Seed of Might: Dragon Ball Z Color Correction trailer

[ThunderMite42]

Damn.. Ulitmate Uncut audio is out on this version. Guess I'll have to splice the recaps from the first few episodes from the orange bricks because the "remastered" dub on the Blu-rays changed the recap and title card theme from Nathan Johnson's score for no damn good reason.

They plan to put out a "DLC" release sometime early next year with extra audio tracks that were excluded from the main release to cut down on bloat. I've been informed that these tracks will include "pretty much any English related stuff that's synced that we didn't include":

• Speedy Video (Malaysian English) dub
• Creative Products (Filipino English) dub
• Orange Bricks dub mix (the main release uses the BD season sets mix (except for one line fixed in the 30A edition) because it's overall better despite the brickwalling)
• Raw DBox audio*, because someone's inevitably gonna want it
• Ultimate Uncut Edition (DVD rips for 1–27* and TV caps of 28–67)
• Isolated Faulconer Productions scores for certain episodes*
• Faulconer Re-Mix, if it's done
• possibly the Latin American Spanish dub
• anything else that gets R2J DBox-synced between now and then
  *stuff from the previous merge release that was removed from the CC

[Scsigs]

I will never understand this obsession with x264. The excuse of better compatibility is complete BS as most modern devices support x265. 1tb for a bunch of 480p episodes is absolutely inexcusable.

I was looking forward to it, even though I prefer Kai, but I'll be skipping this sadly.

Like, I watch MKV files with VLC anyways, so whether they're 264 or 265 makes absolutely no difference to me. Like, I get the argument if it were compressing as low as it'll go because if you do that, there's diminishing returns because then you start to suffer legit quality loss, but if you only do it the once, it doesn't really matter, especially for animation that's somewhat upscaled from a compressed DVD rip source. The compression on these files is probably better than the compression they suffered to be put on the DVDs years ago so it's not even that bad. It's really dumb.

Yeah I'm glad the quality remains as "near master" with the encode settings. This allows anyone to re-encode to whatever x265 settings they want for the level of quality they deem acceptable. Want to remove some audio tracks you'll never listen to? Want to convert them to a lossy format to save more space? You're free to do so.
You can't "undo" any quality loss, blocking, etc. problems from a lower bitrate x265 encode. I'm not sure where this idea came from that Seed of Might uses x264 over x265 for compatibility in 2025. x265 doesn't handle lower res or grainy sources as well as it handles modern 4K sources. It seems kinda silly to skip watching something because the encode is "too high quality". Those happy with the high quality settings, and even those who want to adjust the release to their preferred settings, have the right attitudes.

As I said, there's no real quality loss I noticed on some episodes. If there is, it's not readily noticeable to me. If people wanna keep the files as-is, more power to you, but I can't justify it right now.

I might have a lot of space on my storage drive, but i shouldn't be wasting an entire terabyte for one show, not even a show I love, especially at 480p per episode. Asking people to do that is ridiculous, particularly those who can't or don't know how to convert them over to x265. I don't see how x265 is a problem, but compatibility is usually the excuse for using x264.

Like I said, no excuse for not using x265 in 2025.

At the very least, an alternate torrent for x265 would be nice.

They plan to put out a "DLC" release sometime early next year with extra audio tracks that were excluded from the main release to cut down on bloat. I've been informed that these tracks will include "pretty much any English related stuff that's synced that we didn't include":

• Speedy Video (Malaysian English) dub
• Creative Products (Filipino English) dub
• Orange Bricks dub mix (the main release uses the BD season sets mix (except for one line fixed in the 30A edition) because it's overall better despite the brickwalling)
• Raw DBox audio*, because someone's inevitably gonna want it
• Ultimate Uncut Edition (DVD rips for 1–27* and TV caps of 28–67)
• Isolated Faulconer Productions scores for certain episodes*
• Faulconer Re-Mix, if it's done
• possibly the Latin American Spanish dub
• anything else that gets R2J DBox-synced between now and then
  *stuff from the previous merge release that was removed from the CC

The only one of those I give even a remote shit about is a track with the fixed lines (which, I hope they fix more than that 1 because Totally Not Mark's shown more examples than that one in that video). Otherwise, don't care. Good for those who want them, though.

[Metalwario64]

I'm sure someone will release a compressed version. Someone did an H.265 encode for DB and that's the one I got.

[ikaos]

The whole point of this release is for archival purposes. If that's not for you, then that's fine, but the point of our releases are the absolute maximum quality you can get. Whether or not you specifically can notice the difference between our files and a 300MB encode is of no concern to us, nor do we expect every single person to have to encode the episodes down themselves if that's what they want. Historically within a few days or weeks someone will smush it down with hevc and and release it on the exact same website where you found our release, and that's perfectly fine with us.

