Tired debate, but is a 4:3 presentation of DBZ necessary when we all have 16:9 tv's?

[Bardo117]

I'm all for having the entire glory of Dragonball present, as I have both the Japanese and American Dragonboxes in my collection. But doesn't it feel more awkward to watch your favorite tv show with those stupid black lines on the sides?




Being completely honest with myself, I would rather it fit perfectly into my screen without stretching or distorting any of the images. I'm glad we have such glorious and complete release of the series(Dragonboxes) but at the end of the day they really are pointless except for showing a little bit of extra image on top/bottom of the screen.

[TheGreatness25]

Yes, I agree. It looks nicer when it fits the 16:9 screen. Of course. It's not nice looking at black bars. However, it was done in 4:3, so here are your options:

1) Have the show be on your TV with all of its intended footage and have black bars;
2) Have the show fit your TV with the top and bottom cut off; or
3) Have it fit your TV, but be stretched out

A lot of fans would rather the series be kept intact and not cut to fit the TV. Especially since there is plenty of stuff that does have the black bars, so it's not a big deal. The simple fact of the matter is that the format for TV changed and this will always be something that exists. Until someone goes back to the original footage and draws extra stuff to fill up that space for 16:9 (which will never happen), it's just the way it is.

[VegettoEX]

Why did old black-and-white movies need to be colorized? Why did stereo mixes need to be made of songs originally produced in mono?

These are ZAM POW BOOYAH changes made to cater to individuals who aren't equipped or willing to deal with something that existed before their current frame of reference, and inherently change the product's very nature and how it's experienced.

Dragon Ball is a piece of history and should be maintained and cherished for what it is: a show from the 1980s and 1990s. Detail should not be removed and it should not be distorted simply to fill up the physical retail space of new technology.

A widescreen television is perfectly capable of displaying a 4:3 image, just like how a CRTV was perfectly capable of displaying a 16:9 image. If you want to destroy the picture, do it on your own with your remote control's "Zoom" button, rather than ruining it for everyone else who wants an old thing to still be an old thing and can appreciate an old thing for being an old thing.

[DHM211]

I'm all for having the entire glory of Dragonball present, as I have both the Japanese and American Dragonboxes in my collection. But doesn't it feel more awkward to watch your favorite tv show with those stupid black lines on the sides?




Being completely honest with myself, I would rather it fit perfectly into my screen without stretching or distorting any of the images. I'm glad we have such glorious and complete release of the series(Dragonboxes) but at the end of the day they really are pointless except for showing a little bit of extra image on top/bottom of the screen.

16:9 is fine if the cropping is done well and not rushed(ie, it;s selectively cropped frame by frame, certain scenes are reframed, the image is stretched out as far is it can on the sides).
Kai TFC is largely an example of a good cropping while the Orange Bricks are an example of a cheap and lazy cropping.

Here's a good example:

Dragon Box 4:3
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Funi Blu-ray crop 16:9
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Kai TFC reframe from 4:3 to 16:9
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[TheGreatness25]

How is it possible for Kai the Final Chapters to have even more vertical footage than the Dragon Boxes, even with the 16:9, basically meaning that there's more footage both vertically and horizontally? That's crazy to me. Or is that particular shot redrawn? Because the idea of Kai is that it's supposed to have some redrawn footage. Then again, the redrawn stuff pops out because it's so different and that looks like the original footage. Wow. It looks like the picture of Goten and Trunks has been moved to the right in Kai to fit them in better (I guess).

[DHM211]

How is it possible for Kai the Final Chapters to have even more vertical footage than the Dragon Boxes, even with the 16:9, basically meaning that there's more footage both vertically and horizontally? That's crazy to me. Or is that particular shot redrawn? Because the idea of Kai is that it's supposed to have some redrawn footage. Then again, the redrawn stuff pops out because it's so different and that looks like the original footage. Wow. It looks like the picture of Goten and Trunks has been moved to the right in Kai to fit them in better (I guess).

By no means am I an expert, but it looks like Toei just reframed each indidiual panel in that shot. It's not redrawn, as Toei dropped doing that for Kai TFC. As for how they did it, if you look up DBZ animation cels and compare them to what you see on the dragon box, you'll see how much of the picture they zoomed in on the cels for the dragon box(and all releases in general).

[Bardo117]

Why did old black-and-white movies need to be colorized? Why did stereo mixes need to be made of songs originally produced in mono?

