A Logical Argument Re: Why FUNi's DBox Quality Will Suffer

Innagadadavida · Post by **Innagadadavida** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:57 pm

Hm.. Well then that's cause for concern. 7 openings and closings all together add up to over 30 minutes of extra footage that wasn't on the Orange Bricks.

Krycek7o2 · Post by **Krycek7o2** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:47 pm

Innagadadavida wrote:Hm.. Well then that's cause for concern. 7 openings and closings all together add up to over 30 minutes of extra footage that wasn't on the Orange Bricks.

The intro's will most likely be seamlessly branched like on the R2 Dragon Box Discs. The outros are left intact because they display proper credits for the episode.

@Acid_Reign
I must say this is a very informative thread. Thank you for posting this and in a way posting my fears about this release.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:11 am

Krycek7o2 wrote:The intro's will most likely be seamlessly branched like on the R2 Dragon Box Discs. The outros are left intact because they display proper credits for the episode.

Err, the intros all have specific information too that changes each episode O_o;;

-Corey

Krycek7o2 · Post by **Krycek7o2** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:57 am

MajinVejitaXV wrote:
Krycek7o2 wrote:The intro's will most likely be seamlessly branched like on the R2 Dragon Box Discs. The outros are left intact because they display proper credits for the episode.
Err, the intros all have specific information too that changes each episode O_o;;

-Corey

Really? I thought they only did the interchanging when new animation was used. I went into the assumption only because I only saw one intro every time I rebuilt the DVDs.

Acid_Reign · Post by **Acid_Reign** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 1:57 am

Bussani wrote:I'm not the expert, but I've picked up a few things from our good friend godofchaos. Apparently it's not only about the space on the disk, but the bitrate -- that is, the bandwidth that data can be sent through going from the disk to your TV. The more audio track and video track options you load in, the more of that bitrate is taken up, leaving less free for when a really detailed piece of video needs that bitrate. That's when quality drops are most noticeable.

As far as I understand it (and I'm probably only understanding it in layman's terms), what you need to keep in mind is even if an additional sound track is just an 'alternative', it will be taking up the bitrate all the time.

Of course, that's a different subject to what AR and Cory are describing, which is more about actually fitting everything onto the disk itself. I just wanted to bring this up since you mentioned throwing on more music tracks.

That is correct. DVDs have a maximum throughput of 9.8 Megabits per second for the video, 10.08 Mbps for everything combined. The higher the bitrate, the more data can be transmitted at any one time, thus providing the potential for higher-fidelity material. This is because of the fact that the more complex the samples are, the more data is required to comprehensively encode them—so, let’s say we have a scene in a movie that just features a white circle on a black background which doesn’t move. That requires far less data to digitally describe than, say, Spider-Man swinging in to save Mary Jane from falling to her death out of the sky. But if you encode each of those scenes using the same bitrate—assuming they’re the same length—they’re going to use up the same amount of resources. This is why variable bit rate encoding is so efficient for storing media: it strategically allocates less data to simple scenes and more data to complex scenes.

Anyway, you rarely see DVDs max out their bitrates. If I’m not mistaken most average out at about 5–6 Mbps. They rarely need to go any higher, but the higher you go, the better your material is able to look or sound. (Keyword being “able”: there is an abbreviation in the tech world, GIGO. It stands for “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. If your equipment/acquisition practices are shitty, it doesn’t matter how many bits you allocate to the recordings, they will still be shitty.)

But, from what people have been saying, the R2 Dragon Boxes went with a higher bitrate anyway, just to ensure the best possible end-product. Which is commendable. But, as I believe Innagadadavida brought up, it’s possible FUNi doesn’t think the material requires as many bits to be a comparable release to, and will use lower numbers than Toei’s, throwing in extra content in the freed up space. Which of course has the convenient side-effect of making this “hardcore” set also appeal to dub fans.

From a marketing standpoint it makes a lot of sense. Fans who don’t know the difference and only want the latest and greatest iteration buy the series again, and fans who hesitated on the Season Sets for whatever reason see this “definitive edition” and think that now is the time to act.

If the bitrate is only slightly lower, I don’t think most people will be able to discern the difference. No, these sets aren’t for most people, but even most hardcore fans probably won’t be able to tell, unless they’re videophiles (you should see the looks on people’s faces when I complain about macroblocking on network television… it’s something you have to train yourself to notice).

