Dragon Box Sound Quality: My Conclusion

[funrush]

If Funimation put some work into EQing, some light noise reduction, and some professional work on the fansub audio for the missing sections, the result could end up rather incredible(Particularly if they encode it lossless). Whether they'll put as much work in as I'm suggesting is another matter, but at the very least, they should be able to make it sound a little nicer than the leak. Plus, as I say, Sabat does have some material in better quality than what leaked.

Funi's already shown with the Levels vs. the season Blurays that they care more about marketability and profit than attention to detail. I find little reason to believe they'll spend the money to clean up the tracks in-depth unless it's a more expensive collector-focused release.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Funi's already shown with the Levels vs. the season Blurays that they care more about marketability and profit than attention to detail.

Sorry. What does this mean? Attention to detail in regards to this audio creates marketability by necessity, so what you said there doesn't really work.

Are you suggesting that they wouldn't do the audio justice? They did a pretty good job with the last Blu-rays, so that doesn't really make sense either.

[funrush]

Funi's already shown with the Levels vs. the season Blurays that they care more about marketability and profit than attention to detail.

Sorry. What does this mean? Attention to detail in regards to this audio creates marketability by necessity, so what you said there doesn't really work.

Are you suggesting that they wouldn't do the audio justice? They did a pretty good job with the last Blu-rays, so that doesn't really make sense either.

That's my bad, my use of the word marketability there is in regard to their history with the show's video quality, going with strong noise reduction and 16:9 for the recent Blu-rays because noiseless and 16:9 is how cartoons are made in 2017, and doing it that way is a lot cheaper and safer than something more attentive like the Level sets.

What I mean to convey is that I don't expect them to remaster 291 episodes worth of audio unless doing so will definitely increase sales.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

What I mean to convey is that I don't expect them to remaster 291 episodes worth of audio unless doing so will definitely increase sales.

That's possible. I won't speak for Funimation, but I have to say that if I were in charge of a similar company, and didn't have any personal investment in the product, I wouldn't bother with this. Look at how small the ripples from what should be a groundbreaking event are. Most people just don't care or don't know enough to care. I'd add some more caveats, but I basically agree with the sentiment here, and I don't think there's ever going to be enough incentive to use this unless they just happen to feel like compiling another release.

That said, if Funimation did put it in a release of theirs, they've never done anything to lead me to believe they'd handle it badly.

[AnimeMaakuo]

What I mean to convey is that I don't expect them to remaster 291 episodes worth of audio unless doing so will definitely increase sales.

That's possible. I won't speak for Funimation, but I have to say that if I were in charge of a similar company, and didn't have any personal investment in the product, I wouldn't bother with this. Look at how small the ripples from what should be a groundbreaking event are. Most people just don't care or don't know enough to care. I'd add some more caveats, but I basically agree with the sentiment here, and I don't think there's ever going to be enough incentive to use this unless they just happen to feel like compiling another release.

That said, if Funimation did put it in a release of theirs, they've never done anything to lead me to believe they'd handle it badly.

Can you even imagine trying to remaster 291 episodes of broadcast audio? I can. Each episodes would take roughly 3-6 hours +/- to finish (if done properly). You'll need some of the best equipment around, as well as someone who's extremely knowledgeable to make it worth while. Companies who specialize in this kind of work will charge you $295,000 or more, and wouldn't do that good of a job. This task is tedious and very boring, so I recommend you find someone who has a lot of experience in this field or else you'll be forced to accept the inevitable.

Don't think for a single second that FUNi will spend this kind of time and money making it perfect, because they won't. From a business perspective, the amount of work required for such a thing wouldn't equate in sales - If you don’t have product market fit, you don’t have a business. Even if this were somehow possible, FUNi would need to get approval from Toei (which is highly unlikely).

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Yeah. Ideally releasing the BA would have been perfect with the Season BDs. Re--re-re-re-re-re releasing an almost 300 episode show with an even more focus on the Japanese side of things than the DBoxes isn't worth it, realistically they'd have to charge like what $40-50 per 20 eps? That's upwards of $600 to own all eps and then there is the issue of video quality too what do they use?

Doesn't seem worth it unfortunately, unless FUNi initiate some sort of MOD service for these. Or just have BA available on FUNiNow.

[coola]

Yeah. Ideally releasing the BA would have been perfect with the Season BDs. Re--re-re-re-re-re releasing an almost 300 episode show with an even more focus on the Japanese side of things than the DBoxes isn't worth it, realistically they'd have to charge like what $40-50 per 20 eps? That's upwards of $600 to own all eps and then there is the issue of video quality too what do they use?

