Eic-book.com down?

[Death Metal]

What happened to Eic-book.com? Starting last Saturday, I can't access it anymore; it just doesn't open as if the server was down or blocked. Wanted to make sure I'm not the only one. Can anyone else confirm?

Thanks.

 

[RoyStuart]

I have the same problem. Maybe they're making a geo-blocking like DMM has made..

 

[alishac227]

You are not alone. Bummer!

 

[Death Metal]

Man, that is terrible! I used to follow up with all releases and models there... What a huge loss.

I have the same problem. Maybe they're making a geo-blocking like DMM has made..

I have tried a few web proxies and, even through them, Eic-book does not open... I guess that, ultimately, we needed a person residing in Japan to test it from there in order to confirm, but that's pretty much a possibility (that they have blocked non-Japanese IPs). Sad.

 

[jwiz]

An Amazon AWS Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region instance running a private personal proxy server just to access a single website is a terrible alternative to the open web.

 

[Death Metal]

Well, I tried with a public japanese proxy and it worked, so they're operating but within Japan only. As jwiz said, having to use a proxy only to visit a single site is terrible... They have worked worldwide for so many years, I wonder what made them change it.

 

[RoyStuart]

A shame to lose such a great reference page. Guess they got too many inquiry in English and was tired of that.

 

[jwiz]

It's back.

 

[gokkunfan]

Thanks jwiz. EIC is a great reference website for DVD/Bluray titles, codes, cover images, and upcoming video information.

 

[Glassjaw]

It's also good for downloading hard to find titles for a reasonable price!

 

[Death Metal]

Thanks for the news, jwiz! Indeed we can now access it again without having to resort to obscure japanese proxies, heh.

In the meantime, I found that entaland.jp also sells downloadable goodies! I had never realized that before. I made a couple purchases there and it's a pretty good service, actually. The best of it is that they don't use DRM, download versions of videos are released on the same day that of physical releases and the lastest titles are available in true full HD (as opposed to several Mare titles in Eic-book being advertised as full HD whereas they're actually resized DVD-rips). The bad news is that their catalog is tiny compared to Eic-book, video quality is not always the best of the best and their prices are horribly expensive.

 

[jwiz]

What sort of issues are involved with buying from jp companies? Any tips from you guys that have done it?

 

[Death Metal]

I'm not sure about Glassjaw's experience, but keeping in mind that I don't buy physical discs, only downloadable videos, one barrier I met at first was language, but nothing that couldn't be resolved using Google translation either. Speaking of the downloadable products themselves, the major issue here is that Eic-book videos are all WMV, DRM-protected. That sucks A LOT to me; thankfully I have a lossless method for removing it, but it's a pain and I have to do it with every file I buy. Entaland provides higher definition videos, MP4 format for the latest ones and no DRM, but they are expensive and, if you're a purist, you may be annoyed with encoding quality, considering the amount you're paying - that's a bit relative though, and general quality is OK. Apart from these, I don't see any more drawbacks, so it mostly comes down to you being able to spend a couple bucks on your hobby and accepting to compromise a few things in the process.

 

[jwiz]

Death Metal, I'm planning on trying out entaland.jp (it only took me 8 months to remember I have no problem spending a few hundred dollars on my favorite hobby every now and then, ha!) and Google Translate does make it seem straight forward. Hopefully inside the member's area will be just as easy and my credit card is usable.

But what you wrote about eic-book makes me cringe. Think you can provide a FAQ about the site and especially what you use for the DRM? Certain Isa Aoki vids can only be found on eic-book (entaland selection for comparison) and those JUST NEED to be put into circulation.

I'm also thinking a download e-shop faq thread to make sure as many people know about this option should be created. International mailing seems to be the biggest obstacle to filling needs (other than cheap-bastardism heh) and the download option would be the path of least resistance if it were not for the language barrier. A download e-shop thread would also be a good way to coordinate purchases if torrenting is planned.

Hopefully I'll have Noa Satoh's (佐藤のあ) / Noa Naraoka's (楢岡のあ) Full HD [JSSJ-107] as well as a bunch of other JSSJ titles. [teaser 1] [teaser 2] Hopefully they will be just as HQ as the Tsukasa Kanzaki you shared.



EDIT: Crap, the japanese character captcha is a hassle. I have Hiragana and Katakana input support but I'm wondering if other sign-up factors need to be japanese based (email, username etc.)

 

[Death Metal]

Hey jwiz. I know it took me a while, but I think we might have started something related in this thread:

https://www.akiba-online.com/threads/digital-downloads-of-idol-dvd-blu-rays.1560286

I'm not sure if you've endeavored in downloading anything since your last post here but perhaps you might have something to add