AB Video to release original Dragon Ball on Blu-Ray

[Joujou]

as much i hope that you are right about them asking for "raw scan" for box2 and give a better care to this last part, as much i don't trust at all cause i know how "poor" they are nowadays, (they've lost most licence that they used to have cause they couldn't renew them), that they'll redo box 1

I know that it already happened in USA with level sets then season sets, but something like that never happened in France.

As an example, when AB group released without any special care, dvd collector movie box 1 (widescreen crap), but a special "team" was made to do several collectors dvd box , matoumalin the "group leader" ask a new SD scan in fullscreen from AB interpositives movies films print, but even if they have given a special care to this box, they'll never redo "box 1" and i'm 100% sure they'll not redo db box 1 no matter the issues they have.

You forgot one point, "Toei animation" are from what i know when i've talk with matoumalin times ago, very hard in negociation, you basically forgot to mention that AB used Broadcast audios without any Toei approval on it, there is a High risk that it can also explain why BOX 2 isn't released yet, Toei is a hell in negociation but even without that, it's very usual that sometimes months or year can separate two release.

They used the broadcast audio without permission? Can you back that up?

There is no "official statement" and basically it's pretty logical that there isn't, if they asked, Toei would only have say "no" so they just "replaced" official japanese audio by broadcast audios hoping that all will be fine with Toei, for what i understood by these "team members", Toei haven't checked if the audio was the official or not, that's all.
But i'll not say that it explain why it take a long time for box 2, Toei will probably not even caring about it , it's just a "possibility" that you didn't mention. In France you can perfectly wait months/ years between two box for various reasons

[Ajay]

They used the broadcast audio without permission? Can you back that up?

It's true. I didn't draw attention to it in the video on purpose, but they straight up just grabbed a group's version off of a piracy website that was pre-synced and had all the issues patched out. It's completely 1:1. Ballsy move and I respect the hell out of them for doing it lol.

[GokuDaimao]

They used the broadcast audio without permission? Can you back that up?

It's true. I didn't draw attention to it in the video on purpose, but they straight up just grabbed a group's version off of a piracy website that was pre-synced and had all the issues patched out. It's completely 1:1. Ballsy move and I respect the hell out of them for doing it lol.

Now, I just want to ask you this objectively, Ajay. Also because I was going to go here regardless.

Do you think that's why we have not seen a hair of anything leading to Box 2? Because now that this is coming out, I may have to take back what I said about GT, but I suppose that that could still happen.

And yes, sangofe, I think anybody who's nervous has a reason to be at this point. It's been damn near 14 months with not a peep, and Toei being how they typically are, yeah, it's totally credible.

[Scsigs]

They used the broadcast audio without permission? Can you back that up?

It's true. I didn't draw attention to it in the video on purpose, but they straight up just grabbed a group's version off of a piracy website that was pre-synced and had all the issues patched out. It's completely 1:1. Ballsy move and I respect the hell out of them for doing it lol.

I mean, I knew it was taken from a pre-synced download of the audio, but I thought they got the ok from Toei before release.

[sangofe]

They used the broadcast audio without permission? Can you back that up?

It's true. I didn't draw attention to it in the video on purpose, but they straight up just grabbed a group's version off of a piracy website that was pre-synced and had all the issues patched out. It's completely 1:1. Ballsy move and I respect the hell out of them for doing it lol.

Now, I just want to ask you this objectively, Ajay. Also because I was going to go here regardless.

Do you think that's why we have not seen a hair of anything leading to Box 2? Because now that this is coming out, I may have to take back what I said about GT, but I suppose that that could still happen.

And yes, sangofe, I think anybody who's nervous has a reason to be at this point. It's been damn near 14 months with not a peep, and Toei being how they typically are, yeah, it's totally credible.

AB also has a history of communicating nothing.

[GokuDaimao]

AB also has a history of communicating nothing.

Fine, but 14 months? What are they doing over there?

Even with Level 1.1, Level 1.2 came out the following month. And they even had dates for 2.1 and 2.2 before they ultimately got the axe.

Granted, I'm not even asserting that AB should be that efficient at all, but it certainly is unsettling to say the least.

And barring the cancellation factor, it's also bad business in general to lead your fanbase on to that extent and tell them absolutely nothing. Don't be surprised if when it comes out in June of 2027 that nobody cares anymore.

