Tuesday, February 28, 2012

ROBOTECH DVD DRAWING THIS WEDNESDAY


This Wednesday the 29th, we'll select two lucky fans to receive a complete DVD set of Robotech: The Macross Saga, autographed by Richard and his lovely wife and fellow voice actress Ellyn Stern. To enter all you have to do is "Like" us on our official Facebook page or "follow" our Twitter news page for a chance to win the autographed DVD collection of Robotech: The Macross Saga from A&E! Fans who follow us at both websites can double their chances!

MEANWHILE OVER IN CHINA



RTUCN member Herobot met with Gu Guoyi,  the voice actress of Claudia Grant and Zor Prime in Robotech and Carly Witwicky of Transformers. Ms. Gu is the wife of Mr.Zhan Che, the voice director of Robotech and Transformers for Robotech and Transformers for Shanghai TV Station dub of the shows in 1991. 

Monday, February 27, 2012

PHOTO OF THE DAY!




Richard Epcar (the voice of Ben Dixon, Lunk, and Vince Grant) plays the drums in a live performance with the L.A. River Band.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

BILL WHITTLE TALKS PRIVATE SPACE EXPLORATION


        

Not really Robotech related but its pretty cool what Bill Whittle talks about here.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

A WORD TO THE WISE


TATSUNOKO TO CELEBRATE ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY WITH A NEW PRJOECT


Anime News Network is reporting that Tatsunoko Studios will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary with a new project.

On its Japanese exhibitor page for Tokyo International Anime Fair 2012, anime studio Tatsunoko Production announced that part of its exhibit will be devoted to Ippatsu Hyaku-Chū! Debandaa, its latest project which will celebrate the studio's 50-year anniversary.

Friday, February 24, 2012

INTERESTING QUOTE FROM THE ANSWERMAN

With all the discussion about people "cutting the cord" on the blog recently I found this quote from ANN's Answerman quite true.

The hardest of the hardcore of anime watchers in the English world have been watching anime on their computers for an entire decade now. It took streaming services a good long while to catch up to fansubs, so call me crazy for assuming that most anime fans would NOT be terribly inclined to switch from instant, streaming video to go back to watching anime on their TVs. Even for me, it's weird to think that I'm going to have to dig out the rabbit ears and plug them into the TV to watch the Oscars this Sunday, when I'm so used to watching TV shows on Hulu or watching live events on Ustream. I've sort of forgotten what it's even like.

The streaming issue is going to become one of the most talked about issues in 2012 and beyond.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

AS CABLE SUSCRIBERS CUT THE CORD RABBIT EARS MAKE A COMEBACK

                             The 21st Century Rabbit Ear is getting more popular in the digital age.

via Big Hollywood's Daily Call Sheet comes yet another example, this time from the Wall Street Journal, of how cable subscribers are cutting the cord.

There are signs that consumers are responding. TV-antenna seller Richard Schneider of St. Louis says sales at his company are soaring. Mr. Schneider's Antennas Direct sold 70,000 antennas in January, and he expects to double last year's sales of about 600,000. That was up from 400,000 antennas in 2010.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recently agreed to sell Mr. Schneider's antennas, the retailer confirmed Friday, joining Best Buy Co., Costco Wholesale Corp. and others.
Mr. Schneider's antennas cost from $50 to $150, and he says the typical customer saves $96 a month by "cutting the cord" on cable or satellite TV, according a survey his company conducted.
The average monthly bills for basic cable service and broadband service add up $91.44, before add-ons like high definition and premium channels, according to SNL Kagan. By sacrificing basic-cable channels, and signing up for Netflix Inc., a household could pay less than $48 per month.
"Every time that Hulu and Netflix enhance their services, our phones light up," said Mr., Schneider, referring to two online-video services.
And it from The Wrap it appears more and more people are cutting the cord. 
[Dish Network] lost 166,000 net subscribers in 2011, but the gain in the fourth quarter brought its total subscribers to about 13.97 million.
"By introducing new Blockbuster-branded services, we've begun to turn the tide in subscriber losses while continuing to face increased competitive pressures," said president and CEO Joe Clayton.
As gas prices rise above $4 USD per gallon it appears that many more subscribers will be "cutting the cord" and going to a more streaming base service. 



SEE ELLYN STERN STAR IN "EXIT THE KING" IN WEST HOLLYWOOD THIS WEEKEND


Ellyn Stern, supporting voice actress from Robotech and the wife of Richard Epcar (voice of Ben Dixon, Lunk, Vince Grant), is starring in Geoffrey Rush's adaptation of Exit the King, opening on February 25 in West Hollywood.
Classical Theatre Lab and the City of West Hollywood will present the West Coast premiere of Neil Armfield's and Geoffrey Rush's translation of Exit the King the tragicomedy written by Eugene Ionesco. Michael Matthys will direct the production at Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park, February 25 - April 1

 

ANIMATION ON DISPLAY 2012 ROBOTECH PANEL PART 3

LYNN MINMEI COSPLAY AT AODSF 2012

Found this Lynn Minmei cosplay via twitter feed. Enjoy!






Wednesday, February 22, 2012

WIN A ROBOTECH A&E MACROSS SAGA DVD BOXSET



As part of the Robotech Social Media Giveaway if you "Like" us here on our official Facebook page or "follow" our Twitter news page for a chance to win the complete DVD collection of Robotech: The Macross Saga from A&E! Fans who follow us at both websites can double their chances!





