Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" On Blu-ray: News & Discussion

[PhoenixEX]

Well I just received my set and I don't know if it's just me but is the US soundtrack, I don't know, different? It just sounds different. Maybe it's because I haven't seen the show with the US soundtrack in years, but, hmm...

[Gyt Kaliba]

Well I just received my set and I don't know if it's just me but is the US soundtrack, I don't know, different? It just sounds different. Maybe it's because I haven't seen the show with the US soundtrack in years, but, hmm...

It could be that you're remembering what the Falcouner score sounded like, while this batch of episodes (and most of what will make up the next set, assuming they really are keeping with the same amount of episodes per set as the Season Sets) had a different composer. Nathan Johnson, I think?

[dbboxkaifan]

It could be that you're remembering what the Falcouner score sounded like, while this batch of episodes (and most of what will make up the next set, assuming they really are keeping with the same amount of episodes per set as the Season Sets) had a different composer. Nathan Johnson, I think?

That's right, for the early episodes the US score is composed by Nathan Johnson and then on the later arc of Freeza it changes to Faulconer Productions.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Thanks, I thought I had the name right, but I couldn't remember if it was him that did this, or if he was the GT guy.

Though I suppose, strictly speaking, it's more accurate to say that the Falcouner score switched to the Johnson score, given the out of order way we finally came to get these episodes uncut.

[PhoenixEX]

Ah okay thank you that makes sense. What episode does the BF Soundtrack start?

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Episode 68.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Turn down your brightness/contrast and adjust to your liking but seriously back away from the tv...
The New blus actually look decent and certainly nowhere near as bad as the orange bricks.
But... if you're watching this on your computer you will be disappointed...

I'd give it a 3.9/5 compared to the bricks but really wished the levels continued... but granted it did get better from episode 1 as I think that's Funimations worst episode.. The picture looks good but my conscious will not allow me to give the video anything about a 3 as all traces from it's original source is gone!

It is an improvement over the orange bricks and I say if you have missed the dragonboxs I'd get these or if you can stomach the price of the US boxes get them by all means, I took a blow on box 7 but that was my last box. My recomendations are if you have missed the dragon boxes is to buy the Japanese boxes as surprisingly they are cheaper and you will get a much lower price than what the US boxes add up to, and just either get the cheap orange bricks for subs or the new season releases (I haven't checked the subs so can't say they're the same).

Don't know if the audio is better but does sound better than previous releases but it's not broadcast audio or anything just better audio than what funimation has spit out before.

Unless you are going to watch a batch or a season at once these are fine but from how bright Raditz was ( a simple tone down of brightness/contrast actually solves that ) I just hope season 2 is no where near heck not even on the same planet as season 2 from the dvd release... I've also compared the DVD/Blu-ray release of the seasons and it seems to be using the levels transfer from what I can tell which is good for this release but seriously wish they left the film grain... honestly would have saved them some time to say okay lets crop this and be done and call it "new". However I will say despite the missing grain these do look awesome on a HDTV!

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Turn down your brightness/contrast and adjust to your liking but seriously back away from the tv...
The New blus actually look decent and certainly nowhere near as bad as the orange bricks.
But... if you're watching this on your computer you will be disappointed...

I'd give it a 3.9/5 compared to the bricks but really wished the levels continued... but granted it did get better from episode 1 as I think that's Funimations worst episode.. The picture looks good but my conscious will not allow me to give the video anything about a 3 as all traces from it's original source is gone!

It is an improvement over the orange bricks and I say if you have missed the dragonboxs I'd get these or if you can stomach the price of the US boxes get them by all means, I took a blow on box 7 but that was my last box. My recomendations are if you have missed the dragon boxes is to buy the Japanese boxes as surprisingly they are cheaper and you will get a much lower price than what the US boxes add up to, and just either get the cheap orange bricks for subs or the new season releases (I haven't checked the subs so can't say they're the same).

Don't know if the audio is better but does sound better than previous releases but it's not broadcast audio or anything just better audio than what funimation has spit out before.

Unless you are going to watch a batch or a season at once these are fine but from how bright Raditz was ( a simple tone down of brightness/contrast actually solves that ) I just hope season 2 is no where near heck not even on the same planet as season 2 from the dvd release... I've also compared the DVD/Blu-ray release of the seasons and it seems to be using the levels transfer from what I can tell which is good for this release but seriously wish they left the film grain... honestly would have saved them some time to say okay lets crop this and be done and call it "new". However I will say despite the missing grain these do look awesome on a HDTV!

If you're using an LCD/LED TV then these will look even brighter!

[dbboxkaifan]

If you're using an LCD/LED TV then these will look even brighter!

This is on Blu-ray and people use LCD/LED/Plasma to watch TV so what exactly is your point? They should be watching Blu-rays on a CRT TV?

From time to time I customise the TV settings for game sessions and series, because having the same settings just doesn't work well.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

If you're using an LCD/LED TV then these will look even brighter!

