The UK Anime scene in 2010 - Your Opinions

Optimum UKR2 DVD:


720p Blu-ray:


Not being an expert with resolutions and the like I'm not sure that's entirely correct, but it seems about right. The Blu-ray is quite an marked improvement over the DVD.
 
ayase said:
Modern HD anime (Gundam 00 for instance) designed for HD and compressed for DVD, and older series that have been digitally enhanced for HD do work. Anything else, you might as well just put your DVDs in the player and let it do the upscaling for you.
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'Anything else' being anime digitally produced in the small window between about 1999-2007..?
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Pretty much. Of course, companies could enhance the digitally produced anime to work better, but current Blu-ray players (PS3 included) have built-in upscaling which works well at upscaling digitally produced anime to appear higher quality than it was originally.

You call 1999-2007 a small window, but it is also the small window that the most titles I see requested for a Blu-ray release were produced in.

DVD to Blu-ray isn't the same as VHS to DVD. You can put DVDs in a Blu-ray player, you couldn't put video tapes into a DVD player, unless it was a combo player, in which case you were still putting them into a VHS machine. I'm just saying that people should be more sensible about requesting things that wont have a huge improvement over what is currently available.

I like Blu-ray, when it's needed. I'm all all for digitally enhanced releases of older titles like Bubblegum Crisis (I'd by a UK release in a heartbeat) and Cardcaptor Sakura (I'd buy it quicker than a heartbeat), or HD produced anime such as Gundam 00 or Hayate the Combat Butler S2 (I actually own the OVA on Blu-ray), but something like Love Hina on Blu-ray would just be a waste.
 
Good job on the screencaps Fabio. Made me look quite redundant. I was trying to show something other than a film mind, since if you use a film as an example the next argument (in the standard fashion of people in denial) is usually "Yeah, but that's a film." Now what we need is a SD / 1080p comparison for the headshot...

You speak a lot of sense there Fudce, but I get the feeling that for the sake of everyone present (and in the future, so this issue needn't rear its head again) some clarification is needed on the issue of HD anime. So, can the following be improved by an HD release?

Hand Painted Cel Animation (for the most part, pre 2000)
Yes. If a good condition master exists, it can be remastered in HD and show definite improvment over SD releases since most of it was shot on film. Films will still look better than OVAs, and OVAs will still look better than TV series, because of the difference in animation budget.

Digital Ink & Paint: Standard Definition (between roughly 2000-2006)
Yes, but not a lot. Anime during this period was almost all animated on computer at SD resolutions. This means any HD release will be upscaled from a lower resolution, so the quality difference between an upscaled DVD and Blu-ray will be negligible. But that said, the extra space available on BD still means there will be less compression from the original, and therefore less artifacting. And in some cases of anime produced in this period, the DVDs were just truly shite and anything would be an improvment. So feel free to buy your Love Hina BD Mutsumi, just don't have great expectations of it.

Digital Ink & Paint: High Definition (around 2006-)
Well, yeah. Obviously.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Optimum UKR2 DVD:


720p Blu-ray:


Not being an expert with resolutions and the like I'm not sure that's entirely correct, but it seems about right. The Blu-ray is quite an marked improvement over the DVD.
Click to expand...

it just looks brighter to me :roll:
 
Geez, have none of you ever gone to a state of the industry panel at a con or expo? Most of the guy's would give anime away for free if they could, however most have a desire to have a roof over their heads, or eat out of something other than garbage cans. Mike (?) at MVM has repeatedly said that he would like to offer anime cheaper, but BBFC costs especially mean that if would be uneconomical and he would be out of a job.
Would rather pay more and have MVM producing anime rather than it packing uo and there being less anime available in the UK.
 
The new way of doing things is slowly filtering down to MVM, albeit in a cost-effective (for them) form. The new vogue is for boxsets and half season releases, 13 episodes squeezed onto 2 discs. We're seeing that come through with Manga Entertainment, with shows like Ouran and Negima. MVM are going that way too, albeit splitting the boxsets into individual volumes. It still means 4 discs instead of 6 or 7 though, aroun £40 instead of £60 buying on the release day.

Samurai Deeper Kyo is being released like that, and now it looks as if Aquarion will be also. (I saw the V1 check disc, and it's 6 episodes, with half an hour of extras.)
 
hopeful_monster said:
Geez, have none of you ever gone to a state of the industry panel at a con or expo? Most of the guy's would give anime away for free if they could, however most have a desire to have a roof over their heads, or eat out of something other than garbage cans. Mike (?) at MVM has repeatedly said that he would like to offer anime cheaper, but BBFC costs especially mean that if would be uneconomical and he would be out of a job.
Would rather pay more and have MVM producing anime rather than it packing uo and there being less anime available in the UK.
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What's with the generic industry line from a couple of years ago? (before they learned how counter-productive it was - calling the people currently buying your products ungrateful is a good way to get them to just download and never buy anything from you again).

I think most people who have posted in this thread have a decent grasp of how things work, and we seem to have consensus on our hatred for the BBFC. And I'd be happy to pay MVM £10 a volume (as I have done in the past) if they would give me an art box for each series, give their cover art department a good kick up the arse and stop randomly replacing the original liner with advertising for their other products. No one wants to pay to be advertised at, except those odd folks who still buy magazines and subscribe to Sky TV.

