Bad sound quality for Japanese DB/DBZ

[kei17]

I guess what I was really trying to ask is, does Toei have any interest in obtaining his (or anyone else's) tapes for their own archive or future home releases? Do they want the better quality audio?

As far as I know, no they don't. They seem to be satisfied with what they currently have, and have no interest in something people outside the company have.

Or maybe the Dragon Box project was already underway or completed when they realized these tapes with superior audio existed, so they didn't have a chance to integrate the good audio into that release? This is the scenario I hope is true. Does anyone know if this is the case?

The one who is lending me the Betamax recordings said that he once had had a chance to speak with Toei's employee because he is a retailer, and complained about the muffled audio on the DVD release of Hokuto no Ken, but the employee had no idea what he was complaining about. On the other hand, I myself directly asked Toei about how old TV recordings sound better than their official releases, and they answered that they knew the fact at least. That is, some of them know the existences of better audio sources, but they don't feel the necessity to bother to deal with it.

so the original audio of GT is still officially available (but they didn't use it for the GT Dbox though).

Why?

Because they are dumb.

Seriously speaking, I guess most of the staff members who were involved with the series at the time have already transferred to other divisions or retired, so the current staff hardly has any ideas about the old series' materials that are stored in their storage. They seem to have noticed the sound issue of GT recently, and started syncing the original audio with the Dbox footage for Tokyo MX and BS Fuji's rebroadcasting.

[TonyTheTiger]

Even if someone had the 500+ episodes flawlessly recorded on VHS (or even Betamax) I have a hard time believing that during the show's entire run there weren't things like the odd interruptions that sometimes happen, overriding the audio to broadcast announcements. Sure, even if that accounts for upwards 10%, it'd be nice to have the majority of the show's fidelity back but it's probably asking a lot. It wasn't uncommon for cartoons from that era to actually make small editing changes between the initial broadcast and subsequent reruns, things that could conceivably mess with the timing. No matter how you slice it, it's unlikely to be a cut and paste job, especially since they reversed the NEPs and end credits. If we were talking a sub-100 episode series then a pet project like that could conceivably be in the cards. But for Dragon Ball it's a very large undertaking that only the die hards would likely appreciate. A concerted fan effort would have to make it happen first followed by an offer to just hand it to Toei before there'd be even a slight chance of seeing it on an official product.

[kei17]

Even if someone had the 500+ episodes flawlessly recorded on VHS (or even Betamax) I have a hard time believing that during the show's entire run there weren't things like the odd interruptions that sometimes happen, overriding the audio to broadcast announcements.

Some playback errors occurred on a few episodes, but they're not that serious that even I can fix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8fxdCVWCsY

Also, there are some newsflash beep sounds that inturrupt the show, but such beep sounds were added by each local channel, so you can remove them by collecting recordings from other regions. For example, this beep sound played at the beginning of DBZ episode 5 on Tokai TV, but it didn't play on Fuji TV.

It wasn't uncommon for cartoons from that era to actually make small editing changes between the initial broadcast and subsequent reruns, things that could conceivably mess with the timing.

Toei never did that kind of thing to the DB series (except for DBZ's first opening) because they had no plans for home video releases, so you don't have to worry about it.

[Puto]

In the worst-case scenario, you can always drop to the Dragon Box audio for those five seconds.

[eledoremassis02]

Really interesting seeing how different the video is

[Pretorious]

They seem to have noticed the sound issue of GT recently, and started syncing the original audio with the Dbox footage for Tokyo MX and BS Fuji's rebroadcasting.

A-ha! Someone there does care about the audio quality! This is what I have been digging to find out. I understand that using audio that Toei owns is much different than accepting a donation of an unofficial version from a fan and integrating it into the show...but this is a step in the right direction! I'll bet if they release GT again in the future, they'll use the high quality audio for that, at least. What do you think?

Even if someone had the 500+ episodes flawlessly recorded on VHS (or even Betamax) I have a hard time believing that during the show's entire run there weren't things like the odd interruptions that sometimes happen, overriding the audio to broadcast announcements.

Yeah, that's probably true. I remember those announcements popping up on some of my fansub tapes ("be-be-be-beep"). It would mean they would have to have an alternate version of the audio, like Kei's Tokai tapes (or, yeah, the Dragon Box audio, I guess), to stitch in for those parts. Yes, it would be a lot of work.

If we were talking a sub-100 episode series then a pet project like that could conceivably be in the cards. But for Dragon Ball it's a very large undertaking that only the die hards would likely appreciate. A concerted fan effort would have to make it happen first followed by an offer to just hand it to Toei before there'd be even a slight chance of seeing it on an official product.

