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Answerman - Record Town and Media Play


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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2337
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:06 am Reply with quote
You still have to sit through the [expletive] ads for TV shows even if you're a paid HuluPlus member.

There is no win.
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Blatch
Thread Killer



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 348
Location: Northeast U.S.
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:39 am Reply with quote
With the announcement that The Simpsons will no longer be released on DVD and Blu-Ray formats, that question was very well-timed.

Personally, I hope physical media stays around for as long as it is feasible to have. Streaming a show opens the process to all sorts of dangers, the most prominent being the possibility that it may get taken down as time progresses due to business contracts and the like. We've already seen that happen with some big names, most notably a bunch of old Bandai Entertainment titles that includes Nichijou and Gosick, neither of which ever got a physical release around here.

Not to mention, the feeling of being able to hold a show in your hands and have it safe from harm, ready to play at any time, is just really satisfying.
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Maize Hughes



Joined: 28 Aug 2011
Posts: 81
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:41 am Reply with quote
Re: detail in faces at a distance.

There are some problems with using the original "close up" artwork and shrinking it for distance - basically, things stop looking quite right. It's not insurmountable, the main thing is getting the movement right, after all, and the conventions for drawing faces work pretty well for this sort of thing. (Briefly, the proportional size of eyes-to-ears-to-nose or head-to-body change as you increase distance. This is why traditional portrait photography uses long lenses instead of wide ones. This is also why selfies can look really weird. The perspective effect makes your nose look bigger than it is, or in my case, my forehead.)

With vector-based artwork, (usually a factor with CG), if you shrink the model, the line weight stays the same unless you remember to fix it, leading to objects that are further away getting thicker outlines, which is the opposite of what the brain expects. With hand-drawn, or pixel-based artwork, lines drop beneath the resolution threshold below a certain size, which looks right in terms of distance cues. However, it is usually better to re-draw for the correct distance, so you can emphasize details that matter for expression. Scott McCloud has a pretty good example of this in one of his Reading/Drawing Comics books. If it doesn't drop below the resolution threshold, shrinking analog art also can create problems with the character appearing more detailed (e.g. finer lines) than the background art it is supposed to be next to. This presents competing visual cues for distance, again.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:42 am Reply with quote
No mention of Daisuki, well it's now mentioned so all is forgiven.

I don't see Blu-Ray going the way of VHS anytime soon with Japan not having a digital download service for anime and a reliable one most likely arriving decades from now, BDs getting higher and higher storage capacities (up to 1 TB) for the eventual 4K era of anime and fans in Japan preferring buying physical media for their rewatches.
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No Comment



Joined: 19 Jun 2012
Posts: 83
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:55 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Honestly, I'd rather you torrented your anime than use those sites.
I agree with this very much

I watch almost all legally-available anime through legal sources at this point, but if I don't or I want to watch something unavailable through them, I always try to opt for torrents now. I used to go to illegal streaming sites out of their convenience, but I just got sick of how greedy they were with the ad revenue. It's one thing if the ads support actual legal licenses and streams, but the idea of generating revenue for sites that stream rips of legal streams or otherwise free fansubs is absurd. One of the more popular illegal streaming sites ATM is even more ridiculous; streams won't load if you have an Adblocker on. Even Hulu or Crunchyroll doesn't do that (I try not to use Adblock on either though). If you're going to be streaming content illegally, especially if you're literally just stealing it from legal streamers, I have no desire to see every page on your site plastered with ads, it's so petty and scumbaggy. People call companies like Funi or Crunchyroll greedy, but they need to look elsewhere

Great column as usual
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
Posts: 1796
Location: Leiden, NL, EU
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:58 am Reply with quote
A simple home fiber connection can up/download at 100Mb/s. 39GB would take a little over one hour to upload. For about €20/month extra you can get up to 500Mb/s, which means less than 15 minutes for your BD master. I don't know the state of fiber connectivity in Japan, but if it's comparable to over here, uploading might be faster than letting the courier get stuck in traffic.

Or is my math way off? Confused
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5426
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:17 pm Reply with quote
Bob asks wrote:
Some people seem to think that DVDs and Blu-rays are already obsolete and will soon be replaced by streaming.

I love that we can stream anime hours after it premiers in Japan. That being said, I want physical media to stick around. When it comes to anime, BD should be the standard because DVD will have a hard time doing justice to HD content, especially a visually impressive show like Hyouka.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3453
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:32 pm Reply with quote
Nick wrote:
I do know that episodes are sometimes finished mere hours before their airing time (which happens in this series), but even under those circumstances, does it still entail physically delivering the copy as opposed to email?

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."
- Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (1989)
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varmintx



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1202
Location: Covington, KY
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Kimiko_0 wrote:
A simple home fiber connection can up/download at 100Mb/s. 39GB would take a little over one hour to upload. For about €20/month extra you can get up to 500Mb/s, which means less than 15 minutes for your BD master. I don't know the state of fiber connectivity in Japan, but if it's comparable to over here, uploading might be faster than letting the courier get stuck in traffic.

