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

[Luso Saiyan]

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

Huh?!

You had to be careful not to get the 'fullscreen' versions, otherwise you would get a cropped version of the movies, as opposed to the proper and complete versions (widescreen).

Again, black bars exist to preserve the aspect ratio.

[Bardo117]

I know what the black bars exist for, but back in the day I didn't care(Honestly I didn't know anything) about aspect ratio, I had a small TV and I wanted the entire thing to fill up with picture displaying.

[ABED]

I know what the black bars exist for, but back in the day I didn't care(Honestly I didn't know anything) about aspect ratio, I had a small TV and I wanted the entire thing to fill up with picture displaying.

Which was understandable back then.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Absolutely. The show was produced in 4:3 for a reason and there are animators who worked very hard on the lost picture. If black bars are required to experience that product then so be it.

[Boo Machine]

I'm not really sure what makes the black bars so ugly or distracting. I barely notice them there unless someone points them out and I imagine there are more distracting things around the room where you're watching it. If 4:3 is what you need to see the whole thing without stretching it or cropping, then that is absolutely what you should be going for, I would think a mutilated picture would be far more distracting than the frame.

[Bryesque]

IMO? Yes. The original, intended aspect ratio should always be preserved. Chopping off part of the frame to fit a 16:9 TV is no different than the old practice of hacking a movie's picture down for 4:3 DVDs. A show or movie's picture is framed the way it is for a reason, and cutting part of it out can totally alter or damage the intended presentation.

That said... there are ways to do this that are better than others. I'd prefer they leave the original aspect ratio alone, but the TFC example posted earlier is a pretty decent way to handle it.

[Robo4900]

Anyone who honestly believes a DVD or Blu-Ray or whatever should be released cropped in the modern day is either misinformed, or a total idiot.

Thing is, if you present something in its true, original aspect ratio, anyone who wants to crop it can just press the zoom button on their TV, and job's done. You have a release that will cater to everyone.
But, crop it, and you'll have something that will make no difference to people who set their TVs to crop it, because they'll be watching it cropped either way, it'll make no difference to people who don't care, because they don't care, but it'll be a major slap in the face to anyone who wants to see it how it's supposed to be seen.

There's no other way of looking at this issue. If you were talking about the movies, we could debate about whether 16:9 is the correct ratio, but here, we're talking about the TV show, and the TV show was never meant to be seen in widescreen. It was designed top-to-bottom to be seen in 4:3. End of.

The tone of this post probably will come off as insulting to certain people, and I apologise if that's the case. Misinformation, and people forcing the majority to conform to the minority despite a solution existing that caters to both are two of the things I hate the most in the world, so I understandably get quite riled up about crap like this.

[Bardo117]

I might be a little misled or misinformed here but I don't think anybody in a general audience cares about aspect ratios or maintaining proper AR.... I've tried several times to explain to friends and family the difference between the different aspect ratios in movies(I most notably use The Dark Knight's constant change of aspect ratios to show this) and nobody cares or can really tell the difference.


Also, I know there's an option to stretch or zoom into the image, but I think that most common folk don't know about that option. There is realistically no point in releasing a 4:3 version when NOTHING is 4:3 anymore, simple logic and obviously FUNImation agrees and is not losing any sleep or money over this.


I just want a 4:3 version because I know it'll be aimed at the collectors and die hard fans. That means nice packaging and great footage!

[Robo4900]

Don't be silly. If no one cares, then no one will mind the black bars.
If people care, they'll find out about the zoom option.

[VegettoEX]

FUNimation releases plenty of other old shows on Blu-ray remastered in HD and doesn't mess with the aspect ratio. See: Cowboy Bebop, Serial Experiments Lain, FLCL, Speed Racer...

It's only DBZ that they do it with and only DBZ fans who clamor "fill my screen", which I'd argue is an endless cycle that FUNimation made for themselves by cropping it for the orange bricks. They consistently want to paint the show as something newer than it is, and fans are as a result equally unwilling to accept they're watching an old show.

