A potential 4K release of DBZ...

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:51 pm

Robo4900 wrote:Anyway, I think Funimation's prints are good enough to make a decent 4K master
I dunno, a lot of work has to go in restoring these and the colors aren't the best.
I still think this is a pipe dream. Funimation doesn't have the proper resources to make a definitive true 4k release, they can try, but its just too much. Really the only company that is able to do a true 4k with no short cuts is Toei, but they cant even be bothered to release the movies in 1080p when they have the masters.
Last edited by Bruma rabu on Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:00 pm

Forte224 wrote:Uh, yeah I'm generalizing. The general populous knows jack about picture quality and just buys what's trendy. And their doing that has led us to things like not being able to own a decent release of DBZ without spending $800. Picture quality is not subjective. It can be broken down and explained like anything else. It also doesn't need to be. Crap cropping and remastering doesn't need breaking down to be identified. But the world we live in goes "Wow look cheap blu rays!! Ohmigawd DBZ at 1080p my DBZ watching experience just went Super Saiyan!" and buys whatever anyone regurgitates out. It was the same for the orange bricks and it'll be the same for Funi's crappy and inevitable 4K release.
I mean if people are okay with messing with the TV to their liking and turning on frame smoothing to ruin the director's vision, they're okay with not-actually-4K content that's cropped and ruins the director's vision.

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Forte224 » Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:32 pm

KBABZ wrote:
Forte224 wrote:Uh, yeah I'm generalizing. The general populous knows jack about picture quality and just buys what's trendy. And their doing that has led us to things like not being able to own a decent release of DBZ without spending $800. Picture quality is not subjective. It can be broken down and explained like anything else. It also doesn't need to be. Crap cropping and remastering doesn't need breaking down to be identified. But the world we live in goes "Wow look cheap blu rays!! Ohmigawd DBZ at 1080p my DBZ watching experience just went Super Saiyan!" and buys whatever anyone regurgitates out. It was the same for the orange bricks and it'll be the same for Funi's crappy and inevitable 4K release.
I mean if people are okay with messing with the TV to their liking and turning on frame smoothing to ruin the director's vision, they're okay with not-actually-4K content that's cropped and ruins the director's vision.
Exactly. My friend uses that frame smoothing to "make" 30fps games "run at a higher fps" but it looks fake as hell and causes input lag which he claims he doesn't notice at all. It's just throw a bunch of terms out like "120 motionflow" or "enhanced for 16:9 widescreen" and people jump all over it. It's like cutting the top of your old car off and setting the ad as "Convertible for sale!!" and it actually selling.

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:39 pm

KBABZ wrote:
Forte224 wrote:Uh, yeah I'm generalizing. The general populous knows jack about picture quality and just buys what's trendy. And their doing that has led us to things like not being able to own a decent release of DBZ without spending $800. Picture quality is not subjective. It can be broken down and explained like anything else. It also doesn't need to be. Crap cropping and remastering doesn't need breaking down to be identified. But the world we live in goes "Wow look cheap blu rays!! Ohmigawd DBZ at 1080p my DBZ watching experience just went Super Saiyan!" and buys whatever anyone regurgitates out. It was the same for the orange bricks and it'll be the same for Funi's crappy and inevitable 4K release.
I mean if people are okay with messing with the TV to their liking and turning on frame smoothing to ruin the director's vision, they're okay with not-actually-4K content that's cropped and ruins the director's vision.
The average anime fan in general just doesn't care about picture quality unfortunately. As long its cheap and has HD on the label people will buy it and be contempt. I see people complain about companies like Aniplex of America and Pony Canyon of having high prices and they do but you get far superior picture quality than something from Funimation. It sucks that i have look up and see how bad a Funi release is before i even consider to buy it, I have pretty much resorted to importing and adding subs my self. Now when it comes to dragon ball its even worse, not only do you have the anime fandom in where most don't care already to begin with you get the casual fan who cares even less about pq. Just looking at the reviews for the DBZ blu rays is enough to crush any hope of getting a proper 1080p release let alone a 4k one.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by clutchins » Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:20 pm

Funimation is now owned by Sony. I wonder if that would influence their budget for a project like this.

