Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Have Anime DVDs and Blu-rays Changed Over The Years?
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Sentai, and ADV before them, allowed trailers and even the FBI warnings and company logos to be skipped. I've heard there were an occasional release or two that required the "top menu" option to skip them, but I've never encountered them myself. The "top menu" option would also work on a number of Funi releases with locked trailers. So you really didn't need to sit through the TAN commercials. 
I actually really appreciate that they do this with the vast majority of their releases. I enjoy watching trailers, but I like to pick and chose which ones I watch and when to do so. It's especially nice when you might have the same trailer on several releases. I don't really need to se the Akame Ga Kill trailer for the fifth time. As for the major studios, Paramount and Lion's Gate almost always allow their trailers to be skipped, which is nice. In the case of Lion's Gate, I really like it because they have a tendency to include a ridiculous amount of trailers on their releases, and about half will be for older movies that I've already watched or have in my collection. Most of the recent blurays I've acquired actually allow you to access the pop-up menu, or go to the main menu and skip the trailers. It's actually been some time since I've had a bluray that didn't allow this. I haven't watched any new DVD releases in some time, so I can't speak for those. |
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2026 |
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The oldest anime DVD in my collection is the original Manga Entertainment Ghost in the Shell disc from the late 90s. My copy was purchased in 2011, but the disc and encode was not changed. It even came with a chapter sheet that you don't see anymore. The PQ looks pretty terrible by today's standards, but the movie does play automatically once you get past the warnings/logos, and in anamorphic widescreen. It does have a lot more bonus content than Anchor Bay's recent Blu-ray.
I have an old 2003 DBZ DVD too. It had seamless branching so it could play the much shorter American opening/closing sequences with the dub, and the picture quality looked terrible. At least it was in 4:3. My old 2004 DVD of Slayers: The Motion Picture from ADV is in non-anamorphic widescreen, and is presented in a tiny window on my 16:9 TV unless I change the aspect ratio. It looks like garbage too, and I would gladly double dip. It had an interesting commentary though. |
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Hunter Sopko
 Posts: 259 |
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And there's always the most ridiculous of the complicated: RightStuf's release of Kare Kano.
Talk about going above and beyond there just to present the show as best they could. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Not all DVD players have a "top menu" function. My current player does not. When I am going to play a Funimation disc from the start I usually put it in and go do something else, such as check the forums, for a few minutes. I could use my Blu-ray player, but my DVD player is better in every other way so I would rather do without the "top menu". That does not seem to serve any purpose with a DVD other than getting past those "unskippable" openings. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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I do miss having menus that are a little more interesting.
I have some discs which are unskippable and I feel that you really shouldn't have to find ways to skip thru crap. I like trailers just fine, but put them in the extras and allow me to choose which ones to watch. Its also annoying when they use some trailer that doesn't have much to do with the content that your watching which kills my mood because there's no warning it just jumps right into the trailer. Some live-action BDs are now getting out of hand with the anti-piracy warnings. Instead of just only the single FBI warning they now give you three. Its the old "let's punish everyone for the misdeeds of the few". "Wait its not working? Then let's piss off customers more by increasing the annoyance factor, that's sure to work". |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9854 Location: Virginia |
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I've never minded the FBI warning on anime disks as it is usually quiet and lasts a short time. It is rather pointless as ignorance of the law would not be a defense if they intended to charge you and I doubt it has ever stopped someone intent on breaking it.
I've always enjoyed the company banners they sometimes put at the beginning. Many are better animated than the show that follows. As someone mentioned above the Dolby Digital animations were usually fun to watch and changed frequently. As for previews and ads for the companies other products, I've always disliked them but I can't remember a DVD or Bluray where I couldn't find a way to skip them. On the other hand, the very first anime I ever watched was on VHS from Viz and had a preview at the beginning. The tape was for Ranma 1/2 and the preview was of Mermaid's Scar. While both were from the same author, they were very different tonally. The main show is light hearted fun and the preview involved a little kid putting the hero's eye out with his thumb. It was a bit off putting. To skip that you had to fast watch it or guess how far to fast forward the tape. Neither option was really good. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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It always felt like the bonus content on anime home video were always a step or two (or more) less interesting than the bonus content on Hollywood movies, or even some smaller-scale indie releases. For Zootopia, for instance, I enjoyed watching the step-by-step explanations and demonstrations they had in designing the characters and the setting (particularly the urban infrastructure). I paused for a few minutes when they cut to a map of Zootopia, because I wanted to see what the "seven major districts" mentioned in the movie were and to see if they actually had a district for marine and amphibious mammals (they do).
