Freedom HD DVD Vol. #1 Impressions

[Chris Beveridge]

I received an early copy of Freedom Vol. #1 from Bandai Visual USA today. The release is a twin-format disc which is a single layer HD DVD and a single layer DVD on the same disc.

I want to provide impressions on it for reference. Please note that since today is my 9 year wedding anniversary, I won't be around after 1pm to post anything. More impressions will follow on Sunday afternoon as well as a full review.

Player: HD-A1

The disc comes in a super jewel case as is still used in Japan. Instructions are standard JApanese text (in English of course) in that it talks about the importance of updating firmware and provides specific instructions on where to get the Xbox 360 firmware update.

As I haven't used my HD-A1 since last August, I wanted to do a firmware update to 2.2 since I suspect the network interactivity of this release will require it. As it's been about ten months since I last used the player I had forgotten how god awful clunky and slow it is. Upon starting the firmware update, it took ten minutes via cable internet to get to 10% complete. That's where I'm still at.

Update has now been running for 30 minutes and is at 30%. This is a joke.

I put the Freedom disc into my PS3. Disc is recognized easily and without any problems. The disc goes from the opening logos right into the 24 minute presentation. The main show has 4 chapter stops, audio is 448 kbps DD 5.1 Japanese. The video bitrate of the MPEG2 encoding is typical JApanese in that it's usually 9.0 and up with a few dips into the high 8's. The next episode preview is the only "extra" on the disc and runs 1:41 and can only be seen after you finish the main program. You cannot select it from the menu nor chapter-skip to get to it.

Downloaded Content:

Freedom marks the first HD DVD worldwide I believe to contain downloadable content to the players' persistent storage. Our HD-A1 has about 131 mb of persistent storage to it. Accessible from the popup menu, a separate menu is loaded that allows you to view downloaded content that belongs to the program, connect to the server to get more content and to go back to the main menu. The menu is nicely designed to be in theme with the show and maintains the same layout and dynamic as the standard popup menu. Moving left or right, there are five pieces of downloadable content that you can get. Each is clearly marked as to what its audio/video specs are

The content included for this release is the special prologue to the series which runs just under seven minutes. It's provided in two flavors; one is a Dolby Digital+ 5.1 mix and one is an LPCM 2.0 mix. Both are encoded with VC-1. A preview for the next episode is included as is the promotional trailer for the series as well as a TV commercial for the production.

The content downloads fairly quickly to the player and it has a well designed countdown meter so you can tell there is actual progress going on. When the individual content piece is played, there is a twelve second delay as the disc itself is loaded back into the foreground as it was playing off of the player directly. The concept of downloadable content is not one that bothers me but what does bother me is that all of this content is material that should have been on the disc and been encoded at a higher rate. What is here looks good, be it the 1080i material or the 480p material, but it should have been on the disc without me having to spend the time not only to download it instead of just clicking a button to watch it, but without me having to maintain it (hey, my player died!) or having the keys for the content revoked at some future date (hey, I wanted to watch it again!). Downloadable content within the context of home video releases is still finding its way and I'm curious and intrigued to see where it will go. This is an example of how it works but the content provided is not what should be provided in this manner.


In going through the main presentation, BV USA has a really slick looking disc here. The popup menus are well done by the inclusion of a button to turn off the button sounds, the Picture in Picture feature is very damn slick with the ability to resize it and change transparency. The Storyboard feature is something that could revolutionize how extras are done with home video in general and anime in particular. The bookmarking is a slick little feature that I'm glad to see implemented in-theme with the show as well.

Overall, this is a slick piece of work that looks fantastic. It's unfortunate that the HD-A1 can't do 1080p out however.

[ZenAmako]

I open this thread expecting impressions of the Freedom HD DVD, and instead I see another post slamming HD DVD. Why am I not surprised?

FWIW, I sent in the update card that came with my A-1 and the update discs have been arriving in the mail. Updating to 2.2 was painless for me and only took a few minutes. On the other hand, it seems like I have to update my PS3 almost every time I use it.

[Chris Beveridge]

What slam? My dislike of the way it handles the update? Quite simply, I update the firmware on a lot of machines and this one just bothers me. It's not a slam on HD DVD but rather a slam on Toshiba. And for the record, I completely dislike the PS3 method in that you have to have the controller attached to it. I'm no fan of that either.

I've sent in my reg card for the A1 back in April 06 and have never received a firmware CD unfortunately. I had hoped that I could go to the Toshiba site to grab it but they only offer it via mail there, so there wasn't a way to grab it from them and burn it onto a cd/dvd to upgrade.