I didn't know so many people were wishing for a Toonami dub option. I would also love this.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:45 pm

Forte224 wrote:Exactly. My friend uses that frame smoothing to "make" 30fps games "run at a higher fps" but it looks fake as hell and causes input lag which he claims he doesn't notice at all. It's just throw a bunch of terms out like "120 motionflow" or "enhanced for 16:9 widescreen" and people jump all over it. It's like cutting the top of your old car off and setting the ad as "Convertible for sale!!" and it actually selling.
Urgh, yeah. Kinda makes me wish we went back to 2004 DVD standards where films would come out with a Fullscreen and Widescreen option:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com ... 6,320_.jpg
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/KuoAAOSw ... s-l300.jpg
Bruma rabu wrote:The average anime fan in general just doesn't care about picture quality unfortunately. As long its cheap and has HD on the label people will buy it and be contempt. I see people complain about companies like Aniplex of America and Pony Canyon of having high prices and they do but you get far superior picture quality than something from Funimation. It sucks that i have look up and see how bad a Funi release is before i even consider to buy it, I have pretty much resorted to importing and adding subs my self. Now when it comes to dragon ball its even worse, not only do you have the anime fandom in where most don't care already to begin with you get the casual fan who cares even less about pq. Just looking at the reviews for the DBZ blu rays is enough to crush any hope of getting a proper 1080p release let alone a 4k one.
Agreed. Just because the majority of the fanbase doesn't even know what they're looking at doesn't mean one should make products to their standards. Honestly, all of this messy DVD/Blu-Ray debacle would have been avoided had Funimation stuck to their guns regarding the Ultimate Uncuts and Level Sets, because Orange Brick fans could care less about the difference outside of the price, and that can be solved by going in the middle. I mean the Orange Bricks and Blu-Ray sets are "forever" evergreen releases that keep selling in perpetuity, would it really have hurt them to stop for a second and take the time to make them look presentable?

As useless as a 4K release would be, it's really our last shot at a "proper" wide-distribution release of DBZ because we all submit to digital completely. But I just don't trust Funimation to change their ways and commit, as much as I know they're capable of it. I mean they released the Green Bricks! Those look great!

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:29 pm

KBABZ wrote:I mean they released the Green Bricks! Those look great!
The Green Bricks do not look great. Taken on their own, they look pretty nice... But if you look at what the masters they were based on(Same master as the DVD singles, which is from the same scan as the GT Dragon Box master) look like, you realise the Green Bricks are massively over-blurred.

(For comparison: Dragon Box, DVD single, Season DVD. The singles and seasons come from the same master, but the Season blurred and zoomed it; the Dragon Box is basically the same master as the single, but with an extra line or two of resolution on each side. Some would argue what you see on the Seasons is DNR, not blurring; I would argue they're often the same thing, and in this case, most certainly are, since the entire frame is blurred significantly)
Bruma rabu wrote:I dunno, a lot of work has to go in restoring these and the colors aren't the best.
Umm... I don't know if you know how film restoration works, but the colour is never good, and always needs rejigging...
And, actually the Funi prints look pretty good from a raw scan. There's some damage on the frame that has to be painted out, and for the Levels they went crazy with that, manually painting out every speck, etc. that shouldn't be there, but you can easily just remove the major scratches and tape marks(Though the tape marks can probably be rotoscoped out most of the time), and you'll have a great-looking master. That's what they did with the HD masters of the DB movies.
Bruma rabu wrote:I still think this is a pipe dream. Funimation doesn't have the proper resources to make a definitive true 4k release, they can try, but its just too much.
... Source?
Their film transferring and initial CCing is done at &transfer, which would most definitely have a facilities to do a 4K scan. As was the case with the Levels, the only roadblock is how expensive the cleanup would be.
Bruma rabu wrote:Really the only company that is able to do a true 4k with no short cuts is Toei, but they cant even be bothered to release the movies in 1080p when they have the masters.
The hell is a shortcut?

Anyway, Japan is a different market to the US, Canada, and the UK. There may not be that much demand for Blu-Rays of the movies.
Or perhaps Toei are working on HD masters of the movies, and they'll announce it next year for the 30th anniversary of Z.
Last edited by Robo4900 on Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:46 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
KBABZ wrote:I mean they released the Green Bricks! Those look great!
The Green Bricks do not look great. Taken on their own, they look pretty nice... But if you look at what the masters they were based on(Same master as the DVD singles, which is from the same scan as the GT Dragon Box master) look like, you realise the Green Bricks are massively over-blurred.

