Funimation's 30th anniversary collectible home video release

[BluezaBladeNZ]

If there's anything I'm confused about with this new mix is the different recap/end and eyecatch themes in the "Broadcast audio" dub track on episodes 1-8. Has something I hadn't ever heard then it suddenly changed to the usual themes from episode 9 and onwards. Last time I watched the dub was in the Orange Bricks, was that a change in the 16:9 BD sets?

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

Yup, honestly I think the broadcast dub is dead to Funimation. Every release since 2005, excluding Rock the Dragon has used the remastered dub. It is very clear the redub is the only dub of Z they care about selling.

I think that has to do with them getting the most polished version of their dubs out. Though DBZ could use a more accurate redub altogether, I understand this decision.

The "Remastered" dub isn't more polished, though. For instance, the remastered dub of the framing of one particular Cell saga flashback scene (1:09 for original dub, 2:10 for remastered dub) shows evident bad redubbing, where the revised dialogue doesn't make sense; "Dad, you know what, you're a good guy." "I'm glad you think so!" turned into "Dad, you know what, I'm so happy." "I'm glad you think so!" This is just one example; I'm fairly sure there are many others.
And then there's the missing SFX and dialogue, the really jarring differences between 1999 and 2007 voice recordings.
There are also cases like that one Garlic Jr. scene (skip to 0:21) where it appears that Funi did a late retake of one line, which was heard on the US broadcast and on home video, but an early, nonsensical version of the line was heard on the Canadian broadcast (see 0:39); Ocean did TV edits of Funi's DBZ for YTV using Funi's masters and raw recordings, so the retake was likely after Ocean had been sent masters to use to assemble their edit. When it came time to do the 2007-2008 redub, Funimation seems to have used the original script of the Garlic Jr. scene there, so the new actor playing the role of the smaller dude (the larger dude's lines were kept as original) read the original line that only Canadian viewers had heard, similar to how the "Remastered dub" also reverted several episodes' US score placements to early, pre-final versions that were previously only heard in Canada (which people seem to often assume was a deliberate rearrangement of score done for the Orange Bricks in an attempt to improve the Faulconer score).

The "Remastered dub" was supposed to update DBZ to reflect Funi's modern dubbing standards. Instead, the modern redubbing alongside the original 1999 recording just makes their unprofessional early work stand out even more, some of the alternate dialogue makes no sense, they didn't improve the dub's faithfulness to the source material, and there were mounds of production mistakes, some of which make some scenes less accurate (or at least, less comprehensible) than the original dub, and it only covers Z, leaving the pretty poor scripting of DB and the really shit scripting of GT to stand as they were in 2001-2004, and that's without mentioning the jarring difference between Funi's 1998 dub of DB movies 2-3, their 2001-2002 dub of the DB series, their ~2004 dub of the 10th anniversary movie, and their (really weird) 2009 Kai cast redub of DB movie 1 that largely reused the 1995 edited dub script but kinda screwed it up further rather than improving it.

So, if you ask me, the "Remastered dub" is a complete failure, and Funi should have never done it in the first place. If they wanted DBZ to reflect their modern dubbing standards, they should have started from scratch with both the scripts and the recording; throw out all the 1996-2004 dialogue, write everything from accurate translations, get all the actors in to dub it from start to finish (ideally starting with DB and also doing GT, but I understand that Funi only really care about Z, so probably they would only do Z). We eventually saw what this could have been like when they did Kai in 2011-2013, which just shows even more how lacklustre the Z redub was.

It's really quite a shame. If they'd done it right in 2005-2009, they could have done a new, proper dub for the Kikuchi-scored track, and then just used the original dub as-is on a stereo track with the US replacement score. Then everyone could be happy. Instead, no one is.

I don't begrudge Funi for trying to improve things, it's just sad that they ended up with this messy compromise. I feel they just shouldn't have bothered, and I don't understand why they're so proud of this version that they seem to want to erase the original dub, especially when that's the version most American fans watched when they were kids. At one point, they were going to put out a box set of the original US TV dub of Z, all 276 episodes. But, for some reason, they just didn't want to put it out. Would've made a lot of fans very happy to finally have their childhood version on DVD (certainly I know I want that, but Funi, MangaUK, and Madman seem uninterested in putting out DVDs of the Ocean dubs).

--

TL;DR: The "Remastered dub" is nothing to be proud of, and I don't understand why Funi so aggressively bury the original dub in favour of it. Frankly, it's a significant downgrade, if you ask me.

I get that they aren't proud of the old in house dub either even if a lot of the responsible parties aren't with the company anymore, but on the other hand even as god awful as it is there are a lot of now grown up fans would like to own the version of the show they grew up with on TV back in the day. Unfortunately, the only way to get said version nowadays is buying long out of print VHS tapes or single DVDs of three or four episodes a piece and some of them have gotten pricier in recent years. FUNi sort of got there to some degree with the Rock the Dragon set, though as noted they still fell short of providing an all encompassing set for the fans of the OG Toonami era dub given that release contains only the Ocean Group voiced stuff from 1996 to 1998 but not continuing onward to the in house era which was of course 54-276 (edited dub numbering), and the Orange Brick patchwork partial redub really was meaningless in the long run. Honestly, it's such a mess especially given that Kai came out soon after and gave them a real shot at a better dub version it effectively renders the 2005 UUE and 2007 OB redub basically obsolete and useless given it neither serves and pleases the parts of the fanbase who want a more faithful redub or the original (albeit really crappy) version as aired on CN/Toonami from 1999-2003.

