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Ahem... *gets up on soap box*

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My fellow IDWers! Since the announcement of the announcement of the new Initial D anime that is believed to be the anticipated Fifth Stage, there have been numerous cries to place all the Initial D Stages on the TV stream for all members to watch. To watch Initial D together as a community would bring me the greatest joy in the world. To unite our vast community would mark the revival of our former glory. I predict that something like this would bring back tenured and new members alike. So at the first AX2012 meet I brought the idea up to our glorious leader Perry and he said he would think about it. WELL THE TIME TO THINK IS OVER! I've seen everyone's requests to stream the episodes all over the forums, there is no doubt that Perry has also seen them. Hell! You have all seen them! Perry will not take action unless he sees all of our cries in one place! SO JOIN ME! Join in making history! Join this noble cause. Join in making the scheduled streaming of Initial D episodes possible! HELP MAKE THE DREAM OF AN IDW WHERE WE HAVE OVER 500 DAILY POSTS AND 250 DAILY USERS POSSIBLE! Help make Perry's dream of an IDW teaming with activity possible! Post here and I'm sure that Perry will answer our request!

Thank you IDW. *steps down*

Liked this idea before; still liking it now. Would like to see it happen.

Disregard this post.

This post has been edited by Nerubian on Mar 30 2013, 06:00 PM

think of the immense bandwidth usage

i mean i used to stream animu and movies and what not and it really does take mucho bandwidth

I'm still working on ironing out the details and such but when I initially told Perry about my idea he said that it was really good and that he was thinking about doing something like this for quite some time. I recall that he said something about only streaming during peak hours so there wouldn't be episodes playing all the time everyday with no one watching--of course that would be a huge waste--I imagine it would be one or two episodes a night with everyone watching on the server just as a family would gather around the TV to watch... uh... what families watch together! And that is what we are. A family!

I'm glad you guys are showing interest in this idea! Keep it up guys, I'll keep pestering Perry and hopefully something will be set up by the end of the summer!

It's a good idea but of course it will all depend on whether the server can handle it. We'll see how it goes - I think this will have to wait until we move to a better host, probably.

Interesting. I wonder how this would be handled. Would it be automated? Would this be something like creating a pre-fabbed NSV of episodes and having it stream by itself? Or would it be a scheduled show sort of thing?

Either way, I've got all the DVDs for First through Fourth Stage, as well as subbed DVD rips for Battle Stage, Battle Stage 2 and Extra Stage 2 (since those three haven't gotten domestic releases as of yet). Would be willing to help at least on the encoding side of things if that's necessary.

I will say "Yes" to this because of the simple fact that I'm too lazy to find my DVD-Rs where my Initial D anime eps are on.
But I will add a condition though : I want the original Japanese dub & audio with English/French subtitles please

On a technical point of view, yes, that needs LOADS of bandwith to be able to stream. But, Perry has the FinalDistance server which has unmetered bandwith and is already used for file-storage and upload/download. We could host the episodes there for streaming and/or downloading. Using the main site server for that will slow down considerably the forum itself.

How would dual-language subs work if it's a stream? Plus, do French subs even exist?

Consensus would probably dictate airing Japanese audio with English subtitles.

Fan-French subs probably exist. Oh, and, I never seen any flash/HTML5 player that can switch between audio streams. I know it's possible with offline media players such as VLC and The KMPlayer with properly encoded files but online...? Probably not. So, if we want to make available both an English dub AND original Japanese dub + English subs, then, we will need two separate video files for streaming.

Then, as long as the subtitles are "hard-subbed", there will be no problems. All stages were aired before HD became fully mainstream. So, 640x480 if "square" or 640x360 if "widescreen" AVIs (XVid+MP3 maybe?) will be all-ok. IMO. Nomake might want his say in that too.

Any other way would be a waste of time, really.

It's the way the majority of fans watched it in the first place. I can think of no better nostalgia trip than hearing Takumi's JP voice again.

It's really not a question of input format but rather a question of 'output' format. Allow me to be more specific.

It depends on how this project is intended to be handled. If this 'stream' is going to work like the present Radio Server--that is, a bot which plays a playlist automatically--it means that the bot will need to have a stream-friendly format of the series already on hand. The video server uses Nullsoft Video as its format--NSV--so the entire series would need to be converted to this format ahead of time.

If, on the other hand, the project ends up being a fixed "Initial D Marathon" time slot--like DJ radio shows are now--then that means a human being can stream the show manually. In this case it doesn't matter at all what the format is becuase all you do to broadcast video is essentially run a FRAPS-like screen capture filter. One can put the actual legally-purchased DVD onto the stream rather than worrying about some hard-subbed pirated AVI from 1999.

That should about cover it.

I don't have any real experience with it, but there's a site called watch2gether.com which allows you to simultaneously plug in a youtube link (with embedding permitted) and create a room with a handy little chat for you and your buddies to well, watch together. I don't know if the video plays independently for each viewer or if it's controlled by the room's creator, but it's worth a look.

It is controlled by the room's creator. There's also Synchtube if we're going to talk about that, but then you run into the issue of only having what's available on YouTube. I suppose it's a trade-off, however. YouTube technically would allow content up to 4k resolution, meaning it would easily handle the 480p Initial D DVDs. I haven't checked recently, but is all of Initial D actually available on YouTube in DVD quality with English subtitles?

I'd say that streaming it ourselves would be better--since we have immediate access to the actual DVDs for the entire series--but the TV server's current maximum resolution is only 320x240. I am not sure if that is for bandwidth concerns or if it's a hard limit in the server-side of things, however. That question will have to be answered by Perry himself.

I think Funimation put all of S1 up already, I know S4 was up.

We can always do livestream if it comes down to it.

Prior to my post, I actually tested one of Funimation's uploads and it has embedding disabled. While I did mention the source would need embedding enabled, I didn't point this out directly, though I should I have.

This post has been edited by Alex on Aug 1 2012, 10:23 PM

I'm totally OK with the streaming of all episodes even if it means that I have to watch them during night time ! This could be an awesome event !!!

Correction! Doing a little research revealed that Extra Stage 2 was quietly released in the US as part of FUNimation's Second/Third/Extra Stage complete DVD collection. I'm gonna have to go pick that up. Battle Stage and Battle Stage 2 are still unavailable in the US, however. For those we'll have to rely on fansubs.

I'm not so sure about that. I see Extra Stage 1 and Extra Stage 2 listed on the case, but the DVD itself just calls the two parts of the original Extra Stage "1 and 2".

Granted, I don't have the S.A.V.E. version that you're referencing.

Only the S.A.V.E. version lists having Extra Stage 2 and ANN only lists that version as being related to Extra Stage 2. I think it's safe to say it's the only version which has it. For $20 I guess I can't really go wrong even if it turns out that all these sources are lying.

This post has been edited by Nomake Wan on Aug 2 2012, 05:41 PM

They are the same discs as found in the original Second and Third Stage sets.

Here's the main menu of Disc 3, which is the only one that has anything Extra Stage on it.

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Extra Stage 1 is the first part of the Extra Stage OVA. Extra Stage 2 is the second part. The actual Extra Stage 2 that we know and (sort of) love is nowhere to be found.

The back of my Second Stage set has the same content text as is found on the S.A.V.E. Second & Third Stage box set.

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Here's the S.A.V.E. box.


Sorry, but the real ES2 was never dubbed.

What's the listed duration on your boxset? Does it match the S.A.V.E. version?

Second Stage box says 360 minutes.
Third Stage box says 100 minutes.

460 minutes total, which is what the S.A.V.E. box says.

Sorry, bro. Extra Stage 2 as we know it is not on there.