(For comparison: Dragon Box, DVD single, Season DVD. The singles and seasons come from the same master, but the Season blurred and zoomed it; the Dragon Box is basically the same master as the single, but with an extra line or two of resolution on each side. Some would argue what you see on the Seasons is DNR, not blurring; I would argue they're often the same thing, and in this case, most certainly are, since the entire frame is blurred significantly)
I don't really see a huge difference there, sorry. This is far, far better than the Orange Bricks are to me: the colours are accurate, you're not losing a huge chunk of the picture, and the linework stays pretty accurate.

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:06 pm

KBABZ wrote:I don't really see a huge difference there, sorry. This is far, far better than the Orange Bricks are to me: the colours are accurate, you're not losing a huge chunk of the picture, and the linework stays pretty accurate.
Better than the Orange Bricks is not a bar at all. The real comparison to make is to the DVD singles and GT DBoxes, since it comes from that master.
Some would argue stuff about macroblocking for the DVD singles, but then you could counter with the Madman singles, and there's a whole debate to be had about macroblocking vs blurring, and how bad the macroblocking really is(Those against exaggerate the macroblocking, those pro understate it), and no one seems to mention the DBoxes in this for some reason.

But seriously, you see no difference?
How about here?
(I downscaled the DVD Season shot slightly so it would fit well for comparison purposes. The actual DVD doesn't have black borders around it, but that shows how much the DVD is zoomed in)
Last edited by Robo4900 on Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:06 pm

Umm... I don't know if you know how film restoration works, but the colour is never good, and always needs rejigging...
My bad i didn't mean colors but crush blacks. I'm assuming this is due to source its self no? Or was that due to their correction?
... Source?
Their film transferring and initial CCing is done at &transfer, which would most definitely have a facilities to do a 4K scan. As was the case with the Levels, the only roadblock is how expensive the cleanup would be.
I meant the film they would be using not facilities. Isn't it inferior to what Toei has?
The hell is a shortcut?
By shortcut I meant upscaling.
Anyway, Japan is a different market to the US, Canada, and the UK. There may not be that much demand for Blu-Rays of the movies.
Or perhaps Toei are working on HD masters of the movies, and they'll announce it next year for the 30th anniversary of Z.
Japan has plenty of old school anime on blu ray that we don't have, so for a series as massive as dragon ball i find it strange that these older animes get released in proper 1080p and not dragon ball. Also didnt they just release some of the movies in "HD" on digital services in japan? Weren't they all upscales?
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:12 pm

Bruma rabu wrote:My bad i didn't mean colors but crush blacks. I'm assuming this is due to source its self no? Or was that due to their correction?
That's down to their source, but it only really affects the early episodes, and it could be massively improved on with some work.
Still, the crushing isn't that bad, and as I say, it only affects the early ones.
Bruma rabu wrote:I meant the film they would be using not facilities. Isn't it inferior to what Toei has?
A little inferior. Blacks are slightly crushed, there's a little more grain, a bit of definition is lost.
Toei's is better, but Funi's is by no means bad. Just look at the Levels, and the HD DB movie masters.
Bruma rabu wrote:By shortcut I meant upscaling.
Ah.
That's not a shortcut. If it's an upscale, it's not really that resolution, it's just an excuse to make a release that you can technically say is a given resolution. You gain nothing of value from an upscale.
Bruma rabu wrote:Japan has plenty of old school anime on blu ray that we don't have, so for a series as massive as dragon ball i find it strange that these older animes get released in proper 1080p and not dragon ball. Also didnt they just release some of the movies in "HD" on digital services in japan? Weren't they all upscales?
The show is 508 episodes, plus 2 TV specials, and 17 movies. It's a huge undertaking. The upscaled movies thing is probably just to satisfy the streaming services requests.

I do hope Toei do a proper remaster at some point, but I think their logic in 2009 was that they could do Kai as their HD master. That way, they only have to do 167 episodes' worth of HD mastering, instead of 508.
Last edited by Robo4900 on Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:12 pm

KBABZ wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:
KBABZ wrote:I mean they released the Green Bricks! Those look great!
The Green Bricks do not look great. Taken on their own, they look pretty nice... But if you look at what the masters they were based on(Same master as the DVD singles, which is from the same scan as the GT Dragon Box master) look like, you realise the Green Bricks are massively over-blurred.