Conversely, I could say the same about the A1 upgrades. I use my PS3 daily so it doesn't seem like I upgrade it all that often. It typically seems to be about once every two months. Every time I boot up the A1 I feel like I have to update it. But then again, I had it turned off for the last ten months.

And to assuage any fears, there will be ZERO mention of Blu-ray within the review itself. There isn't any need for it to be mentioned there. This release must stand on its own and I will review it as objectively as possible. I may not be a fan of the FORMAT but I am a fan of HD material.

[ZenAmako]

I've sent in my reg card for the A1 back in April 06 and have never received a firmware CD unfortunately. I had hoped that I could go to the Toshiba site to grab it but they only offer it via mail there, so there wasn't a way to grab it from them and burn it onto a cd/dvd to upgrade.

IIRC, there was a firmware update card and a reg card included with my player. Updating from the CDs is easy, but yeah, it would be nice if they'd let you download the update and burn it to a CD yourself.

And to assuage any fears, there will be ZERO mention of Blu-ray within the review itself. There isn't any need for it to be mentioned there. This release must stand on its own and I will review it as objectively as possible. I may not be a fan of the FORMAT but I am a fan of HD material.

It's your choice, but it's strange to me that you can be a fan of HD content and not use your HD DVD player for almost a year. Ideally, there would only be one format, but as it stands, great titles are being released on both formats (the sparcity of anime releases notwithstanding). But to each his own.

[Sean_Connolly]

On the other hand, it seems like I have to update my PS3 almost every time I use it.


You must not play your PS3 much. There's a firmware update once a month. Usually on a Wed-Thurs. If you don't use it often, then of course it would seem like there's a new update every time you use it. >.>

Also, there's no secret that Blu Ray is the HD format of choice for AnimeonDVD.com. Chris likes the technology, and has made his choice. However, there was no bias in his impressions.

Also Chris, I hate you. Then again, I don't have a HD-DVD player so I can't that much. Looking forward to the review.

[kakugo]

It's not so surprising that Chris wouldn't bother using is A1 for pushing 10 months, he's probably got plenty of HD content on Blu-Ray and HDTV to keep him busy without it. Really, when I think of all the time format zealotry of "Haha, I'm watching this and you can't [BD/HD - pick one] fanboy!" takes away from actually watching movies, it makes me wonder why they aren't spending more time with that equipment they clearly love so much. :)

Chris is playing with the toys he likes best, and he's at least willing to play with the toys he's less fond of for the good of AoD. Seems like a decent stance to me.

[hikaru004]

If a BD version becomes available, do you think that the prologue and/or the rest of Previsited which was downloadable content will be on it?

[stfram]

If a BD version becomes available, do you think that the prologue and/or the rest of Previsited which was downloadable content will be on it?


Regardless if they do or not, I don't plan on buying this release until A) it's sold at a reasonable price, in a complete set, and B) ALL the content is made available on the discs.

Going with HD-DVD is one thing, but not providing the Prologue on the same disc is unacceptable, along with their insane pricing structure, IMO.

[JeffDM]

It looks like they were trying to reach for a bullet point on the package rather than find a worthwhile use for the internet feature of the format and reduced the value and gave the format a black mark.

~100+MB on-device storage doesn't seem like much storage either, what is that, a dime's worth of flash memory?

[kakugo]

That is a good question: BD players aren't required to have an ethernet port the way that HD DVD players are, so BV USA locking the content out for players without one would be a pretty foolish thing to do IMHO.

As I understand it you aren't even downloading the prologue itself, rather you're downloading the key to access the prologue. My theory? They want to see how many people buying these are actually using the HD content and how many are just using the DVD portion of the disc.

I doubt BV USA will be happy with the results either way. :P

[Chris Beveridge]

It's not so surprising that Chris wouldn't bother using is A1 for pushing 10 months, he's probably got plenty of HD content on Blu-Ray and HDTV to keep him busy without it. Really, when I think of all the time format zealotry of "Haha, I'm watching this and you can't [BD/HD - pick one] fanboy!" takes away from actually watching movies, it makes me wonder why they aren't spending more time with that equipment they clearly love so much. :)

Chris is playing with the toys he likes best, and he's at least willing to play with the toys he's less fond of for the good of AoD. Seems like a decent stance to me.