This is on Blu-ray and people use LCD/LED/Plasma to watch TV so what exactly is your point? They should be watching Blu-rays on a CRT TV?

From time to time I customise the TV settings for game sessions and series, because having the same settings just doesn't work well.

I technically viewed these on a calibrated broadcast monitor, if your TV is properly calibrated these will look fine but because of the brightness I just almost want to create a custom BRD and get the color levels where they should be but not much you can do since you don't have the original source, even when you see Raditz for the first time just by dimming your brightness and changing contrast to 27(don't go TOO far down if your tv was calibrated) it will make a noticeable difference.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

If you're using an LCD/LED TV then these will look even brighter!

This is on Blu-ray and people use LCD/LED/Plasma to watch TV so what exactly is your point? They should be watching Blu-rays on a CRT TV?

Sometimes I wonder the things you say are you just trying to start an argument on purpose. My point is that I know a lot of people here are using LCD/LED TVs , which are the brightest you'll find, mixing and matching them with these BluRays making them appear even brighter then they should (TV settings help only a little). Plasmas on the other hand don't suffer from this. And when have I mentioned CRTs? Don't make me laugh

[Daimo-Rukiri]

If you're using an LCD/LED TV then these will look even brighter!

This is on Blu-ray and people use LCD/LED/Plasma to watch TV so what exactly is your point? They should be watching Blu-rays on a CRT TV?

Sometimes I wonder the things you say are you just trying to start an argument on purpose. My point is that I know a lot of people here are using LCD/LED TVs , which are the brightest you'll find, mixing and matching them with these BluRays making them appear even brighter then they should (TV settings help only a little). Plasmas on the other hand don't suffer from this. And when have I mentioned CRTs? Don't make me laugh

If your TV was properly calibrated (not your best buy calibration, your prof calibration and the price ranges depending on the equipment used but $500 is a good estimate especially if you just dropped $3K+ on a TV) or if you know what your doing and have the proper test patterns you'll be fine but having the hardware does help as it will tell you if your colors is to high and if your black and whites are where they should be. Spears and Munsil Vol. 2, and Disney's Wow should have all the test patterns you need.

[samuraix123]

Can anyone post any shots of Goku on Snake way? I'd like to see the quality of that. but from what I've gathered this set is ''Meh..It's aight. Not great! But aight''
I honestly will probably get these when they gets around the freeza saga. I've got plans this year on stuff I wanna buy. My 3 big buys this year is
1.) Battle of Gods limited edition(On the way)
2,) Monsters TV series(Saving up for it)
3.) and Dragon-Box: The Movies!(I have my doubts if I'll be able to pull this buy off but if I can it'll be awesome!)

[sumpter360]

So in my opinion, Kai may be superior to other releases in terms of color, but looking at crisp, high definition details, it pales in comparison to most other releases, including the Level sets and the new Blu-ray Season set.

What is this I don't even... what detail is left in this release?

What detail ISN'T left? To my eyes, all detail is still there, it's the grain that's been removed. Like I've stated previously, loss of grain doesn't inherently mean loss of detail, if the grain is removed correctly, which IMO, FUNimation has done. I'm not saying it's a perfect release, or that FUNimation's remaster process isn't without it's flaws; of course it has flaws. Any release without an extensive frame-by-frame, manually done remastering will have downsides, lapses in quality, etc. Fortunately, this release has very few, hardly noticeable ones.

Check out this screenshot comparing Orange Brick to Blu-ray Season.

Orange Brick: http://i.imgur.com/H14wGMe.jpg
Blu-ray: http://i.imgur.com/4QiWQGY.jpg

Do you not see all of the detail that remains in the Blu-ray Season shot? Literally all of the detail is still there, and even more vivid and clear and crisp than in it's Orange Brick counterpart.

So many individuals here scream that the Season sets are somehow devoid of detail, but that is pretty blatantly false. The detail is there, it just may not be what you're looking for. In the past, we've had to look through grain to see the details, and now that such a veil is lifted, you are blind to what's right in front of you, refusing to see the forest for the trees.

I don't know, maybe we just all have different definitions of detail... To my eyes, all the detail is there, just not covered in grain. If you or anyone else would like to point out specifically where detail is missing, I'm more than willing to attempt to see your perspective. But without any concrete, specific proof, it just sounds to me like people refusing to accept that this is a decent, if not pretty great release.

[Kuwabara]

The "detail" in the Season Set shot looks like a blurry mess to me, particularly the tree to the left of Gohan. The idea of "looking past grain" is ridiculous. Detail is clearly there, the grain doesn't change that. Also, detail loss occurs no matter how good the DNR process is. The Blu-ray shot has problems of its own, but I will say that these Blu-rays are shaping up to look much better than the Season Sets, at least for now. In fact, I could have stomached the brightness, saturation, and weird looking backgrounds if they would have just stuck to the 4:3 aspect ratio. But since it's cropped, it's a worthless release to me.

