ConanThe3rd
Railgun
Yeah. And then there's wierdos (Ie: me) who like having subtitles on as an estietic choice.Rosencrantz said:
The News Thread (for news that does not need a thread)
- Thread starter ilmaestro
- Start date
Shiroi Hane
Dragon Knight
Err... we were talking about locked subtitles.Just Passing Through said:
Rosencrantz
Dragon Knight
ilmaestro said:
How so? The vast majority of viewers watching the japanese audio track will need the subtitles on. I can understand if you are fluent in japanese you'd prefer to have them turned off but your going up against the majority of viewers and also the liscensor decideing not to charge us 5-10x the price becuase we have something viable for reverse import.
ayase
State Alchemist
Why try to defend the indefensible? The real problem here is the companies trying to fight reverse importation in the first place, which is a protectionist move that goes against the idea of the free market that they, as private enterprise, are supposed to stand for. They want to have their cake and eat it, and their realisation that they can't continue to do so in a global marketplace is leading to ever more desperate measures - especially now the Japanese consumers are getting wise to the situation as well.Rosencrantz said:
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Shiroi Hane said:
Shiroi Hane said:
You said UPOPs a.k.a. User Prohibited Operations which is pretty much Kaze policy, not just subtitles.
Heck I have discs (not anime) which disable the stop button on my player whenever there's a copyright screen showing. It won't let me turn the disc off.
HTPCs, or ripping and reburning discs to my specifications seems like a more and more sensible option.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Cowboy Blu-bop!
It's finally happening in Japan
No mention yet as to whether there will be any English audio or subs.
It's finally happening in Japan
No mention yet as to whether there will be any English audio or subs.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Joshawott said:
Fixed that for ya.
mangaman74
Akatsuki
Just Passing Through said:
Fixed it for you.
mangaman74
Akatsuki
Joshawott said:
I think after recent history with Manga's releases I'd rather trust MVM.
theirsbailiff
School Idol
And here's what we're expecting from the BD
Rosencrantz
Dragon Knight
ayase said:
You shouldn't overlook the fact that by wanting both full features and a low price US and UK fans are likewise wanting their cake and to eat it.
You have accept some basic facts, the companies producing Anime make the money they spent back over a period of years from BR/DvD and other sales. They have no legal obligation to sell to any foreign country and when they see that allowing others to sell their product so cheaply is affecting their ability to run a business they of course take action.
Locked subs is a minor inconvenience compared to them deciding they don't want to sell Anime outside of Japan.[/quote]
Rui said:
BD bebop would be awesome, assuming it transfers well. Though I can't help but feel we'd either not get it for 3-4 years or we'd be looking at a fate/zero style scenario
ConanThe3rd
Railgun
Look, if you want to be metaphorically fisted by the japanese companies, that's your business but don't impinge me just because I happen to like watching things with captions on (and not be otherwise inconvenienced by Japan having an economic state that would make 1920's America look booming), OK?
And besides that, just about everything the Japanese are doing right now that involves exerting extra control on a property is a complete admission that they have failed to market their wears in their own market (and not just anime, games too, thank you very much, ATLUS) and now will actively interfere with other markets to keep afloat for as long as it can.
And, really, if Japan retlarge wants to wall itself off completely, it's free to try. We got by when all we had was VHS tapes so we can and very well get by in this day and age, legitimately or otherwise.
And besides that, just about everything the Japanese are doing right now that involves exerting extra control on a property is a complete admission that they have failed to market their wears in their own market (and not just anime, games too, thank you very much, ATLUS) and now will actively interfere with other markets to keep afloat for as long as it can.
And, really, if Japan retlarge wants to wall itself off completely, it's free to try. We got by when all we had was VHS tapes so we can and very well get by in this day and age, legitimately or otherwise.
Rosencrantz
Dragon Knight
ConanThe3rd said:
I only said I was in favour of locked subs for Japanese audio, I too hate it when I'm prevented from putting the subs up on the english audio, not to mention all the other strange feature locks some discs have (zoom disabled? no a-b? whats up with that)
From a western perspective the business model seems mad but what we fail to realise is it's still a very small market in Japan. When I look at my shelves I have 50+ series, Japanese fans simply don't buy in this manner thus they target the few fans that will with expensive collectors sets. Lower prices have been tried but just don't balance out versus higher priced collectors.
How would you change this sitaution?
We are also ultimately dealing not with an author who wants the world to see their work but a business that needs to ensure they recoup what they invest. They need to make business decisions that keep them in business and you can't fault them for that.
I'm not saying don't get upset but it'd be nice if I could see an underlying sense that you understand why things are like they are. Even better is to propose a way forward, this is a tricky one for sure and I don't see the US being happy to go all PAL, or an easy way to get BD regions changed.
Ultimately this will end badly, best case scenario we get releases late, worst case they stop selling to the US outside of high price sets and at all times the internet will be providing fan subs to undermine legitimate sales.
Apologies for the doom and gloom and de-railing the news thread, i'll refrain from continuing this but feel free to respond with counter points.
All PAL wouldn't be a solution even if it was possible, it would be just as destructive as locked subs in terms of quality. My preference would be for there to be two tiers of releases in the west; one for collectors and one for more casual fans who just want to amass a huge amount of very cheap anime. The latter could be locked in every way necessary and sold to shift large numbers, and the former would be a high quality offering. As far as I can tell the experiments with premium releases in the US have been rather successful to date, unless companies are deliberately printing too few to turn a decent profit. In the UK the premium set of Wolf's Rain completely sold out while Manga can't even give away their unsold copies of underperforming titles.
In the case of Bebop the standard edition BD set is being sold at a sufficiently low price that a NISA-style US release (i.e. not a bargain basement release but not priced prohibitively) wouldn't necessary damage sales at all, so fears of reverse importation would be minimal. For Persona (both game and anime), I'd have absolutely no problem with their 'strategy' for the release if there was a high priced subbed BD offering as well, and if the game version's Japanese edition wasn't locked. There are surely solutions other than continuing to undervalue anime and cutting out the people who don't want to waste money on a poor quality release entirely :/
R
In the case of Bebop the standard edition BD set is being sold at a sufficiently low price that a NISA-style US release (i.e. not a bargain basement release but not priced prohibitively) wouldn't necessary damage sales at all, so fears of reverse importation would be minimal. For Persona (both game and anime), I'd have absolutely no problem with their 'strategy' for the release if there was a high priced subbed BD offering as well, and if the game version's Japanese edition wasn't locked. There are surely solutions other than continuing to undervalue anime and cutting out the people who don't want to waste money on a poor quality release entirely :/
R