FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[Gotham22]

I like the vegeta image on the second set. At least it's not anger cross eye Vegeta.
The orange banner on the side does bring back bad memories of the season sets.

I believe there will be a least 18 Blu-ray sets so some characters may be used twice and some will get their first shot on a cover.

[ect5150]

Remind you I said similar, not exact. Really its just grain removed and sharpened.

But then that becomes no different than an upscaled version of the Orange Season sets (except they would be in 4x3).

[dragonpiece]

Thinking about it, I wonder if we will see some stock images never used on the dvd's before since we are getting 18 or more set's. It would have been great if FUNimation got the license to use to the Dragon Box singles art for these Blu Ray's.

[Super Sonic]

I just thought, you know how Star Wars just got released on blu-ray with changes made (again) and some guys are starting to complain about them? Do you think the same could happen for these, even if the changes were made for the better than the original release?

[Metalwario64]

I just thought, you know how Star Wars just got released on blu-ray with changes made (again) and some guys are starting to complain about them? Do you think the same could happen for these, even if the changes were made for the better than the original release?

People have been complaining about the constant changes to Star Wars for years, as it's directly altering the movies. These sets aren't altering the source material in any way; it's still the same show it's always been, with the dub that's been the way it's been since the orange bricks, so I don't know what changes you are referring to. If anything was changing Dragon Ball Z's source material, it was the orange bricks which were altering the source material by changing (ruining) the framing by cropping it.

I don't see how the situation with Dragon Ball Z's Blu-rays is the same as Star Wars' Blu-rays, considering as far as we know this looks to be FUNimation's best release of Z outside of the Dragon Boxes.

[DanielGClapp]

Thinking about it, I wonder if we will see some stock images never used on the dvd's before since we are getting 18 or more set's. It would have been great if FUNimation got the license to use to the Dragon Box singles art for these Blu Ray's.

Oh my gosh that would be so awesome! I love the singles cover art!

I just thought, you know how Star Wars just got released on blu-ray with changes made (again) and some guys are starting to complain about them? Do you think the same could happen for these, even if the changes were made for the better than the original release?

The only reason people (I myself included) do not like the blu-ray releases is because they do not include the original unaltered versions of the original trilogy. It's nice to have the new version as a bonus, but I won't buy it until the original release is included.

[Rory]

I just thought, you know how Star Wars just got released on blu-ray with changes made (again) and some guys are starting to complain about them? Do you think the same could happen for these, even if the changes were made for the better than the original release?

If we get into a Raditz shoots first situation with this first box, it'd reignite my interest in these Blu Rays.

[enapace]

I think for me to buy the Blu-ray It would have to be a major thing because they not got a good track record in releasing qualilty DB releases they have done not just orange bricks wrong but canceling midway through releases, don't think they going do that with this but you never no. Dragon Boxes don't really count as that was just a repacking adding an audio track in and subtiles so they couldn't really mess that up. I also will wait see if boxsets come out as I doubt these are going to be limited releases like the Dragon Boxes are.

PS I don't mean like Star Wars.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Given how difficult and time-consuming these blu-rays have been said to make, and how many sets there are going to be, I'd say cancellation is actually a possibility. Not expecting it, but this isn't running the masters through a machine, this is probably comparable to what Pony Canyon did.

[Mountain]

Given how difficult and time-consuming these blu-rays have been said to make, and how many sets there are going to be, I'd say cancellation is actually a possibility. Not expecting it, but this isn't running the masters through a machine, this is probably comparable to what Pony Canyon did.

Either that, or they'll start releasing sets with more episodes per box halfway through.

[enapace]

Given how difficult and time-consuming these blu-rays have been said to make, and how many sets there are going to be, I'd say cancellation is actually a possibility. Not expecting it, but this isn't running the masters through a machine, this is probably comparable to what Pony Canyon did.

Either that, or they'll start releasing sets with more episodes per box halfway through.

Yeah I think they probably done remastered of 3/4 so far and going see how first 2 sell and depending on that will continue or not.

[ssgOverlord]

They're gonna show this at the New York Anime Festival, so I'm gonna take that opportunity to see how it looks for sure. It also mentions some dub voice actors, I wonder who they are...

[Choujin Daizenshuu]

Little known secret.

Fans are jackasses. Fanbases are a mess.

Any company that purely 'listens to the fans' wouldn't be able to make a good product. Because there is not one type of fan, and fans tend to complain.

As for Mato, I believe he hung around on his own, and at best he could make suggestions on translations to people higher up. Funi higher ups, and Japanese higher ups still made the call, not him.

Any company that does full commercial releases and works with a 'fanbase' really has no idea what they are doing.

And since plenty of people seem to still sort of ignore this- We ("the fans") got our release that we asked for.

Usually in cases such as this, it would help to use a public fan poll to determine what exactly people want to see on a set. I think I remember FUNimation doing something of the sort back in the Toonami days to get fans in on the type of voices they want to hear for the Dragon Ball (original series) redub and I remember it was met with a positive reaction.