These are ZAM POW BOOYAH changes made to cater to individuals who aren't equipped or willing to deal with something that existed before their current frame of reference, and inherently change the product's very nature and how it's experienced.

Dragon Ball is a piece of history and should be maintained and cherished for what it is: a show from the 1980s and 1990s. Detail should not be removed and it should not be distorted simply to fill up the physical retail space of new technology.

A widescreen television is perfectly capable of displaying a 4:3 image, just like how a CRTV was perfectly capable of displaying a 16:9 image. If you want to destroy the picture, do it on your own with your remote control's "Zoom" button, rather than ruining it for everyone else who wants an old thing to still be an old thing and can appreciate an old thing for being an old thing.

It might be a little ignorant of me to say this, but by that logic, if it is to be enjoyed as intended, should we all buy an old fashion CRT Television? It was MEANT to be enjoyed on a Tube Tv.




Being honest, watching it on a tube is much less of a disturbance because it doesn't have the ugly black bars on the side. Viewing it on a widescreen tv and seeing those ugly black bars really kills a lot of the experience for me.

[mute_proxy]

It's a lot better than losing footage

[sintzu]

The issue isn't 16:9 but rather how it's done, especially with Funi's Orange sets.

When Kai aired, people were still against it but were more accepting of it due to how well it was done by Toei.

I think shows like DB should be presented in 4:3 and if anyone wants to fit it on their screen, they can do so with their remote which is what I do. Yeah it's "not the way it was meant to be seen" but black bars are too distracting for me.

You can argue that it's more marketable in 16:9 but all they'd have to do is put a sticker on the box that says something like "for a modern viewing, stretch the picture to 16:9".

[Soppa Saia People]

Honestly, I'm fine with updating Dragon Ball in to 16:9, as long as it's done well, and 4:3 is still an option.

[VegettoEX]

You're all monsters.

Why are you so distracted by black on the side?

I don't understand how it is that you aren't so lost in the show that you have these external things vying for your attention and ripping you away. All of these things -- the black bars, the TV stand, the remote on the table in front of you, the half-empty water bottle in your hand -- shouldn't be screaming at you while you're watching the show.

I went through all this with letterboxed films on VHS, and it's absurd that we have to do it again with widescreen TVs. I totally remember people returning The Insider to Blockbuster absolutely irate that it had black bars on the top and bottom because the director had the gall to insist that his film be viewed in the proper aspect ratio.

That it what that piece of art looks like, and it should be available and consumed as faithful and with as much integrity to that original presentation as possible.

[Gaffer Tape]

I always say, if you're so distracted by black bars on the sides, why aren't you distracted by the four black bars of plastic surrounding the entire perimeter of your screen?

[ABED]

I don't understand how it is that you aren't so lost in the show that you have these external things vying for your attention and ripping you away. All of these things -- the black bars, the TV stand, the remote on the table in front of you, the half-empty water bottle in your hand -- shouldn't be screaming at you while you're watching the show.

I don't understand it either. The black bars fade away into the border of the TV. Hell, it's not the black bars that are distracting, it's when they try to fill that bar with some image that I find it very minorly distracting.

And this insistance that many of us have that the image be left the way the creators intended isn't elitism, it's not purity, it's so the image can have its desired effect. A film composer's use of not just music but of silence is for an intended effect. The animation and framing of the shots is the same exact way. If you think we're not losing anything but some empty space or sky or whatever you consider irrelevant, think again.

[TheGreatness25]

I actually hate it when they obviously crop something. Like Seinfeld, for example. I saw it in 16:9 and it just drove me crazy. Don't know why because it's not like their heads were chopped off.

That's how the series was made and it should be untouched. As VegettoEX mentioned, if you want to make it fit your TV indiscriminately (kind of like how Funimation cropped their orange brick footage), use the "Zoom" feature on your TV.

Actually, I have DVDs that were basically done in 4:3 but have black bars on the top and bottom because that's how it was made... but I guess for the purposes of a 4:3 TV (back in the day), they just used the 4:3 with black bars... Okay I can't explain it, but I have Street Fighter II The Animated Movie and True Lies and I need to actually zoom into both of them because they look zoomed out. I have black bars on the side and on the top and bottom. Now that is something that drives me bananas.

[Soppa Saia People]

I forget the black bars are even there most of the time. But like I said, I don't care if a 4:3 show is converted into 16:9, as long as I have the option of 4:3.