By and large people here aren't asking for cheaper. They're asking for more and better.
 
Personally I don't think MVM's prices are unreasonable. I just don't like the single volumes. I only have so much space and I'm in the smallest room in the house. So I have to wait for the boxsets :(

I paid £35 for Elemental Gelade boxset

I'm paying around £12 each for Claymore (roughly £36 for the complete set)

If you don't mind waiting (I know that some can't or find it easier to pay out over a set time) then MVM prices aren't that horrific as people make them out to be.

With Beez their horrific prices only look bad because they are dropping the single volumes, in Code Geass case. If they were still doing the singles you would be looking to pay maybe an extra £15 on top of the £29.99 that Amazon/Play are offering. Again maybe if you wait for a complete boxset maybe you can save even more. But what do I know :S
 
Fudce said:
ayase said:
Modern HD anime (Gundam 00 for instance) designed for HD and compressed for DVD, and older series that have been digitally enhanced for HD do work. Anything else, you might as well just put your DVDs in the player and let it do the upscaling for you.
Click to expand...
'Anything else' being anime digitally produced in the small window between about 1999-2007..?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Of course, companies could enhance the digitally produced anime to work better, but current Blu-ray players (PS3 included) have built-in upscaling which works well at upscaling digitally produced anime to appear higher quality than it was originally.

You call 1999-2007 a small window, but it is also the small window that the most titles I see requested for a Blu-ray release were produced in.

DVD to Blu-ray isn't the same as VHS to DVD. You can put DVDs in a Blu-ray player, you couldn't put video tapes into a DVD player, unless it was a combo player, in which case you were still putting them into a VHS machine. I'm just saying that people should be more sensible about requesting things that wont have a huge improvement over what is currently available.

I like Blu-ray, when it's needed. I'm all all for digitally enhanced releases of older titles like Bubblegum Crisis (I'd by a UK release in a heartbeat) and Cardcaptor Sakura (I'd buy it quicker than a heartbeat), or HD produced anime such as Gundam 00 or Hayate the Combat Butler S2 (I actually own the OVA on Blu-ray), but something like Love Hina on Blu-ray would just be a waste.
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For me it is also about shelf space. I got the region 1 version of Love Hina. Thats 6 volumes for the series and 3 volumes for the movies as well as the artboxs to store them in. A blu-ray release would only require 3 maybe 4 discs.

While I might not be bothered about replacing all my dvds, if I replaced the better ones it would free up a fair amount of space to get other releases.

To go back to the old VHS to dvd comparison, you would have had to buy more video tapes compared to dvds to complete a series (many of the tapes I got had 2 maybe 3 episodes compared to current dvd releases which can have as many as 6 or 7 episodes on a disc)
.
 
Durial666 said:
With Beez their horrific prices only look bad because they are dropping the single volumes, in Code Geass case. If they were still doing the singles you would be looking to pay maybe an extra £15 on top of the £29.99 that Amazon/Play are offering. Again maybe if you wait for a complete boxset maybe you can save even more. But what do I know :S
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I'm really happy with the direct Beez is going in general. Historically they have been pricey and more of a boutique anime specialist than Manga who are pushing the edges of the mainstream as much as they can. Geass though is very competitive with the US version - it came out later but the US version's total price for season one with shipping would come to around £55 assuming standard online pricing. The UK version will be barely different to that, and we actually get customer support instead of the oft-unreturnable glitchy Bandai USA discs. Usually Beez's discs hit so long after the US version that they have to compete with a bargain Anime Legends set and look horrifically poor value so I'm hoping they keep up the pace here and get Geass R2 (er, as in season 2...) out at a brisk rate.

Gundam 00 is another which is coming out literally at the same time as the US release, and for almost the same price if you leap on the best pricing offers. We don't get the same special editions with bundled manga but we do get some other nice things even though we're a tiny market. I hope these strategies work and encourage more near-simultaneous anime for us going forwards. Though that relies somewhat on Bandai US actually licensing new shows at some stage...

R
 
Manga Entertainment
Basically, keep on trucking, their prices have only gotten better (Death Note for 12 quid online per volume (often cheaper), Ouran volumes about 15 quid at 13 episodes each is frankly a steal considering what other companies charge.

Oh: new Hellsing Ultimate: Want

MVM
They're doing ok, but it could be better, but I don't really buy much from them, last I got was Trigun boxset, so naturally I'd like to see the movie too once it's out.

Beez
Please, please PLEASE start using plastic dvd cases instead of digipacks/boxes T_T they bug the heck out of me and don't fit with the rest of my dvds.

In other stuff I'd like to see the second seasons of Code Geass and Gundam 00 released here.

Anime On TV
Considering the amount of online watching/ renting I do, an anime channel would be nice, or at least some support.

Digital Distribution
Personally I dislike DD. I love buying dvds and having a collection on my shelf, so I couldn't really care less.
 
Sparrowsabre7 said:
Beez
Please, please PLEASE start using plastic dvd cases instead of digipacks/boxes T_T they bug the heck out of me and don't fit with the rest of my dvds.
Click to expand...
No! Don't listen to him! Digipacks, Digipacks, DI-GI-PAAACKS!!!
 
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