Forum - View topicComparison of BOST, Crunchyroll, YouTube, iTunes, etc...
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Master Lee
 Posts: 47 |
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Greetings,
Lately the anime industry has been taking more steps towards online distribution. A few services are available right now such as BOST, Crunchyroll, Youtube, BitTorrent (I'm refering to the legal downloads), FUNimation, and iTunes. This could mean good things for us consumers down the road... although at the moment it just seems a tad confusing. I've tried checking the websites for these services, but haven't managed to acquire much specific information regarding what products they offer, what resolutions, DRM, download availabilty, etc. With a bit of research and forum reading I did manage to find some information, but I can't be certain of the validity of it. I figured I'd post the information I gathered about each group here. Hopefully this will make things easier for anyone uncertain of which service best meets their needs. If anyone has additional information to provide, corrections to what I've posted, or an personal experience to share involving one of these services I'd love to hear it. BOST Available Products: I know they offer "The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk" and "Blassreiter". Under the "Store" tab at their website, I also found mention of "Keitai Shoujo", "Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora", and "Ballad of a Shingami". Unsure what, if any, other products are available. Dub / Sub: According to BOST's website their products are and always will be sub only. (I've read that BOST co-produced the subtitling on both GONZO products and that they have translation notes.) Viewing Method: Stream and download. Download: Downloads are available and are DRM free. Resolution: 320x240 at ~100MB's - has black padding at the bottom for the subtitles. (Unsure if this is in reference to the streamable or downloadable version) Formats: MP4 (h264 and AAC), PSP (Apparently the subs get cut off when watching it through the PS3), iPod, FLV (format of the stream I believe) DOES NOT offer XVID format. Cost: 100 BOST points per episode, equivalent to US $1.99. This payment covers both the rental of an online streaming and a DRM free download. (Apparently the first two episodes of the GONZO's products are free, though you need to sign up first. This might have only been a temporarily available promotion though.) Register / Sign up: Signing up is required to stream and download. Miscellaneous: Part of GONZO's online initiative. Good reputation so far. When streaming, the playback controls don't autohide. I believe that the streams are free of advertisements since you have to pay a "rental fee". The "BOST points" system seems pointless, in my opinion at least. (According to their website they use the points system to address the issue of different pricing and currency value. Although, since the cost of points is based on differences in global curreny value... why add the extra step of converting it to points?) Crunchyroll Available Products: Currently only two - "The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk" and "Blassreiter". A news article at ANN stated that "Speed Racer" would also be available. (Granted, there are a lot more anime titles available here but, to my knowledge, these are the only "official / legal" ones.) Dub / Sub: The legal ones are subbed. (Saw a brief mention somewhere of user-uploaded "soft subs" being available) Unsure if dubbed versions will be available in the future. Viewing Method: Stream and download. Download: Downloads are available and are DRM free Resolution: Download is 854x480. Couldn't find an specific information on the stream. (I did watch the stream briefly and it seemed to be reasonably sized and of decent quality, although a tad grainy) Formats: XVID. h264 for PSP and iPod if you pay more than $2 when downloading. Cost: Uses an open pricing scheme, so the download costs however much you choose to pay. The streamed version is free. Register / Sign up: Don't need to sign up to stream. It seems you need a paypal account to download, though it doesn't appear that you need to be signed up at Crunchyroll. Miscellaneous: Part of GONZO's online initiative. Bad reputation due it's pirating days. (Not to mention the fact that many licensed products are still on their site) Had a rough start with getting their Paypal donations working. When streaming there is an advertisement shown briefly at the start. (unobtrustive and didn't seem to occur again during the episode) Youtube Available Products: Currently I only know of "The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk" and "Blassreiter". (I know there are a lot more anime titles available here but, to my knowledge, these two are the only "official / legal" ones.) Dub / Sub: Subbed. Found no mention of whether or not dubbed versions would be included in the future. Viewing Method: Stream Download: None to my knowledge. Resolution: Unsure of specific dimensions. Stream looked nice, but was quite small in size (smaller than at Crunchyroll). Could be enlarged to full screen, but that results in the picture quality taking a significant dive. Formats: Unsure Cost: None, the streaming is free. Register / Sign up: Signing up is not required. Miscellaneous: Part of GONZO's online initiative. Youtube has a fairly good reputation. No ads during the stream, at least none that I noticed. BitTorrent Available Products: I know "The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk", and "Blassreiter" are available. There seems to be about 10 other shows as well. (Once again, I know there are a lot more anime titles available here but, to my knowledge, these are the only "official / legal" ones.) Dub / Sub: Unsure. (I'm assuming the GONZO titles are only subbed, no idea about the others) Viewing Method: The page seems to indicate that it's streamable, via BitTorrent DNA. Pay to download also seems to be