Dragonbox Overrated?

[TheGmGoken]

I'll admit the quality is good for an anime like DB-DBZ-GT but call me crazy but IHMO the Boxset seems a tad bit overrated by fans. As an anonymous member said on this website(I won't say his name. I'll just quote him)

I actually, checked out a DBox episode, expected to be blown away and I got to say it's nothing special, the orange bricks (later seasons) looked the same to me,

http://s119.photobucket.com/user/ect515 ... e.jpg.html






Being honestly while they're obviously better than the sets Funimation has put out. I honestly don't see what's so good about them. The original Sound and BGM is good and all(And the JPN Boxset got DBZ around the world) but quality ONLY wise it's IMO not all that good and is very overrated by fans. Most Amv editors IMO that use Adobe, Vegas, or any advance editor have produced better quality videos with their amvs. I own DBox 1, 3, 5, and 7 and the only one that I think deserves the praise is Dbox 7 as the quality is awesome there IMO. Now I know people might debate with me about the amv editor quality thing so let's not put to much focus with that and just take it with a grain of salt.

Now Dboxes being overrated and having good quality(just not as good as everyone thinks it is IMO) is just my opinion. Please don't take this as me stating facts.

[Kid Buu]

Yeah I watched them both to compare and it didn't really look that different on my TV.

[TheGmGoken]

Yeah I watched them both to compare and it didn't really look that different on my TV.

What type of TV you have? I have a 1080p Emerson Television. Not into all that tech stuff so I'm just curious on what type of TV you have. Cause my DBOX does look better than Orange bricks but towards Cell Games - Boo Arc...the DBoxes doesn't look THAT much better on my television.

[Kid Buu]

A Samsung Smart HDTV 40"

[Ringworm128]

The Dragonboxes are held in such high regard not because they're some super duper HD flawless remastered eye popping surround sound with everything related to the series included release, it's because they're simply a good release. No oversaturated colors, no bits of dirt, no zoomed in footage, everything is uncut in only 7 boxes instead of 50 DVD singles. Also they're not the orange bricks.

[qjz123]

The dragon boxes are extremely overrated in the U.S. because of the orange bricks. In comparison to those the dragon boxes look amazing.

Being honestly while they're obviously better than the sets Funimation has put out.

I don't agree with that I think the level sets looked much better than the dragon boxes which is just sad. A licensing company with a 4 person in house team and Steve Franco managed to create a product using lower quality source materials that looked better than Toei's own release the company that actually originally animated the show. That just shows the laziness that went into creating the dragon boxes. No color correction, no video stabilization, and they didn't even remove tape marks.
As you can see here Dragon box tape mark at the bottom
http://imageshack.us/a/img809/3765/szpc.png
Level sets
http://imageshack.us/a/img35/5079/rr1m.png
The dragon boxes are also slightly zoomed in they show less image than the level sets. I don't know why maybe it was an attempt to hide some of the tape marks but that's just a guess.

[TheGmGoken]

The Dragonboxes are held in such high regard not because they're some super duper HD flawless remastered eye popping surround sound with everything related to the series included release, it's because they're simply a good release.

Not sure if I made it obvious or not. But I meant quality wise people overrate them. I admit this is most likely the best db release. I also don't call for HD as some things in 360p looks better than things in HD.

[Metalwario64]

They're good for the 16mm film the series was created on. I do dislike the flat darks though, that's an area I think Kai is superior on. I also hate that some episodes are "Season Two" bright in the Boo arc (and some Daimao episodes I believe I've heard).

If we had Kai's color detail and the Dragon Boxes film detail, it'd look perfect to me.

[Ringworm128]

The Dragonboxes are held in such high regard not because they're some super duper HD flawless remastered eye popping surround sound with everything related to the series included release, it's because they're simply a good release.

Not sure if I made it obvious or not. But I meant quality wise people overrate them. I admit this is most likely the best db release. I also don't call for HD as some things in 360p looks better than things in HD.

I think that would have more to do with the sorce film being in higher quality. If I took some copressed camcorder video and output it at 1080P it wouldn't look as good as some crisp video being put out at 360P.

[Vegard Aune]

Well those who claim that the Dragon Box is a perfect presentation of the show are obviously exaggerating. The colors are admittedly kinda dull, the sound (while admittedly better than any other official release) is still kinda muffled, they've got the endings playing before the next episode previews despite it apparently being the other way around on the TV-broadcast, and watching the earliest episodes on the DBox, I can't help but notice this...

Bottom right corner. You can see the edge of the film in the actual episodes. I've noticed this in every single episode I've watched up to this point. Now granted, if one is watching it on the TV this would be no problem as overscan would eliminate that issue anyway, but... I have no TV. So for me that edge of the frame is a constant blemish on the frame that honestly does annoy an über-nitpicky person such as myself. Really Toei (or, I guess Pony Canyon were the ones who actually made the DBox-masters?), would it be too much to demand that you frame the picture in such a way that this wouldn't happen? I doubt zooming the image in another 2% would result in the show becoming incomprehensible.
Also no chapter-stops for the episode title-cards. Seriously, if I'm gonna be watching the "Story mode"-function, I would like to be able to see the story without any interruptions. Having to sit through a minute and a half of the narrator recapping what's going on every 20 minutes counts as an interruption to me.


That said, it is still the purest presentation of the show we have. One can't really criticize the sets for the sound-quality as that was due to a lack of foresight on Toei's end that happened decades ago and so they had to make do with what they had, the previews and endings being swapped around is less of an honest flaw and more just an oddity (not to mention it's still better than the international releases that flat-out don't have the next episode previews at all), and even though the sets clearly could have used some color-correction...

