Revisiting DVD and Its Impact on Anime

Revisiting DVD and Its Impact on Anime (continued)

Carrying on the fan-favorite trend of laserdiscs, Japanese DVDs are being released with first edition boxes, such as the Card Captor Sakura Collector's Box. However, the Americans are catching on: Pioneer is releasing the Fushigi Yugi DVDs in a special box set.

While some Japanese DVDs may be laden with goodies, other are quite bare. The DVD release of The Adventures Of Mini-Goddess is nothing more than a CD-sized case.

Another benefit of the DVD format includes supplemental material. In Japan, the preferred format for anime releases is still laserdisc, as DVD is slowly making inroads into that market. Anime LD releases are often coupled with insert extras like liner notes, extra artwork, staff and crew interviews, and for special box releases, items like phone cards. But, as Beveridge points out, while the means may be available with DVD, the will is not always also.
"What the studios have the chance to do with DVD is not only provide the show, but to find things to build into the disc that can sell more copies. Supplements have always been very difficult to come by over the years since they're generally not included in the contracts or aren't worth the effort to produce, especially for VHS," summarized Beveridge. "DVD allows all of this and more to be done and to be done with style and flair on DVD if they're willing to put the time into it."
While for some fans it may be about the extras, other fans are just happy to enjoy the anime itself on DVD. Some companies have seized upon this notion when producing their DVD titles: The play's the thing. John Sirabella, President of Media Blasters, points out his company's stance when it comes to what DVD offers the anime fans:
"In our opinion, the big selling point for DVD seems to be adding more content at less cost to the consumer. For example, offer 8 episodes at the same price they would have to buy on DVD for 4 episodes," explained Sirabella. "We will be using this strategy with some additional features such as artwok, trailers, background of characters, interviews with the english voice talent and so on."
But for studios, the chance to take full advantage of the DVD format is not usually just a matter of putting forth the effort. Often, it comes down to trying to make release deadlines to ultimately please the fans.
"The overruling criteria is time. Even if we wanted to expose the warts and put in a lot of extras, there simply isn't enough time to make it a realistic possibility, since we would then, conceivable, wind up with less than one release a month," Kime said. "Therefore, the deluxe treatment will probably be reserved for a small handful of titles per year and many others will simply be released with Pioneer's standard menus."
With their impending first American DVD releases—COWBOY BEBOP and ESCAFLOWNE—due out in the first half of the year 2000, Bandai tends to agree on the issue of DVD extras. "It really depends on the title and our production cycle," said Nobu Yamamoto of Bandai. "Of course, we'd like to include extras where possible, and we are working with Japan to try and round some things up right now."
What can anime fans hope for in the future in regards to stellar DVDs? Already, Pioneer has gone that extra yard to release high quality titles on DVD. TENCHI FOREVER was released with an anamorphic transfer, bilingual soundtracks (Japanese in Dolby Digital 5.1), English subtitles, and Japanese theatrical trailers included. A.D.V. Films' upcoming SPRIGGAN release may mirror the title's original Japanese DVD release of including an anamorphic transfer and bilingual Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. And as Manga Entertainment prepares to roll out PERFECT BLUE, X the Movie, and the EVANGELION movies out on DVD next year, we're sure to see some great DVD releases in 2000. Perhaps one company will even satisfy the really niche market of anime karaoke fans and provide karaoke chapters as extras, complete with colored scrolling lyric text.

Manga Entertainment's Macross Plus DVD release was originally scheduled for May. Production and other issues delayed the title until October.

The Time Table

One thing that perhaps irks anime fans most of all when it comes to DVD is when titles are released. Almost across the board of U.S. anime companies, the VHS release of an anime title always supersedes the DVD release. Such was the case between LD and VHS releases. But the DVD format is much more mainstream now than maybe laserdisc ever was in the United States. With current Hollywood movies today, the DVD release often coincides with the VHS release. Commercials on television are pushing DVD players into our living rooms, online and regular retailers are selling players for as much as a good VHS player, and people are buying into DVD.
But the reality is, U.S. anime companies are a far cry from Hollywood studios. Resources are limited, qualified personnel hard to find, and the process generally very taxing. First, the DVD compression process, while it has become an almost standard procedure now, can determine if a title will live or die with the fans. Because DVD is much more sharper in resolution than VHS, artifacts and other errors are much more glaring when present. Digitally encode animation correctly into the MPEG-2 format, and you have a very vivid and vibrant picture that the consumers will love you for. Encode a title incorrectly, and your company and product get dragged through the mud. And that's only the first step. Kime went into more detail about the DVD duplication process:
"[DVD production] is a very time consuming process, especially when combined with VHS production. Take BATTLE ATHLETES VICTORY for example, a typical volume is 70 minutes long plus some pretty basic menus.

1.   Check Japanese Master for problems (70 min)

2.   Get translated script, check against Japanese version for accuracy (70 minutes if you don't stop to check a line).

3.   Check Subtitled Master (70 min.), check Dubbed Master (70 min.)

4.   Check DVD emulation and one language (70 min.), check other language with subtitles (70 min.), check closed captioning (70 min, but not all titles are closed captioned).

5.   Check product for Dubbed VHS (70 min.), Subtitled VHS (70 min.), English language track on DVD product (w/ closed captioning 70 min.), check subtitled language track on DVD product (70 min.).

Therefore one DVD that only runs for an hour and ten minutes leads to almost 13 hours of quality control (770 minutes). Unfortunately, that is the best case scenario, almost always, there will be a least a couple of problems, each of which will lead to an additional round of quality control at that step to verify that the problem has been fixed."