available. Download: Downloads seem to be available. Unsure about DRM. Resolution: Unsure Formats: Unsure Cost: Streams seem free though you need to download BitTorrent DNA. Downloads appear to cost $1.99 Register / Sign up for Service: No sign up appears to be necessary. Streams require BitTorrent DNA. For the downloads I'd imagine you'd need a program capable of downloading Torrent files, such as BitTorrent. Miscellaneous: Apparently part of GONZO's online initiative, though I don't remember seeing an official announcement. Reputation seems to be fairly mixed due to it's associations with piracy. iTunes Available Products: Seems they have a decent sized library available. Unsure exactly how many, as I don't have itunes so I couldn't get an official list. Perusing news articles around the net seems to show about 20 titles. Dub / Sub: Has dub and subs. Also allows for alternate dub and sub tracks. Viewing Method: Download. I believe streaming is available though I couldn't find any verification of it. Download: Downloads are available, but they have DRM Resolution: Saw official mention of 640x360 and 640x480. Formats: PC / MAC, iPod, iPhone. (Unsure of specifics, but I did see MP4 h264 mentioned.) Cost: $1.99 per episode Register / Sign up: Downloading of the iTunes program and sign up are required. Miscellaneous: Has an overall good reputation, but some people dislike the DRM restrictions. FUNimation Available Products: A lot of titles though only 9 are available for purchase in online form. There was also a seemingly random assortment of free trailers / full episodes available to watch. The option to buy DVD's was also available for a majority of the titles present. Dub / Sub: The streams appear to be dubbed only. Unsure of the purchased downloads. Viewing Method: Stream or Download Download: Downloads are available, but they have DRM Resolution: Unsure of the specifics. (I watched some streams there and the resolution seems to be close to that of Crunchyroll, larger if you expand it. Quality seems higher too.) FUNimation has some titles available through iTunes so it's possible the resolution of downloads are similar. Formats: Unsure Cost: $1.99 per episode. Register / Sign up: You don't have to sign up to watch streamed content. Downloads seem to require making an account through Windows Media player as part of finalizing a purchase. No mention of needing to sign up at FUNimation's page though. Miscellaneous: They seem to have a good reputation. They also have DRM which I assume will scare off some consumers. Streams seem to be ad-free. Does anyone have any corrections, additions, or stories of personal experience in relation to this? I'd very much like to know more about what these services have to offer. I'd like to re-state that I'm not certain of the validity of this information. The official sites provided virtually no information so most of this came from random news and forum posts around the net. (My apologies in advance if this is considered a "list thread". I had / have no intention of violating forum rules.) Master Lee |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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If it is then I think ANN needs to amend it's rules. This is great. What about ADV's Anime Network? Is that still up and running? If so it probably belongs here too. |
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fokkusuhaundo
 Posts: 346 Location: San Diego ♥ ☼ ▓ |
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Indeed it is and I'm hoping it doesn't go under because I'm still in the process of watching Rahxephon as episodes are released weekly on it. The video and sound quality at ADV's The Anime Network video site is really great for a stream (I think it's close to SDTV quality) although there's no option to view in full screen, which is usually solved by reducing my monitor screen's resolution. Other online services worth mentioning are: Adult Swim's Video: offers episodes of many of [as]'s shows including some anime streamed and ad-supported for free with the episodes offered changing every Friday night. Toonami Jetstream: offers shows from CN's Toonami streamed and ad-supported for free with new episodes on the site every week. direct2drive.com: offers downloads for many shows with your choice of dubbed or subbed for 1.99 USD each and entire seasons or series (24-26 episodes) for 39.95-44.95 USD. Video files only work in Windows media player and it's DRM but you can re-download what you've purchased anytime in case something happens. All of these services are only available in the US unfortunately. |
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cloud1989
 Posts: 274 |
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I should add that with CR I got kinda ripped off. I tried to donate $2 to download episode 3 of druaga, It failed and gave me the message saying something along the lines of "transaction error, order could not be fulfilled". I tried about 5 times thinking it was a error on my part and gave up, I came back later to try again and it worked the 6th time, and not only that I got a " thank you for your donation" for the other 5 times I tried and fail also( when I gave those 5 origionally I did check my messages to confirm I didn't get it and I didn't). So I ended up donating $2 6 times because of their system, I mean when you go to a store or buy a dvd online, if something is wrong with your info or with their site then they don't take the money and you don't get the product, they just don't come and do it later. I am still wondering if that is really the case though because even though I have 6 donation thanks I only have 1 download link in the download section. I could always donate a cent for the next 5 to make it even but I hate to be one of the cheap guys for the next few episodes, but that is what I will probably do. I send them a bug report about this but they don't respond, which brings me to another fact that they need a support section if they want to be legit.