A full redub done at the time rather than just a patchwork one would've been more fitting, but they chose to go with a method that really didn't give better results.

[Scsigs]

Spoiler:

The "Remastered" dub isn't more polished, though. For instance, the remastered dub of the framing of one particular Cell saga flashback scene (1:09 for original dub, 2:10 for remastered dub) shows evident bad redubbing, where the revised dialogue doesn't make sense; "Dad, you know what, you're a good guy." "I'm glad you think so!" turned into "Dad, you know what, I'm so happy." "I'm glad you think so!" This is just one example; I'm fairly sure there are many others.
And then there's the missing SFX and dialogue, the really jarring differences between 1999 and 2007 voice recordings.
There are also cases like that one Garlic Jr. scene (skip to 0:21) where it appears that Funi did a late retake of one line, which was heard on the US broadcast and on home video, but an early, nonsensical version of the line was heard on the Canadian broadcast (see 0:39); Ocean did TV edits of Funi's DBZ for YTV using Funi's masters and raw recordings, so the retake was likely after Ocean had been sent masters to use to assemble their edit. When it came time to do the 2007-2008 redub, Funimation seems to have used the original script of the Garlic Jr. scene there, so the new actor playing the role of the smaller dude (the larger dude's lines were kept as original) read the original line that only Canadian viewers had heard, similar to how the "Remastered dub" also reverted several episodes' US score placements to early, pre-final versions that were previously only heard in Canada (which people seem to often assume was a deliberate rearrangement of the score done for the Orange Bricks in an attempt to improve the Faulconer score).

The "Remastered dub" was supposed to update DBZ to reflect Funi's modern dubbing standards. Instead, the modern redubbing alongside the original 1999 recording just makes their unprofessional early work stand out even more, some of the alternate dialogue makes no sense, they didn't improve the dub's faithfulness to the source material, and there were mounds of production mistakes, some of which make some scenes less accurate (or at least, less comprehensible) than the original dub, and it only covers Z, leaving the pretty poor scripting of DB and the really shit scripting of GT to stand as they were in 2001-2004, and that's without mentioning the jarring difference between Funi's 1998 dub of DB movies 2-3, their 2001-2002 dub of the DB series, their ~2004 dub of the 10th anniversary movie, and their (really weird) 2009 Kai cast redub of DB movie 1 that largely reused the 1995 edited dub script but kinda screwed it up further rather than improving it.

So, if you ask me, the "Remastered dub" is a complete failure, and Funi should have never done it in the first place. If they wanted DBZ to reflect their modern dubbing standards, they should have started from scratch with both the scripts and the recording; throw out all the 1996-2004 dialogue, write everything from accurate translations, get all the actors in to dub it from start to finish (ideally starting with DB and also doing GT, but I understand that Funi only really care about Z, so probably they would only do Z). We eventually saw what this could have been like when they did Kai in 2011-2013, which just shows even more how lacklustre the Z redub was.

It's really quite a shame. If they'd done it right in 2005-2009, they could have done a new, proper dub for the Kikuchi-scored track, and then just used the original dub as-is on a stereo track with the US replacement score. Then everyone could be happy. Instead, no one is.

I don't begrudge Funi for trying to improve things, it's just sad that they ended up with this messy compromise. I feel they just shouldn't have bothered, and I don't understand why they're so proud of this version that they seem to want to erase the original dub, especially when that's the version most American fans watched when they were kids. At one point, they were going to put out a box set of the original US TV dub of Z, all 276 episodes. But, for some reason, they just didn't want to put it out. Would've made a lot of fans very happy to finally have their childhood version on DVD (certainly I know I want that, but Funi, MangaUK, and Madman seem uninterested in putting out DVDs of the Ocean dubs).

--

TL;DR: The "Remastered dub" is nothing to be proud of, and I don't understand why Funi so aggressively bury the original dub in favour of it. Frankly, it's a significant downgrade, if you ask me.

Yeah, I see your point. I think some of the weirdness with the revised dialogue is due to them not having Sean Schemmel come in to record. Why didn't they do that? I don't know. He should've been free. Hell, he was doing dubbing work for 4Kids in NYC at the time they did the redubbing, so he was obviously still working. So, they shouldn't have released the new version of the dub without having Schemmel rerecord the bits that needed to be recorded. But, then again, the remastered/rerecorded dub was done for the Orange Bricks, which shouldn't have been released either, so, what are ya gonna do?

Yeah, that's definitely a weird oddity. The Orange Bricks seemed rushed together, so I'm not surprised that the dub took some hits in terms of what was there originally vs what they redid. Odd how there's lines only heard in the Canadian broadcast edits of the show in the revised dub audio tracks.