(For comparison: Dragon Box, DVD single, Season DVD. The singles and seasons come from the same master, but the Season blurred and zoomed it; the Dragon Box is basically the same master as the single, but with an extra line or two of resolution on each side. Some would argue what you see on the Seasons is DNR, not blurring; I would argue they're often the same thing, and in this case, most certainly are, since the entire frame is blurred significantly)
I don't really see a huge difference there, sorry. This is far, far better than the Orange Bricks are to me: the colours are accurate, you're not losing a huge chunk of the picture, and the linework stays pretty accurate.
They blurred it then tried to sharpen it why? :?
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:15 pm

Bruma rabu wrote:They blurred it then tried to sharpen it why? :?
They blurred it, which removes grain(No idea why they have such a vendetta against grain, but they do), but loses a ton of detail. So, they digitally sharpen it to attempt to regain some detail, but all it does is make it look worse.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:26 pm

Robo4900 wrote:But seriously, you see no difference?
How about here?
(I downscaled the DVD Season shot slightly so it would fit well for comparison purposes. The actual DVD doesn't have black borders around it, but that shows how much the DVD is zoomed in)
Well obviously I see some differences. The Single shot has some film grain on it, and the lineart is bolder on the Brick shot (and it's shrunk slightly for comparison, as you say). Plus the colouring is slightly darker on the Brick. But Goku's face and chest feel fuzzier to me in the Single shot. It isn't major colour shifting like with the Blue Bricks, at least to me.

I don't know what macroblocking is.

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:51 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Bruma rabu wrote:My bad i didn't mean colors but crush blacks. I'm assuming this is due to source its self no? Or was that due to their correction?
That's down to their source, but it only really affects the early episodes, and it could be massively improved on with some work.
Still, the crushing isn't that bad, and as I say, it only affects the early ones.
Bruma rabu wrote:I meant the film they would be using not facilities. Isn't it inferior to what Toei has?
A little inferior. Blacks are slightly crushed, there's a little more grain, a bit of definition is lost.
Toei's is better, but Funi's is by no means bad. Just look at the Levels, and the HD DB movie masters.
Ok their masters aren't as bad as i thought but wouldn't it be level sets all over again? Another thing can you trust Funi with HDR?
Ah.
That's not a shortcut. If it's an upscale, it's not really that resolution, it's just an excuse to make a release that you can technically say is a given resolution. You gain nothing of value from an upscale.
Yeah exactly a shortcut, as in they don't go through the trouble of actually remastering it.
The show is 508 episodes, plus 2 TV specials, and 17 movies. It's a huge undertaking. The upscaled movies thing is probably just to satisfy the streaming services requests.

I do hope Toei do a proper remaster at some point, but I think their logic in 2009 was that they could do Kai as their HD master. That way, they only have to do 167 episodes' worth of HD mastering, instead of 508.
I was thinking of only the movies and not TV show. Most of them aren't full length ranging between 45-60 minutes so while 17 movies sound like a lot really it only equals to about 9 full length movies. While I don't believe film restoration is an easy thing anybody can just do, they could of done a proper remaster instead of just upscaling it. Its been 12 years since the DBox The Movies came out and no true HD version insight.
Last edited by Bruma rabu on Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:57 pm

I don't know what macroblocking is.
Its compression artifacts, they're like groups of blocks that show up in spots where a color gradient will normally be.
Image
Its one of Funimations staples along with banding.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:07 pm

Bruma rabu wrote:
I don't know what macroblocking is.
Its compression artifacts, they're like groups of blocks that show up in spots where a color gradient will normally be.
Image
Its one of Funimations staples along with banding.
Ohh right. I haven't noticed it in Kai, personally, but apparently my eyesight isn't as good as I think it is. :?

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by Bruma rabu » Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:14 pm

KBABZ wrote: Ohh right. I haven't noticed it in Kai, personally, but apparently my eyesight isn't as good as I think it is. :?
I haven't seen it in Kai either but i sure have seen it in other animes they have released.
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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:25 pm

Bruma rabu wrote:
KBABZ wrote: Ohh right. I haven't noticed it in Kai, personally, but apparently my eyesight isn't as good as I think it is. :?
I haven't seen it in Kai either but i sure have seen it in other animes they have released.
I notice it a lot with British renovation shows when they have a white all and it's like "Ohhh the camera sure didn't like that!"

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Re: A potential 4K release of DBZ...

Post by FutureTrunks » Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:17 pm

(still learning the terminology) but what is the "orange brick" mean?
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