Anime On Blu-Ray?

[Nergol]

Yay! The format war is over! We all survived, and now we can safely buy a next generation DVD player without risking having a 10-pound doorstop (I remember having a 20-pound Betamax doorstop in 1983, and had no desire to do that again).

So does anyone have any idea when we'll start seeing anime appear on blu-ray?

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Nergol

Yay! The format war is over! We all survived, and now we can safely buy a next generation DVD player without risking having a 10-pound doorstop (I remember having a 20-pound Betamax doorstop in 1983, and had no desire to do that again).

So does anyone have any idea when we'll start seeing anime appear on blu-ray?

There's already anime being released on blu-ray. Not much right now, but that'll change as blu-ray players become more common.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

I don't think we have to worry about doorstops in this day and age. I think it's good. I could care less what format it is, as long as it plays when I plug it an, and I can stop, pause, and rewind.

[Oppius]

Damn I will need a PS3 to watch them. It was rumored that PS3 is the cheapest Blue-Ray disc player available. All other Blue-Ray disc players are just too expensive.

[SeijiSensei]

Component players for your PC aren't that expensive; even BR burners cost less than a PS3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...+drive&x=0&y=0

I already have a computer connected to my HDTV so upgrading the disc drive makes more sense to me than buying a separate player. (There aren't any PS3 games that make me want to spend $400-600 on that system.) There is the DRM issue to contend with for those of us running Linux; I don't know about pre-Vista versions of Windows, either. To play the encrypted content, every device in the chain must support "High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP)." In practice that means at a minimum an HDMI connection from the player to the display device with both supporting HDCP. I'm not sure that my nVidia 6600 with a DVI->HDMI cable will cut it even though the TV itself is fully compliant.

On the topic of HD anime, I wondered in another HD thread about where those 1080p Ureshii subs of Ghost Hound are coming from. One respondent suggested they were extracted from a 1080i broadcast. If you're curious, I recommend reading this article which presents a very clear explanation of the relationship between 1080p24 and 1080i60, as well as covering a lot of other issues in HDTV.

Even my 3.0 GHz Pentium D can't decode those H.264 frames fast enough to avoid stuttering and audio desync. 720p is not a problem, but 1080p has 2.25x the pixel density.

[DragoonKain3]

Actually, some player have price points 50-100 bucks cheaper than the 40gb PS3. Granted, if you're going to get a PS3 anyways, might as well put in the extra 100 bucks already.

Alternatively, if you've got a computer that isn't a relic, BD-ROM drives are like $150 now. Regardless, wait a year or so, and all BD drives/players would significantly drop in price. It's not like you're missing much anyways right now, as according to ANN there's only 2 released in english.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Amex_Yohko

Damn I will need a PS3 to watch them. It was rumored that PS3 is the cheapest Blue-Ray disc player available. All other Blue-Ray disc players are just too expensive.

The PS3 is widely considered the best and most flexible blu-ray player on the market. It is no longer the cheapest though as others said. There is also no reason to get a blu-ray player until there is something to buy for it. It isn't like the companies are going to switch over to blu-ray in a month. It will take a while. (There are a handfulish of blu-ray anime releases in the US and a dozen or two in Japan.)

[Dxon]

Whats the point of Anime on Blu-ray? On DVD is already High Quality. It's drawn! So can it get more detailed?? O_O Aint it becoming 3d then??

[orion]

The regular animation will look stunning and the CG animation will look even better on Blu-ray, of course.

Yukikaze and Appleseed: Ex Machina are coming to R1. Jin-roh, Wings of Honneamise, SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers , Paprika and Tekkon Kinkreet are already out.

Oh yeah, don't forget the Dragon Ball Z movies.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Even my 3.0 GHz Pentium D can't decode those H.264 frames fast enough to avoid stuttering and audio desync. 720p is not a problem, but 1080p has 2.25x the pixel density.

Pretty much anything short of a dual core processor can't handle 1080p h.264 if it's been encoded with CABAC and you have inloop deblocking enabled (CAVALC you might be able to get away with).
Bitrate also matters... the higher the bitrate, the more processing power it takes.

(CABAC is an overall compression that is applied to the final bitstream that is very efficient in compressing the size, but computationally complex. You can also use the older CAVALC compression which is the same as xvid, which is less efficient but requires less processor time. Generally you always want to use CABAC unless you're encoding for something like an ipod or a psp).