[sangofe]

AB also has a history of communicating nothing.

Fine, but 14 months? What are they doing over there?

Even with Level 1.1, Level 1.2 came out the following month. And they even had dates for 2.1 and 2.2 before they ultimately got the axe.

Granted, I'm not even asserting that AB should be that efficient at all, but it certainly is unsettling to say the least.

And barring the cancellation factor, it's also bad business in general to lead your fanbase on to that extent and tell them absolutely nothing. Don't be surprised if when it comes out in June of 2027 that nobody cares anymore.

I agree silence and taking time is not ideal. But...
AB has only canceled DBGT DVD vol 2 subbed and up in the last 20 or so years. as far as I know. Nothing more And to put releases in perspective: It took almost one year for AB to release volume 2 of Dragon Ball Super collector edition. They have a lot more work to do on video and audio for DB than DB Super.

[Scsigs]

AB also has a history of communicating nothing.

Fine, but 14 months? What are they doing over there?

Even with Level 1.1, Level 1.2 came out the following month. And they even had dates for 2.1 and 2.2 before they ultimately got the axe.

Granted, I'm not even asserting that AB should be that efficient at all, but it certainly is unsettling to say the least.

And barring the cancellation factor, it's also bad business in general to lead your fanbase on to that extent and tell them absolutely nothing. Don't be surprised if when it comes out in June of 2027 that nobody cares anymore.

Can we all just stop judging AB by FUNi's standards? It's pretty obvious by this point they're 2 different companies with different ways of doing things.

Also, the Levels were 2 volumes of each set that had 17 episodes each for a total of 18 sets. AB has half the series in 2 sets each that requires extensive AI upscaling & color correction. Not to mention if they DID get into any hot water with Toei (which I doubt & I've explained why I think that), that probably would take some time to clear up. On top of that, the reason the Levels were cancelled (even if FUNi won't admit it) is more than likely poor sales because of the timing of them, not really anything else. I doubt the DB BR set 1 has sold that poorly. It has no competition & is worth the money if you speak French & live in Europe.

[GokuDaimao]

AB also has a history of communicating nothing.

Fine, but 14 months? What are they doing over there?

Even with Level 1.1, Level 1.2 came out the following month. And they even had dates for 2.1 and 2.2 before they ultimately got the axe.

Granted, I'm not even asserting that AB should be that efficient at all, but it certainly is unsettling to say the least.

And barring the cancellation factor, it's also bad business in general to lead your fanbase on to that extent and tell them absolutely nothing. Don't be surprised if when it comes out in June of 2027 that nobody cares anymore.

Can we all just stop judging AB by FUNi's standards? It's pretty obvious by this point they're 2 different companies with different ways of doing things.

Also, the Levels were 2 volumes of each set that had 17 episodes each for a total of 18 sets. AB has half the series in 2 sets each that requires extensive AI upscaling & color correction. Not to mention if they DID get into any hot water with Toei (which I doubt & I've explained why I think that), that probably would take some time to clear up. On top of that, the reason the Levels were cancelled (even if FUNi won't admit it) is more than likely poor sales because of the timing of them, not really anything else. I doubt the DB BR set 1 has sold that poorly. It has no competition & is worth the money if you speak French & live in Europe.

I don't think it does any company, entity, or anything any good whatsoever to blatantly ignore or write off ANY frame of comparison whatsoever just because the idea of the former looking inferior by comparison is uncomfortable.

Granted, the comparison has to be fair, and mine was. I even said that I did/do not expect AB to be that efficient.

Aside from that though, I stand by my points. To release one set and leaving the fans hanging for this long with no communication whatsoever, possible Toei mandates notwithstanding, is bad business no matter where you're based. AB can be a 'different company with a different way of doing things' all it wants. That doesn't make it acceptable.

As an aside, FUNimation did explicitly state that immediate sales results was their reason for discontinuing the Level Sets. Granted, they explain this through a lot of "word vomit" as Ajay would say as well as vagaries that leave things up to interpretation on purpose on their 30th Anniversary BD blog post, but they put the puzzle pieces close enough to one another.



So, that's my two cents.

[GhostEmperorX]

Sorry, but that's probably not something for you or any other single individual to decide.
There have been lots of unexpected releases of pre-Y2K media restorations by different companies (particularly in JP itself) with no word of what may or may not be coming next. It's by no means an abnormal thing.

