[Overseas] Anime News & Announcements

qaiz said:
On the contrary, keep buying more! :p
Buy Giant Robo next please
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HAHA! Yeah surely a BD release of that with both dubs is something Discotek would be interested in doing. Man I want that so bad but unfortunately I already have the DVDs lol

I think I might buy the french releases of Super Submarine 99 and Space Symphony Maetel ;)
 
I'm more than happy to see DVD phased out in favour of Blu Ray and 4K, I honestly never watch the DVDs in my combo packs anyway, though I wouldn't get rid of them for completionists sake.

When it comes to buying anime on DVD, I only buy if there's no high-definition alternative. Most of what I own on DVD I'd happily upgrade to BD if a good release came out. This especially applies to Long running series' such as One Piece, Dragonball and Naruto, which are taking up a lot of my shelf space.

This is why I'm happy to see Bleach getting released gradually on Blu Ray. It makes me somewhat confident that other series' will get remastered and re-released with more episodes per disc, which whittles down the shelf space.
 
The combo pack thing is funny because the thought would be to lend and gift the spare DVD copies out to spread the love of anime...and instead we keep them to have a complete set lol as if that even means anything in the long run, and yet I find myself doing the same thing. 1st world problems.

I should gift my DVD copies...or at least throw them all on ebay.
 
qaiz said:
The combo pack thing is funny because the thought would be to lend and gift the spare DVD copies out to spread the love of anime...and instead we keep them to have a complete set lol as if that even means anything in the long run, and yet I find myself doing the same thing. 1st world problems.

I should gift my DVD copies...or at least throw them all on ebay.
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None of my anime watching friends bother with physical media so even if I offered they'd stay sat in their cases :p
 
Good news for me.
Now anime will be released in the UK in the faster rate in the future.
R.I.P DVD it has been a fun and cheap ride but now we should move on to the future.
Still saving up for a Blu Ray Player for my computer and I mostly likely get it early next year.
Also am currently transition from DVD to Blu Ray for anime.
 
I've always liked the idea of SD on BD, saves a lot of discs and packaging. I'm interested to check out FOTNS so I'll keep an eye out for this release.
 
Just going to point out what should be an obvious downside to anime distributors ceasing support of DVD as a format:

There's the potential for an awful lot of anime to become inaccessible to UK fans who favour physical releases. DVDs from other regions are a lot easier to play and watch on a TV than Blu Rays from elsewhere. Even trying to circumvent region coding via means of software is a nightmare. I don't think I've ever found a reliable and / or easily affordable option to watch Region A BDs. (Don't rely on your Playstations, by the way - those things will inevitably die, and the optical drives are more likely to crap out than anything else in them.)

I'd not be so concerned about this if I felt we lived in a world where anime on disc was fairly and affordably priced. But there's an uncomfortably large price hike when jumping from DVD to Blu Ray. And, as has beeen mentioned, not everything gets a localised HD release.

I speak from a place of personal interest here. Roughly half of the anime I own on disc is on region 1 DVD. I'd be buying a LOT less if the option to import stuff I can't buy from UK based distros disappeared.

And, not to be a doom sayer, but once Brexit kicks in and we all end up working twice the hours we already do thanks to the idiots who voted for it... well, we'll all have much bigger problems than being able to get hold of Japanese cartoons. But I strongly suspect that nowhere near as much stuff will get licensed.
 
KurataTrigger said:
Now anime will be released in the UK in the faster rate in the future.
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I'm curious about this comment, am I missing something about the turnaround speeds? Or is it just that if the UK follows then we won't be seeing as many unnecessary PAL conversions made for DVDs?

HdE said:
I don't think I've ever found a reliable and / or easily affordable option to watch Region A BDs.
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I think it's well worth looking into an option for importing BDs; it really isn't much more expensive than DVD was at an equivalent point in its life cycle. I don't know what is classed as affordable for you when it comes to players, but there are lots of budget options from getting a cheap, single region (region A, obviously) device as a second BD player to using a PC/laptop for BD with a cheap internal (or USB) BD drive. I survived for years with no region B player at all because our local anime offerings were so weak, so I didn't pay any more than anyone else in the UK with a BD player when it came to hardware; there's really no need for a fancy all-singing, all-dancing multi-region box if you're only into releases from countries across two distinct regions, A and B. Many mainstream studio releases (i.e. non-anime) are region free, too, so in the end it was really only AL releases which justified my purchase of a local player at all.

