A potential 4K release of DBZ...

[Forte224]

(still learning the terminology) but what is the "orange brick" mean?

The orange bricks are these:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
The worst release of DBZ ever.

[FutureTrunks]

(still learning the terminology) but what is the "orange brick" mean?

The orange bricks are these:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
The worst release of DBZ ever.

Oh.. I own all those. Got them as a set. Why bad release?

[Forte224]

(still learning the terminology) but what is the "orange brick" mean?

The orange bricks are these:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
The worst release of DBZ ever.

Oh.. I own all those. Got them as a set. Why bad release?

They cropped the image so that it would fill the entire screen of a 16:9 TV, the "remastering" basically just being them making the image really bright and removing grain, and more. I don't remember what caused it, but something with their remaster process makes it so lines just disappear at times, usually when there's shaking I think? Here's an example:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[KBABZ]

Why bad release?

The Orange Bricks are also infamous among well-informed fans for being marketed around lies and taking advantage of fans who didn't know any better. For example Funimation claimed that they removed grain and used a side-by-side comparison as evidence (the "Before" still had grain added to it, the "After" was the original), and it was claimed to be done frame-by-frame (it wasn't, a computer did it via automation, hence the terrible comparison pics above). Funimation also claimed that they used an HD master, which was true, but they failed to mention that DVDs were SD, standard definition, and the colour grading often favoured white balance and brightness over anything else, resulting in detail being removed if it were bright and a green tint to the footage.

And of course there's the 16:9 cropping of a 4:3 show which, outside of destroying the composition of the shots, were always cropped in the middle; the frame wasn't moved up or down like with Kai and the Blu-Rays, so important parts of shots (like the top of character's heads, or short characters like Krillin and Gohan) would often be cut out. It basically crapped on what the producers of the show in the 80s and 90s did when doing the shot composition, which is an incredibly important part of making something in any video form.

Their only upside was that they were cheap, which made them much more affordable than the previous release (the Ultimate Uncut Editions, which were cancelled in favour of the Orange Bricks), but this had an unintended side-effect: a LOT of US DBZ fans now can't bear to watch the show in the intended 4:3, and the terrible Orange Brick footage now permeates nearly all English DBZ fan media.

If one wants to watch Funi DBZ as it really was in the best quality, the final word as of right now are the US Dragon Box Zs, but those came out over ten years ago in limited supply. The Orange Bricks are... fine, but they're rather disposable in terms of quality and how they treat the show. I'll put it this way: The Dragon Boxes are a five-star meal, and the Orange Bricks are McDonalds.

Related terminology are the Blue Bricks for the first Dragon Ball series, and the Green Bricks for GT. While still contentious, they're far better than the Orange Bricks because A) The noise removal automation was a lot better, B) They weren't 16:9 and thus kept all of the frame, and C) In the case of GT's Green Bricks, the colours were almost completely accurate.

[Forte224]

All true except remember that the Blue Bricks are slightly zoomed in a sort of L pattern. Not as bad as the orange bricks, but it's cropping nonetheless.

[KBABZ]

All true except remember that the Blue Bricks are slightly zoomed in a sort of L pattern. Not as bad as the orange bricks, but it's cropping nonetheless.

True true, but it really only majorly affects the early episodes. I'll take a zoom hit on those over constant 16:9, personally.

[Robo4900]

In the case of GT's Green Bricks, the colours were almost completely accurate.

Wrong!
The colours are the same as the GT Dragon Box, and while those colours are nice, they aren't "Completely accurate". In truth, no materials we have these days have "Completely accurate" colour; it's all faded and distorted too much over time. Closest thing is tapes of the original broadcasts, but even those aren't perfect. And in GT's case, those tapes would be entirely useless, since GT was broadcast from the D2 master, which has always had very washed-out colours.

Ok their masters aren't as bad as i thought but wouldn't it be level sets all over again? Another thing can you trust Funi with HDR?

The reason the Levels failed was almost certainly down to the timing of the release. No one wanted to buy Dragon Ball Z again in 2011.

