New Spanish DVD edition

[Saago]

Looks like Selecta Visión has renewed the Dragon Ball license (they published Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT in Spain years ago, although those editions have been out of print for a long time), and is getting ready to release a new DVD edition of both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z on September. No announcements yet about Dragon Ball GT, although they have said on Twitter they have the license for that as well.

The interesting thing is that this is not just a reprint of the old edition. According to the promotional leaflets they have shown (here and here), this one has a native PAL progressive transfer, although the way they explain it in that ad is, I believe, wrong: they say the old edition had a PAL 576i Master and the new edition has a NTSC Master converted to PAL 576p, but shouldn't that be somewhat the other way around? (as in, the old one being an NTSC Master converted to PAL, and the new one being a native PAL 576p Master?). Anyway, they actually go out of their way to say the new edition has no ghosting, which is not something you usually see advertised. They also say that, whereas the old edition "only" had noise reduction, this one will have noise reduction, grain reduction and improved sharpness using Digital Vision Phoenix technology (whatever that is). From what I hear, the "remastering" Selecta did in the previous edition was not very good, so them adding additional filters doesn't really sound as good news.

Anyway, they are going to start releasing both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z simultaneously next September, seven boxsets for each series (which means Dragon Ball Z boxsets will have twice as many episodes as Dragon Ball boxsets), and they plan to finish it by October 2014.

Let me know if you want something on those ads translated.

[Puto]

Their old boxsets actually DID use Dragon Box masters, they just screwed up royally converting them to PAL.

They were clearly the same transfer, though.

[Saago]

Really? I remember seeing some comparison screenshots that suggested that they were not exactly Dragon Box masters, although they were indeed pretty similar (they had dirt artifacts that didn't appear in the Japanese edition, even moments in which you could see some kind of huge line of glue on top of the frame). I have quickly looked over at some of the reviews that were written at the time (like this one), and they do mention the image has some "dirt and hairs". Weren't those completely removed for the Dragon Boxes?
As I said, however, I have not checked Selecta's edition myself, so I could definitely be wrong.

[Puto]

They were either the Dragon Box masters, or the Dragon Box transfer before it got cleaned up. Either way, it was definitely the same transfer - the colours make that completely blatant.

[Saago]

The Dragon Box transfers before being cleaned up seems more like it, yes. I'm going to edit that in the main post.
It would be fantastic if these are a proper PAL version of the Dragon Boxes. The problem is that, with all the "grain and noise reduction" they are announcing, I'm afraid there is very little chance of this edition having the grainy, unfiltered look of the Dragon Boxes. I hope I'm wrong.

[sangofe]

They should've gone directly to a BluRay edition.

[Rukura]

Their old "Dragon Box" releases seemed pretty watchable. (Aside from the GT TV Special, of course). If they actually do a good job with it, I might pick it up just to have an R2 release that I can just pop in a watch.

But, at the same time, Sangofe made me wonder. If they actually can do a good job with it, and want to optimize it for HD TVs, why not do a Blu-ray release?

[dbboxkaifan]

Whatever happened to the Castellano dub of Kai that Selecta Vision was working on?

They should've gone directly to a Blu-ray edition.

If they're unable to make a proper HD remaster of the series they might as well not use Blu-ray because it wouldn't benefit from it.

[Raykugen]

Whatever happened to the Castellano dub of Kai that Selecta Vision was working on?

They should've gone directly to a Blu-ray edition.

If they're unable to make a proper HD remaster of the series they might as well not use Blu-ray because it wouldn't benefit from it.

Selecta Vision has never worked on that. Was another enterprise, Arait Multimedia, which bought the KAI rights, but there is no TV chanels interested on the series.

[Super Sonic]

So is this for Spain, or Mexico?

[MDSTSSJ]

So is this for Spain, or Mexico?

Spain!

I never understand why Mexico never release a top quality versions of the entire Dragon Ball Anime Series. Yeah I know: Fucking Piracy!!

[kei17]

I wonder whether the Valencian dub will never be officially released.

[Darknat]

I wonder whether the Valencian dub will never be officially released.

I prefer japanese now, but I must admit I'm curious about watching the valencian dub again. That's how I first watched Dragon Ball. Problem though is that I think it's not complete... As far as I know they didn't do the buu saga (maybe they started it, but I don't remember seeing the end of it....)

Heh, I still remember the first episode of the original Dragon Ball on Canal 9 at 15:00 good times

[dbboxkaifan]

Selecta Vision has never worked on that. Was another enterprise, Arait Multimedia, which bought the KAI rights, but there is no TV chanels interested on the series.

Castellano Kai wasn't supposed to be aired but released direct to DVD instead.

Yeah I know: Fucking Piracy!!

Whenever something never sells it's to blame piracy or the used market.

[Ajay]

They also say that, whereas the old edition "only" had noise reduction, this one will have noise reduction, grain reduction and improved sharpness using Digital Vision Phoenix technology.

Goddamn, I got progressively hyped reading and then got smacked with that bombshell. I'm really not enjoying this age of HD where everything has to be pristine and grainless. They stopped doing this to Blu-Rays years ago when they realised how retarded it was. Why on earth they feel it's appropriate to do it for animation is beyond me. I mean, I guess their thought process is something along the lines of 'well, this is old and was shot on 16mm for budget's sake, we can get rid of it now because OOooOoo technology!'. So silly, that grain is - excuse the pun - ingrained in our brains. We associate that great aesthetic with the show.

[Puto]

Selecta Vision has never worked on that. Was another enterprise, Arait Multimedia, which bought the KAI rights, but there is no TV chanels interested on the series.

Castellano Kai wasn't supposed to be aired but released direct to DVD instead.

Arait never release anything to home video, barring very few exceptions.

[Puto]

The Dragon Box transfers before being cleaned up seems more like it, yes. I'm going to edit that in the main post.
It would be fantastic if these are a proper PAL version of the Dragon Boxes. The problem is that, with all the "grain and noise reduction" they are announcing, I'm afraid there is very little chance of this edition having the grainy, unfiltered look of the Dragon Boxes. I hope I'm wrong.

If it's a decent, competent denoising as opposed to the overdone abortion of the orange bricks, then personally, I'm fine with it.

[Rukura]

They also say that, whereas the old edition "only" had noise reduction, this one will have noise reduction, grain reduction and improved sharpness using Digital Vision Phoenix technology.

Goddamn, I got progressively hyped reading and then got smacked with that bombshell. I'm really not enjoying this age of HD where everything has to be pristine and grainless. They stopped doing this to Blu-Rays years ago when they realised how retarded it was. Why on earth they feel it's appropriate to do it for animation is beyond me. I mean, I guess their thought process is something along the lines of 'well, this is old and was shot on 16mm for budget's sake, we can get rid of it now because OOooOoo technology!'. So silly, that grain is - excuse the pun - ingrained in our brains. We associate that great aesthetic with the show.

"Grain reduction" does NOT mean "no grain" like the orange bricks. (The Blu-rays had that too. Those looked fine.)

Other from what they're saying right now, we don't know anything. It can be anything from a 4:3 orange brick clone to something as good as the actual Dragon Boxes.

[Puto]

It could even be 16:9, since we really know nothing. I certainly hope not, though.

[VegettoEX]

It could even be 16:9, since we really know nothing. I certainly hope not, though.

Nah. The first of the two images specifically says it's 4:3.