The only thing I'm "wanting" for is Universal movies for the most part. But with UniverslHD on Comcast and the number of Universal movies that show up on HBO and Cinemax, it's not like I don't see them. Of course, an 18mpbs average MPEG2 broadcast encode isn't the same as a 15mpbs VC-1 encode, but it's better than DVD and fits into the schedule around the numerous Blu-ray didcs I'm getting. It *is* all about the content but I stand by my decision and believe that people choosing just one format is the quickest way to end the war. Format neutral is a cop-out in my opinion.

[Chris Beveridge]

That is a good question: BD players aren't required to have an ethernet port the way that HD DVD players are, so BV USA locking the content out for players without one would be a pretty foolish thing to do IMHO.

As I understand it you aren't even downloading the prologue itself, rather you're downloading the key to access the prologue. My theory? They want to see how many people buying these are actually using the HD content and how many are just using the DVD portion of the disc.

I doubt BV USA will be happy with the results either way. :P

Actually, I think we may be downloading the content itself; with the prologue taking a couple of minutes to download and the varying times between all of the downloadable extras, I can't imagine that I'm just getting the required keys.

[Kaikou]

That is a good question: BD players aren't required to have an ethernet port the way that HD DVD players are, so BV USA locking the content out for players without one would be a pretty foolish thing to do IMHO.

As I understand it you aren't even downloading the prologue itself, rather you're downloading the key to access the prologue. My theory? They want to see how many people buying these are actually using the HD content and how many are just using the DVD portion of the disc.

I doubt BV USA will be happy with the results either way. :P

Actually, I think we may be downloading the content itself; with the prologue taking a couple of minutes to download and the varying times between all of the downloadable extras, I can't imagine that I'm just getting the required keys.

That would surprise the hell out of me if you are actually downloading the content. (131MB would easily be eaten up)

I agree, that this type of content is something that should have been on the disc itself and not some downloadable extra in low quality.

[Chris Beveridge]

I have to wonder, as the commercial for example took 15 seconds to download while the 1 minute promo trailer took about 2 minutes to download. The disparity in times is what to me indicates that the content is being downloaded.

[naiera]

Format neutral is a cop-out in my opinion.


Format neutral, as in buying an HD DVD player and a Blu-ray player, is for those who do not want to have self-imposed limitations on their selection when buying movies in HD.

[LOUiE]

Format neutral is a cop-out in my opinion.


Format neutral, as in buying an HD DVD player and a Blu-ray player, is for those who do not want to have self-imposed limitations on their selection when buying movies in HD.
As Chris said, going with Bluray and having the Universal HD channel on Comcast pretty much takes away any need to be format neutral.

Going format neutral and buying some releases in HDDVD and some in Bluray will only help prolong the format war.

[Chris Beveridge]

I've posted my full impressions of the release along with a number of pictures of the various features in the official discussion thread.

[naiera]

Not buying HD DVD releases would mean I'd have to miss out on certain films in HD. I wouldn't want that. I like FILMS, not a particular HD format. I'm not going to miss out on a film because someone else would prefer the 'war' to be over. The solution lies in multi format players anyway.

[SneakerPimp]

I did some comparison shots between the DVD and HD DVD version of Freedom Vol. 1.

http://blog.affenheimtheater.de/2007/06/24/freedom-hd-dvd-dvd-bildvergleich/

I hope it's ok that I only post the link to my entry and no direct links to the images (~1,5MB per image).

[Chris Beveridge]

Thanks for the link! (images would not have shown; we don't have them set for display here).

Even for all the quality differences, I'd still want to upgrade over DVD if only for the smoother and better looking subtitles. :)

[ataru moroboshi]

It *is* all about the content but I stand by my decision and believe that people choosing just one format is the quickest way to end the war. Format neutral is a cop-out in my opinion.


It's your site, so you clearly can post whatever the heck you like, but as one of the main anime sites on the web (at least in English) I wish you would take a more measured and less opinionated stance.

I see the same attitude over at The Digital Bits, where Bill Hunt never misses a chance to get the boot in and irritate as many HD DVD owners as he can. Putting aside his incredibly selective use of facts to make his case as rosy as possible, what he fails to realise, and I think you are just as guilty Chris, is your attitude comes off as incredibly self righteous.

The stance is this - "I support blu-ray and if any of you are stupid enough to have bought an HD DVD player then you get what you deserve. You made a mistake and I am going to personally see that you suffer for it".

Now try to see it from the other side for a few minutes. Lots of people own Xbox 360s, you may be aware it is the most successful current generation system available at the present time. Buying the HD DVD add on is by far the cheapest way to high def optical playback for all of these people. So we buy in, and start building a disc collection. WHy shouldn't we like the format? The PQ and AQ are superb, the picture in picture extras are fantastic and a real step beyond DVD, and as can be seen on the Freedom disc, there are even some online features showing up now.

