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Answerman - Quick Answers Part 2


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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:37 pm Reply with quote
I like these lightning round ones, but I'm a little bit worried it'll go back to being kind of difficult to find specific answers that I want to go back and cite for other people across the interwebs. Like it was before you switched to a single question.. Sad
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 1:14 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
There is also pressure on kid-oriented disc releases to be low-priced enough to be an impulse buy for parents.


You can see that on this side of the continent with Warner and their cartoon releases--
They moan that "Nobody buys" Bugs & Daffy or Tom & Jerry anymore if collectors don't buy as many of the Blu-ray collection boxsets as the company imagines they will, and then puts all their eggs in the basket of quick double-dipped single DVD releases and original features, priced under $10 near the checkout shelves of Target.
Disney, with their cheap video-sequels in the 90's-00's, also found out that kids don't buy disks, PARENTS do. Grownups buy nostalgic series, twenty years later.


Last edited by EricJ2 on Mon Apr 03, 2017 2:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Shiflan



Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 418
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 1:40 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Some animes like Neon Genesis Evangelion publish a Director's Cut on some episodes after the show was released on the airwaves. But where does the new footage come from? Was it originally animated at time of release and cut for whatever reason?


I can weigh in and answer that question regarding the Evangelion release.

Originally Eva was licensed by ADV. They had the rights to the show "as broadcast" on Japanese TV.

However, as any Eva fan will probably know, the production budget was running out in the later episodes and the animation suffered as a result. Several of the later episodes had scenes re-animated for the physical media release in Japan. But ADV originally didn't have the rights to that--they had the "as aired" TV rights only. So it wasn't until much later that the "director's cut" came to the West, and it was simply the same cut as the standard Japanese VHS/LD/DVD release.

This created another oddity in the anime world: The English-translated version of the last few volumes of Evangelion were released by ADV before the domestic Japanese release was available. The difference was that the ADV release was "as broadcast" whereas the standard Japanese release contained the new animation.
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NeoStrayCat



Joined: 14 Sep 2011
Posts: 610
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 1:41 pm Reply with quote
relyat08 wrote:
I like these lightning round ones, but I'm a little bit worried it'll go back to being kind of difficult to find specific answers that I want to go back and cite for other people across the interwebs. Like it was before you switched to a single question.. Sad


I don't think that would be a problem, Answerman will still use single Q/A's from time to time, though yeah, I still like the lightning round segments, lol. (Though, that too will be used from time to time.)
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GeorgeC



Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Posts: 795
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 1:54 pm Reply with quote
What I want to know is WHY the original EVA TV series STILL hasn't been released on BD in the West?
We're past the 20th anniversary and still no signs of a re-release of the original TV series in the West -- anywhere (unless I'm mistaken no European re-release, either)!
It's been out of print the better part of a decade at least in the States!

Is it the new movies stalling re-release, or does Gainax want too much for the licensing?
Is it out of Gainax's hands because of the alleged split of copyrights with Hideaki Anno after he left the company proper and formed his own production company?

I don't get it... I think they blew an opportunity for re-releasing it... or may if the wait is too much longer
I know we weren't going to get it for at least a year after the Japanese BD release but I'm amazed there STILL hasn't be an announcement or whispering of a licensing agreement for it.

Then again, with the recent Gainax and its financial troubles you wonder what's going on with that company...!
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doubleO7



Joined: 17 Jul 2009
Posts: 1068
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 3:38 pm Reply with quote
GeorgeC wrote:

Is it the new movies stalling re-release, or does Gainax want too much for the licensing?
Is it out of Gainax's hands because of the alleged split of copyrights with Hideaki Anno after he left the company proper and formed his own production company?


I can't say why we haven't seen it re-licensed yet, but I can say that, yes, it is out of Gainax's hands at this point. The rights are no longer split though. Khara acquired full rights to Eva some time ago. Gainax has nothing to do with anything Eva-related anymore.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:24 pm Reply with quote
Even new authors get some level of input, even if it's simply clarification on something. Towards the beginning of One Piece, we had a brief flashback for Buggy the Clown, which involves his superior Silvers Rayleigh. Eiichiro Oda sent a note to Toei's writing team telling them NOT to call Rayleigh a captain because he isn't, with which they complied--Rayleigh's rank was never mentioned. At that point, Oda was pretty new and considered a young upstart. One Piece was his first successful series, after all.

EricJ2 wrote:
You can see that on this side of the continent with Warner and their cartoon releases--
They moan that "Nobody buys" Bugs & Daffy or Tom & Jerry anymore if collectors don't buy as many of the Blu-ray collection boxsets as the company imagines they will, and then puts all their eggs in the basket of quick double-dipped single DVD releases and original features, priced under $10 near the checkout shelves of Target.\


Reminds me about how I was trying to figure out which of the Donald Duck box sets had Der Fuehrer's Face, and by the time I found out which one it was, they had all been sold out because the print run was so low. (I was able to nab a collectors set for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit though.)

In addition though, the old franchises of Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry don't hold nearly as much sway among children of today than they used to. They're too low-energy and old-looking for kids these days.
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genkisakurachan



Joined: 28 Jun 2004
Posts: 35
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:35 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
For the Love Stage!! adaption, the author picked her own brother as the voice actor for one of the main characters.


