FUNimation Dragon Box Z #1 (In-Hands) Discussion

[Krakabeast]

Is the FUNi DBox actually shinier than the JPN DBox?

Very slightly. The Japanese box has a sort of texture to it (not on the surface, but underneath the laminate) that makes it less shiny than FUNi's box, which appears to just be plain but reflects more light as a result. Still, it's fairly negligible. Also worth noting is that the DVD books are blue in the Japanese box, but lean more towards purple in the FUNi box. Again, negligible to me, but a difference nonetheless.

I'm still surprised we finally have a DB release that is as gorgeous as a JPN release.

I can not wait for mine to come in the mail tomorrow!

If I had money for gas right now I'd drive the ten miles to Best Buy just to stare at a copy until mine arrived.

EDIT: 1000th reply on this topic!
Meaningless to have said that, but whatever.

[OutlawTorn]

Wow, looking at both boxes at once.........we got a puny little thing.

I think I actually like the overall composition of the cover of the FUNimation edition better than the original. (I don't particularly like the art for Frieza) The spine art would have looked better had it been reduced accordingly, as it will look a bit awkward once the picture gets to the Gohan segment.

I'm looking forward to getting this once Amazon ships it. I've already paid off the cost on my credit card, so I may as well sit through the wait.

[Jon Jon]

Wow, looking at both boxes at once.........we got a puny little thing.

I think I actually like the overall composition of the cover of the FUNimation edition better than the original. (I don't particularly like the art for Freeza) The spine art would have looked better had it been reduced accordingly, as it will look a bit awkward once the picture gets to the Gohan segment.

I'm looking forward to getting this once Amazon ships it. I've already paid off the cost on my credit card, so I may as well sit through the wait.

Amazon doesn't charge you until they actually ship it. There's still time! XD

[Castor Troy]

Went to my Best Buy today and found nothing.

I might try another one later this week, but I can still wait.

[Krycek7o2]

Went to my Best Buy today and found nothing.

I might try another one later this week, but I can still wait.

You are better off waiting till Tuesday. Best Buy will automatically lower it to the Amazon 47.99 price tag to compete on opening day. It usually how it goes with all Dragon Ball DVD's in the past.

[Kendamu]

Using the spine art from Kanzentai and doing a little bit of eyeballing and comparing, this is roughly what the US DBox spine art will look like.

[MajinVejitaXV]

Well, I have yet to put the discs through the ringer (that'll probably be this weekend, unless I have cause to do so sooner), but so far I'd say I'm impressed. I've mainly been paying attention to the video so far, and here are my initial impressions:

From a technical perspective, the one episode I analyzed (Episode 31) did suffer about a 30% drop in the average bitrate department from 8263 kbps on the DragonBox to 5766 kbps on the DragonBox Slim. However, looking at the episode at the points where I'd expect to see evidence of such a difference, I haven't seen anything jump out at me. So, I'm hoping the decrease in bitrate is merely the result of FUNi using a damned good encoder and doesn't present any nasty side effects.

The menus...are a little dinky, honestly. While the DragonBoxes did have just one menu for all the discs, it was kind of cool aesthetically with the fights in the background and so on. With just the static image it loses some charm, but all-in-all it's just a menu.

Nothing about the audio really popped out at me, but I didn't really stress on that as much as the video. The audio is indeed one channel though, as previously stated here. While this is a difference from the Japanese set, it poses no problems nor does it mean there's anything missing.

Packaging is pretty damned good, in my opinion. It's a miniature representation of the DragonBox, and it replicates a lot of the aesthetics very well. I have yet to crack the DragonBook open and check it out personally, but that'll come when I do my more in-depth look.

I'll go more into detail when I'm done really looking at the set, but so far my hat is off to FUNi. It took half my life nearly, but DragonBall Z has finally arrived in a respectable form in North America ;p

-Corey

[LeprikanGT]

@Outlaw-

I think if they had it rough the same size, it would make it that much better and closer to the original and would help t stand out much more against all the other releases visually.

