FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[MarcFBR]

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).

ect5150 is correct. A bad upscale on Blu-ray can make it arguable if a good upscaling chipset can make a DVD look better than the Blu-ray. When you are talking about even a half decent native production... no.

Also, 'strong and powerful CPU' has nothing to do with it as far as Blu-ray players are concerned. Only one BD player I can think of does the majority of it's work in software, it's almost always decoder chips (if someone knows different feel free to correct me on this, but as far as I know there is ONE BD player on the market right now that is 'CPU based), most BD players have generally low end CPUs because they just aren't needed.

[Treklin]

I have only resized the frame from 640x480 to 1440x1080, that's all I have done with Photoshop or Microsoft Office Picture Manager and I do not used any filters or so. Okay on most BD players there are decoder chips from SIGMA or VIA not CPUs from Intel and AMD! But if you watch 24 frames per second and your distance to your TV is about 3-4m you "cannot" see a big and huge difference between these 2 "screenshots" in my upper post.

We see the differences in sharpness only on our TFT, IPS etc. monitors with a distance of 40-50cm !!!

Maybe I buy the Bluray release as a complete boxset in 2015/16 when FUNi is re-releasing it again and again, I am happy with my DragonBoxes at the moment!

[MarcFBR]

I have only resized the frame from 640x480 to 1440x1080, that's all I have done with Photoshop or Microsoft Office Picture Manager and I do not used any filters or so. Okay on most BD players there are decoder chips from SIGMA or VIA not CPUs from Intel and AMD! But if you watch 24 frames per second and your distance to your TV is about 3-4m you "cannot" see a big and huge difference between these 2 "screenshots" in my upper post.

By definition to 'upscale' you have to use SOME sort of filter. At the very least you used some of resampling filter. Otherwise it is just a raw resizing. And the 'upscaled' image you posted is definitely not a resize with no resampling filter.

[VegettoEX]

I really do have to ask that if folks are not extremely well-versed in digital image capturing and encoding, please refrain from posting your own examples. More than just our own community pops in to see what is being discussed over here, and I want to guarantee that if people see an image, they know they can 100% trust that it legitimately is what we say it is.

Additionally, please also refrain from posting your own "remasters" of the images. Particularly when it comes to HD remastering, I can probably safely bet than less than 1% of the membership here (myself included) have any real experience when it comes to working with physical film, its digital transfer, and touch-ups from there. I hate to be rude about it, but your recent free download of GIMP hasn't somehow given you a Master's degree in digital film restoration -- even Franko likely has you beat at this point ^_~.

[Puto]

For what it's worth, I used Lanczos3 for both the upscaling of the Dragon Box shot and the downscaling of the Blu-ray shot in the comparison I posted earlier.

[b_boult]

Though I would always prefer that FUNimation edged on the side of caution and preserved as much of the original grain as possible, I must be honest, the shot of Nappa looks absolutely hideous to me. They desperately need to apply a little DVNR for this to be a commercially viable release.

[MarcFBR]

commercially viable release

I'm not sure you know what that means.

It's commercially viable by being DBZ. Having grain won't make it less viable commercially.

The grain in 16mm is so inherently part of the image that adding 'a little' DVNR isn't going to do anything outside of making it fuzzier.

It is what it is.

[b_boult]

Perhaps in this forum bubble it is a 'commercially viable' release. However, I'd be amazed if the average Joe, having bought one of these DVDs, then went on to purchase the rest of these sets. I'll reserve full judgement until I see them in motion of course, but given how jarring that Nappa screen is to the eyes, I'm really not optimistic - particularly when there are already other sets out there which would look far better than this up-scaled.

Edit: Whilst DVNR to the extent seen in the Season Sets caused horrendous blurring/"fuzziness" to the image, a 'little' blurring around the edges is a trade off I would happily make in this release if it avoided the level of noise seen in the images which are now being circulated. The absolute sanctity and integrity of the footage is merely a concern of fan-boys, not the general marketplace.

[VegettoEX]

Perhaps in this forum bubble it is a 'commercially viable' release. However, I'd be amazed if the average Joe, having bought one of these DVDs, then went on to purchase the rest of these sets. I'll reserve full judgement until I see them in motion of course, but given how jarring that Nappa screen is to the eyes, I'm really not optimistic -

I guess I don't actually understand what you're saying. The way I'm reading it, you're describing an "Average Joe" (who by his very nature is not very discriminating) would be very discriminating about visual quality...?

particularly when there are already other sets out there which would look far better than this up-scaled.