[GokuDaimao]

Sorry, but that's probably not something for you or any other single individual to decide.
There have been lots of unexpected releases of pre-Y2K media restorations by different companies (particularly in JP itself) with no word of what may or may not be coming next. It's by no means an abnormal thing.

You're entitled to your opinion as I am to mine, I'm fine with that.

But I do resent this air that I have no basis to feel the way I do or that I'm in fact, not entitled to my opinion. Just because a release is good does not mean I or anyone else is obligated to wait on hands and knees for it.

And general timing is peanuts compared to the bigger issue that Toei has possibly put a stop to future installments and that based on past incidents, what we know about Toei, and Ajay's testimony, which has more credibility than the sheer speculation of most, carries enough genuine wight to it that I would not blame anyone for thinking that it's going in that direction.

[sangofe]

I understand that you're frightened since you don't want to lose the opportunity of owning the complete collection of this but if we don't accept things it makes life less enjoyable. It can even affect our daily lives negatively. So let's wait and see. Hopefully they'll finish all DB, DBZ and DBGT. If they don't it'll suck, sure, but I don't think we can do anything about this at all and should let that affect our lives.

[Joujou]

I understand that you're frightened since you don't want to lose the opportunity of owning the complete collection of this but if we don't accept things it makes life less enjoyable. It can even affect our daily lives negatively. So let's wait and see. Hopefully they'll finish all DB, DBZ and DBGT. If they don't it'll suck, sure, but I don't think we can do anything about this at all and should let that affect our lives.

AB has allways been slow, and now it's mediawan and they are not as rich as they were back in the past you have plenty possible explanations on why it's slow but for what i'm aware off, BD BOX VOL 1 sold very well so i don't think it's this kind of issue, mediawan
maybe it can be several stuffs at a time (Toei slow in their negociations, time for AI upscale, color correction on it etc) but we are far than being done as the box designer wasn't even asked yet to work on box 2
we just have to wait but i think that they will release box 2 , i'm pretty confident on it

[sangofe]

I understand that you're frightened since you don't want to lose the opportunity of owning the complete collection of this but if we don't accept things it makes life less enjoyable. It can even affect our daily lives negatively. So let's wait and see. Hopefully they'll finish all DB, DBZ and DBGT. If they don't it'll suck, sure, but I don't think we can do anything about this at all and should let that affect our lives.

AB has allways been slow, and now it's mediawan and they are not as rich as they were back in the past you have plenty possible explanations on why it's slow but for what i'm aware off, BD BOX VOL 1 sold very well so i don't think it's this kind of issue, mediawan
maybe it can be several stuffs at a time (Toei slow in their negociations, time for AI upscale, color correction on it etc) but we are far than being done as the box designer wasn't even asked yet to work on box 2
we just have to wait but i think that they will release box 2 , i'm pretty confident on it

You know, the graphic designer posted a long time that he had started the work on box 2, hence my earlier comments on that. I have been reading comments lately and now he says he started on his own and he doesn't know but he also wrote he can't say anything anyway... Maybe he had to write this because it was border limit to his nda giving this much information? So we don't really know is what we all can we can agree on.

[Scsigs]

I don't think it does any company, entity, or anything any good whatsoever to blatantly ignore or write off ANY frame of comparison whatsoever just because the idea of the former looking inferior by comparison is uncomfortable.

Granted, the comparison has to be fair, and mine was. I even said that I did/do not expect AB to be that efficient.

Aside from that though, I stand by my points. To release one set and leaving the fans hanging for this long with no communication whatsoever, possible Toei mandates notwithstanding, is bad business no matter where you're based. AB can be a 'different company with a different way of doing things' all it wants. That doesn't make it acceptable.

As an aside, FUNimation did explicitly state that immediate sales results was their reason for discontinuing the Level Sets. Granted, they explain this through a lot of "word vomit" as Ajay would say as well as vagaries that leave things up to interpretation on purpose on their 30th Anniversary BD blog post, but they put the puzzle pieces close enough to one another.

Spoiler:

So, that's my two cents.

Bro, judge AB Groupe by their own standards with past releases, not FUNi's is all I'm saying.

