Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

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Armymanis
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Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by Armymanis » Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:48 pm

Ok, So I bought the first Dragonball Z Dragonbox a long time ago because there were some scenes that were cut out of the TV DVD sets that I currently own all of. These are the episodes with the bruce falcon whatever music score. Do you think I should pick up the rest of the Dragonball Z Dragonbox Sets? Is there a lot of scenes that I am missing out on after I get past the saiyan saga? Thanks for your reply.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by jnj13 » Fri Sep 23, 2011 12:01 am

The DragonBoxes have better video quality than anything available right now (who knows how the upcoming Blu-Rays will look in the end) and have all of the correct OP/ED videos, title cards, previews, etc. Beyond that, I don't think they have any actual episode scenes that were not in the season sets...

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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by SuperSaiyan3Goku » Fri Sep 23, 2011 1:48 am

At this point, the Dragon Box sets is the best-looking Dragon Ball Z release.

And yes, there are scenes cut out from the old DVDs. I'm guessing the "Old DVDs" you have are the Pioneer ones? Then yeah, they have much more scenes. About 15 episodes were cut out from those releases.
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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by Tanooki Kuribo » Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:50 am

SuperSaiyan3Goku wrote:At this point, the Dragon Box sets is the best-looking Dragon Ball Z release.

And yes, there are scenes cut out from the old DVDs. I'm guessing the "Old DVDs" you have are the Pioneer ones? Then yeah, they have much more scenes. About 15 episodes were cut out from those releases.
No, he said it had the Bruce "Falcon" music, so he's probably talking about the Ginyu saga on ward DVD singles.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by enapace » Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:53 am

Tanooki Kuribo wrote:
SuperSaiyan3Goku wrote:At this point, the Dragon Box sets is the best-looking Dragon Ball Z release.

And yes, there are scenes cut out from the old DVDs. I'm guessing the "Old DVDs" you have are the Pioneer ones? Then yeah, they have much more scenes. About 15 episodes were cut out from those releases.
No, he said it had the Bruce "Falcon" music, so he's probably talking about the Ginyu saga on ward DVD singles.
True to your point.

Best to answer questions about Dragon Box Dvds yes I would defiently say if you don't mind they haven't got Bruce Falcon sound track as they are done well and look brill. Oh also they look better on the side then the Blu-rays will.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by Metalwario64 » Fri Sep 23, 2011 3:06 am

Armymanis wrote:Ok, So I bought the first Dragonball Z Dragonbox a long time ago because there were some scenes that were cut out of the TV DVD sets that I currently own all of. These are the episodes with the bruce falcon whatever music score. Do you think I should pick up the rest of the Dragonball Z Dragonbox Sets? Is there a lot of scenes that I am missing out on after I get past the saiyan saga? Thanks for your reply.
If you only have the first Dragon Box set, then you should get the second one as well, because the Namek arc wasn't previously released uncut on DVD in the US, and if you have the old Pioneer DVDs for the Namek-arc, which was the only prior release for those episodes, then you're missing out on many cut scenes.

The rest of the series was released both edited and uncut. If you have edited sets for the rest of the series with Faulconer's music, then the Dragon Boxes wouldn't have as many scenes that you were missing out on, but it may still be worth it to you to see the series as it originally was.

But it all depends on the DVDs you have, which I don't you have really described all to well I'm afraid. Do the covers say "EDITED" or "UNCUT" on them?
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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by Armymanis » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:37 am

They say they are uncut but you know how funimation screws that up. The only DVD that looked uncut was when krillin died and tons of blood was coming out of his stomach. Other then that it pretty much looks like the TV episodes. I have all the single DVD's funimation made with bruce falcon's music score. Where is a good place to buy the dragonbox DVD's? I have heard rightstuf is really good. Amazon has season 2 all sold out. What is your opinions.

Edit: I ordered Dragonbox 2. Should be a good watch :) I noticed that the Dragonball Z Dragonbox 2 is getting harder and harder to find. That sucks.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the dragonbox's worth it?

