Fan group scanning/remastering of multi-generational film prints previously owned by FUNimation

[GhostEmperorX]

Damn, makes me wish they went with what Gundam did with their HD releases and just rescan the film with modern technology.

That's implying that Toei can ever be on the level of Sunrise Studios/Bandai when it comes to preservation of older material. Even back into the 70's.

[kei17]

As already pointed out by some people, Toei's remaster has more dark detail. The reason is simple; Toei scanned the negatives. When you scan a negative, of course the darks are inverted so they're the whites here. More light passes through bright areas on film, so the scanner's sensor can pick up more details in them. On the other hand, Kineko Video scanned a positive print. The dark details are actually dark on it. Also, for some reason, Toei's film prints are notorious for being overly dark. You can compensate it to a certain degree by boosting gamma, but it can't be fully compensated in some severe cases.

That's only really half true. They're all storyboarded and animated using 4:3 layouts, but it was the later ones that started using 16:9 guides on top of the 4:3 frames to ensure it worked in both formats. Those don't exist on the early films, so they're 100% created for fullscreen and shouldn't be cropped. Either way, I find the 16:9 versions feel quite cramped and it seems clear the staff were far more accustomed to working with a full frame format.

By "the later ones" which ones do you mean? From what I know, layouts from DBZ Movie 2 and 3 already have widescreen guides.

[Pride9000!!!]

I personally always like to watch the movies in 16:9 and that's how they were intended to be seen in the cinema. But after seeing this transfer in 4:3 I wouldn't mind having all the movies in that format in that kind of quality. I don't understand why Toei didn't just give us the choice to choose which aspect ratio. Example: hasbro/shout factory Transformers the movie for the blu ray 30th / 4k UHD 35th anniversary gave the choice to choose between both aspect ratios (16:9 https://i.imgur.com/P5LsDgw.jpg 4:3 https://i.imgur.com/5sJHO3y.jpg ) the same thing with WB. Batman Mask of the Phantasm 16:9 https://i.imgur.com/3QHWQ8y.jpg 4:3 https://i.imgur.com/3mgBHRG.jpg

We can argue which one's better all day but I think giving people the choice to choose the aspect ratio with solve most of the issues (assuming the remaster is good)

[Majin Man 101]

This is truly stunning, and I hope it opens the eyes of the official license holders. The fact that Dragon Ball can be pulled out of a dumpster and look better than anything that Toei or Funimation ever put out should be eye opening to them. But that probably won't happen. I am still one of the few faithfuls that are holding out for Toei to put out the original series 3 series restored properly in HD, but that is looking less and less likely with each passing year. If anything, all this does is bring me massive depression that we will likely never see the series looking this good. Toei's 2018 movie remasters are fine, although, even with that, you have to check different sources to get the best version, via blu-ray, or streaming, and then there is the censorship issues, and then they need color correction. It's all just still so imperfect. Regardless, thank you to the good folks that worked on this, we appreciate it.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I am still one of the few faithfuls that are holding out for Toei to put out the original series 3 series restored properly in HD, but that is looking less and less likely with each passing year

This is not going to happen because of the Galaxy Express 999 case, which was basically the only time TOEI attempted a HD remaster of one of their series. TOEI could have used this as an opportunity to show what a 16mm TV anime shot on film could look like if done right, but instead they used Galaxy Express 999 as a test to determine whether the average Japanese consumer could tell a full HD remaster and an SD upscale apart. As part of the test TOEI didn't even use the original prints, but used a rather good DVD master, which they outsourced to Q-Tec to be upscaled and filtered. Fans loved this remaster, the backlash (if any) was minimal, and there's not been a single TOEI show "remastered in HD" since that wasn't a filtered SD upscale. In light of this it's highly doubtful TOEI would treat the original three Dragon Ball animes any better.

[Inkei9001]

I am still one of the few faithfuls that are holding out for Toei to put out the original series 3 series restored properly in HD, but that is looking less and less likely with each passing year

This is not going to happen because of the Galaxy Express 999 case, which was basically the only time TOEI attempted a HD remaster of one of their series. TOEI could have used this as an opportunity to show what a 16mm TV anime shot on film could look like if done right, but instead they used Galaxy Express 999 as a test to determine whether the average Japanese consumer could tell a full HD remaster and an SD upscale apart. As part of the test TOEI didn't even use the original prints, but used a rather good DVD master, which they outsourced to Q-Tec to be upscaled and filtered. Fans loved this remaster, the backlash (if any) was minimal, and there's not been a single TOEI show "remastered in HD" since that wasn't a filtered SD upscale. In light of this it's highly doubtful TOEI would treat the original three Dragon Ball animes any better.

Nah this isn't true, Toei have put out several series in true HD. Just to name one, Dragon Quest Adventure of Dai is arguably the best they've put out so far. It has very competent DNR too in the sense that they did it without at all (in my opinion) compromising fine details in things like background and cel details.

Toei's actual first ever experiment with HD anime series was Hokuto no Ken. They did a full 1080p transfer from beginning to end for that series with no redraws or whatever like DB Kai. Unfortunately, they never actually released it in 1080p, just scanned and remastered the whole show in 1080p. If you look at the DVDs tho it's kinda telling why they might've not felt like it's worth 1080p, because it was so blurry. This is a shame since release dates suggest HnK might've been the very first anime TV series ever to get HD transfer.

During this same time presumably they were experimenting on Dragon Ball Z too, which is what we got on Kai; also too blurry but it was meant for HDTV broadcast so I guess that's why they finished it as 1080p and thought to put it on Blu-ray.

