Color Correcting the Dragon Box - 3 Part Spectacular

[Robo4900]

No, early Pokémon was scanned onto film. There was a remaster of episode 1 airing a couple years ago on Pokémon Smash that was very much not an upscale.

Ah, okay. Any idea when they switched over to tape, then?
It seems unlikely to me that they'd have stayed on film all the way up until they went digital, particularly with how convenient and cheap tape was around that time.

[tellyzbad1]

To identify when they moved from film to digital is very easy...just watch it. When you stop seeing jittering and small film artefacts like dust/hair, then you know it's being digitally shot!

Also, color might play a part. Colours in dark areas being very dark is common in old film transfers for anime.

While on the topic of other old anime, though: what on earth is up with Trigun? Not a single decent release. They all have the oversharpened haloing. However, what's interesting is that episode 2 on every release doesn't have this problem. It's the only decent looking episode.

[Robo4900]

To identify when they moved from film to digital is very easy...just watch it. When you stop seeing jittering and small film artefacts like dust/hair, then you know it's being digitally shot!

That's a great suggestion. I'll just dig out this 25-year-old anime which is only available in English in the form of a '90s 4Kids dub I have zero interest in and start watching it to answer a question I asked out of pure curiosity.

Anyway, it's a misconception that film is jittery and has dust and hair. Film that's been remastered properly has no noticeable dust, hair, or jitter unless it's been remastered from a print, which is a pretty stupid thing to do.* The only artefact of film that can't/shouldn't be removed is grain.*

*Both things Funimation does on their modern releases. Alone, each of these things are merely a little silly. Only a total moron would do both.

Also, color might play a part. Colours in dark areas being very dark is common in old film transfers for anime.

That'll be the cheap film stock they used back in the day. Toei seem to generally have used actually pretty decent film stock for Dragon Ball's master films, although the prints are very black-crushed until somewhere in the Namek/Freeza arc; that's why Funimation's film for the Saiyan arc is so crushed.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

That's a great suggestion. I'll just dig out this 25-year-old anime which is only available in English in the form of a '90s 4Kids dub I have zero interest in and start watching it to answer a question I asked out of pure curiosity.

I mean... it's on Netflix I'm pretty sure, and it's not like you have to binge, just skim through until you find out. It's not actually that crazy of a suggestion.

[Robo4900]

I mean... it's on Netflix I'm pretty sure, and it's not like you have to binge, just skim through until you find out. It's not actually that crazy of a suggestion.

The whole point is we don't know where the cut-off point is, so we don't actually know how far in it is. Who knows, it might not even be in those initial 52 episodes Netflix has. But if it's so easy, why don't you do it?

Anyway, from what I remember the 4Kids masters are from rather poor tape copes anyway, which seem to have been rather poorly processed to remove basically all trace of it being from film(No grain, etc. ), which were pretty vague anyway given how blurry those masters are to begin with, so you'd have to watch the Japanese version to get a good idea. That's how I understand it, anyway.

[tellyzbad1]

Also, color might play a part. Colours in dark areas being very dark is common in old film transfers for anime.

That'll be the cheap film stock they used back in the day. Toei seem to generally have used actually pretty decent film stock for Dragon Ball's master films, although the prints are very black-crushed until somewhere in the Namek/Freeza arc; that's why Funimation's film for the Saiyan arc is so crushed.

How about replying to my trigun part, rather than just 2 snips of my post (joke)

And as for the film stock thing you mention. Well, I was mostly thinking about old animes in general, and not just Dragon Ball. A lot of old anime I've watched have extremely dark dark-areas compared to a future blu-ray release (if they get one). So I generalised that it was common back in the day for film-based anime to be turned much darker in their colors when being processed into digital video. But of course I'm going off the idea that the Japanese DVD releases for old animes did use the original film masters for those early DVD releases and not some nth generation master.

[MR.Mark]

Could anybody PM me tips on how to correct Dragon Box footage in programs like Adobe Premiere? I wouldn't mind tweaking the colors on my Buu arc cut.

[Puto]

I mean... it's on Netflix I'm pretty sure, and it's not like you have to binge, just skim through until you find out. It's not actually that crazy of a suggestion.

The whole point is we don't know where the cut-off point is

"Nanako and Elekid" ("Here's Lookin' at You, Elekid" in the dub) is the first digital episode. Not giving it a number because Pokémon episode numbering is a mess.

[Robo4900]

How about replying to my trigun part, rather than just 2 snips of my post (joke)

I know literally nothing about Trigun.

And as for the film stock thing you mention. Well, I was mostly thinking about old animes in general, and not just Dragon Ball. A lot of old anime I've watched have extremely dark dark-areas compared to a future blu-ray release (if they get one). So I generalised that it was common back in the day for film-based anime to be turned much darker in their colors when being processed into digital video. But of course I'm going off the idea that the Japanese DVD releases for old animes did use the original film masters for those early DVD releases and not some nth generation master.

Ah. Well, on one hand it is entirely possible they used prints as the basis for the DVDs you're talking about, but on the other I'd say it's more likely they just have improperly configured telecine machines; Pony Canyon made that mistake with the Dragon Box transfers, which is why some episodes are overly-dark, others are overly-light, and most in general don't have very good detail in the extremes.