So what now? The format is great and there are a ton of discs coming out for it every month, including the first ever HD anime disc in the US. The disc has some fantastic extras, which correct me if I'm wrong, are not possible to achieve on blu-ray players. You should be gushing with praise for Bandai and HD DVD, talking endlessly about the PQ and how it marks the beginning of a new era for anime.

Instead you take the Bill Hunt stance, that supporting HD DVD is a stupid decision, regardless it seems of just how great an experience it is delivering for a far lower price than blu-ray. The attitude, again, carbon copy with the zealous Bill Hunt, is 'there MUST BE ONE FORMAT'.

Why?

The world of game consoles has supported multiple formats for decades, and I can assure you creating multiple SKUs there is an order of magnitude more difficult than pressing a VC-1 encode onto an HD DVD and then onto a blu-ray. Retailer stock all formats, people have CHOICE, competition thrives, and prices keep falling.

You have an agenda clearly, but I wish for the sake of your readers and for the professionalism of this site you keep it to yourself. Report the news, review the picture and audio quality of HD releases without snide remarks, stop printing totally irrelevant pro-blu ray stories on the front page. In short, behave like a journalist and not like a Sony shill, as quite frankly you are dangerously close to that.

Lots of tech and movie fans own HD DVD because it delivers the best bang for the buck, and Freedom Volume 1 looks absolutely devastatingly good on the format. Do yourself and the rest of us a favor and drop the agenda, then tell everyone to buy Bandai's Freedom HD DVD releases, as I don't know about you, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

[Skywise]

Umm.. where did Chris make any snide remarks about HD DVD?

http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/disc_reviews/6337.php


Incidentally I personally can't/won't recommend people buy Freedom, simply because it's one episode of a 6 ep OVA and it costs $40, and the story's not that good. The entire thing will be $240. If it weren't for it being HD it would pretty much have been drowned out by all the other anime releases out there, and if it's HD you want there's far better titles on the horizon. I consider it similar to Project PAPO - it's nice as a demo piece, but that's about it.

[kakugo]

Haven't you ever seen Highlander? THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE! :D

Seriously, I've been avoiding both optical HD formats until such a time as it's worth the upgrade at every level, and so far neither format is perfect. HD DVD has plenty of buggy hardware and expensive/unreliable combo discs while Blu-Ray's spec isn't 100% nailed down yet and the hardware is notably more expensive. Videophiles with way more money than I have can pick and choose which of those they want to put up with... I'll continue spending what I have on movies I don't expect to see on BD/HD for several years (if ever) on vanilla DVDs.

If Chris hated HD DVD he wouldn't review it. He certainly prefers Blu-Ray, and between studio support, higher bandwidth and larger disc size (issues that will become more of an issue further down the line) about the only reason to prefer HD DVD is the different implementation of PiP and it's inclusion of Combo HD/DVD - I'd mention the mandatory decoding of lossless audio, but the 360 add-on doesn't offer that, so clearly that can't be part of your personal argument. That Lions Gate found a way to emulate it with a second lower bitrate encode proves that there really isn't anything you can't do on Blu-Ray that you can do on HD DVD, just that you need to implement it differently for the time being. Moreover, assuming the promises are lived up to Blu-Ray will be able to have multiple angles in high definition. That is something HD DVD can't do, as far as I know.

Chris didn't knock HD DVD in the review, he reviewed an HD DVD and that was the end of it. He doesn't like the format as well as Blu-Ray, clearly, but he gave a balanced and (probably deserved) fairly positive review to the disc he was handed by Bandai Visual. Isn't that what a reviewer should do, regardless of what format they prefer?

Oh Chris, question: this being a "Twin Format" HD DVD means that it's basically a single-side disc with both an HD DVD and SD DVD layer, rather than the double-sided discs that Universal is using? Just dawned on me that I've not seen it brought up.

[Chris Beveridge]

When it comes to the main site, reviews and the majority of the news items, I do my best to keep it simple and straightforward. When it comes to forum postings, I tend to be more expressive about my opinion on the format war.

I made quite sure that when I wrote my Freedom review that it was measured and balanced and without any format war issues. I believe I do the same when it comes to the Blu-ray reviews. As I expect to do both reviews of both formats, I will talk about each of them in isolation; HD DVD owners will want to know about the HD DVD releases. BD owners about the BD releases. I don't think I've done a comparison between multi-format releases, what couple there have been.

