Superior Audio Quality

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Superior Audio Quality

Post by Ajay » Tue Jun 11, 2013 1:38 pm

The Japanese audio on pretty much all of my releases are terrible - including the blu-ray releases. Understandably they are mastered from mono as I believe that was the original format they were recorded in but mono shouldn't equate to bad quality, it's just one channel of audio.

From what I understand the Japanese Dragon Boxes contain far superior audio to that of the English releases? If that's the case, would someone be able to upload a comparison?

If I'm incorrect about the quality of the JPN Dragon Boxes then would you be able to point me in the direction of a release that has the best Japanese audio quality.

If I can find all the movies with the best Japanese audio quality then I can start replacing my Blu-Ray's shitty audio with higher quality stuff to match the picture.

Thanks.

EDIT: I'm referring to the movies here, I understand that the original audio for the TV show was never kept.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 11, 2013 1:48 pm

There are two sides to the answer.

The first is about the TV series. I can't really speak to it since I haven't actually done any solid comparisons and analysis myself (nor do I have the audio knowledge to even make accurate statements about it), but according to kei17, better-generational-copies of the audio were provided for TV broadcast than what Toei ultimately kept themselves (film, magnetic, tape, blah blah blah stuff here). The theory presented is that if you have recordings of the original broadcast (which kei17 does have on Beta), then the audio you have is even higher-quality than what is present on the Dragon Box releases. A clue to this legitimately being the case is what appears to be higher-quality audio being muxed into the rebroadcast of Dragon Ball GT -- using Dragon Box video masters -- on Tokyo MX.

Then there's "Dragon Box - The Movies" where there legitimately is a waaaaaaay higher quality master of audio being used than was ever present on any North American release, because they actually did have good masters to go back to. For a comparison of the worst case scenario (in terms of an American release), my own review of "Curse of the Blood Rubies" has an MP3 comparison. Listen and be blown away.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by DragonBalllKaiHD » Tue Jun 11, 2013 1:50 pm

No. Even Japanese Dragon Boxes had same bad quality as all other releases. The reason for this is that Toei threw away higher audio quality after they were broadcasted in Dragon Ball TV series' first run on Fuji TV and replaced with lower audio quality. Why they threw away is beyond us. We assume it's because they wanted to have enough storage and didn't see the need to keep higher audio quality. Our member kei17 was able to keep some of Dragon Ball's first run on recorded tapes.

Here's a Youtube video that compares between the qualities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYvK-SNkvvc

As you can see, the Dragon Box has a bad audio, but on the broadcast version, they had better audio.

Edit: What VegettoEX said.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by JulieYBM » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:01 pm

Mother of pants, these broadcast audio clips become sexier and sexier each time I listen to them.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Ajay » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:26 pm

VegettoEX wrote:Then there's "Dragon Box - The Movies" where there legitimately is a waaaaaaay higher quality master of audio being used than was ever present on any North American release, because they actually did have good masters to go back to. For a comparison of the worst case scenario (in terms of an American release), my own review of "Curse of the Blood Rubies" has an MP3 comparison. Listen and be blown away.
Oh man, that's a crazy difference. May I ask what region the DVDs are? I think I may shell out for this collection. That difference is phenomenal!
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:27 pm

All of Toei's DVDs are Region 2.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:35 pm

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:Why they threw away is beyond us. We assume it's because they wanted to have enough storage and didn't see the need to keep higher audio quality.
And by extension, one of the other things that was pointed out to me (when I asked, "Why in God's name would they throw out such wonderful audio masters of their most financially successful property!?") was that there really was no such thing as a market for a home video release of an entire TV series back then. Movies and specials, sure, but an entire TV series? Not particularly common until DVDs came out.