If that's all you were doing, I can see your point. I'll put it this way. Discotek. They've been licensing various Toei shows. However, they don't announce things until they're very close to release. They literally JUST announced Space Sheriff Sharivan yesterday & that's not coming out until February 27th. Companies like them need more time to do these things. Yes, I agree that saying nothing is bad, but they are confirmed to be working on it. There can be a variety reasons as to why that is.

What I meant was immediately. I'm pretty sure people here have said that the people at FUNi said years ago that they said it wasn't sales that caused them to discontinue the Levels. I don't know how many people actually believed that, but that blogpost later confirmed it. Otherwise they would've started the Levels up again years later rather than completely redo the whole process.

[GokuDaimao]

I don't think it does any company, entity, or anything any good whatsoever to blatantly ignore or write off ANY frame of comparison whatsoever just because the idea of the former looking inferior by comparison is uncomfortable.

Granted, the comparison has to be fair, and mine was. I even said that I did/do not expect AB to be that efficient.

Aside from that though, I stand by my points. To release one set and leaving the fans hanging for this long with no communication whatsoever, possible Toei mandates notwithstanding, is bad business no matter where you're based. AB can be a 'different company with a different way of doing things' all it wants. That doesn't make it acceptable.

As an aside, FUNimation did explicitly state that immediate sales results was their reason for discontinuing the Level Sets. Granted, they explain this through a lot of "word vomit" as Ajay would say as well as vagaries that leave things up to interpretation on purpose on their 30th Anniversary BD blog post, but they put the puzzle pieces close enough to one another.

Spoiler:

So, that's my two cents.

Bro, judge AB Groupe by their own standards with past releases, not FUNi's is all I'm saying.

If that's all you were doing, I can see your point. I'll put it this way. Discotek. They've been licensing various Toei shows. However, they don't announce things until they're very close to release. They literally JUST announced Space Sheriff Sharivan yesterday & that's not coming out until February 27th. Companies like them need more time to do these things. Yes, I agree that saying nothing is bad, but they are confirmed to be working on it. There can be a variety reasons as to why that is.

What I meant was immediately. I'm pretty sure people here have said that the people at FUNi said years ago that they said it wasn't sales that caused them to discontinue the Levels. I don't know how many people actually believed that, but that blogpost later confirmed it. Otherwise they would've started the Levels up again years later rather than completely redo the whole process.

Okay, but now you're not making a fair comparison while accusing me if doing so.

A 2-3 month wait without updates pales in comparison to a 14 month wait and counting. And I don't think there's any hype around Space Sheriff Sharivan buzzing that might lead to the parent company to have a problem with what this licensor is doing with it.

Most of what you said otherwise is fine, and I think we're in agreement on, but I think it's silly to just write off any Dragon Ball release that's not by the same licensor. It's much easier to cut AB a break, I suppose if they're the only company to compare to themselves. But even then, over a year with no communication to the people they rely on to justify the work and money they put into this product is foolish to me.

[Scsigs]

Bro, judge AB Groupe by their own standards with past releases, not FUNi's is all I'm saying.

If that's all you were doing, I can see your point. I'll put it this way. Discotek. They've been licensing various Toei shows. However, they don't announce things until they're very close to release. They literally JUST announced Space Sheriff Sharivan yesterday & that's not coming out until February 27th. Companies like them need more time to do these things. Yes, I agree that saying nothing is bad, but they are confirmed to be working on it. There can be a variety reasons as to why that is.

Okay, but now you're not making a fair comparison while accusing me if doing so.

A 2-3 month wait without updates pales in comparison to a 14 month wait and counting. And I don't think there's any hype around Space Sheriff Sharivan buzzing that might lead to the parent company to have a problem with what this licensor is doing with it.

Most of what you said otherwise is fine, and I think we're in agreement on, but I think it's silly to just write off any Dragon Ball release that's not by the same licensor. It's much easier to cut AB a break, I suppose if they're the only company to compare to themselves. But even then, over a year with no communication to the people they rely on to justify the work and money they put into this product is foolish to me.