[DragoonKain3]

Originally Posted by Dxon

Whats the point of Anime on Blu-ray? On DVD is already High Quality. It's drawn! So can it get more detailed?? O_O Aint it becoming 3d then??

It's really noticeable at higher resolutions. For example of a non-3d show, Shinsen-Subs SD release of DC2 is much more grainier looking in my 24'' monitor than ASF's HD release. Main reason why I always waited for ASF's releases, since my enjoyment on the show is slightly higher because the show looks so damn beautiful in HD IMO.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Dxon

Whats the point of Anime on Blu-ray? On DVD is already High Quality. It's drawn! So can it get more detailed?? O_O Aint it becoming 3d then??

Some details do actually get lost or shrunk on DVD. This is very show dependent. Even if it is drawn, an insane amount of detail can be put into a show. Then there are also things like the Haruhi OP where DVD bitrates can't handle it and it blocks up.

[aohige]

*aohige cuddles the Blu-ray DVD-BOX set of the entire Utawarerumono series sitting on the shelf*

mmmm Bluray is good, tasty, and cuddly.
Farewell HD-DVD, we never knew ya.

[Icehawk]

Originally Posted by Dxon

Whats the point of Anime on Blu-ray? On DVD is already High Quality. It's drawn! So can it get more detailed?? O_O Aint it becoming 3d then??

I have a 37 inch HDTV and I regularily stream anime from my computer to it through my xbox 360. Anime that is natively in 1280x720 resolution like Gundam 00, Spice and Wolf, etc, is quite noticeably better looking than the anime that is only at DVD resolution (720x480). Dont get me wrong, most DVD anime still looks pretty good, but once you have seen a natively HD anime show on an HD screen you really do notice the difference especially when you switch back to shows that arent HD. The lines that define all the details of objects and characters are much sharper and the overall image tends to be clearer as well.

[DragoonKain3]

Originally Posted by aohige

*aohige cuddles the Blu-ray DVD-BOX set of the entire Utawarerumono series sitting on the shelf*

On the topic of regular DVD vs Blu-ray, how much did the set cost you aohige? I assume it's R2 releases, so I was wondering how does it compare to the regular DVD R2 box set release of utawarerumono.

I'm really curious, as I wonder if there's a significant price difference between the two, and it would give me an idea how much more I'm going to spend once anime gets released in blu-ray in R1.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by DragoonKain3

On the topic of regular DVD vs Blu-ray, how much did the set cost you aohige? I assume it's R2 releases, so I was wondering how does it compare to the regular DVD R2 box set release of utawarerumono.

I'm really curious, as I wonder if there's a significant price difference between the two, and it would give me an idea how much more I'm going to spend once anime gets released in blu-ray in R1.

Utawarerumono Blu-ray box set is retail price 50,000yen or so
In some places, you can get it for like 40,000 yen or so though. About 350USD.
But oversea import purchase can limit the stores you can use, so it can cost you around 450USD.

[DragoonKain3]

So how much would a regular DVD box set of utawarerumono would be? 10% price difference? 25%? Just wondering how much more I'll pay once R1 also adopts bluray stuff. I myself would browse and find out myself, but my Japanese is almost non-existant lol.

[orion]

You mean box sets. That title was released in 4 DVD box sets at 18,000 yen each at cdjapan. Total cost: 72,000 yen.

[DragoonKain3]

Hmm... apparently it's an unfair comparison. I'm guessing that the blu-ray boxset came out much later than the original boxsets, and as such the blu-ray as a whole is cheaper than the original at MSRP rate.

If the trend is releasing the blu-ray version after the whole series is complete, and it carries over north america, I guess I'll have no choice till buying the whole series later. Well at least by the looks of it, it won't cost me any different from buying the regular DVDs. And that's assuming the anime I like comes to blu-ray in the first place lol.

[hobbes_fan]

Originally Posted by Dxon

Whats the point of Anime on Blu-ray? On DVD is already High Quality. It's drawn! So can it get more detailed?? O_O Aint it becoming 3d then??

Watch dvd's on a 40+" plasma/lcd screen and tell me if you still think DVD is high quality. Sure if you're watching it on a little tv/CRT it doesn't matter. But that's not what High definition is for.