I don't like everything that FUNimation does, but in hindsight, they got so much unnecessary blame for the quality of the Japanese audio. The theory being thrown around a lot at the time was that they purposefully weren't remastering the Japanese audio so as to steer people's interest towards their dub. Not true...they were just providing what Toei gave them, and FUNimation had no real way of upgrading the audio quality based on what they had been given.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Ajay » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:42 pm

VegettoEX wrote:All of Toei's DVDs are Region 2.
That's perfect. I'm seeing some crazy prices around. Found one for ~£100. Is that madness or pretty reasonable?
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by DragonBalllKaiHD » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:50 pm

TheBlackPaladin wrote:
DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:Why they threw away is beyond us. We assume it's because they wanted to have enough storage and didn't see the need to keep higher audio quality.
And by extension, one of the other things that was pointed out to me (when I asked, "Why in God's name would they throw out such wonderful audio masters of their most financially successful property!?") was that there really was no such thing as a market for a home video release of an entire TV series back then. Movies and specials, sure, but an entire TV series? Not particularly common until DVDs came out.

I don't like everything that FUNimation does, but in hindsight, they got so much unnecessary blame for the quality of the Japanese audio. The theory being thrown around a lot at the time was that they purposefully weren't remastering the Japanese audio so as to steer people's interest towards their dub. Not true...they were just providing what Toei gave them, and FUNimation had no real way of upgrading the audio quality based on what they had been given.
I could imagine Toei probably regretted not keeping higher audio quality for the Dragon Boxes. That's just a bad business decision. Even if they felt there's no market in 80's and 90's for home releases, they should have thought outside the box and kept the audio in case they decided it was time for them to release them to the public. kei17 was fortunate to have most of higher audio on tapes. I wonder if he already sent them to Toei or Funimation.

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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Fennekin » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:56 pm

Why wouldn't Toei want to keep the same files they gave for TV broadcast for themselves? It's like having a new and old car, giving the new car to your neighbor to use, and keeping the old car for yourself.

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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:58 pm

Because they would have had to STORE THEM somewhere, and that's on top of all the other long-running shows they were producing week in and week out.

There was no concept of a home release for that kind of material, and therefore no logical reason for them to keep said materials.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Pretorious » Tue Jun 11, 2013 6:19 pm

I am willing to throw down some serious money whenever an original broadcast audio version is officially released.

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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by superrayman3 » Tue Jun 11, 2013 9:23 pm

Pretorious wrote:I am willing to throw down some serious money whenever an original broadcast audio version is officially released.
If that happens I'll be throwing my money at my screen saying shut up and take my money already.
If anyone has any of the DB/DBZ/DBGT or Maho Tsuaki Sally Japanese single DVD's that they'd be interested in selling send me a PM and I'll see if we can work something out. ;).

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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Ajay » Tue Jun 11, 2013 10:02 pm

superrayman3 wrote:
Pretorious wrote:I am willing to throw down some serious money whenever an original broadcast audio version is officially released.
If that happens I'll be throwing my money at my screen saying shut up and take my money already.
Well, I can't do much about the series but I am more than happy to rip the high quality movie audio from the JPN Dragon Box Movie collection I just ordered so people can do their own muxes (if it's permitted by an admin).
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by theoriginalbilis » Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:14 am

Pretorious wrote:I am willing to throw down some serious money whenever an original broadcast audio version is officially released.
If Toei ever decides to release their own Blu-Rays for the original series, that would be a great opportunity for them to acquire/use the better audio.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by kei17 » Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:31 am

From the late '80s, all of Toei's anime shows that got a home video release at the time still have high quality audio, like Sailor Moon and Marmalade Boy. The Dragon Ball series, unfortunately, never got any home video releases except for movies until the early 2000s.

Toei started providing TV channels with the original cinetape masters around the mid '70s. It's really interesting and depressing to hear how old recordings from the '70s sound better than the Dragon Boxes:

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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Kojiro Sasaki » Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:35 am

AjayLikesGaming wrote:The Japanese audio on pretty much all of my releases are terrible - including the blu-ray releases. Understandably they are mastered from mono as I believe that was the original format they were recorded in but mono shouldn't equate to bad quality, it's just one channel of audio.
As far as I know, every single Dragon Ball series/movies release (excluding Dragon Box: The Movies) contains Japanese audio sourced from optical track (which is placed right beside frames on photographic film). Why FUNimation didn't use original mono masters on their Blu-ray releases? I don't know... (they are lazy and cheap?) When you're seeing Blu-ray release with lossless audio track, you are expecting good quality. Using such source material for lossless track, when original master exist, is ridiculous.