But my personal belief is that there should be only one format. It's not productive for me to have to cover multiple releases across three formats, two of which are for the most part doing the same thing. But that's my opnion and I keep it out of the top level area. But here "in the trenches" I will speak plainly and clearly.

I have not care for some of the things that Bill Hunt has done over the years (way back to his early DVD days in fact) but I am glad that he has staked out a position on it. Format neutral is a poor decision in my opinion and I will continue to say so. I *hate* that I have to be format neutral. I hate that I had to plunk down $500 to cover a handful of titles. My own personal interests and buying habits have my heavily in favor of BD - both here and abroad. But when I do cover HD DVD in a "professional" manner, I cover it as best as possible and without any conscious slant.

Of course, having been involved over at AVS Forum for the last few years and being targeted for attacks over there, I'm not exactly enamored with some HD DVD fans and it makes wanting to cover anything in that area difficult. Even when I post something that's very positive and provides a lot of new information, I get shit on by them.

But honestly, once there is one format, a lot of this garbage will just up and disappear. The sheer animosity among so many supposed fans (many of which are just viral marketers that are being employed) however will take a lot longer to disappear. Home theater has never been a utopia for discussion but it's been severely poisoned by all of this.

[Chris Beveridge]

Oh Chris, question: this being a "Twin Format" HD DVD means that it's basically a single-side disc with both an HD DVD and SD DVD layer, rather than the double-sided discs that Universal is using? Just dawned on me that I've not seen it brought up.

Correct; there are three iterations of it that can be had from what I read recently (DVD5/HD15, DVD9/HD15 and DVD5/HD30) and this one is a DVD5/HD15. Twin Format hasn't been used in the US until now and I don't believe will be for some time as I don't believe there are replication facilities for it. Japan is the only place that has had them produced and initial releases back in April 2006/May 2006 were met with tepid response, partially due to compatability issue. Those have been worked out however. This disc was produced entirely in Japan so it's no surprise that it's done this way there. I don't believe a US created release on the Twin Format disc has been set here yet.

The process for playback is simple though again it's somewhat kludgy in implementation because of how Toshiba designs their menus and such (I've never been a fan of Toshiba DVD players so I'm not surprised I don't care for their HD DVD players either. They lack a certain smoothness in software design). When the disc is loaded, it brings up a simple menu that asks you to select which layer you want to play. So you can choose to play just the DVD layer even if you have an HD DVD player.

I'm sure my less than favorable comments about Toshiba will be interpreted as format bashing. I do however like Toshiba TVs and still miss my TW40X81 rear projection set.

[Maxflier]

Incidentally I personally can't/won't recommend people buy Freedom, simply because it's one episode of a 6 ep OVA and it costs $40, and the story's not that good. The entire thing will be $240. If it weren't for it being HD it would pretty much have been drowned out by all the other anime releases out there, and if it's HD you want there's far better titles on the horizon. I consider it similar to Project PAPO - it's nice as a demo piece, but that's about it.

While I agree with you completely that it is not worth buying the disc due to it being too expensive for a single episode, you did an excellent job of proving his/her points at the same time by giving the impression that someone would have to pay $40 for this disc when you know quite well that NO ONE pays MSRP for a disc.
It's $28 bucks with free shipping at Amazon(not counting the 10% discount most of us get on HD discs from there), haven't bothered to see if it is cheaper anywhere other than that.
I love this site for anime DVD news and such, but the site and the people who run it have no credibility with me with regards to anything having to do with HD material.

[ataru moroboshi]

Incidentally I personally can't/won't recommend people buy Freedom, simply because it's one episode of a 6 ep OVA and it costs $40, and the story's not that good. The entire thing will be $240. If it weren't for it being HD it would pretty much have been drowned out by all the other anime releases out there, and if it's HD you want there's far better titles on the horizon. I consider it similar to Project PAPO - it's nice as a demo piece, but that's about it.

If you had been used to buying DVDs from Japan, then $40 is small fry. Big Japanese releases can easily top $100, sometimes $200. It's a matter of what you are used to, but I accept for US customers it may seem on the expensive side.

As a huge Otomo fan Freedom was half an hour of anime heaven for me. The character and mech designs, and the animation and facial expressions are pure Akira. It's sublime, and looks phenomenal in HD. I was intruiged by the story too, it set things up nicely and had a terrific ending. I watch a lot of anime (mostly the new stuff on fansub), and this is the best thing in ages in my opinion.

Needless to say I'll be back for the next episode.

[ataru moroboshi]

When it comes to the main site, reviews and the majority of the news items, I do my best to keep it simple and straightforward.