It's the same with replacement music. We wouldn't be hearing about it if they never did it to begin with. Let the show be the show. Make your own show if you want to make your own show.

At least with the dub we could ignore it because we could eventually just switch the audio track. I can't just magically make a non-shitty, uncropped video track appear on their Blu-rays.

[thaman91]

Sure the average person may not care about the difference in aspect ratios....but then surely the same average person wouldn't care about black bars? As long as there's video playing on the TV screen, they should be happy right?

And truth be told, I don't care that there are black bars. If I'm watching the show with the intended framing by the animators, then that's good enough for me. On the other hand, I can't stand watching a cropped version of the show. Everything just looks overly zoomed in and cramped for space. I've seen some points raised about how the Kai cropping was "done well". But as far as I'm concerned, "cropping done well" just seems like a paradoxical statement. To make a somewhat extreme analogy, if I were to die peacefully in my sleep, then that would be considered one of the better ways to die......but I'd rather not die at all! That's how I see the whole cropping issue. Someone can crop the show as skillfully as possible, but that wouldn't change the fact that it's still mutilating the show.

[samuraix123]

I'm responding to the first post (I haven't read any other posts yet) I just want to say that I don't HATE the new Bluray level sets BUT! I wished we could have gotten a complete 4x3 remaster instead. the black bars on the left and right sides don't bother me at all and I personally cannot understand why there has to be so many issues when it comes to buying Dragonball. I personally feel the Dragonboxes is by far the best release of the series that I have seen except the level sets. I like the new sets and how it looks on TV but I know I would prefer to see the entire image. I personally don't understand why Funimation continues to do little things like that with the dragonball series. do they do this with any other anime?

[ABED]

There is realistically no point in releasing a 4:3 version when NOTHING is 4:3 anymore, simple logic and obviously FUNImation agrees and is not losing any sleep or money over this.

I just want a 4:3 version because I know it'll be aimed at the collectors and die hard fans. That means nice packaging and great footage!

Yes, not anymore, but it was back then. DB isn't a modern show. Are people really this friggin stupid that the most important thing is that the image fits their screen? The 4:3 version isn't a version, nor should it be a collectors item for die hard fans. It's the show, leave it alone!

I personally don't understand why Funimation continues to do little things like that with the dragonball series. do they do this with any other anime?

Not the DB series, just DBZ. That means that everything else is left alone.

[samuraix123]

FUNimation releases plenty of other old shows on Blu-ray remastered in HD and doesn't mess with the aspect ratio. See: Cowboy Bebop, Serial Experiments Lain, FLCL, Speed Racer...

It's only DBZ that they do it with and only DBZ fans who clamor "fill my screen", which I'd argue is an endless cycle that FUNimation made for themselves by cropping it for the orange bricks. They consistently want to paint the show as something newer than it is, and fans are as a result equally unwilling to accept they're watching an old show.

It's the same with replacement music. We wouldn't be hearing about it if they never did it to begin with. Let the show be the show. Make your own show if you want to make your own show.

At least with the dub we could ignore it because we could eventually just switch the audio track. I can't just magically make a non-shitty, uncropped video track appear on their Blu-rays.

I like the dub but that's my opinion but other than that I couldn't agree more with you here.

[KBABZ]

The only justifiable case for me is on a TV broadcast like what OG Kai did; 16:9 crop for TV, fullscreen for the fans who will buy a physical copy for their archives.

The problem with this way of thinking is that there are TONS of movies shot in Anamorphic widescreen, where the ratio is not 16:9, it's 1.37:1. This means that when you watch said movies, which include such seminal films as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, watching said movies on your TV has letterboxing that looks like this:



Now if you're SO hung up on the 4:3 bars appearing in your picture, then surely you would have a problem with these too? Surely you'd be calling for 1.37:1 HDTVs and Anamorphic-Cropped editions of Battle of Gods and Resurrection of F? By the sane measure, why is this not a problem when watching, say, a pirated rip of Pokemon in Windows Media Player on your computer?

