Will the Pokemon TV series switch to widescreen?

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GoldChaos

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I have noticed as of late that unlike in the US, some anime are produced and broadcasted with a widescreen ratio. (Disclaimer: I may be mistaken about US animation) And I know a few series which were originally in 4:3 jumped to 16:9 in the middle of the series. Thus, I'm wondering when Pokemon will make the jump.

To those in Japan, how many series are left that are still in 4:3?

With the US jumping to Digital(and thus HD) broadcasts in 2009, I'm also wondering if all TV in general will be produced in widescreen from then on. TV Animation seems to be the only thing left not producing material in widescreen.
 
It would be cool if TV Tokyo started putting their shows in HD, but I don't get my hopes up. (Not for any particular reason though) I really love it in One Piece, and I'm sure they could put their more popular programs like Naruto, Bleach, Sgt. Frog, YuGiOh, and Pokemon (etc. I don't know if D.Greyman, Hitman Reborn, or Gintama rank with them or not)

I know, out of all of those, I'd want Pokemon the most... Of course, we know Nintendo's current position on HD :p
 
GoldChaos said:
I have noticed as of late that unlike in the US, some anime are produced and broadcasted with a widescreen ratio. (Disclaimer: I may be mistaken about US animation) And I know a few series which were originally in 4:3 jumped to 16:9 in the middle of the series. Thus, I'm wondering when Pokemon will make the jump.

To those in Japan, how many series are left that are still in 4:3?

With the US jumping to Digital(and thus HD) broadcasts in 2009, I'm also wondering if all TV in general will be produced in widescreen from then on. TV Animation seems to be the only thing left not producing material in widescreen.
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Jetix's Yin-Yang-Yo (hope I spelled it right) and A.T.O.M. were produced in widescreen and from what I heard some Disney shows were in HD format, but I am not sure about this.
But, on the other hand, there are anime, originally produced in HD, that not only airs SD in US, but also are cropped to 4:3 (Dinosaur King and Blue Dragon namely). Maybe it is because Americans still have issue for widescreen :-(

BTW, new series of Yu-Gi-Oh! which started yesterday on TV Tokyo in Japan, is produced in HD. But since 4Kids, as far as I know, already confirmed to licensed it, I am afraid it will follow Dinosaur King's fate to be in SD and cropped to 4:3 :eek:hdear:
 
On the plus side, the Rise of Darkrai was shown on CN it letterboxed format. However, even though CN has a HD feed (don't know if they have any HD content yet), I would expect we'll be seeing Pokemon movies in HD before there's any real talk about getting the TV show in HD.
 
GoldChaos said:
To those in Japan, how many series are left that are still in 4:3?
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Most of them, I'd say.

The whole "HD TV" and "HD DVD" thing isn't really as huge in Japan as it is in the States.

peno said:
But, on the other hand, there are anime, originally produced in HD, that not only airs SD in US, but also are cropped to 4:3 (Dinosaur King and Blue Dragon namely). Maybe it is because Americans still have issue for widescreen
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I think it's because individual companies are still relying on focus group data from years ago that told them that kids like fullscreen better than widescreen.

That, and the average American is woefully uninformed and believe that they're actually getting less of the image with a widescreen presentation.
 
Dogasu said:
Most of them, I'd say.

The whole "HD TV" and "HD DVD" thing isn't really as huge in Japan as it is in the States.
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Then it's probably a coincidence that most of the new series I watched in the last year or two are widescreen (though not necessarily HD): Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, Code Geass, .hack//SIGN and .hack//Roots, Tsubasa Chronicles, Black Cat, Kyō-kara Maō, ...
 
And Code Geass, at the very least, was initially broadcast in 4:3. I know the DVDs were 16:9, and I believe later airings might have been, too. That seems to be common with some anime, from what I can tell. I know Ookiku Furikabutte's initial airings were 4:3, but the airings on a satellite channel 2 weeks later were 16:9.

16:9 anime seems to be more common amongst fanboy series/fairly short series from prestigious studios, etc.

Although it is worth noting that One Piece has been 16:9 (and aired in HD) for several years now. I believe it started in summer of 2004.

So there is a precedent for a long running series switching over.

I wouldn't expect Pocket Monsters to do so anytime soon, though.
 
Agreed. Shows that skew toward the young audiences that Pocket Monsters do will probably be the last ones to convert to HD since your average six-year-old's not going to care one way or another.
 
It could happen very quickly or very slowly, depending on whether there's a catalyst that gets the ball rolling.

Out of curiousity, does anyone know if any of the Pokemon movies have aired in Japan in HD?
 
It's hard to say. This is the same production company that has kept 6-year-old computers (Power Mac G3s) to do their ink and paint work. I don't think HD is very high on their priority list.

I'd think by the time an anime adaptation of G5 comes out, we'd be in HD territory...
 
Actually, I was just at Best Buy yesterday, and they had Dragonball Z on Blu-Ray.

Grr....
 
Let's consider this: it took the Pokémon anime until 2002--a few months before AG started--to finally switch to digitally-colored animation from old-fashioned cels, a couple years behind most other series. Going by that, I don't think I'd expect this series to go HD until at least 2010.

Then again, Doraemon (another popular kid's anime) currently airs in HD, if I'm not mistaken...
 
kelvSYC said:
It's hard to say. This is the same production company that has kept 6-year-old computers (Power Mac G3s) to do their ink and paint work.
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Where does this information come from?

Yoshi1001 said:
Actually, I was just at Best Buy yesterday, and they had Dragonball Z on Blu-Ray.

Grr....
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Don't know why that's surprising. The biggest anime company in the U.S. released their biggest property on Blu-Ray.

Quagbert said:
Then again, Doraemon (another popular kid's anime) currently airs in HD, if I'm not mistaken...
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It does, but the show's been on the air for like 60 years nonstop. It's gonna get some special treatment.
 
Well, in some sense, Pokémon is also broadcast in HD, but because the source material isn't HD quality, it's not that much better. Apparently the credits text is very crisp though.
 
Zhen Lin said:
Well, in some sense, Pokémon is also broadcast in HD, but because the source material isn't HD quality, it's not that much better. Apparently the credits text is very crisp though.
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Tecnically speaking, HD refers to broadcast images of at least 720p (approximately 900,000 pixels versus about 350,000 for standard or enhanced defition). The difference really is quite striking (haven't you been to a Best Buy lately? :lol:). Out of curiousity, what is your AV setup at home?
 
It's possible to broadcast at HD resolution something which is not HD quality. For instance, imagine resizing a 640×480 picture up to 1920×1440...
 
Zhen Lin said:
It's possible to broadcast at HD resolution something which is not HD quality. For instance, imagine resizing a 640×480 picture up to 1920×1440...
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That's called upconversion. Some places do it better than others.
 
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