But, if the bitrate is a LOT lower, then it will be a problem.

Either way I think the situation still sucks because we were told that nothing was going to be changed. FUNi should not be taking gambles when this is supposed to be the “make-up set” (pun completely intended).

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:04 am

Acid_Reign wrote:But, from what people have been saying, the R2 Dragon Boxes went with a higher bitrate anyway, just to ensure the best possible end-product. Which is commendable. But, as I believe Innagadadavida brought up, it’s possible FUNi doesn’t think the material requires as many bits to be a comparable release to, and will use lower numbers than Toei’s, throwing in extra content in the freed up space. Which of course has the convenient side-effect of making this “hardcore” set also appeal to dub fans.

That makes a lot of sense.

Either way I think the situation still sucks because we were told that nothing was going to be changed. FUNi should not be taking gambles when this is supposed to be the “make-up set” (pun completely intended).

Yeah... This is what I was thinking when I read through the other thread.

YouTube · Post by **Hujio** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:33 am

MajinVejitaXV wrote:
Krycek7o2 wrote:The intro's will most likely be seamlessly branched like on the R2 Dragon Box Discs. The outros are left intact because they display proper credits for the episode.
Err, the intros all have specific information too that changes each episode O_o;;

-Corey

Actually, and I hate to do this to ya buddy, but the opening credits rarely changed throughout the series. They didn't change at all until episode 59 of DragonBall Z, and then not again until episode 110. If I had my Production Guide all ready to go I could show you, but I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. Basically, that's why the Dragon Box discs only included one opening video per disc. If you rip the disc, you'll notice you only get one VOB file with the opening animation. However, when things did change, you'll find two opening animation VOB files. Neat, huh?

EDIT: Oh, just for the Hell of it, here's when all of the opening credit changes occurred in DBZ; 59, 110, 118, 170, and 200. That's it! They remained the same from 200-291.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:38 am

MajinVejitaXV wrote:
Krycek7o2 wrote:The intro's will most likely be seamlessly branched like on the R2 Dragon Box Discs. The outros are left intact because they display proper credits for the episode.
Err, the intros all have specific information too that changes each episode O_o;;

-Corey

What? Tenkaichi Gohan isn't in all the episodes?! The first Ginyu dvds said it was!

anvil · Post by **anvil** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:19 am

I remembered quite a lot of us actually emailed FUNi to increase the disc from 6 to 7 right? This would make it inline with the Japanese version having the same disc art too!

This would also solve all the worries on quality issue does it?

Hope FUNi would listen to us then!

biohazard · Post by **biohazard** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:51 am

Doesn't Dragon box include a ridiculous AC3 448kbps audio track?
128-190kbps would be enough for that low quality japanese track.
320 for the english track.

Besides, since the MPG2 codec creation, it's algorithms have been improved a lot. Am I right? If you configure properly the MPG2 output, you should receive better results even if you are using the same MPG2 codec at the same bitrate.

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:10 am

anvil wrote:I remembered quite a lot of us actually emailed FUNi to increase the disc from 6 to 7 right? This would make it inline with the Japanese version having the same disc art too!

This would also solve all the worries on quality issue does it?

Not all of them, since there's still the bitrate limitations. We don't know if that will be a big issue yet though, and there's no reason to worry or complain over something we don't know.

YouTube · Post by **Hujio** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:14 am

biohazard wrote:Doesn't Dragon box include a ridiculous AC3 448kbps audio track?
128-190kbps would be enough for that low quality japanese track.
320 for the english track.

Here's an image from Corey showing what the audio track is like on the Dragon Box. As you can see, it does indeed have a AC3 448kbps audio track.

biohazard wrote:Besides, since the MPG2 codec creation, it's algorithms have been improved a lot. Am I right? If you configure properly the MPG2 output, you should receive better results even if you are using the same MPG2 codec at the same bitrate.

I know Acid_Reign mentioned this in his opening post, but since it got glossed over in the previous thread, I'll reiterate. The MPEG-2 codec hasn't changed in years. There have hardly been any updates to it since 1994, or at least nothing major. If you look at all of the codecs used for DVDs, you'll see they're all lossy, including the AC3 codec. Really, DVD technology hasn't come that far in years... that's why we have Blu-rays now with MPEG-4 and PCM encoding, which are nearly lossless.

anvil · Post by **anvil** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:37 am

Bussani wrote:
anvil wrote:I remembered quite a lot of us actually emailed FUNi to increase the disc from 6 to 7 right? This would make it inline with the Japanese version having the same disc art too!