But my personal belief is that there should be only one format. It's not productive for me to have to cover multiple releases across three formats, two of which are for the most part doing the same thing. But that's my opnion and I keep it out of the top level area. But here "in the trenches" I will speak plainly and clearly.

I have not care for some of the things that Bill Hunt has done over the years (way back to his early DVD days in fact) but I am glad that he has staked out a position on it. Format neutral is a poor decision in my opinion and I will continue to say so. I *hate* that I have to be format neutral. I hate that I had to plunk down $500 to cover a handful of titles.

Of course, having been involved over at AVS Forum for the last few years and being targeted for attacks over there, I'm not exactly enamored with some HD DVD fans and it makes wanting to cover anything in that area difficult. Even when I post something that's very positive and provides a lot of new information, I get shit on by them.

But honestly, once there is one format, a lot of this garbage will just up and disappear. The sheer animosity among so many supposed fans (many of which are just viral marketers that are being employed) however will take a lot longer to disappear. Home theater has never been a utopia for discussion but it's been severely poisoned by all of this.

- If you aim to keep the format war out of the main site, why then do you repeatedly post pro blu-ray non anime related news on the front page? As I said it's your site so you can do as you wish, but this seems contrary to the position you just stated. This is one of the reasons why you appear to have an agenda that biases and cheapens the site.

- Let me ask you something: do you think stores want there to be one HD format for their benefit, or for the consumer? One format means fewer SKUs and less shelf space, no competition so prices stay high and the margins and nice and fat.. Competition is a cornerstone how economies work, and benefit the consumer massively. How much do you think a blu-ray stand alone would cost if there was no HD DVD? $1000? Perhaps more? If your reason is purely that you hate having to dirty your hands with HD DVD reviews then that strikes me as a pretty unconvincing argument.

- Bill Hunt has no credibility left as a journalist. His rants are now so polarising and full of, to coin a current in vogue phrase, FUD, I'm half convinced he just posts them to watch the firestorm they elicit, or perhaps just that he is a Sony employee and hasn't told anyone. I don't understand what he, or you Chris for that matter, have to gain from being so strongly behind one format. If you're not on the Sony payroll then why do it? Why not keep the bias off the site and just list the news, evangelise HD in general, and review the new releases?

- Have you ever asked yourself why the AVS crowd attacks you? If you were completely bias free and balanced then what reason would they have to say anything unpleasant?

- In my opinion, and I suspect in the opinion of most if not all HD DVD owners, it's too late for there to just be one format and for this animosity to disappear. People have bought players and are building libraries. And as I said, it's a great format, which is something I don't think even the most rabid blu-ray fanboy could dispute. The only way to stop angering people is just to accept everyone's right to choose, and that if they have chosen a different format to the one you like that doesn't mean they are asking to be put down. That's all I'm asking for, ditch the bias and just love anime in HD. That will remove the animosity right there in an instant, which is surely in the best interests of everyone.

[ataru moroboshi]

That Lions Gate found a way to emulate it with a second lower bitrate encode proves that there really isn't anything you can't do on Blu-Ray that you can do on HD DVD, just that you need to implement it differently for the time being. Moreover, assuming the promises are lived up to Blu-Ray will be able to have multiple angles in high definition. That is something HD DVD can't do, as far as I know.

I just had to pull you up on that as it simply isn't true. The Lionsgate fudge for PIP was to store a second entire video stream with the PIP burned into the picture. That's a world away from the user controlled PIP on the Freedom disc, which can scale, zoon, fade, and do all kinds of nice effects. That's the difference between doing something that was designed for, and having to make the best of a bad situation.

Blu-ray may or may not offer this in future, but that won't help anyone who already owns a blu-ray standalone player.

[kakugo]

That one doesn't pay retail doesn't mean retail prices aren't still a fair comparison: If Freedom had been $30 per disc than you'd be able to get it for $21 shipped.

Even at Amazon's prices you're paying $168 for 3 hours worth of material. FLCL has the exact same runtime as Freedom and costs $57 at Amazon, albiet the release is SD all the way. Similarly, you can get 2 episodes of Demon Prince Enma, Diebuster or Wings of Rean for $36, or 6 episodes of Gunbuster for $57, which evens out to $18 per half hour episode. Again, SD versus HD, but if you don't have the HD DVD hardware you're literally paying for a whole lot of nothing.

Freedom is expensive compared to both the R1 market and even Bandai Visual's own pricing scale, no matter how you try to slice it.