At the end of the day we cannot make a perfect release for every single person as this fanbase is incredibly large and divided, so the best we can do is try and accommodate the broadest use cases. We have multiple documents in our releases that go over our methodologies and reasoning for doing what we do and how we do it, but if y'all want to just broadly not even give it a chance because it's big, then that's up to you.

[Scsigs]

The whole point of this release is for archival purposes. If that's not for you, then that's fine, but the point of our releases are the absolute maximum quality you can get. Whether or not you specifically can notice the difference between our files and a 300MB encode is of no concern to us, nor do we expect every single person to have to encode the episodes down themselves if that's what they want. Historically within a few days or weeks someone will smush it down with hevc and and release it on the exact same website where you found our release, and that's perfectly fine with us.

At the end of the day we cannot make a perfect release for every single person as this fanbase is incredibly large and divided, so the best we can do is try and accommodate the broadest use cases. We have multiple documents in our releases that go over our methodologies and reasoning for doing what we do and how we do it, but if y'all want to just broadly not even give it a chance because it's big, then that's up to you.

I mean, I appreciate the effort you guys go to. The fact that Toei hasn't by now is a huge problem compounded by the fact that the only remastered versions of the older series are Kai, which looks fine but is a cutdown of the original series &, thus, cuts out literally about a little over half the footage & the last arc of the series has a green tint & is stuck in 16:9 for no reason, the incomplete AB Groupe remaster of the first series, & FUNimation's extremely half-assed attempts at remasters that they continually tried to gaslight the fans into accepting with no questions asked with the only good one cancelled 2 volumes in because they weren't making enough money on them because of the poor timing of the releases. The fact that fans for some reason have to take a long time to do what a professional production company could literally pay professionals whose jobs are to do these things for a living in far less time is really sad. I'm even surprised Toei didn't have Q-Tec remaster the episodes they ended up using for Kai into HD while they were at it since it'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

My point is just that I don't need the episodes to be up to 4GB & have a patchwork version of the Ocean cast dub mixed with the Texas cast redub in the files. However, I understand including them for completionists that do & they should have access to that stuff. I'm thankful that some people in this fandom are crazy & dedicated enough to do projects like this when others genuinely don't get why people don't like the various releases or don't see the big deal. This will be how I dive into the original Z in the near future as I do a deep dive into the franchise & I've already started telling people about it. You guys have done great work & should continue to do so since you've got a good thing going. I just have my preferences, as do some others. I'm just not as brazen to say it's unacceptable for the files to be in x264 because...I don't think that. I'm just confused as to why they are when there seems to be a better format to do these things in.

[Metalwario64]

The whole point of this release is for archival purposes. If that's not for you, then that's fine, but the point of our releases are the absolute maximum quality you can get. Whether or not you specifically can notice the difference between our files and a 300MB encode is of no concern to us, nor do we expect every single person to have to encode the episodes down themselves if that's what they want. Historically within a few days or weeks someone will smush it down with hevc and and release it on the exact same website where you found our release, and that's perfectly fine with us.

At the end of the day we cannot make a perfect release for every single person as this fanbase is incredibly large and divided, so the best we can do is try and accommodate the broadest use cases. We have multiple documents in our releases that go over our methodologies and reasoning for doing what we do and how we do it, but if y'all want to just broadly not even give it a chance because it's big, then that's up to you.

I'm certainly grateful! I do wish an option for a compressed one was available but I know that logistically would complicate things on your end too by having even more to seed lol. I'm just glad people tend to step in to make compressed versions because while I love having these archival versions (perfect for projects too!) even a bit of compression for just watching still would blow any official release out the water, so I myself will be fine compressing or grabbing someone else's compression.

But regardless you all have done the preservation work the official rights holders should have done ages ago and that alone is just so fucking amazing!

[The Dark Knight]

The whole point of this release is for archival purposes. If that's not for you, then that's fine, but the point of our releases are the absolute maximum quality you can get. Whether or not you specifically can notice the difference between our files and a 300MB encode is of no concern to us, nor do we expect every single person to have to encode the episodes down themselves if that's what they want. Historically within a few days or weeks someone will smush it down with hevc and and release it on the exact same website where you found our release, and that's perfectly fine with us.

At the end of the day we cannot make a perfect release for every single person as this fanbase is incredibly large and divided, so the best we can do is try and accommodate the broadest use cases. We have multiple documents in our releases that go over our methodologies and reasoning for doing what we do and how we do it, but if y'all want to just broadly not even give it a chance because it's big, then that's up to you.

You've done an amazing job with all three series, and I can't wait to see what you do with the movies after you take a long deserved break of course. If I ever run into Santa, I'll ask him to give you this as a thank you for all your hard work.