This case is more than a bit of an outlier. Daigo is a fairly well-known celebrity, musician and talento in Japan, with fame far eclipsing even the more well-known of BL mangaka like Taishi Zaou and Eiki Eiki, and I don't doubt that the production committee jumped at the chance to bring him aboard if Eiki proposed it (to play a character who was IIRC based on him originally, no less) since it would mean an instant periphery audience to watch the show.[/quote]
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epicwizard



Joined: 03 Jul 2014
Posts: 420
Location: Ashburn, VA
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:57 pm Reply with quote
Thanks for answering my question about why most kids anime don't get released on Blu-ray, Answerman! Smile

It makes sense that kids care more about portability and compatibility than video quality. I was exactly like that back during my elementary school years.

And you do have a very good point about the pressure of lowering the price on kid-oriented disc releases. Not a whole lot of parents are going to be willing to impulsively buy expensive Blu-ray releases of Pokemon for their kids to watch, but at the same time, the publisher can't lower the price since, as you already mentioned, Blu-rays are expensive to manufacture. Therefore, publishers releasing most kids anime exclusively on DVD is much more convenient for them and consumers since they can be priced lower than Blu-rays.
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Sakagami Tomoyo



Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 940
Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 3:53 am Reply with quote
Huh, I didn't know that Yatate Hajime was a studio pen name. Close to 20 years I've been watching anime, and I've seen countless Sunrise shows with that name in the credits, and I only just now learn that. Shows how much attention I'm paying...
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GeorgeC



Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Posts: 795
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 8:38 am Reply with quote
epicwizard wrote:
Thanks for answering my question about why most kids anime don't get released on Blu-ray, Answerman! Smile

It makes sense that kids care more about portability and compatibility than video quality. I was exactly like that back during my elementary school years.

And you do have a very good point about the pressure of lowering the price on kid-oriented disc releases. Not a whole lot of parents are going to be willing to impulsively buy expensive Blu-ray releases of Pokemon for their kids to watch, but at the same time, the publisher can't lower the price since, as you already mentioned, Blu-rays are expensive to manufacture. Therefore, publishers releasing most kids anime exclusively on DVD is much more convenient for them and consumers since they can be priced lower than Blu-rays.


I think people have a misconception about manufacturing costs of Blu rays.
The basic concept is the same as DVD... Data is written into pits on the disc -- the main difference is the space between those pits. It's closer on Blu ray.

I doubt there's much difference in manufacturing the PHYSICAL 5-inch discs.

What really makes Blu ray more expensive is mastering high-definition video. It's a lot more pixels you have to deal with. SD is like 752 X 480; Full HD is 1920 X 1080... Next-gen HD (4K) is 3840 X 2160... You get the "4K" from the fact that the pixel count is doubled for BOTH the horizontal and vertical in for 4K /Next-gen HD/4K Blu ray.

The machines that handle HD have to necessarily be faster AND have more memory than what was used for SD. Because HD has a much higher pixel count, you see more detail and get better color reproduction. That's where it begins to get more expensive.

The other thing that makes BD more expensive is the copy-protection scheme. It's constantly evolving because it's software-based. DVD copy-protection was at least partly hardware-based which is why it's been cracked for good. They made the change for BD to avoid making every disc "crackable" but also made the software more expensive with that feature.

That's why it's to your benefit to keep your BD player linked to the Net. They update the encryption keys for BD periodically. I don't know that the keys are linked to firmware updates to the player hardware, though.. They may be a separate issue. For PCs, the key updates are probably linked to your player's software and not the actual BD player/burner. I have found out through personal experience that not every BD table-top player gets updates for encryption -- even if you are connected to the Net. The updates depend on the manufacturer and they can and DO stop providing key updates for older models of players. I have a few Sentai/Section23 BD's that WON'T play on one of the BD players that I own. That BD player is an older Panasonic. Everything WILL play on my PS3 (which is older than the Panasonic; it's a first-gen PS3) but that makes sense since BD is Sony technology (as is 4K BD). Sony has to keep the encryption keys updated on their players!

4K Blu rays STILL have copy protection. What they discontinued starting with 4K was the stupid region-coding.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 11:57 am Reply with quote
Is every Blu-Ray player able to go online? I never brought mine online, and until I started reading about it on this site, I was completely unaware of it.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:49 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Is every Blu-Ray player able to go online? I never brought mine online, and until I started reading about it on this site, I was completely unaware of it.


When Blu-ray players were invented, the "neato" selling point was BD-Live, Internet connection that developers...didn't really know what to do with.
Disney and Paramount tried to form MySpace communities on the disk, Universal tried downloading new streaming trailers before the movie, and Warner had live chats that could be added to your permanent commentaries afterwards.

BD-Live was eventually retired, but think most players still have Internet-smart functions like Netflix or YouTube.
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Fatt_One



Joined: 08 Jun 2006
Posts: 131
Location: Ohio USA
PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 2:25 am Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Is every Blu-Ray player able to go online? I never brought mine online, and until I started reading about it on this site, I was completely unaware of it.

It's part of the spec so they all should I believe.

The inability to go online would seriously hurt compatibility since sometimes certain discs won't wok on certain players and an update could be done to fix the issue.
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9809
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 7:00 am Reply with quote
@leafy sea dragon

Depending on the manufacturer you may not have to figure out how to get a Bluray player online. I can't answer for other brands, but Sony has a procedure* where you can go to their website by computer and download the latest update to the firmware. All you need is the model number. The update is then copied to a CD which is played in the Bluray player. I did this last week and it was remarkably painless. Many of the early players were not equipped to go online easily or required an additional device to make them Wi-Fi capable.

*The necessary instructions are in the users manual. Cool
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