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

[qjz123]

Why did Funimation remove the trailer only a couple of hours after its release? Was it because it was to soon or was it because of the really bad fan reaction to it? Maybe Funimation is trying to keep our expectations as low as possible to the point where anything would look better than what they showed us in the trailer. If Funimation had shown us the level sets selectively cropped to 16:9 a lot of people would still hate it because it was cropped but after seeing how bad the footage in the trailer looked anything would be an improvement and even though it was cropped it would be deemed acceptable by most simply because it looked so much better than what was shown in the trailer. I don't know it was just a thought that crossed my mind.

[KingofWisdom]

I could see that. If that trailer is a genuine representation of the product, then they would avoid uploading it early at all costs. The opinion floating around is already very negative.

[funrush]

Why did Funimation remove the trailer only a couple of hours after its release? Was it because it was to soon or was it because of the really bad fan reaction to it? Maybe Funimation is trying to keep our expectations as low as possible to the point where anything would look better than what they showed us in the trailer. If Funimation had shown us the level sets selectively cropped to 16:9 a lot of people would still hate it because it was cropped but after seeing how bad the footage in the trailer looked anything would be an improvement and even though it was cropped it would be deemed acceptable by most simply because it looked so much better than what was shown in the trailer. I don't know it was just a thought that crossed my mind.

I'm guessing
A) Too early
B) That whole thing about them not being sure if they wanted to go with 16:9
C) Bad fan reaction

And I've been absent for a lot of the thread, so I kinda want to put my two cents in here, just my opinions. These sets don't look good. First strike is cropping, second is that awful saturation (the level's colors were awesome? And basically everything about that release if you weren't picky about credits, title cards, and NEP's?), and the third is that blur job. Honestly, the only thing about the remastering process in this release that is tolerable to me is the grain removal, and I still would prefer the grain version.

Does anyone know what exactly went into the level's remaster process? Was it just clean-ups of the fluids/debris/damages on the film, or did they do more? Because honestly, I would easily fork over cash for that film just with the damages removed. I wish Funimation would realize that it wasn't the product that made the levels not sell up to their par, but it was timing, and the way they released it. If they just waited until now, or shortly after now (as soon as people's wallets were cooled off by the dboxes and getting sick of their orange bricks), and released them in the bricks "season" format (30+ episodes a box), they probably would've sold as much as it took to make them. Seems like a case of market oversaturation to me. Although if anyone has an opinion on that, I'd love to hear what they think.

[qjz123]

Does anyone know what exactly went into the level's remaster process? Was it just clean-ups of the fluids/debris/damages on the film, or did they do more? Because honestly, I would easily fork over cash for that film just with the damages removed. I wish Funimation would realize that it wasn't the product that made the levels not sell up to their par, but it was timing, and the way they released it. If they just waited until now, or shortly after now (as soon as people's wallets were cooled off by the dboxes and getting sick of their orange bricks), and released them in the bricks "season" format (30+ episodes a box), they probably would've sold as much as it took to make them. Seems like a case of market oversaturation to me. Although if anyone has an opinion on that, I'd love to hear what they think.

This is how Funimation remastered the level sets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moAy02J2 ... Ia&index=1

[funrush]

Does anyone know what exactly went into the level's remaster process? Was it just clean-ups of the fluids/debris/damages on the film, or did they do more? Because honestly, I would easily fork over cash for that film just with the damages removed. I wish Funimation would realize that it wasn't the product that made the levels not sell up to their par, but it was timing, and the way they released it. If they just waited until now, or shortly after now (as soon as people's wallets were cooled off by the dboxes and getting sick of their orange bricks), and released them in the bricks "season" format (30+ episodes a box), they probably would've sold as much as it took to make them. Seems like a case of market oversaturation to me. Although if anyone has an opinion on that, I'd love to hear what they think.

