Orange Bricks vs Blu-Ray Season Sets

[SSJ Electric Fury]

Would someone give us some Level 1.2 vs Season One Blu-ray comparison shots here? I want to see for myself how the sharpness and colors compare.

[Ajay]

Would someone give us some Level 1.2 vs Season One Blu-ray comparison shots here? I want to see for myself how the sharpness and colors compare.

Season 1:

Spoiler:

Season 2:

Spoiler:

FUNi's masters aren't particularly great in the first place. They're far more grainy and feature an inherent lack of dark detail that is made worse with their need to contrast everything in the Season sets.

Kai is the nicest looking of all the HD releases. The Dragon Boxes are still the king of the home releases overall, even if they do have their own share of flaws.

Again, I'm not actively dissuading anyone from the Blu-rays, I just hate seeing people act like they're a technically sound product.

If someone wants to buy them, go ahead, but I'd rather not have shitty releases like this supported, personally.

[clutchins]

Would someone give us some Level 1.2 vs Season One Blu-ray comparison shots here? I want to see for myself how the sharpness and colors compare.

Season 1:

Spoiler:

Season 2:

Spoiler:

FUNi's masters aren't particularly great in the first place. They're far more grainy and feature an inherent lack of dark detail that is made worse with their need to contrast everything in the Season sets.

Kai is the nicest looking of all the HD releases. The Dragon Boxes are still the king of the home releases overall, even if they do have their own share of flaws.

Again, I'm not actively dissuading anyone from the Blu-rays, I just hate seeing people act like they're a technically sound product.

If someone wants to buy them, go ahead, but I'd rather not have shitty releases like this supported, personally.

Isn't that last shot of Goku from Namek? Don't the Level sets only cover 1-34 and then 35-39 on Xbox?

[Ajay]

Isn't that last shot of Goku from Namek? Don't the Level sets only cover 1-34 and then 35-39 on Xbox?

Yeah, it's a screenshot from the preview bits we got on the Blu-ray or part of the documentary they did on the remastering progress. I forget precisely which.

[clutchins]

Isn't that last shot of Goku from Namek? Don't the Level sets only cover 1-34 and then 35-39 on Xbox?

Yeah, it's a screenshot from the preview bits we got on the Blu-ray or part of the documentary they did on the remastering progress. I forget precisely which.

Oh okay because I remember we got a couple of samples from 2.1 of Krillin and Gohan on the spaceship but that shot looks like it's from the fight against Jeice and Burter from episode 67 (I've watched the Ginyu Saga over and over so I instantly recognized that shot).

[samuraix123]

Definitely go with the Blurays over the Orange Bricks! They are still cropped though but in my opinion they look much better than the OB's and you don't have to worry about lines disappearing during shaking scenes. I absolutely hope I never see the OB's ever again. If someone broke in my house and stole my Dragonball collection and then someone offered to give me the OB's, I'd tell them ''Don't worry about it. Keep em and I'll get my Blurays back haha'' I wont say I love the Bluray season sets as much as my Dragon-boxes...but I like em a lot.

[Theophrastus]

I know it may sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but why did the Level sets get cancelled? They were damn near perfect. Were sales not good enough? Or did it simply cost too much for Funimation to produce?

AFAIK they didn't sell well enough to justify the relatively higher production cost, so a little from column A and a little from column B.

I'm not really sure what Funimation was expecting, though. Level 1.1 came out less than a month after Dragon Box Z Vol. 7, and while they were still in the process of releasing Kai 1.0 on DVD/BD. Who the hell thought that was a good idea and wouldn't backfire horribly, especially when they had a lot less episodes for the money compared to the OBs and Dragon Boxes?

So basically, oversaturation of Dragon Ball releases, effectively killed the Level Sets.

More so the fact that your casual, nostalgia-driven fan buying the series on a whim is going to look at the episode count, see only 17 episodes per set, and think "why the fuck would I buy this when the DVD sets have about twice as many episodes per box?", and the hardcore fans who had just bought the Dragon Boxes were probably angry at Funimation trying to take advantage of them by offering "a new, even better" release so soon after completing their DBox collection.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

EDIT: Here's a review solely on the BD remaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijHfBlL1DHE

This isn't a review. This is someone yelling uninformed nonsense into a microphone for 10 minutes.

The Blu-rays are far from perfect. The cropping is the absolute least of its issues.