True.

This is a ridiculous and way out there idea, but I wish they would just outsource the work to the fans! I think there are people on this forum with the motivation and skill and equipment to do it well, if only they had access to the audio. I'll bet their turnaround would be faster than Toei's, too. Then they could submit it to Toei and then they could mass market it. Yeah, I know...there's no way that would happen.

Realistically, the most we can do is constantly nag them by email or create a petition.Do you guys think there is much interest in a petition?

[edit: I just realized a lot of my post overlapped with Kei's. Sorry about that. I type too slow.]

[kei17]

By the way, even if they decide not to use TV recordings from the audiences, they can at least use the clear-sounding audio for DBZ episodes 2, 229, and 237 because these episodes were released on compact cassette and CD by Columbia Japan. Episode 2 was included on an unspecified compact cassette, and the CD included in Big Box contains episodes 229 and 237. Columbia must have copied the original audio to 6mm reel-to-reel tapes when they produced them, and I suppose they still have such copies.

DBZ episode 229 with the "Big Box" CD's audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7OE-FfIhI

[Pretorious]

DBZ episode 229 with the "Big Box" CD's audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7OE-FfIhI

Holy damn. That is the version of Dragon Ball I want.

[IAmTheMilkMan]

I've never really been bothered by the lower quality of the Japanese audio as I figured that it was the best possible audio available and there was nothing I could do about it; simply a product of its time and I was okay with that. However, once I stumbled upon these comparisons, I was very surprised to hear the difference in quality, especially since the source was a VHS recording. Even so, I'm not surprised that Toei didn't go out of their way to find VHS/Betamax sources when releasing the Dragon Boxes, as that would have been a very time consuming and, probably, expensive process, especially considering the high number of episodes that they were dealing with. Sounds more like a fan-project to me.

[ThunderPX]

I actually know of one project that compiled a boatload of audio tracks in different languages, including original broadcast audio that they somehow got their hands on. Unfortunately they never got past episode 2, it seems. :\

[Puto]

I actually know of one project that compiled a boatload of audio tracks in different languages, including original broadcast audio that they somehow got their hands on. Unfortunately they never got past episode 2, it seems. :\

We got the broadcast audio from kei17, but synchronising 17 audio tracks per episode proved to be too much work, so the project ended up being dropped.

[AnimeMaakuo]

.

[Puto]

No, synchronising the broadcast audio is worth it. But synchronising 16 dubs? Not so much.

[Fulicer]

Do you guys have JUST the original broadcast recordings of Dragon Ball Z? What about the original Dragon Ball show? That would be a rare find.

[kei17]

Do you guys have JUST the original broadcast recordings of Dragon Ball Z? What about the original Dragon Ball show? That would be a rare find.

I've got only the first seven episodes. It's far more difficult to find those who have the original DB.

[Fulicer]

Do you guys have JUST the original broadcast recordings of Dragon Ball Z? What about the original Dragon Ball show? That would be a rare find.

I've got only the first seven episodes. It's far more difficult to find those who have the original DB.

That's a pity. I imagine that you already spent some time looking for them though.

[usotsuki]

The DBZ resynch just got out of control with everyone wanting me to add this dub, that dub, and the video edits I felt were necessary, plus restoring previews, etc. I suppose if I did something simpler I wouldn't burn out so hard.

I have vobbage of the R2 Dragon Box but only starting at episode 123. I could probably try to pick up from there since an HD release doesn't seem likely that far out.

I'm considering the possibility of using Dragon Box GT with the TMX/BS Fuji audio but I'd want to fix the Toei Sky Syndrome, and I don't really know how to do a good job of that.

[SephirothFF]

Mad props to you guys working on a project to sync the original Japanese broadcast audio with dragon boxes. Just wondering if there is any way I can help or get a status update or eventually pay to get the broadcast audio tracks?

[Fulicer]

Mad props to you guys working on a project to sync the original Japanese broadcast audio with dragon boxes. Just wondering if there is any way I can help or get a status update or eventually pay to get the broadcast audio tracks?

They would probably get in more trouble if there was a cost associated with it.

[SephirothFF]

Mad props to you guys working on a project to sync the original Japanese broadcast audio with dragon boxes. Just wondering if there is any way I can help or get a status update or eventually pay to get the broadcast audio tracks?

They would probably get in more trouble if there was a cost associated with it.

Sure - that makes sense. Any plans to distribute the audio?