Yeah, the act of revising the original dub is more like polishing a turd to me. Though I've only really absorbed the Buu Saga's dub of Z, that was enough to show me that the Z dub was trash on a script level alone despite how improved it was from the earlier arcs. So often, the dub would prefer making dumb jokes, have Goku say "oh my gosh!" too many times, have really bad voice direction, & inconsistent quality. Like, it's a serious shame that they didn't get Schemmel back in to rerecord the majority of his dialogue. His acting as Goku gets passable at best, with only his screams being his best work of the whole dub. Him rerecording his dialogue would've helped a lot if he got better direction like in DB, GT, Kai, Super, & most of the movies. I didn't mind the dub of DB, or GT. I felt those were much better on the whole than Z's. Could they be better? Yeah. Are they absolute dogshit? No. I can watch them & not cringe unlike Z.

I've said the same thing in the past. A complete redub to be more accurate with the Japanese score would be great, then the US score can have the shit script.

Well, the Ocean dub of Z is incomplete because they skipped over a chunk of episodes to catch up to FUNi when AB Groupe had Ocean dub episodes for the UK. And I doubt they'd contract Ocean just to have the actors they could get back to dub those episodes with FUNi's scripts. It'd be a waste of time & money there. As for the Blue Water dubs of DB & GT, those were clearly only done for TV airings with no intent on being released on home media. Who knows if they even kept the original audio masters of those dubs after they aired. It'd take some tracking down. Then there's rights issues to possibly deal with, depending on how Canada's acting guilds may do that shit, or if they're cleared to be released on home media to deal with. Considering all the companies involved in DB also prefer to use FUNi's dubs, that's what's been becoming the standard in the Western English-speaking world. You'd have better luck at the AB Groupe's English dubs being rereleased, sorry. That's how this goes sometimes.

I get that they aren't proud of the old in house dub either even if a lot of the responsible parties aren't with the company anymore, but on the other hand even as god awful as it is there are a lot of now grown up fans who would like to own the version of the show they grew up with on TV back in the day. Unfortunately, the only way to get said version nowadays is buying long out of print VHS tapes or single DVDs of three or four episodes a piece and some of them have gotten pricier in recent years. FUNi sort of got there to some degree with the Rock the Dragon set, though as noted they still fell short of providing an all encompassing set for the fans of the OG Toonami era dub given that release contains only the Ocean Group voiced stuff from 1996 to 1998 but not continuing onward to the in house era which was of course 54-276 (edited dub numbering), and the Orange Brick patchwork partial redub really was meaningless in the long run. Honestly, it's such a mess especially given that Kai came out soon after and gave them a real shot at a better dub version it effectively renders the 2005 UUE and 2007 OB redub basically obsolete and useless given it neither serves or pleases the parts of the fanbase who want a more faithful redub or the original (albeit really crappy) version as aired on CN/Toonami from 1999-2003.

A full redub done at the time rather than just a patchwork one would've been more fitting, but they chose to go with a method that really didn't give better results.

The Rock the Dragon set was literally for fans of the Ocean-dubbed first 53 edited episodes & movies to cash in on nostalgia as a niche, limited edition set. If you think that it was for any other purpose than to cash in on the older fans' nostalgia for that dub's 20th anniversary, you kinda need to rethink things. And, they didn't produce the Ocean dub of the later episodes. In fact, the Ocean dub skipped a large chunk of episodes to catch up to be aired in the UK. Dubs of those episodes with the Canadian cast don't exist, sorry. So, if you're looking to get a set of those episodes, they'd need to dub them now. And, even then, FUNi never produced that dub. AB Groupe did. So, they'd need to clear the rights & get the materials from either them or Ocean to use, which would likely take time & money they don't wanna spend when they have their own dubs to use.
The patchwork dub definitely should've just been a complete redub from the ground up. I don't understand why they didn't. It couldn't have been money, manpower, availability, or any other kind of issues, so they should've just went out of their way to do it. They wouldn't have had to deal with network broadcast standards, or rushing the dub out to meet a deadline. I would've respected them going to the effort of releasing the episodes uncut if they got a good redub. Even if the video quality wouldn't have been good, the audio would've been better. Plus, the Dragon Boxes would've gotten a better dub to use a few years later.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

The "Remastered" dub isn't more polished, though. For instance, the remastered dub of the framing of one particular Cell saga flashback scene (1:09 for original dub, 2:10 for remastered dub) shows evident bad redubbing, where the revised dialogue doesn't make sense; "Dad, you know what, you're a good guy." "I'm glad you think so!" turned into "Dad, you know what, I'm so happy." "I'm glad you think so!" This is just one example; I'm fairly sure there are many others.
And then there's the missing SFX and dialogue, the really jarring differences between 1999 and 2007 voice recordings.
There are also cases like that one Garlic Jr. scene (skip to 0:21) where it appears that Funi did a late retake of one line, which was heard on the US broadcast and on home video, but an early, nonsensical version of the line was heard on the Canadian broadcast (see 0:39); Ocean did TV edits of Funi's DBZ for YTV using Funi's masters and raw recordings, so the retake was likely after Ocean had been sent masters to use to assemble their edit. When it came time to do the 2007-2008 redub, Funimation seems to have used the original script of the Garlic Jr. scene there, so the new actor playing the role of the smaller dude (the larger dude's lines were kept as original) read the original line that only Canadian viewers had heard, similar to how the "Remastered dub" also reverted several episodes' US score placements to early, pre-final versions that were previously only heard in Canada (which people seem to often assume was a deliberate rearrangement of the score done for the Orange Bricks in an attempt to improve the Faulconer score).