"Nanako and Elekid" ("Here's Lookin' at You, Elekid" in the dub) is the first digital episode. Not giving it a number because Pokémon episode numbering is a mess.

And now we know.

[tellyzbad1]

So, how's everyone's progress been with color correcting the Dragon Boxes? Have we found any new techniques?

[Bruma rabu]

Could anybody PM me tips on how to correct Dragon Box footage in programs like Adobe Premiere? I wouldn't mind tweaking the colors on my Buu arc cut.

You'd have to mess with the rgb settings individually and to get accurate colors you would probably have to look at cels and base it off that. I hear it's extremely difficult though if you fix the overal green level you screw up Piccolos greens.

[Bruma rabu]

This might be nitpicky but has anybody notice in the blue bricks the colors look harsh, oversaturated half way into the show? Or is it just me?

[jjgp1112]

This might be nitpicky but has anybody notice in the blue bricks the colors look harsh, oversaturated half way into the show? Or is it just me?

Starting with the end of the 21st TB arc they switched to a completely different film stock. For the first 30 or so episodes it looked they used actual 16mm film masters, but for the remainder of the series they used the same digibetas that they used for the singles, just with some light DVNR.

[Danfun64]

So are you saying that while most of the Blue Bricks are based off the Digibetas that the Singles used, those "first 30 or so episodes" had an HD transfer done? If so, somebody ought to rip the HD transfer from FunimationNow or something.

[Bruma rabu]

Starting with the end of the 21st TB arc they switched to a completely different film stock. For the first 30 or so episodes it looked they used actual 16mm film masters, but for the remainder of the series they used the same digibetas that they used for the singles, just with some light DVNR.

I see that explains it. I went from "this looks great" to "ugh what happened".

[DBZimran]

Not sure if anyone has seen this. A YouTube channel has posted some original broadcast clips of DBZ but dubbed in Spanish. Here is a comparison clip for the colours of the episodes compared to their "Original" footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1RAp-47_1Y
Some of the airings of DBZ even retained the original Japanese movie promotions that aired alongside the episodes:

So it seems that the current airings of Dragon Ball Z/GT on Ecuavisa have original broadcast footage.

Edit: Cloverway Inc, which was a international branch of Toei that distributed and adapted the series for international regions. They are responsible for these original broadcast episodes. I wonder if anyone has these airings of Dragon Ball Z/GT. If you search through the channel they even have the original broadcast 15 second preview of GT episode 64 which had a Dr. Slump promo.

[tellyzbad1]

Not sure if anyone has seen this. A YouTube channel has posted some original broadcast clips of DBZ but dubbed in Spanish. Here is a comparison clip for the colours of the episodes compared to their "Original" footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1RAp-47_1Y
Some of the airings of DBZ even retained the original Japanese movie promotions that aired alongside the episodes:

So it seems that the current airings of Dragon Ball Z/GT on Ecuavisa have original broadcast footage.

Edit: Cloverway Inc, which was a international branch of Toei that distributed and adapted the series for international regions. They are responsible for these original broadcast episodes. I wonder if anyone has these airings of Dragon Ball Z/GT. If you search through the channel they even have the original broadcast 15 second preview of GT episode 64 which had a Dr. Slump promo.

Well if it's original broadcast colors you're looking for: the current re-runs in Japan bear a pretty close resemblance.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Robo4900]

The reason the current reruns in Japan for DB and Z look so close to the original broadcasts is because all current Japanese broadcasts use tape(Not sure which format) transfers of the 16mm film broadcast reels the various TV stations were sent to air the show during the original run. In theory, this makes them good potential candidates for CCing, but in practise the colours can be a little washed out, depending on the station.

This doesn't apply to GT, as GT was originally broadcast from D2 tapes, so all modern broadcasts have switched to the Dragon Box footage, with the original D2 audio synced up.

Starting with the end of the 21st TB arc they switched to a completely different film stock. For the first 30 or so episodes it looked they used actual 16mm film masters, but for the remainder of the series they used the same digibetas that they used for the singles, just with some light DVNR.

So are you saying that while most of the Blue Bricks are based off the Digibetas that the Singles used, those "first 30 or so episodes" had an HD transfer done? If so, somebody ought to rip the HD transfer from FunimationNow or something.

I'd put a heavy citation needed there. All available information currently points to Funimation only having film for DBZ and the 19 movies. (Plus both Z TV specials)

I don't own the blue bricks, but I'm pretty certain they only have the standard digibetas for all of Dragon Ball. Maybe Toei supplied them with DBox footage for the first 30 episodes, or Funi lost the original digibetas and had Toei send them a new, better batch for the first 30, or something... But all available info points to Funimation not having film for DB or GT. And given Funimation's general apathy to DB and GT, I highly doubt they'd expend the time, effort, and most importantly the money of acquiring and transferring film copies of the first 30 episodes of DB.

[jjgp1112]

I'm not saying they have Dragon Box masters or anything...they clearly didn't. But the footage for the first 30 episodes is quite different from the rest, and the DVNR applied yielded similar results to the Double Feature movies. Let's not forget that it took quite a while for Funimation to acquire the rights to the first batch of episodes.

[Danfun64]

It was only the first 13 episodes that Funi wasn't allowed to release uncut for a long while...and even then Australia got them in their season sets before the blue bricks ever came out...