FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[Mountain]

Ah, yes, the "ally to good, nightmare to you" speech. What a great thing to use for this release. It perfectly encapsulates its idiocy.

Even though that line deviates from Goku's character, even you have to admit, that was a pretty cool speech.

Nah, it's terribly lame.

My thoughts exactly...

It's Blu-ray so of course it will be superior.
If it was on DVD then I'll probbaly be laughing too.

Just because it's Blu-ray doesn't make it superior.

[Gotham22]

All you dragon box fans are acting like children about this news.
Wait until you see the final product. Just like previous releases like the Draogon Boxes and Kai fans panic when they know nothing.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

Just like previous releases like the Draogon Boxes and Kai fans panic when they know nothing.

I don't think anyone is really panicking. Concerned, maybe. Mostly everyone is basing their thoughts about this on the only official thing we have right now. The press release. It sounds exactly like the season set's press release so of course, what else are people gonna think?

[Kendamu]

All you dragon box fans are acting like children about this news.
Wait until you see the final product. Just like previous releases like the Draogon Boxes and Kai fans panic when they know nothing.

Yep. Running through the streets in panic knocking over trash cans, kicking shopping carts over, and holding up the line onto the city bus by using dimes.

[Gotham22]

Just like previous releases like the Draogon Boxes and Kai fans panic when they know nothing.

I don't think anyone is really panicking. Concerned, maybe. Mostly everyone is basing their thoughts about this on the only official thing we have right now. The press release. It sounds exactly like the season set's press release so of course, what else are people gonna think?

Just that term of remastering it for Blu-ray frightens fans because of the season sets. That was so misleading with the season sets.

[Ashura]

I would guess they did /not/ scan in the Dragon Box masters in HD, if only due to the fact that information from Kai's creation process suggests that they only scanned the parts of the episodes they used in HD and not whole episodes. If it was already done for the Dragon Boxes, why rescan?

[Gotham22]

I'll just say this if the footage is nothing like the season sets and with the Faulconer music then I'll but this and slll my season sets.

[CODii]

It's Blu-ray so of course it will be superior.
If it was on DVD then I'll probbaly be laughing too.

Not at all the case. Source material has a lot to do with how the final product turns out, and there is nothing to indicate that Funi is working with anything other than the same sort of crummy multi-generational print they had for the Orange Bricks. Add to that the fact that the "remastering" process is being overseen by the same soft core porn expert who was responsible for the Orange Brick remastering and there isn't much to be excited for about this. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they're using the same darn telecinee transfer that the hyped up so much as being done in "HIGH DEFINITION!1!1!"

The Trunks/Bardock Blu-Ray looked like crap, and based on the information we have there is no reason to believe these will look any better. Remember, unlike the movie Blu-Rays which Funi did a fairly nice job with, the show and the tv specials were filmed in 16mm, not 35mm.

[Gotham22]

It's Blu-ray so of course it will be superior.
If it was on DVD then I'll probbaly be laughing too.

Not at all the case. Source material has a lot to do with how the final product turns out, and there is nothing to indicate that Funi is working with anything other than the same sort of crummy multi-generational print they had for the Orange Bricks. Add to that the fact that the "remastering" process is being overseen by the same soft core porn expert who was responsible for the Orange Brick remastering and there isn't much to be excited for about this. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they're using the same darn telecinee transfer that the hyped up so much as being done in "HIGH DEFINITION!1!1!"

The Trunks/Bardock Blu-Ray looked like crap, and based on the information we have there is no reason to believe these will look any better. Remember, unlike the movie Blu-Rays which Funi did a fairly nice job with, the show and the tv specials were filmed in 16mm, not 35mm.

If so you would think FUNimation learned their lesson.
Out of all 3 series the DB season sets are probably the best and of course the release of the Dragon Boxes.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

Just like previous releases like the Draogon Boxes and Kai fans panic when they know nothing.

I don't think anyone is really panicking. Concerned, maybe. Mostly everyone is basing their thoughts about this on the only official thing we have right now. The press release. It sounds exactly like the season set's press release so of course, what else are people gonna think?

Just that term of remastering it for Blu-ray frightens fans because of the season sets. That was so misleading with the season sets.

Yea. It does frighten fans. FUNimation turned the word "re master" into almost a catch phrase for the season sets. It was in every trailer, it's the one word they decided was gonna represent these sets. So now, years later when FUNimation says they're gonna "re master" Dragon Ball you can't help but associate it with the season sets.

It's Blu-ray so of course it will be superior.
If it was on DVD then I'll probbaly be laughing too.

Oh, man. MarcFBR is gonna read that and his fingers won't be able to type fast enough to get all the things he wants to say out, and his brain will explode. Way to go, way to kill Marc.