Also, fair point Ataru. Still, assuming the Blu-Ray spec will change to accommodate PiP decoding (which with the way Warner Brothers is acting seems to be necessary if the BDA ever wants to release movies like The Matrix and Batman Begins) this will all be a non-issue in the future. Early adoption isn't for the faint of heart, or empty of checkbook... hence why I'm only interested is SD media at the moment.

[Maxflier]

Did you miss the part of my post where I agreed that it was significantly overpriced?

[Chris Beveridge]

- If you aim to keep the format war out of the main site, why then do you repeatedly post pro blu-ray non anime related news on the front page? As I said it's your site so you can do as you wish, but this seems contrary to the position you just stated. This is one of the reasons why you appear to have an agenda that biases and cheapens the site.

Examples please. The only one in June that could be construed as such is the Blockbuster piece but even there it doesn't fit as we've covered several aspects of this format war in the last two years as "major" moves come about.

Just in using the search feature on the main site, here's the articles that contain the phrase Blu-ray during 2007:

French Paprika Blu-ray Details Confirmed Wednesday, June 20th 2007
Starz Goes Blu-ray Tuesday, June 19th 2007
SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers: The Next Hits Blu-ray Tuesday, June 19th 2007
Blockbuster Favors Blu-ray Sunday, June 17th 2007
Blu-ray Tidbits Tuesday, June 12th 2007
Bandai Visual USA Talks HD Thursday, June 7th 2007
HD Delayed Tuesday, June 5th 2007
Blu-ray FLAG Raised Tuesday, June 5th 2007
3 X 3 Eyes Goes Blu Wednesday, May 30th 2007
Paprika French Blu-ray Friday, May 25th 2007
More on Bandai Visual Japan Blu-ray Thursday, May 17th 2007
Bandai Visual Japan New Title Solicitations Tuesday, May 15th 2007
Panasonic Second Gen Hits Tuesday, May 15th 2007
Bandai Visual Japan Goes Dubs Tuesday, May 15th 2007
Sony Nabs Tekkon Kinkreet Thursday, April 26th 2007
Metropolis Blu-ray Bound? Tuesday, April 10th 2007
Blu-ray Hits Milestone Tuesday, March 27th 2007
Bandai Visuals Anime Legends Friday, March 23rd 2007
Wings of Honneamise US Release Thursday, March 22nd 2007
Bandai Visual Japan Goes Blu-ray Thursday, March 22nd 2007
More On Saiyuki Tuesday, March 20th 2007
Saiyuki Goes Blu-ray Tuesday, March 20th 2007
Bandai Visual Goes Dual Format Monday, March 19th 2007
Tekkon Kinkreet Blu-ray Bound Monday, March 19th 2007
Paprika Hits Blu-ray Thursday, March 15th 2007
Ghibli Goes Blu-ray Tuesday, March 13th 2007
Paprika Goes Blu Tuesday, March 6th 2007
Sony Lines Up Cheaper Player Monday, February 26th 2007
BDA Aims For UK Friday, February 23rd 2007
Bandai Visual USA Confirms Licenses Tuesday, January 30th 2007
Manga Denies Solid State Blu-ray Wednesday, January 24th 2007
Manga Entertainment New Blu-ray Title Solicitation Tuesday, January 23rd 2007
Next Gen Format War Over Wednesday, January 17th 2007
Sony to Provide Portable Copies Wednesday, January 10th 2007
CES 2007 Round-up Monday, January 8th 2007

The ones I've bolded are ones you could consider inappropriate for here but even then I'd have to disagree. Back when DVD launched we covered a fair bit of hardware changes as it shifted from first gen to second gen and more companies came online. And even then, the number of articles containing Blu-ray is so small compared to the overall number of things that we post that it's barely a blip.

- Bill Hunt has no credibility left as a journalist.

I don't recall Bill ever claiming he was a journalist. Heaven knows I've never called myself that. I don't consider myself one at all and to my knowledge have never pretended to be one.

[kakugo]

I didn't miss it (if anything I was agreeing with you in part :) ), but I think bringing up retail price when talking about a retail product is only fair, particularly when it's in comparison to other retail products. If we were to use discounted prices, or even clearance prices, we could make almost any show look like it sells for peanuts with a little looking.

Wings of Rean, Enma and Diebuster are only $30 at DeepDiscount.com. Yet if I were to say these discs were priced at $30 that could lead people to assume the retail was $30, and thus that BV's pricing is comparable to releases from Geneon, Media Blasters or ADV. They aren't, and you can get discs from these companies for about $20 at the same website. Even then, not all titles from the same distributor may be discounted equally, so the only constant we have to go on is the retail price.