HnK and DB Kai could be why there's some truth to the idea that Toei never bothered scanning and releasing 16mm things because they don't find the scans they saw from Q-TEC justified that investment. HnK's HD remaster was finished by 2008 so they probably had started it at some point like 2006 or even earlier. Remember in the 2000s toei was literally still in the process of digitising their entire film catalog onto digibeta tapes. I believe their first Sailor Moon DVD came out in 2006 and DBGT in 2007 or something like that. The Q-TEC scans probably left Toei thinking a HD digitisation saga wasn't worth starting especially when their SD digitisation hadn't finished yet let alone yielded a full return on investment yet.

Fwiw Toei made a smart move, the common film transferring equipment back then was not as good as what they can scan with today so they did good to hold out. They have recently begun rescanning things in 4K, but we'll have to wait and see if they do a 16mm anime series. They definitely showed themselves they can put out decent 16mm too with the two DBZ TV SPs, so hopefully if there was any doubt in their minds about 16mm, they've seen to it themselves that it's no longer an issue.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I am still one of the few faithfuls that are holding out for Toei to put out the original series 3 series restored properly in HD, but that is looking less and less likely with each passing year

This is not going to happen because of the Galaxy Express 999 case, which was basically the only time TOEI attempted a HD remaster of one of their series. TOEI could have used this as an opportunity to show what a 16mm TV anime shot on film could look like if done right, but instead they used Galaxy Express 999 as a test to determine whether the average Japanese consumer could tell a full HD remaster and an SD upscale apart. As part of the test TOEI didn't even use the original prints, but used a rather good DVD master, which they outsourced to Q-Tec to be upscaled and filtered. Fans loved this remaster, the backlash (if any) was minimal, and there's not been a single TOEI show "remastered in HD" since that wasn't a filtered SD upscale. In light of this it's highly doubtful TOEI would treat the original three Dragon Ball animes any better.

Nah this isn't true, Toei have put out several series in true HD. Just to name one, Dragon Quest Adventure of Dai is arguably the best they've put out so far. It has very competent DNR too in the sense that they did it without at all (in my opinion) compromising fine details in things like background and cel details.

Toei's actual first ever experiment with HD anime series was Hokuto no Ken. They did a full 1080p transfer from beginning to end for that series with no redraws or whatever like DB Kai. Unfortunately, they never actually released it in 1080p, just scanned and remastered the whole show in 1080p. If you look at the DVDs tho it's kinda telling why they might've not felt like it's worth 1080p, because it was so blurry. This is a shame since release dates suggest HnK might've been the very first anime TV series ever to get HD transfer.

During this same time presumably they were experimenting on Dragon Ball Z too, which is what we got on Kai; also too blurry but it was meant for HDTV broadcast so I guess that's why they finished it as 1080p and thought to put it on Blu-ray.

HnK and DB Kai could be why there's some truth to the idea that Toei never bothered scanning and releasing 16mm things because they don't find the scans they saw from Q-TEC justified that investment. HnK's HD remaster was finished by 2008 so they probably had started it at some point like 2006 or even earlier. Remember in the 2000s toei was literally still in the process of digitising their entire film catalog onto digibeta tapes. I believe their first Sailor Moon DVD came out in 2006 and DBGT in 2007 or something like that. The Q-TEC scans probably left Toei thinking a HD digitisation saga wasn't worth starting especially when their SD digitisation hadn't finished yet let alone yielded a full return on investment yet.

Fwiw Toei made a smart move, the common film transferring equipment back then was not as good as what they can scan with today so they did good to hold out. They have recently begun rescanning things in 4K, but we'll have to wait and see if they do a 16mm anime series. They definitely showed themselves they can put out decent 16mm too with the two DBZ TV SPs, so hopefully if there was any doubt in their minds about 16mm, they've seen to it themselves that it's no longer an issue.

I meant series shot on 16mm because TOEI hasn't remastered any more since Galaxy Express 999. People keep hoping for TOEI to do their own remaster of the original series, but they seem to have determined from the reception to their Galaxy Express 999 remaster that only a vocal minority care if its an upscale or not.

[Inkei9001]

I meant series shot on 16mm because TOEI hasn't remastered any more since Galaxy Express 999. People keep hoping for TOEI to do their own remaster of the original series, but they seem to have determined from the reception to their Galaxy Express 999 remaster that only a vocal minority care if its an upscale or not.

Hokuto no Ken is 16mm.

I don't know what you mean by "TOEI hasn't remastered any more since Galaxy Express 999". Are you saying Toei hasn't upscaled any other 16mm shows since GE999? Idk if that's true but if it's true, isn't that a good thing?

[chitsunameru]

Is the negative being white where it black on the image the reason for the cause of the funimations level sets having crushed blacks? I was little disappointed by their being big black but their positive could be the reason?

[Robo4900]

It's worth nothing that Kineko didn't actually do any restoration yet, they just scanned and cropped it.

Shouldn't there be loads of very obvious tape marks on shot changes if no restoration was carried out?

I know for the TV show, they would basically glue or tape each shot together after its film strip was developed, so you get huge marks at the top of the first frame and the bottom of the last frame of each shot.

[Ajay]

Shouldn't there be loads of very obvious tape marks on shot changes if no restoration was carried out?

I know for the TV show, they would basically glue or tape each shot together after its film strip was developed, so you get huge marks at the top of the first frame and the bottom of the last frame of each shot.

35mm is taller than 4:3, while 16mm is wider than 4:3. As a result, the tapemarks on 16mm don't get cropped, while the 35mm more often do.

By "the later ones" which ones do you mean? From what I know, layouts from DBZ Movie 2 and 3 already have widescreen guides.

I was certain I had layouts from the DB movies and Z movie 1 without them, and even some from the middle ones. I'm struggling to find them right now. Will update my post if I come across them later. There's a chance I've mixed myself up over the years, in which case what I said previously can be ignored.

EDIT: Yeah, I was wrong. Sorry about that!