[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

There are two sides to this argument and both have some valid points.

I'm also becoming increasingly more exasperated by the A/V brigade who almost seem to relish ripping into a release (even before it's on the shelf and they've seen it with their own eyes in motion on their own set-ups). Everyone seems to be an armchair critic nowadays - the advent of Blu-ray obviously adding to this - and a lot of complaints I've seen (not here but in general) are based on assumption rather than an understanding of all the processes involved, budgets, limitations both technically and financially etc.

88 after all are a small outfit on a limited budget. They quite probably can't afford to develop new scans and masters from the OCN like Arrow and certain other companies do, and their name will not carry as much weight when bargaining with companies and directors for releases. Therefore they work with what they can get. However, at the same time - as others have already mentioned - they have a passion and a sense of riskiness in terms of the titles they want to release, choosing a lot of world HD firsts and genre fare that the fans have been clamouring for and that bigger, more cash-rich companies such as Arrow may not want to take a chance on as their financial dept has warned them that the numbers might not stack-up. Whilst this is a risky strategy from such a new, young outfit I think they've generally got off to a decent start and can only learn through experience. Whilst Anthro would undoubtedly look better if Arrow would have picked it up, the bottom line is they haven't and they didn't want to - if they did I'm sure they would have been able to outbid 88 - and the same goes for a lot of 88's upcoming slate too. Potentially, we therefore currently have the option of a decent upgrade of Anthro over previous DVD release vs. No release at all - how much of an upgrade that will be remains to be seen and of course fans will need to decide themselves whether it justifies a purchase.

Also, the value of £19.99 that is being thrown around in respect to the release is only true for 88's own site and is for the exclusive slipcover and art cards pre-order version. Amazon etc. will be stocking this title too and it will no doubt be in the £12-£14 price range on release day and may even fall to £8.99, which so many of 88's releases tend to do. I for one think £8.99 for a packed HD mastered (albeit not as good as it could have been) release of Anthro is a steal. Especially as my DVD copy cost more than that several years ago. However, price again is something that needs to be justified by the individual - £20 is a lot to some and a minimal expense to others.

However, I think we've become spoiled as fans. All these niche companies who put so much effort into creating premium releases have meant we've started taking this kind of work for granted. I remember when Arrow released their Dawn of the Dead Blu back in 2008. There was literally nothing like it in terms of fan-geared packed media on the market at the time and it was a true revelation. Now everyone is trying to get a slice of an increasingly shrinking pie and by which we've started to see more aggressive and game-upping antics coming into play - which is good news for us fans in many respects. However, this also breeds the apathy from fans that every release should be perfect and match 'distributor x's standards of quality' when in reality this isn't the case (especially with these tiny indie labels).

On the flip-side we can't just dismiss people's opinions and points in regards to a release and seemingly 'cover-up' any flaws people may infer. This is an open forum after all and praise can also be balanced with criticism - the main driver being that any criticism is always constructive and not just insult based. There are those who are a little label loyal and maybe get a bit defensive when transfers or releases are called in question and are branded 'fan boys' because of it - this can be seen across all internet boards, and equally there are people who will nit-pick and/or have 'grudges' against certain labels... the latter being the minority few, but an unfortunate by-product of open internet forums nonetheless. Neither group's opinions makes for the most reasonable or intelligent reading and both are often as stubborn as each other. Me? I have no loyalties and I just absorb all the information that is provided and judge for myself - the proof being 'in the pudding' so to speak, and let my wallet do the talking respectively.