[theoriginalbilis]

So... I actually picked this up at my local MovieStop, since it was only $23.99 new. I wanted to see for myself what the footage looked like. I spot checked a few episodes here and there, here are my thoughts:

DISC MENU:
- The menu feels like it's mocking us. The main menu shows footage that transitions between the widescreen remaster and the Levels 4:3 remaster. It's obvious to me that the Levels looked better. They only show backgrounds, landscapes, and space scenes so it looks like nothing major is cut off, but we all know better.

OPs/EDs:
- The opening intro looks surprisingly good, better than the episodes themselves. I feel the results they were aiming for can be best represented in the intro. Even cropped, nothing detrimental seems to be chopped off. The colors, sharpness, and overall quality of the image seems better. I'm guessing they may have used footage from the movies for the intro, since the movies used better film stock.
- Sadly, the ending theme looks like complete garbage. At first, I couldn't tell what was wrong. But then I realized that even more footage from the ED is missing than just the 20% from everything else. It looks like they chopped off like 40% off the footage. I have no idea why they did this for the ED, but nothing else, because it looks even blurrier and worse than everything else. Since I don't have a Blu-Ray drive, some photos will have to do.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

REMASTERING PROCESS:
- The colors are extremely bright and saturated, and makes some shots a little hard on the eyes. Overall, I was fine with the brighter colors, but some may call it overkill.
- The color palette is more consistent than the Dragon Boxes IMO, things aren't overly pink/green/yellowed due to age degradation.
- The contrast is too high; especially the darks. Expect plenty of crushed blacks, and dark details (clothes/armor/shadows) to be nearly gone/nonexistent. The brights, such as eyes and skin color, are rather bright, but not to the extent of the Orange Bricks where characters' skin and eye color were indistinguishable.
- The DVNR/filtering they did seems to be a double-edged sword: While the characters themselves are clean and sharp, the process they used has made the outlines so bold that details of the background characters can sometimes be muddled.
- Sadly, the remaster has not done any favors to the backgrounds. They are definitely lacking in detail, and look more like splotchy watercolor than they originally did. The clouds... ye gods, man... the clouds. Also, there's a weird effect on the backgrounds thanks to the remastering. They constantly jitter and wiggle. And I'm not talking about frame jitter (normal for older anime), parts of painting grain and detail will just move around while everything else stays perfectly still, such as logos, titles, and characters. It's distracting to a degree.
- On the plus side, I couldn't find any examples of frame/film damage on this release. No glue, tears, rips, cigarette burns, etc. Then again, I haven't watched every single episode.

CROPPING:
- Maybe I'm just used to the OBs and Kai, but the cropping doesn't seem quite as intrusive as the OBs. I mean, yes the tops and bottoms of frames are gone, but it seems like they either rearranged the framing or zoomed out slightly more to make sure important details weren't completely lost. It's hard to say for sure since I don't have the OBs or the broadcast footage of Kai to compare it to.
- I want to say they even moved the frame manually during certain shots, like when Goku and Piccolo are double-blasted by Raditz. It's really hard to explain without seeing it it motion, but it doesn't look a natural camera pan made by the animators. It were up to me, I'd rather have 4:3 with none of this widescreen BS at all. But I can say it doesn't seem like a total center-cropping job anymore.

Before I forget.... EYECATCHES!!!
- The eyecatches aren't cropped. In fact, FUNimation seems to have digitally added white background space to the outsides of the frame that blend in with the rest of the footage to make the whole eyecatch look totally seamless in 16:9. More photos for reference:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

AUDIO:
- All three audio tracks sound identical to the Levels. The English tracks sound fine and crystal clear. The Japanese track sounds like the audio from the Dragon Boxes, which is fine and serviceable, but no where near the quality of the broadcast audio. Will we see those in future "Seasons"? Only time will tell.

That's it for now, if I see anything else worth noting, I'll be sure to let everyone know!

[samuraix123]

Wow! Thanks for all the info theoriginalbilis! I wonder why they decided to crop the ending more?

[Metalwario64]

Spoiler:

Orange Brick:
Blu-ray:

Like I said earlier, that orange brick shot looks like it's from YouTube or something, because it's way worse than it actually looks. I retook it and that indeed was the case:

Spoiler:

The contrast is too high; especially the darks. Expect plenty of crushed blacks, and dark details (clothes/armor/shadows) to be nearly gone/nonexistent. The brights, such as eyes and skin color, are rather bright, but not to the extent of the Orange Bricks where characters' skin and eye color were indistinguishable.

The only orange brick with crushed white skin tones was "season two", and even though it was bright all around, it was only ridiculously bright for a few episodes.

The colors on this set are pretty much the same as orange brick 1.

[jjgp1112]

Pretty neat what they did to the eyecatches

[Big Momma]

Sorry, I had to.




And that ending is...wow. To be honest, cropping doesn't necessarily bother me too much...but that's just ridiculous. How did anyone from FUNimation look at the final version of the ED and say "This works."?