Post by Tanooki Kuribo » Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:02 am

Armymanis wrote:They say they are uncut but you know how funimation screws that up. The only DVD that looked uncut was when krillin died and tons of blood was coming out of his stomach...
The singles you're talking about were all uncut. What'd you mean "you know how FUNimation screws that up"? It's not like they said it was uncut then gave you the TV version.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by DanielGClapp » Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:05 pm

I would say go for it and get the Dragon Boxes. Not only are they the best release so far, but they are also a bit of an investment. Dragon Box 2 is already becoming somewhat hard to find, and I'm sure it won't stop there. The reason I like them so much is because I can own all episodes of DBZ, in near to perfect quality, all in one format. Also, I'm not sure if you have the Ocean dub or what, but at least the DBoxes are consistent as far as voice actors go. Another poster mentioned that if you like Bruce Faulcner, then you might not like the DBoxes. In that case I would suggest waiting to see if the blu-rays have his score. It's a lot better than settling for the orange bricks.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by Armymanis » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:44 pm

DanielGClapp wrote:I would say go for it and get the Dragon Boxes. Not only are they the best release so far, but they are also a bit of an investment. Dragon Box 2 is already becoming somewhat hard to find, and I'm sure it won't stop there. The reason I like them so much is because I can own all episodes of DBZ, in near to perfect quality, all in one format. Also, I'm not sure if you have the Ocean dub or what, but at least the DBoxes are consistent as far as voice actors go. Another poster mentioned that if you like Bruce Faulcner, then you might not like the DBoxes. In that case I would suggest waiting to see if the blu-rays have his score. It's a lot better than settling for the orange bricks.
I don't have a blu-ray player, and don't plan to get one anytime soon until they go down in price. As far as not having the Bruce Faulcner music, I can live with it. Having the japanese music in there while watching the first Dragonball Z Dragonbox actually gave me a whole new look on the series :)

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by DanielGClapp » Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:43 pm

You could just get a Playstation 3. It has blu ray, wifi and Netflix. You can play games on it too, but I was thinking about getting it for the former. But yeah, I still see what you mean. I stand by what I said before, and that is that if you really want the whole DBZ collection, in one (near) perfect format, get the Dragon Boxes. Not to mention you get a Dragon Book with the Dragon Boxes, so that's pretty cool.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by Mountain » Sat Sep 24, 2011 1:57 am

Without hesitation, I'd tell you to grab the remaining boxes asap, but, before you spend all of that money, it may be smart to wait for at least the reviews of the first Dragon Ball Z Blu-ray set; you may find that those are the ideal sets for you.

I suppose it all comes down to personal preference. Do you want the rest of the Dragon Boxes? I mean, they are extremely nice collectibles with most everything intact, including a very cool Dragon Book. Though, in the end (and as it proudly states on the back of the box), these are for the hardcore fans/purists. If you prefer the Japanese version, then snatch up those boxes immediately! =P

I'm not sure whether or not you like the dub, so the Blu-ray sets may not be up your alley. Are you into the Faulconer track? I have a feeling it may be on this one, if that's your thing.

If you're a collector, then buy them both! But, yeah, to answer your question... getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes, while they're available, is absolutely worth it.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by Ringworm128 » Sat Sep 24, 2011 3:08 am

Unless the Blu Rays end up being better(which they probably won't). Get the DBOXs and NEVER go back.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by DemonRin » Sat Sep 24, 2011 5:36 am

It depends entirely on what you want.
You say cut scenes matter to you. So for that reason, I would DEFINITELY recommend getting at least DBox 2 as well as 1. At that point, if you have all the old singles and the ones from Ginyu-on are all uncut, you'll have the entire series unedited. Only those first discs by pioneer are edited-only, and they only went up to the start of the "Ginyu Saga". Once you get DBoxes 1 and 2 you have every Pioneer-released episode. Every DVD from then-on is uncut (assuming again, that the boxes to your volumes actually say "Uncut". FUNi never made any huge mistakes DVD wise, so there wasn't like an odd printing error that caused uncut sets to have edited footage or anything like that.

Now, as far as whether to continue or not, That's entirely up to you.

First off, the picture quality better on the DBoxes. Anyone here will attest. The old singles don't have the same major problems as the "Orange Brick" season sets, but there are still some issues.
One of which being that FUNi's video masters are slightly damaged on the tops and bottoms of the frames. Because of this, even the singles are cropped, however since they were cropped all around, the damage done by the cropping is much less than the cropping on the Orange Bricks (which cropped them to widescreen)
The DBoxes were based on Japanese film stock that was in much better condition, therefore they didn't have to Zoom like that so you get more picture on the DBoxes.
There was also the saturation. FUNi's Masters had slightly faded colors, especially by American cartoon standards. To make them more vibrant the way FUNi saw they needed to be, FUNi turned the saturation way up. This made the colors appear somewhat more vibrant but has the adverse effect of making the grain much more apparent.

