State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

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State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by privatetl516 » Mon Jan 06, 2020 7:55 pm

I'm sorry if this has already been addressed in other older threads, but from the threads I have seen most discuss the original broadcast audio but NOT the process of archiving them.

I've heard several people claim that Z's broadcast audio was archived in full, however I can't find any copies online, except for a couple of torrents on a piracy website that are seeded poorly, quite literally on the verge of death (though it seems they contain the full broadcast audio). Has anyone mirrored this? If the torrent dies, are we screwed?

And what is the progress of broadcast audio recovery for DB and GT?

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by privatetl516 » Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:08 pm

Actually, not sure if I'm allowed to post a piracy website links to broadcast audio, but I just found winxbloom's release on a piracy website, which contains all of the Z broadcast audio combined with the DBZ video. This isn't the raw audio though, and I'm not sure which source the broadcast audio was taken from (which release).

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:17 pm

The state of the broadcast audio is quite simple.

Dragon Ball episode 1-7, 12, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37, 40, 41, 47, 48, and 153 have been recovered.
All of DBZ have been recovered, including multiple sources for several episodes.
GT was never missing, but went unused on official releases, though captures from modern Japanese TV airings have been recovered. (In stereo where applicable; Toei switched to stereo mixing starting from episode 5)

All of this material has been sent along to Chris Sabat of Funimation as it was gathered, who said at the outset that he'd do everything in his power to get it used on an official release. The next official release to happen after he said this was the 30th anniversary set, where none of it was used, so it looks like Funimation aren't using it.
Toei are difficult to contact, but people in Japan and America have tried reaching out to them about the broadcast audio, but the reps who respond to public emails are not interested, and have simply turned any offers away. Similarly, other foreign distributors such as the French distributor have turned away offers for this material (I believe the French distributor was mainly concerned by the fact that these are inherently pirate recordings).

Almost all of this material is publicly available because various people leaked this stuff, and since this stuff leaked only a short time after Sabat was sent the first batch, and he outright said it killed most of his enthusiasm, about this, it's possible the leaks are why we haven't seen any of this go on official releases.
But on the plus side, the secondary sources of all the Z episodes (as well as a complete copy of #218) were only made available when they were leaked publicly a while ago by someone who had previously held onto all their material (though they claim to have held back a significant portion of other broadcast material).
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Captain Awesome » Wed Jan 08, 2020 6:55 pm

Honestly it’s great that it’s out there. There’s even a recent release (that I believe a member of this forum was involved with) that times the tracks for the R2J Dragon Box Z and provides both an audio and video sync.

It’s sad that fans have to go the extra mile but I’ve got my remuxed Dbox episodes with broadcast audio running through Infuse on my ATV4K and if this is as good as it gets I’m happy.

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Tylerman29 » Wed Jan 08, 2020 8:45 pm

Regardless of what a handful of us here have access to. It needs to be on an official home release, and we shouldn't be satisfied until it is.
DB, Z, and GT subbed are my "canon".
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:12 pm

Tylerman29 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 8:45 pm Regardless of what a handful of us here have access to. It needs to be on an official home release, and we shouldn't be satisfied until it is.
Agreed.

Though I also still wouldn't be satisfied unless there's none of Funi's shitty DNR or cropping either.
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Asmo » Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:15 am

Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:12 pm
Tylerman29 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 8:45 pm Regardless of what a handful of us here have access to. It needs to be on an official home release, and we shouldn't be satisfied until it is.
Agreed.

Though I also still wouldn't be satisfied unless there's none of Funi's shitty DNR or cropping either.
Many of us would agree with you, I'm sure.

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by 10gigtriforce » Fri Jan 10, 2020 10:46 am

Asmo wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:15 am
Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:12 pm
Tylerman29 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 8:45 pm Regardless of what a handful of us here have access to. It needs to be on an official home release, and we shouldn't be satisfied until it is.
Agreed.

Though I also still wouldn't be satisfied unless there's none of Funi's shitty DNR or cropping either.
Many of us would agree with you, I'm sure.
I know I would. even if it was just the dragon box(preferably color corrected). Though id prefer a full level set done with it.

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by HakkaiBills93 » Sat Jan 11, 2020 6:03 pm

Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:12 pm
Tylerman29 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 8:45 pm Regardless of what a handful of us here have access to. It needs to be on an official home release, and we shouldn't be satisfied until it is.
Agreed.