Their filtering process has left everything looking exceptionally flat with streaks of grain smearing in and out of the image. The show doesn't use razor-sharp edges for its shading; everything is a little soft and more natural looking. This release flattens everything for this weird vector-like appearance which even the Orange Bricks didn't have.

Even worse, the line-art is a blurry mess:

Spoiler:

It looks absolutely dreadful. Even the colours are an inconsistent mess, with skin tones varying from prawn pink to lemon yellow.

The later seasons improve marginally, but you still get blurry line-art in long distance shots. You'd have to be sitting pretty far back from your TV to negate this issue.

Even Boo Kai's Blu-rays look better. Softer shading is retained with no unnaturally sharp edges. Green tint, sure, but at least that's fixable with some small adjustments.

Whatever product you pick, you're getting a pretty shitty one. The Season Sets are the lesser of two evils, but let's not give praise where praise is absolutely not due.

You can't just sit down and enjoy things, can you? When I watch these, I see my favorite childhood show remastered in HD. The review is excellent and there are great comparisons between BD and the OBs. Are you just mad that you got the worst possible release (Orange Bricks) and can't afford these Blu-rays? You act like these are complete trash when they're wonderful. The only problem I see is the cropping. If it weren't for that, it would be perfect, in my opinion. I don't know what you mean by "the line art is a blurry mess." Is your monitor have that "ghosting" issue? You are being waaay too critical here. I love the screenshots you provided, especially the first one of Goku.

You need to chill. It's a TV show and it's the best quality we will get. I love FUNimation for this release and hope to see more like it because they did a good job. And it's the only HD release we have besides Kai 1.0, but it has a bunch of bad noise in the background that makes it almost unwatchable.

[Gaffer Tape]

it's the best quality we will get

That's the most depressing and probably most accurate statement I've read about Dragon Ball. It ties in with the most depressing thought: that so many other people are saying and thinking the same thing you are, which just reinforces the likelihood that this is the best quality we will get.

[Ajay]

You can't just sit down and enjoy things, can you? When I watch these, I see my favorite childhood show remastered in HD. The review is excellent and there are great comparisons between BD and the OBs. Are you just mad that you got the worst possible release (Orange Bricks) and can't afford these Blu-rays? You act like these are complete trash when they're wonderful. The only problem I see is the cropping. If it weren't for that, it would be perfect, in my opinion. I don't know what you mean by "the line art is a blurry mess." Is your monitor have that "ghosting" issue? You are being waaay too critical here. I love the screenshots you provided, especially the first one of Goku.

You need to chill. It's a TV show and it's the best quality we will get. I love FUNimation for this release and hope to see more like it because they did a good job. And it's the only HD release we have besides Kai 1.0, but it has a bunch of bad noise in the background that makes it almost unwatchable.

You're not going to make many friends on this forum if you keep responding emotionally with insults and poor reasoning. My calibrated IPS monitor does not have ghosting issues, colour issues, or anything that would prevent me from being accurate with my criticisms.

This is not a jealously thing as you so hilariously suggest. I own the Japanese Dragon Boxes for all three series, its special and the movies - sets that cost me several times over the total amount of these BDs. I am more than capable of sitting down and enjoying them despite their flaws, but I am most certainly not pining for any woeful Blu-ray nor do I have any interest in the Orange Bricks. How dare you make claims about my wealth. That is childish and entirely out of line.

"It's the best quality we will get" is wholeheartedly false. We've had better on numerous releases already, so let's not pretend otherwise. For someone who seems to have such an emotional response to my breakdowns of a Blu-ray, I find it hilariously ironic that you have the nerve to tell me to chill and state that 'it's a TV show', as if that adds any weight to your post. If it's just a TV show, why do you care about my criticisms? Surely if it's just some TV show to you then it's irrelevant what anyone has to say about a release of it.

I broke down the inherent flaws of the release with evidence to back it up. I am not forcing you to dislike something you clearly enjoy, but I am absolutely going to refute claims that this is somehow perfect outside of its aspect ratio issues. If someone is asking for some information on the Blu-rays and whether they're worth getting rid of the Orange Bricks for, I want them to be making an informed decision. Funnily enough, that involves presenting information, whether you like it or not.

This isn't me being overly critical or some unique vendetta I have against this release. Take a glance at the official thread and you'll see my thoughts echoed across 300+ pages - http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=24858

As for blurred lines and ghosting:

Spoiler:

DRAGON BALL Z - DRAGON BOX


DRAGON BALL Z: SEASON 2


DRAGON BALL KAI

You only have to take one look at our characters to see the issue.

