Forum - View topicNEWS: Viewster Streaming Service Opens Office in Los Angeles
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Primus
 Posts: 2827 Location: Toronto |
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Launching a "new" video streaming platform seems like a tough thing to do in 2015. You've got so much competition and it's become increasingly more difficult to find stand out programming that isn't already available elsewhere. I think to have a shot at success you need a big library as well as apps on as many platforms as possible.
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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I think Viewster's availability of earlier anime titles might give it a slight advantage over other anime streaming websites like Crunchyroll...
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Gasero
 Posts: 939 Location: USA |
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It seems like viewster has a good number of hits, but it will take a lot to direct people away from Crunchyroll.
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unready
 Posts: 411 Location: Illinois, USA |
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If they have the money to buy their way into the North American market, they could just buy Crunchyroll instead of competing with it, assuming they actually have the money and Crunchyroll wants to be bought.
I'd prefer to see more competition in the dub and physical market to get something like Bandai back with West Coast voice talent, but that's not a growth space, so fat chance of that. Oh, well. |
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SpeckTech
 Posts: 195 |
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yeah it can get a bit tiring when everyone sounds the same in a dub because everyone IS the same. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Yes, that would explain the surplus of movies in German, and why half the supported ads are in German, on my low-rent smart-TV app. It sort of had that less-than-competent feeling of "Not from around here", when compared to Netflix and Hulu.
Viewster only gets whatever scrap handful of anime bones Funimation decides to toss them, while HuluPlus gets Funi, CR, NeonAlley, the Anime Channel, almost never throws any series away, and keeps a dizzying catalog of every series ever released in the last seven years. As Primus says, there's competition, and Viewster's overall catalog, which consists almost entirely of the PD and indie ghetto, is a good example of the kind of competition that could be thinned out--As soon as the industry gets to the stage where they figure out that not every service is a genius just for showing up. |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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Japan needs to take notes as Viewster has mobile streaming, something they desperately need.
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TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1896 Location: USA (mid-south) |
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They would need to deal with TCG regarding that: animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-12-02/chernin-group-purchases-majority-stake-in-crunchyroll |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13626 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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While the West Coast does still have a decent dub output, Ocean & Blue Water Studios, Coastal Studios, and NYC could do more dubs. Sure, they have other titles (MLP is probably Ocean's current cash cow), but there are old school fans would love to hear them in more dubs. In terms of competing with Crunchyroll, I think that Rob Pereyda stepping down in early '11 and now helping head this sight is almost like a retro-active conflict of interest. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5523 |
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I think the problem was in the late 00s, when companies like ADV shut down and companies from Japan like Aniplex and Nippon were replacing them, who at the time didn't dub. So you were left with a very small space to get dubs from for awhile. Things seem better now that there is a wider range of places that dubs are coming from. |
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13626 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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MarshalBanana: I think had CPM, Bandai Entertainment, Manga, Tokyo-Pop, and other companies had not gone bankrupt/essentially bankrupt, then we would still have more manga/anime diversity and a wider selection.
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Buzz201
Posts: 266 |
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I don't think they'll do very well in the US. It's a bit late to get into the game at this point, unless you have bucketloads of cash to throw around.
They seem to be doing reasonably well in Europe though, so maybe they'll be able to build on that success. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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I think so too. Specifically, they are showing the uncensored home video versions of anime freely without restrictions. Sadly their catalog is currently very small, but if it grows I could see it complementing the simulcast services and being a free alternative to Funi and Sentai and Nozomi. In their PR they did mention a binge watching trend:
which incidentally is also my preferred method of viewing anime. I checked them out and they have some performance and reliability issues. but if they get those worked out, if I were a streaming person I would take them over Hulu (which is a mix of home video and broadcast) any day, since I can't stand the crap ton of ads on Hulu. |
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13626 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Kudos to them if they can avoid the ad service that Hulu has even with its subscribing members. If Hulu's investors can make a lot of money doing adds (Especially when you have giants like Disney), then they should be smart enough to realize that premium members shouldn't have to have ads. They would lose money either, I think.
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