Though I also still wouldn't be satisfied unless there's none of Funi's shitty DNR or cropping either.
So you'll never be satisfied, Funi as much as Toei don't really care about quality, i said it countless times here and countless times some "genius" told me i am wrong, broadcast audios will never be in any official release, and you'll never see any "decent" remaster
people just need to set their mind on that reality

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Tylerman29 » Sat Jan 11, 2020 11:48 pm

HakkaiBills93 wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 6:03 pm

So you'll never be satisfied, Funi as much as Toei don't really care about quality, i said it countless times here and countless times some "genius" told me i am wrong, broadcast audios will never be in any official release, and you'll never see any "decent" remaster
people just need to set their mind on that reality
Just out of curiosity are you pleased and or surprised about the recent Toei movie(amazon/netflix) and special remasters? Do you think that has any bearing on whether or not we ever get a Db, Z, or GT remaster?
DB, Z, and GT subbed are my "canon".
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by HakkaiBills93 » Sun Jan 12, 2020 4:40 pm

Tylerman29 wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 11:48 pm
HakkaiBills93 wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 6:03 pm

So you'll never be satisfied, Funi as much as Toei don't really care about quality, i said it countless times here and countless times some "genius" told me i am wrong, broadcast audios will never be in any official release, and you'll never see any "decent" remaster
people just need to set their mind on that reality
Just out of curiosity are you pleased and or surprised about the recent Toei movie(amazon/netflix) and special remasters? Do you think that has any bearing on whether or not we ever get a Db, Z, or GT remaster?
Toei scanned Movie into HD as a promotion for the new broly movies, they released the RAW scans on Amazon and Netflix but released a DNR version with censorship in Home Media, since then, tv channel airs the censored version, so thoses "web dll" are for me "accident" and wasn't what Toei wanted to release. Unlike Saint Seiya Movies perfectly remastered, thoses movies are unfinished remaster, contrast, colors and luminosity aren't fine for all like movie 7 really dark

i will never be surprised by Movies released in True HD as unlike series, Movies are mostly released in true HD scan even with Toei but i am pleased cause it gave me hope for a few moment, anyway they are widescreen and i would love them beeing full frame like they were back in time on foreign country, japanese vhs for first movies and japanese tv airings.

Since that Time two tv specials released HD but i start feeling them as exceptions.
I really don't expect Toei to released HD dragon box mostly since Hokuto no Ken series that are HD remaster have been released in japan in SD bluray. Toei is not really used to released trueHD from 16mm series more when they are long series.

It would have been released by foreign countries but with the success of the 30th set, season set and dragon ball by selecta vision, it's definitively doomed, companies notice that custumers will buy no matter how poor it look so they can lower the cost as much as they want.

It's not Funimation's fault, all guilty are thoses that spend countless dollars to buy crap release and are happy with them

I said it countless time here , i allways said that 30th set will look like shit -----> i was right no matter people here said "no , Funimation will definitevely listen to fans bla bla bla" same for selecta vision -------> i was right no screenshot = upscale but as usual people keep their dream for reality and said countless shit

i know, what i said is very pessimistic but hey! who make this things happening? if people wouldn't have buy thoses sets and complain like ajay did then things would have change, but now people have shown that they knee themselves showing their ass waiting to be fuck from behind with lot of happiness as they can even said things like "it's nice looking bla bla bla"

you want a remaster with color correction, nice audios? get the BA and remaster yourself, companies don't care about remastering the series so you'll have to rely only on yourself

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by privatetl516 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 10:39 am

Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:17 pm The state of the broadcast audio is quite simple.

Dragon Ball episode 1-7, 12, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37, 40, 41, 47, 48, and 153 have been recovered.
All of DBZ have been recovered, including multiple sources for several episodes.
GT was never missing, but went unused on official releases, though captures from modern Japanese TV airings have been recovered. (In stereo where applicable; Toei switched to stereo mixing starting from episode 5)

All of this material has been sent along to Chris Sabat of Funimation as it was gathered, who said at the outset that he'd do everything in his power to get it used on an official release. The next official release to happen after he said this was the 30th anniversary set, where none of it was used, so it looks like Funimation aren't using it.
Toei are difficult to contact, but people in Japan and America have tried reaching out to them about the broadcast audio, but the reps who respond to public emails are not interested, and have simply turned any offers away. Similarly, other foreign distributors such as the French distributor have turned away offers for this material (I believe the French distributor was mainly concerned by the fact that these are inherently pirate recordings).