[CODii]

If so you would think FUNimation learned their lesson.
Out of all 3 series the DB season sets are probably the best and of course the release of the Dragon Boxes.

Look, I hope for your sake that these releases do turn out to be competent. I don't agree with your choice in musical score, but if I was a Faulconer fan boy then I too would be holding out hope that I could finally get his score to go along with decent video footage. I'm just pointing out that nothing about this announcement really inspires confidence in me, and I cannot think of a single reason why a fan of the original version (or just anyone who doesn't love Faulconer's score) would favor this over the Dragon Boxes. Maybe, just maybe, I would be interested in this if it was simply the Dragon Boxes re-encoded onto Blu-Ray (I mean it would be completely free of compression artifacts, not that they're anything to worry about on the DBoxes), but that's not what this is.

[MarcFBR]

The Trunks/Bardock Blu-Ray looked like crap, and based on the information we have there is no reason to believe these will look any better. Remember, unlike the movie Blu-Rays which Funi did a fairly nice job with, the show and the tv specials were filmed in 16mm, not 35mm.

Trunks/Bardock BD can be different in that, those weren't necessarily of the same quality of even the TV masters. In fact... (unless someone knows differently and wants to comment) we don't actually have any idea what the masters for the specials that Funi has are.

It's Blu-ray so of course it will be superior.
If it was on DVD then I'll probbaly be laughing too.

Oh, man. MarcFBR is gonna read that and his fingers won't be able to type fast enough to get all the things he wants to say out, and his brain will explode. Way to go, way to kill Marc.

It'd be pretty hard to make a BD worse than a DVD using any masters that are better than DVD to be honest. Most of the disks that are out that you could say are worse than DVD are argued on endlessly back and forth. It almost has nothing to do with the quality of the masters used, but the amount of filtering used for the BD encode (more than a few people refer to people on the Patton BD as looking like, and I quote 'pudding' because of how blurred details on their faces get.)

A few early Funi BDs would qualify. Frankly, I never watched the Trunks/Bardock BD so I can't say what sort of artificial filtering may or may not have been responsible for any issues. Having it in 4:3 hurts marketing in that, most people just want it to 'fill the TV' regardless of what any of us feel about it. Having it in 4:3 means the filmstock is less zoomed in on though, which can lead to a better quality picture.





Of course, none of that would make my brain explode. Yet another person spouting out that 35mm vs 16mm as a reason the disks won't look as nice as the movie disks like codii is as close as we will get on that, so let's try a more detailed explanation.

The movies were animated 'better' because they had more of an animation budget, not because it was on better quality filmstock.


But perhaps an example would help.

The original Evil Dead was filmed on some of the cheapest 16mm that could be found in the late 70s.

It was filmed on 16mm filmstock in 4:3. So any widescreen release would have to be cropped from 4:3 16mm filmstock.

The Blu-ray of Evil Dead did this. It also provided 4:3 on the same disk for anyone who wanted it.

And there are many screenshots on the net of it.

Let's look at the cropped version...

http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... dead58.jpg
http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... ead336.jpg
http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... ead750.jpg
http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... ad1328.jpg
http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... ad3452.jpg
http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... ad2051.jpg
http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads ... ad4631.jpg

And those are compressed screenshots.

Does it look perfect? Of course not. It's cheap ratty filmstock from the 70s that has been cropped, and the people involved likely couldn't afford cold storage for proper film storage until ...best case... maybe 20 years ago? 15?


The problem with DBZ TV on Blu-ray is not the filmstock, but the detail put into the animation.

[TonyTheTiger]

Just that term of remastering it for Blu-ray frightens fans because of the season sets. That was so misleading with the season sets.

It wasn't misleading. The season sets were remastered. The remaster just happened to be shitty. Now the ad campaign, on the other hand...that was misleading.

But even so, I don't think it's that big of a deal. The odds of a copy/paste of the Orange Bricks in high definition are ridiculously low. Because, here's the thing...the Orange Bricks sold as well as they did because of what came before. Or, rather, what didn't come before.

The Orange Bricks didn't sell on their own merits. They sold because for the first time people were able to buy the entire series in convenient sets and for a bargain price. Before that, if you wanted to own the series you had to hunt down 90+ singles. And even if you did that, you'd still be missing stuff and hearing completely different actors for part of the series.

Most people weren't double dipping with the bricks. They simply hadn't owned the series aside from maybe a scattered few singles here and there. It was too unwieldy to do otherwise. So when the season sets came out that was it, that was their opportunity to finally get the whole thing after a decade or so. The Orange Bricks could have come soaked in urine and they still would have sold like hotcakes.