This would also solve all the worries on quality issue does it?
Not all of them, since there's still the bitrate limitations. We don't know if that will be a big issue yet though, and there's no reason to worry or complain over something we don't know.

that's true. lots of stuff are not within our hands. oh well.

is there anyone also concerned about the art works on the dvd? i really hope it will be 7 disc with the same art work as the Japanese version.

FUNi please listen to the fans!

EricM · Post by **EricM** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:38 am

MPEG2 compression improves all the time. There isn't going be a massive jump in quality these days but saying it hasn't improved since 1994 is just stupid. I guess none of you had DVDs in the late 90's, they were always riddled with tons of compression artifacts. These days a quality encoded DVD with have only light macroblocking. Problem is studios use hardware encoders which sometimes rarely get replaced, it's not like they can just download a new nightly build with better compression techniques like a Xvid or x264 encoder. Bandai releases some fantastic looking anime DVDs in Japan, but they usually only have 4 episodes on each disc have an average video bitrate of 8mbp/s. Worrying about the compression quality on a disc with 7 episodes with 3 audio tracks is warranted though. One major problem with low bitrate encoding of grainy material like the Dragonbox masters is that it might macroblock like crazy. You can get away with encoding super-DNR'd still images like the Orange brick video with low bitrates, but the grainer you get, the more bitrate you need. The grain on these Dragonbox could be turned into a rubble of artifacts with not enough bitrate.

Also, PCM is considered uncompressed, no lossless. Lossless implies there was some compression going on. And it's not that rare on DVDs, concert and music DVD often have PCM stereo tracks.

Deep Thought · Post by **Deep Thought** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 1:32 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:it's impossible for 7 episodes with 3 audio tracks not to suffer some form of compression (and therefore, quite possibly, degradation) compared to the original R2 releases.

What?

When did people get the impression that there were going to be three audio tracks?

Innagadadavida · Post by **Innagadadavida** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 1:33 pm

Deep Thought wrote:What?

When did people get the impression that there were going to be three audio tracks?

http://www.daizex.com/

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 1:34 pm

Deep Thought wrote: What?

When did people get the impression that there were going to be three audio tracks?

From the recent news on the main site... as well as a (now closed) thread about said news.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:26 pm

Damn. I don't pretend to understand anything about the way DVDs are filled up/recorded/etc, I only really went by what was said in the Podcast, where the impression I got was that there was still room left on the Japanese discs, but FUNimation likes to max their discs out. I gathered that there would be a quality change, but a very slight one. I guess all I can really do is wait until I have it in my hand and compare it to someone who has the Japanese version. I hope that FUNimation didn't bend the fans over one more time.

By the way, why does Best Buy have the Dragon Boxes listed as $89.99? Have they lost their toe jam-picking minds?

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:51 pm

TheGreatness25 wrote:Damn. I don't pretend to understand anything about the way DVDs are filled up/recorded/etc, I only really went by what was said in the Podcast, where the impression I got was that there was still room left on the Japanese discs, but FUNimation likes to max their discs out. I gathered that there would be a quality change, but a very slight one.

That's kind of where I've been sitting, too. From what I understand, FUNimation's probably being given super high-quality masters that nobody outside of their offices will ever see. What I thought I was hearing on the podcast was that, in using that master to make the FUNi DBox DVDs, even if the bitrate or whatever was different they're not just coping the Japanese DVDs onto US DVDs and slapping on subs and dubs. The transfer itself is different and so there should be space leftover without killing the picture quality or anything.

I'm pretty sure I'll be happy either way because FUNi isn't going to make it look like some bootleg that gets all digital-looking and skips frames during high-action scenes. Also, I'm pretty sure that their Japanese audio track won't be made of suck, either. It's the default track. I don't think they'll make their default track intentionally horrible.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:55 pm

I guess so, but who knows? If they dumb down the Japanese track and dumb down the dub tracks (unlikely, but possible), who knows what they'd accomplish? Plus, there are no real features or anything on the DVDs (I wouldn't expect there to be), so I don't know how the Japanese Dragon Boxes were, but I'm sure these will be bare bones releases.