Almost all of this material is publicly available because various people leaked this stuff, and since this stuff leaked only a short time after Sabat was sent the first batch, and he outright said it killed most of his enthusiasm, about this, it's possible the leaks are why we haven't seen any of this go on official releases.
But on the plus side, the secondary sources of all the Z episodes (as well as a complete copy of #218) were only made available when they were leaked publicly a while ago by someone who had previously held onto all their material (though they claim to have held back a significant portion of other broadcast material).
When you say the GT broadcast audio, is that the Animax leaked one?

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 12:34 pm

privatetl516 wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2020 10:39 am When you say the GT broadcast audio, is that the Animax leaked one?
My understanding is that there are several TV channels who've broadcast GT, and captures of many of these make the rounds. This isn't a case of anything "leaking", I don't think.

I'll also say this: Things have changed a bit since I made that post.

We now have full broadcast audio of every episode of DB, Z, and GT, plus the TV specials. The only gaps are where there are minor dropouts in some recordings that can't be patched up with a second source.

Every episode of DB is covered by at least one Fuji TV capture (some include video, most are audio-only), which covers the full frequency range of the broadcasts in optimal quality, and many have alternate sources captured from other stations that had a 10KHz frequency cutoff.

Every episode (and both TV specials) of DBZ has at least a 10KHz cutoff recording (most have multiple recordings available), but episodes 1-5, 14, 51, 57-60, 62-63, 95, 192-193, 195, 197, and the first TV special have Fuji recordings available too. And I think an "audio drama" cassette version of most of episode 2 was also uncovered at one point, which would be even higher-quality than the Fuji audio.

And of course, GT, the original master audio still exists, and continues to be broadcast on Japanese TV (which includes the fact that episodes 5 onwards are in stereo, as was the case on the original broadcasts), and the TV special's master audio was already on all the DVDs.
And, of course, the movies always had good audio on the Japanese releases.

On top of all this, realistically, the 10KHz cutoff recordings are fine. They aren't perfect, but honestly, many people would find it hard to tell the difference. So, if Toei or Funi or whoever else wanted to re-release Dragon Ball/Z/GT with broadcast audio, there has never been a better time, and there probably never will be a better time.

The saga of the broadcast audio is over.
I devoted a lot of time to trying to get this stuff in the hands of Toei and Funi, and now it looks like neither are at all interested in using it (Funimation had good audio of Z at least a couple of years before the 30th anniversary set; it's possible they didn't try, it's possible they asked Toei for approval and were denied, we don't know. All we know is, they didn't use it). But, it's all out in the open now, so it's out of my hands. Which, honestly, is kind of a relief. The drama was endless and tiring, and I'm not sure my efforts had any impact in what happened anyway. I've withdrawn from that side of the fandom completely, now. If people have rare/unseen stuff, either they'll share it or they won't, and Toei/Funi will either be interested or not interested. I can't bring myself to care about it anymore after the long string of ordeals that this all ended up being. I just hope this stuff ends up on a DVD one day, somehow. Either way, nothing any of us can do about that.
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 12:57 pm

This is really good to hear, because thanks to these fan efforts the original high quality broadcast audio is now available in full for the original run of the series in regards to DB and DBZ. Even with the original masters long since disposed a full archive from these broadcast rips now fills in the gap that has existed since the initial TV run. Given the apparent total lack of interest on both Toei and FUNi's part, at least these people have stepped up to the plate and provided what doesn't exist in an official archived capacity aside from GT and the movies.
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:09 pm

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2020 12:57 pm This is really good to hear, because thanks to these efforts the original audio is now available in full for the original run of the series in regards to DB and DBZ. Even with the original masters long since disposed a full archive from these broadcast rips now fills the gap that has existed since the initial TV run.
Yeah. Again, I'm glad it's out there. Just really sucks that it's not going on a DVD anytime soon. I think that's all any of us who were trying to recover this stuff wanted.

