DragonBoxes on Blu-ray: Coming Soon?

[SSJToreto]

Throwing the Dragonbox encodes themselves on, no, of course not.

If the masters were rescanned at 1080p, at the very least lines would be slightly clearer, although my belief is DBZ was animated to long ago and to cheaply to get much of a difference.

It would look a bit clearer potentially, and that is it.

As for not looking better at all, I disagree.


Just taking it from uncompresses source files to AVC will make it look a small percentage better.

I guess you'd see some sort of difference, probably like 1% though.

People with an "un-trained eye" couldn't even tell the two version apart I would assume.

[Son Wukong]

For someone like myself who was planning to buy the whole Dragonball Z dbox singles for 1250 euro's it would be great if they would release it on blu-ray. More episodes, slightly better footage and assuming they won't cost 250 euro's per disk (if you're counting on 5 disks) it would be a bargain

[SSJToreto]

For someone like myself who was planning to buy the whole Dragonball Z dbox singles for 1250 euro's it would be great if they would release it on blu-ray. More episodes, slightly better footage and assuming they won't cost 250 euro's per disk (if you're counting on 5 disks) it would be a bargain

It will most likely be around the same price as the dvd singles.

[MarcFBR]

Toreto, please stop talking about things you don't know about.


Blu-ray's, even with equal content, are not the same price as their DVD equivalent, and 1% difference you pulled out of nowhere.

There is a REASON I didn't get a percent, and that is because other then wild guessing there is no point.

A better encode can make things look many times better, and a decent upscale can make things look amazingly better.

[SSJToreto]

Toreto, please stop talking about things you don't know about.

A better encode can make things look many times better, and a decent upscale can make things look amazingly better.

I can speculate on the price can't I?

Further more, how can you make something look better if it's reached it's limit? You're starting to sound like funimation.

[ect5150]

As good as this sounds, blu-ray seems like overkill... I'm talking about dbox episodes. Dbox is perfect quality wise. You can't expect to get any better quality than dbox with an old show like Dragon Ball. Sure, they could slap like 30 dbox episodes on a blu-ray disc, but I don't expect to see improvement in video quality.

I think the quality could be improved, but I doubt it would be a tremendous step compared to an upscaling DVD player.

Go back and take a new look at Dragon's Lair done on Blu-ray. They have the demo to download encoded at 1080p (its just the game in attraction mode describing what the game is all about). But honestly, it looks really good and its a competent remastering job (like DBox, not OrangeBox) . You'd probably be surprised and the animation is older than DB so its a good comparison of what can be done.

Check it out [Click Here] (on a side note, the demo is widescreen, like the FUNI discs)

[MajinVejitaXV]

I think the quality could be improved, but I doubt it would be a tremendous step compared to an upscaling DVD player.

Agreed. Watching the DragonBox episodes with a Realta chipset would probably be only slightly less sharp than a native HD encode. Still, combined with a lossless PCM soundtrack it could be nice

(like DBox, not OrangeBox)

I hereby change my nickname for those sets from "the Orange Brick(s)" to "OrangeBox." Well done.

-Corey

[SSJToreto]

Ok guys, but seriously since the dragon box source material is the original cel photography, the picture is already as pristine as it will ever be.

[MajinVejitaXV]

Ok guys, but seriously since the dragon box source material is the original cel photography, the picture is already as pristine as it will ever be.

...the point is not "how pristine" the picture is, it's what the resolution is. If I watch the pristine, well-encoded 480p picture on my 720p television, it still has to upscale. It'll still look alright, but it will get a little "soft." Whereas if the series were released in 1080p, it would look sharper because...no upscaling.

It's true. Take a pristine image and blow it up by 1.5x. It will still look good, it just won't look as good as it did in native resolution. Same for if it were scaled 2.25x, which is how much it is scaled for 1080p. This was proven by FUNi's Blu-ray release which, while it had DVNR and color/contrast adjustments, was inherently sharper because it was a higher resolution.

That's the main thing I'm talking about here, not that I think some great level of detail will be revealed.

-Corey

[SSJToreto]

Ok guys, but seriously since the dragon box source material is the original cel photography, the picture is already as pristine as it will ever be.

...the point is not "how pristine" the picture is, it's what the resolution is. If I watch the pristine, well-encoded 480p picture on my 720p television, it still has to upscale. It'll still look alright, but it will get a little "soft." Whereas if the series were released in 1080p, it would look sharper because...no upscaling.

It's true. Take a pristine image and blow it up by 1.5x. It will still look good, it just won't look as good as it did in native resolution. Same for if it were scaled 2.25x, which is how much it is scaled for 1080p.

