Broadcast audio - similar case to Star Wars Despecialized Edition?

[coola]

Harmy's Star Wars Despecialized Edition was, to quote creator:

"Born out of frustrated fans’ failed attempts to convince George Lucas to release the unaltered theatrical versions of the Star Wars Original Trilogy films (Episodes IV, V, & VI), the online forum community built around a popular petition hosted at OriginalTrilogy.com turned to discussion of fan edits as a means to obtain their shared goal without Lucas’ help. Eventually, a fan restoration project led by Harmy as the primary video editor resulted in the Despecialized Edition (abbreviated as “DEED” or “DE”)."

Recently, some dedicated fans edited broadcast audio into DB/DBZ/DBGT. I might be wrong, but one of main reasons Funimation/Toei don't go after those projects, is similar to Disney/LucasFilm, they don't ever plan to include broadcast audio, so as long as people also buy official releases, such project is no harm

[Shaddy]

Weird thread but okay.

I would say it's pretty significantly different. The difference is that Lucasfilm had the original cuts of the Star Wars trilogy, and probably still does. They released only the special editions out of a conceited desire to "improve" a trilogy fraught with production issues, but only acted in accordance with George Lucas's vision, and he wasn't the only one that made those films, so fans were stuck with a version of their story that they liked a lot less and were actively ignored and dissuaded from preserving the original version.

In Dragon Ball's case, the original audio masters are gone. Back in the 80s it was still commonplace to assume that once a show was shown, that was it. They made minimal preservation efforts at best, and figured the optical audio was just "good enough". It does indeed have the voices, music and sound effects on it. This is the same way a ton of old Doctor Who episodes were lost, although ironically in the exact opposite manner, where the visuals are totally gone. We got the fuzzy audio on home releases for so long because that was all there was available publicly. It's only through fans' VHS collections that we got the broadcast audio. It was never a creative mandate.

Now, Toei has similarly not released the series with broadcast audio, but they haven't done a Dragon Ball release at all since the DBoxes, and we're not exactly sure why Funimation refuses to include them on new home material. Either way, it's not really comparable in my opinion, since the broadcast audio didn't have to be reconstructed, it just had to be found at all. The roadblocks in getting it public were a lot of fan drama that I'm not exactly sure of the specifics of? But it has a lot less to do with corporate interference so much as negligence.

[ShaneisMC]

Soooo.....where might one find this project if i may ask... if need be ill take a DM.

[UpFromTheSkies]

The roadblocks in getting it public were a lot of fan drama that I'm not exactly sure of the specifics of? But it has a lot less to do with corporate interference so much as negligence.

From what I understand the people who had the broadcast audio didn't want it pirated because they were trying to negotiate with TOEI and FUNimation to get them to use the audio. There were also people who didn't want it released to the public so they could use it to trade with other collectors.

[TheBlackPaladin]

It's also worth mentioning: Toei sees the show differently than fans in many other countries do.

In Japan, the show was created to help sell toys and merchandise for the most part. That's a decidedly different viewpoint from over here, where the show itself is the main product. Over in Japan, the DVDs of the show are basically considered glorified collector's items--and priced accordingly. So...it's not exactly like this, but it's close enough to use this analogy...telling Toei that you really want the DVDs is kind of like saying, "No, I don't want the toys, I want the commercials for them." So, they likely don't see the original broadcast audio as being worth it because it's like adding, "And can you remaster the audio for the commercials?" on top of that request.

[Planetnamek]

It's also worth mentioning: Toei sees the show differently than fans in many other countries do.

In Japan, the show was created to help sell toys and merchandise for the most part. That's a decidedly different viewpoint from over here, where the show itself is the main product. Over in Japan, the DVDs of the show are basically considered glorified collector's items--and priced accordingly. So...it's not exactly like this, but it's close enough to use this analogy...telling Toei that you really want the DVDs is kind of like saying, "No, I don't want the toys, I want the commercials for them." So, they likely don't see the original broadcast audio as being worth it because it's like adding, "And can you remaster the audio for the commercials?" on top of that request.

