how do we even have the japanese audio?

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Kingbrockstar1995
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how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by Kingbrockstar1995 » Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:45 am

if Toei wiped the Master Tapes then how do we have the audio?

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TheBlackPaladin
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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:54 am

This article (and accompanying video) does a much better job of explaining it. The super-short version, though, is that the Japanese audio you're hearing on the official home video releases is the audio that was imprinted onto the film...which not only isn't nearly as good as the master audio, but also degrades at a significantly faster rate.

If you're asking how people managed to find the "master audio" after all these years, then the answer to that is that technically, the true master audio has never been recovered. Without knowing how old you are (and apologizing in advance if you're old enough to remember this), back when VCRs were everywhere, people could buy blank VHS tapes, put it in their VCRs when a show was airing, and record whatever was on TV at the time onto that VHS tape. It was totally common back then for people to tape shows for a variety of different reasons (maybe they asked a friend to tape an episode because they wouldn't be able to see it that day, or they wanted to watch the episode again right after it aired rather than waiting for it to re-air, etc.). What you hear online referred to as the "original broadcast audio" is actually just VHS tapings of DBZ's first run on TV in Japan, which was both the first and the last time that Toei would air DBZ with its master audio.

By sheer dumb luck, it turns out that various DBZ fans across Japan held on to their VHS tapings of the first run. By even dumber luck, enough of them did this for enough episodes that the entirety of the show was recorded this way. By even dumber luck still, most of these VHS tapings, while not quite as good as the "real" master audio, were close enough to it and hadn't degraded that much over all these years. By the absolute dumbest luck of all, an English-speaking DBZ fan was able to track all of these different fans down and digitize their recordings.

In other words, it's really quite the miracle that anything even resembling the master audio of DBZ was able to be found for a single episode, let alone the entire damn show. The luck involved with that is seriously jaw-dropping. Apparently it took six years to collect all the audio from various different episodes and from various different Japanese fans, but it was done. Since Toei didn't hold on to the master audio, upgrading it to HD will unfortunately be impossible, but the audio of these VHS tapes are nevertheless pretty damn close to the original master audio quality.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by Kingbrockstar1995 » Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:30 am

TheBlackPaladin wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:54 am This article (and accompanying video) does a much better job of explaining it. The super-short version, though, is that the Japanese audio you're hearing on the official home video releases is the audio that was imprinted onto the film...which not only isn't nearly as good as the master audio, but also degrades at a significantly faster rate.
i was indeed asking about the home Media releases

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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by TheGreatness25 » Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:21 am

It is interesting, though. If the audio was "imprinted onto the film," that would validate Funimation's explanation that the original soundtrack sounded horrendous, which forced them to replace the score. However, how could it be explained that other countries were able to dub onto the original BGM just fine? Was the audio instereo where the dialog was able to be removed from the BGM without removing parts of the BGM? Did someone sit there piecing the Kikuchi tracks together to make it sound like the original BGM?

I'm don't know much about audio and video editing, so logically to me, it just doesn't make sense. It sounds like Toei had something that they were able to give to other countries that kept the BGM in tact.

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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:49 am

TheGreatness25 wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:21 am I'm don't know much about audio and video editing, so logically to me, it just doesn't make sense. It sounds like Toei had something that they were able to give to other countries that kept the BGM in tact.
Correct, they did have something to give other countries. The technical term is "ME Tapes" or "Music and Effect Tapes."

When dubs are made, dubbing companies are typically given three audio tracks:

1 ) The original sound mix, with the original voices included. This is given to them so that it can be translated for script-writing purposes, so that they can sell the original version on home video with subtitles (if they choose/if that was agreed upon in the original distribution deal), and so during the dubbing process the dub director can play the original version to the dub actor so they can hear what the performance they're dubbing over originally sounded like.

2 ) The M Tape. It's an audio track with literally just the music as it was heard in the original version. I should note that nowadays, the M Tape is not an actual "tape," everything has since been digitized. Before digital technology was common, though, it was indeed an actual tape. Even now, they'll still get an audio track of just the music, it's just that it will be a digital audio file instead.

3 ) The E Tape. Same thing as the M Tape, but instead of ti being the music as it was heard in the original version, it's the sound effects.