ANIMATION ON DISPLAY 2012 ROBOTECH PANEL PART 2




  

Part 2 of the Robotech panel at AOD 2012 in San Francisco

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

ANIME NEWS NETWORK COVERAGE OF KATSUCON 2012

           Robotech vocie actors Richard Epcar and Ellyn Stern at the Katsucon Opening Ceremonies

Anime News Network has full coverage of Katsucon 18 with photos.

ANIMATION ON DISPLAY 2012 ROBOTECH PANEL PART 1




    

Part 1 opens with some Q&A hosted by Tommy Yune and the actual presentation begins at 13:01 as they had to move rooms.

Monday, February 20, 2012

PACK OF PIKACHUS ROAMING THORUGH TOKYO


 This sign of the Apocalypse comes from ANN.

A pack dressed in stretchy Pikachu attire was spotted at a number of Tokyo neighborhoods this past weekend. The Pikachus — at least six of them with one cosplayer as Pokémon's Satoshi/Ash in tow — were reported not only in Shibuya and Harajuku in eastern central Tokyo, but also in Hamamatsuchō further west. (The group was sighted grazing at a McDonald's restaurant in Harajuku, wandering through a Starbucks Coffee shop in Shibuya, and riding the busy Yamanote train line.)

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

EXAMPLE OF CABLE SUSCRIBERS CUTTING THE CORD


On Friday I posted an article on  how its expected that people will begin cutting their cable service. Today, via BigHollywood, I found a article from The Wrap talking about this very thing.
Comcast shares were up more than 5 percent in early trading Wednesday after the company beat Wall Street earnings forecasts, reported that it had significantly cut cable customer losses, and announced a dividend increase and $6.5 billion share repurchase plan.
The country's largest cable company lost 17,000 video customers in the fourth quarter, down from 135,000 subscribers in the same quarter in 2010. It also decreased cable losses for the year by nearly 40 percent over 2010.
Then there is this from the mighty John Nolte.

DHD dismisses this, but I don’t think they understand how tired many of us are of paying outrageous cable bills for television we don’t watch:
Aereo[,] [t]he company, backed in part by Barry Diller, just announced that it will go live in New York City on March 14. Residents willing to pay $12 a month will be able to stream signals from local over-the-air TV channels, and watch their shows on demand with the functionality of a 40-hour, dual antenna DVR. The service will only work as long as users are in the local market — not, say, if they’re on a vacation or business trip. Aereo execs expect lots of people to subscribe, perhaps in conjunction with Netflix, as a substitute for the $65 a month cable or satellite TV package. That could be revolutionary, Greenfield writes today in a blog post: “If Aereo is in fact legal, we find it hard to fathom that the traditional (pay TV) bundle will survive and that retrans payments will continue to scale as broadcasters are expecting them to over the next several years.” If he’s right, then it’s the end of the media world as we know it. The giants make most of their profits from the fees they collect for their bundled channels.
That last sentence is crucial: The giants make most of their profits from the fees they collect for their bundled channels.
And that’s the scam. This appalling reality where neither your local cable company or the two primary satellite providers allow you to purchase only what you want to watch is an unspoken monopoly. Most of us are paying obnoxiously high bills for only a few channels.
As gas prices rise people are not going to pay $60 USD per month to watch 3 channels. If the price of goods continues to rise from high gas prices we could easily see a return of cable subscriber  losses of over 100K per quarter again very soon. It's something to watch very closely.


Friday, February 10, 2012

CABLE SUBSCRIBERS CUTTING CORDS UP 23%

From Studiobriefing.net

Following numerous reports that “cord cutting” did not represent a serious threat to cable television operators, Nielsen said on Wednesday that the number of households that have dropped their satellite TV subscriptions and relied exclusively on broadband Internet access to watch TV had grown 22.8 percent over the last year. While such households now represent fewer than 5 percent of all TV households, the growing number was described by Nielsen as “a development to watch.”
While there has been much discussion of DVD sales in decline the loss of cable and satellite subscribers to online streaming during the recession has not been talked about. It will be interesting to watch the effect this trend of "cord cutting" this has on cable networks. 

UPDATE:  I've clarified the post.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

WIN A FREE ROBOTECH "WE WILL WIN" EP!


Fans who like us on the Robotech Facebook Page and/or follow us on the Robotech Twitter News Feed will be entered to win a "We Will Win" EP! Fans who follow us at both websites can double their chances!

From Robotech.com 

Girge Pablo of Argentina and Holly Letson of Alabama, who followed us on Facebook and Twitter respectively, have each won a new 2012 Robotech Wall Calendar, autographed by members of the cast and crew!

Our next drawing, to be held on Friday, February 10th, will select two other lucky fans to receive the new Robotech: We Will Win music EP!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

SEE RICHARD EPCAR AND THE L.A. RIVER BAND PERFORM LIVE ON FEB. 8TH IN LOS ANGELES


Richard Epcar, the voice of Vince Grant, Lunk & Brn Dixon in Robotech and the LA River Band will be playing at Molly Malone's in Los Angeles on Wednesday Night February 8th at 8:00 PM!

Here is the street address.

Molly Malone's
575 South Fairfax Avenue  Los Angeles, CA 90036-3128

(323) 935-1577
  
UPDATE: I clarified the title of this blog post.