Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

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Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Brad Redfield » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:35 pm

Heya, I'm looking to purchase the rest of the DB anime franchise (I only have the Dragon Boxes for Dragon Ball Z and the recent BD of Battle of Gods) and I had a question regarding the quality of Funimation's original release of the Bardock and Trunks specials.

How is the picture quality? I know that they're from Funi's early DVD days so I kinda expect lackluster encoding but is the picture quality bad enough to the point that they're not worth tracking down?

Thanks in advance!

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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Gaffer Tape » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:42 pm

I own both of them, and I personally find them to be fine to watch. I just watched the Bardock special on an HDTV a few weeks ago, and it looked fine to me. And since this is back in the day when FUNi still used alternate angles, the Japanese title cards and credits are present as well as the English. The only problem is, because of that, there are transition lags that are a bit jarring. I'm not sure how it's scored in the dub, but in the original, there are multiple music pieces that are in progress when the shift occurs, causing the music to very noticeably halt for about a second. For instance, the title card music in Bardock continues into the first scene, and that's where a shift is. Likewise, the ending song begins right before their angle shift into the credits, so that gets hit too.
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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Brad Redfield » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:47 pm

Ah, I forgot that they have alternate angles! (Dear me, how many years has it been since Funi stopped using them?) That's a big plus for me despite the transition hiccups.

Thanks for the response regarding the picture quality, I'll definitely look into picking them up now!

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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Pokewhiz7 » Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:38 pm

Not that you should because they're cropped, but I believe the double feature DVDs for the TV specials (but none of the other ones, strangely) do actually have alternate angles.

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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Brad Redfield » Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:47 pm

Huh, I never knew the 'remastered' version of the specials had alternate angles. But yeah, the cropping definitely kills any chance of me picking that particular release up.

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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by dbboxkaifan » Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:56 pm

For the Bardock special when watching it subbed I noticed that he was referred as "Burdock" and the subs had some typos oh and no Eye catches as they were removed for some reason but other than these cons it's a decent release.

The Trunks special has a strange effect when the two Artificial Humans attack Trunks' it shows on the top and bottom as if the cel (is that what they call it?) is visible on the episode and that should've been cropped off, do note that this also happens on the Japanese R2 release(s).
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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Gaffer Tape » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:01 pm

dbboxkaifan wrote:For the Bardock special when watching it subbed I noticed that he was referred as "Burdock" and the subs had some typos oh and no Eye catches as they were removed for some reason but other than these cons it's a decent release.
The lack of eyecatches is consistent with the rest of FUNimation's releases at the time, so that's the reason they're not here either. And Steven Simmons has always translated Baadakku as Burdock. Honestly, since his name is a reference to greater burdock with absolutely no alterations to spelling, it makes me wonder sometimes why exactly we don't go with Burdock.
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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Adamant » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:10 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote:Honestly, since his name is a reference to greater burdock with absolutely no alterations to spelling, it makes me wonder sometimes why exactly we don't go with Burdock.
It's not. The word burdock is written as バードック, while the character's name is バーダック. Earlier Japanese merchandise tended to spell it as the far more logical "Barduck", which has been argued as the best way to get the character's name pun across.
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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Gaffer Tape » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:38 pm

Well, I have no idea what's right in this case. I was using Herms's Name Pun Round-Up as my source for the spelling:
Bardock
Named after burdock, particularly greater burdock (gobou, whose roots are used in meals in Japan. In the DB Forever name pun guide, Toriyama has trouble remembering if Bardock even appeared in the manga, but a note in parenthesis points out the pun.
Toriyama Explanation: “I don’t really remember this. Did he even appear in the original story [i.e. the manga]? If he was in the original story, then his name was definitely taken from a vegetable. (Bardock=greater burdock)” [DBF]
Source Spelling:: バーダック/Baadakku
Name Spelling: same
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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Herms » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:53 pm

Oh, I just messed up on that. Sorry, I'll fix it later.
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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by LostTimeLord » Wed Nov 05, 2014 9:30 am

Screencaps of FUNi's original TV special DVDs: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/scgrjrzv03kt ... F38cLhH5ua.
They're clearly sourced from old tape masters and have a fair amount of compression artifacts (plus the jarring not-so-seamless branching as other have mentioned), but are great compared to the cropped/filtered later releases.

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Re: Funi's original DVDs for the Z TV Specials

Post by Tanooki Kuribo » Wed Nov 05, 2014 2:17 pm

Brad Redfield wrote:Ah, I forgot that they have alternate angles! (Dear me, how many years has it been since Funi stopped using them?) That's a big plus for me despite the transition hiccups.

Thanks for the response regarding the picture quality, I'll definitely look into picking them up now!

Also, I should mention ~ the cropping and picture quality is a little different for the opening depending on what angle you choose. I tried to look for the thread where I pointed this out, but I couldn't. But, yea... that's a thing...

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