I've done some screen shots for comparison:
(The only thing I've done is turned the brightness down 10% on the DBoxes to match NTSC/J. This should replicate how it looks on a TV)

Dragon Box ------------------------------- FUNi Singles
Image Image
(Notice how much of the thug on the side is missing in this one)
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
(Notice on these ones, in the single you can see the edges of the film frame in the upper left. This happens more often than you'd think.)
ImageImage
Image Image

Notice the more natural colors on the DBoxes vs the Over saturation on the singles. Also, notice each shot is missing at least some picture on the Singles compared to the DBoxes.
Also, something you can only see when watching in motion, but I noticed this straight away when watching to make these comparisons. The Singles have a TON more dirt and scratches on the frame.

I showed these to my best friend who, wasn't able to fully get into Dragon Ball (Stopped watching just after the Red Ribbon Army arc, in the middle of or at the end of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arc) so she has no pre-existent bias to any company or release, and this is what she had to say about it objectively:
"The authenticity is what it is. You can really see the organic authenticity of of the Dragon Boxes in comparison to the Singles in regards to colors. What I mean is, sure, it's a dated series and the colors are a tad faded, but it's authentic. That's the way the series was produced and it's more pleasurable to view it like that Vs. these obviously over-saturated singles. Plus, there are obvious bits missing from the singles. I'm not too into this series, but If my brother said to me tomorrow 'I want to see Dragon Ball', I'd go out and buy him the Dragon Boxes."

So, yeah, there.

Plus, Unless you prefer the Bruce Falconer music (which you've already said you do not feel particularly strong about one way or the other) then the Audio Quality is far superior on the DBoxes in both languages. The Japanese track is a MUCH clearer version with most of the aged clicks, pops, and hiss removed, plus the Dub track if you prefer that was encoded in 5.1 surround sound.

So really, the benefits are VERY high.

Plus, the singles are now huge collectors items because they're out of print, so you could easily either sell them on Ebay and make yourself a chunk of change, or retire them and just let them be a collectors item and watch your DBoxes.
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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by Piccolo Daimaoh » Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:03 am

If you haven't already got the rest of the Dragon Boxes, I would suggest waiting for the Blu-rays to be released. They look all right so far, but they could have some sort of defect. If I were you, I'd wait for a review to come out from someone who's knowledgeable about video remastering.


If you don't really care about the visuals, go for the Season Sets. They're by far the cheapest and most available releases. Some people on this forum detest them, but they're okay for someone who doesn't live and breathe Dragon Ball.

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by mikezilla2 » Mon Sep 26, 2011 2:16 am

nice comparison

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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by Metalwario64 » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:40 am

Piccolo Daimaoh wrote:If you don't really care about the visuals, go for the Season Sets. They're by far the cheapest and most available releases. Some people on this forum detest them, but they're okay for someone who doesn't live and breathe Dragon Ball.
...Why would he want to downgrade to the season sets, when he already has the single DVDs? I don't see why he'd want to collect the series again with 20% less footage.
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Re: Is getting the rest of the Dragon Boxes worth it?

Post by rereboy » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:17 am

Armymanis wrote:
DanielGClapp wrote:I would say go for it and get the Dragon Boxes. Not only are they the best release so far, but they are also a bit of an investment. Dragon Box 2 is already becoming somewhat hard to find, and I'm sure it won't stop there. The reason I like them so much is because I can own all episodes of DBZ, in near to perfect quality, all in one format. Also, I'm not sure if you have the Ocean dub or what, but at least the DBoxes are consistent as far as voice actors go. Another poster mentioned that if you like Bruce Faulcner, then you might not like the DBoxes. In that case I would suggest waiting to see if the blu-rays have his score. It's a lot better than settling for the orange bricks.
I don't have a blu-ray player, and don't plan to get one anytime soon until they go down in price. As far as not having the Bruce Faulcner music, I can live with it. Having the japanese music in there while watching the first Dragonball Z Dragonbox actually gave me a whole new look on the series :)
You can already buy bluray players for a little over $50: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMP-BD7 ... 976&sr=8-3

DVD players aren't that much cheaper... They are about $30. So, how much more down in price you want Bluray players to go?

Not to mention that all bluray players also act as DVD players (and CD players).

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