Dragon Box , Personal Verdict

[batistabus]

It's kind of frustrating being a fan of the Japanese version of the show in America. Most of my friends that grew up with the show find no fault in the Z dub, and resent all or most of the changes made in Kai's dub. Even though this forum is more passionate and dedicated than the average Youtube crusader (for the original FUNimation and Ocean dubs), it's unfortunate that the dub community is likely larger (again, at least in the States).

FUNimation has been making positive changes lately, but they seem to receive nothing but backlash from dub fans. When plenty of people on this forum have been waiting for an accurate portrayal of the series for decades (way longer than I have), it's a little infuriating when others prefer (and demand) an inferior product.

So what does that mean? There's no compromise. Sub fans will never prefer the choices that were made when producing the Z dub, and we can only hope that FUNimation stays it's current course. That, and hope that people who were originally fans of the Z dub find there way here, and end up converting themselves (like myself).

To us, the changes once made by FUNimation are disrespectful to the source material. For a series that is so close to all of us, we apologize if we can take it personally sometimes.

[LordCrumb]

There are ways to express opinions, and there are ways to not do so.

I would encourage everyone to re-read the forum rules, which you agreed to (twice!) prior to registration. If the sense of shonen camaraderie is not your style, keep in mind that posting here is a privilege, and not a right.

A series of warnings and temporary bans have been issued. I hate this part. We don't have to do it often, and I'm so beyond thankful to the larger community that you don't make this a general part of my life. It's stupid. It's lame. It makes everyone look dumb. Why would anyone want that?

I certainly didn't want to ruffle any feathers, which is why I never claimed the Jap track was bad, or that the English track was better.

[coola]

While i also would prefer, if Funi Dragon Boxes include American music in dub, i can understand, why they didn`t, Orange Bricks probably wouldn`t sell as well.

[Ringworm128]

I'm just saying that if you don't respect the product as it was intended, I find it difficult to consider you a fan of said product.

Think of the Funimation dub as a separate product. The fans simply prefer THAT product over the original.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

You did nothing wrong; Penguintruth was looking for conflict where there was none. What I got was "Colors are nice but not perfect, shame the Falcouner score didn't make it, but I understand why." Sounds like a far more positive than negative take, and you wouldn't be the only here to hold both of those concessions.

Marc, how much bitrate would actually be lost if the dub score was added; I took a recording of the 5.1 track off season 3 and it ran at 7.5 mbps. Granted recording isn't the best way to track it, but unless the Season Set's video quality really doesn't need an optimal bitrate to begin with I'm not seeing an easy stupid person's (Setting myself up for the fall here!) reason for why it's an issue.

[samuraix123]

You did nothing wrong; Penguintruth was looking for conflict where there was none. What I got was "Colors are nice but not perfect, shame the Falcouner score didn't make it, but I understand why." Sounds like a far more positive than negative take, and you wouldn't be the only here to hold both of those concessions.

Marc, how much bitrate would actually be lost if the dub score was added; I took a recording of the 5.1 track off season 3 and it ran at 7.5 mbps. Granted recording isn't the best way to track it, but unless the Season Set's video quality really doesn't need an optimal bitrate to begin with I'm not seeing an easy stupid person's (Setting myself up for the fall here!) reason for why it's an issue.

I too am intrested now how much would be lost and would it have a major effect on the quality?

[OutlawTorn]

In my own personal opinion, a "hardcore" fan is anybody willing to spend their money to purchase the entire series, but the way some people throw it around it is almost as bad as saying "true fan." You know, when people can't think of anything to support their arguments so they throw out "only a true fan would..." to make it sound like their opinion is the only one that matters. I agree to disagree.

If you spend hundreds of dollars to watch a version of the show that in many ways isn't the show, it's a bit of a stretch to call yourself a fan of the show.

I not only spent my money on the anime, but also the manga, not just the collected editions but also the individual issues before they were discontinued. I have my own reasons for preferring to watch the Dragon Ball in English, but whether or not a dub is good or not does not invalidate my being a fan of the franchise any more than fans of the Japanese version of Beast Wars are "Beast Wars" fans, despite the Japanese dub making story and character changes just as bad as the DBZ dub. It is simply not our place to put any sort of label on fans of a version we may not like.

I was certainly thrilled when the DBZ season sets introduced the Kikuchi score with the English dub and it has become my primary way to watch the show. I'm sorry the dub evokes so many bad feelings for fans of the Japanese version but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I don't consider myself an "inferior" fan nor do I consider people who prefer the Japanese version to be "superior" to everybody else, it just doesn't affect my own enjoyment that someone who I will likely never even meet in real life absolutely hates the dub and I find it baffling why anybody would waste energy doing so.

[VegettoEX]

There's no need to continue a conversation that had no place in this thread in the first place and has been resolved by administrator/moderator activity. Please relate all future comments and contributions toward the original post. Thanks.

[TripleRach]

Marc, how much bitrate would actually be lost if the dub score was added; I took a recording of the 5.1 track off season 3 and it ran at 7.5 mbps. Granted recording isn't the best way to track it, but unless the Season Set's video quality really doesn't need an optimal bitrate to begin with I'm not seeing an easy stupid person's (Setting myself up for the fall here!) reason for why it's an issue.

