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

[KBABZ]

I am the type of person who doesn't like recreations unless there is no possibility of restoring the original materials, so while these recreated images are interesting, I think at this point, we should focus more on gathering, preserving, and restoring the remaining original sources as far as possible.

I don't disagree with this either, for the record! I really want a better scan of the VHS tapes than the ones we currently have.

[Danfun64]

For your information, the early episodes of the Latin American Spanish dub (Cloverway) still uses the footage inherited from Zero y el Dragôn Mágico, so it's the very same transfer as that of the Harmony Gold dub.

The same edits? Probably. The same master? probably. The same footage? probably not. The first five episodes of the dub almost certainly didn't have the lack of M/E audio that Zero suffered for the first five episodes.

[eledoremassis02]

Not gonna post links but the Philippines Creative Products Corporation English dub of the Cooler films had been uploaded to Archive.org in MUCH better quality as well as Solar Entertainment's Broly Second Coming and Bio Broly

[Danfun64]

The Solar Entertainment dubs have been on archive.org for months. Are these new rips?

Edit: Ah, I see. There haven't been any new transfers made since the last upload... which actually appears to have been done late in 2018. Guess I forgot when they were uploaded...

Still, since the aforementioned 2018 rips are a reencode of a VCD source, it would be nice if either a pure vcd rip or a vhs transfer came along.

[Robo4900]

From a VHSrip of the Zero Y El Dragon Magico dub I found on Archive:



For one thing, this certainly indicates that the eyecatches just had a yellow orb rather than a Dragon Ball; there are no stars visible, even at this significantly higher-quality.

[kei17]

For your information, the early episodes of the Latin American Spanish dub (Cloverway) still uses the footage inherited from Zero y el Dragôn Mágico, so it's the very same transfer as that of the Harmony Gold dub.

The same edits? Probably. The same master? probably. The same footage? probably not. The first five episodes of the dub almost certainly didn't have the lack of M/E audio that Zero suffered for the first five episodes.

What do you mean by being the same master but not the same footage at the same time? I highly doubt HG provided the Mexican company with film prints, so I think they were copied videotapes. The bluish color tone matches that of HG's transfers, and there are some materials like the edited title logo obviously directly taken from their videotapes. Yeah I too have a question about the availability of the M/E audio, but it seems that it's the exact same footage.

[Danfun64]

What do you mean by being the same master but not the same footage at the same time?

This is pure guesswork:

Theory 1:

Japanese -> HG edited with M/E -> HG English -> Zero y El Dragon Magico (ep 1-5)
Japanese -> HG edited with M/E -> Producciones Salgado (ep 1-5)

Theory 2:

Producciones Salgado remade the HG edits for ep 1-5 using the base Japanese master that HG used.

there are some materials like the edited title logo obviously directly taken from their videotapes

Wait, what? I thought the Producciones Salgado dub used a clean version of OP variant 1 from beginning to end, entirely separate from whatever episode footage they're using.

[kei17]

there are some materials like the edited title logo obviously directly taken from their videotapes

Wait, what? I thought the Producciones Salgado dub used a clean version of OP variant 1 from beginning to end, entirely separate from whatever episode footage they're using.

The edited logo is shown only in the beginning of next episode previews.

[dougo13]

If you guys want digitization of old videotapes in professional quality, I can help you out, but sending rare tapes oveaseas is somewhat risky and I don't really recommend it, though. TanookiKuribo's copy of the Funi-Zero dub was accidentally lost when he sent it to someone else by FedEx.

Don't get me started on Fedex. The SLHF750 I had to have fixed at that repair centre 1,500 km from here was dropped by Fedex. They even left the box on my doorstep instead of ringing the doorbell so I could pick it up. Opened the box and found that the sliding tray would not open. I had another deck come up by mail and it was untouched! I also won a contest for a $1,500 UHD TV that came to me with a cracked screen! I guess it fell off the conveyor belt at some point. Had to wait weeks to get another from the sponsor who sent it Purolator. That one was received intact. FedEx has a BBB rating of one star out of five where I am, so I'm not alone it seems...

[kei17]

I was looking through TV recordings of the Latin American Spanish dub, and I noticed that the source of the footage changes from episode 61. The footage becomes more discolored and looks closer to the DBox masters. As I pointed out, they do seem to be still using the HG masters until episode 60.

[KBABZ]

I was looking through TV recordings of the Latin American Spanish dub, and I noticed that the source of the footage changes from episode 61. The footage becomes more discolored and looks closer to the DBox masters. As I pointed out, they do seem to be still using the HG masters until episode 60.

