that any of this is on topic.
 
DaNiMe said:
Noratav said:
As for laying cables, haven't Virgin Media (or one its previous incarnations) already done that in most places? Incidentally, the Korean solution to a lack of bandwidth is universal Wi-Fi coverage rather than more cables, but that's related to the internet rather tha freeview.
Click to expand...

I don't really understand Geneon's move there, to release their HD content solely on Xbox.. not everyone has an Xbox :/ I would hope they could expand that, but then again it wouldn't come over here unless they licensed it to another company here, or maybe it might? That would be good for a lot of people in the UK.

I don't think the cables Virgin laid were fibre optic. BT are currently working on renewing the entire telephone system around the country, called 21CN (21st Century Network), they are pondering the thought of putting fibre optics, but will probably go with new metallic lines, although! A small community, in south Wales ( :p ) got to test out fibre optic cables; lucky them. BT will most probably put metallic cables, which is a bit mistake really, fibre optic cables are the future; but there we go, that's BT for you.

I don't think Wi-Fi coverage for an entire country is best, lots of security issues there; I'm sure Korea has a whole load of trouble, and probably some cyber hacker police :p . I know there's some company called Wimax who set up Wi-Fi for entire cities, it's already going in most major cities, it's like special high speed Wi-Fi, so maybe that's what you mean Korea has.

The thing is, as you probably know, we're behind all the other countries, as usual. The "norm" in SE Asian countries is fibre optic, 100MB lines, and America are catching onto that as well. The closest we'll come to that is maybe by 2010,11,12 etc, when 21CN has been completed, and if BT decide to use fibre optic cables. Of course there's Virgin, who might already have the power to upgrade all their lines to fibre optic, they have the money I should think, just depends if it's worth it for them. They're doing well though I have to admit, they do put a nice package together, albeit pricey and restrictive. I don't know if their lines can go past 20MB, and for non-Virgin people, 24MB is the most we can expect with current technologies.

I love going off-topic : )
Click to expand...
Currently Virgin's max is at 20Mbps and they are planning to roll out 50Mbps in the near future. All new cabling by NTL/Virgin has been fiberoptic but a lot of the original cabling carried out by Cable & Wireless and Nynex (plus a couple of others) was traditional copper wire. Virgin have made an effort to convert all of that over time but only where demand for services made the costs worthwhile. The result is a large percentage of cabled areas are now fibreop but a fairly small percentage of the country is fully cabled...
 
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