FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[Krycek7o2]

Hmm. I went through a comparsion from the screenshots of Nappa. I say they look almost exactly the same, except the brightness. The Blu-ray one looks a tad bit brighter. Everything in that screenshot looks right (color, aspect ratio, grains) The only other difference is that the Blu-ray looks zoomed out. I think that's a good thing because we can see more image, even if it's a little bit gain to the both sides. If they actually release like that, then it will be become serious competition between Dragon Box. That may be FUNimation's best release in over decade, in their own way. I was hoping for a new dub, but I doubt it.

Should we start nickname it? How about Zenaki Box? Or Super DBOX?

A Nickname? How about we just give props for actually doing a proper restoration. If this is indeed what the Blu-ray set will look like, I might be sold on this set. I'll wait for full motion video before fully committing, but kudos FUNimation, Kudos!

[kei17]

Sharpness and resolution are very good and actually better than Kai, but the colours look still a bit strange to me. I want them look like these:





I am very much looking forward to this release, anyway.

[MarcFBR]

Please read! I just said that yes, the details can be lose, but not too much! you lose something and you win another, I think without grain it's better, it's not too much the lost of the details.
I'm not discussing bootlegs, in the chase i haven't put that screen i could put a screen change with photoshop by myself.
And thanks, but I understand english xD.

Your opinion on what looks better does not match reality.

It's your opinion and you are welcome to it.

It's still wrong.

The best equivalent I can think of to having an 'opinion' that is factually wrong are the guys who emailed Ebert claiming his negative review of Revenge of the Fallen was wrong because it was a better film than Casablanca or Citizen Kane.

It was their opinion.

It was still wrong.


You showed us your theoretical 'best hope' in a screencap from what is (I assume) some over-filtered bootleg and it looks like ass.

I buy DVDs and Blu-rays because I want the show to look as good as possible.

Good does not mean filtered to remove things that are inherently part of the image.

If having a completely squeaky clean image is a requirement for you, this is the wrong show to watch.


On the images themselves. Orange Brick and Dbox images look accurate enough to those, the Blu-ray previews images look quite good. I believe it will be enjoyable to watch if those are accurate to the final product. I haven't pulled out my Kai BDs to check, but even with the image compression, the lines look sharper than I remember Kai looking (yay for not being filtered to an insane degree!)

[TheBlackPaladin]

They look horrible. I'm sorry, I'm usually not that rude or blunt but... they look bad. If FUNimation ever put out anything that looked like that, they'd loose all credibility in the anime community.

That's a tad hyperbolic, wouldn't you say? Would they piss off Dragon Ball fans who are familiar with the animation style and presentation of the original Japanese release? Conceivably. They've definitely done it before. But losing all credibility in the anime community? Nah-ah.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

They look horrible. I'm sorry, I'm usually not that rude or blunt but... they look bad. If FUNimation ever put out anything that looked like that, they'd loose all credibility in the anime community.

That's a tad hyperbolic, wouldn't you say? Would they piss off Dragon Ball fans who are familiar with the animation style and presentation of the original Japanese release? Conceivably. They've definitely done it before. But losing all credibility in the anime community? Nah-ah.

I think they would because, if FUNimation said they're releasing the original Evangelion series or Trigun series on Blu-ray. After seeing what they did with DBZ, the fans of those series wouldn't have any faith in them.

[Kendamu]

This doesn't surprise me one bit. While I won't be grabbing these right as they hit the shelves, I will not be sitting this one out. My DBoxes can sit around being the collectibles they are while I have my "viewer copy" of the series.

[TheBlackPaladin]

They look horrible. I'm sorry, I'm usually not that rude or blunt but... they look bad. If FUNimation ever put out anything that looked like that, they'd loose all credibility in the anime community.

That's a tad hyperbolic, wouldn't you say? Would they piss off Dragon Ball fans who are familiar with the animation style and presentation of the original Japanese release? Conceivably. They've definitely done it before. But losing all credibility in the anime community? Nah-ah.

I think they would because, if FUNimation said they're releasing the original Evangelion series or Trigun series on Blu-ray. After seeing what they did with DBZ, the fans of those series wouldnt have any faith in them.

Only a select (and relatively small) group of fans. Like I said earlier, it would be the minority fan group that's familiar with the animation styles and presentation of the original Japanese version. Lest we need reminding, the orange bricks, for all of their problems, sold--and continue to sell--like hotcakes, even more so than the Dragon Boxes. The number of people who care about details like that are...not negligible, per say, but it's not enough to dramatically affect sales.

Besides, the logic that, "they screwed up x release, so they'll screw up every remaining release of every other anime they ever release from here on out"...is a huge leap for many reasons. To list all of them would be to go off-topic.

[DanielGClapp]

Have the music choices for this release been released yet?

[TripleRach]

So I grabbed some lossless PNGs from the Dragon Boxes (both the American sets and the Japanese singles). I'm only embedding the American ones, since those are what were used on the ANN page.

