Crummy DVD mastering(?)

kenisu3000 · Post by **kenisu3000** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:53 pm

I'm pretty sure this is only my problem, since I haven't seen or heard anyone else complaining about this, but...
All of my FUNi DBZ DVDs have trouble registering in my player. It'll start to register, but then it makes a "Rrrrr..." sound and it says on the screen: "NO DISC", and I have to eject the disc and try again until it plays. It might just be my player, but then again it might not be, because the FUNi discs are the only ones that pull this annoying crap on me. All my other DVDs play on the spot! Does FUNimation use a certain kind of technology to master their DVDs... a technology that doesn't seem to "agree" with my DVD player? I know they advise against using an XBox player, but mine isn't an XBox.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:00 pm

What kind of player are you using? Brand, year, etc.

I wouldn't say they're "poor," but they're definitely nowhere close to perfect. A couple of their DB dual-layers won't load on my player, play out-of-synch on my PS2, but play fine on Meri's DVD player. *shrugs*

DBW · Post by **DBW** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:14 pm

FUNimation's Dragonball/DBZ DVDs are just low in quality (in several aspects). I know a bunch of them won't work in console DVD players (like PS2 or Xbox as you said), and some of them just don't agree with certain DVD players. I have three DVD players in my house, and back when I had a bunch of FUNi's DVDs I'd often have to switch between DVD players because certain disks just wouldn't play in certain players.

I remember in particular my Toshiba DVD player would tear apart the episodes on the Dragonball 2 disk sets. It would start to play fine, and then about 2 episodes in it would start macroblocking, then shifting the screen, and finally just rejecting the disk. The disk would also crash if I entered the extras menu. But they all played perfectly fine on my other 2 players...

Anyways, the first thing the DVD player reads is the region encoding. So in your case, it seems like your DVD player is having trouble understanding the multi-region codes that FUNi uses and is concluding that it's not a DVD at all. Or at least that's what seems to be going on (otherwise it would read "wrong region" or "disk error").

I don't know what to tell you, I guess you'll just have to find another player...

kenisu3000 · Post by **kenisu3000** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:20 pm

Yeah, my player is a little old... I got it in 2002... and it was the cheapest one I could find (which back then made it about $90-some-odd). It's an APEX, but I have been planning on getting a new, better DVD player one o' these days.

kenisu3000 · Post by **kenisu3000** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:28 pm

VegettoEX wrote:...play out-of-synch on my PS2...

That reminds me. I've noticed a tiny oddity when I play the Japanese track (it may also happen on the English track but I haven't noticed). All the characters open their mouths to speak, but nothing comes out until about a half-second later. Also, on the "Cha-la" opening sequence, the music doesn't begin until the "Z-ball" lights up.
I'm guessing that this isn't an out-of-sync problem on my DVD player, but rather just the way they recorded the voices in Japan (makes sense, I mean, if you doing a voice-over, you're not going to know EXACTLY when the character is going to open their mouth -- you're going to start talking about a half-second after their lips start moving).
And as for the theme song, I kinda like it that way.
So can anyone confirm this? Or did I answer my own question?

lost in thought · Post by **lost in thought** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 12:20 am

Two words: "Apex Sucks!"
With that out of the way, I can establish something here: Apex is the cheapest brand of DVD player available, and is almost incapable of playing DVDs properly, my grandfather has one (one I installed into his 'viewing unit' for him,) and he's been watching my Stargate SG-1 dvd boxed sets for the last few months, and I've noticed that they play very poorly on it, which isn't a surprise- I would chalk this up to a low end laser eye reader, but then again I am not an expert.

Ok, as far as DVD players go, FUNi say's that DragonBall dvds wont play on a PS2 or XBOX; I personally don't know about the ps2, but all of my DragonBall Z dvds play beautifully on my XBOX (not to mention my SG-1 dvds, as referenced above,) I can't say 100% for certain how other peoples will play, but I am already up to the Garlic Jr saga, and I've had no problems what so ever playing them. Because of my past experiences, I am not entirely sure why FUNi would claim they don't work, but as long as they do for me I wont complain, anyway... If you replace your dvd player, go xbox- it's worth the money, however I am kind of biased, since my old Philips Magnavox won't play diddly shit, and it's a 2002- but thats not to say you would have the same problem if you replaced your DVD player today, just don't go el cheapo- or you'll be bitten in the ass.

DBW · Post by **DBW** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 1:29 am

kenisu3000 wrote:So can anyone confirm this? Or did I answer my own question?

