Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is Sentai Filmworks Phasing Out DVDs?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
|
|||
|
I'm not surprised this is happening...
On the one hand, it IS annoying for anybody who has SD titles but that issue has always been aggravated by the fact that the HD sets really aren't fully backwards compatible with the older SD equipment (VCRs, DVD, game systems) so your mileage will vary according to set manufacturer but in general SD just doesn't look as good on LCD/LED sets. Nowadays, I prefer Blu ray over DVD. Even if I were stuck with only CRT, I'd STILL get the Blu ray for reasons I mention later below. DVD upscale? Again, it depends on the title and authoring studio. Some DVDs look fine upscaled, a lot look crappy. I find the crappier looking DVDs never had remastered, restored filmwork from the source OR they were produced for series done low-res (animation) in a digital format. Those are usually the digital animated series produced in the mid- or late-1990s and early 2000s which don't look so good. Earlier "cel-format"/filmed TV shows generally look decent with upscale. Old games? Oh boy... They never made the HD sets with the old games in mind. I sometimes think the programs that run older games in emulation on PCs work better than some of the old consoles do now. The games don't look "as bad" and they often times have filters to emulate the old look of the CRT on the computer monitors and these things actually work fairly well most of the time. But it IS a pain to have to keep and maintain older hardware (game consoles, CRTs) because sooner or later, they WILL wear out. Most likely old CD-based game systems will wear out (the drive motors) before a CRT will. A maintained CRT that isn't constantly on all-day can last at least 25-30 some years. I've only had ONE CRT wear out in roughly 14-15 years use and that was because of a manufacturing defect for that computer monitor. It had WAY better built-in speakers than its replacement and I had to buy external speakers for the next computer because my flat screen's built-in speakers were crappy! My family's had CRT TV sets that were WELL over 20 years old! The main reason they were eventually disposed of/given away was the convenience and lighter weight of the thinner LCD's. I will say this -- even when I only had a CRT set (which I pitched roughly 2 years ago), the Blu ray titles looked better than the DVDs. The higher bandwidth enabled higher-fidelity of color without the compression issues DVD runs into sooner -- and the titles that had remixed sound sounded a LOT better, too, through even the old CRT set's speakers. There was one film where the music reproduction on the BD was significantly better (sweeter, fuller) than the CD soundtrack and I've had the CD soundtrack for that film for over 25 years so I appreciated right away the better sound from the Blu ray of that title. DVD may go the way of the Dodo but ironically Blu ray is becoming the "low end" of HD. If anything is having more problems now, its 4K Blu ray. The players are still significantly more expensive than BD or DVD. You need to upgrade to a 4K TV sets to take advantage of the format. There's better news there than the 4K Blu ray players since the 4K TV sets are falling in price even faster than the previous-generation HDTV sets did. 4K Blu ray still has issues with not a lot of great titles out on the format yet. The Hollywood studios are pumping out the "latest blockbusters" to the format quickly but movies nowadays straight from the theater aren't that great. (We're in a real creative malaise/slump right now... It finally really caught up with the Hollywood studios this year with ticket sales down at least 20% this past summer despite a few blockbusters. I know I had very little enthusiasm for many movies this year and stayed home except for 1-2 major features and some exhibitions of anime.) It's only now more of the classic films are making it to 4K BD (a lot of Spielberg's earlier classics are FINALLY making it to the format after it's been out for at least 3 years now) but there is a STILL a lot more that has to be released before many of us will jump to 4K. Online there are still issues with video bandwidth with many communities just not having access to a pipeline to really appreciate rock-steady 4K video (what little there really is; most movies have been mastered at 2K for well over a decade and only now is 4K becoming standard) that doesn't pause abruptly in the middle of playback. Heck, for that matter, many people STILL have machines that really don't play back HD steady yet! It's actually an impediment to upgrade for some people when they hear the older-gen Blu ray titles can be upscaled to 4K. Of course, an upscaled title will generally not look as good as a native resolution (whether its HD versus DVD, or 4K versus Blu ray) but it's an excuse for people to economize and skip 4K besides the added expense of the 4K BD players and the fact that the 4K BD market stinks. For anime, I STILL don't see a point to upgrading to 4K BD now. There are so few titles and most digital anime just isn't produced for 4K really. I got into DVD after it was two years on the market and they had pretty much debugged the players and had reliable players. I got into Blu ray with the PS3 after a year and have never looked back. I knew Blu ray was going to be the supported format. It's quickly become the preferred format within the past few years for the more indie companies that are bothering to license and release the old classics the major studios aren't bothering to re-release. It's become the de facto "archive media" for older films now that aren't relegated to cheaper DVDs or MOD programs (which I hate! I despise DVD-R with a passion). 4K? Hollywood still hasn't made the case for me to bother. If they're just going to do crappy blockbusters and not re-release classic films on the format, why bother? The anime industry still has next-to-nothing available on the format and frankly I can live without a 4K "upgrade" of Gundam Thunderbolt or Giant Robo... |
||||
|
||||
Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
|
|||
The thing is, though, this really isn't a concern like it was in the VHS-to-DVD crossover, because (essentally) all Blu-ray players are backwards-compatible with DVDs. They're the exact same form factor and use the same basic technology; all you have to do is pop a second laser on the read head and you're set. There's no need for any crazy dual-purpose setups like a combo DVD/VHS player had. Hell, with the way most modern players upscale, DVDs played through them will look far better on an HD display than they would on a stand-alone DVD player. Our DVD collections are worth about as much as they ever were. |
||||
|
||||
EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
|
|||
I remember renting the Spice & Wolf Series 1 & 2 boxset from the library, which, because of now-ancient traditions, had to be 8 disks, four Blu-rays for the actual HD show content, and four DVD disks, because, y'know, Combo pack. Having to sort through an entire brick of disks, I thought, I know Blu's better, why should I have to suffer? 
