How are editors getting HD footage?

[rubyeye]

Beginning my research into working with HD, specifically for AMVs, I'd like to know how most folks here are getting their HD footage - especially with a lot of unlicensed shows. Series are slowly coming out on Blu-Ray, but it's still a small selection of titles (in the US market anyway).

Besides ripping from BD, are people mostly just downloading the HD raws/fansubs? Or are they simply upscaling their videos to 1280x720 at final output?

[BasharOfTheAges]

BluRays exist in Japan too. And Region A includes both the US and Japan.
Personally, I buy either licensed BRDs or Japanese BRDs through someone who I see once a year from Nihongoland. If I wanted to, he's willing to rent + rip BRDs for me. The BRD market over there has gone in to gouging mode again ($250+ per 13 episode season for anything that isn't mass-market shonen stuff or a big movie), so buying used or renting is the only way to afford it.

Yea, most people are using soft subbed fansubs, just like with most AMVs in general. The days when digital fansubs were obviously lower quality than DVDs is gone by. For a few years some anime was actually broadcast in a higher resolution than what it's sold at once it made it to store shelves.

Then again, Hatt or Mirko will be in here in a minute to point out that since most anime isn't drawn at HD resolutions, it doesn't matter how you buy it, because it's an upscale on the studio/distributor's part anyways.

[Mister Hatt]

This just in, if shit is unlicensed for distribution it is still copyrighted under the Berne convention, downloading fansubs is and always will be illegal. Stuff can also be licensed for screening or localisation without having a license for distribution, so it can be shown at a cinema but not sold on DVD locally.

[rubyeye]

Thanks for the info.