Forum - View topicNEWS: Anime Makes Up 64% of BD Sales in Japan in September
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GATSU
Posts: 15467 |
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asimpson: Fair enough, but it's still just an excuse to get you to pay for an unneeded upgrade. And it still sounds like they're essentially the same in the sense that they offer the same signals; but DTV just crams the same worthless channels you had before onto a non-cable format.
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Again I am not sure what that has to do with anything. But I will let you in on a little secret. Black Friday is not about getting a high profit(or any) per item returned. It is about selling items that have sat on manufactures and retailers shelves that have shown slow movement and/or are ready to have price drops in the coming year anyway. And replace those items with new higher profit margin products for the coming year. This goes back to the liquidity issue we were talking about in another thread. Traditionally, just moving these items and getting cash for them (as opposed to them collecting dust), is enough to move companies who have been in the red for the whole fiscal year, to now move into the black. Hence Black Friday. Again that has nothing to do with a per item profit margin, and it never has. It has more to do with canceling out debt(costs), which to a company is the same as increasing profitability potential. Now if companies don't turn a profit this year, then it is most likely because they have had an especially crappy year. But leave it to the Times to always bring out the utmost negative in everything. The fact is more shoppers participated, and spent more per capita than they did last year, and the year before that, and that, and that. It's a good thing considering the economy. But I suppose the Times would have written a glowing article if the headlines read "Shoppers stay home in droves, breaking 20 year record low".
Well it depends how you look at it. My best friend is a doctor. When HD TVs came out he went and bought a 50" for like $6,000, and that was a good deal. Make no mistake that much of the initial costs have already been paid off, and is why we see TVs these days for much more reasonable sums. Any kind of hit they(BD companies) might be taking now(which we aren't sure of), might very well be worth it, once they find the correct price point so the public at large goes out and buys its products. And once enough people are buying them, they can still make plenty of money through economy of scale(volume). Also, and I have no way to back this up but it wouldn't surprise me in the least, Hollywood studios may be subsidizing the BD player manufactures to get the prices down so that more people will buy HD movies. Again, no way to know for sure, but it's not unlikely. I expect this time next year it will be easy to find a BD player under $100, sale or not.
But you can get a really good upscaling DVD player for $50. Why would they spend more than double that* on a BD player if all they want to do is upscale their collection? * I think the best Black Friday sale had ones going for like $120. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15467 |
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Though the difference between what ADV is doing and what those stores are doing is that the stores are hoping people will occasionally pay full price on something or two while they get the discounts. And while that normally happens in most sales, it's clear that this year was different.
Curse you, damn Liberal Media and your facts.
They participated, because the prices were low-balled below the usual discounts, which means that the shoppers aren't able or willing to pay full MSRP.
Doctors =/= average Americans and can thus afford HDTVs at that price.
If that were the case, then HDTVs would have been this cheap a year ago. Regular televisions didn't even get that cheap until at least a decade ago.
That's assuming the public buys its products, and not just a few select BD titles they don't already own.
That's actually even worse for the studios, because if they get an already overpriced bomb or two on their hands, it means it's harder for them to make their money back on it on home video.
That's sort of my point. Studios are going to have to work harder on exclusives for BD, in order to justify people getting rid of their dvd collections. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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I don't know what the hell vectors are, but I do know that a majority of anime are actually upscaled to accommodate their HD release. Of the ones that were actually rendered in HD resolution or are film based of course, this isn't the case. But isn't a drawing limited to the detail that's drawn anyway? When you capture live action, there's always more detail provided the resolution is there (again, in film or HD digital material). So I find it strange that you'd make the opposite conclusion. Secondly, digital TV is just another step forward in technology like plastic bags instead of wax paper or something. Making the transition is likely to get people frustrated, but if we made non-frustration a policy in creating technology we would be further frustrated that technology was progressing too slowly. Is it really worth pandering to these people? I don't think so. I've heard carriages really cut down on fuel emissions. There's another one: cars. Ridiculous! Over priced, over hyped, too soon, unnecessary, and horses have personality. Cars are going to go the way of the chariot... |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Considering the state of things, it could have been a lot worse. And different times causes different methods and habits. The story is that the though the seasons produced different results than expectations, the consumers still showed they have buying power. And instead of some of the dire predictions of no one coming out shopping at all they came out in droves. Of course corporations will always want and expect better, but the fact is consumers didn't let them down this year. And they easily could have.
Or objectively ignoring them, as I pointed out. And I didn't mention anything about liberal media, but the NYT is certainly one of the worst when it comes to presentation of facts. As proven by the linked article. But hey it's not all bad. Here is more responsible journalism, filled more with things we know, and less editorializing. Look, I am not trying to paint roses, but I am also not going to take a positive increase and turn it into doom and gloom.
I don't know, I watch this sale every year. And there were killer deals this year, just like there are killer deals every year. You have to be careful when we have such a short technological change over, to judge deals of the past with current deals. Plus, no one pays MSRP.
Which was exactly my point, stop being deliberately obtuse. The initial costs have for the most part been ironed out.
