Original Broadcast Dragon Ball Audio

[AnimeMaakuo]

I've been debating this for quite some while now, but I can't seem to get a hold of anybody who's willing to digitize my Betamax recordings of Dragon Ball. My friend who's supplying me with these tapes is currently unavailable until his business trip is over. Once I have received them all it would be highly appreciated if somebody could preform this task for me. Thanks.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Which episodes do you have for now?

[OmegaRockman]

Try recording them onto DVDs with a DVD Player that has that feature and then rip the DVDs. Or are you concerned about damaging the tapes?

[sangofe]

I've been debating this for quite some while now, but I can't seem to get a hold of anybody who's willing to digitize my Betamax recordings of Dragon Ball. My friend who's supplying me with these tapes is currently unavailable until his business trip is over. Once I have received them all it would be highly appreciated if somebody could preform this task for me. Thanks.

Well, you should buy a really good video capture card and do it yourself. I really wouldn't recommend you to send the tapes to someone on internet you don't know personally and trust a lot. Besides, sending them in mail is a risk by itself.

[Blade]

I've been debating this for quite some while now, but I can't seem to get a hold of anybody who's willing to digitize my Betamax recordings of Dragon Ball. My friend who's supplying me with these tapes is currently unavailable until his business trip is over. Once I have received them all it would be highly appreciated if somebody could preform this task for me. Thanks.

Well, you should buy a really good video capture card and do it yourself. I really wouldn't recommend you to send the tapes to someone on internet you don't know personally and trust a lot. Besides, sending them in mail is a risk by itself.

I second this. The relative expense of acquiring a betamax player and a video capture card is nothing in comparison to the value of those tapes if the quality of recording they hold is as good as you say.

If the audio is the primary concern and actually capturing the video itself isn't essential I'd suggest that the best possible way to proceed would be to get your hands on a decent A/D converter. Good Firewire and USB audio interfaces can be acquired relatively inexpensively now, and something like a Focusrite Saffire, which has pretty impressively clean pre-amps for the price, would do the job. Ideally this would be a task that would be best suited to the converters of a well equipped recording or post-production studio, but obviously cost is an object here.

In regards to software and encoding I can certainly advise you as to how you can proceed in the most loss-less fashion in regard to audio at least, which is my specialty via training and trade.

[dbboxkaifan]

DVD Recordable Player is the easiest and cheapest way of doing so. In this case you'll then need to re-rip it on the PC and so on.

Kei17 might could be useful to you but he's in Japan so wouldn't that be a bit too much?

[Blade]

DVD Recordable Player is the easiest and cheapest way of doing so. In this case you'll then need to re-rip it on the PC and so on.

Kei17 might could be useful to you but he's in Japan so wouldn't that be a bit too much?

Easiest, yes - but pretty lossy when it comes to audio quality (presuming we're talking about consumer-end DVD recorders). The purpose of the exercise is to get the best possible audio quality from the tapes, this method isn't a particularly good way of doing that.

[sangofe]

Also, I'm sure than more than one person would donate for this project if you shared the audio at least. I know I would.

[superrayman3]

DVD Recordable Player is the easiest and cheapest way of doing so. In this case you'll then need to re-rip it on the PC and so on.

Kei17 might could be useful to you but he's in Japan so wouldn't that be a bit too much?

Easiest, yes - but pretty lossy when it comes to audio quality (presuming we're talking about consumer-end DVD recorders). The purpose of the exercise is to get the best possible audio quality from the tapes, this method isn't a particularly good way of doing that.

I agree with Blade, while it's easiest to use a consumer end DVD recordable player to digitize VHS/Betamax, the audio quality (if the audio is what matters which in this case it does) could lose its fidelity in the process, the best method to use IMO is to use a capture device and a recording software to capture the audio, now if you're new to digitizing VHS/Betamax and are planning to use the method I mentioned, here's some things you need to know in advance, getting the capture device and a normal working VHS player are the easiest things to acquire (VHS players are so common and abundant that you can usually find a working one for around $20 maybe even lower), getting a working Betamax player for a reasonable price (if you don't already have one) on the other hand is a much bigger hurtle to clear because Betamax players aren't as common or abundant as VHS players but once you do it'll be worth it.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Such recordings are now probably the one and only source of good quality audio. There is need to do ripping job best as possible. I would do it like this:
1. Get best Betamax player
2. Plug analog Audio Out into Line In of good soundcard (for example: ASUS Xonar DX - 112dB SNR and 0,0004% THD+N for Line In)
3. Use 96kHz/24bit PCM recording (studio quality)
4. Encode to some lossless format (for saving space)

Masters like this should be copied, preserved somewhere and used to produce Dolby Digital 192-448kbps audio tracks for episodes. As we know, Toei is cheap and lazy. If someone would offer them "digital masters" instead of Betamax tapes, maybe they would be more interested.

[superrayman3]

Such recordings are now probably the one and only source of good quality audio. There is need to do ripping job best as possible. I would do it like this:
1. Get best Betamax player

That's easier said than done for a few reasons, first off what one would consider "the best" Betamax player depends entirely on what a person perceives as "the best" with each persons preference being highly subjective, second if by "the best" you mean a high end Betamax player, all I can say is good luck finding one without breaking the bank.

