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Not surprising Crunchyroll is cutting costs and dropping the experience. That or getting lazy. This company getting as close as it has to a monopoly on all things anime related is the worst thing that could happen to the industry.

razisgosu wrote:

Not surprising Crunchyroll is cutting costs and dropping the experience. That or getting lazy. This company getting as close as it has to a monopoly on all things anime related is the worst thing that could happen to the industry.

They are literally the only ones trying so I'm not sure how it's the worst thing ever. What other options do we have? Hi-Dive who finally updated their app and yet it still doesn't work properly. Netflix and Hulu will license anime but nothing beyond that.

It's amazing that Crunchyroll does as much as they do but only receives spite in return.

Was it really a cost-saving measure? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I would have thought an XXL LED screen like that would have cost far more than a projector and a sheet of transparent fabric.

FanGamer24 wrote:

razisgosu wrote:

Not surprising Crunchyroll is cutting costs and dropping the experience. That or getting lazy. This company getting as close as it has to a monopoly on all things anime related is the worst thing that could happen to the industry.

They are literally the only ones trying so I'm not sure how it's the worst thing ever. What other options do we have? Hi-Dive who finally updated their app and yet it still doesn't work properly. Netflix and Hulu will license anime but nothing beyond that.

It's amazing that Crunchyroll does as much as they do but only receives spite in return.

Oh noes! The multibillion dollar company is getting flack on the internet! They definitely don't deserve any sort of criticism at all!!!!

Crunchyroll really thought we wouldn't notice the difference? I've been to Miku Expo before and if they had pulled this stunt I would've walked out. It completely ruins the immersive experience, not to mention blocking out the band as some have pointed out.

I can't comprehend the reason why they would make this change from every single past vocaloid concert other than greed and laziness.

Netero wrote:

Was it really a cost-saving measure? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I would have thought an XXL LED screen like that would have cost far more than a projector and a sheet of transparent fabric.

Its still expensive, but they said its easier to set up and calibrate than a holographic screen (though the LED screen did have problems at Cochella and the Phoenix show).

Crypton’s tone-deaf “we have Hatsune Miku at home” statement is really something:

Quote:

To celebrate MIKU EXPO's 10th anniversary, fans across North America and Europe can continue to expect the same high-energy concert experience featuring the LED screen technology that fans have enjoyed across other MIKU-related events.

That is awful, it would absolutely take away significantly from the experience. Crypton's response is so similarly horrible I want to believe they somehow misunderstood.

Netero wrote:

Was it really a cost-saving measure? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I would have thought an XXL LED screen like that would have cost far more than a projector and a sheet of transparent fabric.

It's not fabric, it's a type of plexiglass and while a proper cost brakedown is probably not gonna happen, the 2 types (LED and projection) are probably not that far apart in terms of cost. The LED screen costs more but the projector needs extra staff for calibration (which itself means more salaries, more travel costs, more accommodation and more per diem if it's Crypton staff brought over) and spare parts (the projector gets very hot and wear down the lense).

As for the experience itself, I'll be attending in October after attending several concerts both in the West and in Japan so I'll save judgements for then. For what is worth, the vast majority of people on social media seem to be reporting having (very) positive experiences and say the screen looks much better in person, while alot of the initial outrage involved people comparing cellphone videos run through Twitter's crappy compression with Crypton's professionally shot concerts at the Makuhari Messe - plus the first two shows had a particularly bad stage design, with the screen up front, only to put it towards the back as it's more conventional and better (which gave rise to the popular belief that Crunchy just delegated the stage design to some company with no experience setting these concerts because it's hard to imagine Crypton with their 15y of experience not knowing this).