This is how Funimation remastered the level sets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moAy02J2 ... Ia&index=1

Okay, I see. I don't know why they couldn't just put Steve's transfers with the steady pass and flicker filters applied, and just slap them on a disk? They'd look nicer than these. What I mean by this is that they could have two releases.

1) The season sets: The big blockbuster heavily advertised set aimed at the casual market, and for people who want to watch it on a whim. Put in walmarts alongside the bricks and sell a lot.

2) The Steve Franko sets: The Steve Franko footage through a few filters that will benefit the footage without detriment (keep frames from shaking, etc), aimed at the hardcore fanbase like this and other forums that want a release similar to the levels or dboxes. Not given any of the extreme publicity the seasons get but remain an alternative for those who want it.

[Fennekin]

Does anyone know what exactly went into the level's remaster process? Was it just clean-ups of the fluids/debris/damages on the film, or did they do more? Because honestly, I would easily fork over cash for that film just with the damages removed. I wish Funimation would realize that it wasn't the product that made the levels not sell up to their par, but it was timing, and the way they released it. If they just waited until now, or shortly after now (as soon as people's wallets were cooled off by the dboxes and getting sick of their orange bricks), and released them in the bricks "season" format (30+ episodes a box), they probably would've sold as much as it took to make them. Seems like a case of market oversaturation to me. Although if anyone has an opinion on that, I'd love to hear what they think.

This is how Funimation remastered the level sets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moAy02J2 ... Ia&index=1

We should get in contact with the video engineers and ask them to come back and finish what they started!

[Kojiro Sasaki]

We should get in contact with the video engineers and ask them to come back and finish what they started!

Are you willing to pay them for that?

[TheAldella]

We should get in contact with the video engineers and ask them to come back and finish what they started!

Are you willing to pay them for that?

We're all willing to invest money into the series, aren't we? XD

[qjz123]

We're all willing to invest money into the series, aren't we? XD

It's one thing to buy a release from Funimation it's another thing to pay them for the privilege of paying them.

[Fizzer]

I'm assuming if we set up a kickstarter it would be something like, say a season is going to cost $30, then pledging $30+ gets you a pre-order for season 1 should the campaign be successful, $60+ gets you seasons 1 and 2 etc. It's not paying for the right to pay them, it's putting our money on the table and saying "see? These sets have enough support, so make them and they're already sold".

[KingofWisdom]

For all we know, there could be legal reasons as to why FUNimation can't put up a Kickstarter. I honestly don't know if I'd pledge any money either. Failing to reach the amount of cash needed to be profitable would just cancel the release.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Why did Funimation remove the trailer only a couple of hours after its release? Was it because it was to soon or was it because of the really bad fan reaction to it? Maybe Funimation is trying to keep our expectations as low as possible to the point where anything would look better than what they showed us in the trailer. If Funimation had shown us the level sets selectively cropped to 16:9 a lot of people would still hate it because it was cropped but after seeing how bad the footage in the trailer looked anything would be an improvement and even though it was cropped it would be deemed acceptable by most simply because it looked so much better than what was shown in the trailer. I don't know it was just a thought that crossed my mind.

I'm guessing
A) Too early
B) That whole thing about them not being sure if they wanted to go with 16:9
C) Bad fan reaction

And I've been absent for a lot of the thread, so I kinda want to put my two cents in here, just my opinions. These sets don't look good. First strike is cropping, second is that awful saturation (the level's colors were awesome? And basically everything about that release if you weren't picky about credits, title cards, and NEP's?), and the third is that blur job. Honestly, the only thing about the remastering process in this release that is tolerable to me is the grain removal, and I still would prefer the grain version.

Does anyone know what exactly went into the level's remaster process? Was it just clean-ups of the fluids/debris/damages on the film, or did they do more? Because honestly, I would easily fork over cash for that film just with the damages removed. I wish Funimation would realize that it wasn't the product that made the levels not sell up to their par, but it was timing, and the way they released it. If they just waited until now, or shortly after now (as soon as people's wallets were cooled off by the dboxes and getting sick of their orange bricks), and released them in the bricks "season" format (30+ episodes a box), they probably would've sold as much as it took to make them. Seems like a case of market oversaturation to me. Although if anyone has an opinion on that, I'd love to hear what they think.

