Dragon Ball GT is getting a Blu-Ray release in Spain

[ABED]

How much better can these actually look than SD? What is being gained by putting a mid-90s show on BD?

[sangofe]

How much better can these actually look than SD? What is being gained by putting a mid-90s show on BD?

Unless they're upscaling using better methods than for DB and DBZ, I'd say nothing.

[M16U3L2015]

If it were an SD Blu-ray (Blu-Ray in Standard Definition) and they used the Dragon Box master without altering it, it would be an improvement, as the greater storage capacity of the Blu-ray format would allow for better quality video without compression, without the limitations of the DVD format, and lossless audio tracks.

It would also allow more episodes to be included per disc. Unfortunately, few companies take advantage of this type of Blu-Ray when they don't have high-definition masters and always resort to upscaling.

[Metalwario64]

Yeah... it's always preferable to an upscale. More episodes per disc... better compression.

[sangofe]

When done properly, upscale is better, in my opinion. But many don't do it properly.

[Saiya6Cit]

Those are great news. It should be relatively easy to get that in Mexico. Back in the early 2000s we used to get a lot of Spaniard Dragon Ball Magazines and merchandise, it seems like it is time to start asking some questions about it to my local distributor. Thanks for the tip.

I wonder if the series would be censored somehow... I mean, it is 2025, but I don't know how politically correctness trend works currently in Spain.

[ChouGenkiDama.]

How much better can these actually look than SD? What is being gained by putting a mid-90s show on BD?

Anything traditionally animated on cels and then captured/mastered onto film (yes, even 16mm) is high definition by default.

This release will sadly be another upscale, but a true remaster sourced from the original film elements would look dramatically better than the SD Dragon Box masters. Being made in the 90s has nothing to do with it.

That’s just a fact.

[ABED]

How much better can these actually look than SD? What is being gained by putting a mid-90s show on BD?

Anything traditionally animated on cels and then captured/mastered onto film (yes, even 16mm) is high definition by default.

This release will sadly be another upscale, but a true remaster sourced from the original film elements would look dramatically better than the SD Dragon Box masters. Being made in the 90s has nothing to do with it.

That’s just a fact.

It's a "fact" but not the whole story. It was shot on film but framed and intended to air in SD because that's what was available at the time. So, again I aski, what's gained?

[Kenji]

What's gained is that you can see the distorted faces and anatomy of a rushed animation cell in high definition without the slight corrections of a CRT television set... probably.

[ChouGenkiDama.]

It's a "fact" but not the whole story. It was shot on film but framed and intended to air in SD because that's what was available at the time. So, again I aski, what's gained?

Of course the show aired in standard definition, yes, but viewers only saw a fraction of the artwork, animation detail, and color depth as captured on the original film elements.

Detail that went unseen due to the transmission methods of the time, not creative intentions.

Indeed, you might as well apply your same dismissal to Tenchi Muyo, Cowboy Bebop, Record of Lodoss War, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rose of Versailles, Future Boy Conan, Heidi of the Alps… and on and on and on. All series which were animated for SD mediums but have since received top-drawer remasters that have proven to be total revelations in terms of clarity and vibrancy. The kind that make their old DVD and laserdisc predecessors look like mud when directly compared.

Of course I understand that some people simply don’t give much of a fuss about picture quality, and that’s fine. Alas, as a restoration-minded person it’s impossible not to notice how rough even the Dragon Box DVDs look on modern displays. Especially knowing how much nicer the series could look if those in power at Toei ever decided to come to their senses.

IMO 480p DVDs sourced from masters of not-much higher resolution shouldn’t be the end of the road for any of the classic era DB series.

You’ll have to pardon me. I’m just finding it difficult to grasp how a veteran fan with an abiding interest in classic anime could be asking such a question. Much less how you’ve managed to live through the blu-ray era without taking in at least one of the many stunning HD or 4K anime presentations currently out there in the wild.

[M16U3L2015]

I wonder if the series would be censored somehow... I mean, it is 2025, but I don't know how politically correctness trend works currently in Spain.

The only censorship would be that of the Spain dub when it was produced, but I don't know if GT was censored in the dub in the same way as Z (I understand that the Blu-Rays of Z have audio patches in Japanese for the censored scenes).

[ABED]

It's a "fact" but not the whole story. It was shot on film but framed and intended to air in SD because that's what was available at the time. So, again I aski, what's gained?

Of course the show aired in standard definition, yes, but viewers only saw a fraction of the artwork, animation detail, and color depth as captured on the original film elements.

Detail that went unseen due to the transmission methods of the time, not creative intentions.

Indeed, you might as well apply your same dismissal to Tenchi Muyo, Cowboy Bebop, Record of Lodoss War, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rose of Versailles, Future Boy Conan, Heidi of the Alps… and on and on and on. All series which were animated for SD mediums but have since received top-drawer remasters that have proven to be total revelations in terms of clarity and vibrancy. The kind that make their old DVD and laserdisc predecessors look like mud when directly compared.

