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

[Ajay]

I think it'll be very interesting to see exactly how they would handle a high definition remaster. I'm not really aware of any of Toei's Blu-Ray releases for cel animated shows. What are their policies on grain reduction, colour timings etc?

It's often hard to tell whether the grain on the Dragon Boxes is just subtle as a result of the low definition format or whether there's any form of reduction similarly seen on the Level sets.

Would they bother with colour correcting the shifted hues or leave it be? They certainly fixed those issues in Kai but that was a very different scenario.

Anyone have any insight?

[kei17]

I think it'll be very interesting to see exactly how they would handle a high definition remaster. I'm not really aware of any of Toei's Blu-Ray releases for cel animated shows. What are their policies on grain reduction, colour timings etc?

Toei released an HD remastered DVD box of the Hokuto no Ken series. Though it's not Blu-ray, it's billed as being remastered in HD. They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.









The Blu-ray box of Saint Seiya movies was done the same way.

[qjz123]

They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.

Do you think it would end up looking similar to kai?

[dbboxkaifan]

I think it'll be very interesting to see exactly how they would handle a high definition remaster. I'm not really aware of any of Toei's Blu-Ray releases for cel animated shows. What are their policies on grain reduction, colour timings etc?

Toei released an HD remastered DVD box of the Hokuto no Ken series. Though it's not Blu-ray, it's billed as being remastered in HD. They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.

So I guess they'd be giving DBZ a blurry HD remaster like they've done with Kai, but hey, at least the colours would be fixed (instead of the pinky that's on the Dragonbox Z).

Edit: Seeing those Saint Seiya shots gives me some hope they won't then.

[kei17]

They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.

Do you think it would end up looking similar to kai?

With more faithful colors, I guess.

So I guess they'd be giving DBZ a blurry HD remaster like they've done with Kai, but hey, at least the colours would be fixed (instead of the pinky that's on the Dragonbox Z).

I guess it's hard to do extensive color correction without destroying grain when it comes to 16mm film footage. Grain gets in the way if you want to select a particular range of colors.

Edit: Seeing those Saint Seiya shots gives me some hope they won't then.

They're transferred from 35mm film. The TV series of DBZ won't look that sharp.

[eledoremassis02]

Has anyone posted a screenshot to show how they handleled the split screen shot in the eisode goke vs. Vegeta?

[qjz123]

Has anyone posted a screenshot to show how they handleled the split screen shot in the eisode goke vs. Vegeta?

http://i4.minus.com/ibm1uoyrEke0s3.png It's a center crop there wasn't much they could do with this scene.

[KingofWisdom]

Goku's face in particular looks terrible.

[sangofe]

I think it'll be very interesting to see exactly how they would handle a high definition remaster. I'm not really aware of any of Toei's Blu-Ray releases for cel animated shows. What are their policies on grain reduction, colour timings etc?

Toei released an HD remastered DVD box of the Hokuto no Ken series. Though it's not Blu-ray, it's billed as being remastered in HD. They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.

I really hope they'll release Dragonball directly to Blu Ray, no stupid "Hd remaster DVD box"...

[DBGod]

I must say, these Blu Ray releases do look really nice, this is how the Orange Bricks should have looked like. But of course, its no DBOX.

I think my ultimate dream for a release would be Steve Franko's raw transfers slapped onto a Blu Ray The level sets were the closest thing to that. But because of the ignorant casual fans, we now have this Blu Ray release as a result. Grrr..

[qjz123]

I really hope they'll release Dragonball directly to Blu Ray, no stupid "Hd remaster DVD box"...

It would be nice to see a level sets style remastering from Toei using their original film masters. That way we get the sharpness of the level sets along with the dark detail of kai, but looking at the screen shots Kei posted about what Toei has done in the past it doesn't look too likely that we'll get a grainy true to source release.

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

Just realized Madman's bringing these over to AUS and NZ soon. Wow. Just, wow.

They've brought over everything from the past decade or so. The Ultimate Uncut DVDs (minus the 'Vegeta Saga' ones), the 'Orange Brick' season sets, DBZ Kai, the 'Level' sets, and now these. But you know what's missing here?

