Dragon Box The Movies question

[powerupguy]

I know that the movies were presented on the silver screen in widescreen but are the dragon boxes for them in wide or full? And would you expect Funimation to release them in this same way? (If they do hopefully release it at all)

[Castor Troy]

Judging by FUNi's silver tin case (isn't there another term for this?) releases, I assume they'll do widescreen.

[Cipher]

Judging by FUNi's silver tin case (isn't there another term for this?) releases, I assume they'll do widescreen.

Steelbook and/or double-feature releases seem to be the most common.

Anyway, FUNimation doesn't have a say in the matter. The footage they would have received as part of the Dragon Box package is already cropped to its theatrical 16:9. They can't just extend the frame on top and bottom.

Honestly, 16:9 is preferable for the movies anyway. It just looks awkward a lot of the time with empty space sitting on the top and bottom of the screen.

[powerupguy]

Anyway, FUNimation doesn't have a say in the matter. The footage they would have received as part of the Dragon Box package is already cropped to its theatrical 16:9. They can't just extend the frame on top and bottom.

Honestly, 16:9 is preferable for the movies anyway. It just looks awkward a lot of the time with empty space sitting on the top and bottom of the screen.

So you are saying that the Dragon Box masters from Japan ARE in 16:9?

[VegettoEX]

So you are saying that the Dragon Box masters from Japan ARE in 16:9?

Yes. "Dragon Box: The Movies" has all of the movies themselves 16:9 and anamorphic (extras and other stuff can be 4:3 where applicable).

[Cipher]

Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Japan has ever had a release of the movies in 4:3, has it?

I'm pretty sure only international license-holders got 4:3 masters.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

I have some of the old VHS tapes and they were in 16:9. I even have some of the Japanese laserdisks however since I don't own a laserdisk player I can't tell you but I don't want to remove the plastic as I bought these for collectors reasons.
The cover art's even more awesome when it's larger!

[Mountain]

Hey, Mike. Are the ratios on Dragon Box The Movies all slightly cropped to 1.78 or did they actually leave them 1.85? Just curious. Thanks.

[.:PoetikaL:.]

Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Japan has ever had a release of the movies in 4:3, has it?

I'm pretty sure only international license-holders got 4:3 masters.

I'm on my phone right now and just did a simple Google search, but from what the tiny descriptions showed, movies were transfered over to the discs in 4:3 format. Like I said, it was a hasty Google search I did so I may be horribly wrong.

[DemonRin]

I know that the movies were presented on the silver screen in widescreen but are the dragon boxes for them in wide or full? And would you expect Funimation to release them in this same way? (If they do hopefully release it at all)

They were animated in 4:3 but then cropped to 16:9 for the theatrical presentation.

USUALLY, we tend to have a problem with that and you see a lot of people around here talking about how Dragon Ball was never meant to be seen in widescreen and the cropping is bullshit, and how we need to preserve the way the series was originally created etc, etc.

But the movies are different, they were MADE to be seen in 16:9. During the animation process, the animators kept this in mind while creating it, so the shots are Specifically framed for 16:9 widescreen.

"So What" you may be thinking. "It's EXTRA video! What could be wrong with that!?" you may say. Well, there are a few drawbacks.
Since the animators knew from the start that they were framing the movies for widescreen, that's how they animated it, so you end up with scenes where the art either goes to crap or flat out ends early once you get outside the borders of where the cropping originally would have happened. Like this example:



So yeah, Japanese Dragon Boxes are in Widescreen, and hopefully if we get the DBox here once FUNi finishes the American DBoxZ sets, it'll probably be cropped here too. Well since, you know, they'd be receiving the masters pre-cropped so nobody (Who doesn't know what they're talking about) can complain and blame them for that part, and they definitely love widescreen already, what with what they tried to do with the Orange Bricks.

(I got my knowledge for this article from the handy-dandy site this forum belongs to, Specifically These Two articles. More in-depth stuff in there on the site itself)

[AnimeMaakuo]

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[powerupguy]

I know that the movies were presented on the silver screen in widescreen but are the dragon boxes for them in wide or full? And would you expect Funimation to release them in this same way? (If they do hopefully release it at all)

This video is a comparison, from the FUNimation to the Dragon Box "Movies." However, the Dragon Box (on the right) might look a little bright, however, it's just because the cells are as fresh as they looked when they were made pretty much. If you compare the colors, you'll notice a big difference. I think FUNimation will release it, knowing they have the rights. I just don't know why their processing makes the film 10% lighter rather.. It's liked both ways.

Aside from that, I can't wait for FUNimation to release them. I'm just so curious as to how they'll turn out, box and all. <:O
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze54-PwAIYE

Is it my imagination or does the Funi release look like it has more of the image?

[Cipher]

Is it my imagination or does the Funi release look like it has more of the image?

It's been discussed a few times on here. Yeah. I forget the specifics of it, but the Funimation double-features ended up with slightly more image than the Dragon Box releases.