Doesn't seem worth it unfortunately, unless FUNi initiate some sort of MOD service for these. Or just have BA available on FUNiNow.

Problem is, such services are US only, so that would be little unfair for worldwide fans

[tellyzbad1]

How exactly would FUNimation even go about "remastering" this broadcast audio? The audio's current equalization is not an issue. The issues lie elsewhere.

Also, someone mentioned FUNimation doing a good job cleaning up/EQing the optical audio, for the blurays... Nope.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Also, someone mentioned FUNimation doing a good job cleaning up/EQing the optical audio, for the blurays... Nope.

They did a better job than the previous best official version, the Dragon Boxes. Obviously not particularly noteworthy when compared to something taken from decent sources, but in proper context, it was impressive.

[tellyzbad1]

Also, someone mentioned FUNimation doing a good job cleaning up/EQing the optical audio, for the blurays... Nope.

They did a better job than the previous best official version, the Dragon Boxes. Obviously not particularly noteworthy when compared to something taken from decent sources, but in proper context, it was impressive.

It wasn't impressive, lol. But it's clear our standards differ.

But relating it to the matter at hand, it in no way indicates what FUNi could possibly do to the broadcast audio. Trebble boost, volume gain, noise reduction won't turn this broadcast audio fit for official release.

[AnimeMaakuo]

How exactly would FUNimation even go about "remastering" this broadcast audio? The audio's current equalization is not an issue. The issues lie elsewhere.

Also, someone mentioned FUNimation doing a good job cleaning up/EQing the optical audio, for the blurays... Nope.

As I've previously mentioned, there's simply no market for it. I'm not sure people realize just how difficult remastering 30 minutes of audio can be, let alone 291 episodes. It's not some simple EQ "here and there", remove strange noises "with one click" etc. This is a job for someone who's extremely knowledgeable and has tons of experience. I can relate to this because the fuji tier audio in my possession is currently being remastered, which is taking roughly 4+ hours per episode, and that's a lot of work!

But to think that FUNi will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars remastering the tokai audio and the footage is not being realistic. They're not going to make things perfect because FUNi a business, and most business' look for shortcuts (which is no surprise to me seeing how they've treated their releases thus far, e.g., the Orange Bricks).

[tellyzbad1]

How exactly would FUNimation even go about "remastering" this broadcast audio? The audio's current equalization is not an issue. The issues lie elsewhere.

Also, someone mentioned FUNimation doing a good job cleaning up/EQing the optical audio, for the blurays... Nope.

As I've previously mentioned, there's simply no market for it. I'm not sure people realize just how difficult remastering 30 minutes of audio can be, let alone 291 episodes. It's not some simple EQ "here and there", remove strange noises "with one click" etc. This is a job for someone who's extremely knowledgeable and has tons of experience. I can relate to this because the fuji tier audio in my possession is currently being remastered, which is taking roughly 4+ hours per episode, and that's a lot of work!

But to think that FUNi will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars remastering the tokai audio and the footage is not being realistic. They're not going to make things perfect because FUNi a business, and most business' look for shortcuts (which is no surprise to me seeing how they've treated their releases thus far, e.g., the Orange Bricks).

"Fuji-tier audio"? I don't know what you mean by that.

But, the "Fuji audio" itself does not have the problems that the Tokai audio does. There's none of that static/buzz you hear in Tokai audio. It only has standard, constant noise that can be removed with isolated sample-based denoising. So touching up that audio, and fixing this audio are on two different scopes.

And, yes, no doubt trying to fix the current released broadcast audio is not a practical task. But, for those suggesting FUNimation *could* do it if they had the resources and incentive, I am asking exactly what editing processes could they possibly do to fix the major issues in the audio?

[dbzj14]

I'm very happy about this release. As others stated, this was never going to be released by funi or toei, and the fact that kei & others refused to do anything with their copies, I couldn't be happier.

I think kei and a few others egos have deflated a little bit, even if they do posses better quality than what this release has. Their golden eggs aren't so special anymore

[Robo4900]

Can you even imagine trying to remaster 291 episodes of broadcast audio?

They already put in the effort of "Remastering" the Japanese audio on the season BDs. Still sounds crap, but significantly less crap than it did on the DBoxes, or any release prior to the seasons. Probably took a lot of work, too. I don't see why they wouldn't put in the same effort for the OBA. Particularly given how much time and effort they put into the remastered dub in 2007.