Even the people who bought the season bricks are bashing these, a bad product is a bad product and hell maybe they're making it look so god damn bad for the trailer and take it down and the actual product looks far better al bet still 16x9. I won't cancel my order for season 1 as it looks so bad it has to be fake as I can do the same thing for an entire episode in around 20 minutes so 20 minutes x 291 = 5820 / 60 = 97 hours of work. So to be honest I could remaster the entire series in under a week... That's why I'm thinking they're trying to lower everyone's expectations and wow them later.

[Ajay]

Even the people who bought the season bricks are bashing these

Yup. When the /r/DBZ community and even a load of YouTube commenters are bashing your products then you've fucked up badly.

[Dalesy]

Not really, the colors are nearly identical and you can still tell it's pretty sharp. There's lots of macroblocking though.

With these screens from the new trailer, there's barely any macroblocking, and what's sharp looks very sharp, including the grain from the "past" footage. This new trailer has much better quality.

You think this looks pretty sharp? The trailer for the level sets looks nothing like the actual level sets on blu ray.

Spoiler:

Even the best encoding in the world can't help the fact that that trailer has around 1/10th of the bitrate of the actual blu ray.

But the poor encode did not cause saturation, color balance, dvnr or line work issues. Just a lot of macroblocking and visual artifacts, exactly as I said.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Even the people who bought the season bricks are bashing these

Yup. When the /r/DBZ community and even a load of YouTube commenters are bashing your products then you've fucked up badly.

It wouldn't take them long to just crop steves transfer or heck leave it alone, I can probably see this pushed a few months back as everyone seems to be pretty vocal on the facebook and twitter page.
I posted a few pages back a corrected I did at work (I was technically supposed to be working) So I just grabbed my flash drive with the gimp dev version and spent 5 minutes trying to make it at least watchable... Couldn't do it but at least I could look at goku and say you look sick go home, but at least I'm not squinting my eyes because it's so bright.

If funimation releases it as appeared in the trailer it simply will die as people WILL not buy it because of all the negative reviews, I Can tell it's steves transfer and if they're using adobe products with other tools everything is probably in layers as I even do video corrections in layers so I'm sure they are to. All they simply have to do is severely tone down the brightness and contrast, remove the blur layer, and remove the dvnr layer. I think the crushed blacks problem probably lies on the film itself as all of Funimations releases have had this so I guess it's the film?

[qjz123]

I think the crushed blacks problem probably lies on the film itself as all of Funimations releases have had this so I guess it's the film?

The crushed blacks are not a problem of the film
Level 1.2
http://imageshack.us/a/img607/263/l4l8.png
Dragon ball z season 1 trailer
http://imageshack.us/a/img716/5636/q7ov.jpg

[Daimo-Rukiri]

I think the crushed blacks problem probably lies on the film itself as all of Funimations releases have had this so I guess it's the film?

The crushed blacks are not a problem of the film
Level 1.2
http://imageshack.us/a/img607/263/l4l8.png
Dragon ball z season 1 trailer
http://imageshack.us/a/img716/5636/q7ov.jpg

That's fine but look at Raditz's crater in the level sets, it's crushed when compared to the dragon boxes.

Edit:
It just came to my attention is it a possibility that these were cancelled because of all the fan backlash?

[ect5150]

Edit:
It just came to my attention is it a possibility that these were cancelled because of all the fan backlash?

And the evidence for this is based on ...??

Hopefully something other than us dreaming.

[KingofWisdom]

Well, people complaining about the set doesn't mean it won't sell. I think we're all just praying for a miracle here.

[Kakarot88]

Edit:
It just came to my attention is it a possibility that these were cancelled because of all the fan backlash?

What came to your attention?