FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[kei17]

They continue to mention correcting colors and preserving the original intent, and how the footage must've looked like this when it was first printed...BULLSHIT. We have that already. It's called the Dragon Box.

No one's at least willing to see how the visuals stack up to the Dragon Boxes? Kai looks far better than the Dragon Boxes, so if they are actually remastering the series again and can achieve something close to that, it'd be pretty cool.

Probably not enough for me to buy it, but still pretty cool.

I disagree.

Now a confession of faith in holy SD-footage-with-faded-colours Dragon Box begins. Dang. Poeple get so blinded when they talk about this.

[Metalwario64]

Now a confession of faith in holy SD-footage-with-faded-colours Dragon Box begins. Dang. Poeple get so blinded when they talk about this.

While I understand where you're coming from, at the very least their colors are superior, and more accurate than FUNimations sometimes blindingly bright and sometimes overly dark Season Set colors are.

In the end, I'd rather have aged, and not corrected colors over horribly overblown, tampered with colors from a random studio that's never even heard of Dragon Ball.

[kei17]

Now a confession of faith in holy SD-footage-with-faded-colours Dragon Box begins. Dang. Poeple get so blinded when they talk about this.

While I understand where you're coming from, at the very least their colors are superior, and more accurate than FUNimations sometimes blindingly bright and sometimes overly dark Season Set colors are.

In the end, I'd rather have aged, and not corrected colors over horribly overblown, tampered with colors from a random studio that's never even heard of Dragon Ball.

The Orange Brick way of remastering sucks and the outcome looks like nothing compared to the DBOX footage. It is the fact. However, claiming that DBOX shows how the footage must've looked like this when it was first printed or looks better than remastered-in-HD-and-colour-corrected Kai is almost insane.

[Metalwario64]

The Orange Brick way of remastering sucks and the outcome looks like nothing compared to the DBOX footage. It is the fact. However, saying that DBOX shows how the footage must've looked like this when it was first printed or looks better than remastered-in-HD-and-colour-corrected Kai is almost insane.

I see what you mean. Though, are Kai's colors more accurate? The sky in the Vegeta vs. Goku fight was even more green, and Piccolo looks more lime green/bright green than the originally intended pea-green/yellow green.

[LeprikanGT]

How many 21 minutes episodes can fit on one Bluray?

[DinoChow]

I totally understand liking the Kai footage better, and it all comes down to preference. Personally, I do think the Dragon Boxes look better, and much of that is that the original grain structure is intact. Film Grain is not an enemy to be defeated, except in special cases. Grain, especially on the 16mm film Dragon Ball Z exists on, is simply part of the image - the image is built on that grain, and while it may be an annoyance to some, for many film fans, it gives the image a very authentic quality. And since film grain represents the 'building blocks' of the image, removing it can drastically reduce detail. Hence the season sets. Now, Kai is nowhere near as bad as the season sets on that front, but for me at least, the lack of grain is noticeable, and even though the colors are more vivid on the Kai Blu-Rays, they don't seem as 'rich,' if that makes sense. Sometimes the colors are too bright, also. Kai is a rebuild from the original elements, which means things have inevitably been tampered with. It all comes down to preference. The Dragon Boxes perfectly represent the original source material. Kai is a very good-looking redesign of the series. Some of us in the digital age can't stand grain, and prefer Kai; I'm not one of those people, and I'll always prefer the Dragon Boxes. Plus, the added animation bits in Kai and redrawn scenes? Those look absolutely terrible, and for me, that's the nail in Kai's coffin. It just destroys the series, it's all so out of place.

Anyway, tying this back into the actual discussion of the thread, the new Blu-Ray set will inevitably be inferior to the Dragon Boxes unless Funimation somehow gained access to Toei's vaults, got the actual 16mm prints used to make the Dboxes, and started from scratch with professional film restoration experts. Instead, they have the people who did the sets working from inferior masters. I'm not excited.

Also, am I the only one thinking these might just be the season sets "uncropped?" Obviously, Funi backpedaled on the cropping once the season sets were out, keeping 4x3 for GT and DB. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were 4x3 but otherwise identical to the season sets.

[Mountain]

Now a confession of faith in holy SD-footage-with-faded-colours Dragon Box begins. Dang. Poeple get so blinded when they talk about this.

While I understand where you're coming from, at the very least their colors are superior, and more accurate than FUNimations sometimes blindingly bright and sometimes overly dark Season Set colors are.

In the end, I'd rather have aged, and not corrected colors over horribly overblown, tampered with colors from a random studio that's never even heard of Dragon Ball.

The Orange Brick way of remastering sucks and the outcome looks like nothing compared to the DBOX footage. It is the fact. However, claiming that DBOX shows how the footage must've looked like this when it was first printed or looks better than remastered-in-HD-and-colour-corrected Kai is almost insane.