View an image at its intended resolution - http://i.minus.com/i01Pmaqg3kkxU.png - it's impossible to ignore the hazy line art.

Gaffer Tape said it perfectly a while ago:

From my limited experience, I'd have to agree with the rest: the blu-rays are better than the orange bricks. But does that make them worth "upgrading" to? That's a bit tougher. I mean, it's basically replacing crap with crap. Is it worth it to get a shinier turd?

The general consensus was that it really isn't worth it, but I'm not going to tell someone definitively what to do. As I said, I'm laying out facts and OP can decide.

[LettuceJUMP]

Because there is no "definitive" set this question will live on.

I grew up with Toonami Dragon Ball Z, then was switched onto Funimation when they took over the dubbing.

I owned the VHS's, then the DVD's then the orange bricks. I sold each set previously as I upgraded but VERY quickly could not watch the orange bricks. 16x9 sounded good in theory but the cropping, loss of detail and bad images made it unwatchable for me.

Now being 29, I do not need the filler anymore, and use the Kai Blu-rays as my definitive set. I owned the Dragon Boxes, but the audio was different than the audio I grew up with, and honestly the Kai Blu-rays look pretty darn good compared to the Dragon Box, especially on my 70".

I anxiously await the Kai Blu-ray Buu Saga to complete my experience on 4x3 1080p quality and respectable audio/dubbing.

So to sum up, I would throw Kai in the mix and say it is superior to orange bricks and Blu-ray season sets if you can not get your hands on dragon boxes. I owned the Level Sets and thought they were PERFECT. But that was short lived.

Honestly I am content with my Kai Blu-rays, but not fully content till Z is completed. Give me Buu. Until then, I feel incomplete like every other release of Dragon Ball Z in the last 15 years. Always missing something...

[Vegard Aune]

As for blurred lines and ghosting:

Spoiler:

DRAGON BALL Z - DRAGON BOX


DRAGON BALL Z: SEASON 2


DRAGON BALL KAI

You only have to take one look at our characters to see the issue.

While I won't deny that the season-set looks really bad there, I always find this to be a bit of an unfair comparison, considering how those particular episodes were considerably sharper than usual both on the Dragon Box and in Kai due to Toei having for some reason used higher quality film for them. So while the season-set image isn't notably worse than what's average for that release, the Kai-shot is of far better quality than Kai was in general.

[thaman91]

I anxiously await the Kai Blu-ray Buu Saga to complete my experience on 4x3 1080p quality and respectable audio/dubbing.

So to sum up, I would throw Kai in the mix and say it is superior to orange bricks and Blu-ray season sets if you can not get your hands on dragon boxes. I owned the Level Sets and thought they were PERFECT. But that was short lived.

Honestly I am content with my Kai Blu-rays, but not fully content till Z is completed. Give me Buu. Until then, I feel incomplete like every other release of Dragon Ball Z in the last 15 years. Always missing something...

Well get ready to still be missing something when the Buu Kai rolls around in the US because it seems like it is only going to get a 16:9 release, unfortunately. And it has a green tint. So it won't fit with the rest of Kai very well. But at least we'll probably have a good dub.

[clutchins]

I anxiously await the Kai Blu-ray Buu Saga to complete my experience on 4x3 1080p quality and respectable audio/dubbing.

You might be in for a long wait. The Japanese Kai Boo Blu-rays are stuck with 16:9 cropped picture. We'll have to see if Funimation can wrangle out the 4:3 pre-cropped picture from Toei but that does not look likely.

[LettuceJUMP]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Japanese blu-rays for the original Kai 16x9 then Funi released 4:3?
I would think they would do the same now...but then again. Who knows

[Baggie_Saiyan]

For Kai1.0 The Japanese DVDs were in 16x9. Wheras the Blu rays were still 4x3 I believe.

[Puto]

No, the JP Blu-rays for Kai were 4:3 -- it was the DVDs that were 16:9.

[Naruto6583]

Wasn't kai 1.0 already in 4:3 when it was created but had to be cropped due to laws on Fuji tv that the show had to be in 16:9 widescreen?

[Vegitofaxx]

I know this is an old post, but Ginyu's head should be censored there.

[clutchins]

I know this is an old post, but Ginyu's head should be censored there.

Why's that?