FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[jjgp1112]

Umm...we can't even tell if it's grainy, given that all we have is a projection.

[Jabberwock xeno]

As I was already halfway done "growing up" when I got into DBZ, luckily I'm not too attached to any specific version because that just happened to be what was around when it was on TV. Because of that, I was able to form my own opinion on what I like best (the manga, followed by the select episodes of the Japanese version of the anime) rather than just sticking to whatever was most readily accessible.

Also, while grain doesn't annoy me in the slightest, loss of detail and colors bleeding together (such as dark blues and blacks on Radtiz, which makes details go unseen) does annoy me a lot.

At this point, Kai is the nice middle ground for me in terms of my favorite animated color palette with minimum loss of detail. There are some things that could've been cleaned up a lot better in Kai, though. Hopefully this new DBZ release will correct those issues as they don't have to pump out episodes on a weekly basis.

I agree that the manga is the best, but it always is.

Odd... What's your thought process between the grain vs. color bleeding? I do a lot of image editing, so when I use photoshop and such, the goal is to removed pixilzation and blend lines and color.

Perhaps that explains it?

I like kai, it looks great in motion, even if not in stills compared to the season sets (can a video person explain how this works?). My main issues with kai is lack of dub music, and censorship....



WHY 4KIDS WHY?!

[Jabberwock xeno]

Umm...we can't even tell if it's grainy, given that all we have is a projection.

True.

Still, i'm keeping my eye on this. I have faith in funi.

EDIT: Ack, sorry about the double post!

[ect5150]

Yes, film grain is part of it, yes it adds detail, but it breaks up the image. That's just how I see it. I'm still open to changing my mind if I can get a video comparison.

What kind of comparison are you talking about?

Something like this:
http://www.mediafire.com/?g7fgafnulujlbbr

Or just something with nice grain?
http://images.blu-ray.com/reviews/17_3_1080p.jpg

Or are you talking one video with a side by side comparison running at the same time?

[SSJ2Engels]

*snip*

WHY 4KIDS WHY?!

Th DVD releases of Kai are uncensored/uncut, altought they have a lot of censorship compared to the equivalent Z footage. Still doesn't contain ridiculous censors like this one in the image.

[AgitoZ]

*snip*

WHY 4KIDS WHY?!

Th DVD releases of Kai are uncensored/uncut, altought they have a lot of censorship compared to the equivalent Z footage. Still doesn't contain ridiculous censors like this one in the image.

Also note that 4Kids isn't the one making FUNi do the edits. It's the CW.

[Jabberwock xeno]

*snip*

WHY 4KIDS WHY?!

Th DVD releases of Kai are uncensored/uncut, altought they have a lot of censorship compared to the equivalent Z footage. Still doesn't contain ridiculous censors like this one in the image.

Also note that 4Kids isn't the one making FUNi do the edits. It's the CW.

CW?

Yes, film grain is part of it, yes it adds detail, but it breaks up the image. That's just how I see it. I'm still open to changing my mind if I can get a video comparison.

Or are you talking one video with a side by side comparison running at the same time?

That.

I've noticed that in motion, grain and color correction can look very different than in stills, hence why in still shots I think the season sets look better, but in motion, I think Kai is. Or maybe not, was using a huge hdtv when I watched kai...

[AgitoZ]

CW?

The network that has the CW4Kids block and airs Kai locally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_CW_Television_Network

[Kendamu]

As I was already halfway done "growing up" when I got into DBZ, luckily I'm not too attached to any specific version because that just happened to be what was around when it was on TV. Because of that, I was able to form my own opinion on what I like best (the manga, followed by the select episodes of the Japanese version of the anime) rather than just sticking to whatever was most readily accessible.

Also, while grain doesn't annoy me in the slightest, loss of detail and colors bleeding together (such as dark blues and blacks on Radtiz, which makes details go unseen) does annoy me a lot.

At this point, Kai is the nice middle ground for me in terms of my favorite animated color palette with minimum loss of detail. There are some things that could've been cleaned up a lot better in Kai, though. Hopefully this new DBZ release will correct those issues as they don't have to pump out episodes on a weekly basis.

