2 questions regarding purchasing dragon ball and Z

[Baggie_Saiyan]

For what it is worth the BDs actually look great if you are sitting as far back in the room as possible. The Dragon Boxes now are absolutely not worth the investment, they are far too expensive and you'll never get your investment back as it is a 291 episodes realistically you'll only watch the show every couple years. Ultimately it is your money so that is just some advice.

Some further advice since the BDs sets are rather inexpensive pick one up and see how you feel that is the most ideal scenario in my opinion, if don't like it then you can sell it on and probably make a bit of a loss but at least that way you'll know for sure these sets aren't for you. If you like them then that is good for you. Like a poster previously said some caution the S5 BDs remaster goes wonky about half way through.

The problem with Z is a fantastic super duper mega remaster is gonna cost money, the show is just under 300 episodes that is a lot of investment for people I mean the Level Sets if they were finished would end up costing people ~$600 when it is all said and done, thinking of it that way that is too much for an old tv show and one that is already readily available much cheaper, you are effectively paying over $400 more for essentially black bars on the side and grain, that's why 4x3 DBZ isn't gonna happen anytime soon, people will always go for the cheaper option and only the hard cores investing in a release isn't gonna get FUNi their money back, that is the truth I am afraid. Level sets are proof of that, even if the Level Sets were released at a different the outcome would have been the same, FUNi were asking people to pay new anime prices for an old show that is available cheaper with more or less the double episode count! The Dragon Boxes didn't sell well I hear that at one point they were on sale for well over 50% at one stage, fortunately they were a limited run but anything else like the level sets won't be. It does suck but that is the situation I am afraid.

[Bruma rabu]

This is the unfortunate truth, the average anime fan doesn't care about quality and want the cheapest product they can get. This is why Funimations blu ray and dvd releases aren't the best and why we won't ever get a true remaster of dragon ball.

[Daimakku]

The Dragon Boxes didn't sell well I hear that at one point they were on sale for well over 50% at one stage, fortunately they were a limited run but anything else like the level sets won't be. It does suck but that is the situation I am afraid.

I did get the first 6 Dboxes (minus Box 2) on sale at Amazon at one point. I believe they were $22 each, but they were Lighting Deal. I eventually got Dbox 2 at RightStuf for around ~30 on the second print, and then Box 7 at around ~$35 I think. You just have to know when is the right time to buy, but even though there were sales for the Dboxes at some points, I dont remember them ever selling badly. They were consistently on Top 10 Best Selling anime on Amazon when they were in print.

But the Dragonboxes were always marketed towards hardcore DBZ fans. They even say so in the package. FUNimation knew they were only ever going to sale a couple thousand copies, while the OB DVDs were for the casual fans (the majority), which is why they were limited.

[Bruma rabu]

I did get the first 6 Dboxes (minus Box 2) on sale at Amazon at one point. I believe they were $22 each, but they were Lighting Deal. I eventually got Dbox 2 at RightStuf for around ~30 on the second print, and then Box 7 at around ~$35 I think. You just have to know when is the right time to buy, but even though there were sales for the Dboxes at some points, I dont remember them ever selling badly. They were consistently on Top 10 Best Selling anime on Amazon when they were in print.

But the Dragonboxes were always marketed towards hardcore DBZ fans. They even say so in the package. FUNimation knew they were only ever going to sale a couple thousand copies, while the OB DVDs were for the casual fans (the majority), which is why they were limited.

This post hurt me so much, those priceses...

[simtek34]

A world where the Blu-rays were GOOD. I might have bought them, if only FUNi listened. The survey they put out 4 years ago that asked 4:3 or 16:9, yeah. The majority said 4:3 but FUNi didn't listen. They did 16:9 do to how well the Orange Bricks did, and how (Not So) well the Levels did.

[Robo4900]

But even Kai is still kind of a mess because you can buy the Parts or the Season Sets if you want Yamamoto or Kikuchi for the Saiyan and Freeza Saga. I agree that it is still less of a mess than Z, but a lot of people still care about the musical score.

Eh, not really. Because of how sought-after the parts are, the prices are through the roof, so really the seasons are the only ones worth buying.

For original Z, I think we should keep an eye out for the moment. FunimationNow seems to be replacing some episodes with Dragon Box footage, so if this continues through to the rest of the series, then that will be the best option. If they aren't planning on doing that with the entire run though, I have no idea why they're doing it. XD

[TheGreatness25]

I have yet to see which episodes got replaced with Dragon Box footage on Funimation Now. I will say that I saw their little feature on remastering the footage for the Level Sets and I'm sure from their side of things, it's just not worth it. I believe the quote that one of the workers said was that they're editing it "frame by frame by freaking frame" in a comically agitated voice. They already have the series in the can, so I doubt they'd do anything with it. But, if anything, I'd think that maybe they'd give the Level Sets another go as their true final Dragon Ball Z release. I don't see where else they can possibly go with the series. If they re-release it yet again, that would have to be it (unless a new video format replaces Blu-ray sometime soon). Surely as technology evolves, that process might become a lot more cost-effective for them.

[Robo4900]

unless a new video format replaces Blu-ray sometime soon

Funimation's film materials are 3rd-generation 16mm prints on rather poor film stock. 1080p in 4:3 is probably about as good as you can get out of that. If you want something bigger than 1080p -- even cropping it to 16:9 -- you really would have to get Toei to transfer the negatives, otherwise you're just not going to get any more useful image information out of it.

So, with the available material Funimation have, the only way they'd do something like the Levels again is if a new format comes out that's still 1080p, but uses much better encoding.

Of course, then you still have to contend with the fact Funimation saturated their own market and all that. And really, when you take all that into account, I think the best we can hope for is for Funimation to switch over to using the Dragon Box masters for streaming, and doing some kind of super-cheap DVD release that uses the DBox video masters. At this point, that would probably be my ideal.
(Well, kind of. My ideal would have it use the broadcast audio, but I don't think they'd do that. The whole point of this idea is that it's supposed to be as cheap as possible, which it would achieve by essentially being a re-release, requiring no new efforts to be put into remastering, and perhaps not even encoding)

[TheGreatness25]

unless a new video format replaces Blu-ray sometime soon

Funimation's film materials are 3rd-generation 16mm prints on rather poor film stock. 1080p in 4:3 is probably about as good as you can get out of that. If you want something bigger than 1080p -- even cropping it to 16:9 -- you really would have to get Toei to transfer the negatives, otherwise you're just not going to get any more useful image information out of it.

So, with the available material Funimation have, the only way they'd do something like the Levels again is if a new format comes out that's still 1080p, but uses much better encoding.

Of course, then you still have to contend with the fact Funimation saturated their own market and all that. And really, when you take all that into account, I think the best we can hope for is for Funimation to switch over to using the Dragon Box masters for streaming, and doing some kind of super-cheap DVD release that uses the DBox video masters. At this point, that would probably be my ideal.
(Well, kind of. My ideal would have it use the broadcast audio, but I don't think they'd do that. The whole point of this idea is that it's supposed to be as cheap as possible, which it would achieve by essentially being a re-release, requiring no new efforts to be put into remastering, and perhaps not even encoding)

Well, Funimation somehow did the Level Sets, so my hopei s still that those would one day see the light of day, but I'm not holding my breath.

What I meant is that obviously, their footage would never translate well over onto a new Blu-ray replacing video format, but if something like that did come out, I'd imagine they'd at least put their existing footage on that new format just to not fall behind.