I was thinking of only the movies and not TV show. Most of them aren't full length ranging between 45-60 minutes so while 17 movies sound like a lot really it only equals to about 9 full length movies. While I don't believe film restoration is an easy thing anybody can just do, they could of done a proper remaster instead of just upscaling it. Its been 12 years since the DBox The Movies came out and no true HD version insight.

Good point.
Honestly, I think it's entirely reasonable to imagine Toei will do some proper HD remasters of the movies sometime in the near future, given the 30th anniversary of Z is coming up, and that could potentially serve as a way for them test the waters for a potential HD release of the series, too.
Remember, the upscaling is only on streaming services, so it's entirely possible they just did that to satisfy demands of the streaming services.

True true, but it really only majorly affects the early episodes. I'll take a zoom hit on those over constant 16:9, personally.

Except, all of the bricks were part of the same line of "Remastering"; everything was zoomed in to an extent, there was blurry filtering to remove grain, and the Japanese title cards you used to see on the old DVD singles were gone. Only thing that makes Z's worse is that they did a cheap film transfer with it, instead of just filtering an existing DigiBeta master.
Ultimately, the DVD singles are better than the "Season" brick releases in all cases, really.

[Kuwabara]

I'd just like to point out that such a release wouldn't necessarily need to be based on a native 4K scan. Plenty of studios just do 2K scans and upscale to 4K as needed. Naturally, I would prefer a native 4K scan for the sake of preservation, but even an upscaled 2K scan would be a notable improvement. No one would ever be able to tell the difference without having seen a native 4K scan of the same material.

[Robo4900]

I'd just like to point out that such a release wouldn't necessarily need to be based on a native 4K scan. Plenty of studios just do 2K scans and upscale to 4K as needed. You would never be able to tell the difference without seeing a native 4K scan of the same material for yourself.

Sure. And while we're at it, why don't they just take their standard-def 480i DigiBetas of Dragon Ball and GT, upscale them to 1080p, and release those as "HD 1080p" too.

[Kuwabara]

Sure. And while we're at it, why don't they just take their standard-def 480i DigiBetas of Dragon Ball and GT, upscale them to 1080p, and release those as "HD 1080p" too.

Because that would make no sense? That's also completely different from what I'm talking about.

[Robo4900]

Because that would make no sense?

Exactly my point.

Upscaling is ridiculous, and consumers need to take a stand against it.

[Kuwabara]

Exactly my point.

Upscaling is ridiculous, and consumers need to take a stand against it.

So you would prefer for Mad Max: Fury Road to be completely re-shot in 4K instead of being an upscale from 2K? I agree that shoddy sources generally shouldn't be gussied up through digital upscaling, but it's just more practical in some cases to do it that way, which is why it happens all the time. Arrow Video does most (all?) of their film scans in 2K, and if they were to ever do 4K releases, I doubt they would bother with new scans. Plenty of recent films have also been digitally shot in 2K only to be upscaled for home video later. You would never be able to tell. In the case of a 2K scan of Z's film being upscaled to 4K, you seriously wouldn't be able to tell because either presentation would be a notable improvement over previous releases. A 1080p upscale of 480i material wouldn't, and it's pretty disingenuous to suggest as much.

Is it a little dishonest? Maybe, but it's a cost saving measure I would gladly take over cropping 20% of the footage away.

[KBABZ]

In the case of GT's Green Bricks, the colours were almost completely accurate.

Wrong!
The colours are the same as the GT Dragon Box, and while those colours are nice, they aren't "Completely accurate". In truth, no materials we have these days have "Completely accurate" colour; it's all faded and distorted too much over time. Closest thing is tapes of the original broadcasts, but even those aren't perfect. And in GT's case, those tapes would be entirely useless, since GT was broadcast from the D2 master, which has always had very washed-out colours.

Urgh, you know what I mean!

True true, but it really only majorly affects the early episodes. I'll take a zoom hit on those over constant 16:9, personally.