[Krakabeast]

*Snip*

I think by the time we have all of our Z DBoxes, Gohan's waist will probably be cut off. Well, that was my observation when I eyeballed it a few weeks ago. Your judgement may be better than mine.

EDIT:

The menus...are a little dinky, honestly. While the DragonBoxes did have just one menu for all the discs, it was kind of cool aesthetically with the fights in the background and so on. With just the static image it loses some charm, but all-in-all it's just a menu.

Completely agree here. I'm truely saddened about the static menus. It's understood though that it would be harder for FUNi to keep the same quality of the DBoxes when adding more and more video to the discs, but it would of been great if we received the cool fighting on the menus too. Fortunately, this is probably my biggest disappointment.

Question to anyone who owns the FUNi DBox:
Is the Dragon Box logo animation on FUNi's DBox?

[EricM]

It took half my life nearly, but DragonBall Z has finally arrived in a respectable form in North America ;p

Hear hear!

[MarcFBR]

From a technical perspective, the one episode I analyzed (Episode 31) did suffer about a 30% drop in the average bitrate department from 8263 kbps on the DragonBox to 5766 kbps on the DragonBox Slim. However, looking at the episode at the points where I'd expect to see evidence of such a difference, I haven't seen anything jump out at me. So, I'm hoping the decrease in bitrate is merely the result of FUNi using a damned good encoder and doesn't present any nasty side effects.

Toei has traditionally had pretty terrible DVDs, my guess, they just turned shit on high. So Funi doing 'lower quality' isn't having much, if any, of a difference because Toei didn't do it properly in the first place.

[Kendamu]

*Snip*

I think by the time we have all of our Z DBoxes, Gohan's waist will probably be cut off. Well, that was my observation when I eyeballed it a few weeks ago. Your judgement may be better than mine.

I did some light measuring, but nothing to take seriously. Like I said, it's a rough idea. The only point I wanted to get across is that plenty of Gohan will likely be seen on the spine.

[MarcFBR]

@Outlaw-

I think if they had it rough the same size, it would make it that much better and closer to the original and would help t stand out much more against all the other releases visually.

It would be logically insane for Funimation to do that.

Taller disc cases traditionally all get tossed in a small section together, often behind a pillar, or in some odd place. The release is a niche release if there ever was one for Funimation. They want it sitting next to any other DBZ releases, not off somewhere where anyone looking for DBZ won't find it.

We've all seen that lone MASH and Gilmore Girl's series set every Best Buy has sitting off somewhere, or on the floor on an endcap because it doesn't fit anywhere else.

[piccolo-san785]

*Snip*

I think by the time we have all of our Z DBoxes, Gohan's waist will probably be cut off. Well, that was my observation when I eyeballed it a few weeks ago. Your judgement may be better than mine.

I did some light measuring, but nothing to take seriously. Like I said, it's a rough idea. The only point I wanted to get across is that plenty of Gohan will likely be seen on the spine.

As long as we get more than just a head and a arm.

[EricM]

Anyone else slightly grumpy Funi didn't utilize all the potential disc space? From the first few discs I checked they all seemed to be about 6.8gb. So there was another 1gb or so available to increase the Japanese audio bitrate or the video bitrate :/

[russ869]

Well, as planned, I snagged this from Best Buy today near my work (a brand new store) and had them price match Target with no problem whatsoever. $50 out the door after tax.

-Corey

Sweet. I wanna do that. Did you bring in a paper ad for Target or did you print out their web price or what?

I just printed the web listing that I linked to earlier in this thread.

-Corey

I just returned from Best Buy, Dragon Box in hand for $51.xx. There were 3 total on the shelf including the one I bought. The rest of their anime selection was extremely meager, however. Best Buy has seriously scaled back their anime. Thanks for the very useful tip, MajinVejita.

I'm very impressed by the shiny foil of the DVD books. This is probably my favorite packaging for a Funimation series.

