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NEWS: Viewster Streaming Service Opens Office in Los Angeles




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Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2758
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:56 am Reply with quote
Launching a "new" video streaming platform seems like a tough thing to do in 2015. You've got so much competition and it's become increasingly more difficult to find stand out programming that isn't already available elsewhere. I think to have a shot at success you need a big library as well as apps on as many platforms as possible.
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:51 am Reply with quote
I think Viewster's availability of earlier anime titles might give it a slight advantage over other anime streaming websites like Crunchyroll...
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Gasero



Joined: 24 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:54 am Reply with quote
It seems like viewster has a good number of hits, but it will take a lot to direct people away from Crunchyroll.
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unready



Joined: 07 Jun 2009
Posts: 398
Location: Illinois, USA
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:08 am Reply with quote
If they have the money to buy their way into the North American market, they could just buy Crunchyroll instead of competing with it, assuming they actually have the money and Crunchyroll wants to be bought.

I'd prefer to see more competition in the dub and physical market to get something like Bandai back with West Coast voice talent, but that's not a growth space, so fat chance of that. Oh, well.
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SpeckTech



Joined: 31 Dec 2014
Posts: 195
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:39 am Reply with quote
unready wrote:
If they have the money to buy their way into the North American market, they could just buy Crunchyroll instead of competing with it, assuming they actually have the money and Crunchyroll wants to be bought.

I'd prefer to see more competition in the dub and physical market to get something like Bandai back with West Coast voice talent, but that's not a growth space, so fat chance of that. Oh, well.

yeah it can get a bit tiring when everyone sounds the same in a dub because everyone IS the same.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 9:29 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Viewster's head office is in Zurich, Switzerland, but it also has a branch office in Germany.


Yes, that would explain the surplus of movies in German, and why half the supported ads are in German, on my low-rent smart-TV app.
It sort of had that less-than-competent feeling of "Not from around here", when compared to Netflix and Hulu.

Mr. Oshawott wrote:
I think Viewster's availability of earlier anime titles might give it a slight advantage over other anime streaming websites like Crunchyroll...


Viewster only gets whatever scrap handful of anime bones Funimation decides to toss them, while HuluPlus gets Funi, CR, NeonAlley, the Anime Channel, almost never throws any series away, and keeps a dizzying catalog of every series ever released in the last seven years.
As Primus says, there's competition, and Viewster's overall catalog, which consists almost entirely of the PD and indie ghetto, is a good example of the kind of competition that could be thinned out--As soon as the industry gets to the stage where they figure out that not every service is a genius just for showing up.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 9:36 am Reply with quote
Japan needs to take notes as Viewster has mobile streaming, something they desperately need.
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TheAncientOne



Joined: 06 Oct 2010
Posts: 1868
Location: USA (mid-south)
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 9:40 am Reply with quote
unready wrote:
If they have the money to buy their way into the North American market, they could just buy Crunchyroll instead of competing with it, assuming they actually have the money and Crunchyroll wants to be bought.

They would need to deal with TCG regarding that:
animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-12-02/chernin-group-purchases-majority-stake-in-crunchyroll
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 10:10 am Reply with quote
unready wrote:
I'd prefer to see more competition in the dub and physical market to get something like Bandai back with West Coast voice talent, but that's not a growth space, so fat chance of that. Oh, well.


While the West Coast does still have a decent dub output, Ocean & Blue Water Studios, Coastal Studios, and NYC could do more dubs. Sure, they have other titles (MLP is probably Ocean's current cash cow), but there are old school fans would love to hear them in more dubs.

In terms of competing with Crunchyroll, I think that Rob Pereyda stepping down in early '11 and now helping head this sight is almost like a retro-active conflict of interest.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5294
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:12 am Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
unready wrote:
I'd prefer to see more competition in the dub and physical market to get something like Bandai back with West Coast voice talent, but that's not a growth space, so fat chance of that. Oh, well.


While the West Coast does still have a decent dub output, Ocean & Blue Water Studios, Coastal Studios, and NYC could do more dubs. Sure, they have other titles (MLP is probably Ocean's current cash cow), but there are old school fans would love to hear them in more dubs.


I think the problem was in the late 00s, when companies like ADV shut down and companies from Japan like Aniplex and Nippon were replacing them, who at the time didn't dub. So you were left with a very small space to get dubs from for awhile.

Things seem better now that there is a wider range of places that dubs are coming from.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:42 am Reply with quote
MarshalBanana: I think had CPM, Bandai Entertainment, Manga, Tokyo-Pop, and other companies had not gone bankrupt/essentially bankrupt, then we would still have more manga/anime diversity and a wider selection.
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Buzz201



Joined: 21 Jun 2015
Posts: 266
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:43 pm Reply with quote
I don't think they'll do very well in the US. It's a bit late to get into the game at this point, unless you have bucketloads of cash to throw around.

They seem to be doing reasonably well in Europe though, so maybe they'll be able to build on that success.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 2:03 am Reply with quote
Mr. Oshawott wrote:
I think Viewster's availability of earlier anime titles might give it a slight advantage over other anime streaming websites like Crunchyroll...

I think so too. Specifically, they are showing the uncensored home video versions of anime freely without restrictions. Sadly their catalog is currently very small, but if it grows I could see it complementing the simulcast services and being a free alternative to Funi and Sentai and Nozomi. In their PR they did mention a binge watching trend:
Quote:
A 52 per cent increase in viewers watching further than episode one of a series. This demonstrates that viewers are binge-watching as a result of easier navigation and content stickiness

which incidentally is also my preferred method of viewing anime.

I checked them out and they have some performance and reliability issues. but if they get those worked out, if I were a streaming person I would take them over Hulu (which is a mix of home video and broadcast) any day, since I can't stand the crap ton of ads on Hulu.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2015 7:43 am Reply with quote
Kudos to them if they can avoid the ad service that Hulu has even with its subscribing members. If Hulu's investors can make a lot of money doing adds (Especially when you have giants like Disney), then they should be smart enough to realize that premium members shouldn't have to have ads. They would lose money either, I think.
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