The season sets washed out a lot of the details and grain. So I would think they'd require less bitrate than the Dragon Boxes, which have far more detail, and thus more video data to worry about.

[MarcFBR]

Marc, how much bitrate would actually be lost if the dub score was added; I took a recording of the 5.1 track off season 3 and it ran at 7.5 mbps. Granted recording isn't the best way to track it, but unless the Season Set's video quality really doesn't need an optimal bitrate to begin with I'm not seeing an easy stupid person's (Setting myself up for the fall here!) reason for why it's an issue.

Before I comment on anything you just said, I'll just ask one question first, to confirm something before I comment.

Are you saying you recorded the 5.1 audio off season 3, and that audio ran at 7.5mbps?

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Are you saying you recorded the 5.1 audio off season 3, and that audio ran at 7.5mbps?

Ha ha. Whoa, just realized I didn't specify what was what. No, video at 7.5 mbps, audio at 448 kbps, for just under 8 mbps total. I was wondering because I didn't think the calculation would be as simple as subtracting say, 256 kbps from the video bitrate, because that wouldn't be a a great loss.

[MarcFBR]

Are you saying you recorded the 5.1 audio off season 3, and that audio ran at 7.5mbps?

Ha ha. Whoa, just realized I didn't specify what was what. No, video at 7.5 mbps, audio at 448 kbps, for just under 8 mbps total. I was wondering because I didn't think the calculation would be as simple as subtracting say, 256 kbps from the video bitrate, because that wouldn't be a a great loss.

Just checking.

The truth of the matter is, 192k (the amount they'd most likely use for a 2.0 stereo track) likely wouldn't make much difference. It certainly wouldn't make much difference in the averages. Where I'm concerned, is the rare scenes that need as much as possible. 200k isn't a lot, but MPEG2 has never scaled that well. It likely wouldn't make to much of a difference. But (assuming I'm remembering my numbers right), they already were using 544 for the other 2 audio tracks combined. Adding another 192 means instead of reserving (rough numbers here) 5% for audio, you are reserving around 7.5%. 2.5% isn't a lot, but the place it potentially would make the biggest difference wouldn't have it available. (your 7.5M is likely an average your player software decided on by scanning the entire file, if accurate. I don't feel like pulling out my disks to check to see if it's an accurate number.)

It likely wouldn't make much difference, but there are potentially other reasons to leave it off. But I can still see another 2.5% for video being enough.

[OutlawTorn]

Hypothetically speaking, had each disc contained a maximum of six episodes, would the additional space have made the inclusion of the English 2.0 track possible without any issues?

[Soul]

In terms of having the US score, in terms of fans of it? It would've made it the perfect package.
Added, I myself? I always loved the softer colors and the pink skin tones here and there; makes sense for these muscle bound guys in the heat of battle overheating a bit.
But, really? In terms of the score? I made a thread a year or 2 back, and I still find it funny. That fans of the US DBZ broadcast score can say they like and enjoy the original Dragon Ball anime and the score not bothering them, but saying it doesn't suit DBZ's score.

[MarcFBR]

Hypothetically speaking, had each disc contained a maximum of six episodes, would the additional space have made the inclusion of the English 2.0 track possible without any issues?

We aren't discussing disk space. The DVD-Video standard has a maximum bitrate it can store for any given 'second' of content. For ease of explanation, let's call this '10' (and let's ignore any complexity subtitles may add, just mentioning audio and video.)

So you have '10' total.
Let's say you have .75 worth of audio (split over 3 audio tracks.)
Video can never go above 9.25 for any reason.

So lowering how many episodes appears on a disk would not affect this at all.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

In my own personal opinion, a "hardcore" fan is anybody willing to spend their money to purchase the entire series

So, I'm not a true fan?

[AnimeMaakuo]

.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

In my own personal opinion, a "hardcore" fan is anybody willing to spend their money to purchase the entire series

So, I'm not a true fan?

He didn't necessarily say that you're not a true fan.

By his standards, I'm not.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

By his standards, I'm not.

He said someone unwilling to spend their money on the entirety of the series isn't a "hardcore" fan, not that they're not a "true" fan.

[OutlawTorn]

In my own personal opinion, a "hardcore" fan is anybody willing to spend their money to purchase the entire series

So, I'm not a true fan?

I actually hate the term "true fan" and don't think it actually exists. You're either a fan or you're not. Far too often, I've seen people sling "true fan" to make their arguments seem like the definitive ones which everybody must agree with. (Note: I'm not saying it happens here, but places like YouTube and the like)

As it was FUNimation who introduced the term "hardcore fan" with the release of the Dragon Boxes, there are some who would read that as "hardcore = fan of the Japanese" but if you're willing to purchase the whole series, you're a "hardcore" fan regardless of which language you want to watch or read it in. To go one step further, you'd be a "hardcore" fan simply by reading the manga from start to finish and/or watching each episode of the anime.

I don't think there's a rigid definition for "hardcore" just as I don't think there should be any perceptions of there being "superior" or "inferior" fans. Such labels do absolutely nothing when it comes to our personal enjoyment so why should we empower them?