The "Remastered dub" was supposed to update DBZ to reflect Funi's modern dubbing standards. Instead, the modern redubbing alongside the original 1999 recording just makes their unprofessional early work stand out even more, some of the alternate dialogue makes no sense, they didn't improve the dub's faithfulness to the source material, and there were mounds of production mistakes, some of which make some scenes less accurate (or at least, less comprehensible) than the original dub, and it only covers Z, leaving the pretty poor scripting of DB and the really shit scripting of GT to stand as they were in 2001-2004, and that's without mentioning the jarring difference between Funi's 1998 dub of DB movies 2-3, their 2001-2002 dub of the DB series, their ~2004 dub of the 10th anniversary movie, and their (really weird) 2009 Kai cast redub of DB movie 1 that largely reused the 1995 edited dub script but kinda screwed it up further rather than improving it.

So, if you ask me, the "Remastered dub" is a complete failure, and Funi should have never done it in the first place. If they wanted DBZ to reflect their modern dubbing standards, they should have started from scratch with both the scripts and the recording; throw out all the 1996-2004 dialogue, write everything from accurate translations, get all the actors in to dub it from start to finish (ideally starting with DB and also doing GT, but I understand that Funi only really care about Z, so probably they would only do Z). We eventually saw what this could have been like when they did Kai in 2011-2013, which just shows even more how lacklustre the Z redub was.

It's really quite a shame. If they'd done it right in 2005-2009, they could have done a new, proper dub for the Kikuchi-scored track, and then just used the original dub as-is on a stereo track with the US replacement score. Then everyone could be happy. Instead, no one is.

I don't begrudge Funi for trying to improve things, it's just sad that they ended up with this messy compromise. I feel they just shouldn't have bothered, and I don't understand why they're so proud of this version that they seem to want to erase the original dub, especially when that's the version most American fans watched when they were kids. At one point, they were going to put out a box set of the original US TV dub of Z, all 276 episodes. But, for some reason, they just didn't want to put it out. Would've made a lot of fans very happy to finally have their childhood version on DVD (certainly I know I want that, but Funi, MangaUK, and Madman seem uninterested in putting out DVDs of the Ocean dubs).

--

TL;DR: The "Remastered dub" is nothing to be proud of, and I don't understand why Funi so aggressively bury the original dub in favour of it. Frankly, it's a significant downgrade, if you ask me.

Yeah, I see your point. I think some of the weirdness with the revised dialogue is due to them not having Sean Schemmel come in to record. Why didn't they do that? I don't know. He should've been free. Hell, he was doing dubbing work for 4Kids in NYC at the time they did the redubbing, so he was obviously still working. So, they shouldn't have released the new version of the dub without having Schemmel rerecord the bits that needed to be recorded. But, then again, the remastered/rerecorded dub was done for the Orange Bricks, which shouldn't have been released either, so, what are ya gonna do?

Yeah, that's definitely a weird oddity. The Orange Bricks seemed rushed together, so I'm not surprised that the dub took some hits in terms of what was there originally vs what they redid. Odd how there's lines only heard in the Canadian broadcast edits of the show in the revised dub audio tracks.

Yeah, the act of revising the original dub is more like polishing a turd to me. Though I've only really absorbed the Buu Saga's dub of Z, that was enough to show me that the Z dub was trash on a script level alone despite how improved it was from the earlier arcs. So often, the dub would prefer making dumb jokes, have Goku say "oh my gosh!" too many times, have really bad voice direction, & inconsistent quality. Like, it's a serious shame that they didn't get Schemmel back in to rerecord the majority of his dialogue. His acting as Goku gets passable at best, with only his screams being his best work of the whole dub. Him rerecording his dialogue would've helped a lot if he got better direction like in DB, GT, Kai, Super, & most of the movies. I didn't mind the dub of DB, or GT. I felt those were much better on the whole than Z's. Could they be better? Yeah. Are they absolute dogshit? No. I can watch them & not cringe unlike Z.

I've said the same thing in the past. A complete redub to be more accurate with the Japanese score would be great, then the US score can have the shit script.

Well, the Ocean dub of Z is incomplete because they skipped over a chunk of episodes to catch up to FUNi when AB Groupe had Ocean dub episodes for the UK. And I doubt they'd contract Ocean just to have the actors they could get back to dub those episodes with FUNi's scripts. It'd be a waste of time & money there. As for the Blue Water dubs of DB & GT, those were clearly only done for TV airings with no intent on being released on home media. Who knows if they even kept the original audio masters of those dubs after they aired. It'd take some tracking down. Then there's rights issues to possibly deal with, depending on how Canada's acting guilds may do that shit, or if they're cleared to be released on home media to deal with. Considering all the companies involved in DB also prefer to use FUNi's dubs, that's what's been becoming the standard in the Western English-speaking world. You'd have better luck at the AB Groupe's English dubs being rereleased, sorry. That's how this goes sometimes.

