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Answerman - Why Is Sentai Filmworks Phasing Out DVDs?


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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:57 am Reply with quote
I interpret Sentai's announcement to phase out DVD's by 2019 as they releasing sequels for shows like Food Wars and Chihayafuru still on DVD next year, but newer shows like Flip Flappers will be BD only. By 2019 Sentai will only release the rare sequel of an older show and the odd pre-HD license on DVD.

By the way, Nozomi also recently announced that they are dropping DVD's. I hope the rest of the publishers go BD only soon and that DVD is only used for old stuff.
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 2996
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:00 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
By the way, Nozomi also recently announced that they are dropping DVD's. I hope the rest of the publishers go BD only soon and that DVD is only used for old stuff.


Yup, the announcement was at Anime Expo (at 9:56) with the only exception being Gundam. Shawne went into a bit more detail about it on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/shawnekleckner/status/883443318251827200 (starting here)


Last edited by NJ_ on Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:21 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
And, of course, long SD shows can be put on SD-BDs, which can fit 50-ish episodes of good quality SD video on a single disc, saving everyone money.


I would love to see more of this. I recently purchased a set from Diskotek that was split over two 6 DVD sets but the idea that I could have gotten all of that just on two SD-BDs for possibly half the price? Should have been the way to go.

Anyway, DVDs. While I could immediately see the improvement of DVDs over VHS tapes... in every category that mattered and some that weren't even apparent... BDs are only a slight improvement because that improved picture comes at a cost, especially once you try to make a BD HD set up that doesn't come out of a manufactured box.... "I have a BD, a HD monitor and a computer with a HD hook up, why isn't this... Oh, BDs have massive copy protection usually? Right, I have the same plus an HDMI... oh, players are copy protected too, VLC? OK, I have everything up and running with a proper BD player software... and Windows updates itself throwing every out of whack. Peachy."

I can appreciate why some people just rip the HD masters past the copy protection and just run it by itself. Also, BD playback is kind of touchy compared to durable DVD playback.

And I am pretty amazed that I'm the only person on Earth who seems to care about burnt on subtitles on a format that is supposed to give the improved image. "But it makes the subtitles look so much better!" Comments like these go right over my head, for some reason...
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Zoneflare



Joined: 11 Mar 2015
Posts: 521
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:46 pm Reply with quote
Actually it was AoA that stopped releasing Dvds after the I initial Magi release and that was over two years ago.

He pretty much described how I buy anime now. I'll usually watch around 15-20 series' every season but what makes my buy list has yet to exceed 7 titles. Says a lot when I use to do lots of blind buys before streaming.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:54 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
While I could immediately see the improvement of DVDs over VHS tapes... in every category that mattered and some that weren't even apparent... BDs are only a slight improvement because that improved picture comes at a cost, especially once you try to make a BD HD set up that doesn't come out of a manufactured box.... "I have a BD, a HD monitor and a computer with a HD hook up, why isn't this... Oh, BDs have massive copy protection usually? Right, I have the same plus an HDMI... oh, players are copy protected too, VLC? OK, I have everything up and running with a proper BD player software... and Windows updates itself throwing every out of whack. Peachy."

I can sympathise. The flimsy nature of the DVD standard's copy protection is one of its assets. Any computer in any region can play back any disc without incident.
In contrast, the overzealous nature of Blu-ray's restrictions prevents computer playback on certain operating systems, and forces consumers to buy either a multi-zone machine or two single-zone ones if they wish to enjoy the breadth of ever-fragmented physical market. The promise of higher fidelity soon becomes a benefit easily forfeited.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:08 pm Reply with quote
I don't mind this. I can easily see benefits to the businesses in cutting expenses for a format that is getting diminishing returns. Overall, my preference has been combo-packs, but even then the only time I would use the DVD was the rare occasion where I was at someone's parents' home, and they didn't have a blu-ray player.
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Compelled to Reply



Joined: 14 Jan 2017
Posts: 358
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:19 pm Reply with quote
It seems logical, now that the DVD format celebrated its twentieth birthday this year, and will cross the point in time by the end of the decade that VHS did in the early 2000s. Not to mention 4K UHDs are the uncontested successor, unlike the BD and HD-DVD format war.

Also, Sentai is going considerably upmarket with releases. I wonder if investors will come knocking.
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DerekL1963
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:38 pm Reply with quote
I guess I'm old... I still remember the shockwaves when Blockbuster announced they would soon stop purchasing VHS, and that tapes in inventory would be replaced with DVD's as the tapes wore out. (This would have been in the late 90's or early 00's.) In the pre-streaming world, obsoleting an entire media system was *huge*.