I think it's inevitable we're all going to be buying a lot less regardless as the exchange rates swerve around and streaming makes releasing anything other than big hits on any physical media at all an unappealing prospect for distributors. That's why distributors are trying to milk those dwindling sales further with deluxe sets (and sometimes, with deluxe pricing for rather mundane sets, as I just went to check on Sakamoto on Amazon and was rather shocked at the pricing for something the distributor expects everyone to grab completely sight-unseen). If there's a way to stop that trend, I'm sure distributors would love to know what it is - but I'm not sure paying out to support a rapidly dying medium out of charity towards a tiny minority of DVD-only hardcore collectors is going to continue to be that solution indefinitely.

They have already said that they will continue DVDs for shows where a BD isn't viable at all, so the format isn't being killed off entirely. Combo packs (which were mostly designed to wean people onto BD in the first place) and split SKUs, however, are clearly being removed to cut costs for the distributors. If the extra costs of doing combo packs or split SKUs have stopped paying for themselves, then it's no wonder that those release patterns are now on borrowed time.

R
 
I also don't see BDs being all that more expensive than DVDs. They are, slightly, but on the other hand space savy and less weight on shipping. Playing it also hasn't been an issue to me. My external BD drive was like 25€ and with Leawo Player there is is even a free player software.

I'm still half bothered with DVDs going to be gone, when there still isn't a BD player software out there that can accelerate playback with sound like VLC does for video files and DVDs. So no time savings on not so stellar shows. That's probably going to kill a lot of my blind purchases. =/
Also personally liked combos (how Funi does them), but I seem a rather rare one to actually split them.
(And hopefully this is also putting a stop to Sentais DVD case height CEs.)
 
Rui said:
if the UK follows then we won't be seeing as many unnecessary PAL conversions made for DVDs?
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Even I don't believe Manga will cut back on the PAL conversions. I expect this will actually mean more PAL DVDs, with the delays and costs of authoring passed on to us blu-ray only customers.
 
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January 2018 release slate is now up for Sentai Filmworks. 5 titles - 2 limited edition sets.
 
Rui said:
They have already said that they will continue DVDs for shows where a BD isn't viable at all, so the format isn't being killed off entirely. Combo packs (which were mostly designed to wean people onto BD in the first place) and split SKUs, however, are clearly being removed to cut costs for the distributors. If the extra costs of doing combo packs or split SKUs have stopped paying for themselves, then it's no wonder that those release patterns are now on borrowed time.
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In all honesty, I've seen this coming from a ways off. I mean, markets change. I've looked at combo packs and shows getting independent releases on the two different formats for a while and wondered how on earth it's profitable to sustain that model. Additionally, home video in particular has always been an area where technology dictates progress and change over time. So, most likely, I WILL end up addressing the situation somehow. Liek everyone else. My personal experience with external Blu Ray drives and player software hasn't been the best, mind. So it'll be something I look into with trepidation. Technology does my nut in.

I spotted on ANN in the discussion thread about Sentai's announcement (I think after it was the focus of an Answerman column) that Justin Sevakis has already chipped in on the matter, describing current software options as 'buggy but usable' - or something to that effect. There's nobody whose opinion and insight on video tech I trust more than Justin's, so that gives me some hope. One thing I do sincerely believe, though, is that if fans want to watch something that isn't easily made available to them, they'll find a way.


Luna said:
I also don't see BDs being all that more expensive than DVDs. They are, slightly, but on the other hand space savy and less weight on shipping.
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I tend to notice a £10 - £15 price difference when I go shopping for discs online (which I haven't done properly all year.) In real terms for me, that's been the difference between picking up certain shows or not. It's enough of a margin for me to kill some impulse purchases. So in that sense, I do think asking price is a factor. Perhaps it's the cynic in me saying this, but I certainly don't see anime on Blu Ray becoming CHEAPER at any point.

Mind you, I DO see some potential positives. If anime on Blu Ray becomes the norm for the industry within a few years time, I'm wondering if, for instance, it might actually break down a few barriers. I gather that BDs are more expensive to produce than DVDs. But given how much more content can be stored on them, I wonder if it might do something to assauge the concern some distros have about certain shows being too long to release in less buoyant regional markets.
 
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