Z and Kai TFC hybrid (NeoRaw/SOM)

[DHM211]

Maybe not the best title but not sure what else to use .

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this will end up becoming a full-series project. This single episode took me about an hour to edit(+watching the episode after), and the amount of scene-by-scene syncing required is much more time-consuming than I originally expected. That said, seeing how much better the Neo-Raws/Seed of Might footage looks compared to Kai: The Final Chapters definitely makes me want to keep going. We'll see where it leads!

TL:DR: 4:3 Footage, Mostly Kai dub, filler trimmed, rest of footage allowed a bit more breathing room then Kai.

Pilot/proof of edit: Z episode 279.

Z Episode 279 24:45min -> 21:47min
Dub from Kai Episodes 158/159 used.

Gist of this.

Seed of Might color corrected the Dragon Box's and gave us the best looking version of DBZ, locked in 480p. Neo-Raws took that a step further and upscaled the color correction and gave us the best looking version that will almost definitely ever be seen.

Unfortunately, no one is going to fix the outdated Z dub, and since Kai The Final Chapters footage at best, is inferior to the NR/SOM release, and at worst, has several major issues, I figured I'd try merging them.

Overall Structure / Branding:

The project follows DBZ's presentation rather than Kai's. This allows for a few extra seconds of breathing room in many scenes, since Toei often trimmed or slightly sped up footage even when no content was actually removed. The opening, ending, recap, title cards, next-episode previews, etc., will all use Z branding.

The episode structure will likely end up being a hybrid, but it'll lean heavily toward Z while trimming fully filler episodes where appropriate

Dub:

The dub is mostly Kai, but it's ultimately a hybrid.

For this pilot episode, roughly 90% of the spoken dialogue is from Kai (not counting the recap, which is 1:1 from Z). Some Z lines were kept because I personally prefer them, while others remain because they don't exist in Kai. Shouts and battle yells are probably around 75% Kai / 25% Z, while sound effects are about 50/50.

I originally started this project with the goal of simply creating a color corrected, HD 4:3 version of Kai: The Final Chapters, similar to what @IAmTheMilkMan accomplished with his phenomenal Dragon Ball Kai Recut. Again, Toei made that much more difficult than expected because they randomly trim or speed up tiny sections of footage throughout the series. Nearly every scene has a second here, a second there, removed or accelerated. Because of that, I decided to restructure the project around the original Z presentation instead.

I'm not sure what this sites current rules are regarding sharing a full episode link, so for now here is a 5 min clip. Happy to share the full uncompressed episode if thats allowed.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/107yi-w ... sp=sharing

[Metalwario64]

I originally started this project with the goal of simply creating a color corrected, HD 4:3 version of Kai: The Final Chapters, similar to what @IAmTheMilkMan accomplished with his phenomenal Dragon Ball Kai Recut. Again, Toei made that much more difficult than expected because they randomly trim or speed up tiny sections of footage throughout the series. Nearly every scene has a second here, a second there, removed or accelerated. Because of that, I decided to restructure the project around the original Z presentation instead.

This does look cool! I personally find adding filler back would be detrimental because TFC already retains too much but hey you do what you gotta or wanna do!

There is a Dragon Box Kai project being worked on though.... dunno about it's progress. ATOMIC.EXE is using it for their Z-Cut version of Kai which is great and has Kikuchi and Faulconer dub options, but since the DBox Kai team isn't using Neo-Raws at least not right now, it's still SD. Honestly I am hoping Dragon Box Kai offers a Neo-Raws option since their videos are still in HD just scaled up. If that happened I was considering maybe some day resyncing it to MilkMan's Kai recut if he had no interest in revisiting it some day though I admit I haven't talked to him about it lol.

[DHM211]

I originally started this project with the goal of simply creating a color corrected, HD 4:3 version of Kai: The Final Chapters, similar to what @IAmTheMilkMan accomplished with his phenomenal Dragon Ball Kai Recut. Again, Toei made that much more difficult than expected because they randomly trim or speed up tiny sections of footage throughout the series. Nearly every scene has a second here, a second there, removed or accelerated. Because of that, I decided to restructure the project around the original Z presentation instead.

This does look cool! I personally find adding filler back would be detrimental because TFC already retains too much but hey you do what you gotta or wanna do!

