Anime On Blu-Ray?

[aohige]

Originally Posted by lubczyk

______________

In Japan, Sony products tend to win by default.

Uh, no they don't.
And you don't have to repeat "in Japan", I'm Japanese.
Sony has suffered losing just as many format/product battles as it has enjoyed victories.

[hobbes_fan]

Everything I have is 1080p. But by law are they required to disclose the standard used in the event 720p makes an appearance on BD.

[SeijiSensei]

I came across a couple of very informative articles about BD costs. They were referenced in an equally informative thread about the subject at AVSForum.

This article tells why the cost of licensing AACS encryption poses a substantial barrier to large segments of the video distribution industry.

Originally Posted by the article

Quantitatively speaking, for 1,000 copies of a simple title, all these demands add at least $7.54 overhead to the price of a single disc (calculated as a one-shot deal). Based on my earlier examples, this works out to roughly $11-12 (single-layer) to $13-14 (DL) each for a finished product. Ordering more units and amortizing the one-time and annual fees over multiple titles and years will dramatically reduce these estimated figures, but cost-efficient replication is, obviously, geared toward frequent high-volume production.

Costs like these must pose a substantial barrier to small distributors like ADV or Funimation. 1-2,000 copies doesn't sound all that implausible a figure for a Blu-ray anime release in R1, even for a popular title. That $12-13 increase in production costs probably translates into a $15 or more price premium for the BD version at retail just to break even.

So why don't producers simply release discs without AACS? There is, after all, lots of video material like corporate training programs that doesn't need to be protected with arcane encryption schemes. Unfortunately the license to use Blu-ray media requires that you pay the AACS royalties on all replicated discs regardless of whether you choose to use it or not. Small producers might be able to avoid the royalties by burning rather than stamping the discs. That's probably impractical for an anime licensor.

Finally I have to cite this description of the legal position espoused by MPEG LA, the body that licenses use of the MPEG-2/4 and other key algorithms.

Originally Posted by the article

In particular, it is the position of MPEG LA, an independent licensing administrator representing the collected interests of dozens of patent holders, that those distributing digital video encoded in MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, or VC-1 formats, on any type of physical media (BD, DVD, flash memory, magnetic tape, etc.), obtain from MPEG LA a corresponding patent portfolio license.

Wow. Just wow. Glad I usually limit my distribution of these formats to the medium of electrons. Although.... I did burn a DVD and lend it to a friend the other day. Whoops, I'd better start writing a letter to MPEG LA to request my license.

[Vexx]

And the creative juices of mankind are further ground to a boggy halt by patents-gone-wild. (sigh)

[npcomplete]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

So why don't producers simply release discs without AACS? There is, after all, lots of video material like corporate training programs that doesn't need to be protected with arcane encryption schemes. Unfortunately the license to use Blu-ray media requires that you pay the AACS royalties on all replicated discs regardless of whether you choose to use it or not. Small producers might be able to avoid the royalties by burning rather than stamping the discs. That's probably impractical for an anime licensor.

That makes sense since you can produce and distribute your own BDs and don't have to pay AACS royalties. But that might also be potential market: mass BD burners ala DVD duplicators. Most small shops producing their own dvds use these duplicators.

Finally I have to cite this description of the legal position espoused by MPEG LA, the body that licenses use of the MPEG-2/4 and other key algorithms.

If only Dirac (used now for VC-2, broadcasting back-end work and as an intermediate codec for editing AFAIK) had come sooner...

[0utf0xZer0]

If I'm reading things right, the copy protection on the disc makes up only around $1.35 of that $7.54. Still a significant hit to the bottom line for a niche production though.

And with the prices for Bluray media, I think it'll be a while before burn based duplication is affordable. Besides which burned discs degrade far, far more quickly than pressed.

[npcomplete]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Besides which burned discs degrade far, far more quickly than pressed.

I don't know about BD media, but with DVDs while it used to be the case many many years ago, especially with cheap media, that's definitely not the case anymore, barring extreme temperature conditions. Most good media (Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim produced MKM and MCC MIDs) on good burners actually have vastly superior error rates compared to stamped media. I found that surprising at first but that fact seems to be well known among a few. And from my own experience and anecdotal evidence, the error rates on such good media still remain low after some time so the quality remains higher than pressed dvds. Perhaps after many decades, the quality would degrade below pressed media but then again, good media is supposed to have a theoretical lifespan of 100 years..