2. Plug analog Audio Out into Line In of good soundcard (for example: ASUS Xonar DX - 112dB SNR and 0,0004% THD+N for Line In)

Most sound cards on today's PC's should be more than good enough to do a high quality audio backup.

3. Use 96kHz/24bit PCM recording (studio quality)
4. Encode to some lossless format (for saving space)

No arguments with either of these two points.

Masters like this should be copied, preserved somewhere and used to produce Dolby Digital 192-448kbps audio tracks for episodes.

Agreed audio that's has quality like the betamax's should be copied, preserved, and used to make high quality Dolby Digital 192-448kbps audio tracks for the episodes.

As we know, Toei is cheap and lazy.

There's no doubt about that they didn't even attempt to do any color correction to the footage.

If someone would offer them "digital masters" instead of Betamax tapes, maybe they would be more interested.

Yeah dealing with psychical media is a bigger hassle than digital media is, so if digital audio masters were offered to Toei instead of the Betamax tapes they might be more willing to use them.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

That's easier said than done for a few reasons, first off what one would consider "the best" Betamax player depends entirely on what a person perceives as "the best" with each persons preference being highly subjective, second if by "the best" you mean a high end Betamax player, all I can say is good luck finding one without breaking the bank.

For me, there is no such thing as "each persons preference" when it comes to technical parameters. Of course I mean getting "best" also in terms of reasonable price

Most sound cards on today's PC's should be more than good enough to do a high quality audio backup.

Many of integrated sound cards have ~85dB SNR, which is not good value. They also have much more THD. We are talking about original broadcast audio of Dragon Ball here!

There's no doubt about that they didn't even attempt to do any color correction to the footage.

BTW, I'm not believing in this all "aging of the film"*. I'm almost sure that colors were "corrected" like that in remastering process. It's obvious that they will never admit that. There was only ~7 years gap between last episodes of Z and Dragon Boxes release. Original films from WWII don't have color issues like this.

* - totally stupid theory. Original film prints were degraded by the time.

[Blade]

Most sound cards on today's PC's should be more than good enough to do a high quality audio backup.

Not when we're looking to capture as much quality as cleanly possible to a professional standard. The A/D conversion on consumer level sound-cards wont be up to the job, an external firewire or USB audio interface aimed at the home-studio market for producers and musicians is an infinitely superior choice.

[kei17]

I always use audioquest's cheetah to connect VCRs with the PC and record audio with Onkyo's SE-200PCI and Adobe Audition in 96kHz / 32bit float. I think my system still does not meet the professional standard at all, though.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

I always use audioquest's cheetah to connect VCRs with the PC and record audio with Onkyo's SE-200PCI and Adobe Audition in 96kHz / 32bit float. I think my system still does not meet the professional standard at all, though.

I think that your system is still ten times better than equipment used by TAVAC when they produced mono masters for TV broadcast. Don't forget about transmitting/receiving/recording and playing which also degrades quality.

[Blade]

I always use audioquest's cheetah to connect VCRs with the PC and record audio with Onkyo's SE-200PCI and Adobe Audition in 96kHz / 32bit float. I think my system still does not meet the professional standard at all, though.

I agree. That's an audiophile-class piece of hardware (your sound-card), but more for D/A than A/D.

In my home studio setup I use an Audient ASP008 pre into a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 for A/D into ProTools, but even this setup is passable at professional level at best, I primarily only do any home recording for touching up or post production on projects out of the studio.

[kei17]

In my home studio setup I use an Audient ASP008 pre into a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 for A/D into ProTools, but even this setup is passable at professional level at best, I primarily only do any home recording for touching up or post production on projects out of the studio.

I envy you, really. The only professional machines I use are VCRs: AG-7750, SVO-5800, and EDV-9000 (a betamax recorder released as both consumer and pro.)

[Fulicer]

I've been debating this for quite some while now, but I can't seem to get a hold of anybody who's willing to digitize my Betamax recordings of Dragon Ball. My friend who's supplying me with these tapes is currently unavailable until his business trip is over. Once I have received them all it would be highly appreciated if somebody could preform this task for me. Thanks.

Did you say that you had access to the entire run of DB? If so, then that would include the original Dragon Ball episodes before Z. I don't even think that kei17 has access to that portion (maybe a small part of it). It would be interesting to hear a sample of the sound quality of those early episodes, assume your digital mastering works out. And they are on betamax too!

[AnimeMaakuo]

Did you say that you had access to the entire run of DB?

Yes. He has episodes 1-153 on Betamax.

If so, then that would include the original Dragon Ball episodes before Z. I don't even think that kei17 has access to that portion (maybe a small part of it). It would be interesting to hear a sample of the sound quality of those early episodes, assume your digital mastering works out. And they are on betamax too!

I've already sent out a message to a friend who will be digitizing my tapes as soon as they become available to me.

[superrayman3]

I've already sent out a message to a friend who will be digitizing my tapes as soon as they become available to me.

Congrats on finding someone to digitize the tapes AnimeMaakuo.