As great as T1C's cropping is, it still suffers greatly from that "cramped" feel that makes it feel like you're watching the show from inside a shoebox. When you make a production like a TV show or a film, the aspect ratio matters because it affects how you frame and position things in the shot. Anamorphic is tricky because it's incredibly tough to film vertical stuff like towers and keep all of it in the frame. By the same value, a 4:3 production will find it more difficult to apply Rule of Thirds as effectively as Anamorphic or 16:9 ones. It's all considered when you make even the cheapest works, and by cropping a 4:3 work, you're basically flipping the bird to the production staff and what they wanted you to see when watching the show.

To bring up a minor example of why it's bad, here's two comparisons of the cropping that occurs in the Blue Bricks of Dragon Ball:




The zooming in means that you lose a not-insignificant part of the frame; in the second one, you can't even clearly tell if Goku is holding his Dragon Ball. In the Dragon Box version on the right, Goku feels much more "there" in the scene with Bulma, because he isn't a head peeking from the bottom of the frame like in the Blue Brick version on the left. And, in an earlier shot of Goku popping his head out of the river, in the Blue Bricks his mouth is almost cropped out of frame!

It's minor, but unmentioned stuff in frame like this is all part of storytelling in film; you might not have said aloud "Oh, Goku is holding his Dragon Ball" but your brain subconsciously does, and it adds clarity to what's happening on-screen, which is especially important with the faster-paced fighting in Z. Not to mention that cropped feeling again, it really does affect how you feel when watching the show.

[SupremeSSJ]

I find it really ridiculous that fans have to spend over $600 just to get an untouched version of the show, if i'm watching a TV show from the 70's,80's,90's i simply dont want the aspect ratio to be touched piont blank. I want to watch it the way it was intended and if a true blu-ray release is done the aspect ratio should still remain the same or all hell will break loose i'm done with this crap, every year its always the same debate how much more proof and facts can we put out really....

[Robo4900]

I see some people suggesting a 4:3 release with the proper title cards and such would only ever be a collector's release...

The original DVD singles, Japan's Dragon Boxes(Which, remember, are Japan's only DVD release of the franchise), and the Levels were aimed at the average consumers. All of them were 4:3. The DBoxes only included the JP title cards, and the original DVD singles included both via branching. The DBoxes and Levels both included all the recaps, and the DBoxes included the NEPs too.

Plus, I think we're all forgetting that if Funimation hadn't timed the Levels so poorly, and thus they'd have actually sold some copies, the Blu-Ray release of DBZ would be a proper 4:3 release.
Additionally, that famous online questionnaire asked if people would prefer a full-frame 4:3 release or a cropped 16:9 release, and they swept that questionnaire under the rug, and never acknowledged it, with some people specifically saying they "Threw out" the results. Obviously, the answer was that people want 4:3.

The reason for the 16:9 cropping, and the crap overall remastering is because it's cheap to do it like that, so they can sell their BDs for dirt-cheap. With a cash cow like DBZ, there's a lot of money to be made that way.

[ABED]

Plus, I think we're all forgetting that if Funimation hadn't timed the Levels so poorly, and thus they'd have actually sold some copies, the Blu-Ray release of DBZ would be a proper 4:3 release.

Price point and episode count is also a big factor.

[jjgp1112]

I had no problem watching 16:9 stuff with letterboxes on my 4:3 TVs, and I have no problem with pillar boxes on my HD TV. It's black bars, who cares. I don't notice them at all.

And most films aren't 16:9 anyway, so even on an HD TV you have letterboxes for the vast majority of movies you watch. It's a non-issue.

[Duo]

I can't help but try to imagine what would have happened in this thread had it been posted around ten years ago. Obvious as it may be, times have really changed.