I get that they aren't proud of the old in house dub either even if a lot of the responsible parties aren't with the company anymore, but on the other hand even as god awful as it is there are a lot of now grown up fans who would like to own the version of the show they grew up with on TV back in the day. Unfortunately, the only way to get said version nowadays is buying long out of print VHS tapes or single DVDs of three or four episodes a piece and some of them have gotten pricier in recent years. FUNi sort of got there to some degree with the Rock the Dragon set, though as noted they still fell short of providing an all encompassing set for the fans of the OG Toonami era dub given that release contains only the Ocean Group voiced stuff from 1996 to 1998 but not continuing onward to the in house era which was of course 54-276 (edited dub numbering), and the Orange Brick patchwork partial redub really was meaningless in the long run. Honestly, it's such a mess especially given that Kai came out soon after and gave them a real shot at a better dub version it effectively renders the 2005 UUE and 2007 OB redub basically obsolete and useless given it neither serves or pleases the parts of the fanbase who want a more faithful redub or the original (albeit really crappy) version as aired on CN/Toonami from 1999-2003.

A full redub done at the time rather than just a patchwork one would've been more fitting, but they chose to go with a method that really didn't give better results.

The Rock the Dragon set was literally for fans of the Ocean-dubbed first 53 edited episodes & movies to cash in on nostalgia as a niche, limited edition set. If you think that it was for any other purpose than to cash in on the older fans' nostalgia for that dub's 20th anniversary, you kinda need to rethink things. And, they didn't produce the Ocean dub of the later episodes. In fact, the Ocean dub skipped a large chunk of episodes to catch up to be aired in the UK. Dubs of those episodes with the Canadian cast don't exist, sorry. So, if you're looking to get a set of those episodes, they'd need to dub them now. And, even then, FUNi never produced that dub. AB Groupe did. So, they'd need to clear the rights & get the materials from either them or Ocean to use, which would likely take time & money they don't wanna spend when they have their own dubs to use.
The patchwork dub definitely should've just been a complete redub from the ground up. I don't understand why they didn't. It couldn't have been money, manpower, availability, or any other kind of issues, so they should've just went out of their way to do it. They wouldn't have had to deal with network broadcast standards, or rushing the dub out to meet a deadline. I would've respected them going to the effort of releasing the episodes uncut if they got a good redub. Even if the video quality wouldn't have been good, the audio would've been better. Plus, the Dragon Boxes would've gotten a better dub to use a few years later.

I do get what the intended purpose of the RtD set was (though apparently at one point in early development it was proposed to be a release of not just that but also the entire edited run of the OG 1999-2003 in house version) although that said at the same time wasn't so much an anniversary release per se because FUNi jumped the gun by three years in releasing it back in 2013. They really should've waited until the actual 20th anniversary of the included dub to do it. Obviously i didn't ever expect they would include those episodes Westwood and AB Groupe produced back in 2000/2001 in conjunction with Ocean Studios yet as you said skipping over the chunk of eps from Ginyu to just around the time Trunks arrives, as FUNi's dub of those had already aired in Canada prior to the change so they didn't feel the need to dub them themselves and i really don't think they would ever think of trying to license the episodes of that dub which they didn't have any direct involvement in whatsoever.

Yes, the partial redub really was a crap half measure which ultimately didn't prove to serve much to either side. They really should've done a full redub when the time was right.

[Robo4900]

Well, the Ocean dub of Z is incomplete because they skipped over a chunk of episodes to catch up to FUNi when AB Groupe had Ocean dub episodes for the UK. And I doubt they'd contract Ocean just to have the actors they could get back to dub those episodes with FUNi's scripts. It'd be a waste of time & money there.

Presumably a release of the Ocean dubs would just use the Ocean edits of Funi's dub of DBZ 54-107 which YTV used, or indeed Funimation's own TV edits of those episodes, which is how it aired in the UK, so why not have it like that on a DVD done in a similar vein to the RTD sets.

People accept significant cast changes in dubs between seasons all the time, and this was how it was presented on TV, so I don't see why not.

As for the Blue Water dubs of DB & GT, those were clearly only done for TV airings with no intent on being released on home media.

There is nothing unique about the BW DB/GT dubs that suggests they couldn't be on home media.

The fact is, all of the Westwood Media dubs were produced for TV, but there's no reason AB Groupe couldn't have decided to put out some dub-only DVDs of it in the UK back in 2001-2005, they just decided not to.

Who knows if they even kept the original audio masters of those dubs after they aired. It'd take some tracking down. Then there's rights issues to possibly deal with,

Ocean currently hold master tapes of all of it, and either they or Toei possess the relevant rights to allow for any commercial usage of the old dubs to be negotiated rather simply.