That's the main thing I'm talking about here, not that I think some great level of detail will be revealed.

-Corey

Okay, I see where you're coming from.

Hey, Corey, would you buy the dragon box blu-ray disc's if they costed as much as the original dragon boxes? (around 1600-2000$ as you already know)

[MajinVejitaXV]

Okay, I see where you're coming from.

Hey, Corey, would you buy the dragon box blu-ray disc's if they costed as much as the original dragon boxes? (around 1600-2000$ as you already know)

Eh, it depends. If it were a set that was to be released 3-4 years from now (which I'm guessing it would be, since Toei wouldn't release it until Blu-ray has saturated the market more thoroughly), I probably would. If they announce it next week...probably not. I'm paying off my credit cards and the WRX before I do any more crazy purchases

If they did singles on the other hand, since Blu-ray is new, and did it more recently...sure. I'd love to see DragonBall, properly handled, in HD. Until then, I'm enjoying learning Japanese and watching the show upscaled.

-Corey

[omegacwa]

I know this is pseudo off topic, but not really, but I am pretty sure that if Funi cancels the orangeboxes/orangebricks/shitbricks DB fans would be more pissed than ever before. Sure they are most certainly not the best thing to ever happen to DBZ, but they are cheap, widely available and consistent, so if they canceled them, then I don't think I could buy anything from them again.

BTW, I never bought the "Ultimate Uncut" DVD series cause I could smell a rip off a mile a way. 3 episodes for 30 bucks, fuck that. At least the seasons sets are you get what you pay for cheapo release, which is fine by me.

Speaking of releases, Funi needs to get the rights back from Lions gate, and redistribute the first episodes of DB (No remastering please), as well as some of the sets here and there because I want to complete my dragonball collection (I have General Blue to Piccolo Jr Vol1), but I don't want edited episodes, or botched factory jobs (IE the last Piccolo set). I guess I could pick up the Dragonbox singles, but I really don't know what I need to watch those, nor do I know which ones to buy.

[MajinVejitaXV]

BTW, I never bought the "Ultimate Uncut" DVD series cause I could smell a rip off a mile a way. 3 episodes for 30 bucks, fuck that.

That's how DragonBall Z was released for 6-7 years. Welcome to FUNimation.

Speaking of releases, Funi needs to get the rights back from Lions gate, and redistribute the first episodes of DB (No remastering please), as well as some of the sets here and there because I want to complete my dragonball collection (I have General Blue to Piccolo Jr Vol1), but I don't want edited episodes, or botched factory jobs (IE the last Piccolo set). I guess I could pick up the Dragonbox singles, but I really don't know what I need to watch those, nor do I know which ones to buy.

Kanzentai.com has guides for the DragonBox discs, which should tell you what discs you would need. Other than that, I wouldn't count on FUNimation ever releasing episodes 1-13 or the first DB movie. As a naive, young company they apparently gave Kidmark/Trimark (which was acquired by Lionsgate, as you stated) an open renewal clause that they've used continually since the original contract. Unless FUNimation pays, they won't get the rights to distribute the episodes in North America.

-Corey

[Acid_Reign]

If you used just the Mpeg2 encodes from the Dragonbox's on dual layer they disk breakdown would be as such.

(This is WITHOUT reencoding to modern codecs, literally just taking the Dragonbox encodes and slapping them on dual layer Blu-ray disks)

Dragonball- 5 disks
Dragonball Z- 10 disks
Dragonball GT-2 disks
Movies- 2 disks

And going off what Rach said, if you reencoded the Dragonbox releases with AVC at 480p) and then put those on dual layer Blu-rays, the numbers would more then likely be closer to this.

Dragonball- 1 to 2 disks
Dragonball Z- 2 to 3 disks
Dragonball GT- 1 disk
Movies- 1 disk


Few notes- me and Rach spent quite a bit of time checking numbers, these are accurate, but not necessarily based on optimization that may or may not be done, but my personal opinion is you could use those sizes and have them look about the same as the mpg2 encodes on the DVD (just reencoding will have SOME slight differences), if anyone comes up with a different number and believes we've screwed up, by all means let me know so I can recheck.

The numbers for the 'mpeg2' encoded blurays are completely accurate and are based simply on the size of DVDs and blurays, and the fact that most disks aren't 100% full anyways.

Even though these are theoretically possible to do, they will never be done like this, it just isn't a cost effective way of doing it, makes it to easy to copy, along with any other number of problems.

But it is possible.