BTW, this is how Dragon Ball should sound:
A8
I20
(listen only on properly set real HiFi stereo speakers)

I have more than 700 albums in lossless formats and ~300 vinyl records - none of them comes even close to the sounding of Dragon Ball: Ongakushū from 1986.

To see Dragon Ball release with 100% audio quality, there is need to:
1. Find voice-only tapes (99% don't exist)
2. Columbia needs to produce stereo masters for tracks that were previously mixed only in mono.
3. Fizz Sound Creation needs to provide Toei with best SFX masters.
4. Toei needs to edit new voices/sfx/music track for every single episode.

As you see, there is no possibility to do such a thing, unless some of us become a multi-millionaire and buy Toei Animation right with Nippon Columbia :D (if voice-only tapes still exist in some dark basement of TAVAC)
Situation looks a little different with movies. All tape-masters exist. They can theoretically edit new stereo music track and put it on future Blu-ray release, for example (Point 2. for DB Movies 1, 2 and 3, DBZ Movies 1, 2, 4 and 5).
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Daimo-Rukiri » Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:51 pm

Kojiro Sasaki wrote:
AjayLikesGaming wrote:The Japanese audio on pretty much all of my releases are terrible - including the blu-ray releases. Understandably they are mastered from mono as I believe that was the original format they were recorded in but mono shouldn't equate to bad quality, it's just one channel of audio.
As far as I know, every single Dragon Ball series/movies release (excluding Dragon Box: The Movies) contains Japanese audio sourced from optical track (which is placed right beside frames on photographic film). Why FUNimation didn't use original mono masters on their Blu-ray releases? I don't know... (they are lazy and cheap?) When you're seeing Blu-ray release with lossless audio track, you are expecting good quality. Using such source material for lossless track, when original master exist, is ridiculous.

BTW, this is how Dragon Ball should sound:
A8
I20
(listen only on properly set real HiFi stereo speakers)

I have more than 700 albums in lossless formats and ~300 vinyl records - none of them comes even close to the sounding of Dragon Ball: Ongakushū from 1986.

To see Dragon Ball release with 100% audio quality, there is need to:
1. Find voice-only tapes (99% don't exist)
2. Columbia needs to produce stereo masters for track that were previously mixed only in mono.
3. Fizz Sound Creation needs to provide Toei with best SFX masters.
4. Toei needs to edit new voices/sfx/music track for every single episode.

As you see, there is no possibility to do such a thing, unless some of us become a multi-millionaire and buy Toei Animation right with Nippon Columbia :D (if voice-only tapes still exist in some dark basement of TAVAC)
Situation looks a little different with movies. All tape-masters exist. They can theoretically edit new stereo music track and put it on future Blu-ray release, for example (Point 2. for DB Movies 1, 2 and 3, DBZ Movies 1, 2, 4 and 5).
Makes me wish I was born earlier to record DB during it's broadcast, my family says they recorded DB but I've only seen DBZ unfortunately in it's broadcast form and have the vhs taps. I wonder if they recorded GT.. I'll have to ask.
Also, the tapes were watched a lot as a kid so I'm scared to even watch them or try to rip the audio... My toy story vhs for example was also watched a lot and it does occasionally skip like with most watched vhs tapes.

If toei still has the original broadcast in some form there is reason to believe why they would use lower quality, to keep everything cheap. We all know how cheap TOEI is.
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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:58 pm

I really wish Kei would see this, because I forget the specifics, but I vaguely recall that Kei said a while ago that there was actually a small degree of evidence to suggest that Toei still had the Japanese voice-only tapes. I forget what the evidence was, though.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Superior Audio Quality

Post by Daimo-Rukiri » Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:02 pm

TheBlackPaladin wrote:I really wish Kei would see this, because I forget the specifics, but I vaguely recall that Kei said a while ago that there was actually a small degree of evidence to suggest that Toei still had the Japanese voice-only tapes. I forget what the evidence was, though.
And there is that possibility, they may have thought they would give DB a home release at one point but they just stored it away.
There's also other reasons why they may have just used the audio they did, it was available to them and didn't have to spend the money remastering audio (which is very expensive by the way) and it's possible it was just TOO much remastering the music, sound and voices to make much of a profit. All company's want the maximum profit as possible.
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