I agree that the manga is the best, but it always is.

Odd... What's your thought process between the grain vs. color bleeding? I do a lot of image editing, so when I use photoshop and such, the goal is to removed pixilzation and blend lines and color.

I don't get it. Are you saying that grain and pixelization are one and the same? I'm not sure what you're getting at there. As for the Orange Bricks, they just did it wrong. I can understand some detail loss when trying to remaster a cheaply-made anime for Blu-Ray, but in the new trailer it specifically mentions things that videophile types were talking about in 2007 as to what was done wrong with the original remastering.

[Ashura]

Since the thread has been going in circles for a while, maybe this will open up another area of discussion:

What if it was the original Dragon Ball getting the BluRay treatment and not Z? Do you think you guys would react the same way, or would the whole thing be different? Counting up releases, I'm fairly certain that the only analogous release the original Dragonball doesn't have to Z is something like the UUEs.

(Note, I realize there's no Dragon Box for it yet... but the Z Box isn't completed and we don't know their plans as of now. I'm doubtful we'll get it in the long run, but we don't know one way or the other honestly.)

It seems to me that the reaction would be less vehement, but also probably confused as well.

[PuppetDoctor]

I wouldn't be against the original Dragon Ball series being released on Blu-ray if it had all the Opening sequences, Ending sequences and the footage wasn't zoomed in like on the Blue Bricks.

Having Japanese title cards would be a huge bonus but seeing as Funimation doesn't do alternate angles anymore that would probably not happen.

However, I still would prefer a Dragon Ball Dragon Box to come out from Funimation.

[VegettoEX]

Updated the initial post (and the home page of the website) with a press release from Image Systems, who have sold licenses of their restoration products to FUNimation for the new release.

[Krycek7o2]

What an interesting turn of events! So FUNi, internally is doing the restoration. Well, lets hope this turns out for the best. But, the lingering question is; what masters are they using for this restoration?

[VegettoEX]

What an interesting turn of events! So FUNi, internally is doing the restoration. Well, lets hope this turns out for the best. But, the lingering question is; what masters are they using for this restoration?

Like I hinted at in the update (and like someone else kinda pulled apart from the first press release earlier), it sounds like whatever raw digital transfer from the film that Franko did, that's what's being used.

We said often how it appeared that there was no uncropped POST-remaster orange bricks (as in, no 4:3 faux-remastering... it was all done post-cropping), so if there is going to be a 4:3 remaster, it would have to be done again from the start.

In this case though, they at least (from what I'm inferring, anyway) don't have to TRULY start "from scratch" if the film is already digitally captured (in 1080p, 4K... whatever they did it at). They can just kinda skip that first step and jump right into the remastering, which would be helpful to them to save some time and cash. Props to whomever it was that tore apart the first press release and thought it might be hinting at that, since I'm guessing the same thing now -- the only reason to mention Franko was to acknowledge they did the initial digital capture, and from here-on out, they'll (hopefully?) have nothing to do with him what-so-ever.

Of course, I still wanna know about the Japanese audio, since the Dragon Box masters blow that out of the water...

[Krycek7o2]

That does make a whole lot of sense. I assume at least the original master would be the same sans the "remastering" aspect. It did seem to hint at that option. Could FUNi use the Dragon Box audio for this release? I really don't know what are the "rules" for a license when it comes to products. This is the best I and many others have heard the series. And the possibility to get a lossless track does peak my interest in this release. Anything that sounds better than what they had on the Double Feature Blu-rays is always welcome!

[Jabberwock xeno]

As I was already halfway done "growing up" when I got into DBZ, luckily I'm not too attached to any specific version because that just happened to be what was around when it was on TV. Because of that, I was able to form my own opinion on what I like best (the manga, followed by the select episodes of the Japanese version of the anime) rather than just sticking to whatever was most readily accessible.

Also, while grain doesn't annoy me in the slightest, loss of detail and colors bleeding together (such as dark blues and blacks on Radtiz, which makes details go unseen) does annoy me a lot.

