The old-school anime DVD/BD news thread.

[llj]

I know Japanese prices are whacked out. It's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed because increasingly anime has more of a global market, and ridiculous Japanese prices aren't going to cut it when more people sees what's up. The fact that some companies in Japan think that enforcing Japanese pricing structure on anime DVDs worldwide is a good thing just shows how messed up the market is.

But anyway, sure, like I said, there are always people with region free DVD players. But those people aren't significant enough in numbers to really worry most Japanese companies. Or else we would have seen a lot more hard subbing on anime DVDs in the past several years. Occasionally you might come up with a few companies who might make life difficult for U.S. distribution companies, but it's generally not a trend on DVD.

With blu-rays, though, a significant number of U.S. releases have been crippled by Japanese license holders, so that's a much more prevalent trend. I think last year almost 50% of U.S. anime BD releases had locked subs or were crippled in some way. It's levelled off some this year, though, and geo-locking might make locked subs a thing or the past.

As for the original Gundam R1 DVDs, I have no idea what went on there. You could be right that being released at the same time as Japan might have contributed to it. It could also be that 2000 and 2001 was the time when companies started worrying about region free DVD players. Ultimately, they weren't as big a market threat as most anime companies feared.

I occasionally check on what Nozomi has to say about what they're doing, and they recently announced that one series was to have hard subs (some dumb hentai show anyway, not that I care) and they also will occasionally say that a certain show cannot be sold to people in Japan. Fortunately, I've had no problems buying stuff from Rightstuf so far, and they are a great way to buy anime. (Which reminds me, I need to put in a pre-order for their Cobra TV series!)

Yeah, well, most likely those notices regarding some shows not being sold to people in Japan probably refers to mostly BDs. You probably haven't run into any problems because you're just buying DVDs. Upgrade to BD and then the real fun and reverse import headaches start. That said, since you mostly buy only old anime, you might run into less problems anyway.

Whenever you decide to upgrade to BD, you might want to just buy a U.S. BD player instead, if geo-locking is the BD wave of the future. If you buy a BD player from Japan, you will need to make sure you can change the country code. This is absolutely crucial to get around geo-locking. Right now, some or most BD players do not have a feature to change countries. This geo-locking mechanism is what Japan and U.S. anime distributors have seemed to come up with to get around sharing the same blu-ray region. So a region-free BD player won't solve it either.

[_D_]

What I'm wondering is why release on DVD at all? Seems a lot of companies here now have been cutting back on DVD release in favour of Blu Ray or MOD. Soon it may be all digital. How many discs are being pressed for a general release from a company like Discotek? It can't be 50,000 which used to be the minimum pressing (though I heard Disney does something like 30 - 40 thousand). Warner's Archive is entirely MOD (manufactured on demand ie. their own burns). Nice to have the discs but things seem to be moving away from physical media. Snap up the discs while you can...

[llj]

DVDs still outsell BDs and they're still cheaper to produce. People have been slow to upgrade to BD, although it's getting there.

An all-digital future quite frankly scares me. It may well come to that, but I'm not a fan of non-tangible media. I hold my downloaded video games in far less esteem than my physical ones because they're just...data. I guess it's an aesthetic thing, but I think aesthetics is pretty important for the human condition. We need to be able to feel things.

[usamimi]

DVDs still outsell BDs and they're still cheaper to produce. People have been slow to upgrade to BD, although it's getting there.

An all-digital future quite frankly scares me. It may well come to that, but I'm not a fan of non-tangible media. I hold my downloaded video games in far less esteem than my physical ones because they're just...data. I guess it's an aesthetic thing, but I think aesthetics is pretty important for the human condition. We need to be able to feel things.

I agree on both. Even though blu-rays are practically the standard for collectors and movie lovers now, there are still plenty of people out there who don't want to convert, or are just cheap and don't want to pay more. DVDs were kind of the same way, if I recall...some people just really did not want to give up VHS. (Hell, there was a website called "WewantVHS" that, up until a year or two ago, took petitions to release newer films on VHS! Apparently they actually got a limited release of "Paranormal Activity" on VHS, which kinda surprised me.)

And as a collector, I also don't like the idea of all digital releases. I buy things I love to have a hard copy that will last me (nearly) forever. And having hard copies makes it easier to pop it in any time I like (without having to connect to the internet or whatever), or letting friends borrow them. And then there's just the simple fun of showing off your collection! All these things are a lot harder to do when you have a digital release. I don't mind SOME digital releases of video games...like, on the 3DS for example, it's saved to my actual system, so I don't have to connect to something online to play it. I like having Netflix and Crunchyroll to watch movies and anime, but at the same time, if I can't connect to the internet, or if they remove a title I really like, then I'm out of luck. :/

[llj]

I think for the casual person, the visual and audio upgrade BD affords over DVD isn't significant enough to compel them to convert. DVD's upgrade over VHS was a massive difference.