Me bringing up Discotek was to say that they also take time with their releases because these things take time & because they're the closest in the US to AB Groupe in this case, I think it's more than fair.
Before they got Sharivan, they did Space Sheriff Gavan in October 2022 & before that was MegaBeast Investigator Juspion in August 2019, which they had announced at Otakon 2018 (September). In between Gavan & Sharivan, they also did Kamen Rider Black & Black RX. And that's just Metal Heroes. They've announced a Blu-Ray upscaled remaster of Digimon Adventure 02, as well as a remaster of the Digimon Movie (minus the shitty Angela Anaconda short for legal reasons. Funny since you'd assume all the licensed music would've been the problem, but nope! Fucking Angela Anaconda, man) as well as a release for the 3 films uncut of the ones that were recut for that movie with new uncut dubs to go with them. We have yet to get a release date of them despite them being announced back in July of this year & it's most likely because they're still working on the remasters of the episodes. They also have to recut the episodes of the show from the Japanese version to sync them with the English dub's audio because the US DVD masters weren't workable for the AI. They also, I believe, are recutting the 3 films to match the edits for the US Digimon movie. These things take time. Hell, the release of the Japanese dub of Adventure 01 took 7 months to come out after the English dub's release, partly because they did a different AI upscale for the JP masters from the English ones. You WANT the people who clearly care about these things to take their time, trust me.
They've also said licensing these things from Toei takes time & are expensive. Toei is known for charging premiums for a lot of their stuff, as well as usually not doing licensing bundles. A lot of these things, they've had to get the additional funds for. Granted, I don't know AB Groupe's finances & I know they've held the DB license in certain parts of Europe for decades, but if they're doing the same type of work as Discotek is, these things take time. They also have way more episodes to do than Discotek with the original Dragon Ball VS Digimon Adventure 01 & 02. Even if you count the different masters for 01 between JP & English, that's less than the total episodes of DB across 4 different releases over less than 2 years, plus 4 movies, 3 of which they had to pay for new dubs of with as much of the original voice cast as they could get & 1 they had to recut together.

Plus, we don't know what AB Groupe are doing behind the scenes. We don't know the power of their workforce in France & they could also be dealing with negotiations with Toei for the DBox masters of Z & GT (especially if they wanna get the files from before they were put on discs back in 2003/4 unlike DB so there's less compression on them) so they don't have to use DVD rips. as I've said, Toei is rather notorious with negotiating these things. They apparently waited 5-6 years before giving FUNimation the Z DBox masters, which FUNi apparently wanted before even doing the Orange Bricks according to Geekdom101. To also put this in perspective, I think if FUNi wanted to get the DBox masters for OG DB, GT, the movies, & the specials like I think they should've rather than do their own remasters, Toei would've charged a premium because they know how good they are compared to every other release out there for 1 of their biggest properties. I think AB Groupe are also dealing with that type of thing. It's a mix of Toei's notoriously stupid dealings, their prices, & their timetables.
And, I'm going to throw the people who think them using the broadcast audio may also have thrown a wrench into things. If Toei did have a problem with them doing that (again, there's no reason to actually think this at the moment, as I've pointed out that they don't give any shits towards international releases of DB when it comes to FUNimation, so why would they care about AB Groupe's?), it could take some time for negotiations for clearance to use more of it on future releases.

I'm willing to give them a bit more time before I start being all doom & gloom with the second set because of these varying factors.

[sangofe]

Another question we could ask, if Toei had a problem with AB using the broadcast audio, would the released box 1 Blu-ray set be on sale still?

Edit : AB actually replied to someone on Twitter :
https://twitter.com/GeekHillZone/status ... 9047725115
"Hello, no information right now Have a good day"

[Joujou]

Another question we could ask, if Toei had a problem with AB using the broadcast audio, would the released box 1 Blu-ray set be on sale still?

Edit : AB actually replied to someone on Twitter :
https://twitter.com/GeekHillZone/status ... 9047725115
"Hello, no information right now Have a good day"

AB Twitter account can't really be taken seriously, it's not even AB member team that own the account, it's a CM company that own it, so as long as AB don't give them informations, they'll say absolutely nothing

[sangofe]

Another question we could ask, if Toei had a problem with AB using the broadcast audio, would the released box 1 Blu-ray set be on sale still?

Edit : AB actually replied to someone on Twitter :
https://twitter.com/GeekHillZone/status ... 9047725115
"Hello, no information right now Have a good day"

AB Twitter account can't really be taken seriously, it's not even AB member team that own the account, it's a CM company that own it, so as long as AB don't give them informations, they'll say absolutely nothing

But if they say something it means it hasn't been canceled, I'd think.