Are There Any Updates On The Harmony Gold Dub Of Dragon Ball?

[10gigtriforce]

Jeez louise, these updates never end.

I just got an offer from a voice actress/anime fan who got her Harmony Gold tape at an anime con between 1997 and 2004, and offered to sent it to me for $10 since she doesn't have a VCR. I took her up and she's in the process of shipping the tape to my address. I have a Hauppauge capture card and a Panasonic VCR I can use to capture this tape if my other source doesn't come through. I promise to upload the best quality captures I can make if this all works out! Look forward to more updates, guys!

dude thats awesome. so wonderful

[Tom_Servo]

Just got an update from my source. She did find “the Zero tape” in her possession, and sent me this picture. She says she will be shipping it to my address today. I will rip it as soon as I get it! This looks to be an entirely different source tape than the one Ryan had. Hoping it has better quality copies of the episodes on it!

[Robo4900]

Just got an update from my source. She did find “the Zero tape” in her possession, and sent me this picture. She says she will be shipping it to my address today. I will rip it as soon as I get it! This looks to be an entirely different source tape than the one Ryan had. Hoping it has better quality copies of the episodes on it!

Spoiler:

Nice!

Tape label says "Dragonball TV. 'The Zero Tape' WATCH AT YOUR PERIL!" lol. Guess that shows what bootleg trading anime fans thought of the Harmony Gold dub back in the day. Not entirely undeserved, either!!

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what a good rip of this stuff sounds like. Fingers crossed that the tape itself is better quality than Ryan's too!

[Tom_Servo]

Tape has shipped. USPS says it’ll be at my house Monday. Darn fast delivery time for the USPS, considering it’s going from Minnesota to my Massachusetts home, and especially considering the current events. Rip should be done by Monday evening, and uploaded no later than Tuesday afternoon.

[KBABZ]

Tape has shipped. USPS says it’ll be at my house Monday. Darn fast delivery time for the USPS, considering it’s going from Minnesota to my Massachusetts home, and especially considering the current events. Rip should be done by Monday evening, and uploaded no later than Tuesday afternoon.

I'm so excited!! : D

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Tape has shipped. USPS says it’ll be at my house Monday. Darn fast delivery time for the USPS, considering it’s going from Minnesota to my Massachusetts home, and especially considering the current events. Rip should be done by Monday evening, and uploaded no later than Tuesday afternoon.

That's exciting to hear, it'll be good having better quality rips of the HG episodes than the ones out there now.

[Tom_Servo]

Alright, the tape has been delivered to my door and digitized. My opinion is that my tape has quite noticeably lower fidelity and much more noise than Ryan's tape, but doesn't share the aforementioned tape's gain problems. For a restored version, I plan to combine the clipless middle to lower frequencies from my tape with the higher frequencies from Ryan's tape.






A comparison of a clip from the fifth episode of both tapes is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fuv-rVTH8s. Full episodes are also uploading to the same Internet Archive username that uploaded Ryan's tape.

Looking forward to your comments. Thanks!

[KBABZ]

The video, whilst VERY shaky and glitchy, has better colours, and is sharper too! Would it be possible to get a screengrab or a clip of one of the eyecatches? Would be helpful for my video restoration using the Dragon Box!

[Tom_Servo]

The video, whilst VERY shaky and glitchy, has better colours, and is sharper too! Would it be possible to get a screengrab or a clip of one of the eyecatches? Would be helpful for my video restoration using the Dragon Box!

All five episodes from this tape are now on the Internet Archive. Can't give an exact link, but you will find it in my library. Same library the original files were uploaded to.

[KBABZ]

The video, whilst VERY shaky and glitchy, has better colours, and is sharper too! Would it be possible to get a screengrab or a clip of one of the eyecatches? Would be helpful for my video restoration using the Dragon Box!

All five episodes from this tape are now on the Internet Archive. Can't give an exact link, but you will find it in my library. Same library the original files were uploaded to.

Ah! Of course.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

This set of rips for starters does looks better in video quality than the previous ones from a couple months ago despite the tape glitches, and not to mention the audio isn't all staticy like the former either. Looking forward to seeing the restored versions of the episodes from this and the others!!!!

[eledoremassis02]

Thank you again for the work youve done! Is the cover an article from a newspaper article?

[Robo4900]

Thank you again for the work youve done! Is the cover an article from a newspaper article?

Looks kinda like a '90s anime magazine or something. Though it sounds like the version the reviewer watched or read was... Interestingly translated, let's say.

[MyVisionity]

That tape cover might just contain the best summary of this series that I have ever read. I'm jealous!

[Tom_Servo]

Alright, after careful consideration and attempts at restoration, I’ve come to the conclusion my tape sucks and is not ideal for preservation no matter how much restoration is done. That being said, we are down now to two paths.

1. Try to make sure the current owner of Ryan’s tape transfers it and see if their transfer is worthy of preservation. They tell me that they haven’t had any time over the last month to do the transfer.

2. Offer to buy it off of their hands for an immediate transfer and upload as soon as I get it. Not certain they’d accept, however.

[KBABZ]

Maybe there's a secret third option where you borrow it to do a transfer and pay for the shipping?

[Tom_Servo]

I've considered that option too, KBABZ. In the meantime, I was able to get a friend of mine who happened to be local to re-transfer my tape at 192 kHz/16 bit PCM as well as with a decent Samsung DVR as a TBC. He tells me the transfer is a bit less muffled and the color signal is far more stable on his transfer. As a bonus, he scanned my tape cover! Here's what it looks like.

[VegettoEX]

That text is not from a newspaper, but from the summer 1991 issue of Animenominous, which had a feature on Dragon Ball. I’ve had the text up in the Press Archive for a while-

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/press-archiv ... ragonball/

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

That text is not from a newspaper, but from the summer 1991 issue of Animenominous, which had a feature on Dragon Ball. I’ve had the text up in the Press Archive for a while-

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/press-archiv ... ragonball/

Interesting, that article was written a couple of years after the Harmony Gold movie and episode dubs debuted and it would be another three years before FUNi founded and acquired the license. Then yet another year still before their first bits of Dragon Ball material released in the BLT produced dubs of COTBR and the first 13 episodes as voiced by the Ocean cast although unlike the subsequent run of Z it wasn't actually recorded at Ocean Studios proper. This is an interesting bit of history, given that it was before the franchise really had a presence of any great significance here stateside other than the fansub circuit.

[Tom_Servo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9l_rF_isLE

We have produced a preview of our upcoming HD restoration of the Harmony Gold episodes.

prays to DMCA gods it doesn’t get immediately blocked

Video will be removed after the final release.