Toei/Pony Canyon singles:
http://i.imgur.com/M72Uk.png
http://i.imgur.com/cuOdi.png
http://i.imgur.com/iZJ44.png

FUNimation Dragon Boxes:




The screens FUNi/ANN used seem mostly accurate, but they look a lot grainier than they actually are, probably due to the JPG compression. They're also way too dark, more so than even the Japanese discs.

While I'm at it, here's another mirror of the BD images.
http://i.imgur.com/BWCgR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/P6KyA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LF9u5.jpg

As others already theorized, I'd assume those also look a lot grainier than they actually are, because of the JPG compression.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

Have the music choices for this release been released yet?

I believe FUNi has already confirmed that it'll feature both the American and Japanese OSTs as options for the dub.

[kei17]

The screens FUNi/ANN used seem mostly accurate, but they look a lot grainier than they actually are, probably due to the JPG compression. They're also way too dark, more so than even the Japanese discs.

The same thing happened with the Orange Brick shots, so that means that also the new Blu-ray shots can be a little bit darker than the actual footage. I was thinking that they were too dark.

[Kendamu]

The screens FUNi/ANN used seem mostly accurate, but they look a lot grainier than they actually are, probably due to the JPG compression. They're also way too dark, more so than even the Japanese discs.

The same thing happened with the Orange Brick shots, so that means that also the new Blu-ray shots can be a little bit darker than the actual footage. I was thinking that they were too dark.

Despite the darkness, what do you think so far? I know that the Dragon Box isn't your thing.

[kei17]

Despite the darkness, what do you think so far? I know that the Dragon Box isn't your thing.

Better than what I expected. The sharpness is far superior to Kai, and the amount of grain doesn't bug me much. The colours aren't that correct, but the cyan sky and pinkish white don't exist anymore, so it's fully acceptable. I think I am getting this release (because Toei does not seem to release their own BD BOX soon at all).

[mikezilla2]

Have the music choices for this release been released yet?

I believe FUNi has already confirmed that it'll feature both the American and Japanese OSTs as options for the dub.

IE, we can choose to mix and match the OST with all 3 dubs? Regardless, I was expecting this to be front page news.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

ie we can choose to mix and match the OST with all 3 dubs ? regardless i was expecting this to be front page news

No, I mean the audio options will be as follows:

-English with Japanese music
-English with US music
-Japanese

[mikezilla2]

Bah, I wish I could choose the updated dub with Faulconer Production's score.

[Treklin]

This is from FUNimation Blu-ray: (I have cropped the black bars on the side in order to compare better and it is lossy .jpg file)
http://s7.directupload.net/images/110909/a3z4ahck.jpg

This is from DragonBox DVD: (I have upscaled it to 1440x1080 in order top compare better and it is lossless .png file)
http://s7.directupload.net/images/110909/lw84tjm6.png

Staff edit: the in-lining of giant images needs to stop.

I am not a professional Photoshopper but the new FUNimation Blu-ray has 4-5% more image and it is much more sharper!
But that is only an one frame shot! A good and actual Blu-ray player with a strong and powerful CPU can achieve nearly the same quality as the FUNi Blu-rays but a slightly plus is the nearly 5% more image on the new FUNi Blu-rays and this you cannot achieve with the best up-to-date Blu-ray player!

[Puto]

Comparison between one of TripleRach's JP Dragon Box shots and the equivalent provided Blu-ray shot:

At 480p (downscaled the Blu-ray shot):


At 1080 (upscaled the Dragon Box shot): here (not in-lined because of bandwidth). Yes, I know the lines don't match perfectly, but that's because the framing isn't the same. Left half is Dragon Box, right half is the Blu-ray shot.

[MarcFBR]

This is from FUNimation Blu-ray: (I have cropped the black bars on the side in order to compare better and it is lossy .jpg file)
http://s7.directupload.net/images/110909/a3z4ahck.jpg

This is from DragonBox DVD: (I have upscaled it to 1440x1080 in order top compare better and it is lossless .png file)
http://s7.directupload.net/images/110909/lw84tjm6.png

Staff edit: the in-lining of giant images needs to stop.

I am not a professional Photoshopper but the new FUNimation Blu-ray has 4-5% more image and it is much more sharper!
But that is only an one frame shot! A good and actual Blu-ray player with a strong and powerful CPU can achieve nearly the same quality as the FUNi Blu-rays but a slightly plus is the nearly 5% more image on the new FUNi Blu-rays and this you cannot achieve with the best up-to-date Blu-ray player!

I edited out the embedding because more and more that just needs to stop.

More importantly though, you don't give any information on your upscaling method.

Was it upscaled via a single filter? If so which filter? That can change how an image is to be perceived.

[ect5150]

A good and actual Blu-ray player with a strong and powerful CPU can achieve nearly the same quality as the FUNi Blu-rays but a slightly plus is the nearly 5% more image on the new FUNi Blu-rays and this you cannot achieve with the best up-to-date Blu-ray player!

Upscaling never adds information to the image, it's just an estimation. No combination of Bluray players, CPUs, TV filters can replace having more information on the disc. While some of the upscaling filters do a decent job sometimes, I've never seen an upscale that is as sharp as the Bluray can be (without sacrificing something else in the image that is... it's just another trade-off, like with grain removal and sharpness).