Spoiler:

[Stridster]

The whole point of this release is for archival purposes. If that's not for you, then that's fine, but the point of our releases are the absolute maximum quality you can get. Whether or not you specifically can notice the difference between our files and a 300MB encode is of no concern to us, nor do we expect every single person to have to encode the episodes down themselves if that's what they want. Historically within a few days or weeks someone will smush it down with hevc and and release it on the exact same website where you found our release, and that's perfectly fine with us.

At the end of the day we cannot make a perfect release for every single person as this fanbase is incredibly large and divided, so the best we can do is try and accommodate the broadest use cases. We have multiple documents in our releases that go over our methodologies and reasoning for doing what we do and how we do it, but if y'all want to just broadly not even give it a chance because it's big, then that's up to you.

Are there any plans to put it on archive? The nya site is blocked in some places and it would probably boost interest for mainstream fans.

[funrush]

Damn.. Ulitmate Uncut audio is out on this version. Guess I'll have to splice the recaps from the first few episodes from the orange bricks because the "remastered" dub on the Blu-rays changed the recap and title card theme from Nathan Johnson's score for no damn good reason.

They plan to put out a "DLC" release sometime early next year with extra audio tracks that were excluded from the main release to cut down on bloat. I've been informed that these tracks will include "pretty much any English related stuff that's synced that we didn't include":

• Speedy Video (Malaysian English) dub
• Creative Products (Filipino English) dub
• Orange Bricks dub mix (the main release uses the BD season sets mix (except for one line fixed in the 30A edition) because it's overall better despite the brickwalling)
• Raw DBox audio*, because someone's inevitably gonna want it
• Ultimate Uncut Edition (DVD rips for 1–27* and TV caps of 28–67)
• Isolated Faulconer Productions scores for certain episodes*
• Faulconer Re-Mix, if it's done
• possibly the Latin American Spanish dub
• anything else that gets R2J DBox-synced between now and then
  *stuff from the previous merge release that was removed from the CC

How would this work? Like an entire separate 1tb download with the extra tracks, or would the extra tracks be on their own and you can somehow add them to the video? The idea of a track that's the score only with no dialogue is pretty intriguing though, that could be a fun thing to just throw on while I do chores, essentially a 20 minute music video.

[Metalwario64]

I'm guessing for you to add via mkvtoolnix.

[Diccolo-420]

The whole point of this release is for archival purposes. If that's not for you, then that's fine, but the point of our releases are the absolute maximum quality you can get. Whether or not you specifically can notice the difference between our files and a 300MB encode is of no concern to us, nor do we expect every single person to have to encode the episodes down themselves if that's what they want. Historically within a few days or weeks someone will smush it down with hevc and and release it on the exact same website where you found our release, and that's perfectly fine with us.

At the end of the day we cannot make a perfect release for every single person as this fanbase is incredibly large and divided, so the best we can do is try and accommodate the broadest use cases. We have multiple documents in our releases that go over our methodologies and reasoning for doing what we do and how we do it, but if y'all want to just broadly not even give it a chance because it's big, then that's up to you.

my point is that a lot of people can't do compression themselves in not knowing how to do it, and yes sure there may be someone who does x265 compression, but imo this seems a bit disingenuous to those who have some complaints to how you guys are doing it and just expecting someone else to do the work when y'all could have just done an x265 version yourselves.

Props to actually getting it done, but expecting someone to just find someone else's encode when it could be a whole different chore might be a bit of a stretch.

[The Dark Knight]

How would this work? Like an entire separate 1tb download with the extra tracks, or would the extra tracks be on their own and you can somehow add them to the video?

I think you'll be able to add the extra tracks to what you already downloaded.

[ChouGenkiDama.]

Can’t overstate my excitement for this release. Have been following the project (probably too closely) since almost the beginning. After all this time, it’s hard to believe the fabled Z color corrected MERGE is finally here.

Thank you so much to Ikaos and the entire SoM team. You all have my deepest gratitude for the years of hard, exacting work that went into this monumental fan restoration/preservation.

Hope all of you enjoy a very happy, and much deserved, new year.

[Scsigs]

I'm certainly grateful! I do wish an option for a compressed one was available but I know that logistically would complicate things on your end too by having even more to seed lol. I'm just glad people tend to step in to make compressed versions because while I love having these archival versions (perfect for projects too!) even a bit of compression for just watching still would blow any official release out the water, so I myself will be fine compressing or grabbing someone else's compression.

But regardless you all have done the preservation work the official rights holders should have done ages ago and that alone is just so fucking amazing!

Let's face it. The only way this can be outdone is if Toei digs out the master film reels & either puts together a team to properly remaster the shows or highers a different company to do it for them (which, they kinda did by letting FUNi do Z for them to poor results & AB Groupe do half of OG DB to great results) & puts them out on Blu-Ray with the broadcast audio, then overseas licensers can get the masters a year later & sync their dubs to the episodes for new BR releases unless Toei's fine giving them the masters earlier. But, we can't wait for Hell to freeze over before that's done.

