Anime 101: Good/Bad Anime Studio Names

[msdanger]

Hi I'm new to all this anime stuff. I'd really like to buy some anime sets, but I'm having a hard time choosing which studio to go with since some titles have versions produced by different studios. Does anybody have any recommendations as to which studio provides good quality anime productions and which studios I should stay away from? English subtitle quality is very important. I also noticed a lot of people throwing the terms "R1" and "region" around, can somebody explain this to me in english?

Thanks!!

[Japschin]

R1: regional coding for USA/Canada or USA and Canada Releases
R0: No region coding.

Different parts of the world are classified by different regions.
http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews/index.php

If you have a R2, R3, R4 etc dvd player, most likely you won't be able to watch R1 DVDs on those machines, unless your machine is region free ------->meaning able to play dvds from all over the world.

No HK anime companies provide you with 100% perfect collection. Read the reviews next to the movies listed, or the review section. The more stars, the better.

Most ppl prefer FX since the shows are ripped from R1 sources, meaning same audio/picture/subtitles as the R1s.

However, nothing is perfect. The picture quality suffers due to compression etc. So don't expect everything to be 100% identical to the R1s.

Hope you understand this genre of English.

[israfel]

some good sets to buy would be Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing, Rahxephon, Berserk, Trigun, Mahoromatic, FLCL, etc, etc.

Region 1 are the discs you would buy from your local store, this site sells HK's(hong kong), which are in esense bootlegs. So that means that sometimes the quality of the dvd's can be bad, but the price you pay is much less than what you pay for the R1's. For example the trigun boxset goes for 200 dollars at best buy, here you can buy it for 21 dollars. This site gives reviews on the different titles, so you can figure out which are going to be bad and which ones aren't. HK's have no region encodings.
FX and MAC are both good, but you have read the review and see which one you want. i really don't know much myself, but this is what i do know. To learn more about the different regions read the thread "ADVision asked to have titles that they have licenses for to be taken off the site."

[msdanger]

Wow, that really helps! Thanks a lot!