What bitrates/profiles did you use for the AVC calculations? What differences would occur in the encodes, and how noticeable would they be? Curious because I intend to transfer my D.Box collection to Blu-Ray eventually, and while I was originally just thinking of doing an MPEG-2 transfer for the sake of no further loss from the original, the AVC encodes sound like a tremendous physical space-saver (and a lot less disc-switching).

[MajinVejitaXV]

What bitrates/profiles did you use for the AVC calculations? What differences would occur in the encodes, and how noticeable would they be? Curious because I intend to transfer my D.Box collection to Blu-Ray eventually, and while I was originally just thinking of doing an MPEG-2 transfer for the sake of no further loss from the original, the AVC encodes sound like a tremendous physical space-saver (and a lot less disc-switching).

Well, transcoding from a lossy version (MPEG-2) to another lossy version (AVC) would turn out terrible, really. It's the same logic behind why you don't want to go from MP3 to OGG or another lossy audio format, even if the destination codec is superior. You'd want to go directly from PCM to see the difference.

The only way to really get any sort of benefit from an AVC encode would be to have a lossless version and encode from that.

-Corey

[Acid_Reign]

Well, transcoding from a lossy version (MPEG-2) to another lossy version (AVC) would turn out terrible, really. It's the same logic behind why you don't want to go from MP3 to OGG or another lossy audio format, even if the destination codec is superior. You'd want to go directly from PCM to see the difference.

The only way to really get any sort of benefit from an AVC encode would be to have a lossless version and encode from that.

-Corey

I completely agree, which would be the incentive behind leaving them "untouched" as MPEG-2. However, I know there are lossless AVC profiles so I was wondering if one of those was being used to get those numbers; and if not, if the resulting loss was considered visually negligible.

[MajinVejitaXV]

I completely agree, which would be the incentive behind leaving them "untouched" as MPEG-2. However, I know there are lossless AVC profiles so I was wondering if one of those was being used to get those numbers; and if not, if the resulting loss was considered visually negligible.

Ah, understood. I know animation is extremely touchy with encodes, so I wonder if these profiles are in fact lossless if they account for the fact that the source is animated.

In either case, I'd personally love to decontruct the DragonBoxes and subtitle them and burn to BD-R while maintaining the menus. It'd be a lot of work, but doable.

-Corey

[omegacwa]

BTW, I never bought the "Ultimate Uncut" DVD series cause I could smell a rip off a mile a way. 3 episodes for 30 bucks, fuck that.

That's how DragonBall Z was released for 6-7 years. Welcome to FUNimation.

Speaking of releases, Funi needs to get the rights back from Lions gate, and redistribute the first episodes of DB (No remastering please), as well as some of the sets here and there because I want to complete my dragonball collection (I have General Blue to Piccolo Jr Vol1), but I don't want edited episodes, or botched factory jobs (IE the last Piccolo set). I guess I could pick up the Dragonbox singles, but I really don't know what I need to watch those, nor do I know which ones to buy.

Kanzentai.com has guides for the DragonBox discs, which should tell you what discs you would need. Other than that, I wouldn't count on FUNimation ever releasing episodes 1-13 or the first DB movie. As a naive, young company they apparently gave Kidmark/Trimark (which was acquired by Lionsgate, as you stated) an open renewal clause that they've used continually since the original contract. Unless FUNimation pays, they won't get the rights to distribute the episodes in North America.

-Corey

I know how it was released(Just because I don't have a lot of posts doesn't mean I haven't been around for a long time, I have been a fan since the mid 90s), but I bought the 20 dollar VHS tapes, Ha ha, ugh.

[Acid_Reign]

Ah, understood. I know animation is extremely touchy with encodes, so I wonder if these profiles are in fact lossless if they account for the fact that the source is animated.

In either case, I'd personally love to decontruct the DragonBoxes and subtitle them and burn to BD-R while maintaining the menus. It'd be a lot of work, but doable.

-Corey

That's the exact project I'm undertaking, and believe me, it is. However, I'd be taking it a step further and adding my own menus (in English, with subtitle and audio choices) as well as creating new cover and disc art.

Of course, this is assuming Toei doesn't come out with some fancy new BD releases any time soon...

[MajinVejitaXV]

That's the exact project I'm undertaking, and believe me, it is. However, I'd be taking it a step further and adding my own menus (in English, with subtitle and audio choices) as well as creating new cover and disc art.

Of course, this is assuming Toei doesn't come out with some fancy new BD releases any time soon...

Ah, interesting. Via PM, do you mind sharing what programs you're using? I've been sampling a myriad of programs for subtitling/deconstructing/remuxing the DBoxes and would be interesting in hearing what you've had experience with.

-Corey