I'm pretty sure it's already been explained from both a source footage side and a technical side that none of the other products -- save possibly DragonBall Kai in its native HD -- would look "as good" as FUNimation's upcoming Blu-ray when upscaled. Assuming the remastering is done properly and preserves the integrity of the film and its detail (and all signs point to "yes" on this so far!), the native Blu-ray is going to look crisper and more natural than even the Dragon Box if it were to be upscaled by even the best hardware/software combination. In this case, it just gets reduced down to a simple, "Which one has more pixels in its window?"

In the best-care scenario, what we're going to get from FUNimation's Blu-rays will be an image comparable to the Dragon Box that looks more natural in HD because it's gots za pixels, perhaps with some color adjustments (green pushed to blue, as per FUNimation's standard). If people aren't complaining about the grain on the Dragon Box already, the Blu-rays aren't going to suddenly make them start doing so.

If they ARE, well... the orange bricks are right over there for $15 ^_~.

And yeah, all the financial stuff Marc's talking about.

[MarcFBR]

Perhaps in this forum bubble it is a 'commercially viable' release. However, I'd be amazed if the average Joe, having bought one of these DVDs, then went on to purchase the rest of these sets. I'll reserve full judgement until I see them in motion of course, but given how jarring that Nappa screen is to the eyes, I'm really not optimistic - particularly when there are already other sets out there which would look far better than this up-scaled.

Has nothing to do with the 'forum bubble.'

DBZ related DVDs and BDs have proved viable as far as sales go, re-release after re-release.

It's viable if only because it's the first release of DBZ TV on Blu-ray. Having grain won't make it less viable. It might make some jackasses whine, and a few people may not buy it, but as has been established- Most of the 'general audience' just does not care. They simply want the show on 'this format.'

Or shorter version- What Vegetto said.

[Metalwario64]

Puto already did this comparison shot, but I decided I'd take a shot at it, and I went ahead and resized and rotated the Blu-ray shot to match the Dragon Box shot. I used FUNimation's shot because it would be most fair to use all of FUNimation's screenshots for comparison, as opposed to screenshots using different methods.

[b_boult]

Perhaps in this forum bubble it is a 'commercially viable' release. However, I'd be amazed if the average Joe, having bought one of these DVDs, then went on to purchase the rest of these sets. I'll reserve full judgement until I see them in motion of course, but given how jarring that Nappa screen is to the eyes, I'm really not optimistic -

I guess I don't actually understand what you're saying. The way I'm reading it, you're describing an "Average Joe" (who by his very nature is not very discriminating) would be very discriminating about visual quality...?

particularly when there are already other sets out there which would look far better than this up-scaled.

I'm pretty sure it's already been explained from both a source footage side and a technical side that none of the other products -- save possibly DragonBall Kai in its native HD -- would look "as good" as FUNimation's upcoming Blu-ray when upscaled. Assuming the remastering is done properly and preserves the integrity of the film and its detail (and all signs point to "yes" on this so far!), the native Blu-ray is going to look crisper and more natural than even the Dragon Box if it were to be upscaled by even the best hardware/software combination. In this case, it just gets reduced down to a simple, "Which one has more pixels in its window?"

In the best-care scenario, what we're going to get from FUNimation's Blu-rays will be an image comparable to the Dragon Box that looks more natural in HD because it's gots za pixels, perhaps with some color adjustments (green pushed to blue, as per FUNimation's standard). If people aren't complaining about the grain on the Dragon Box already, the Blu-rays aren't going to suddenly make them start doing so.

If they ARE, well... the orange bricks are right over there for $15 ^_~.

And yeah, all the financial stuff Marc's talking about.

Well, I suppose time will tell whether or not people will continue to buy these sets. As regards to the "Average Joe" though, I think his definition of a "remastered Blu-Ray release" would almost certainly involve footage that was noise free - essentially the same sort of direction that was taken in the Season Sets. The second this "Average Joe" sees the level of grain present in the Blu-Ray images, I imagine he would probably think to himself "this doesn't look very remastered", as opposed to "noise is an inherent part of the image". Now of course, I'm not personally advocating an aggressive use of DVNR as used in the Season Sets. However, what I would personally advocate based on the images that have been released so far, and what I think the "Average Joe" would also advocate if he were forced to look at this issue in any depth, would be a middle-ground between noise reduction and preserving the integrity of the image. I personally have never had an issue with some blurring around the edges. My primary issue with DVNR has always been when the filter is applied to the image and results in a total loss of detail, such as character outlines etc.