I also hate that some episodes are "Season Two" bright in the Boo arc (and some Daimao episodes I believe I've heard).

...this strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration. From what I've seen it's less overly bright and more... Matrix-y, in that there's a shade of green over everything.

[TheBlackPaladin]

For a while I thought the Dragon Boxes were superb, but between Kei bringing in examples of the original broadcast audio and looking at some of the work done on the (now-defunct) Level Sets, it has become apparent to me that the Dragonboxes--while preferable above the Season Sets in virtually every aspect--are not a particularly amazing release. They're good. But they're not amazing.

[UpFromTheSkies]

They're not perfect, but they are the closest to the original Japanese broadcasts as you can get.

[doomydoomydoom]

I don't agree with that I think the level sets looked much better than the dragon boxes which is just sad. A licensing company with a 4 person in house team and Steve Franco managed to create a product using lower quality source materials that looked better than Toei's own release the company that actually originally animated the show.

Toei did not work on the Dragon Boxes, Japanese home video distributor Pony Canyon did.

The only, and I mean the only thing truly wrong with the Dragon Boxes (and uh lack of extras...) is the color, which honestly I don't care about, and I wouldn't go out and repurchase the entire series on Blu-Ray (I personally don't need to see old TV shows and cartoons on Blu-Ray) just cause the sky will be blue. It's interesting to me, nothing more. Nothing else can be helped. Audio and such can't be helped, for reasons that everybody knows.

I also don't notice the edge of the tape on screen when I watch on my PC. Then again, it should be noted that my monitor is a 16'' Toshiba TV, so yeah...

Also can't find it in me to give a damn about the NEP position, I'm glad they were included though. But I'm not going to nitpick about them.

Perfect? I suppose not. Overrated? Nope. And it's obviously the only quality release of the entire series we'll ever see.

[Vegard Aune]

I also don't notice the edge of the tape on screen. Then again, it should be noted that my monitor is a 16'' Toshiba TV, so yeah...

Yeah like I said, this is only noticable if you're watching it on a screen with absolutely no overscan at all. And for what it's worth, I've also only noticed this in the episodes of the original DB I've seen so far. I never had this problem with Z, GT or the movies. And also VLC does have a "crop"-function, which I typically use while watching these particular DVDs to basically simulate TV-overscan to eliminate the issue... But I still feel like this is an extra step that I really shouldn't need to take.

[doomydoomydoom]

Yeah I thought that looked like the original DB, so I guess I can't speak for those. It's pretty crappy that those slipped by though.

VLC will definitely do the trick, and I was wondering if you were using it. Of course, back in 2003 or whenever the DBoxes were released in Japan (around that time), I doubt Toei\Pony Canyon was thinking of viewing it without overscan on a PC, so fast forward ten years when people are starting to ditch TVs entirely...nowadays they would consider that I think, or they should if they don't.

[UpFromTheSkies]

For a while I thought the Dragon Boxes were superb, but between Kei bringing in examples of the original broadcast audio and looking at some of the work done on the (now-defunct) Level Sets, it has become apparent to me that the Dragonboxes--while preferable above the Season Sets in virtually every aspect--are not a particularly amazing release. They're good. But they're not amazing.

I actually have first gen recordings of the original broadcasts in storage, and am hoping to retrieve them over the holidays. I wonder if TOEI would be interested in them? I'd trade it to them for a signed drawing of Goku by Toriyama, and maybe free copies of anything they release that's Dragon Ball related.

[qjz123]

I actually have first gen recordings of the original broadcasts in storage, and am hoping to retrieve them over the holidays. I wonder if TOEI would be interested in them? I'd trade it to them for a signed drawing of Goku by Toriyama, and maybe free copies of anything they release that's Dragon Ball related.

Kei17 has been trying for years Toei isn't interested in them.

[Metalwario64]

...this strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration. From what I've seen it's less overly bright and more... Matrix-y, in that there's a shade of green over everything.

There are a few episodes (a Vegetto episode and some inside Boo episodes) that are super bright. I'm aware that some Kid Boo episodes have a green tint for whatever reason, but the aforementioned episodes have the brighter details clipped due to the brightness. It's really unacceptable to me and isn't far from the stuff we say in Season Two in terms of brightness (of course it's still better due to being 4x3 and not DVNRed to death.)






Compared to the FUNi single DVDs:



The single DVD, sadly, retains more brighter details than the Dragon Box during these episodes. You can see in that Boo picture that the clouds have had most of their details brightened out of existence.

Of course, I also take issue with the greenish episodes. Look how green Earth's sky is in this episode:


That's way worse than the Vegeta vs. Goku green sky, and that had an excuse of being a much earlier episode with more faded film.

[Gaffer Tape]

It depends on what you mean by overrated. Is it the most pristine, perfect collection of Dragon Ball possible? No.

Is it a high quality release, better than what most '80s-'90s kids' cartoons get? Sure.

Is it the only complete, competent release of the series? Hell yes.

So if people praise it as the benchmark for home video, maybe that's going a bit too far, but it certainly blows the competition out of the water BY FAR. The only thing that's been able to compete are the Level sets, but the DBoxes even have certain advantages over them. So there're certainly damn good reasons people scramble to pick these up and why they're going for so much. As Dragon Ball releases go, they're at the top of the heap. Admittedly, the competition isn't very stiff. But even as general releases go, they're still pretty damn good.

[penguintruth]

Best release of the DBZ TV show as of yet, so no, not really overrated. Not perfect, but I never got that impression.