Yeah, that's the way it is on the Dragon Box disks too.

laserkid · Post by **laserkid** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 2:05 am

strange they all work just fine on my PS2, DVD/Laserdisc combo machinbe from Pioneer (1998), and my DVD rom, so I'v enot had these issues. I guess I'm a lucky bastard.

kenisu3000 · Post by **kenisu3000** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 2:06 am

lost in thought wrote:Two words: "Apex Sucks!"
With that out of the way, I can establish something here: Apex is the cheapest brand of DVD player available, and is almost incapable of playing DVDs properly, my grandfather has one (one I installed into his 'viewing unit' for him,) and he's been watching my Stargate SG-1 dvd boxed sets for the last few months, and I've noticed that they play very poorly on it, which isn't a surprise- I would chalk this up to a low end laser eye reader, but then again I am not an expert.

Ok, as far as DVD players go, FUNi say's that DragonBall dvds wont play on a PS2 or XBOX; I personally don't know about the ps2, but all of my DragonBall Z dvds play beautifully on my XBOX (not to mention my SG-1 dvds, as referenced above,) I can't say 100% for certain how other peoples will play, but I am already up to the Garlic Jr saga, and I've had no problems what so ever playing them. Because of my past experiences, I am not entirely sure why FUNi would claim they don't work, but as long as they do for me I wont complain, anyway... If you replace your dvd player, go xbox- it's worth the money, however I am kind of biased, since my old Philips Magnavox won't play diddly shit, and it's a 2002- but thats not to say you would have the same problem if you replaced your DVD player today, just don't go el cheapo- or you'll be bitten in the ass.

That reminds me of when Yajirobe bites Kuririn in the tush when they're training at Kami's. That little clip is so dang hilarious.
Anyway, I don't make a lot of money (at the moment), so it'll be a while before I can get a decent DVD player.

lost in thought · Post by **lost in thought** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:59 am

I think whatever route you go, spending more money on the machine will be more beneficial in the end. I've heard people talk endlessly on how saving a buck on DVD players warrents the same quality, but the fact of the matter is, the cheaper ones are cheaper for a reason: they're made with lesser quality parts (even some name brands are like that, your best bet is going with a Sony product, or an RCA, they're the best quality I've seen for more expensive models.)

The bottom line is, if you pay about $140.00 or so, for a Sony or RCA, you'll definitely get what you pay for. Remember this though, don't buy a VCR/DVD combo, it's been my experienced that if one side has any problems at all (i.e. the vcr part breaks for any reason,) the whole unit becomes a large and expensive paper weight.

Entropy · Post by **Entropy** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:24 am

Another thing to keep in mind is that some batches of Funimation disks have innate flaws.

Cell Games - Ultimatum suffered terribly from this on Amazon.com.

kenisu3000 · Post by **kenisu3000** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:34 pm

What would be a good price of DVD player to look at for starters? I know it all depends on the brand name, but give me some more ideas. Also, I don't plan on a game console to play DVDs (yeah, you guys have all talked about how your FUNi DVDs luckily work on your consoles despite FUNi's warnings, but I'd most likely come out unlucky in the end).

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:40 pm

This hasn't happened with my DBZ/DB dvds, but with some of my others like "Gargoyles", "Outlaw Star", and "Tenchi Muyo!: Daughter of Darkness" there are moments when a character is off camera talking and you can't hear the dialogue on my Apex dvd player, (It was cheap, so I bought it). Turn on the captions/subtitles, they say something, but no audio. On my stepdad's dvd player/vcr, you can hear the dialogue.

SpaceKappa · Post by **SpaceKappa** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:20 am

Do you have your DVD player hooked up to a mono television? It could be that the off camera character is speaking through the channel not hooked up to the TV.

lost in thought · Post by **lost in thought** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:46 am

kenisu3000 wrote:What would be a good price of DVD player to look at for starters? I know it all depends on the brand name, but give me some more ideas.

Well, the lowest you'll want to go is about $140.00, which will get you a decent dvd player these days... but the highest I would suggest you to go, is $200.00 to $240.00, any higher and 'you get what you pay for' goes out the window. For the higher amount, you would likely get the best DVD player available, and like I said before the brands you want to stick too are Sony, RCA, and come to think of it... maybe Philips- which is a really decent company, which make good products. (Hell, when Philips was partnered up with Magnevox, all of my electronics were the dual brand... my tv, my dvd, my vcr, and my stereo- just because of the quality, and fair prices. I even use Philips brand lightbulbs too, when I need a light bulb to last...)

Anyway, like I said, your pricing will be a little high, but if you go with one of those three brans (best bet: RCA,) you will definitely get what you pay for, and rather than going in looking for a specific price- you may just want to keep a price range of $100-$200, to keep your options open; you might also consider visiting your local RadioShack (as a major supplier of RCA,) before you go to K-Mart, or other stores of that type.

Kanzenshuu

Crummy DVD mastering(?)

Crummy DVD mastering(?)

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