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

If I'm reading things right, the copy protection on the disc makes up only around $1.35 of that $7.54. Still a significant hit to the bottom line for a niche production though.

I believe the example collected together all the costs involved in AACS licensing and overheads and amortized them over a 1,000 copy run. The author was clearly intent on making these numbers as large as possible. But it's not unreasonable to toss in stuff like attorney's fees when you, as a producer, will inevitably spend upon walking into the legal minefield that Blu-ray production appears to be. The paragraph right before the one I posted reads, "With its slew of legal agreements, upfront charges, recurring fees, and other imperatives, BD replication is a time-consuming, expensive, and all-around frustrating proposition for small- and medium-sized publishers." I think he's bundling in that "slew" to get to $7.54.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by npcomplete

I don't know about BD media, but with DVDs while it used to be the case many many years ago, especially with cheap media, that's definitely not the case anymore, barring extreme temperature conditions. Most good media (Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim produced MKM and MCC MIDs) on good burners actually have vastly superior error rates compared to stamped media. I found that surprising at first but that fact seems to be well known among a few. And from my own experience and anecdotal evidence, the error rates on such good media still remain low after some time so the quality remains higher than pressed dvds. Perhaps after many decades, the quality would degrade below pressed media but then again, good media is supposed to have a theoretical lifespan of 100 years..

Theoretically it's supposed to last 100 years, but I've heard of burned media becoming unreadable after only a few years.

I've had good luck with the TDK stuff I used in the past, but I do worry about all the outsourced media codes I'm seeing with their discs now. Plus I recently started looking into dual layer burns, and have been having horrible luck with their discs for that - however, I'm not sure if that's the discs or my burner.

Originally Posted by karasuma

Oh yea.. Check out Ergo Proxy. You can tell the difference between 1080 broadcast and DVD.

Is there actually more detail in the HD version, or is it just sharper? Even 80s shows will look sharper in native HD compared to an upscale:
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8008/hdow6.jpg

(Mastering can also effect how good a series looks even using the same medium I've seen screencaps comparing the R2 and R1 DVDs of Shakugan no Shana that don't look far off that Gunbuster comparison.)

[karasuma]

Is there actually more detail in the HD version, or is it just sharper? Even 80s shows will look sharper in native HD compared to an upscale:
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8008/hdow6.jpg

80s show are less detail oriented. So, blurring by less resolution doesn't hurt it as much as a new anime like Ergo Proxy. Some anime that has HD in their mind from the get go will have very small font for credits. You can't even read those credit in non-HD mode. So, yes, sharper = better.

[npcomplete]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Theoretically it's supposed to last 100 years, but I've heard of burned media becoming unreadable after only a few years.

I've had good luck with the TDK stuff I used in the past, but I do worry about all the outsourced media codes I'm seeing with their discs now. Plus I recently started looking into dual layer burns, and have been having horrible luck with their discs for that - however, I'm not sure if that's the discs or my burner.

Yeah, you're not alone. For DL, the only one to get are the Verbatim 8x DVD+R DLs (MKM 003).

Is there actually more detail in the HD version, or is it just sharper? Even 80s shows will look sharper in native HD compared to an upscale:
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8008/hdow6.jpg

(Mastering can also effect how good a series looks even using the same medium I've seen screencaps comparing the R2 and R1 DVDs of Shakugan no Shana that don't look far off that Gunbuster comparison.)

I think there's more detail because it looks like its mastered from the source -- as if it's produced from higher resolution snapshots of the original cells or source stock, as opposed to upscaling a post-production, lower resolution source like DVD where you're scaling something with already lost details in addition to enlarging compression artifacts. Even if the source stock is digital with a less-than-HD native resolution, upscaling from there should still be better than upscaling from DVDs where the encoder can use some good filters while avoiding compression artifacts.

However some BDs have issues and don't look so great like Air and Full Metal Panic