Rosencrantz said:
I'm not sure when they started to Animate everything in HD but i'm guessing given it first aired in 2006 this would be an upscale, that'd easily explain how they can squeeze more on considering those discs with 9 eps are proper HD releases.
I suspect the disc count has less to do with the year Geass was animated, or the quality of the master, but more with keeping costs down. As Manga keep telling us, BD is an expensive format to put out, and they want to keep the price appealing for the Local markets, therefore quality is sacrificed. Think about it, they could do a 3/4 disc set, but then they would have to charge more = less potential buyers. If they did it for season 2 as well, that's another high production cost, and a percentage of the original S1 buyers may not even come back to purchase. Also keep in mind that this is a re-release, therefore the potential market for Code Geass is smaller in the first place too.
Unfortunately we have been also been spoiled by low costs for complete/half series, and when people see something like this selling for more than £29.99, they tend to dismiss it as overpriced and expensive. (I too am sometimes guilty of this, yet I am happy to pay upwards of £40 for an American import.) I personally find that Manga have, to some extent, dug themselves a hole in terms of pricing by putting out products as cheaply as possible over the years, and I also think this may be one of the reasons why they are having trouble selling anime on Bluray.
Also if this set was being sold for, lets say, £60, you are more limited as to who you can sell the product to. Those who have seen the series before may be willing to pay that sort of price for the show on Bluray, but blind buyers would be more likely to go for the cheaper DVD option, or skip over the series completely.
Rosencrantz said:
I think the more interesting point is that it appears to be the same quality as the JP release, so the question becomes how does the JP BR release look compared to our existing Beez DVD's? Are we looking at any increase in quality or is this just DvD quality on fewer discs, a licence rescue using BR effectively?
BD > DVD. Expect the same sort of quality as the Black Lagoon Blurays.
Random snap. I haven't figured out how to link images on Photobucket without them being re-sized though.
