Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" On Blu-ray: News & Discussion

[penguintruth]

samuraix, you're greatly overestimating the degree to which the casual fan cares about cropping...which is to say, they don't. They just want 16x9 to fill up the widescreen TV's. The season sets consistently sell like hotcakes. If the cropping was such a huge dealbreaker to the general audience, this wouldn't be the case at all.

Exactly. Because the average fan is a gibbering simpleton, who you can wave your keys in front of and they'll buy nine copies.

Fact is, even if the fans knew the show was never meant to be 16:9, they wouldn't care, because they lack the mental acuity to process what that implies.

Funimation just fosters this by continuing to treat the costumer as if they know what's best for them, because they can easily be manipulated. Hell, they finally gave us an accurate English dub when they did Kai, and people bitched that it wasn't like their cropped widescreen squint fests with the rock music and the "cool" speeches. Let's face it, DBZ doesn't exactly have the most enlightened fanbase.

They're taking a step backwards with this release, and people are just going to allow it, because why not? Why have standards, right?

[KaiserNeko]

They're taking a step backwards with this release, and people are just going to allow it, because why not? Why have standards, right?

No, we have HD. That's why we're in this mess to begin with, duh!

[TheWhiz]

♫ Tonight we're gonna party like it's 2-0-0-7 ♫

That comment is so full of win.

[TheWhiz]

Via WTK

Widescreen ...

No no no no no not this shit again

I get the feeling this is the Orange Bricks upscaled to Blu-Ray. This is bad.

[TheWhiz]

I can't wait for the next release where they take 8th gen VHS fansub copies and call it the Bootleg Edition.

Complete with those little messages from fansubbers that dig at the other fansubbers!

Then, who knows? The International Channel Edition? The Westwood Edition? The third Blu-Ray release after the abandon this one where it's just Gen Fukunaga waving his junk in your face while Chris Sabat hums Bruce Faulconer music and Sean Schemmel reads original dub dialogue?

Let's just have Sonny Strait beamed into our brains for 24 Hour Krillinwashing. "It's Mondo Cool, now you're our tool!"

That comment almost killed me. I was laughing so hard

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Via WTK

Widescreen ...

No no no no no not this shit again

I get the feeling this is the Orange Bricks upscaled to Blu-Ray. This is bad.

Personally I don't think so, I also think there may have been a lot of damage to the masters they have where if it stayed in 4:3 it could have looked bad. But again, other than 16:9 this is a new remaster.
As long as they don't fuck up(other than the aspect ratio) and auto restore it ala orange bricks I'm fine.
I'll pick up the first release and compare it, hell I'll even buy the orange bricks to compare it to since it's dirt cheap.

The # of disks also indicates quality(maybe), if it was just an upscale they could have just dumped the data on a single double layered blu-ray.

[dprez]

I had high hopes for this but after reading through this thread not so much. Was never all that interested in getting the series on Blu-ray, perhaps Kai later on, but the Z Dragon Boxes are fine for me.

I'm interested to see these when they release and how the sell, but aside from that I feel the same as everyone else here, this is a major disappointment and likely is a result of the survey. Which is another let down, since I had hoped the survey would have gotten us something other than Z...

Z is all that matters to them, and they can't even get that right for the fans. Poor folks who missed out on the Dragon Box and want a quality and complete Dragon Ball Z release are basically screwed, and left to wait and wonder. FUNi is unpredictable and I'm pretty much done hoping for more Dragon Boxes, and definitely done waiting for them.

Dragon Ball and the Z Movies are what I want now. No more Z, and if more Z then 4:3 please. Fail. I know there are solid releases of what I want out there, but I like others was hoping for Dragon Box quality. Sadly that doesn't look like it's gonna happen. I'm done with Z, but a complete and quality release would be nice for those who need it, too bad this isn't looking so good.

[G1GACANN0N]

So, who here has the Z movies on Blu-ray? What do you think of the quality? Those at least are in proper AR at 16:9 as the movies were originally animated at 1.85:1 for theatrical exhibition.

[Ajay]

So, who here has the Z movies on Blu-ray? What do you think of the quality? Those at least are in proper AR at 16:9 as the movies were originally animated at 1.85:1 for theatrical exhibition.

This is off-topic but sure, I'll answer.

The Blu-Ray transfer is...okay, I guess. The clarity is there but there seems to be some mild DNR leaving the grain very blurry and it can be quite distracting at times. Colours are a little too dark and the contrast is heavy so there's that too.

Audio quality for the Japanese track is ass. I have the Dragon Box movie set and the difference is pretty big so if you're looking for clear audio for that track, this product isn't for you.

I'd say it's worth picking up since it's the only western release worth your time for the movies but all in all, it has its fair share of flaws.