Thing is, y'see, why did we get combo packs in the beginning?--Turns out it was all one big, fat, whopping MISTAKE the customers made, and the industry thought it was following suit: The idea of the Combo Pack was invented by Disney in 2008, when they were first starting to release their Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio limited-time releases on Blu, which would only be on shelves for two years before returning to the vault. But what you heard even from '08 customers who wanted to buy one of them new-fangled Blu players, was that they were having a hard enough time keeping up with the new FCC order to get a HDTV flatscreen, and probably wouldn't be able to buy a standalone player for another three years. And given that Disney was already taking enough SNL guff for returning Bambi to the vault before enough DVD fans had had a chance to buy it, they wanted to make sure the good folk didn't get a chance to miss out--They tried to sell a Blu pack with a "spare" DVD in it that you could watch now, and the Blu copy would still be on your shelf when you finally got the player later. The idea caught on so well, they tried extending it to new titles that wouldn't disappear in two years, for new customers that wanted Bolt and High School Musical 3. It was a nice idea, but it was immediately drowned out by Blu buyers who thought everything in the world was for them, and said "Why're you giving me a DVD?...Oh, this must be for my kids' laptop, in the car!" Pretty soon that was all you heard, and even the marketing started to believe the fans as well. The Buy-Now-Watch-Later message wasn't reaching the people it was supposed to, and Disney was reduced to literally trying to fool DVD customers into buying Blu combos, by putting Snow White in DVD-sized boxes, with "DVD+Blu" on the cover, in the hopes they'd realize the Blu disk was the "spare". Unfortunately, they also delayed the DVD-only release six weeks to help promote that, the news hit the press, and the DVD customers cried "They're being mean to us!" And nobody still got it. 
There's no reason for DVD to be included in a Blu combo anymore, and Hollywood studios have had to come to grips with that--It was even one of the stickier points when Disney was trying to iron out what went into their Blu + 3D combos, and what probably shouldn't anymore. If it's taken this long for anime to realize it, better late than never. |
||||
|
||||
|
mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
|
|||
But for how long? Some years ago I was at a friend's house and suddenly he wanted to see some of the sailor moon movies, low and behold, the discs looked fine (no scractches or dirty) but after being inserted into the player it. They were chinese botlegs, but they were printed, not burned on a disc. They obviously used the cheapest media, precisely the kind of media many companies are probably using nowadays since nowadays DVDs are supposed to be cheap and they will not reap profits if they used high quality DVD media that is about the same cost as low cost blu-ray media. Remember, DVDs will last about a decade (giver of take some years), meanwhile blu-ray is bound to last a century (even half that long is quite reasonable if you ask me). |
||||
|
||||
|
Top Gun
Posts: 4575 |
|
|||
|
...a decade? Maybe for a crappy burned disk, but every piece of data I've ever seen has properly-pressed DVDs lasting several decades to a century, provided they're stored in a reasonable environment. Given how cheap bulk data storage is becoming, I figure within a decade it'll be trivial to have enough room to rip every disk I own to .ISO if I so choose.