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Master Lee
Posts: 47 |
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Thank you kindly for the replies!
To ikillchicken: Glad to hear you liked the post. Sadly, the information is not the most reliable or complete. Seems kind of strange to me that these service's wouldn't have this kind of info more readily available. If people who've used these services post the details about them then this could became a fairly handy "reference" thread for interested consumers. (If computer hardware manufacturers withheld specifics as badly as these anime services are, I'd probably have become an outdoorsy kinda guy instead of a lazy gamer. What a sad life that would have been...  )
To fokkusuhaundo: I was unaware of the Anime Network and Toonami's website. I've been to Adult Swim's page in the past, but I didn't know they had some of their anime available. As for direct2drive I had always thought they just dealt with software, games, and books in PDF format. I took a quick look at those services. Here's what I came up with... (Note: I've included fokkusuhaundo's comments in this as well.) ADV's - The Anime Network Available Products: Select anime titles from the Anime Network cable channel that are re-aired online. New episodes are added every thursday. Episodes remain up for 28 days after which time they are taken out of the cycle. Roughly 10 hours of anime is put up every month. (All this came straight from the webpages FAQ so it should be accurate. There were 12 shows to choose from when I checked out the site. Each show had either 1 or 4 episodes up.) Dub / Sub: Dub only it seems. Viewing Method: Stream only. Download: None Resolution: Unsure of the specifics. The stream was larger than both Youtube and Crunchyroll and the quality was far superior. No option for full screen. (It was pretty close to SDTV quality as fokkusuhaundo said.) Formats: Flash. (requires flash player 9 to stream) Cost: Streaming is free. Register / Sign up: No need to sign up to watch the streams, although you'll need to download flash player 9. Miscellaneous: If it's run by ADV I'll assume it has a pretty good reputation. The content rotation keeps things fresh, but it also means you could miss seeing an episode. (It is free though so no complaints here.) When streaming, there are banner ads at the top and right of the viewing window. One ad plays before the video starts as well, but it seems they are mostly in-house ads for other anime titles. Buffering time was virtually non-existant. (I could skip almost to the end of the video as soon as it began playing and only experienced minor hesitation.) Only available in the US. Adult Swim Available Products: At least 10 anime titles available. Unsure if there were more, the search / sort options they provided were fairly weak. Episodes being offered are changed every friday night. Unsure how long these episodes remain up, but there seemed to be a lot for each title when searching under the "all" category. Dub / Sub: Dub only. Viewing Method: Stream only. Download: None. Resolution: About the same as that of Youtube. Can be made full screen but there is substantial lose in quality. Formats: Unsure. Cost: Free. Register / Sign up: Streaming did not require sign up. Miscellaneous: Reputable and reliable. The selection is reasonably small, but it seems like they have almost all of the episodes of the shows that are available. Browsing was somewhat of a pain. Not a dedicated anime service. Have to watch a third-party ad before video plays. Only available in the US. Toonami Jetstream Available Products: 11 titles available. Only some episodes from each show. (likely being re-run online here after having been aired on TV) New episodes every week. Unsure of how long episodes remain available. Dub / Sub: Dub only. Viewing Method: Stream only. Download: None. Resolution: Size / quality was about the same as Youtube and Adult Swim (which makes sense since Toonami and Adult Swim are both a part of Cartoon Network). Full screen option was available, but like in the previously mentioned services it results in a major loss of quality. Formats: Unsure. Cost: Free. Register / Sign up: No sign up required. Miscellaneous: Reputable and reliable. When streaming the episodes were divided into four segments of roughly 5 minutes each. Between each segment an in-house ad was aired. Only available in the US. Direct2Drive Available Products: Large amount of titles available, both new and old. (Lost count around 30, but there looked to be at least 40 - 50 different titles available.) Dub / Sub: Choice of dub or sub. (Unsure if it's available for all products. Every one I looked at simply said "Language: English") Viewing Method: Download only. Download: Downloads have DRM. Can re-download what you purchase in the event something happens. (Some products were listed as having an activation limit of 2, however.) Resolution: No clue. Formats: Microsoft Windows Media Player - WMV. (Due to the activation limit listed on some products, I assume