At this point, Kai is the nice middle ground for me in terms of my favorite animated color palette with minimum loss of detail. There are some things that could've been cleaned up a lot better in Kai, though. Hopefully this new DBZ release will correct those issues as they don't have to pump out episodes on a weekly basis.

I agree that the manga is the best, but it always is.

Odd... What's your thought process between the grain vs. color bleeding? I do a lot of image editing, so when I use photoshop and such, the goal is to removed pixilzation and blend lines and color.

Nah, I was saying that maybe the reason I like the lack of grain and the smoothed colors is that generally in image manipulation and touch ups, the goal is to remove grainy parts, pixelization, and aliasing, and to smooth everything out.

I don't get it. Are you saying that grain and pixelization are one and the same? I'm not sure what you're getting at there. As for the Orange Bricks, they just did it wrong. I can understand some detail loss when trying to remaster a cheaply-made anime for Blu-Ray, but in the new trailer it specifically mentions things that videophile types were talking about in 2007 as to what was done wrong with the original remastering.

No, i'm saying that since generally in touch ups in photomanipulation, the goal is to remove aliasing, pizelzation, and smooth everything out, and grain is sorta like pixelzation, maybe that's why don't like it.

But now that I think about it...

Yes, if I were to take a frame of the dragon box, stick it next to the orange bricks, zoom in, the grain would appear as pixelzation.

Here's a frame from the dragon box:



Heres one from the Season set:



Now, as a (self taught, no professional experience) digital manipulator, this is what i'd do If I were in charge of the mastering process:

1. Use GIMP's cartoon filter on a very low setting to bring out the lines a bit more. What this in fact does is apply a sort of grain effect to dark areas, but the low setting I'm using only really thickens the lines a bit. It does darken the picture a little, but the alternative is to go around and individually touch up every line, and I don't have time for that.

2. Select an area by color. For example, the portion of piccolo's robes in the direct light. This means that any changes to the picture will only be applied to that area.

3. Use the smudge tool to smooth out the colors. The reason we selected by color is that the shadows and details are not smoothed out.

4. repeat the last two steps to other areas.

5. If we look at goku his outline and lines are kinda non existant at some areas, such as the arm in the right corner and his cheek, so I went ahead and drew a black line at 30% transparency to add it in. Honestly, i'm not sastified with how I touched up goku, I could make him look a lot better.

Note that due to me not wanting to spend another 30 min on this, and not wanting to mess up the lines, I did not smooth the areas right next to lines. So the grain is still present there, but it's only like 3-4 pixels away from the line, so it's not noticable. I also smudged up the black border a bit, but whatever. I also think some color correction (Increase the contrast by around 9 and decrease the brightness by around 4) would be nice, but I don't want to re-upload the image a 3rd time

What we get is this:



For best view, please open up all 3 in a different tab each, and click each other to compare them. I think mine looks the best, of course.

Also, I think another issue is that sayaian saga/early namek had a lot of grain compared to the other ones to begin with, so that may be a factor, as most comparisons use that footage.

EDIT: Uploaded the color corrected one.

[Ashura]

Jabberwock: I think that's exactly what most people don't want. Moderate grain removal, removal of dust, frame glue, broken bits of frame damage, and decent color correction is all this really needs. It doesn't need to be blurred smooth to that level.

In this case though, they at least (from what I'm inferring, anyway) don't have to TRULY start "from scratch" if the film is already digitally captured (in 1080p, 4K... whatever they did it at). They can just kinda skip that first step and jump right into the remastering, which would be helpful to them to save some time and cash. Props to whomever it was that tore apart the first press release and thought it might be hinting at that, since I'm guessing the same thing now -- the only reason to mention Franko was to acknowledge they did the initial digital capture, and from here-on out, they'll (hopefully?) have nothing to do with him what-so-ever.

I'm pretty sure this is a scenario a bunch of people suggested (including myself, I think) on various levels as a possibility. Some people seemed pretty adamant that they only had the 16x9 version, though, and as someone who has edited trailers for a living and has kept 100s of gigs of raw video 'just in case' that always seemed funny to me. As previously mentioned, I'm glad they're doing their cleanup in house, because they've shown they're better at doing this stuff themselves than getting outside people to do it for them.