|
||||
|
||||
Kougeru
 Posts: 5527 |
|
|||
I feel the need to point out that this is wrong. It's not pointless. People seem to forget that Blu-ray can store up 50 GBs of data. That's A LOT of old, low quality anime. You can fit entire 90s series on a single disc of blu-ray. Even the single-layer 25 GB ones. Durability is another thing. Blu-ray are factually harder to scratch the DVDs. They'll last far longer in "nature" and far far longer than DVD if you used them both for the same number of rotations. DVDs are not cheaper than blu-ray either. Checked amazon just now and it's $25 dollars for 100 blank DVDs that are 4.7 GBs each. For the same price of $25, you can get 50 single-layer blu-ray discs, that's 25 GBs each. Simple math shows that at a per-Gigabyte value, Blu-rays are FACTUALLY cheaper. 4.7 GB x 100=470 GBs for the DVDs....or 25 GBx50= 1,250 GB (1.25 Terabtyes) for the blu-rays. So again, which is cheaper...? Lastly, there's just absolutely zero reason to keep using DVDs. The biggest argument against Sentai phasing out DVDs is "I don't have a blu-ray player!". To which I say, if you're able to afford anime in today's market where everything is only really sold in box sets at 40-120 dollars a set, then you can afford a $40 blu-ray player. Yeah, that's $40 dollars you could've spent on anime but you have to adapt at some point. I think we should've phased them out 5 years ago. You've had plenty of time to get a blu-ray player. Just stop going to Starbucks for like 3 days and you'll have enough money for a blu-ray player. Buy one less video game this year. Only buy subscriptions during big discounts. Whatever you have to do, $40 isn't a lot for something that will last years on end and will reward with much quality anime. edit: Top Gun had a great point about blu-ray players being backwards compatible.Top Gun is 100% right about that. Last edited by Kougeru on Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
|
|||
The article writer addressed that issue and others you brought up like one sentence after you stopped your quote. |
||||
|
||||
|
dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
|
|||
|
I'm all in favor of anything that kills those pointless combo packs. In the nice Sentai and Funi LE's, they aren't too bad as they allow for more artwork. But with regular releases, they are just a waste of space for me. I much prefer the release with a digital copy, especially iTunes copies as they have the fairest DRM solution. Those give me easy access to a copy I can't take almost anywhere on my phone or laptop.
|
||||
|
||||
xchampion
 Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
|
|||
|
I haven't bought DVDs for years and I haven't looked back. I understand people's reasons but I feel bad for all of them who have to use all them reasons to justify why DVD is good enough for them. It's not good enough for me and I settled that matter a long time ago. All hail Blu-rays.
|
||||
|
||||
Kalessin
 Posts: 931 |
|
|||
Some people definitely complain about that, but the reality of the matter is that they're not actually burnt on - at least none that I've ever seen. It's just that the settings on the Blu-ray tell the player that it has to force the subtitles, so if you're playing it in a player, you're stuck with the subtitles. If you actually rip the disc, then you're free to choose whether the subtitles are displayed or not when you view them in your player. But yeah, that does suck for the folks who use Blu-ray players instead of ripping the discs, and the difference doesn't really matter that much in that case. The only good thing I have to say about the subtitles being forced is that in some cases, that may have been the difference between the Japanese publisher allowing a Blu-ray release outside of Japana and not allowing it, but I'm sure that at least some of those releases would have happened even if they couldn't force the subtitles, and they're just forced because the Japanese publisher can insist on it. I can understand some folks not caring much though if they're always going to be watching with the subtitles on anyway, much as I think that you should always have the option to turn the subtitles off.
