The New Matthew’s Anime Blog

Shugo Chara! Crunchyroll vs Raw

I was quite excited when Shugo Chara! was announced as being one of the shows that Crunchyroll would be streaming one hour after airing in Japan. Usually, these types of shows don’t get licensed here, but I suppose it got a chance since the manga is out here and it seemed to be pretty popular on Crunchyroll. So, it was with anticipation that I paid my $60 for a year’s membership (since Shugo Chara! will be on for a while) and waited for the first not quite “simulcast” episode last week… and this is what I was greeted with, and very slowly at that:

For comparision, here’s my usual raw source:

I believe you can see the problems here. Some kind of chroma (the color component of the image) ghosting along with lower image quality than the raw. What you can’t see is the frame stuttering probably caused by a bad deinterlacing filter and frames dropping during certain sequences. (The badly upscaled non-720p “720p” doesn’t apply in this case since Shugo Chara! isn’t broadcast in HD)

What makes this worse is that the sample video provided by Crunchyroll exhibits none of these issues. It’s generally not good business practice to deceive your customers. Many are already complaining on the forums of the same issues and demanding a refund, but that seemingly won’t happen since the TOS doesn’t allow for refunds.

Now, with a new service, and certainly one gathering as much attention as this, I would expect there to be bumps in the road. I appreciate that Crunchyroll seems to be taking some steps to correct some issues such as site slowness. However, first impressions count, especially since this involves a high-profile companies like TV Tokyo and others offering access to shows legally. One would expect the quality of videos and subs from the producers of shows themselves to be better than that offered by fansubs, but that hasn’t been the case here so far. People won’t put down money for an inferior product, especially when they’re used to paying nothing for the alternative.

It really is disappointing since I would like to see Crunchyroll and its partners succeed in this experiment and prove online distribution (through a subscription model or otherwise) can be profitable. Anime fans get the shows they want right after they air in Japan, the creators and producers of the show get paid, everybody involved benefits. I am hoping that Crunchyroll and its staff will get their act together and take some action on these concerns soon.

Tags: Anime, Crunchyroll, Shugo Chara!

1 Comment to Shugo Chara! Crunchyroll vs Raw

1. 

   Yikes! That’s some really bad quality! What’s your usual raw source for Shugo Chara? Thanks in advance!
Joseph on June 1st, 2009

Leave a comment