I suppose if you are looking at it on a movie by movie basis, and only focusing on the bombs. But in the long run it would be advantageous to hop on the HD bandwagon sooner rather than later, and get people capable of playing the media rather than not. Plus BD players play DVDs.
Well, DVDs aren't in HD, so that's one right. I already went over the whole collections thing. But yeah, I would love to see some exclusives, I think that would be great. |
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bglassbrook
Posts: 1243 Location: Gaithersburg, MD |
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Discounting the ridiculousness of BVU's pricing scheme for a moment ... BD's can hold 4-6 times the amount of raw data as DVDs, unfortunately, an HD source takes up 4-10 times as much space. So, we really won't see a boost in episodes per volume unless they are used merely as a mass-storage medium (or the new 400G discs are deceptively cheap & easy to master.) Luckily, studios are starting to get the message on pricing, and Funi's releases were all down around acceptable levels when I last looked. Heck, Buy.com had Afro Samurai S1-BD for $12 preorder (granted, no new features, just a prettier picture & lossless audio.) Now if only we got something more than DBZ or obscure LA movies to buy. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15467 |
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del:
Digital looks cold, dim, and grainy to me...
It has nothing to do with energy efficiency. In fact, the transition is lacking in foresight, since it's encouraging consumers to dump their old televisions in land-fills where they leak waste. It's all about the public subsidizing a fiber network in order to increase the value of ad revenue for cable and tv networks, by making it harder for us to record and Tivo shows.
Well, considering the ice-caps are melting because of them, why not? Dargon:
I think it's the opposite situation. They showed up the most when the cheapest deals were around, but they might skimp on regular shopping.
No, CEOs let them down this year. Anyway, consumers fulfilling lowered expectations isn't exactly a promising sign here, bud.
Same article: "...analysts warned that a day or so of power shopping might prove inadequate to rescue troubled store chains...Electronics and appliances fell 14.3 percent, but that is an improvement over the last couple of weeks, when sales in that category were down more than 20 percent....But Mr. McNamara cautioned that Black Friday — named for the day when, historically, retailers moved into the black, or became profitable — did not supply anywhere near the majority of November sales for stores. Those sales were remarkably weak in the weeks before Black Friday...."
Steady, but nowhere near the discounts currently available.
Um, that's the entire point behind BD in the first place.
Because the studios want to have their cake[DVD] and eat it too[BD].
That's actually even worse, considering the Netflix factor. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2070 |
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Whatever the case may be GATSU, whether forced as you claim or customers choosing it of their own will, you are basically agreeing that this is all in BD's favor. And in any case saying consumers didn't get a chance to choose is false. There is no gun to their head that forces anyone to buy a BD-player or a PS3. Consumers bought PS3s because they wanted it for all it featured whether for games or movies and everyone is satisfied with its abilities. So PS3 was a huge aid to BD. Consumers could have also gone for a 360 + HD-DVD drive or stand alones. Heck they had practically a year's head start, well HD-DVD had half a year. Consumer's overwhelmingly chose blu-ray. And even today results show consumers overwhelmingly prefer BD or DVD to downloading/streaming (piracy excepted). Digital distribution will only gain a small percentage of the market and be more for rentals than purchases. The current internet infrastructure and DRM is too limiting for it to grow until drastic and large scale changes are made worldwide. I don't see what the DS or Wii have to do with films or how this relates to the internet particularly because the Wiis online service doesn't offer anything like PSN's movie service or Xbox LIVE's. What does this have to do with the demo for FFXIII? The demo combined with the extended version of Advent Children exclusive to BD of a game that will be exclusive to PS3 in Japan will definately get pepole to pick up PS3s and thus more BD users will be in the market for Japan. And your remarks about HDTVs and digital signals is ill informed. Besides HDTVs are the new thing now... by your logic when colour TV was out they should've continued to sell B&W TVs beside them too to give cosumers a choice. Forget about the fact that you can get decent HDTVs manufactured and sold today for the same price that older televisions used to go for... It's called technological progress. You can get better computers today sold for the same price as older models back in the day. Eventually it just makes more sense for retailers to ditch the old stuff and switch to the newer ones . And even if what you said made sense you are still basically saying things that favor the distribution of BD whether forced or not. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2070 |
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Concerning BD's data capacity, I believe he might mean that there is a good possibility that distributors can release older anime collections in SD on BD discs. So basically you get all the episodes at a decent price all on one disc, but in SD capacity and leave it to BD players to upscale them. Could be a good idea to make some money off of old shows, not like they have to digitally remaster them or anything... Also it should be noted that companies like Panasonic have developed BD discs that hold up to 200GBs! They are compatabile with all players and since the layers are being made thinner they are also cheaper to manufacture! There's still possibly more room for growth in BD technology! While films may not need more than 50GB unless you're gettiing smorgasboards of HD extras, it's good for games and storage and if the higher capacity discs are cheaper to manufacture, studios might as well use them. Discs like these will be prefect for more episodes or entire trilogies of films all in HD. And yes although BD discs cost more than DVDs right now it won't always be that way... they're gonna come down sooner or later and inevitably DVDs will only be priced so low and studios will price both DVD and BD the same because they know they will still make the same amount of money from people who are sticking with DVD and at the same time they'll make them feel foolish for paying the same for a lesser quality product as a higher quality product and this will encourage them to switch over. Plus as studios manage to use BD live interactivity and Java features that can only be done on BD, there's a lot of cool things that many casual people will enjoy and this additional sparkle will attract them to it. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15467 |
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jdnation:
No, I'm saying the opposite, actually. BD is destined to lose, because consumers have to be convinced to buy it.