[MarcFBR]

Well, I suppose time will tell whether or not people will continue to buy these sets. As regards to the "Average Joe" though, I think his definition of a "remastered Blu-Ray release" would almost certainly involve footage that was noise free - essentially the same sort of direction that was taken in the Season Sets. The second this "Average Joe" sees the level of grain present in the Blu-Ray images, I imagine he would probably think to himself "this doesn't look very remastered", as opposed to "noise is an inherent part of the image". Now of course, I'm not personally advocating an aggressive use of DVNR as used in the Season Sets. However, what I would personally advocate based on the images that have been released so far, and what I think the "Average Joe" would also advocate if he were forced to look at this issue in any depth, would be a middle-ground between noise reduction and preserving the integrity of the image. I personally have never had an issue with some blurring around the edges. My primary issue with DVNR has always been when the filter is applied to the image and results in a total loss of detail, such as character outlines etc.

This ignores the argument that your 'average joe' doesn't tend to notice jack. A decent number of people have cable boxes and DVD players hooked up to HDTVs with composite cables and think that is HD. Plenty more think an upscaled DVD is 'HD'. The fact is... most people just don't care.

As an example... I'll use Star Wars again- Their is a small group of fans who thought the 2004 Star Wars DVDs looked utterly TERRIBLE. Did they? Depends how you define good. 99% of people just didn't care, the other 1% felt they looked awful.

Or an even better example. The 2006 'classic' version of the original trilogy. It's a letterboxed laserdisk copy. It looks completely terrible. To the average person when the Star Wars changes are explained to them, if they are aware of those disks, they point that out as 'they did get released' with quality not being an inherent issue.

Original Lord of the Rings Blu-rays were quite meh also. Still sold like hotcakes.


This is a case of someone 'reversing' fan logic to work for the average person. Even for the more savvy average consumer. It's in HD, it looks better than their DVD, that's the end of it.

[ect5150]

It's in HD, it looks better than their DVD, that's the end of it.

For the most part yes - but here's my next question: What about the shots Funimation has where the film has actual damage? I haven't listened to the ANN poscast yet, but I thought someone said they were using the FUNI masters. In the Orange Brick release we saw some shots where the film had major damage (e.g. the film was torn in some shots). I can think one old screen cap that was posted in the recap part of episode 3 (Goku took that knee from Raditz) and the scene was torn in two. Any word from the podccast if these items were being repaired as well? After all, film damage in HD will look even worse!

[Metalwario64]

It's in HD, it looks better than their DVD, that's the end of it.

For the most part yes - but here's my next question: What about the shots Funimation has where the film has actual damage? I haven't listened to the ANN poscast yet, but I thought someone said they were using the FUNI masters. In the Orange Brick release we saw some shots where the film had major damage (e.g. the film was torn in some shots). I can think one old screen cap that was posted in the recap part of episode 3 (Goku took that knee from Raditz) and the scene was torn in two. Any word from the podccast if these items were being repaired as well? After all, film damage in HD will look even worse!

Wasn't the trailer talking about (and showing) how they were manually removing all of the dirt and damage by hand?

[Mountain]

I think the shot of Nappa looks anything but horrendous; DVNR would completely ruin it. I can't understand how one person's opinion could possibly speak for the masses, but it's quite apparent that some people don't happen to read outside of the so-called "forum bubble". It's a widespread fact in the digital video reviewing community that grain is the image, and not simply "something laying over the image". There have been an abundance of mass-marketed DVDs and Blu-rays, alike, that have kept the grain intact and -- get this --- sold extremely well.

If one prefers a digitally-enhanced image (and by this, I mean noise reduction, faux sharpness, edge enhancement, etc.) then by all means... knock yourself out, but to wish for the purest picture possible isn't exclusive to these forums; that would be absurd on so many levels.

DragonBall was shot on film and is a product of the 80s, and to think otherwise would be very stubborn.

[bkev]

Most fancy TVs feature noise reduction technology anyway, right? Just use that...

[Pokewhiz7]

Most fancy TVs feature noise reduction technology anyway, right? Just use that...

Yes indeed they do, which is why they should leave the grain on the image so that both people can be happy. (The people who want a good-looking image, and the people who want to mangle it with DVNR.)

[DanielGClapp]

So I just looked at the comparisons on the front page of the Daizex news and I have a few things to say about that. First of all, the Dragon Box screen shots look much worse than whenever I watch them on my t.v. Whenever I watch them on my (fullscreen t.v.'s) they look crystal clear. However, whenever I watch them on the computer or on my blu-ray player they look pretty bad. Maybe that could be the problem? Also, according to the screen shots, I would have to say that the blu-ray looks much better than either the Dragon Box or the Orange Brick (my opinion people, this is all my opinion). But like I said, these screen shots are probably not as accurate as they could be, especially the Dragon Box one.

[jjgp1112]

By bad, do you mean grainy? Because uh...it's supposed to look like that.