Maybe one day Chris Sabat will regain his enthusiasm and Toei will give them approval to do it, IDK. Sabat is a good dude who generally has his head screwed on about what the fans want, and he does have some pull in the company, and presumably Funi will re-release Z for the 35th, 40th, 45th, and 50th anniversaries, so there will be ample opportunity, if Funi ever decide to do it. And of course, it's possible Toei will remaster the show one day too, while the film masters still exist, then hopefully they'd use the broadcast audio. Though I wouldn't bet on it, since their attitude with 16mm programs tends to be that they're only worth scanning in standard-def. And furthermore, they have the attitude that optical is the final audio output too, so it's unlikely that they'd even consider using anything else.

IDK.

I was involved in a group of three people; one had the broadcast audio, one had a line of contact to Derek Padula, who had a line of contact to Chris Sabat. I got the two talking to each-other, which got the one's audio going to Sabat, via Derek Padula. After that ended up being a bust (the sudden public availability of the audio on torrent sites led Sabat and Padula to lose their enthusiasm to do anything with it), and then after various things led the audio I'd helped recover to become obsolete (better copies turned up), and all the best stuff was just put on public trackers, rather than being given to Sabat... At this point, I'm pretty cynical about anything being done with this stuff officially.

As I say, at this point, I'm done with any kind of rare DB content recovery... Too much mess, too much drama, too little results. Honestly, I think the situation likely would've ended up the same as it has, even if I'd never got involved. Right now, I'm just glad it's all over.

My current hope is that some foreign distributor puts out decent upscales of the Dragon Box masters with the broadcast audio. That's probably the best case scenario. Then maybe MangaUK can import those masters and I can just own a Blu-ray set of Dragon Ball that checks all the boxes it needs to (4:3 frame, broadcast audio, subtitles, and if there's DNR then it's not very destructive).
Last I checked, Spain got halfway there with Selecta Vision's OG DB Blu-rays (the upscaling is far from perfect, but it looks better than the DVDs currently available in the west, but sadly, no broadcast audio), so... Baby steps, I guess.
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:29 pm

Same, even if it doesn't get used in an official capacity though i'd really like it i'm glad
at least it's out there.
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by ikaos » Thu Jun 25, 2020 1:06 am

Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2020 12:34 pm Every episode of DB is covered by at least one Fuji TV capture (some include video, most are audio-only), which covers the full frequency range of the broadcasts in optimal quality, and many have alternate sources captured from other stations that had a 10KHz frequency cutoff.
This is the first I've heard of a somewhat definite source for that Dragon Ball BA. Interesting that the full run of DB is available from Fuji whereas DBZ is mostly from inferior sources, but I'd wager this has more to do with what's been "leaked" as opposed to the actual availability of said tapes.
Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:09 pm Yeah. Again, I'm glad it's out there. Just really sucks that it's not going on a DVD anytime soon. I think that's all any of us who were trying to recover this stuff wanted.
I recently did a deep dive down the public side of the whole BA fiasco as it played out over a few years here on Kanzenshuu. While I admire the optimism that you and others involved with the process had, I think the possibility of this audio ever seeing the light of day on an official release is close to nothing, and I think its lack of presence on the 30th Anniversary release confirms it. I have no doubt that FUNi will continue to find ways to release Dragon Ball Z so that people will buy it, but all they've done for 20 years is the bare minimum necessary to please the casual fan. And the casual fan doesn't care about broadcast audio.

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by ArmenianPepsi » Thu Jun 25, 2020 3:45 am

I recently did a deep dive down the public side of the whole BA fiasco as it played out over a few years here on Kanzenshuu. While I admire the optimism that you and others involved with the process had, I think the possibility of this audio ever seeing the light of day on an official release is close to nothing, and I think its lack of presence on the 30th Anniversary release confirms it. I have no doubt that FUNi will continue to find ways to release Dragon Ball Z so that people will buy it, but all they've done for 20 years is the bare minimum necessary to please the casual fan. And the casual fan doesn't care about broadcast audio.
Is there anywhere I can read up / research this? Sounds very interesting to me :o
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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by kei17 » Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:30 am

Robo4900 wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2020 12:34 pm Every episode of DB is covered by at least one Fuji TV capture (some include video, most are audio-only), which covers the full frequency range of the broadcasts in optimal quality, and many have alternate sources captured from other stations that had a 10KHz frequency cutoff.
Every terrestrial analog TV channel had audio with a 15kHz frequency cutoff, but simultaneous broadcasting like the DB series was networked via the linking stations where audio is cut off at 11kHz for the sake of the bandwidth limitation. Thus only the recordings off of Fuji TV have audio with the full frequency range when it comes to the original broadcast.