The "digital video reviewing community" hardly represents the "Average Joe" though. Seriously, his primary concern will be "does the image look nice and shiny"? FUNimation's Blu-Ray release, based purely on those images released so far, does not fit this criteria. Now obviously, I have not carried out market research into this area, nor will I ever, so everything I have said here is pure conjecture. However, I am sure if you approached anyone who was unfamiliar with digital video remastering and asked them whether they preferred DVNR or grain, without of course explaining the relative merits/demerits of either in advance, I am sure they'd choose DVNR. Feel free to prove me wrong!

If the Average Joes want their DVNR only master sets, then they need to come online and make their voices heard more loudly than the people who want the original grain. Otherwise, they're SOL.

And for the record, I asked around about the question of DVNR vs grain at my local workplace and hobby stores and you know what I got for an answer?

Who cares!

[MarcFBR]

Usually in cases such as this, it would help to use a public fan poll to determine what exactly people want to see on a set. I think I remember FUNimation doing something of the sort back in the Toonami days to get fans in on the type of voices they want to hear for the Dragon Ball (original series) redub and I remember it was met with a positive reaction.

Yes, but they did it with a show that they honestly didn't know how it would be received, therefore there was no risk in doing something like that.

In most cases, it goes back to 'fans are jackasses.' Even a year prior in interviews guys from both Toonami and Funimation honestly brought up they had no idea how pre-Z Dragon Ball would do if it was brought out in the USA (again...) because it's an inherently different show.

In most cases if you are going to look at fans thoughts its for very specific things, not for the overall 'how it will be done' or 'important choices to be made'.

Going back to DB, the choices for nearly everyone were.... two actors who Funi had already cast in equivalent roles in the past. There is no risk there, because they've given you two choices where they like both. They've already removed choices they don't want.

Most fans don't know what they want, and if they do, they often want something stupid.

I'm not even gonna comment on the average joe stuff, as I've commented on that sort of thing far to often before.


As for the people commenting on where they think the remastering is and if/when/maybe it'll be cancelled. Not even going to comment on that stuff... cause it's just stupid.

[Ashura]

Average Joe buying this BluRay will probably not care if it's grainy or dvnr'd to hell. They just care that it's Dragon Ball.

Honestly speaking, if you would have put the Dragon Box disks inside of the Orange Brick box, a random passerby who bought DBZ at Wal Mart would have still bought it anyway and probably have been just as happy with it in 99% of cases.

They're not buying DBZ for the look of it, they're buying it because it either nostalgia bombs them or they heard the show's cool and want to pick it up.

The fact that Funimation knows this is why they're doing the remaster a better way this time.

That, and the fact that in the years since they did the first 'remaster,' HD video has matured and they've actually learned from mistakes and improved their processes via working on millions of other shows.

Man, I shouldn'tve posted this... I'm just repeating myself.

[enapace]

Average Joe buying this BluRay will probably not care if it's grainy or dvnr'd to hell. They just care that it's Dragon Ball.

Honestly speaking, if you would have put the Dragon Box disks inside of the Orange Brick box, a random passerby who bought DBZ at Wal Mart would have still bought it anyway and probably have been just as happy with it in 99% of cases.

They're not buying DBZ for the look of it, they're buying it because it either nostalgia bombs them or they heard the show's cool and want to pick it up.

The fact that Funimation knows this is why they're doing the remaster a better way this time.

That, and the fact that in the years since they did the first 'remaster,' HD video has matured and they've actually learned from mistakes and improved their processes via working on millions of other shows.

Man, I shouldn'tve posted this... I'm just repeating myself.

True the point is proven with the Steel Book Blu rays they were done terrible but sold well and still do. I do hope this is a better remaster but even if its not I not going complain as I have 6 of 7 DBOX Z Volumes and the qualilty is fine for me.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

Honestly speaking, if you would have put the Dragon Box disks inside of the Orange Brick box, a random passerby who bought DBZ at Wal Mart would have still bought it anyway and probably have been just as happy with it in 99% of cases.

Only if you make English the primary audio track. When I was working at a video rental store last semester, the #1 reason a person would angrily return a video would be because it either only had a subtitled audio track or because the subbed track was the default even though a dub exists(as is the case with some releases of foreign films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Second most common reason was that it didn't play.

[Pokewhiz7]

True the point is proven with the Steel Book Blu rays they were done terrible but sold well and still do.

They looked fine to me, sans movies 8 and 10.

[Ashura]

Only if you make English the primary audio track. When I was working at a video rental store last semester, the #1 reason a person would angrily return a video would be because it either only had a subtitled audio track or because the subbed track was the default even though a dub exists(as is the case with some releases of foreign films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Second most common reason was that it didn't play.

I guess this is true. Technically they could've programmed the disk to read the way you have your DVD player set up and defaulted to whichever language you want, but I know they did these this way for the hardcore fans. Even still, with one minor tweak to the Dbox DVDs people wouldn'tve cared since it's DBZ. Them remastering these correctly is only win-win for them, because not only will average joe buy them, but also more discerning buyers as well. (Those that haven't quadruple dipped and aren't fed-up anyway.)

[samuraix123]

So has Funimation released a trailer for this set?