This is one of the reasons that I'm not particularly excited about 4K. While there are ways around the DRM on Blu-rays, it's nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is with DVDs (mostly, because the DRM on DVDs is wonderfully pathetic, whereas the DRM on Blu-rays is specifically designed to keep getting updated, making it a royal pain to deal with), and because of the fact that they keep updating the DRM on Blu-rays, there's always the risk that you're not going to be able to decrypt your new Blu-ray (at least not immediately). It also means that you tend to have to pay for software to decrypt your discs, because it keeps having to be updated for the new DRM, whereas for DVDs, they only had to crack it the once. With 4K, AFAIK, no one has cracked that DRM yet, and with how strong streaming is these days in comparison to discs, the incentive isn't as high as it was when HD-DVD and Blu-ray came out, so it wouldn't surprise me if folks are slower to crack it. And at least one of the major players in selling software that cracks Blu-rays has specifically stated that they're not planning on doing anything about 4K. So, for the near term at least, 4K discs are useless aside from actual players, which makes them far less appealing than Blu-ray. And while I definitely like the idea of getting a higher resolution, I only just upgraded to monitors which are 2560 x 1600. I see no point in 4K monitors, because they'd have to be stupidly large for the resolution to be really be much of an improvement, and I don't own or really want a TV - though if I did buy one, I'd get one that was 4K. I'm also not convinced that you haven't actually surpassed the maximum number of beneficial pixels before you hit 4K unless your screen is insanely large (though some TVs are crazy large). So, 4K could be desirable, but I'd almost certainly be looking to trancsode it to downscale it, since it would have to be downscaled for my display anyway. Regardless, even if you assume that 4K is wonderful, given how little anime is actually produced at 1080, I doubt that much will be produced at 4K any time soon - if ever. It's just too much extra time, effort, and money for too little benefit - at least for a weekly TV series. So, I question that 4K will ever matter much to anime any time soon - if ever - except perhaps when Blu-ray finally gets phased out, because everything gets released on 4K discs, and that's what most everyone buys. But it wouldn't surprise me if the physical disc market died out before then in favor of streaming, much as I would hate to see that happen. The fact that DVDs would get phased out in favor of Blu-rays isn't really a surprise beyond when it would happen. The bigger question is the future of physical discs in general and how 4K will fare. Given how many folks can't seem to see the difference between SD and HD (much as I don't understand that), I question that 4K will ever really take off aside from a niche market, and with more and more of the market moving to streaming, I have to wonder what will happen to physical discs in general over the next 10 or 20 years. I wouldn't be opposed to digital downloads that were truly download to own without any DRM (especially since it could allow for much less restrictive encodes than you get with the Blu-ray spec) - similar to what you get when you actually decrypt and rip a Blu-ray - but I have zero interest in streaming, and with how concerned the various studios are about piracy, I have a hard time believing that they'll release downloads like that, leaving physical releases as the only real solution for folks like me who want to be in physical possession of the content and not rely on external services to view it. |
||||
|
||||
Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
|
|||
Personally, I've found it to be pretty reliable in at least the middle term. A proper dedicated player that you can absolutely rely on would be better, sure, but honestly you can't absolutely rely on any player. |
||||
|
||||
GSAttack
 Posts: 20 |
|
|||
|
I was expecting this to happen sooner or later. I have recently been upgrading my favorite titles that only released on DVD to these newly released Blu-ray versions. Personally, I think all dubbed titles should release on Blu-ray/DVD combo boxes and subtitled only titles should release on Blu-ray only. I agree with Answerman on the point that streaming is high resolution so why would you want to downgrade the video on home media when it doesn't even have a new audio stream. While the DVD release is cheaper it seems pointless to release it by itself anymore.
Aniplex USA is already doing this but unfortunately not lower the price any. I hope that Nozomi and Sentai will at least make these Blu-ray titles a bit more affordable with all the money they should be saving from not manufacturing a DVD version. |
||||
|
||||
NJ_
 Posts: 3009 Location: Wallington, NJ |
|
|||
With Fist of the North Star, it made sense because in addition to now choosing between 3 BDs & 21 DVDs, Japan's Blu-ray releases of film-based Toei anime shows have been nothing but Q-Tec FORs upscales and have all looked bad due to too much DNR applied (like Q-Tec always does) and little to no improvements over the R2 DVDs so it was either wait for a Japanese upscale or go SD Blu-ray and Discotek did the right thing going the latter route. I've bought this show twice (the 4 part sets that are OOP now & the 1 complete set that's still in print) and I'll be looking forward to buying a third time. Cyborg 009 was early digipaint I believe and it wasn't going to look great when upscaled to HD so SD's the better answer for that show as well and I might pick up that release when it's out. It should be noted that Japan is slowly moving to SD on BD as well. It started with God Mars in 2011 and has continued in recent months with Ghost Sweeper Mikami (ironically a Toei show), Witchblade (a show that FUNi upscaled to HD here 8 years ago), Mach Go Go Go 1997 (the same show FUNi's releasing DVD-only in that horrendous Speed Racer head) and others. |
||||
|
||||
Kadmos1
 Posts: 13555 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
|
|||
|
DVD sales may be dropping, but when it comes to getting a DVD or BD, I prefer the former because they are cheaper. Also, I am not really into being the best quality as long as it is decent quality.
|
||||
|
||||
|
jroa
Posts: 537 |
|
|||
|
It's impossible for me to repurchase every single anime in my collection just to get them on BD, so I'll only selectively double-dip when it comes to really big titles and personal favorites. A lot of older and more obscure shows are also highly unlikely to be worth re-releasing on BD, so a large part of my collection will presumably remain DVD-only forever.
|
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group