In the first round of the Crunchyroll vs. BOST TV battles, it seems to me that Crunchyroll had a clear advantage over BOST TV. While BOST had a better quality stream of the video, you had to pay to see it while, at the same time, you could “donate” as little as $0.01 to download a PC resolution video from Crunchyroll while such a download wasn’t even available from BOST.
However, that has changed now with Strike Witches, with Crunchyroll now giving options to download the episode for $3 or for $5 (you get an added animated badge plus ipod and psp versions if you pay the extra $2).
Meanwhile, they may get more competition from BOST TV this time around, as BOST TV not only offers a better stream of the episode, unless Crunchyroll has improved theirs (though their stream is still free as far as I’m aware), but BOST is offering a PC-sized download for 150 bost points or, conviently, also just about $3 ($2.99 to be exact, I think, though you don’t get any badges or anything with it).
The primary reason I stopped using BOST for Tower of Druaga was the lack of a quality download, and I didn’t feel like putting down $2 to watch it streamed at BOST and then put down another $1 or $2 at Crunchyroll so I could download it. This time, with the better download and an equal price with Crunchyroll, I can feel better sticking to BOST, who I think is much more worthy of my money than Crunchyroll is.
BOST release is a .mp4 file in H.264 at 872×480 resolution while I assume Crunchyroll’s is once again offering a .avi file in Xvid at 854×480 or similar resolution.