I know this because someone I know recently got in contact with an Ocean rep who passed him on to someone higher up, who explained all of this in no uncertain terms; if any company reached out to them with the intent of releasing any of the Dragon Ball material Ocean were involved in, they could arrange for whatever is needed quite easily. There's no red tape, no rights issues, no issues with masters, nothing. It would be quite simple.

depending on how Canada's acting guilds may do that shit, or if they're cleared to be released on home media to deal with.

The contracts essentially "Bought out" the work, to borrow a phrase from Brian Drummond. There are no royalties or anything to be concerned about for the Canadian cast. (Which kinda sucks for them, since DBZ could do really well and it won't earn them any money unless they're hired back to do more)
As for them being "cleared to release on home media", that's not something you do in advance (presumably unless there's DVDs planned to go out at the same time as it goes to TV), that's something you do if/when a home media release wants to get made.

Considering all the companies involved in DB also prefer to use FUNi's dubs

MangaUK preferred to give the UK buyers whatever version they had on TV, but because the Ocean dubs were edited, they were unable to put the Ocean audio on the uncut DVDs, and doing separate cut & uncut DVDs wasn't a feasible option, so it didn't happen.
Past that, there's never been an opportunity in the UK, which only leaves America and Australia, both of which were always Funi territories.

Then there's Toei, who are entirely version agnostic. A lot of people like to make a fuss over the fact a Toei USA rep recommended one Canadian channel take the DBZ Kai dub that has more episodes over the version with fewer episodes, but aside from this mole-hill people like to make a mountain out of, there's nothing in particular that suggests Toei have any preference. If anything, Sean Schemmel said in an interview in roughly 2011 that Toei likely would prefer if there were multiple dubs on the go so they get the money from two different companies licensing the show.

that's what's been becoming the standard in the Western English-speaking world.

The RTD box set happened. There's no reason why another such thing couldn't happen, especially in the UK, where this stuff was airing back in the day.

Ultimately, if MangaUK were interested in authoring their own DVDs, there would be nothing preventing them from deciding to release a DVD set of the Ocean/Blue Water dubs and having it out on the same timeframe as any other kind of DVD/Blu-ray release of Dragon Ball. As it stands, this is unlikely, because MangaUK generally just import stuff from Funi, and Funi don't give a shit about the Canadian dubs.

So, even though an Ocean DVD set doesn't look to be likely, there's no reason for it to not happen if any of the relevant home video companies decide to do a nostalgia product in the vein of the (seemingly-very-successful) Rock The Dragon DVD set, which could very well happen someday.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I think if anyone wants the Canadian dubs released on home media it wouldn't hurt to reach out to Manga UK, tell them AB only distributed the dubs, Ocean owns the rights so they would only need to negotiate with them and TOEI. These companies notice when there is a huge demand or influx of requests for these things. I too know from sources that Funimation doesn't care what Manga UK do as they own them now and will profit from whatever they release anyway, so if Manga UK can be persuaded to go after these dubs it could (emphasis on "could" not will) happen. Manga UK also outsource to Visual Data London should they need to author anything independent of other distributors like Funimation and Madman (this happened with DBS Broly), so Ocean/Westwood DVDs could be made that way.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I was recently watching those "deleted TV scenes" clips included on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting curiosity for sure, because aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time it was also a glimpse at an uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time, along with what a potential uncut dub could have been like back in 1997/1998 if it had come along with the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

If only this could've happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNi which took much longer.

Spoiler:

[Kakkaroto735]

I was recently watching those "deleted TV scenes" clips included on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting curiosity for sure, because aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time it was also a glimpse at an uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time, along with what a potential uncut dub could have been like back in 1997/1998 if it had come along with the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

If only this could've happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNi which took much longer.

Spoiler:

where are the images from. I kinda like how they look.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I was recently watching those "deleted TV scenes" clips included on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting curiosity for sure, because aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time it was also a glimpse at an uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time, along with what a potential uncut dub could have been like back in 1997/1998 if it had come along with the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

If only this could've happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNi which took much longer.

Spoiler:

where are the images from. I kinda like how they look.

They are from the aforementioned "deleted TV scenes" in the extras from the Pioneer Dead Zone DVD, as in the parts of DBZ episodes 1 and 9 that were cut for time or other reasons from the syndicated broadcast. It was also the only subbed bits of the series (aside from bootlegs and fansub tapes) available at the time which makes for an interesting curiosity as the Japanese version wouldn't be available on the home releases for a few years more. This kind of gives a somewhat vague idea of what would've happened if Pioneer had things to where a subbed release of the series and an uncut dub alongside it in the same way as Z movies 1-3 could've been done at the time.

[Kakkaroto735]

I was recently watching those "deleted TV scenes" clips included on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting curiosity for sure, because aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time it was also a glimpse at an uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time, along with what a potential uncut dub could have been like back in 1997/1998 if it had come along with the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

If only this could've happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNi which took much longer.

Spoiler:

where are the images from. I kinda like how they look.