[tellyzbad1]

Can you even imagine trying to remaster 291 episodes of broadcast audio?

They already put in the effort of "Remastering" the Japanese audio on the season BDs. Still sounds crap, but significantly less crap than it did on the DBoxes, or any release prior to the seasons. Probably took a lot of work, too. I don't see why they wouldn't put in the same effort for the OBA. Particularly given how much time and effort they put into the remastered dub in 2007.

Well, the optical audio is mostly consistent in quality from beginning to end (I assume) and all they needed to do was create an EQ preset and a noise reduction preset and apply it to every episode. This wouldn't be the same for the BA.

The main thing to fix in this set of BA are those inconsistent buzz-tones. But they are inconsistent and so cannot be removed based on a sample of the noise. And, what's more is that these buzz-tones are so integrated into individual frequencies at any given time of occurrence, that it's impossible to isolate them and remove them. Even the most skilled of audio engineers would have trouble trying to graphically identify and erase these buzz-tones on a spectrogram.

[Robo4900]

Well, the optical audio is mostly consistent in quality from beginning to end (I assume) and all they needed to do was create an EQ preset and a noise reduction preset and apply it to every episode. This wouldn't be the same for the BA.

We don't know that for sure.

The main thing to fix in this set of BA are those inconsistent buzz-tones. But they are inconsistent and so cannot be removed based on a sample of the noise. But, what's more is that these buzz-tones are so integrated into individual frequencies at any given time of occurrence, that it's impossible to isolate them and remove them. Even the most skilled of audio engineers would have trouble trying to graphically identify and erase these buzz-tones on a spectrogram.

Can't be any more complex than painting out the tape marks for the season releases. Sure, half the time they don't have to due to the fact it's often just a centre crop, but when it's there, it's a lot of work.

Anyway, why is everyone getting so negative about all this? We don't know what Funimation are going to do. One minute, they're all about presenting the show in 4:3 with grain, the next they're saying it's cropped and filtered to remove all character of the original film. And while this is going on, they have Kai. And then you have the Ultimate Uncut DVDs, where they were saying they're going back and righting the wrongs of the old dub... By using the same scripts, but with a worse soundtrack, and worse actors.

Point is, Funimation are pretty schizophrenic. One thing we can be sure of is that they want money. And re-releasing DBZ every time they have an excuse to makes them money. So you can bet your bottom dollar that the moment it makes sense to re-release DBZ they'll do it, and they'll throw in the broadcast audio because sub fans will want it, and it'll make them more money, and provide an incentive for such people to buy a non-DBox release.

But as I say, this will happen when Funimation have a reason to release DBZ. Right now, they're at market saturation, so a DBZ release isn't likely for a while.
But when it happens, mark my words, they'll use the broadcast audio.

[tellyzbad1]

We don't know that for sure.

Sure, but it's more rational than believing FUNimation went through each episode, individually cleaning up every episode.

The main thing to fix in this set of BA are those inconsistent buzz-tones. But they are inconsistent and so cannot be removed based on a sample of the noise. But, what's more is that these buzz-tones are so integrated into individual frequencies at any given time of occurrence, that it's impossible to isolate them and remove them. Even the most skilled of audio engineers would have trouble trying to graphically identify and erase these buzz-tones on a spectrogram.

Can't be any more complex than painting out the tape marks for the season releases. Sure, half the time they don't have to due to the fact it's often just a centre crop, but when it's there, it's a lot of work.

Lol, you are severely underestimating it. Also, just so you know, removing tape marks is actually not always a matter of painting out the tape marks. Most, if not all, of the time, the frame that comes after the tape-marked frame is a direct duplicate of the frame that had tape marks on it. So, they just delete the entire frame that had the tape mark and replace it with the frame that comes next.

[Robo4900]

[snip]

Nice job completely ignoring the entire point of my post.

[tellyzbad1]

[snip]

Nice job completely ignoring the entire point of my post.

Excuse me? I am replying to the parts that are direct responses to what I said. When you begin to address "everyone", I don't see it as directly aimed at me, and so I feel no need to respond to it if I'm not interested

[Robo4900]

Except I used my brief responses to your points as a jumping off point to make a larger point, with one big part of that being that neither of your points actually matter because of the larger point I was making.

So how about, rather than debating the fine points of which parts of my post were directly addressing you, we actually discuss the main point I brought up?