Still, you can buy a perfectly fine Blu-ray player for less than $100 today, so cost isn't really an issue anymore. I bought a pretty good Pioneer brand for $60. And I bet a lot of people out there still don't know that they can play DVDs on a Blu-ray player. I think I've told my parents that their DVDs would work on a Blu-ray player seven or eight times in the past 2 years and it still never sinks in.

[usamimi]

Well, people like you and me know blu-rays aren't that much, but people have it stuck in their heads that they are because they were kinda pricy when first introduced (but that's kind of understandable, since they were). I mean, now you can get $10 blu-rays at Walmart in a discount bin, lol. ;P

Yeah, I think people forget that because they can't wrap their brain around it: a blu-ray won't play in a DVD player, so how can a DVD play in a blu-ray player?! SORCERY!

[_D_]

Numbers seem to still be dropping for DVD though:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-0 ... sales.html

Not the first time I have seen this. Figures for DVD sales and rentals have been falling for years. The order of the day seems to be the public becoming a nation or world of watchers and not collectors. This has led to the demise of things like recording equipment for television like DVD recorders or restrictions being put into place preventing making a hard copy. Other than a few models, there are no means of recording to disc formats anymore and even the people I write to are recording high definition with what little equipment allows it over here directly to hard drives. It's just more convenient and less costly than physical media like discs. Even Del Toro has a blurb at the beginning of Pacific Rim about buying a preorder of the digital download of the film as soon as it becomes available! So much for physical media...

[Animusubi]

It's that quote from one of the latest Apple conferences... “We start to confuse convenience with joy.”

[SteveH]

Numbers seem to still be dropping for DVD though:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-0 ... sales.html

Not the first time I have seen this. Figures for DVD sales and rentals have been falling for years. The order of the day seems to be the public becoming a nation or world of watchers and not collectors. This has led to the demise of things like recording equipment for television like DVD recorders or restrictions being put into place preventing making a hard copy. Other than a few models, there are no means of recording to disc formats anymore and even the people I write to are recording high definition with what little equipment allows it over here directly to hard drives. It's just more convenient and less costly than physical media like discs. Even Del Toro has a blurb at the beginning of Pacific Rim about buying a preorder of the digital download of the film as soon as it becomes available! So much for physical media...

The flaw in this logic chain is that it's not about people not WANTING DVD (c.f. Physical Media), it's a simple truth that for all practical purposes, there is no place SELLING what people want.

Combine that with the increasing prices of 'cheap disposable entertainment' because even people who have never picked up a DVD or a book just seem to 'know' that it costs too much, in the face of other entertainment options.

So the usual counter argument centers on 'buying online', and clearly people DO buy online because otherwise Amazon would be out of business. But thing is, online buying is EXACTLY LIKE being on cable TV. It's GOOD, but still nowhere NEAR the numbers of the 4 main networks, even in this day and age. And why the Big 4? because even with the digital changeover they STILL have an over-the-air local broadcast ability. Which is metaphorically the same as a physical store.

People like to look and touch. They like to hold things in their hand and decide. It's a basic human nature thing.

So I say something I've been saying for years now. If online sales are overtaking B&M stores, why isn't the anime market growing? Why isn't Blu-Ray growing? If EVERYBODY is doing it, why the decline? It's more than the 'push' to the digital, no physical media world. It's because Suncoast died in 2006. It's because Blockbuster and Hollywood Video died. It's because Best Buy made the decision in 2005 they would get out of DVD and started a program of cutting their shelf space 10% every year. If there is no store CARRYING something, that something won't get sold.

And Walmart sells a S**TLOAD of DVDs, but they aren't counted because Walmart stopped submitting home video sales data back in 2003.

And there's a thing. All the remaining retailers KNOW Walmart sells tons of DVDs but they figure it's the WAY they sell them, not the prices. So everyone copies Walmart. New releases, Key titles, some 'evergreen' , the Disney (and wannabes) and constantly rotating 'event based' pre-packed pallet dumps. And everybody looks alike now. K Mart. Target. Walmart. Best Buy. Local 'superstores'. Same titles.

And so it goes.

[_D_]

No Mom and Pop rental stores left in your area? There are still a couple in mine but with pawn shop DVDs being $1 each, the rental stores can't be doing much business. I strolled into one of the local ones after being unable to find a copy of "How to Eat Fried Worms" for the son of a friend. The rental store had it for rent at a whole $1.25 for a week! Scary! They used to charge a lot more. It won't suprise me when the place finally gives up like most of the other stores in town...