I never claimed anything of the sort, but I personally prefer the look of the Dragon Box footage to that of Kai's. Kai looks all smudged to me, whereas the grain of the Dragon Box looks beautiful.

[JulieYBM]

How many 21 minutes episodes can fit on one Bluray?

FUNi typically fits nine episodes on a Blu-ray, so that's probably as far as they're ever willing to go.

[Cipher]

I never claimed anything of the sort, but I personally prefer the look of the Dragon Box footage to that of Kai's. Kai looks all smudged to me, whereas the grain of the Dragon Box looks beautiful.

You didn't say you liked it more. You disagreed with it looking better. If there are any objective standards of visual quality, and I have to believe there are, Kai looks better. You're free to like the Dragon Box footage more, but it's not a superior product.

EDIT-- I was actually going to delete this post, since we're getting so off-topic, but I was too late. So I'll just respond to a comment below anyway.

I know why people here love DBOX so much. It's the first faithful release that came out after FUNi's several bad treatments.

I think this is absolutely right. The Dragon Box looks good, but I don't think it would have anywhere near the status it has among fans here if it hadn't been for the awful R1 releases before it. But being the first good release in the states doesn't mean it's impossible to surpass.

[kei17]

The Orange Brick way of remastering sucks and the outcome looks like nothing compared to the DBOX footage. It is the fact. However, saying that DBOX shows how the footage must've looked like when it was first printed or looks better than remastered-in-HD-and-colour-corrected Kai is almost insane.

I see what you mean. Though, are Kai's colors more accurate? The sky in the Vegeta vs. Goku fight was even more green, and Piccolo looks more lime green/bright green than the originally intended pea-green/yellow green.

I don't refer to the original colours here. The Kai footage is intended to look more natural in this digital age. At least it doesn't have pinkish skin nor awkwardly dark white anymore. Whether more 'accurate' or not, it's more natural. If you say it's not, that means you say current Toei is just as unfaithful as FUNi. Or are the Dragon Boxes some kind of miraculous products of chance that cannot be duplicated? Meh, I know why people here love DBOX so much. It's the first faithful release that came out after FUNi's several bad treatments. It must have looked like God at that time. But I have to say, it's not that great in the current standards. You should not be too blinded.

Back to the topic. What I want to say is, don't be so sure. We should wait for some screen shots or trailers before jump into a conclusion. And once it gets shown, we have to look at that with a fair eye. "It's done by FUNi, so it sucks" like perspective is not fair.

[Metalwario64]

I don't refer to the original colours here. The Kai footage is intended to look more natural in this digital age. At least it doesn't have pinkish skin nor awkwardly dark white anymore. Whether more 'accurate' or not, it's more natural. If you say it's not, that means you say current Toei is just as unfaithful as FUNi. Or are the Dragon Boxes some kind of miraculous products of chance that cannot be duplicated? Meh, I know why people here love DBOX so much. It's the first faithful release that came out after FUNi's several bad treatments. It must have looked like God at that time. But I have to say, it's not that great in the current standards. You should not be too blinded.

Understood. I wrongly assumed that by being better due to color correcting that you were referring to the color's accuracy.

I agree with the colors looking at least more natural though, except for greens, which look too bright most of the time for some reason. Also, at least in standard definition, the Japanese Dragon Boxes and US Dragon Box 6 and likely 7 still look sharper, whereas Kai in SD looks about as sharp as the US Dragon Boxes, which is still admittedly some impressive grain removal. I've seen a few shots of Kai in HD, but it never looked too great to me, but that's only like one or two so I can't form an opinion on that yet.

Back to the topic. What I want to say is, don't be so sure. We should wait for some screen shots or trailers before jump into a conclusion. And once it gets shown, we have to look at that with a fair eye. "It's done by FUNi, so it sucks" like perspective is not fair.

That's true, but the press announcement really makes it sound like the orange brick masters are just being released in HD. It mentions Steve Franko, but they ditched him at around Season 6, so why would they return to him to "remaster" the footage again? If it is the Season Set footage, then it would look horrible up until Season 6, there it would then likely start looking pretty good in HD. That's basically how the SD releases went.

It's possible that it would at least serve as a good fill in for an HD Boo-arc, which may be a big reason FUNimation is now releasing Z on Blu-Ray, as there are no plans to continue Kai, and this is likely a sign that FUNimation won't be funding one in any way, or Toei told them that they won't make an international only Boo-arc of Kai, which although likely unrealistic, was something some people were speculating would possibly happen.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I myself think Kai's color correction looks kinda "off" somehow at times. It's kinda difficult to explain (And the amount of randomly-placed digitally-redrawn scenes may compound the issue), but... yeah, let me just cut a few lines here because I'm having difficulty with my point. Sorry if this sounds poorly-communicated.

