AB Video to release original Dragon Ball on Blu-Ray

[theoriginalbilis]

Looks (and sounds) great! The original broadcast audio is something many of us have wanted on an official release for years.

Now let's @Crunchyroll about releasing this transfer in English-speaking territories. Gimme gimme gimme.

[MistaL]

I'm pretty sure this is not AI upscale, as you can see all the yellow color noise in all of those zoomed in AB Video compare shots. Looks like AB Video just has a better source.

They've already confirmed to Ajay that it is.

[eledoremassis02]

I'm pretty sure this is not AI upscale, as you can see all the yellow color noise in all of those zoomed in AB Video compare shots. Looks like AB Video just has a better source.

They've already confirmed to Ajay that it is.

It does have that AI look too. There are spot where could can see the AI basically drawing what it thinks it sees.

[lansing]

I'm pretty sure this is not AI upscale, as you can see all the yellow color noise in all of those zoomed in AB Video compare shots. Looks like AB Video just has a better source.

They've already confirmed to Ajay that it is.

Where??

[MistaL]

I'm pretty sure this is not AI upscale, as you can see all the yellow color noise in all of those zoomed in AB Video compare shots. Looks like AB Video just has a better source.

They've already confirmed to Ajay that it is.

Where??

Probably an email or something; he just said that a contact from AB confirmed it to him. You can also tell by using your real human eyes and looking at it.

[lansing]

They've already confirmed to Ajay that it is.

Where??

Probably an email or something; he just said that a contact from AB confirmed it to him. You can also tell by using your real human eyes and looking at it.

So you couldn't find it either?

[MistaL]

Where??

Probably an email or something; he just said that a contact from AB confirmed it to him. You can also tell by using your real human eyes and looking at it.

So you couldn't find it either?

No, I did not hack Ajay's accounts to verify. I don't know why he would lie about it, and additionally as previous stated there are very noticeable signs of upscaling. I don't know why you're choosing to stand atop this weird conspiracy hill you've mounded.

[lansing]

Probably an email or something; he just said that a contact from AB confirmed it to him. You can also tell by using your real human eyes and looking at it.

So you couldn't find it either?

No, I did not hack Ajay's accounts to verify. I don't know why he would lie about it, and additionally as previous stated there are very noticeable signs of upscaling. I don't know why you're choosing to stand atop this weird conspiracy hill you've mounded.

I am asking where did you see Ajay's comment about this confirmation, I couldn't find it. The only thing about their conversation from him was that AB Video finished the project in 2 months.

[MistaL]

So you couldn't find it either?

No, I did not hack Ajay's accounts to verify. I don't know why he would lie about it, and additionally as previous stated there are very noticeable signs of upscaling. I don't know why you're choosing to stand atop this weird conspiracy hill you've mounded.

I am asking where did you see Ajay's comment about this confirmation, I couldn't find it. The only thing about their conversation from him was that AB Video finished the project in 2 months.

Ah, my mistake; I misunderstood the subject and context of your question and it made you sound very strange, which is a mistake on my part and I should have asked you for more clarity before responding the way I did.

Ajay first mentions his contact and the fact it took under two months earlier in this thread in response to a post about the upscaling supposedly being handled by AstroRes. Since he didn't dispute this and clarified to them that AstroRes is a company specializing in upscaling and restoration (rather than a program as some previous posters seemed to believe), I took that as more or less confirmation that this is in fact an upscale done by them (and even if it wasn't done by them, it is very clearly an upscale as noted by the fact you can see certain artifacts which are common in upscaling).

Just for clarity, AstroRes is a company and not a program. They have their own proprietary method of tackling things. I also entirely disagree about that A-Ko upscale being better than DB's. It looks like a bigger upgrade at a glance as the source is worse, but the actual final results are far more watery and unnatural compare to Dragon Ball that borders on native looking.

I'll be making a video reviewing this release in full detail, but from chatting to an AB Groupe contact, I can tell you this was done in under 2 months as it was last minute decision not to use Selecta Vision's upscale.

Like, I really doubt the conversation happened without his contact mentioning that it was an upscale. I don't think that'd be a logically probable conversation to engage in lmao

[Ajay]

It is an upscale from the DVD master, yeah.

DBOX ~> DNR + MPEG2 artifact filtering ~> AI upscale ~> regrain

[sangofe]

It is an upscale from the DVD master, yeah.

DBOX ~> DNR + MPEG2 artifact filtering ~> AI upscale ~> regrain

Did SV made theirs from the same source?

[Ajay]

It is an upscale from the DVD master, yeah.

DBOX ~> DNR + MPEG2 artifact filtering ~> AI upscale ~> regrain

Did SV made theirs from the same source?

No, SV made theirs from the actual ProRes Dragon Box masters, while AB Groupe used the already encoded DBOX DVDs hence the issues with the dark detail in their version.

