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Anime

ADV Films Offers Anime for Download! On ZVUE!?

zvue.jpg

I find it kinda funny that a couple of days after Jason writes a post on DRM and payed anime downloads, ADV announces that they’ll be offering anime available to download on zvue.com. From the press release:

“Anime has become big business, and it’s getting bigger every day,” said ADV Films co-founder and chief executive officer John Ledford. “The popularity of anime continues to grow in the U.S., and our alliance with HandHeld and its ZVUE.com download website means that more fans will have more access to the anime they love.”

Okay, so that sounds great! The companies are finally taking distribution online and offering anime downloads, right? I dunno…

The ZVUE is a handheld personal video player, so I assume the video quality for the downloads will be fairly low. Also, I’ve never heard of the ZVUE until today when I read the press release. Browsing their online store, it seems they sell a lot of puppet and genie videos (WTF!?). The content that’s on there now looks worse than most stuff on YouTube. I don’t think I need to remind you that YouTube is free…

I’ll have to commend ADV for trying something different, but haven’t they ever heard of iTunes music store? Google Video also offers payed content, too. I have a feeling that fans would totally be willing to buy anime on either service, and then buy them again when they hit DVD. Heck, I’d be happy with them offering a DRM-free PSP sized download directly from their site!

It seems to me that by going with this virtually unknown company, ADV is dooming themselves from the start. Is anyone going to buy a ZVUE player for $100 just so they can pay to watch anime on a really small screen? Hopefully they prove me wrong by selling a billion downloads of Azumanga, but right now, I have a bad feeling about this…

One reply on “ADV Films Offers Anime for Download! On ZVUE!?”

Just look at the specs of this thing:
http://www.zvue.com/downloads/specifications.php

I mean it supports a great amount of formats and I appreciate the support of OGG Vorbis. However, with respect to the rest of those specs, I wouldn’t even accept this thing as a present because it’s completely useless. You can buy digicams for not much more that come with video support. Or just buy a PSP or a better cellphone. Whatever, I wonder who intends to watch anything of worth on such a pathetic display. That may work in Japan and you may be able to rip-off kids with such stuff for a while but you won’t fool anyone else. I believe there’s no such thing as a market for portable video devices. If the display had an acceptable size, it would be too large to carry it around.

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