Or is my math way off? Confused
I don't know about Japan, but most of the US is a third-world nation when it comes to high-speed internet access vs. cost.
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weds



Joined: 02 Jun 2013
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:53 pm Reply with quote
prime_pm wrote:
You still have to sit through the [expletive] ads for TV shows even if you're a paid HuluPlus member.


Hulu Plus: $8, some ads, maybe one or two per segment if you're watching anime. Occasionally, watch a movie trailer for 1:30 and get the show uninterrupted.
Sling TV: $20 up, strictly linear, unskippable/unpausable ads on most channels, and what is this "free on-demand catch-up content" they spoke of during private beta?
Cable/satellite: $100+ once you get out of your $50+ promotional-price year on your package (varying based on region, provider, package, phase of moon), extended contract, plus the buy-in or rental costs for a DVR which will let you go to the trouble of circumventing ads, should you choose or remember at the time.

Hulu Plus exists far closer to the world of cable/satellite than it does to that of specialist services like Crunchyroll, or disruptive services like Netflix. Its bread and butter is next-day network and basic cable content. There are going to be ads.

(Bluntly, those ads are way less frustrating for me than scrambling for the remote every ten minutes to micromanage my viewing experience. I love having a DVR, but I can keep myself distracted for thirty to sixty seconds and push the "relevant y/n?" button sometimes. Hulu will still let me pause the feed and go to the kitchen for a snack. Hulu will let me almost seamlessly transition from one device to the next as I move around the house, rather than futzing with my provider's glitchy app on a limited subset of those devices and giving me crap if I join the wrong wifi network. For eight bucks? And Sailor Moon just shows up every week? For my lifestyle, that's a huge win.)
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here-and-faraway



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 1528
Location: Sunny California
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:55 pm Reply with quote
Since I'm so busy I usually wait until an anime season ends to hear what shows are worth watching and which ones were awful. For whatever reason, Shirobako didn't make my radar. I added it to my CR queue. I hope you are able to finish it soon.

As far as physical copies, I sometimes seriously contemplate buying an extra bluray player or two, just in case they go the way of the VHS. I don't think there will be a change anytime soon, but I plan on watching my collection for the next 40+ years. I feel grateful that I didn't start collecting seriously until after DVDs were the norm.
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Felis



Joined: 01 Dec 2012
Posts: 80
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:58 pm Reply with quote
prime_pm wrote:
You still have to sit through the [expletive] ads for TV shows even if you're a paid HuluPlus member.

There is no win.

You could always subscribe to Funimation, The Anime Network, or Crunchyroll instead. Then you can watch all your anime ad-free.

I have a Hulu Plus subscription myself, which I use to mostly watch US TV shows, and whenever there is a commercial break I only get 1 or 2 short ads. Considering the amount of content Hulu has, a few short ads are easy enough to deal with.
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Saffire



Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1256
Location: Iowa, USA
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:01 pm Reply with quote
varmintx wrote:
Kimiko_0 wrote:
A simple home fiber connection can up/download at 100Mb/s. 39GB would take a little over one hour to upload. For about €20/month extra you can get up to 500Mb/s, which means less than 15 minutes for your BD master. I don't know the state of fiber connectivity in Japan, but if it's comparable to over here, uploading might be faster than letting the courier get stuck in traffic.

Or is my math way off? Confused
I don't know about Japan, but most of the US is a third-world nation when it comes to high-speed internet access vs. cost.
A quick glance at Asahi Net suggests that 100 Mbps fiber + TV starts around 5000 yen/mo (which angers me greatly as a US resident paying $80/mo just for 50mbps cable). But, even if the numbers work, it doesn't resolve the other issues Justin brought up involving the broadcasters. I actually kinda wonder if broadcasters over there even accept digital submissions.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1684
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:06 pm Reply with quote
Not that it matters, but make sure you guys are checking UPLOAD speeds, not download speeds.

Japan's internet is way faster than the US and far closer to the numbers Kimiko_0 posted (Akamai put them at #3 in the world), but my larger point still stands.
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
Posts: 593
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:07 pm Reply with quote
Hoppy800 wrote:

I don't see Blu-Ray going the way of VHS anytime soon with Japan not having a digital download service for anime and a reliable one most likely arriving decades from now, BDs getting higher and higher storage capacities (up to 1 TB) for the eventual 4K era of anime and fans in Japan preferring buying physical media for their rewatches.


I don't know about download, but Nico Nico Douga has been offering streams for seasonal anime now. You can legally watch the latest episode about a week from its original TV broadcast. Afterwards, you have to pay through points.

Honestly surprised there are still those who opt to go to "unofficial" streaming sites knowing that CR, Funi, Daisuki etc. offer the same services. Must be unfounded disdain towards them at this point. Now if the ads would actually show content relevant stuff like Weiss Schwarz or NISA game titles maybe people would actually look at them instead of tabbing out until it's over. Rolling Eyes

Yes, SHIROBAKO, the Bakuman of anime, getting recognition from retro leaning Justin himself. Highly recommend this series myself as it gives a very humorous yet relatively grounded view of the industry and its people.
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