I thought Harmony Gold only did five episodes and Movies 1+3?

[10gigtriforce]

I was looking through TV recordings of the Latin American Spanish dub, and I noticed that the source of the footage changes from episode 61. The footage becomes more discolored and looks closer to the DBox masters. As I pointed out, they do seem to be still using the HG masters until episode 60.

I thought Harmony Gold only did five episodes and Movies 1+3?

They only dubbed that much yes, but they likely got more material from toei. We know they translated 60 episodes, they'd need something to work off of for that. so i can see they having 60 episodes, maybe even pre edited, but not all of them finalized with their dub.

[10gigtriforce]

I was looking through TV recordings of the Latin American Spanish dub, and I noticed that the source of the footage changes from episode 61. The footage becomes more discolored and looks closer to the DBox masters. As I pointed out, they do seem to be still using the HG masters until episode 60.

huh i wonder why theres the tint. funimation got digibeta with decent colors on them for DB. makes me wonder what mexico got after zero and the magic dragon

[Tom_Servo]

I'd just like to make one final update to this thread before calling it over for myself.

As promised a month ago, I have uploaded Kei17's VOB of episode 1 taken from takarajima's tape to the Internet Archive. It can be found under the same library as my original upload of episode 1. I have also tried to convince Ryan to re-rip his tape with better software/equipment, but he made it clear to me that this is all we're getting, and stopped responding to further messages from me.

EDIT: I was made aware that his tape was sent to a fellow Dragon Ball fan with a TBC and VCR, where it will be re-ripped.

In the meantime, I will experiment with running his tapes through a declipper to at least try to minimize the gain problems that plague the later episodes.

I'd like to thank everyone on the Kanzenshuu forums for their awesome input and help during the search and discovery of the episodes! You guys are truly awesome! I'd especially like to thank Kei17 and Robo4900 for their advice and expertise on the franchise's history! I did interview with blameitonjorge for a YouTube video, but he did cut the story significantly, which Robo4900 did complain about. I have uploaded the full uncut interview (20 minutes in length) to https://soundcloud.com/joey-pasteris/to ... 1Qf55ffX9j. I did get some stuff wrong, which I apologize for, and I edited in explanations to clear up those misunderstandings. So, in conclusions, thanks to kei17, Derek Padula, Robo4900, Ryan, and everyone else involved in the search and discovery!

Post-note: I do have a lead on more potential copies of HG tapes, but we'll have to see if she still has them.

[10gigtriforce]

I'd just like to make one final update to this thread before calling it over for myself.

As promised a month ago, I have uploaded Kei17's VOB of episode 1 taken from takarajima's tape to the Internet Archive. It can be found under the same library as my original upload of episode 1. I have also tried to convince Ryan to re-rip his tape with better software/equipment, but he made it clear to me that this is all we're getting, and stopped responding to further messages from me.

EDIT: I was made aware that his tape was sent to a fellow Dragon Ball fan with a TBC and VCR, where it will be re-ripped.

In the meantime, I will experiment with running his tapes through a declipper to at least try to minimize the gain problems that plague the later episodes.

I'd like to thank everyone on the Kanzenshuu forums for their awesome input and help during the search and discovery of the episodes! You guys are truly awesome! I'd especially like to thank Kei17 and Robo4900 for their advice and expertise on the franchise's history! I did interview with blameitonjorge for a YouTube video, but he did cut the story significantly, which Robo4900 did complain about. I have uploaded the full uncut interview (20 minutes in length) to https://soundcloud.com/joey-pasteris/to ... 1Qf55ffX9j. I did get some stuff wrong, which I apologize for, and I edited in explanations to clear up those misunderstandings. So, in conclusions, thanks to kei17, Derek Padula, Robo4900, Ryan, and everyone else involved in the search and discovery!

Post-note: I do have a lead on more potential copies of HG tapes, but we'll have to see if she still has them.

Ohhh snap the full interview! I cant wait to listen to it. Also glad to hear the tape got sent off to someone who can help

[Tom_Servo]

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!

[Planetnamek]

Nice! It would be cool if it was a higher quality version of the movie.

[eledoremassis02]

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!

Dang great news! Is it all the episodes (that we know exist)? Either way, thank you again for all you've done!

[KBABZ]

This is awesome to hear! This dub has some big rough spots but I have a real soft spot for it now!

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Great to hear about this development, it'll be really nice to have better quality versions of episodes 1-5.