[eledoremassis02]

It is an upscale from the DVD master, yeah.

DBOX ~> DNR + MPEG2 artifact filtering ~> AI upscale ~> regrain

Did SV made theirs from the same source?

No, SV made theirs from the actual ProRes Dragon Box masters, while AB Groupe used the already encoded DBOX DVDs hence the issues with the dark detail in their version.

Do you know if it was from European DVDs or the Japanese DVDs . If the compression is as different as the JPvsFUNi dvds (for z) that could effect it quite a lot

[Ajay]

Do you know if it was from European DVDs or the Japanese DVDs . If the compression is as different as the JPvsFUNi dvds (for z) that could effect it quite a lot

The Japanese ones

[eledoremassis02]

Do you know if it was from European DVDs or the Japanese DVDs . If the compression is as different as the JPvsFUNi dvds (for z) that could effect it quite a lot

The Japanese ones

Thank you!! The works well with doing comparisons then!

[lansing]

It is an upscale from the DVD master, yeah.

DBOX ~> DNR + MPEG2 artifact filtering ~> AI upscale ~> regrain

Not according to this comment, which lined up to what we are seeing now by the image quality:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=46985&start=40#p1754465

As stated by many sites like blu-ray.com they will use a HD-Upscale produced by Toei - not a remaster like with the movies.
The german release got delayed until january 12th and will probably use the same Toei HD-Upscales.

And I'm going to go further to say that this is actually a HD scan by Toei because all signs point to a HD film scan. Crispier details, tons of small details that didn't exist in the DVD, and the patches of yellow color noise that only exist in film grain.

AI upscale is not black magic, it does not create something out of thin air. For example, it cannot create a distinctive circle from a block of dark pixels from Goku's ear here:
https://imgsli.com/MTM1ODI2/0/2

It also cannot recreate the correct stroke on the bottom half of the kanji in the background. The possibility of an AI model having a kanji catalogs in its database and recognizing one from a 20px x 20px DVD sample is zero.

[bkev]

I wonder what happend with this shot

lansing, aren't you the person who almost single-handedly got the color correction thread locked? Please don't do that here, too.

I would encourage you to look through this thread instead of spouting patently false information. I've quoted this particular cap to show you artifacting in the picture that matches up with the DBOX DVD releases as-is. A native HD scan wouldn't have digital artifacting of that sort unless this was a horrid, horrid encode -- which the rest of the picture will show you right away, it wasn't.

[vanner64]

There are some tell tale signs of this being an AI upscale and not a native HD scan. Let's say we don't believe Ajay and want to check for ourselves.

Here's a high-res scan of a cel Ajay used in his video

Spoiler:

Now here's a still from the new AB Video

Spoiler:

Don't worry, the AB Video still is from the raw .m2ts of the Blu-Ray, no encoding or compression shenanigans.

From this we can directly compare the Kanji in the background.
This is from the cel

While this is from the AB Video
Enlarged using Paint to make the comparison easier.

You can clearly see the right side of the Kanji (if there is a better term for this let me know, not a Japanese expert) some lines are missing. We would not expect this from a native HD scan which would capture these details

We can therefore independently confirm Ajay was right. Hope that helps.

[Ajay]

I do love the idea that this is somehow up for debate.

It is an upscale. The very people involved in its production told me in detail how it was done. I've relayed that here.

Even if I hadn't, it's so obviously an upscale that the debate is baffling in the first place. AI invents detail all the time and faking realistic film grain is not hard.

You can find non-sensical kanji all over the Blu-ray. The AI has no idea what it's doing there. Take a look at literally any text on the Blu-ray and you'll see invented upscale artifacts dancing around it.

[dragonmagico]

It is an upscale from the DVD master, yeah.

DBOX ~> DNR + MPEG2 artifact filtering ~> AI upscale ~> regrain

Not according to this comment, which lined up to what we are seeing now by the image quality:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=46985&start=40#p1754465

As stated by many sites like blu-ray.com they will use a HD-Upscale produced by Toei - not a remaster like with the movies.
The german release got delayed until january 12th and will probably use the same Toei HD-Upscales.

And I'm going to go further to say that this is actually a HD scan by Toei because all signs point to a HD film scan. Crispier details, tons of small details that didn't exist in the DVD, and the patches of yellow color noise that only exist in film grain.

AI upscale is not black magic, it does not create something out of thin air. For example, it cannot create a distinctive circle from a block of dark pixels from Goku's ear here:
https://imgsli.com/MTM1ODI2/0/2

It also cannot recreate the correct stroke on the bottom half of the kanji in the background. The possibility of an AI model having a kanji catalogs in its database and recognizing one from a 20px x 20px DVD sample is zero.

So you expect us to believe someone who huffs copium Because he doesn't know what color charts are, how DVD color space works, or what film scanning or upscaling actually does over FUCKING Ajay of all people with all the insider knowledge he has. Hmmmm