Yeah, the freakin' Dragon Boxes. Do you know how fucking annoying that is? To have nearly every re-release of the series come out here, apart from the one that I actually want to buy. Oh, and where's our re-release of Curse of the Blood Rubies? Where is it? They told me that they'd put it out if there was anything significantly different about that release. This was back in 2010/2011. Guess what? It's uncut and has a new dub, but It's still not out here.

Ugh, I'm done. I love you Amazon. Too bad I started buying from you a little late.

[dbboxkaifan]

I must say, these Blu Ray releases do look really nice, this is how the Orange Bricks should have looked like. But of course, its no DBOX.

I think my ultimate dream for a release would be Steve Franko's raw transfers slapped onto a Blu-ray The level sets were the closest thing to that. But because of the ignorant casual fans, we now have this Blu-ray release as a result. Grrr..

Maybe the majority voted for 4x3 AR but FUNimation decided to go with 16x9 AR due to being the modern aspect ratio of TVs on Blu-ray.

FUNimation could've milked more money out of this version by making a 4x3 AR version on DVD, but well, the Orange Bricks are still selling so no reason to.

[DBGod]

I must say, these Blu Ray releases do look really nice, this is how the Orange Bricks should have looked like. But of course, its no DBOX.

I think my ultimate dream for a release would be Steve Franko's raw transfers slapped onto a Blu-ray The level sets were the closest thing to that. But because of the ignorant casual fans, we now have this Blu-ray release as a result. Grrr..

Maybe the majority voted for 4x3 AR but FUNimation decided to go with 16x9 AR due to being the modern aspect ratio of TVs on Blu-ray.

FUNimation could've milked more money out of this version by making a 4x3 AR version on DVD, but well, the Orange Bricks are still selling so no reason to.

That is true. With 16:9 being a standard in this modern era, I think a raw transfer with NO garbage filters to destroy the video would have been amazing, should FUNi decide not make the 4:3 with black bars.

[KingofWisdom]

It'd at least be the best we'd get out of FUNimation (Steve Franko's raw transfer).

[darkknightkryta]

They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.
I guess it's hard to do extensive color correction without destroying grain when it comes to 16mm film footage. Grain gets in the way if you want to select a particular range of colors.

That's not necessarily true. The best way to colour correct film reels is to actually compare the film with stock film from Kodak. You can calculate the displacement between the two reels and from that you can figure out how to get the colours back. It's how the Level sets were done and why they look as good as when the reel was made.

[fps_anth]

I think it'll be very interesting to see exactly how they would handle a high definition remaster. I'm not really aware of any of Toei's Blu-Ray releases for cel animated shows. What are their policies on grain reduction, colour timings etc?

Toei released an HD remastered DVD box of the Hokuto no Ken series. Though it's not Blu-ray, it's billed as being remastered in HD. They did extensive true-to-original-cels style color correction and cleared away the grain. I guess they'll do the same to Dragon Ball.

Wow, these look incredible! I'm also expecting a similar, blu-ray release from Toei for the entire Dragon Ball series. I thought last year would have been a good time to release DB Blu Rays as they could have capitalized on Battle of Gods hype, but maybe 2014 makes sense considering there are no real major Dragon Ball releases on the horizon (as far as I can tell).

[Fizzer]

From Funi's responses to Kanzenshuu's questions, it sounded like the majority vote may well have been 4:3, but they also looked at the sales performance of the orange bricks compared to the Dragon Boxes and Levels, and also the cost-effectiveness of cutting off all the damage on the tops and bottoms of the frames, and those things swayed their decision.

[qjz123]

From Funi's responses to Kanzenshuu's questions, it sounded like the majority vote may well have been 4:3, but they also looked at the sales performance of the orange bricks compared to the Dragon Boxes and Levels, and also the cost-effectiveness of cutting off all the damage on the tops and bottoms of the frames, and those things swayed their decision.

I think this is the release Funimation had in mind even before the survey judging by the way they described their new remastering process. The survey question asking about the aspect ratio was just used to determine whether or not there were enough people who wanted a 16:9 release. Regardless if they were the majority or not.

[Fizzer]

I think this is the release Funimation had in mind even before the survey judging by the way they described their new remastering process. The survey question asking about the aspect ratio was just used to determine whether or not there were enough people who wanted a 16:9 release. Regardless if they were the majority or not.

That also makes sense.

Does anyone have any figures or estimates regarding the costs of the two remastering processes, say per episode or per minute?