that once you play the file it will be associated with, and only playable on, that computer) Cost: Price of downloads varies. Individual episodes cost $1.99. OVA's and complete seasons / series ranged from $9.95 to upwards of $40. Register / Sign up: Creation of an account is necessary to purchase products. Miscellaneous: Seems reputable. (Anyone have any happy / horror stories involving this service?) Not dedicated to anime, but the selection was impressive. The DRM in use seems fairly restricting. (Especially the activation limit...) Only available in the US. To cloud1989: I'm sorry to hear about your poor experience with Crunchyroll. Seems their paypal issues have claimed a lot of victims. I looked at their page and the only thing for support that I could find was at the very bottom right of their page under "help topics". From there you have to go to "contact" and it will list an e-mail specifically regarding paypal issues. I'm curious to know how helpful they are when contacted via this e-mail, especially since it says "Not all emails will get responses, but I'll try to get to them when I'm not busy." (and it's signed shinji no less...) Master Lee |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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Master Lee
Posts: 47 |
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Greetings, it's been awhile since I've posted but this information seems relevant to this old topic.
According to this ANN news head line ...animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-05-30/verizon-internet-to-access-manga-entertainment-anime... Verizon's high speed internet customers will have access to anime from Manga Entertainment. From the article I'm assuming that this would be a streaming service. However, I'm not a Verizon customer and searching didn't turn up any useful information regarding this. Anyone here on the forums a Verizon customer or at least able to provide some further information? Preferably things like the amount of anime titles available, pricing for the the service, quality, personal experiences, or anything else of relevance. Also a friend at my place of employment had been discussing Netflix offering streamable content of some, but not all, of their mail order movies. I'm not a subscriber to Netflix and haven't had time to research it much. If a lot of anime titles are available this could quite handy for consumers. I don't suppose anyone on the forums can provide any insight into this? If either of the above mentioned services seem to be a viable option for consumers, and enough information is available, they should definately be added to the growing list in this topic. Goodbye for now, Master Lee |
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8JF
Posts: 88 |
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Master Lee,
The Youtube versions of Tower of Druaga are posted to Youtube via Crunchyroll. Episode 10 had a white CR banner that took off the top 1/3 of the screen including the animation and now episode 11 is a 5 minute teaser that asks you to go to CR to get the whole thing. Veoh also has ToD:AoU and Blassreiter. |
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Ishmoo
 Posts: 413 Location: Fredericksburg, VA |
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Yeah, I had similar problems. I donated $10 just because I wanted to support the concept of legal online access, but the download failed repeatedly. My requests for help were totally ignored. They really do need to fix that glitch. |
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Master Lee
Posts: 47 |
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To 8JF:
I checked out episode 11 of Tower of Druaga on Youtube... and I'm quite disappointed to see that you're correct. It seems they took down the advertisement banner but the video is still nothing more than a 5 minute preview and then you have to go to Crunchyroll for the full episode. I'm starting to wonder if Gonzo is trying to slowly phase out Youtube and switch to Crunchyroll. The purpose of having three different places showing the same Gonzo shows was likely just an experiment to see the most popular and profitable method. Makes me wonder how BOST is doing since I never hear anything bad about them... then again, I never hear any positive promotion or advertisement either. As for the videos being up on Veoh's webiste... I checked into it, I don't believe those ones are legally hosted. To Ishmoo: Sorry to hear you got ripped off at Crunchyroll. I've seen complaints all over about their service. It's a shame Gonzo seems to be more in support of Crunchyroll than BOST or Youtube. I honestly can't imagine why though. If Gonzo's goal was to prevent piracy... then I think they may be failing. I've seen a few places now where those shows, despite being free on Crunchyroll, are being hosted illegally elsewhere. I hope that all this won't have a negative impact on possible future online anime services. Master Lee |
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