Whether or not the M and E Tapes are separated varies from production to production. It's always preferable that they are because it makes it easier to mix the audio for the dub, but sometimes they're not. So hopefully a dubbing company gets M and E Tapes, but sometimes they'll get the combined result, an ME Tape.

So, anyway, all that to say, FUNimation didn't have to "remove" the Japanese voices from the audio mix, they got M and E Tapes of the audio before the Japanese voice track was even mixed in. The quality of the M and E Tapes varies from dub to dub. Some dubs got great M&E Tapes (such as the Latino Spanish dub and, ironically enough, the infamous "Speedy" dub), whereas others got horrible M&E Tapes. The quality of what FUNimation got seems to be somewhere in between.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by Spadexxione » Sat May 01, 2021 9:24 am

TheBlackPaladin wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:49 am
TheGreatness25 wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:21 am I'm don't know much about audio and video editing, so logically to me, it just doesn't make sense. It sounds like Toei had something that they were able to give to other countries that kept the BGM in tact.
Correct, they did have something to give other countries. The technical term is "ME Tapes" or "Music and Effect Tapes."

When dubs are made, dubbing companies are typically given three audio tracks:

1 ) The original sound mix, with the original voices included. This is given to them so that it can be translated for script-writing purposes, so that they can sell the original version on home video with subtitles (if they choose/if that was agreed upon in the original distribution deal), and so during the dubbing process the dub director can play the original version to the dub actor so they can hear what the performance they're dubbing over originally sounded like.

2 ) The M Tape. It's an audio track with literally just the music as it was heard in the original version. I should note that nowadays, the M Tape is not an actual "tape," everything has since been digitized. Before digital technology was common, though, it was indeed an actual tape. Even now, they'll still get an audio track of just the music, it's just that it will be a digital audio file instead.

3 ) The E Tape. Same thing as the M Tape, but instead of ti being the music as it was heard in the original version, it's the sound effects.

Whether or not the M and E Tapes are separated varies from production to production. It's always preferable that they are because it makes it easier to mix the audio for the dub, but sometimes they're not. So hopefully a dubbing company gets M and E Tapes, but sometimes they'll get the combined result, an ME Tape.

So, anyway, all that to say, FUNimation didn't have to "remove" the Japanese voices from the audio mix, they got M and E Tapes of the audio before the Japanese voice track was even mixed in. The quality of the M and E Tapes varies from dub to dub. Some dubs got great M&E Tapes (such as the Latino Spanish dub and, ironically enough, the infamous "Speedy" dub), whereas others got horrible M&E Tapes. The quality of what FUNimation got seems to be somewhere in between.
what is the difference between good and bad tapes? Is there an example for a country that got bad tapes?

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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by jjgp1112 » Sat May 01, 2021 9:50 am

I believe kei17 said Funimation doesn't even have separate music and effects tapes for the first 20 or so episodes of Z and during a stretch in the Cell Games. They had to use a combined tape and filtered the music and effects to separate them for the 5.1 mix on the season sets. It's really noticeable, as during those first 20 Z episodes the music especially has that "airy" sound typical of a high pass filter.
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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by Aim » Sun May 02, 2021 8:08 am

Kingbrockstar1995 wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:45 am if Toei wiped the Master Tapes then how do we have the audio?
Sheer dedication from the fandom. TOEI are a weird bunch, there’s audio so much better than what they have, but they won’t accept it, so fans have actually gone out their way to sync it up themselves, the whole of DB. This is huge and I must say, fuck Toei for any efforts on their part to either prevent fans from doing the things that make this franchise great, and fuck them for ignoring the effort the fandom has gone through.

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Re: how do we even have the japanese audio?

Post by GhostEmperorX » Wed May 12, 2021 11:09 am

Aim wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 8:08 am Sheer dedication from the fandom. TOEI are a weird bunch, there’s audio so much better than what they have, but they won’t accept it, so fans have actually gone out their way to sync it up themselves, the whole of DB. This is huge and I must say, fuck Toei for any efforts on their part to either prevent fans from doing the things that make this franchise great, and fuck them for ignoring the effort the fandom has gone through.
Yea, they’ve got no respect for their star franchises.

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