They are from the aforementioned "deleted TV scenes" in the extras from the Pioneer Dead Zone DVD, as in the parts of DBZ episodes 1 and 9 that were cut for time or other reasons from the syndicated broadcast. It was also the only subbed bits of the series (aside from bootlegs and fansub tapes) available at the time which makes for an interesting curiosity as the Japanese version wouldn't be available on the home releases for a few years more. This kind of gives a somewhat vague idea of what would've happened if Pioneer had things to where a subbed release of the series and an uncut dub alongside it in the same way as Z movies 1-3 could've been done at the time.

No dude like no joke but the image looks like kinda red like the Dragon Boxes but different. Its so weird.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

where are the images from. I kinda like how they look.

They are from the aforementioned "deleted TV scenes" in the extras from the Pioneer Dead Zone DVD, as in the parts of DBZ episodes 1 and 9 that were cut for time or other reasons from the syndicated broadcast. It was also the only subbed bits of the series (aside from bootlegs and fansub tapes) available at the time which makes for an interesting curiosity as the Japanese version wouldn't be available on the home releases for a few years more. This kind of gives a somewhat vague idea of what would've happened if Pioneer had things to where a subbed release of the series and an uncut dub alongside it in the same way as Z movies 1-3 could've been done at the time.

No dude like no joke but the image looks like kinda red like the Dragon Boxes but different. Its so weird.

It sort of does to a degree, albeit without that pinkish/red color cast that the earlier episodes have on the Dragon Box.

[Kakkaroto735]

They are from the aforementioned "deleted TV scenes" in the extras from the Pioneer Dead Zone DVD, as in the parts of DBZ episodes 1 and 9 that were cut for time or other reasons from the syndicated broadcast. It was also the only subbed bits of the series (aside from bootlegs and fansub tapes) available at the time which makes for an interesting curiosity as the Japanese version wouldn't be available on the home releases for a few years more. This kind of gives a somewhat vague idea of what would've happened if Pioneer had things to where a subbed release of the series and an uncut dub alongside it in the same way as Z movies 1-3 could've been done at the time.

No dude like no joke but the image looks like kinda red like the Dragon Boxes but different. Its so weird.

It sort of does to a degree, albeit without that pinkish/red color cast that the earlier episodes have on the Dragon Box.

The 3rd image looks kinda grainy. Maybe it's vhs?
I like the colors here though especially the first image.

[Trachta10]

there is a project that try to correct the colors of this release
looks really good for me, but is only in latin spanish and japanese

Spoiler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1nXUerb8KY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp9cta9AWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75IhB31qdls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJdZWoNzxb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm1_MmOXIBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohcfdM0kWtg

[Robo4900]

No dude like no joke but the image looks like kinda red like the Dragon Boxes but different. Its so weird.

It sort of does to a degree, albeit without that pinkish/red color cast that the earlier episodes have on the Dragon Box.

The 3rd image looks kinda grainy. Maybe it's vhs?
I like the colors here though especially the first image.

They're Funi's old DigiBeta masters, which were created by Funi scanning film prints sent to them by Toei; the exact same film prints that would later form the basis of the Orange Bricks and the Levels.

Yet more proof that the DBZ "Season" DVDs could have just been 20-30-episode boxes of the same thing they were doing with Ultimate Uncut, and we would have had a very nice set of DVDs, instead of what we got.

You'll find the same is true of OG DB too; get screenshots from the early DVD singles (especially the "Tournament Saga" DVD), and you'll find it looks just as sharp, clear, grainy, and generally "filmic" as this early Z footage.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

It sort of does to a degree, albeit without that pinkish/red color cast that the earlier episodes have on the Dragon Box.

The 3rd image looks kinda grainy. Maybe it's vhs?
I like the colors here though especially the first image.

They're Funi's old DigiBeta masters, which were created by Funi scanning film prints sent to them by Toei; the exact same film prints that would later form the basis of the Orange Bricks and the Levels.

Yet more proof that the DBZ "Season" DVDs could have just been 20-30-episode boxes of the same thing they were doing with Ultimate Uncut, and we would have had a very nice set of DVDs, instead of what we got.

You'll find the same is true of OG DB too; get screenshots from the early DVD singles (especially the "Tournament Saga" DVD), and you'll find it looks just as sharp, clear, grainy, and generally "filmic" as this early Z footage.

So true, the Orange Bricks would actually be a great release if it weren't for FUNi ruining it by cropping the show by 20%-25% on the top and bottom to fake widescreen and DNR'ing the image to oblivion. Simply repackaging the UUE and singles masters (with some minor tweaking for better encoding and quality) i really would have preferred had that been what they went with back in 2007 making for a cheap readily available 4:3 release over the awful, divisive yet profitable format at the same time format that was ultimately decided on.

What a shame that FUNi has made this more difficult than needed and can't release an easily purchasable 4:3 version of the show seeing as the season sets of DB and GT were decent even if still not perfect then, and though i'm really glad to have the Dragon Boxes i would have been just as fine with the Orange Bricks if they had been done in the form stated above.

[Robo4900]

the awful, divisive yet profitable format at the same time format that was ultimately decided on.