Colors that looked "natural" or subdued when rendered on older film (particularly certain skin tones or red/orange shades) instead "pop out" in the remastered footage. If you take a shot of Dbox Z and compare it to Kai, you can note that besides the color corrections, it tends to appear like all the other colors were adjusted to appear... would "Sharper" or "harder" be a good term here? They aren't saturated like the Orange Bricks, but instead they appear to have a "Digital Coloring" feel to them. All the colors pop out more. A lot of times with Kai the yellows, oranges and reds seem to "pop out" a lot more, and this can make things like skin tones, character outfits, and such make my eyes feel a tad unnatural or visually uncomfortable with the high amounts of contrast or the use of jarring colors that worked in film because they'd appear subdued by the time they got to an audience, but not so much when a "remastering" corrects the color and removes the grain, making the image look more digital.

I don't agree that "Digitizing" Z with Kai makes Kai inherently better in picture quality. What would've made Kai look better than Z is if they re-drew every single frame from scratch with digital animation procedures and standards in mind, rather than sloppily trying to make "old" images look "new". They've shown an ability to make the characters look good in the digital era with "Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return", after all, no?

(Note that this is all based on watching the Nicktoons/Toonzai edits of Kai. I don't know if the DVDs/BDs have any significantly-better picture quality somehow.)

[kei17]

It sound like the orange brick masters are just being released in HD. It mentions Steve Franko, but they ditched him at around Season 6, so why would they return to him to "remaster" the footage again?

Thanks for the information. I didn't know who he was. And, yeah, that does not sound good. That sure is a cause for worry.

[Metalwario64]

It sound like the orange brick masters are just being released in HD. It mentions Steve Franko, but they ditched him at around Season 6, so why would they return to him to "remaster" the footage again?

Thanks for the information. I didn't know who he was. And, yeah, that does not sound good. That sure is a cause for worry.

Yeah, because after they ditched him the sets started looking pretty decent.

Even if these aren't the same masters, who's to say that he doesn't royally ruin the footage again? I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[Mountain]

Being both a Blu-ray enthusiast and a part of the video industry, I know what looks good; I've seen it all. If the grain structure in Kai had been left intact, as well as the footage being scanned in HD, I'd probably be all over those releases. What do past FUNi releases have to do with me thinking the Dragon Boxes look the best? Absolutely nothing. Kai is obviously available for me to judge, and, although it looks great, the DBOX footage is just more to my liking. It was shot on film, after all. I'm not always on-board with digital cleanups.

As for DragonBall Z on Blu-ray, I really do hope that this is a new transfer. If it's 4:3, with remastering more akin to the DragonBall and GT season sets, then it may not be terrible. TrueHD tracks were mentioned, so I wonder what the source material for the original Japanese audio track will be. If they're still using the same footage from the Orange Bricks, count me out.

[Hujio]

Being both a Blu-ray enthusiast and a part of the video industry, I know what looks good; I've seen it all. If the grain structure in Kai had been left intact, as well as the footage being scanned in HD, I'd probably be all over those releases.

Well, the Kai footage was scanned in high-definition, so I'm not sure where you're going with this...

[Kendamu]

For something we don't know anything about yet, people sure are getting angry (I think I saw the word "outraged" more than once) over this. Looking at FUNi's track record with DBZ, there's certainly cause for concern if you (the Hardcore Fan) are planning on buying more than just the first set to give it a try.

Yeah, the buzzwords are there, the aspect ratio is missing, and Steve Franko's name is on it, but we haven't seen anything yet. Still, let's at least save the passionate genuine anger for when there's something more than a press release on the subject.

EDIT: Go nuts on the "17 episodes" thing, though. That's just wrong at this point.

[Mountain]

Being both a Blu-ray enthusiast and a part of the video industry, I know what looks good; I've seen it all. If the grain structure in Kai had been left intact, as well as the footage being scanned in HD, I'd probably be all over those releases.

Well, the Kai footage was scanned in high-definition, so I'm not sure where you're going with this...

I'm quite aware.

[kei17]

Kai is obviously available for me to judge, and, although it looks great, the DBOX footage is just more to my liking. It was shot on film, after all. I'm not always on-board with digital cleanups.

I have finally understood your thoughts; you prefer an almost untouched scan (scratch removals only) of film over some heavily restored stuff. So I think you will like the Blu-ray release of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

[Hujio]

Well, if you're aware of that fact, then why'd you say it wasn't scanned in high-definition?

Anyway, I have to agree with Kendamu. I know at first I was upset to hear the news, but after sleeping on it, I don't feel so bad. Mostly because a lot of us saw this coming a mile away, and I'm not surprised by much of what FUNimation does these days. I may not like it, but I'm not surprised. In the end, this doesn't really effect me as I'm not going to be buying them, so I've drastically calmed down. I'm sure once I see the footage some of my anger will return, if only momentarily.