By "when it comes to the original broadcast," I mean it seems that there might be a few exceptions in reboradcasts on local TV channels. One of my Twitter followers found out that a rebroadcast of Yu Yu Hakusho on Tokai TV had the full 15kHz frequency range audio and the original sponsor cards of Fuji TV unintentionally shown for a brief second, which means that they used videotape masters recorded off of Fuji TV's original broadcast by Fuji TV themselves. An ex-employee of Fuji TV told me that he remembered using such videotapes for a promotional digest program when GT started. So, it seems that Fuji TV had their own recordings of the original broadcast up to a certain point, and provided them to local TV channels for rebroadcasts. There's a piece of information that suggests that a rebroadcast in Hokkaido used such masters.

Fuji TV now uses a different source for rebroadcasts on BS Fuji and seems to no longer have access to the original broadcast recordings, and copied TV masters are meant to be discarded immediately after broadcasting contracts expire, so there's a very slim chance that any local TV channels still have the copies. At least, however, there's a possibility that we can obtain the highest quality audio from home video recordings of local rebroadcasts, and by using it, we can hopefully fix the parts interrupted by news flash beeps in the best possible quality.

Incidentally, there is a possibility that this kind of Fuji TV's recordings of Hokuto no Ken 2 was provided to Italy for some reason. The Italian dub of Hokuto no Ken 2 has the original magnetic Japanese audio in non-dubbed parts and the playback speed is not sped up to 25fps unlike the first series.

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Re: State of the Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z Broadcast Audio?

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:40 am

kei17 wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:30 am Every terrestrial analog TV channel had audio with a 15kHz frequency cutoff, but simultaneous broadcasting like the DB series was networked via the linking stations where audio is cut off at 11kHz for the sake of the bandwidth limitation. Thus only the recordings off of Fuji TV have audio with the full frequency range when it comes to the original broadcast.
Right, yes. Interesting that it's bandwidth... I assumed the reason for the 11KHz cutoff was to cut down on high-frequency noise.
kei17 wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:30 am By "when it comes to the original broadcast," I mean it seems that there might be a few exceptions in reboradcasts on local TV channels. One of my Twitter followers found out that a rebroadcast of Yu Yu Hakusho on Tokai TV had the full 15kHz frequency range audio and the original sponsor cards of Fuji TV unintentionally shown for a brief second, which means that they used videotape masters recorded off of Fuji TV's original broadcast by Fuji TV themselves. An ex-employee of Fuji TV told me that he remembered using such videotapes for a promotional digest program when GT started. So, it seems that Fuji TV had their own recordings of the original broadcast up to a certain point, and provided them to local TV channels for rebroadcasts. There's a piece of information that suggests that a rebroadcast in Hokkaido used such masters.

Fuji TV now uses a different source for rebroadcasts on BS Fuji and seems to no longer have access to the original broadcast recordings, and copied TV masters are meant to be discarded immediately after broadcasting contracts expire, so there's a very slim chance that any local TV channels still have the copies. At least, however, there's a possibility that we can obtain the highest quality audio from home video recordings of local rebroadcasts, and by using it, we can hopefully fix the parts interrupted by news flash beeps in the best possible quality.
I see.
It's a shame Toei didn't seek out Fuji's tapes back in the '90s; if they'd got on it back then, they could have had master copies of the "broadcast audio" all along. I guess that's a little much to hope for, though, with a company with archiving policies like Toei's.

Still, that is quite a hopeful thing for the future of other broadcasts turning up. Though honestly, at this point, I don't see much possible improvement in the available audio. I myself have experimented with filling in the dropouts in the 16KHz DB recordings with 11KHz alternate sources, and the difference is hard to hear. Feels like a pretty seamless fill-in.
Similarly, I've found that broadcast interruptions and such are often quite easy to fill in. If we have, say, a Tokai and an Ishikawa recording of an episode of Z, usually the audio interruptions aren't in exactly the same place, and any parts where they do cross over, or we only have one copy of the episode, M&E from Funimation's 5.1 mixes can be mixed with the optical audio to create a pretty good stand-in (though my editing on this was a bit rough, so it's far from perfect).