Their 2007 announcement that they were doing the same with BD over DVD's caused barely a ripple. On one hand, the two media could played on the same player. On the other, Netflix was already eating Blockbuster's lunch and though it didn't know it yet Blockbuster was essentially dead. (Not only because of Netflix and Redbox, but the nascent streaming services too.)
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ArmyofDarkness



Joined: 15 Jan 2014
Posts: 68
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:46 pm Reply with quote
[quote="Animegomaniac"]
Quote:


And I am pretty amazed that I'm the only person on Earth who seems to care about burnt on subtitles on a format that is supposed to give the improved image. "But it makes the subtitles look so much better!" Comments like these go right over my head, for some reason...


I don't buy a lot of Anime anymore but the few i have never had burnt on subs for blu ray. Yes they are always rendered if the Japanese audio is on but they are still being rendered real time and not burnt into the video file. I could see this being an issue if you knew Japanese and wanted to watch them raw, but for the most of us, we need subs. Its all to prevent that reverse import.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:49 pm Reply with quote
Guys, there are free BD player apps nowadays even for Mac. Some are buggy, and I'm pretty sure they're unlicensed by the BDA, but they're least usable.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 2:04 pm Reply with quote
Zoneflare wrote:
Actually it was AoA that stopped releasing Dvds after the I initial Magi release and that was over two years ago.


Yeah, they were the first, but it was never a formal announcement, like this. That's probably why it flew under the radar. They also didn't explicitly say they wouldn't, just that they would be releasing no more DVD-only sets. Of course, since AoA doesn't do combo packs, that ended up being exactly the same as no more DVD.
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partially



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
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Location: Oz
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:03 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
By the way, Nozomi also recently announced that they are dropping DVD's. I hope the rest of the publishers go BD only soon and that DVD is only used for old stuff.


I find this amusing given they are the company that for so many years was a steadfast holdout for NOT releasing titles on BD. Although from an economic standpoint makes sense, concentrating on one format means significantly less costs. The very reason I haven't understood why most anime companies didn't make a switch to BD only years ago. Most people buying DVD I have noticed already have a BD player, they just continue to buy the DVD version because they are used to it and on their setup it makes no difference. Give them no choice and they buy the BD. There are some holdouts that completely refuse BD, but I really think they have been the minority for years.

Animegomaniac wrote:
I would love to see more of this. I recently purchased a set from Diskotek that was split over two 6 DVD sets but the idea that I could have gotten all of that just on two SD-BDs for possibly half the price? Should have been the way to go.


Would be lovely. However I believe the reason why it is pretty much never done is because some older BD players have compatibility issues with SD on a BD.

Animegomaniac wrote:
And I am pretty amazed that I'm the only person on Earth who seems to care about burnt on subtitles on a format that is supposed to give the improved image. "But it makes the subtitles look so much better!" Comments like these go right over my head, for some reason...


Dunno where you heard that. I don't think there are any BD releases with burnt subtitles. Except a couple of early subtitle only discs without dubs. There are however lots of discs with technological subtitle locks. Which are easy enough to bypass on a PC playback setup with software. As to the look of the subs though, they are exactly the same whether they are locked or not.


Last edited by partially on Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:15 pm Reply with quote
jsevakis wrote:
Guys, there are free BD player apps nowadays even for Mac. Some are buggy, and I'm pretty sure they're unlicensed by the BDA, but they're least usable.

I'm still waiting for a convenient Linux solution, sadly. A popular program to decrypt and stream blu-rays to VLC does exist, but I'm less than sanguine about its reliability in the long term.
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Shar Aznabull



Joined: 12 Jan 2015
Posts: 236
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:37 pm Reply with quote
I've said this in the other thread, but I would absolutely love for more companies to start taking advantage of SD on BD. Discotek is already taking steps in the right direction, releasing longer shows with no HD masters like Fist of the North Star and Cyborg 009 on the format. So much more convenient to have the same image quality as a DVD, but with the additions of sturdier hardware, vastly more storage space so less swapping discs, better compression, and an ultimately cheaper cost for the end consumer.
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 2658
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:40 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
For years, many fans stuck buy DVD for compatibility reasons


Nowadays the reason is different. I do know the feeling, I remember many years ago that I saw a PC with a USB port and thought "that will never catch on, it will be a fad". Many people have large collections of DVDs and the mere thought that they will be worthless like VHS are nowadays must be frankly scary. They are at the first stage of grief (denial) thinking that DVD is good enough, which if you have a CRT screen or you haven't changed the prescription of your glasses in years can seem true.

I do have still quite a lot of DVDs, but I obviously am at the fifth stage of grief (acceptance) so I buy blu-rays whenever possible (would love for Warner to start releasing their old cartoons in SD-BD).

BTW, this does not mean that 4K will necessarily will be the next big thing, there is such a thing as diminishing returns, there is a point where manufacturers just want you to get a new TV with extra drm.
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