3 ms·

I really wish business practices would change to meet this demand. I recently came across crunchyroll [1] which has a huge amount of japanese animation availab

by cjh_ 14y ago

I really wish business practices would change to meet this demand. I recently came across crunchyroll [1] which has a huge amount of japanese animation available to watch online 'for free' if you can put up with ads, or you can pay $7/month to have ad free (as well as higher def). What I find really awesome is that for many shows it is available online an hour after it is shown in japan (this is for paying members, free members have to wait a week). I apologize if this seems like nothing special to you, but living in New Zealand I can really appreciate sites that are both affordable and don't lock me out because of my region. [1]http://www.crunchyroll.com/ http://www.crunchyroll.com/

kaybe 14y ago
Crunchyroll does however only give access to some shows depending on your region. Makes it mostly unusable for me, sadly.
- cjh_ 14y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that, I made the jump from 'it works in New Zealand' to 'it works everywhere'.
creamyhorror 14y ago
Crunchyroll is a unique case. It started out as a typical pirate video site that basically streamed and profited off anime fansubs, then later managed to go legitimate by licensing anime from Japanese studios (presumably because it had a large audience and the studios decided to experiment with streaming to the international market). It's a one-off occurrence that I don't think has been duplicated by any other site since. It'd be great if more pirate streaming sites started up and became legitimate, but it's unlikely to happen so easily with content owners who are more protective of their copyrights (e.g. US studios/channels). They'd probably sue instead of discuss licensing terms. Hulu and Netflix need to go everywhere, but content licensing by region will always stand in their way. Here we're stuck with high-priced cable TV packages that I don't find appealing, and Amazon's ebook store isn't even available.
- cjh_ 14y ago
  I wasn't actually aware of their history as a less-than-legitimate site, I guess that helped with the chicken and egg problem of content and audience. Region licensing is definitely one of the big killers, I find it odd (read: sad) how companies can buy all the rights to a product for a region, and then not do anything useful (at least not to me) with it.

by cjh_ 14y ago

kaybe 14y ago

Crunchyroll does however only give access to some shows depending on your region. Makes it mostly unusable for me, sadly.

cjh_ 14y ago
I'm sorry to hear that, I made the jump from 'it works in New Zealand' to 'it works everywhere'.

creamyhorror 14y ago

Crunchyroll is a unique case. It started out as a typical pirate video site that basically streamed and profited off anime fansubs, then later managed to go legitimate by licensing anime from Japanese studios (presumably because it had a large audience and the studios decided to experiment with streaming to the international market). It's a one-off occurrence that I don't think has been duplicated by any other site since. It'd be great if more pirate streaming sites started up and became legitimate, but it's unlikely to happen so easily with content owners who are more protective of their copyrights (e.g. US studios/channels). They'd probably sue instead of discuss licensing terms. Hulu and Netflix need to go everywhere, but content licensing by region will always stand in their way. Here we're stuck with high-priced cable TV packages that I don't find appealing, and Amazon's ebook store isn't even available.

cjh_ 14y ago
I wasn't actually aware of their history as a less-than-legitimate site, I guess that helped with the chicken and egg problem of content and audience. Region licensing is definitely one of the big killers, I find it odd (read: sad) how companies can buy all the rights to a product for a region, and then not do anything useful (at least not to me) with it.