I think it might be because the Dragon Boxes are a simple cropped version of what we've seen on 4:3 releases, while Funimation took the same approach toward the movies as they did on the orange bricks, actually zooming out a bit on the original master to get the additional image on the sides, before cropping that.

[Levlik]

The Funi releases definitely have more footage on the sides, for better or worse:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6456/vlcsnap9812.png
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2448/vlcsnap9967.png
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/5947/vlcsnap9997.png
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6005 ... p10083.png

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

The Funi releases definitely have more footage on the sides, for better or worse:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6456/vlcsnap9812.png
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2448/vlcsnap9967.png
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/5947/vlcsnap9997.png
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6005 ... p10083.png

Yeah. His arm seems to have not been fully drawn, there.

[Puto]

His arm's missing on the Dragon Box too.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

His arm's missing on the Dragon Box too.

Seriously? Wow! In that case, if/when FUNi puts out DBox: the movies, I'd better remember to watch them overscanned on my TV.

[VegettoEX]

Hey, Mike. Are the ratios on Dragon Box The Movies all slightly cropped to 1.78 or did they actually leave them 1.85? Just curious. Thanks.

OK, so what follows is more information than anyone really needs to know...!

Here is a screen shot directly from Toei's original Japanese VHS of DBZ Movie 12 (OK, so it's a screen shot from a DVD capture of the VHS... but whatever; nothing is lost in that transfer):



You'll note that this image has:

• Black matte 58 pixels high at top
• Video content 367 pixels high (and the standard 480 pixels wide, which includes the glue and crap on the edges)
• Black matte 55 pixels high at the bottom

OK, so I'm making up a "resolution" from VHS by taking it over to DVD, but the ratios and all still work perfectly. Taking the analog transfer and side garbage into consideration, that's basically a perfect 16:9 aspect ratio fit within a standard 4:3 window.

Here is the exact same screen shot directly from "Dragon Box: The Movies". It's encoded on the disc as 720x480 flagged as anamorphic which brings it to a perfect 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio (resized below to 854x480):



I would say that had it been presented in 1.85:1, that would have resulted in extra vertical cropping, not the other way around. Since the 16:9 matches up the same way it was presented on VHS, I'd say that was the best way to go (other than the full 4:3, but hey... that's another story!).

The question then is: does the 16:9 Dragon Box transfer match up pixel-by-pixel (or at least close enough) with what video content was there on the VHS release...?



It's pretty close. The VHS definitely has a little bit on top of what the Dragon Box master has, but the couple pixels on the other surrounding sides adds up to still make them both perfect 16:9 video windows, just in slightly different ways.

I suppose then the next question becomes: so how much more vertical image do the original 4:3 masters from production actually have? Well, as to be expected, it's a little over 20% more. There's definitely more space leftover at the top than bottom, which pretty clearly infers a selective cropping on the movie (all going back to how it was framed in 4:3 with the eventual intent of showing it in 16:9). Taking the black buffers on the sides into consideration, the Dragon Box master has an edge of ~5% in the horizontal space.



(Blargh, the numbers coming out this way is far too much of a tossback to when the orange bricks were coming out )

Now, I don't have FUNimation's steelbook "double feature" with DBZ Movie 12, so I can't personally do any comparison shots with it, but if anyone else wants to take the PNGs above and do it, be my guest. Pretty sure that FUNimation's version actually has a couple extra pixels to the right more than even the Dragon Box version, but I'm not sure what else may be subtracted to get there.

This all being said, that's just one movie. My old fansub of DBZ Movie 8 had INCREDIBLY small black mattes, but since that was a fansub and not the original source material, I'm not sure what it went through to get to that look. I can't imagine it was much, but that makes me wonder if it wasn't even a Japanese VHS source to begin with (it cut into the first scene, so I can't even confirm it had Toei logos at the beginning, or anything).

[Jon Jon]

For the record, the laser discs are also wide screen.

The Dragon Box movies are wide screen as well. My Dragon Box Movie Single of Movie 12 is wide screen. some of the extras are 4:3 (like the recap, here I have it on my youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPr5F9i3GTA )

EDIT: Heres a clip of the beginning of the movie 13 laser disc as well...also wide screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QUeRiYfeI4

Here are promos for movies 7 and 8 as well, from the laser discs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... _hGfi9KLSc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtFmoGfl ... rofilepage

I apologize for the "meh" quality, I did this ages ago.

[TripleRach]

I have a related question. Are the 16:9 versions of the movies a straight crop, or are they manually pan and scanned for the best framing? I've always assumed it was the former, but if you look at FUNi's 4:3 version of DB Movie 2, the opening credits imply otherwise. Most of it is in full 4:3, but some shots have a lot of black matting at the bottom of the frame, while others have it at the top of the frame. Which is all kind of strange, considering it's just the Makafushigi Adventure animation with different credits. And it's not always when there are credits on screen.

I suppose it's possible that it's just a fluke with FUNi's masters for that movie, but I think some of the other 4:3 movies have similar weirdness with the framing of the Toei logo.