So, How Exactly is Kai Remastered?

[Cipher]

Maybe it's a stupid question, but I've actually never seen a clear answer on here.

What's the remastering process for Kai? It's hands down the best the Z footage has ever looked. There's absolutely no grain, and as far as I can tell, no loss of detail. The colors also seem to be tweaked individually. What exactly is the process here?

[MetaMoss]

What they did was retrace most of the animation, the rest of it is completely new animation (just a little bit).

[linkdude20002001]

I can't remember how exactly they remastered DBZ for Kai... But they certainly didn't just re-trace most of it. Mostly it's the old footage just re-colored and re-mastered in some amazing, magical way. lol

[MetaMoss]

I can't remember how exactly they remastered DBZ for Kai... But they certainly didn't just re-trace most of it. Mostly it's the old footage just re-colored and re-mastered in some amazing, magical way. lol

Um... here.
Specifically:

...Toei appeared to be re-drawing portions of DBZ for broadcast in high-definition.

Also watch the video. While there are some scenes that have completely new animation, the existing stuff is traced. That way can be used to easily remove grain and other shit in the film. And they do change the backgrounds and stuff sometimes.

[VegettoEX]

Our page saying that portions were re-drawn hardly implies that every single frame of every single episode was being re-drawn. That's reading a HELL of a lot into it. It's clearly referring to just the scenes that were completely re-drawn (as in the awkward ones that you always notice because they look completely freakin' different from the base 1989 animation).

If I remember correctly, the book that came with the first Blu-ray set in Japan detailed a bit about the remastering process. I know some scans made their way here to the forum, so if anyone wants to dig those up, that'd be helpful, I'm sure.

[Cipher]

If I remember correctly, the book that came with the first Blu-ray set in Japan detailed a bit about the remastering process. I know some scans made their way here to the forum, so if anyone wants to dig those up, that'd be helpful, I'm sure.

That'd be pretty cool, actually.

But no one even has a basic idea of what the process is for the non-re-animated scenes?

[Kendamu]

Just guessing, they probable upscaled the footage, cleaned it up a bit, and tweaked the colors some on a computer. It's likely a similar process to that of the Bricks, only better.

[Goku100xKamehameha]

Can someone translate these?

[theoriginalbilis]

Even though I don't like some aspects of Kai, I will say that the footage looks amazingly good on all fronts, especially the "cleaned up" original footage from Z. Hell, it's probably the best DBZ has ever looked outside of a full-on re-animated version.

If they truly cancel the series after Cell, that'll put out any desire I had to actually buy the Kai Blu-Rays... I dislike incomplete releases, especially when they have had the Buu footage available for YEARS. At least the "filler-rific" original series is complete, and that feels more worth my money.

[Deadlyillness]

They just modified the images a little, changed some of the background music, and replaced Cha la Head Cha la with Dragon Soul.
They also changed some of the dialogue slightly.

[Goku100xKamehameha]

it's probably the best DBZ has ever looked outside of a full-on re-animated version.

Yeah, I kind of agree but there are still who thinks the Dragon Boxes looks better, though.....

[Mountain]

Well, the footage is high-def so it's bound to look somewhat crisper; whether or not it was upscaled or the 16mm footage was rescanned at 1080p (or somewhere in the vicinity of 2k resolution) is beyond me, seeing as I've never personally seen a confirmation on the matter. Though, if I had to guess I would say rescanned, because a lot of the footage that I've seen doesn't look bad. I still prefer the look of the Dragon Box, quite honestly, but the Kai footage looks good for its age, albeit in a much different way from the former.

[TheGreatness25]

I remember when the news about Kai first surfaced, I saw a video that had an artist tracing over a picture of Goku. I thought that it would be a retracing of the show, but I honestly don't think that the whole thing was done that way. In fact, I am almost certain it wasn't. It would be nice though, but then it wouldn't explain some mistakes (animation wise).

[Hujio]

I remember when the news about Kai first surfaced, I saw a video that had an artist tracing over a picture of Goku. I thought that it would be a retracing of the show, but I honestly don't think that the whole thing was done that way. In fact, I am almost certain it wasn't. It would be nice though, but then it wouldn't explain some mistakes (animation wise).

Yeah, you're talking about this blog post from ghostlightning. But based on your post, I'm gonna take a shot in the dark that you haven't really watched any of Kai, or for that matter, really followed it that much. If you had, I'd think it'd be pretty obvious that they definitely did not re-animate the whole thing. For the most part, only certain scenes and whatnot have been re-animated. Some episode consist of only about 1% re-animated footage, while other episodes have probably had anywhere upwards of 20%, but no episode has been entirely redone. (Yes, those numbers are straight from my ass, although they are based on my familiarity with the footage.) I'm not trying to sound like an ass, but I'd assume most people would notice just by watching an episode, so sorry if it sounds that way.

Anyway, more to the other topic at hand. I've been meaning to write up something on the animation process of Kai, but Herms hasn't really had the chance to translate the booklets. At some point, we'll get to it. Hopefully sooner than later.

[Deity]

Those images seem like they have some pretty interesting information, that'd be a good place to start translating.

[Cipher]

Anyway, more to the other topic at hand. I've been meaning to write up something on the animation process of Kai, but Herms hasn't really had the chance to translate the booklets. At some point, we'll get to it. Hopefully sooner than later.

Well, cool then.

It looks like those scans posted earlier have most of the details. They also have way, way too much kanji for me to get any meaningful information from them though.

[worldmonsters]

Well, the footage is high-def so it's bound to look somewhat crisper; whether or not it was upscaled or the 16mm footage was rescanned at 1080p (or somewhere in the vicinity of 2k resolution) is beyond me, seeing as I've never personally seen a confirmation on the matter. Though, if I had to guess I would say rescanned, because a lot of the footage that I've seen doesn't look bad. I still prefer the look of the Dragon Box, quite honestly, but the Kai footage looks good for its age, albeit in a much different way from the former.

As far as I can remember a few episodes from the Ginyu saga were from... the original, or at least higher quality master, comparable to, if not 16mm footage. You can actually see the difference from episode to episode. The difference is kind of big. From what I heard on the forum here only a small portion of the series was saved that way and the rest just has a lower quality master.

[MR.Mark]

Yeah, I kind of agree but there are still who thinks the Dragon Boxes looks better, though.....

Da Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.

[Soul]

Yeah, I kind of agree but there are still who thinks the Dragon Boxes looks better, though.....

Da Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.

Hahaha, Nah. There's certain aspects of the Dragon Boxes themselves that look better than Kai's scenes, mainly colors though in my opinion.

[Innagadadavida]

Dragon Ball Z Kai episodes 34 through 38 look incredible in HD.