Except, all of the bricks were part of the same line of "Remastering"; everything was zoomed in to an extent, there was blurry filtering to remove grain, and the Japanese title cards you used to see on the old DVD singles were gone. Only thing that makes Z's worse is that they did a cheap film transfer with it, instead of just filtering an existing DigiBeta master.
Ultimately, the DVD singles are better than the "Season" brick releases in all cases, really.

Urgh, you know what I mean!

[Sin]

(still learning the terminology) but what is the "orange brick" mean?

The orange bricks are these:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
The worst release of DBZ ever.

Oh.. I own all those. Got them as a set. Why bad release?

They're not a bad release in the sense that you can watch the entire series affordably and your eyeballs won't be bursting because of the poor quality, but they are low quality for all the reasons stated in the above posts and from anybody well-informed on the different releases.

The main issue is the lack of a better alternative that is affordable, there is always Kai but that is obviously vastly different than Z. It would be nice to have a definitive line of releases, DB/Z/GT in at least their DBox quality on DVD & Blu-Ray from 4k scans. I doubt there would be the finances for a 4k set of releases, it's such a shame they just chose the Orange Brick treatment for the Blu-Ray release over the level sets, I actually fear that might be it for more home releases for Z.

[FutureTrunks]

wow! thank you everyone for the clarifications!

[Robo4900]

So you would prefer for Mad Max: Fury Road to be completely re-shot in 4K instead of being an upscale from 2K? I agree that shoddy sources generally shouldn't be gussied up through digital upscaling, but it's just more practical in some cases to do it that way, which is why it happens all the time. Arrow Video does most (all?) of their film scans in 2K, and if they were to ever do 4K releases, I doubt they would bother with new scans. Plenty of recent films have also been digitally shot in 2K only to be upscaled for home video later. You would never be able to tell. In the case of a 2K scan of Z's film being upscaled to 4K, you seriously wouldn't be able to tell because either presentation would be a notable improvement over previous releases. A 1080p upscale of 480i material wouldn't, and it's pretty disingenuous to suggest as much.

Is it a little dishonest? Maybe, but it's a cost saving measure I would gladly take over cropping 20% of the footage away.

No, I don't expect them to reshoot it in 4K, I expect them to just not release it in 4K. Doing an upscale is just manipulative, pointless, and as you say, dishonest.
And no, it's not a cost saving measure, it's an excuse to re-release literally the same thing just with one digital filter put over it, and a new menu and marketing campaign behind it. And where does "I would gladly take [an upscale] over cropping 20% of the footage away" come from? My whole point here is that either you should just do an authentic 4K release, or just not goddamn do one at all. This isn't about cropping vs upscaling, it's about the fact that both of those things are awful, manipulative, cheap, idiotic ways of doing a release, and neither should be acceptable to any degree whatsoever.

[the colours are crap!]

Urgh, you know what I mean!

I don't, actually.

[the season releases are crap!]

Urgh, you know what I mean! [/quote]
I know what you mean, I just think you're wrong.

[KBABZ]

[the colours are crap!]

Urgh, you know what I mean!

I don't, actually.

What I meant by "completely accurate" is "completely accurate to the Dragon Boxes" which, unless I'm mistaken, are the gold standard when it comes to Dragon Ball releases.

[HakkaiBills93]

Urgh, you know what I mean!

I don't, actually.

What I meant by "completely accurate" is "completely accurate to the Dragon Boxes" which, unless I'm mistaken, are the gold standard when it comes to Dragon Ball releases.

dragon boxes are the edition where the colors are the most altered even old tvrip or any actual airing using old master look better than the dragon box talking about colors

about a 4k rescan there is as most luck to get a new rescan than kei giving his audio kindly to people

[KBABZ]

dragon boxes are the edition where the colors are the most altered even old tvrip or any actual airing using old master look better than the dragon box talking about colors

Jeez, and I'm only just learning about this? Why has this never been mentioned anywhere like the DBox review on the main site?

[clutchins]

A visit to the color correction thread might enlighten you a bit