Of course I understand that some people simply don’t give much of a fuss about picture quality, and that’s fine. Alas, as a restoration-minded person it’s impossible not to notice how rough even the Dragon Box DVDs look on modern displays. Especially knowing how much nicer the series could look if those in power at Toei ever decided to come to their senses.

IMO 480p DVDs sourced from masters of not-much higher resolution shouldn’t be the end of the road for any of the classic era DB series.

You’ll have to pardon me. I’m just finding it difficult to grasp how a veteran fan with an abiding interest in classic anime could be asking such a question. Much less how you’ve managed to live through the blu-ray era without taking in at least one of the many stunning HD or 4K anime presentations currently out there in the wild.

But all that detail went into something that was designed for a certain kind of TV. A lot of detail went into the sets on sitcoms like Friends. I've seen it in HD and it's not as good as my SD DVDs which is closer to what it looked like when it aired. Sometimes all that detail isn't a good thing. I like good picture quality but it's not an objective thing. I like the BD ease up on the compression, but that's really all I'm asking for.

The creative intention OF THE TIME was that it would be seen on SD TVs.

Respectfully, I think you are overselling how much we're gaining with a HD remaster of DB. I don't watch much anime. Anime that people consider classics like Death Note and Cowboy Bebop and Akira did nothing for me. I like film preservation, but I'm also someone who thinks the amount of detail we got back in the 90s is about as much as I needed. Sometimes movies and TV shows look better showing less. I don't need to see the brush strokes in cell animation to appreciate the artistry.

[VegettoEX]

Consider this for a sec and just play along-

The Nintendo Famicom originally shipped in Japan with an RF connector, and that’s it — the circular end with a pin sticking out that you’d throw in between your antenna and TV and bypass channel 3 or 4. It was the default, and effectively lowest quality connection available, combining video and audio into one fuzzy output.

When Nintendo shipped it as the NES in America, the RF connector was still there and the defacto default because that’s still what most of us had — BUT it ALSO got an upgrade in the form of composite video and (mono) audio output (the yellow and white, no red here, circular cords with the thicker, rounded pins). When you got a new TV or VCR that supported it, you had a built-in visual upgrade.

And that’s to say nothing of what you can do by hacking and upgrading the hardware to get things like native RGB output!

That quality was always there. It was obfuscated by the early connectors, and yes designers and artists considered that when creating games, but there WAS still more “quality” under the surface that was always there, and absolutely enhances the visual spectacle.

(This is all still assuming CRT. The conversation about visual blending when going straight 240p output to pixels on modern displays is separate to all of this.)

It’s a rough, but still remotely relevant, comparison. Even at its worst days, the Dragon Ball franchise has so much to offer in visual fidelity courtesy of the format it happened to be birthed upon at the exact right time (still film, prior to the unfortunate digipaint era).

There’s a lot I want to get into and have some pretty severe thoughts about when it comes to perhaps the overcorrection of our fandom’s video/audiophile movement and what’s been forgotten about the product and availability and yearnings of the day, but that’s kind of beyond the scope of this conversation and what I’m prepared to really flesh out — I just wanted to acknowledge it at bare minimum before I wrap up and say:

Yes, I likewise believe it’s preposterous to hand wave the benefits to be gained from a proper scan and remastering of the underlying product here with Dragon Ball.

[ABED]

Let me boil this down so people get where I'm coming from - I like coffee, but I don't know the ins and outs of coffee. All I know is if I like it. In this case, my preference isn't for the absolute "best" in image quality. I like for things to look closer to broadcast quality as I remember it. it's an emotional thing. I have a passing understanding of some of the things that are being discussed but at the end of the day it all boils down to subjective preference.

[LostTimeLord]

The creative intention OF THE TIME was that it would be seen on SD TVs.

Okay, but how did this effect the design/production of the show? What did they do differently compared to the animation cels used for the movies and promo images, which were essentially always available in HD?

We're not even talking about reconstructing something that was delivered on video; as far as the production was concerned, the final product would have been film reels. I doubt that they accounted for the telecine transfer having prominent ghosting, for example, but that's how it was originally broadcast. A straightforward HD transfer would simply be closer to what was made by the original production team.

...but that's probably not what what'll appear on this Spanish Blu-ray anyway - it'll probably be an upscale with a bunch of filtering to make it look 'more HD' but change the look of the artwork in the process. So it's academic, really.

[Kenji]

Okay, but how did this effect the design/production of the show? What did they do differently compared to the animation cels used for the movies and promo images, which were essentially always available in HD?

There was incentive back then to not put too much effort into TV animation, because the producers would assume it would be cropped or the CRT set would do its magic to make the imperfections look better, on top of the viewer having no control to pause and pay attention to detail. Not saying it was the case specifically for GT, but it was definitely a practice back then.