I take it that it's due to the language barrier or some kind of restrictions from the producers in Japan, but western releases for anime don't ever seem to have this sort of in-depth behind-the-scenes documentary shorts that I love so much. They have more of a party atmosphere to them, which I'm not as interested in as they don't provide any new information or trivia.
It's easy to understand why they'd fill rental discs with trailers though.
Yeah, that's still pretty common nowadays. It's not just with language options, but any menu where there are only two options. I forget which one it was, but one of my recent Blu-Rays was like this, where the selected option has lettering of one color while the unselected one is of another. (Frozen, I think?) It goes beyond home video, though, and extends to any visual interactive medium where there can be a two-option menu. It's really more of an issue with visual intuitiveness in general, not any incompetence specifically in making a home video release.
That ruins the point of the trailers though. They're supposed to entice people to go watch something they might have otherwise not been interested in watching. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11404 |
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I wish I could remember the title, but I do recall running into a disk where the menus were in the alien language of the feature. So you just had to select at random and see what happened. Also, it wasn't just a top to bottom list, but required left-right navigation as well to get to all the options. Add in that Blood dvd jenny10-11 mentioned, and some other crazy menus, and it appears some publishers wanted users to be confused by the menus and not know how to work them. 
Each disk as in each individual disk pressed, or as in each disk of a movie or series? What was the managed copy feature supposed to do? Was it intended to benefit consumers or publishers?
Could you elaborate on what they did? Going above and beyond to provide the best possible presentation doesn't sound ridiculous. oO |
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Hunter Sopko
Posts: 259 |
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Back then, Kare Kano was a series labeled un-subbable and went unlicensed for a long time. In addition to the dialogue, there were mountains and mountains of background text, a lot of which featured motion and other effects. I think the only thing that is comparable these days would be Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei? I haven't seen either in a while but I think the job Kare Kano required was more challenging.
In the end, they insisted avoiding the bare minimum and also recreated a lot of those text effects. The first disc featured over 100k layers on their subtitle track, IIRC? It's an amazing piece of work honestly, especially with the tools that were available at the time. I remember hearing it was the most technically complex disc produced up to that point, period. Some of the details on this might be wrong. It has been about 13-14 years at this point. Anyone else recall this? Justin? |
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mglittlerobin
 Posts: 1071 |
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Funimation's menus tend to be boring, but I mainly just want to watch the anime. Aniplex tends to not have special features.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11404 |
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I don't know what that means. Sounds like a lot but how many is normal? Edit: While looking up in the Encyclopedia a title mentioned in the What Are You Watching Now? thread, I surfed into this little blast from the past (April 2003) which is an interesting window into what this thread is discussing (including Kare Kano!). "The usual question, will the DVDs be anamorphic, came up. The answer has been, and continues to be 'No.'" (and ADV was going to title Saiyuki "Paradise Rangers"??!  )
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Joe Carpenter
 Posts: 503 |
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I miss English dub commentary tracks, do they still do that? I remember the ones for R.O.D The TV were a lot of fun.
I also miss creative dvd menus, although sometimes they would go a little overboard. 
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9854 Location: Virginia |
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@Joe Carpenter
Many Funimation releases continue to have commentary tracks from the dubbing staff. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18213 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Oh, this is a long-standing pet peeve of mine, with Funimation long being the most frequent offender. And yes, it's still very common on recent releases. For the menu transition animation, one of the worst anime offenders that I can think of is Bandai's DVD release of [b]Scrapped Princess[b]. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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This is true. This is one of the reasons that I really appreciate when companies allow you to skip with just the next chapter button. In my case, my Pioneer DVD player does have a top menu function, but most less expensive players do not. Like you, I also prefer to watch DVD's on it, as opposed to my bluray player or PS4. It does a much better job of upscaling, and even compensates for some of the flaws in poorly encoded discs. For instance, Funi's early box sets, which looked pretty bad at times, look much better when I play them on my Pioneer. It's the only way I can do my annual Halloween watch of Ghost Hunt, because it looks like crap on my PS4. I would prefer more companies go the Sentai route, if they're going to do front loading trailers. Allow us to just hit the skip chapter butting and move along. |
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