But now? The landscape is different. People have a few options with how they own the series, all of which are convenient and economically priced. So the Blu-ray release will genuinely have to look good in order to convince people to double dip. Especially since the Kai Blu-rays have set something of a ground floor standard with respect to how DBZ should look in HD. That means addressing the glaring problems of the season sets because the new Blu-rays will have to look as good as Kai at absolute minimum.

[Gotham22]

Just that term of remastering it for Blu-ray frightens fans because of the season sets. That was so misleading with the season sets.

It wasn't misleading. The season sets were remastered. The remaster just happened to be shitty. Now the ad campaign, on the other hand...that was misleading.

But even so, I don't think it's that big of a deal. The odds of a copy/paste of the Orange Bricks in high definition are ridiculously low. Because, here's the thing...the Orange Bricks sold as well as they did because of what came before. Or, rather, what didn't come before.

The Orange Bricks didn't sell on their own merits. They sold because for the first time people were able to buy the entire series in convenient sets and for a bargain price. Before that, if you wanted to own the series you had to hunt down 90+ singles. And even if you did that, you'd still be missing stuff and hearing completely different actors for part of the series.

Most people weren't double dipping with the bricks. They simply hadn't owned the series aside from maybe a scattered few singles here and there. It was too unwieldy to do otherwise. So when the season sets came out that was it, that was their opportunity to finally get the whole thing after a decade or so. The Orange Bricks could have come soaked in urine and they still would have sold like hotcakes.

But now? The landscape is different. People have a few options with how they own the series, all of which are convenient and economically priced. So the Blu-ray release will genuinely have to look good in order to convince people to double dip. Especially since the Kai Blu-rays have set something of a ground floor standard with respect to how DBZ should look in HD. That means addressing the glaring problems of the season sets because the new Blu-rays will have to look as good as Kai at absolute minimum.

Then FUNimation needs to look at their Kai Blu-ray sets and use whatever they used to make them look for the Z Bluy-rays. BUt can they. Z is pretty old. Maybe it's a huge challenge to make an old series or movie look good on Blu-ray.

[Metalwario64]

If it turns out these are different masters, then it would either be an error that Steve Franko is listed, or confusing that they returned to him after they left him at Season Six.

[jjgp1112]

Well, in the press release they never specifically said that *he* was the one who was working on these. They mentioned that ANDTransfer did the season sets but didn't really elaborate on whether they were doing these ones too.

[Kuwabara]

Wow that box art looks beautiful, that cover sans the text would look great as a shirt... However, that speech combined with "Doragon Boru Zetto" is just awful. What were they thinking? Those glaring flaws aside, I hate when companies shoehorn kanji/katakana into promos or box art for anime releases, as if I can't tell I'm buying something from Japan... It's just really overdone and cheesy, my Blu-ray of Leon: The Professional doesn't have French all over the case...

[MetaMoss]

My Opinion on this: This is just FUNimation having something DBZ being released constantly. The wording of the press release is weird, especially when it concerns Steve Franko. It does seem that they are working with ANDTRANSFER (which, correct me if I'm wrong, is Franko's company) for this new release, but it seems to me they only mention Franko in working on the old (Orange Brick) remaster. Its absolutely confusing, so I feel like I just need to wait and see. But announcing a new release while the Dragon Boxes and Kai, which use the same footage, are still ongoing? That's doesn't make sense. If only the Dragon Boxes I could see it working, but especially with Kai, (on Blu-Ray!) its just making me frustrated. Not buying unless there's something really worthwhile going for it, like a redub, which is very unlikely.

[Adamant]

Wow that box art looks beautiful, that cover sans the text would look great as a shirt... However, that speech combined with "Doragon Boru Zetto" is just awful. What were they thinking? Those glaring flaws aside, I hate when companies shoehorn kanji/katakana into promos or box art for anime releases, as if I can't tell I'm buying something from Japan... It's just really overdone and cheesy, my Blu-ray of Leon: The Professional doesn't have French all over the case...

Why did they put Green Lantern's speech on the box? Did they forget which series this was halfway through the process?

[KiddoCabbusses]

Wow that box art looks beautiful, that cover sans the text would look great as a shirt... However, that speech combined with "Doragon Boru Zetto" is just awful. What were they thinking? Those glaring flaws aside, I hate when companies shoehorn kanji/katakana into promos or box art for anime releases, as if I can't tell I'm buying something from Japan... It's just really overdone and cheesy, my Blu-ray of Leon: The Professional doesn't have French all over the case...

Why did they put Green Lantern's speech on the box? Did they forget which series this was halfway through the process?

The only way this could get any more hilarious(ly) bad is if they went the extra mile and rendered their dub dialog in Japanese. And then made a 2nd Japanese dub track with their dub dialog translated into Japanese.

(Actually, besides that obvious flub, the boxart actually looks cool, but mixing the "Japanesey" with dubspeak is a really dumb thing for FUNi to do.)