Certainly heavy discounts from e-tailers are basically expected at this point, but I don't think saying one will have to pay $240 for Freedom is out of line.

[Skywise]

Umm.. we always compare MSRP - discounts can and do vary a lot from retailer to retailer. You look at the content you get and the price, and $40 is too much for mediocre anime. Something like Freedom should at most be $15 per episode, and have two eps per disc. Even that's pretty high for an OVA.

[Skywise]

I am used to Japanese prices actually, but that still doesn't mean I can't make a judgment of the content of a release based on the price, and the market it's released in. I'll pay the 10k yen for Akira, but not touching Freedom.

[Skywise]

There's also a point that if you look at the released and upcoming releases list (http://www.animeondvd.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/18821/) most of the anime in HD is on Blu-ray to begin with. With not much happening in the US market as far as anime goes that means it's almost all Japan, and HD DVD is pretty dead there.

[Maxflier]

I get what you are saying, but absolutely disagree on this:


but I don't think saying one will have to pay $240 for Freedom is out of line.

It's just not true. Not 1 person is going to have to pay $240 for the entire series and I don't see the need to imply that they would.

[Chris Beveridge]

Sure people are. I've already seen people saying they bought the first volume of Wings of Rean for list price. It happens, no matter how net savvy most anime fans seem to be. There are people and places that do deal in MSRP.

[Maxflier]

Well, if that is true, then those people deserve to have their wallets raped. I have no sympathy for them if they are that dumb. I mean, even Best Buy, who has rediculous prices for HD DVD's, doesn't charge $40 for it.
I mean jeez, I wouldn't know where to look if I were going to try and pay MSRP for something. Suncoast maybe?

[Chris Beveridge]

Suncoast, smaller shops, stores that use diamond distribution (i.e. comic book shops) and so forth. Not everyone uses the net and not everyone knows how to find the best deal.

[JeffDM]

It's your site, so you clearly can post whatever the heck you like, but as one of the main anime sites on the web (at least in English) I wish you would take a more measured and less opinionated stance.

I see the same attitude over at The Digital Bits, where Bill Hunt never misses a chance to get the boot in and irritate as many HD DVD owners as he can. Putting aside his incredibly selective use of facts to make his case as rosy as possible, what he fails to realise, and I think you are just as guilty Chris, is your attitude comes off as incredibly self righteous.

The stance is this - "I support blu-ray and if any of you are stupid enough to have bought an HD DVD player then you get what you deserve. You made a mistake and I am going to personally see that you suffer for it".


I think you are reading more into statements than is there, I don't think your condensed version is fair. I'd like to see you explain how written articles are going to make an owner of a particular kind of product suffer, or why you happen think that Chris or Bill hold such a level of animosity.

You make several vague statements and complain about selective use of facts without providing specific examples.

I don't understand why you expect people to be completely bias-free on a topic that interests them. I don't think that bias free people exist. I think it is more likely that there are two groups of people, those that admit they have biases, and those that won't admit that, but do have biases, though it may be subtle or subconscious.

People complaining on a forum will happen no matter what. Just because someone is complaining doesn't inherently mean that the complaint is justified. Sometimes it is justified, sometimes it is not justified.

The statements on competition between formats don't ring true to me. DVD players started out in the same price ranges as the HD players, and they came down quickly enough without format competition. Right now, the uncertainty is what is hurting the player market because there are a lot that don't want to buy into a format that may be abandoned, hurting sales volume. Sales volume is what gets makers interested in a market, which in turn allows prices to drop because of economies of scale and competition.

[Thanatos]

Haven't you ever seen Highlander? THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE! :D

More like "THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ONLY ONE!", which is also shockingly appropriate in this situation. ;)

[hikaru004]

Suncoast, smaller shops, stores that use diamond distribution (i.e. comic book shops) and so forth. Not everyone uses the net and not everyone knows how to find the best deal.

Or you have people who want to support the local shops and willingly pay close to MSRP for anime.

I hope that one format hurries up and wins in R1 so that the player prices can come down. It will probably come down faster if the player manufacturers duke it out in one format and the resulting players will perform better imo. :)

Also, more anime may come out when one format wins imo.

[Skywise]

Player prices will come down as we get more budget players. The big problem however is that with there being a perceived format "war" by the general public you don't get any kind of mass adoption and we, as a niche market, get screwed over because the US anime companies don't want to bleed money in order to release products. We've been incredibly lucky that companies like Bandai Visual, Sony and Warner are willing to go the extra mile for something they won't see a return on for at least a year, if not more. Bandai Visual in particular is really impressive and I have to give them kudos for going in as early as they have.