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Answerman - How Do Publishers Decide Whether To Release A Blu-ray Remaster?

This is pretty rare, but it happens. If you notice classic shows that get rerun airings on TV in Japan always have an HD remaster out.

I'd link it if I weren't posting by phone, but fandompost's Japanese disc forum has a thread listing cases where JP companies upscaled old analog masters instead of doing new film transfers for cel-era titles.

I still really want an Ergo Proxy blu ray release. But Funimation recently re-released the series only on DVD, i'm guessing there must have been some sort of clog in the process of getting a BD release. Which makes me sad.

Razor/Edge wrote:

I still really want an Ergo Proxy blu ray release. But Funimation recently re-released the series only on DVD, i'm guessing there must have been some sort of clog in the process of getting a BD release. Which makes me sad.

Ergo Proxy has a [ur=http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/GNXA-1007l]BD release[/url] with the english dub but is long out of print and was a Japan only release. I don't think it's a "clog" or anything like that. I think Funimation just never thought it worth it to negotiate a BD license for it. Maybe they thought it wouldn't be as popular and I think they were right. I don't hear anybody clamoring for a BD release besides you and me.

I know that not all companies are able to offer their titles on BD, but when they do, even if the title in question is not visually impressive, I prefer to go with BD. And now that 4K is starting to become a thing, I wonder if N.A. companies are going to start selling discs with that format soon. Personally, I am quite happy with 1080.

angelmcazares wrote:

And now that 4K is starting to become a thing, I wonder if N.A. companies are going to start selling discs with that format soon. Personally, I am quite happy with 1080.

Probably not soon. As far as I know 4K BDs is going to require HDCP 2.2, so that means all your equipment will have to be compliant and I doubt everyone will get rid of perfectly good 1080p equipment (receivers, screens, etc) all at once. So, since adoption is not going to be automatic I doubt we will see it soon. Also if BDs are more expensive to produce than DVDs how much more will UHD-BDs cost to produce? Again may not see a rush to it from NA anime companies and is Japan even producing any anime in 4K?

I still really want an Ergo Proxy blu ray release. But Funimation recently re-released the series only on DVD, i'm guessing there must have been some sort of clog in the process of getting a BD release. Which makes me sad.

I still really want an Ergo Proxy blu ray release. But Funimation recently re-released the series only on DVD, i'm guessing there must have been some sort of clog in the process of getting a BD release. Which makes me sad.

Unfortunately though, in the case of Ergo Proxy, even if you're willing to pay the Japanese prices, it's out of print, so while it can still be bought, the price is really bad now.

Another question is when a publisher will release a BD remaster. If Funi legally did what they needed to, then Bandai is essentially is still obligated to give Funi the masters to those Bandai rescues Funi announced around AX 2013.

Kadmos1 wrote:

Another question is when a publisher will release a BD remaster. If Funi legally did what they needed to, then Bandai is essentially is still obligated to give Funi the masters to those Bandai rescues Funi announced around AX 2013.

Yeah. Both Funimation and Sentai have announced license rescues for shows that have been re-released on Blu-ray in Japan that they have yet to release in any form. And there was at least one show (Code Geass) that Funimation rescued that was released on Blu-ray when it was first released in Japan but was never released on Blu-ray by Bandai in the US. But Funimation has yet to release it either.

IIRC, I read a comment from Funimation at one point about a show (I don't remember which one) where they were stuck waiting for the masters from Japan and thus couldn't release it, but I don't know if that's what's happening with these shows or not. Regardless, it sucks, because I would love to get some of those shows on Blu-ray, and the only alternative right now is to buy them from Japan (and on top of being painfully expensive, some of those releases don't have any English subs on them, let alone the dub). And of course, what will probably happen is that as soon as I break down and buy them from Japan, Funimation and Sentai will finally release them in the US.

Another question is when a publisher will release a BD remaster. If Funi legally did what they needed to, then Bandai is essentially is still obligated to give Funi the masters to those Bandai rescues Funi announced around AX 2013.

Personally, I want to kill DVDs with fire and have everything on Blu-ray. On top of SD being obviously worse than HD, the interlacing that's almost always on DVDs makes the video quality so much worse than it needs to be. I buy the Blu-ray release for every show that I bought on DVD that gets re-released on Blu-ray in the US and sometimes have bought them from Japan (though that tends to be prohibitively expensive). The lack of interlacing alone makes them worth it (though sometimes, for reasons that I don't understand, Blu-rays still get released with interlacing even though interlaced, HD displays aren't really a thing). But unfortunately, even many Hollywood shows and movies simply never get rereleased on Blu-ray, and those generally would sell far better than an anime re-released on Blu-ray would. So, as far as I'm concerned, we're extremely lucky every time we get a re-release on Blu-ray, and I eagerly await the day that everything gets released on Blu-ray, and we don't have to worry about DVD-only content.

^Those GitS sets are probably not going to show up out west any time soon. I can't remember where I heard it, but it sounds like the license for that is tied up with Manga Entertainment, and they don't seem to have any desire to release it on Blu-ray any time soon.

On the other hand, you can get the South Korean Blu-rays, which are region free and have English subtitles and the dub, for like $250 with shipping.