[eledoremassis02]

Personally I don't think so, I also think there may have been a lot of damage to the masters they have where if it stayed in 4:3 it could have looked bad. But again, other than 16:9 this is a new remaster.
As long as they don't fuck up(other than the aspect ratio) and auto restore it ala orange bricks I'm fine.

The damaged film always interests me. Are they using the same masters used for the level sets? I have to re watch the making of's but it does not seem they were that damaged? If it's the top and bottom, couldn't they zoom in a bit while still keeping the 4:3?

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Personally I don't think so, I also think there may have been a lot of damage to the masters they have where if it stayed in 4:3 it could have looked bad. But again, other than 16:9 this is a new remaster.
As long as they don't fuck up(other than the aspect ratio) and auto restore it ala orange bricks I'm fine.

The damaged film always interests me. Are they using the same masters used for the level sets? I have to re watch the making of's but it does not seem they were that damaged? If it's the top and bottom, couldn't they zoom in a bit while still keeping the 4:3?

The damage could have come from later episodes, but it's an unknown sadly... If it's pan&scan stretched to 16x9 this could be interesting but without seeing any screenshots or footage all we're doing is speculating. We don't know what process was used, it could be the same process but editing 20% less video over 291 episodes could save a crap ton of money. I'm hoping they just pan scan streatched to 16x9, I've had several dvds where that's been the case and I just had to switch the aspect ratio to 4x3 to solve the problem.

I don't mind dragon ball being in 16x9 if it's done properly(not that kai was great either in 16x9...)
Now as long as we can stay away from the orange bricks video wise I think this will do well, the cropping to me wasn't the issue it was the crappy video quality.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=13383

[jjgp1112]

samuraix, you're greatly overestimating the degree to which the casual fan cares about cropping...which is to say, they don't. They just want 16x9 to fill up the widescreen TV's. The season sets consistently sell like hotcakes. If the cropping was such a huge dealbreaker to the general audience, this wouldn't be the case at all.

Exactly. Because the average fan is a gibbering simpleton, who you can wave your keys in front of and they'll buy nine copies.

Fact is, even if the fans knew the show was never meant to be 16:9, they wouldn't care, because they lack the mental acuity to process what that implies.

Funimation just fosters this by continuing to treat the costumer as if they know what's best for them, because they can easily be manipulated. Hell, they finally gave us an accurate English dub when they did Kai, and people bitched that it wasn't like their cropped widescreen squint fests with the rock music and the "cool" speeches. Let's face it, DBZ doesn't exactly have the most enlightened fanbase.

They're taking a step backwards with this release, and people are just going to allow it, because why not? Why have standards, right?

Mental acuity? No, it's just total apathy. That's just not an important enough aspect to a regular customer as long as it doesn't hurt the viewing experience. Lord knows I wouldn't have given a shit if I never started posting here.

[eledoremassis02]

That is also true. If we can get Level set (or equivalent) in 16x9 it might not be bad at all.

I just popped in the level set for a second and forgot how awesome it was..the one things that really jarring me now is the Audio. If I could get the broadcast Audio for these episodes it would be by far the perfect release with a score of 99.9% (Needs optional Japanese title cards lol)

[samuraix123]

I am just hoping that the lines of animation don't disappear again. there's no excuse for that.

[qjz123]

When is Funimation going to officially announce these? I want to see some trailers.

[Kakarot88]

Been rewatching my blue bricks of dragon ball and working my way back to Z only to realize when I get there I'm gonna go from 4:3 to 16:9 again, but with no blu ray savior in sight...where's my pitch fork ?! Lets storm the Funimation castle!

[KingofWisdom]

Well, IIRC, we didn't see any official trailer for FUNimation's Rock the Dragon set until the month prior to its release.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

That is also true. If we can get Level set (or equivalent) in 16x9 it might not be bad at all.

I just popped in the level set for a second and forgot how awesome it was..the one things that really jarring me now is the Audio. If I could get the broadcast Audio for these episodes it would be by far the perfect release with a score of 99.9% (Needs optional Japanese title cards lol)

If they use less blacks I think it'll turn out great, Goku's blu shirt was almost black lol.
What just crossed my head was, what if they were releasing 2 versions, 1 in 16x9 and 1 in 4x3? That wouldn't be too far of a stretch now would it?

[Gonstead]

If they actually gave us the option to watch either in 4:3 or in 16:9 on the same release (And not two separate releases), I'd probably buy it.

Hell, if it pleases both sides, why not do it?

[Kakarot88]

If they actually gave us the option to watch either in 4:3 or in 16:9 on the same release (And not two separate releases), I'd probably buy it.

Hell, if it pleases both sides, why not do it?

Hahaha and then in turns out the 4:3 is a crop of the 16:9 crop of the original...I wouldn't be surprised.