I popped in a disc and watched episode 9. I haven't had a chance to put it through my good DVD player on my good TV yet. The audio was better, but it didn't pop out to me either. My little brother who was in the room and who's seen me watching the show in Japanese before immediately commented on how the music sounded a lot better than the old DVDs.

[MajinVejitaXV]

From a technical perspective, the one episode I analyzed (Episode 31) did suffer about a 30% drop in the average bitrate department from 8263 kbps on the DragonBox to 5766 kbps on the DragonBox Slim. However, looking at the episode at the points where I'd expect to see evidence of such a difference, I haven't seen anything jump out at me. So, I'm hoping the decrease in bitrate is merely the result of FUNi using a damned good encoder and doesn't present any nasty side effects.

Toei has traditionally had pretty terrible DVDs, my guess, they just turned shit on high. So Funi doing 'lower quality' isn't having much, if any, of a difference because Toei didn't do it properly in the first place.

Didn't Pony Canyon do the DragonBox Z Vol.1 discs? Plus, I know typically (and granted, I don't have a ton of import DVDs, but from those I own and those I've read reviews on) the bitrate is maxed on Japanese Region 2 releases regardless.

Still, I agree. The bitrate was probably just cranked to the theoretical max given the content, same as the audio was. I'll still be giving FUNi's box a thorough eyeballing.

Question to anyone who owns the FUNi DBox:
Is the Dragon Box logo animation on FUNi's DBox?

Nope. Trailer goes straight into the static menu.

-Corey

[SSVegetto]

From a technical perspective, the one episode I analyzed (Episode 31) did suffer about a 30% drop in the average bitrate department from 8263 kbps on the DragonBox to 5766 kbps on the DragonBox Slim. However, looking at the episode at the points where I'd expect to see evidence of such a difference, I haven't seen anything jump out at me. So, I'm hoping the decrease in bitrate is merely the result of FUNi using a damned good encoder and doesn't present any nasty side effects.

Toei has traditionally had pretty terrible DVDs, my guess, they just turned shit on high. So Funi doing 'lower quality' isn't having much, if any, of a difference because Toei didn't do it properly in the first place.

Excuse me but what about the dot crawl shown on page 5 with the screenshot comparison, practically the only R2J to Funibox comparison picture I've seen.

If you notice closely in the Funibox picture you will notice way more dot crawl around the edges of Raditz's scouter(top part), along the edges of his chin. Now, Especially around the hair, top right part. The Funibox looks like it has a lot more dot crawl than the Japanese Dragonbox sets. I can actually circle these areas if you want. If you don't notice it. So Toei didnt do it properly in the first place? Well, you may want to rethink that statement. Look at the dot crawl difference here. I'm just saying.


And I was wondering, could any of you guys please upload more R2J Dragonbox pics verse Funi box pics. Preferabably in high motion scenes were Goku and Vegeta fight if you want.

[MajinVejitaXV]

Excuse me but what about the dot crawl shown on page 5 with the screenshot comparison, practically the only R2J to Funibox comparison picture I've seen.

...that's not dot crawl. The DragonBoxes were made from a component master, whereas dot crawl is a problem that stems from composite masters >_>

What you're seeing, more than likely, is the imperfections in lines that come from hand-drawn cels. You'll notice small breaks in lines and so on, which is what I'm pretty sure you're misinterpreting as dot crawl.

-Corey

[SSVegetto]

Excuse me but what about the dot crawl shown on page 5 with the screenshot comparison, practically the only R2J to Funibox comparison picture I've seen.

...that's not dot crawl. The DragonBoxes were made from a component master, whereas dot crawl is a problem that stems from composite masters >_>

What you're seeing, more than likely, is the imperfections in lines that come from hand-drawn cels. You'll notice small breaks in lines and so on, which is what I'm pretty sure you're misinterpreting as dot crawl.

-Corey

That's a lot of imperfections then. And you can see it all over the edges. Especially look at the top right part. Anyways, The R2J looks a lot more vivid and crisp.