[funrush]

The Level sets looked pretty nice but Funimation dropped them for the season Blurays. They must not have sold well enough or maybe they were too expensive for them to invest in. And this was back in the early 2010s and now that we're firmly in the streaming era and DVDs/Blurays are for collectors I figure doing a Levels-style bit by bit remaster of a show for a Bluray release is probably less profitable than ever. Never say never of course but I would be surprised if Funi tries anything in the near future that's more than an AI upscale if even. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

[Vegard Aune]

The Level sets looked pretty nice but Funimation dropped them for the season Blurays. They must not have sold well enough or maybe they were too expensive for them to invest in.

It seems to have been a bit of both. They were expensive to produce and also the market was oversaturated with too many Dragon Ball Z releases at the time, which led to most casual fans not really seeing the point. Like, the Dragon Boxes had just finished coming out, and Kai was still being released if I recall. So the Levels were... an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Had they tried the exact same thing a few years later, they may have fared better. Or not. It's still a harder sell just by virtue of the Season DVDs having 30-40 episodes per set, and the Levels only having 17.

[jjgp1112]

The Level sets looked pretty nice but Funimation dropped them for the season Blurays. They must not have sold well enough or maybe they were too expensive for them to invest in.

It seems to have been a bit of both. They were expensive to produce and also the market was oversaturated with too many Dragon Ball Z releases at the time, which led to most casual fans not really seeing the point. Like, the Dragon Boxes had just finished coming out, and Kai was still being released if I recall. So the Levels were... an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Had they tried the exact same thing a few years later, they may have fared better. Or not. It's still a harder sell just by virtue of the Season DVDs having 30-40 episodes per set, and the Levels only having 17.

Thing about the cost though, the Season Set blu-rays actually did have all the film damage and shit cleaned up, it actually might've been even more expensive for them to do their DVNR, "color correction" and selective cropping on top of it!

Problem was Level Set release was, as you said, very dubiously timed and had less content. I honestly believe the conspiracy theory that Funi highkey wanted them to fail because they felt the Orange Bricks conditioned the casual fans to prefer the "FILL MY SCREEN!!!!!" option.

Well...not even wanted them to fail, but put it out as an experiment, tossing them out there on some sink or swim shit and then went with the actual Plan A once it sunk. The reception of the Orange Bricks and the Dragon Boxes probably gave the Funi marketing department some mixed messaging on whether the fans wanted cropped/DVNR or uncropped/grain and since seemingly nobody in marketing jobs ever wants to entertain "correlation/causation" for longer than 15 seconds, they used the Level Sets as a way to reach a conclusive answer.

[Scsigs]

The Level sets looked pretty nice but Funimation dropped them for the season Blurays. They must not have sold well enough or maybe they were too expensive for them to invest in. And this was back in the early 2010s and now that we're firmly in the streaming era and DVDs/Blurays are for collectors I figure doing a Levels-style bit by bit remaster of a show for a Bluray release is probably less profitable than ever. Never say never of course but I would be surprised if Funi tries anything in the near future that's more than an AI upscale if even. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

I believe there's an interview Kanzenshuu have from around the time of when they were cancelled where the FUNimation rep they spoke to confirmed that was exactly the reason. Restoring film footage is expensive & DBZ is 291 25 minute episodes. And FUNimation as a dubbing company didn't exactly have the scratch to pay for all of it without a good return on investment. However, as some people here have said, it's possible that FUNi secretly finished the remastering of the footage, as some issues the Level sets suffered from don't appear in the later season Blu-Rays or the 30th anniversary ones. I'd say, though, that that's probably more of them trying to take as much feedback into consideration from their prior releases as possible & trying to do everything better, as they freely admitted in the blogpost from 2019 responding to the flak the 30th anniversary Z remaster trailer got a lot of their stupid decisions were motivated by money.

[ThunderMite42]

The only one of those I give even a remote shit about is a track with the fixed lines (which, I hope they fix more than that 1 because Totally Not Mark's shown more examples than that one in that video). Otherwise, don't care. Good for those who want them, though.

The main release does include the fixed lines. It generally uses the SS, but switches to 30A when appropriate IIRC. The OB mix was considered, but ultimately unused because it has way more problems such as missing SFX, fake stereo, and various glitches, whereas the BD mixes are just brickwalled (which is barely noticeable anyway IIRC).

[The Dark Knight]

They were expensive to produce and also the market was oversaturated with too many Dragon Ball Z releases at the time, which led to most casual fans not really seeing the point.

It didn't help that casual fans believed, and still believe, that the orange sets are the best thing to ever be produced.