There is a Dragon Box Kai project being worked on though.... dunno about it's progress. ATOMIC.EXE is using it for their Z-Cut version of Kai which is great and has Kikuchi and Faulconer dub options, but since the DBox Kai team isn't using Neo-Raws at least not right now, it's still SD. Honestly I am hoping Dragon Box Kai offers a Neo-Raws option since their videos are still in HD just scaled up. If that happened I was considering maybe some day resyncing it to MilkMan's Kai recut if he had no interest in revisiting it some day though I admit I haven't talked to him about it lol.

It's less about adding filler back in and more about letting scenes breathe. Off the top of my head, if you compare the Vegetto fusion scene in Z and Kai, no actual scenes are cut from Kai, per se. Yet the runtime is 3:30 in Z versus 2:35 in Kai—almost a full minute of frames trimmed here and there, with others sped up.

The goal isn't to restore all of the filler that was present in Z. If I end up doing this project, I'd probably even remove some of the more egregious filler myself, like Base Vegetto vs. Buu and any of the Hell scenes.

Regardless, this is going to be marketed more as "Z, in HD with a better dub" than as an edit of Kai. The OPs/EDs are from Z, and the Kikuchi soundtrack takes priority. I did edit in a Sumitomo track, but it isn't used the same way it is in Kai—I re-edited it to follow the placement and musical beats of the Kikuchi score instead.

[Metalwario64]

Still cool and yeah I get that. Kai sometimes cuts shots way too early, even Kai 1.0 did it a lot.

[Hydrus]

Maybe not the best title but not sure what else to use .

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this will end up becoming a full-series project. This single episode took me about an hour to edit(+watching the episode after), and the amount of scene-by-scene syncing required is much more time-consuming than I originally expected. That said, seeing how much better the Neo-Raws/Seed of Might footage looks compared to Kai: The Final Chapters definitely makes me want to keep going. We'll see where it leads!

TL:DR: 4:3 Footage, Mostly Kai dub, filler trimmed, rest of footage allowed a bit more breathing room then Kai.

Pilot/proof of edit: Z episode 279.

Z Episode 279 24:45min -> 21:47min
Dub from Kai Episodes 158/159 used.

Gist of this.

Seed of Might color corrected the Dragon Box's and gave us the best looking version of DBZ, locked in 480p. Neo-Raws took that a step further and upscaled the color correction and gave us the best looking version that will almost definitely ever be seen.

Unfortunately, no one is going to fix the outdated Z dub, and since Kai The Final Chapters footage at best, is inferior to the NR/SOM release, and at worst, has several major issues, I figured I'd try merging them.

Overall Structure / Branding:

The project follows DBZ's presentation rather than Kai's. This allows for a few extra seconds of breathing room in many scenes, since Toei often trimmed or slightly sped up footage even when no content was actually removed. The opening, ending, recap, title cards, next-episode previews, etc., will all use Z branding.

The episode structure will likely end up being a hybrid, but it'll lean heavily toward Z while trimming fully filler episodes where appropriate

Dub:

The dub is mostly Kai, but it's ultimately a hybrid.

For this pilot episode, roughly 90% of the spoken dialogue is from Kai (not counting the recap, which is 1:1 from Z). Some Z lines were kept because I personally prefer them, while others remain because they don't exist in Kai. Shouts and battle yells are probably around 75% Kai / 25% Z, while sound effects are about 50/50.

I originally started this project with the goal of simply creating a color corrected, HD 4:3 version of Kai: The Final Chapters, similar to what @IAmTheMilkMan accomplished with his phenomenal Dragon Ball Kai Recut. Again, Toei made that much more difficult than expected because they randomly trim or speed up tiny sections of footage throughout the series. Nearly every scene has a second here, a second there, removed or accelerated. Because of that, I decided to restructure the project around the original Z presentation instead.

I'm not sure what this sites current rules are regarding sharing a full episode link, so for now here is a 5 min clip. Happy to share the full uncompressed episode if thats allowed.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/107yi-w ... sp=sharing

you should check out DBox Kai, they do plan to make a 1080p version in the future if they get good render settings. if you join their team you may be able to help them out as well: viewtopic.php?t=49892