[Luso Saiyan]

The original aspect ratio should always be preserved, no matter what equipment you have. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were created with a 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio. To stretch or cut the picture is going against the artistic intent of the artist(s). The black bars exist to preserve the aspect ratio. For example, if you watch a movie that was shot in anamorphic (2.35:1, 2.39:1, 2.40:1), you'll have black bars at the top and bottom, because the picture is wider than the 16:9 (1.78:1) TV/monitor you're watching it in. If you're so bothered by black bars, use the 'zoom' feature which most TVs and players have.

To pretend that it's the art that should be changed because you happen to have a TV with a different aspect ratio is ludicrious.

To see support for that idea is scary.

[VegettoEX]

I actually hate it when they obviously crop something. Like Seinfeld, for example. I saw it in 16:9 and it just drove me crazy. Don't know why because it's not like their heads were chopped off.

This is a different case. Shows like this (including its contemporary Friends and even shows like Buffy and Angel) had seasons if not their entirety that were shot on actual film. In these cases, there is legitimate unused footage on the left and right side of these film masters, which allowed them to made honest-to-goodness new widescreen transfers. Nothing is lost! Image is only GAINED!

Of course, the problem is that they were all actually shot and framed from an artistic perspective with an intended 4:3 aspect ratio in mind, and you occasionally wind up with things like another camera man in the side of the new widescreen shot because there was never an intention for something over there to be visible in the final product.



I know Joss Whedon has gone on record at some point disappointed with the widescreen remaster of certain material because it wasn't intended to be viewed that way, and affects how you interpret the scene, what your eyes focus on, etc.

Actually, I have DVDs that were basically done in 4:3 but have black bars on the top and bottom because that's how it was made... but I guess for the purposes of a 4:3 TV (back in the day), they just used the 4:3 with black bars... Okay I can't explain it, but I have Street Fighter II The Animated Movie and True Lies and I need to actually zoom into both of them because they look zoomed out. I have black bars on the side and on the top and bottom. Now that is something that drives me bananas.

This problem was alleviated with a later DVD mastering process called an anamorphic encode. This kind of encode allowed disc authors to include the film as widescreen, but set a certain flag in the playback software to detect if it's being viewed in a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio and adapt on-the-fly to maintain said proper aspect ratio. The original Mortal Kombat DVD is another bad example of this, where one side is pan-and-scan and the other is a forced letterboxed version!

Blu-rays actually have this same problem, and I think it's absurd. There's gotta be a reason for it, but I can't figure it out for the life of me. Basically, a 4:3 presentation in the HD codecs has to be encoded with the black bars as part of the picture (240 pixels black / 1440 pixels of actual video / 240 pixels black), as opposed to the anamorphic DVDs which did not. So yeah, if you watch a Blu-ray on an SD TV, you actually end up with the hard-coded black bars on the left and right, and then soft-coded black bars on the top and bottom. Obviously this is a rare case and not optimal in any way.

[ABED]

Also, by opening up the frame to stuff that was not intended to be scene, you can catch something you werent supposed to, like maybe a boom mic that wasn't present in the 4:3 shot.

[clutchins]

I'm pretty surprised at how many people here rooted for 16:9. I've always thought this forum leaned more toward preferring 4:3, the purist's perspective.

[Bardo117]

You're all monsters.

Why are you so distracted by black on the side?

I don't understand how it is that you aren't so lost in the show that you have these external things vying for your attention and ripping you away. All of these things -- the black bars, the TV stand, the remote on the table in front of you, the half-empty water bottle in your hand -- shouldn't be screaming at you while you're watching the show.

I went through all this with letterboxed films on VHS, and it's absurd that we have to do it again with widescreen TVs. I totally remember people returning The Insider to Blockbuster absolutely irate that it had black bars on the top and bottom because the director had the gall to insist that his film be viewed in the proper aspect ratio.

That it what that piece of art looks like, and it should be available and consumed as faithful and with as much integrity to that original presentation as possible.

I just remembered that! Back in the day you had to be careful not to rent a widescreen version of a movie from blockbuster or it would have those annoying black bars on the top/bottom!(Who remembers the difference between the golden boxed star wars set, and the silver?? haha) The memories

I love aspect ratios when it comes to movie theaters, hell, I even drove 300 Miles to the nearest 70mm Film IMAX(Non digital) Theater to watch Dunkirk..... But I've never quite felt the same way about Dragon Ball... I care a lot about watching films and media in their originally intended format, but I feel like watching it with the black bars creates the illusion that part of the image is actually MISSING even when its really not....