Except for the studios reneging on their support for HD-DVD and except for people who end up with non-backwards compatible PS3s, sure.
Most people are happier with rentals than purchases.
HDTV is just an overpriced picture upgrade, not a significant difference over tv the way color was over B+W. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2070 |
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But if BD is all that's available then consumers have no choice, correct? As I said before because HDTVs are all you find and inevitably once blu-ray player manufacturing costs the same as DVD, manufacturers will not make DVD players anymore because BD players play and upscale DVDs.
Consumers had plenty of time to decide. HD-DVD had a half a year head start and thsi went on for a few years. Consumers overwhelmingly chose blu-ray. This was obvious to studios and the majority of them went with blu-ray and canned HD-DVD based on consumer response.
Yeah... rentals in the form of physical media! And it'll be just as cheap to rent BD over DVD if it isn't already. Besides, your statement is as true for DVD as it is for BD and there's a large enough market out there of people who purchase to own.
And the Wii is a minor upgrade of the Gamecube. Regardless of its value to your perceptions it is the newer technology sold for the same price of what the cost was of old SDTVs during their era. If you had the choice of paying the same price for an outdated but working product and a new improved version of the same product you're telling me you'd rather go out of your way to pay the same for an older SDTV??? I don't think all movies benefit greatly from BD. Old films dont have a great difference, but newer films like Batman Begins, or anime like Appleseed: Ex Machina certainly do! The colours and detail and crip lines just pop out at you! It's extremely obvious! And to clarify a point I mentioned in a previous post, Panasonic's 200GB isn't the largest BD around, it's actually Pioneer with 400GB usable on all current BD players! Apparently they're trying to go as high as 1 TB by 2013! |
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edzieba
Posts: 704 |
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a) the final master is in HD. This is the case with almost every newly produced show. If it's broadcase in non-upscaled HD, it's got a HD master. b) the production masters were kept. Not usually true with older shows (the storage requirements are truly massive, nearing and sometimes reaching the terabyte range). And even then it would require making a new final master, which isn't always easy or cheap. As for live-action: Detail there is fractal. Increasing the resolution will show more detail, but reducing it will simply blur this detain into the macro-scale rather than hiding it completely. Not that I'm saying the HD live-action is pointless, just that the detail increase is less noticeable than with animation (due to the brain filling in the loss in fine detail). The reasoning behind this has a lot to do with visual perception theory, so you'd probably be better of researching it yourself if you're interested. |
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ManSlayer07
Posts: 214 |
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You're actually correct for once, it isn't about energy efficiency because dewl (not del) never mentioned energy efficiency! And cable networks have nothing to do with the DTV transition. Broadcast networks: yes; cable networks: no. And that leads to ad revenue for them how? You're slightly correct about cable networks because their audience will grow because the transition is causing many people switch to cable/satellite but we need more time to see how much. And the broadcast networks' ad revenue will be affected due to a smaller total audience (slow adoption) but I'm still not sure what that has to do with anything (plus, the broadcast networks' ad revenue has been decreasing for some time anyway). The real money in this situtation is that the spectrum that the current analog system uses was auctioned off and sold off to the cable and Internet companies. Cable companies: yes; cable networks: no. And your ignorance of the DTV transition (and HD) is truly amazing, it really is, your posts in this thread are priceless entertainment.
The Air TV BD-Box (which is or about to get a re-release very soon) is also an upscale. I believe those are the only SD anime upscales available ATM (unless you want to get into the Macross Frontier debate of which I know little about ). |
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edzieba
Posts: 704 |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Yeah just to clarify that analogy wasn't about energy or anything, I just gather plastic is better than wax paper for select applications. Although I cannot recall any more upscaled titles I came by the information at the animeondvd forums; I just remember a significant amount of the new threads had cries of "AH! It's an upscale!".
Yes but the point I was making was that in the real world there are countless details to be seen. The pores on a face, strands of hair, textures of all sorts are abound whereas in animation you have drawings and they vary widely in the complexity of visual information. So while technical advantages may allow animation to be sharper there is more to be seen with live action, which probably warrants higher resolution more so than animation although I wouldn't say that's a reason to forgo HD anime. I think the thing that excites me most about Bluray is the possibility of having entire seasons of shows on one disc. Anyone following the tech news lately might have heard about Pioneer's new 400GB Bluray; it works in any Bluray player. I think 2TB is supposed to be on the horizon somewhere, but anyway the whole idea of having a format that can basically get better over time and not screw early adopters is pretty sweet. Come on, that's 47 dual layer DVDs or 8 dual layer Blurays in one package, and that's not even the end of it. If logic is anything to go by, Bluray will endure for as long as people want optical storage and lots of it. |
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