As for the screen itself, from seeing videos and talking to a friend who attended in San Jose, it looks like the screen is actually a very high performance display, with high resolution and colors and super high contrast which really makes the characters really pop against the black background in a way the projector + glass combo cant really match. I mean I loved my concerts with the projector but let's be honest, it has much worse contrast due to the screen being transparent and the projector itself is subject to light scattering and stray reflections, it's far from perfect at the best of times. Honestly some of the pictures my friend took with his camera when he caught all the stage lightning turned off are some of the most dramatic for a vocaloid concert I've seen - and he swears it's still short of the in person experience. That said, there's a ton of stage lights on stage which they used abundantly and it really highlights the main weakness of the LED screen - it reflects next to no light so whenever the stage isn't bathed in darkness it ends up looking like a rectangular black void - or a TV. Plexiglass, has an advantage here because light passes through it and if say, you engage alot of green lights on stage, the glass itself adopts a green hue, which still makes the screen stand out sure, but it doesn't look as much like a dark void. My friends claims the problem is much less pronounced in person (likely to do with how your eyes work when you yourself are immersed in darkness, but admits he was fairly close to the screen when this problem would be less pronounced.

Ultimately I think Crypton is trying something new, they recently also used a LED screen at Miku FES'24 in the Budokan to much better reception (because the staging and integration was far superior). They tried it again on this tour but it worked terribly off the bat due to poor staging until they rearranged it somewhat and find an acceptable middle ground that doesn't require a teardown of the whole stage design (which I hope they do for the Europe tour). Their reception online has definitely improved as of late, whether because people got tired of yelling at them or because they hit a level of acceptable experience. Personally I do hope they keep the LED for the Europe tour, if only because I've seen plenty of projections and now I'm curious to see the LED show, but they need to reformulate the stage in a way that doesn't highlight it's weaknesses.

I’m no Miku fan, but her Coachella set looked embarrassingly bad. They need to revise everything after that mess.

OrdepNM wrote:

As for the screen itself, from seeing videos and talking to a friend who attended in San Jose, it looks like the screen is actually a very high performance display, with high resolution and colors and super high contrast which really makes the characters really pop against the black background in a way the projector + glass combo cant really match. I mean I loved my concerts with the projector but let's be honest, it has much worse contrast due to the screen being transparent and the projector itself is subject to light scattering and stray reflections, it's far from perfect at the best of times. Honestly some of the pictures my friend took with his camera when he caught all the stage lightning turned off are some of the most dramatic for a vocaloid concert I've seen - and he swears it's still short of the in person experience. That said, there's a ton of stage lights on stage which they used abundantly and it really highlights the main weakness of the LED screen - it reflects next to no light so whenever the stage isn't bathed in darkness it ends up looking like a rectangular black void - or a TV. Plexiglass, has an advantage here because light passes through it and if say, you engage alot of green lights on stage, the glass itself adopts a green hue, which still makes the screen stand out sure, but it doesn't look as much like a dark void. My friends claims the problem is much less pronounced in person (likely to do with how your eyes work when you yourself are immersed in darkness, but admits he was fairly close to the screen when this problem would be less pronounced

.

Thanks for posting this. It’s cool to see someone more involved in the experience chiming in than people just saying stuff based on twitter feed.

I wonder if they’ll work on the stage lighting or whatever more so that you don’t get that rectangular void.

OrdepNM wrote:

Snip

I haven't seen the Makuhari Messe live but honestly I wouldn't have an issue with the LED if it had proper stage integration. Screens can be fine on stage as long as you integrate them properly. Older Miku concerts combined the hologram with screen and it looked fine because of how it's set up.

It's when they just shove the TV in the middle of a largely empty stage it just looks awful. I know it'd cost way more but I wish they'd do some more exciting stage design to compensate for the LED.

As you said, when the stage is completely black the LED looks fine. But once the stage lights up and you see the edges, the immersion is partially lost...

(This is all based on twitter videos, so I can't speak as someone who actually saw any of it live.)

I think more than anything it's the laziness of it that's most disappointing. They put in a little effort but really needed to go either all the way or basically not at all (at least then it'd just be "oh this sucks" rather than "oh this could be so good but it just isn't there").

As an aside, the dead pixel problem was hilarious.

Funny how things go when you have a monopoly

A prime example of "Don't give the people what they want, give them what YOU want and then try to cram it down their throats".

The thing is, they used a LED screen for Mikufes 24 and it looks amazing! LED screen isnt the issue, its the integration (and not lying to your fans about it being a LED screen). I hope they improve it in time for the europe leg of the tour