Japan also has a much stricter stance on copyright then most other countries do, that's why Atlus went so far as to try and ban Let's Plays of Persona 5 which only succeeded in pissing off fans of the series, so they eventually gave up on trying to stop people from doing it. So that explains why they are reluctant to do anything about the audio.

[Majin Man 101]

What has been going on in the community with making the perfect release is exactly like what is going on with the Star Wars trilogy. Now that the beautiful broadcast audio has been preserved for all three classic TV series, all that is needed now is an HD transfer of the film which Crunchyrolly/Toei hopefully will one day do correctly. If not if 16 MM prints of the entire series leaked it really would be like whats going on with the despecialized editions and I know that Dragon ball fans would be up to the task.

[ZodaEX]

What has been going on in the community with making the perfect release is exactly like what is going on with the Star Wars trilogy.

The community isn't making the perfect release. Have you even heard the broadcast audio before? It is far far from perfect, and never will be perfect.

[Majin Man 101]

What has been going on in the community with making the perfect release is exactly like what is going on with the Star Wars trilogy.

The community isn't making the perfect release. Have you even heard the broadcast audio before? It is far far from perfect, and never will be perfect.

Yes I have all three original series in broadcast audio.

The broadcast audio sounds fantastic. It is so far beyond the quality present in the Dragon Boxes that there is not even a comparison to be made. And yes the community has made amazing releases with the available elements that Toei has refused to do.

So
I disagree with you hard on this one.

[ZodaEX]

What has been going on in the community with making the perfect release is exactly like what is going on with the Star Wars trilogy.

The community isn't making the perfect release. Have you even heard the broadcast audio before? It is far far from perfect, and never will be perfect.

Yes I have all three original series in broadcast audio.

The broadcast audio sounds fantastic. It is so far beyond the quality present in the Dragon Boxes that there is not even a comparison to be made. And yes the community has made amazing releases with the available elements that Toei has refused to do.

So
I disagree with you hard on this one.

Way to move the goal posts of your original claim. The broadcast audio is far from perfect. It has many noticeable distortions in it. You claimed the community is making perfect releases. Now you're trying to change the argument to the releases being amazing, however I was responding to you claiming them to be perfect. You're wrong, they aren't perfect and never will be.

[Majin Man 101]

The community isn't making the perfect release. Have you even heard the broadcast audio before? It is far far from perfect, and never will be perfect.

Yes I have all three original series in broadcast audio.

The broadcast audio sounds fantastic. It is so far beyond the quality present in the Dragon Boxes that there is not even a comparison to be made. And yes the community has made amazing releases with the available elements that Toei has refused to do.

So
I disagree with you hard on this one.

Way to move the goal posts of your original claim. The broadcast audio is far from perfect. It has many noticeable distortions in it. You claimed the community is making perfect releases. Now you're trying to change the argument to the releases being amazing, however I was responding to you claiming them to be perfect. You're wrong, they aren't perfect and never will be.

You are right in that regard. If never can be perfect due to the loss of the master tapes……..however

I guess it depends on your definition of a perfect release

If this series gets a proper restoration in HD, and then is synced up with the broadcast audio(which is the highest quality source that exists) then yes that is the most perfect release that can exist. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.

[Gligarman]

I’ve seen Broadcast Audio fan restoration. I hate and love the fact that I now have access to the best home video release that never was. Lol. Also in regards to Star Wars, this sounds similar to Project 4K77. The Despecialized Editions are more well known but 4K77-83 is actually much better because these were sourced from complete 35mm prints, so no effects work had to be done to remove elements from the official blu-rays. All they had to do was scan them and clean them up.

[ZodaEX]

4K77-83 is actually much better because these were sourced from complete 35mm prints.

The resolution of 4K80 may be better than TESB Despecialized, but I strongly disagree that 4K80 is better than TESB Despecialized as you claim. 4K80's colors and lack of sharpness and stabilization is absolutely horrendous by comparison. At this point it has had very little cleanup to the scratches from the scan as well. It just looks very soft, desaturated and jumpy. It's really a very unideal way to watch the film until the restoration is further along. It still has a long way to go before it comes even close to looking as good as 4K77, despite the higher resolution and bit-rate.