Of course, I still wanna know about the Japanese audio, since the Dragon Box masters blow that out of the water...

My hope is that they'll use the Dbox master for the audio and restore the next episode previews. As for the audio, I wouldn't say 'blows it out of the water,' but it's at least the best of a bad situation and probably the best that exists.

To the guy who was hoping for alternate angles; Unfortunately, I don't think it's likely that they'll add alternate angles. Their stance against Alt Angles was due to fan backlash of their earlier disks where they used to include them, funny enough. I'm not sure if someone internally is trying to change the policy, though... hopefully, since there's not the same issues with Alt Angles on Blu as there was with DVD. (IE: Bitrate.) It's the one thing they haven't budged on.

If this is something you guys want, it would probably be a good idea to politely suggest it on twitter maybe, or through their fan feedback so they can show the higher ups proof people actually care about this.

[Jabberwock xeno]

Jabberwock: I think that's exactly what most people don't want. Moderate grain removal, removal of dust, frame glue, broken bits of frame damage, and decent color correction is all this really needs. It doesn't need to be blurred smooth to that level.

In this case though, they at least (from what I'm inferring, anyway) don't have to TRULY start "from scratch" if the film is already digitally captured (in 1080p, 4K... whatever they did it at). They can just kinda skip that first step and jump right into the remastering, which would be helpful to them to save some time and cash. Props to whomever it was that tore apart the first press release and thought it might be hinting at that, since I'm guessing the same thing now -- the only reason to mention Franko was to acknowledge they did the initial digital capture, and from here-on out, they'll (hopefully?) have nothing to do with him what-so-ever.

I'm pretty sure this is a scenario a bunch of people suggested (including myself, I think) on various levels as a possibility. Some people seemed pretty adamant that they only had the 16x9 version, though, and as someone who has edited trailers for a living and has kept 100s of gigs of raw video 'just in case' that always seemed funny to me. As previously mentioned, I'm glad they're doing their cleanup in house, because they've shown they're better at doing this stuff themselves than getting outside people to do it for them.

Of course, I still wanna know about the Japanese audio, since the Dragon Box masters blow that out of the water...

My hope is that they'll use the Dbox master for the audio and restore the next episode previews. As for the audio, I wouldn't say 'blows it out of the water,' but it's at least the best of a bad situation and probably the best that exists.

To the guy who was hoping for alternate angles; Unfortunately, I don't think it's likely that they'll add alternate angles. Their stance against Alt Angles was due to fan backlash of their earlier disks where they used to include them, funny enough. I'm not sure if someone internally is trying to change the policy, though... hopefully, since there's not the same issues with Alt Angles on Blu as there was with DVD. (IE: Bitrate.) It's the one thing they haven't budged on.

If this is something you guys want, it would probably be a good idea to politely suggest it on twitter maybe, or through their fan feedback so they can show the higher ups proof people actually care about this.

Their twitter is @FUNimation, if anybody couldn't find it

What fan feedback page?

[Zrorro]

If this new release is 4:3 and looks decent and has all the different audio track (Jap dub, English dub w/ Jap music, and English dub w/ dub music) then I will be happy. The only DBZ series eps I actually own is the old saiyan saga VHS set, 10 Tape Frieza and a few other random VHS tapes from the series. I've been holding off for a long time till they put out a solid release of the series and if this turns out to finally be a good version, I will buy it. Don't get me wrong I like the Dragon Boxs but I grew up watching the Dub on TV and I would like a release that includes it. Don't get me wrong, I like the Japanese music but that isn't the first way I saw the show. When I finally buy the show I want it to be a release that I can be happy with, much like how the many fans who got the Dragonbox release are. Also the other reason I had put off getting the show was because I am also a fan of One Piece and have been collecting those DVDs as well.

[Ashura]

Their twitter is @FUNimation, if anybody couldn't find it

What fan feedback page?

Probably one of these:

http://www.funimation.com/faq/contact-us

Product Concerns or Feedback.

Though if people actually ask for something it should be nice, polite, short, and to the point.

Something like 'I'm looking forward to the DBZ Bluray. Please include alternate angles with the original Japanese titles and credits!'