Prescript: I am doing this because I have seen a lot of confusion around this issue, I am not an expert, but I do know a little bit about Video compression, DVDs, and other AV nerd things. I do not work for any Funimation or any other companies of their nature (I actually work as an office boy part time in a web business where I get to deal with things as complicated as cleaning up a dirty email list, to things as simple as getting the programmers their energy drinks. The other half of my time I am a college student studying Political Science and Japanese.) I hope you find the following information useful, informative, funny, and not so horrible written that it makes your eyes bleed like your a character from Elfien Lied.
There has been a lot of huff and anger floating around the internet (the internet from this point on shall be referred to as the tubes because I demand it) relating to Funimation cramming up to 7 EPs on one disk with some of their more recent releases.
People are going around saying this is killing both audio and video quality due to excess compression on Funimation's part, because they are putting 7 EPs into a disk that should only hold 4.
First off let me point one thing out. DVD's come in many forms, not only Readable, but Writeable, and Re-Writeable forms. On top of this they come in single layer and dual layer versions as well.
Remember way back when, you know when people still bought both VHS dub and sub tapes for a show, Bill Clinton having sex with yet another intern was news, and no one could point out Afghanistan on a map (not that many people now can sadly) DVDs where some times dual sided, with the wide screen on one side and the Letter Box version on another. Well now days we have something similar, a DVD which has two layers on the bottom side, doubling the space on the disk.
These are what Funimation is currently using. Now remember back in the day when most Anime DVDs had about 4 episodes on them. Well that was 4 episodes on a single layer DVDs, i.e. 4 episodes taking up around 4.7 GB. Well now we have 7 EP taking up 8.54 GB. Thinking about it that way the old school DVDs allowed for 1.175 GB per EP, while the new method allows for 1.22 GB per EP.
This doesn't mean that old school 4 EP per disks DVDs were, and are all printed only on single layer DVDs, but a lot of the time half or near half the space is left unused. For instance Full Metal Panic Fumoffu Disk 1 by ADV is dual side but only uses up 5.9 GB out of 8.54 GB, even with 4 EP, 5.1 Audio, and extras. With this in mind ADV could have easily printed the whole 12 EP series on two DVDs, with the extra's in tacked (The other disks aren't nearly as big about 5.3GB each). The reason they didn't though was to be able to spread the EP out over disk and be able to charge people more per EP, because that was the industries business model at the time.
That is ultimately the thing with the new Funimation discs they are done to make things cheaper, because the industries business model has changed with the drastic change in the economy. They are printing things on less disks, and not worrying as much with extras, so they can get more anime to you cheaper, so you can afford to buy their products in this tough recession. Its why the new ADV films is not dubbing as many things, and why Bandia has been canceling dubs as of late.
They are not killing the quality of your anime because they are an evil corporation, they are rebuilding their business model to lower prices, with minimal to no effect on quality, so you can afford their products, its the system working, not failing! Hell for all you greenies out there, its good for mother earth too! Thank you that is all..... well except....
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
PS This is my first blog post for please forgive me if I did something that broke an unspoken rule of the site, or spoken one for that matter.
There has been a lot of huff and anger floating around the internet (the internet from this point on shall be referred to as the tubes because I demand it) relating to Funimation cramming up to 7 EPs on one disk with some of their more recent releases.
People are going around saying this is killing both audio and video quality due to excess compression on Funimation's part, because they are putting 7 EPs into a disk that should only hold 4.
First off let me point one thing out. DVD's come in many forms, not only Readable, but Writeable, and Re-Writeable forms. On top of this they come in single layer and dual layer versions as well.
Remember way back when, you know when people still bought both VHS dub and sub tapes for a show, Bill Clinton having sex with yet another intern was news, and no one could point out Afghanistan on a map (not that many people now can sadly) DVDs where some times dual sided, with the wide screen on one side and the Letter Box version on another. Well now days we have something similar, a DVD which has two layers on the bottom side, doubling the space on the disk.
These are what Funimation is currently using. Now remember back in the day when most Anime DVDs had about 4 episodes on them. Well that was 4 episodes on a single layer DVDs, i.e. 4 episodes taking up around 4.7 GB. Well now we have 7 EP taking up 8.54 GB. Thinking about it that way the old school DVDs allowed for 1.175 GB per EP, while the new method allows for 1.22 GB per EP.
This doesn't mean that old school 4 EP per disks DVDs were, and are all printed only on single layer DVDs, but a lot of the time half or near half the space is left unused. For instance Full Metal Panic Fumoffu Disk 1 by ADV is dual side but only uses up 5.9 GB out of 8.54 GB, even with 4 EP, 5.1 Audio, and extras. With this in mind ADV could have easily printed the whole 12 EP series on two DVDs, with the extra's in tacked (The other disks aren't nearly as big about 5.3GB each). The reason they didn't though was to be able to spread the EP out over disk and be able to charge people more per EP, because that was the industries business model at the time.
That is ultimately the thing with the new Funimation discs they are done to make things cheaper, because the industries business model has changed with the drastic change in the economy. They are printing things on less disks, and not worrying as much with extras, so they can get more anime to you cheaper, so you can afford to buy their products in this tough recession. Its why the new ADV films is not dubbing as many things, and why Bandia has been canceling dubs as of late.
They are not killing the quality of your anime because they are an evil corporation, they are rebuilding their business model to lower prices, with minimal to no effect on quality, so you can afford their products, its the system working, not failing! Hell for all you greenies out there, its good for mother earth too! Thank you that is all..... well except....
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
PS This is my first blog post for please forgive me if I did something that broke an unspoken rule of the site, or spoken one for that matter.
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