Never forget this: The Orange Bricks weren't profitable because they were cropped, DNR'd, and badly cleaned-up. They were profitable because they were the first time all of DBZ was available on DVD, and they were very cheap per-episode.

They would have actually been more profitable if Funi had just repackaged the UUE masters, because then they wouldn't have spent the extra money on scanning and cleaning all their film.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

the awful, divisive yet profitable format at the same time format that was ultimately decided on.

Never forget this: The Orange Bricks weren't profitable because they were cropped, DNR'd, and badly cleaned-up. They were profitable because they were the first time all of DBZ was available on DVD, and they were very cheap per-episode.

They would have actually been more profitable if Funi had just repackaged the UUE masters, because then they wouldn't have spent the extra money on scanning and cleaning all their film.

Yes, it was effectively the low price and being the entire series start to finish and uncut in one collection that was the big selling point there and not the widescreen cropping or noise reduction because prior to that point it was incomplete. This of course is due to the the first 67 episodes (53 edited) only being available up to that point in the cut up, edited dub only form with the Ocean cast and everything after that from 68/54 onward intact and of course the Ultimate Uncut Edition releases sadly got silently canceled mid run in favor of the Orange Bricks back in 2006, so you unfortunately couldn't own the entire series uncut and bilingual in 4:3 via the singles.

But yes, sticking the Ultimate Uncut and singles masters (Ginyu onward) definitely would've been a better decision than taking that film and force cropping then smearing it with noise reduction.

[eledoremassis02]

Spoiler:

there is a project that try to correct the colors of this release
looks really good for me, but is only in latin spanish and japanese

Spoiler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1nXUerb8KY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp9cta9AWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75IhB31qdls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJdZWoNzxb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm1_MmOXIBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohcfdM0kWtg

DNR and warping aside, I dig this! I have few problems with the 30th but this shows how much better it can look.

[Planetnamek]

the awful, divisive yet profitable format at the same time format that was ultimately decided on.

Never forget this: The Orange Bricks weren't profitable because they were cropped, DNR'd, and badly cleaned-up. They were profitable because they were the first time all of DBZ was available on DVD, and they were very cheap per-episode.

They would have actually been more profitable if Funi had just repackaged the UUE masters, because then they wouldn't have spent the extra money on scanning and cleaning all their film.

Yes, it was effectively the low price and being the entire series start to finish and uncut in one collection that was the big selling point there and not the widescreen cropping or noise reduction because prior to that point it was incomplete. This of course is due to the the first 67 episodes (53 edited) only being available up to that point in the cut up, edited dub only form with the Ocean cast and everything after that from 68/54 onward intact and of course the Ultimate Uncut Edition releases sadly got silently canceled mid run in favor of the Orange Bricks back in 2006, so you unfortunately couldn't own the entire series uncut and bilingual in 4:3 via the singles.

But yes, sticking the Ultimate Uncut and singles masters (Ginyu onward) definitely would've been a better decision than taking that film and force cropping then smearing it with noise reduction.

That's a good point, it's baffling that Funimation would want to create more work for themselves with all this unnecessary cropping and DNR stuff(not to mention the money spent having dialogue in season 3 onwards re-recorded) when they could've just easily re-released the UUE and Single versions of the episodes onto a box-set and saved themselves a lot of time and money.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Never forget this: The Orange Bricks weren't profitable because they were cropped, DNR'd, and badly cleaned-up. They were profitable because they were the first time all of DBZ was available on DVD, and they were very cheap per-episode.

They would have actually been more profitable if Funi had just repackaged the UUE masters, because then they wouldn't have spent the extra money on scanning and cleaning all their film.

Yes, it was effectively the low price and being the entire series start to finish and uncut in one collection that was the big selling point there and not the widescreen cropping or noise reduction because prior to that point it was incomplete. This of course is due to the the first 67 episodes (53 edited) only being available up to that point in the cut up, edited dub only form with the Ocean cast and everything after that from 68/54 onward intact and of course the Ultimate Uncut Edition releases sadly got silently canceled mid run in favor of the Orange Bricks back in 2006, so you unfortunately couldn't own the entire series uncut and bilingual in 4:3 via the singles.

But yes, sticking the Ultimate Uncut and singles masters (Ginyu onward) definitely would've been a better decision than taking that film and force cropping then smearing it with noise reduction.

That's a good point, it's baffling that Funimation would want to create more work for themselves with all this unnecessary cropping and DNR stuff(not to mention the money spent having dialogue in season 3 onwards re-recorded) when they could've just easily re-released the UUE and Single versions of the episodes onto a box-set and saved themselves a lot of time and money.

My point exactly, it would've been just as well if they hadn't done the partial redubbing for the Freeza/Season 3 episodes (though the '99 versions of those aren't very good therein) and just released the single versions on the Orange Bricks but still had the UUE dub for eps 1-67 and the untouched old 1999-2003 dub for episode 68 onward then had those with their respective replacement scores and both with the original Japanese music in addition to the Japanese audio track of course.

Seriously, they could've done just that and not cropped the aspect ratio or smeared the image to oblivion and the OB's still would have sold well.