I think at one point I also tried fixing a dropout in one of the tournaments by laying the crowd noise from a section of broadcast audio over the dialogue of that section from the optical, and it worked out quite well.

So... As always, it's nice to have better copies of stuff, but to be honest, I'm not sure there is much room for improvement in the broadcast audio. Just my take on it.
kei17 wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:30 am Incidentally, there is a possibility that this kind of Fuji TV's recordings of Hokuto no Ken 2 was provided to Italy for some reason. The Italian dub of Hokuto no Ken 2 has the original magnetic Japanese audio in non-dubbed parts and the playback speed is not sped up to 25fps unlike the first series.
Interesting!

Although, are you sure that's not just like what happened with GT regarding how its D2 master given to a few countries before 2003 had the original master audio, which Toei should still have in the vaults, but they seem to have neglected it for DVDs, and foreign distribution?
ikaos wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 1:06 am This is the first I've heard of a somewhat definite source for that Dragon Ball BA. Interesting that the full run of DB is available from Fuji whereas DBZ is mostly from inferior sources, but I'd wager this has more to do with what's been "leaked" as opposed to the actual availability of said tapes.
Correct.
ikaos wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 1:06 am I recently did a deep dive down the public side of the whole BA fiasco as it played out over a few years here on Kanzenshuu. While I admire the optimism that you and others involved with the process had, I think the possibility of this audio ever seeing the light of day on an official release is close to nothing, and I think its lack of presence on the 30th Anniversary release confirms it. I have no doubt that FUNi will continue to find ways to release Dragon Ball Z so that people will buy it, but all they've done for 20 years is the bare minimum necessary to please the casual fan. And the casual fan doesn't care about broadcast audio.
That's a fair assessment.
ArmenianPepsi wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 3:45 am Is there anywhere I can read up / research this? Sounds very interesting to me :o
It's not all that interesting, to be honest. Someone had a full run of tapes from the original run and tried to get their transfers to Funimation (reps for Toei had already been reached out to, and shown no interest), one of the American contacts involved in this started leaking/selling this stuff to other people. The guy who had the tapes stepped away from this mess. Some people got various different bits and pieces of this and that from the guy who'd started leaking/selling it. I arranged for some of it to end up in Funimation's hands, when I realised I knew a guy who had a full run of Z, and I knew a guy who knew Derek Padula, who knows Chris Sabat (the guys I got involved in this pipeline of sending stuff to Sabat would continue to send whatever turned up for quite a while). Then someone shared their own copy of this stuff on a public tracker, and Chris Sabat lost interest. Eventually, the guy leaking/selling it posted all he had on a public torrenting site. Then some other people came out of the woodwork with their own recordings to share on public trackers. Then, a full source of OG DB was "leaked" to a public tracker more recently. And then shortly after that, some Fuji recordings of DB and Z were shared with video included (among this is some better/not-broken copies of some of the Fuji audio that had previously leaked, such as DB episode 89).

Most of the rest of what happened is just people who were involved in this arguing about it, trying to screw each-other over, accusing each-other of hoarding, arranging various trades and deals... It's the kind of thing that felt like the most important thing on the planet while it was happening, but it's duller than watching paint dry to explain after the fact.

In the past, I've tried writing out the full saga, just to close the book on it, but I'd have to mention people who either don't want to be associated with all the shitty drama that went on, or are the reason that a lot of people don't want to be associated with it. Loads of good people tried their best in this, and their efforts were rewarded by trolling, backstabbing, and general pettiness from certain folks. It's not an interesting story, it's just a vaguely sad saga of people being mean on the internet. So... The version I've told above is about as much as I personally think is worth going into.

As one final addendum; at one point, I tried to arrange for Derek Padula to get the message down the grapevine to Toei USA that there's this better audio in the hands of fans, which we could arrange to anonymously transfer to them. But Derek Padula has lost all enthusiasm to try doing stuff like this, others I know who've tried to contact Toei about this have found that they just do not care, and at this point, everyone who tried to get this into official hands is beyond burned out on this mess. We tried our best, but at every turn were met with apathy from the official side, so unless someone on the official side suddenly has a change of heart and tries reaching out to the fans about this, I think we're all beyond done with this mess that we've already spent far too long on.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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