Alright, here's where I disagree. And I'll be polite about this.In the end, you should be fucking kissing Gen Fukanuga's toes. Because it isn't often that a dubber will include two EXTRA audio tracks, and subtitles, on their products, and still sell it at the same damn price. If you look at ANY other dubbed release (Trigun comes to mind,) that has done this, you will note that those discs sell between $20.00 and $25.00, while FUNi releases at $14.00, which is not only consumer friendly, but they are actually taking profit loss as a result of it. (marginal, but it's there.)
FUNi discs for DBZ MSRP at $24.95 for 3-4 episodes. Poor quality, particularly in terms of QC, which upgraded to good over time, low bitrates and alteration of the source material in terms of bad filter application (sharpening, color saturation), dub-only originally and became subtitled when FUNi realized they'd get a greater share of the market. They can be found for $14-16 dollars a piece at Best Buy, less online.
Trigun MSRP'd for $29.99 for 3-4 episodes. Good discs, some initial encoding glitches (minor rainbows, composite masters) that were corrected within a couple of discs. They were released as a box, then re-released for $19.95 a piece. They're also being re-released with a 5.1 soundtrack (and from reviews, remastered video, but I dunno. My copy should ship soon) for $89.98 for 14 episodes, but can be found for ~$62.00.
So, let's be fair here. FUNi ain't exactly breaking any barriers in the 'bang for your buck' department. Also, if FUNi is taking a hit on the DVD releases, Bandai must be dying from their 5.1 Cowboy Bebop releases which can be found for $20 at Best Buy for 4-5 episodes. So, forgive me, but I don't buy that in the least. Especially given that I've done discs that exceed many of FUNi's releases, in terms of menu design, subtitle overlays and timing, etc. in a program that I bought for $199.
I'm not contesting the fact that bootlegs are wrong (as I told our friend here when he PM'd me), but just get the facts right before telling people to 'kiss Gen's toes'.
Danke schon, that is all.
-Corey
P.S. - I know some people get tired of this topic, but if you're gonna have a DBZ community you have to expect people to talk about DBZ products. Lock it if you want, I'm just giving my view.
