blog好き

Aug 22 2004

Categories: anime, commentary

1 Comment »

What would go into my perfect R1 DVD? Remember, this is my perfect R1 DVD. Your milage may vary.

Must Have

• Anamorphic. Most R1s that are widescreen are also anamorphic… I don’t think I have any in my collection that isn’t.
• Progressive scan. I don’t understand why stuff like the Aa! Megami-sama movie is progressive in R2 but interlaced in R1. It took Pioneer effort to downconvert! There’s relatively little for R1 that’s progressive, but it really does help picture quality.
• 5 episodes, $20. Great price point… gets it more in line with Hollywood movies. Example: Gundam Seed.
• Karaoke! Why haven’t I seen this on any R1 DVD, yet it is on every fansub? Song lyrics in kana would be good too.
• Matching covers/spines. Why does my Bebop movie look different from all the other Bebop DVDs?
• Thinpak cases. Minimizes the space it takes up on my shelf. Example: Family Guy.
• Subtitles and original BGM/OP/ED. Only company I can think of that violates this is Tokyopop. They completely re-did the music for Rave and Initial D to crappy Amerian pop-ish stuff. Big, BIG no-no.
• Keep the original names. Samurai X? Wha? Nan desu ka?

Optional (Nice to have)

• DTS. DTS is always nice, but it’s expensive bit overhead over DD. Most of the time, I rather have the bits going to improve video quality. Example: Escaflowne movie, Bebop movie.
• Japanese Director/Seiyuu Interviews. Always nice. Excellent example: Club Escaflowne.
• Translator notes. Always nice also. Examples: Kenshin, Nadesico.
• Nice menus. First off, “interactive menus” should not be a “DVD feature”… it should be on every DVD! Secondly, some menus are just terrible. Stand Alone Complex‘s menu looks like it was drawn in thirty minutes. Eva‘s was fugly. Good menu examples: Trigun, Aa! Megami-sama movie.
• Fanart and cosplay submissions. I thought this was pretty neat to include fan-submitted artwork as well as cosplay images. Definitely gives a DVD some fan cred. Example: Utena.
• Dress-up Mahoro dolls. Uh… it was a nice bonus. ;)

Don’t Care (Use space for better video quality instead)

• Dub outtakes. Don’t listen to dubs, so why would I want dub outtakes? Example: most Media Blaster stuff.
• English seiyuu interview/commentary. Again, I don’t listen to dubs. Space better used for DTS.
• Image galleries. Blarg. Don’t show me stuff like R2 DVD covers or screenshots. Only makes up upset that they didn’t use the R2 covers and how they’re low quality enough I can’t use them for wallpaper..
• 3 episodes for $30. What is this? 2001? Example: original Trigun , Evangelion, Gatekeepers.