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

Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.

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sintzu
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by sintzu » Sun Jan 19, 2014 5:35 pm

Black_Anime_Fan wrote:
sintzu wrote:It's funny how funimation has all kinds of anime yet the most popular one they have still dosen't have a decent release
Well we've got the VHS and DVD singles....which are practically non-existent nowadays.
But we've also got the Ultimate Uncut Sets and those were decent....which never completed it's run after episode 27.
Oh but then we got the the completed Orange Bricks that are still in stock....which are inconsistently riddled with flaws like cropping.
Don't worry though, FUNimation manages to rerelease DBZ again for the better by giving us the Dragon Boxes....which are out of stock and cost ab arm and a leg for at this day in age for the entire thing.
LEVEL BLU-RAY SETS....cancelled....
...and now we're pretty much left with the only two releases that have the most flaws, and in stock, the Season DVDs and the Season Blu-Rays, so yeah, there you have it.
At least we have kai :thumbup:
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Fizzer » Sun Jan 19, 2014 6:03 pm

sintzu wrote:
Black_Anime_Fan wrote:
sintzu wrote:It's funny how funimation has all kinds of anime yet the most popular one they have still dosen't have a decent release
Well we've got the VHS and DVD singles....which are practically non-existent nowadays.
But we've also got the Ultimate Uncut Sets and those were decent....which never completed it's run after episode 27.
Oh but then we got the the completed Orange Bricks that are still in stock....which are inconsistently riddled with flaws like cropping.
Don't worry though, FUNimation manages to rerelease DBZ again for the better by giving us the Dragon Boxes....which are out of stock and cost ab arm and a leg for at this day in age for the entire thing.
LEVEL BLU-RAY SETS....cancelled....
...and now we're pretty much left with the only two releases that have the most flaws, and in stock, the Season DVDs and the Season Blu-Rays, so yeah, there you have it.
At least we have kai :thumbup:
Which presently covers less than half of the manga and has gotten stuck with awful music placement :(

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Metalwario64 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 6:46 pm

dbboxkaifan wrote:
Metalwario64 wrote:I'd like to see comparison shots with the saga sets for those shots actually.
*snip*Saga - Top
Blue Brick - Middle
Dragon Box - Bottom

As seen the Saga sets have more picture than the Blue Bricks and the colours were tweaked to the likes of the current Blue Bricks which is one of the things I like about it.

I downscaled the images because the original resolution was pixelated: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=17949
Okay, so now I think I know why the Blue Bricks were zoomed a bit. I put each image into Photoshop and compared them, and the Saga Set was tilted to the left noticeably. I think they rotated the footage to be oriented more like the Dragon Box footage.

As for the whole zooming vs. cropping argument, I prefer to use zooming when talking about the Blue Bricks, because thanks to FUNimation, referencing cropping in relation with Dragon Ball instantly brings to mind the 16x9 cropping. Plus, the amount lost on the Blue Bricks (from the Saga Sets) is nowhere near as bad as wrecking the aspect ratio.

Also, here is a cropping comparison. Magenta is the DBOX, Yellow is the Saga Set, and the middle image is the Blue Brick:

Image

Not much is lost from the Saga Sets.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Ajay » Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:13 pm

Do bare in mind bitrate when you're talking about quality here. Framing means very little when talking about how good each product looks.

The Dragon Boxes, especially the Japanese ones, have a phenomenal bitrate for a DVD and as such look very good in motion and the grain is very crisp. The Blue Bricks, from everything I've seen, use a noticeably low bitrate that isn't even a touch on the Dboxes.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by KingofWisdom » Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:18 pm

As much as FUNimation is to blame when it comes to the lack of a quality [in print] Z release, their footage should not be of such poor quality that remastering is required. After FUNimation has made Toei so much money, you'd think they'd give FUNi better quality footage.
Last edited by KingofWisdom on Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Levlik » Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:31 pm

The Dragon Boxes might be out of print and very expensive in the aftermarket, but I hardly think that somehow negates its legitimacy as a "decent release". It still very much exists.

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by KingofWisdom » Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:32 pm

It's not that it isn't a decent release, it's that I don't want to pay $600+ for DBZ. :?
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Levlik » Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:38 pm

KingofWisdom wrote:It's not that it isn't a decent release, it's that I don't want to pay $600+ for DBZ. :?
Well, consider the fact that the singles used to cost about $20-25 a pop with usually three episodes a piece...four if you were lucky. As much as I dislike the scalpers that caused DBox 2 to skyrocket in price, it's still a better scenario than we had in 2001 as far as cost is concerned.

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by eledoremassis02 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:53 pm

Here's a screen shot from the singles of Episode Goku's Trap from the Singles

Image

Hulu-Singles-Nippon Golden Network
Image
Last edited by eledoremassis02 on Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by nathantheguitarist » Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:08 pm

I haven't been able to pay attention to DBZ news lately but now that I got a minute...

*groan*

I was hoping these would at least be 4:3 so I wouldn't regret selling my Dragon Boxes as much as I already do... But I kinda knew better and assumed they'd be just the orange bricks again. But fuckin' lol at the ending mess-up. Maybe we'll get lucky with the next release down the line, whenever that comes. :/
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Metalwario64 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:15 pm

AjayLikesGaming wrote:Do bare in mind bitrate when you're talking about quality here. Framing means very little when talking about how good each product looks.

The Dragon Boxes, especially the Japanese ones, have a phenomenal bitrate for a DVD and as such look very good in motion and the grain is very crisp. The Blue Bricks, from everything I've seen, use a noticeably low bitrate that isn't even a touch on the Dboxes.
I thought the Blue Bricks were supposed to have a good bitrate, especially much better than the old Saga sets, which were from a time when FUNimation's encoding was terrible. I also prefer the Blue Bricks because the Dragon Boxes for Dragon Ball have terrible colors, random overly bright episodes, and the one episode where the footage was framed too low, showing the beginning of the next frame on the bottom.

But anyways, I wanted to compare the Blue Bricks with the Saga set, because I wanted to see how much was zoomed. Turns out, the footage was barely zoomed from the Saga sets' footage. I imagine the framing is all still within the animators' "safe zones" like what kei17 showed with his Orange Brick example a while back.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by dprez » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:05 pm

Metalwario64 wrote: I also prefer the Blue Bricks because the Dragon Boxes for Dragon Ball have terrible colors, random overly bright episodes, and the one episode where the footage was framed too low, showing the beginning of the next frame on the bottom.
This has convinced me to buy the Blue Bricks. I had hoped to watch (for the first time all the way through in Japanese) or at least re-read Dragon Ball before I re-watch my Z Dragon Boxes, but after seeing this I now feel just fine about choosing the Blue Bricks for my next Dragon Ball experience. I buy new to support FUNi in the hopes that they give us what we really want... Dragon Boxes!!!

Zooming and cropping is the same thing, but from what I can see, the cropping done to the season DVDs and season blu-rays ain't much compared to the "zoomed in" Blue Bricks. I hate cropping with a fiery passion, but the Blue Bricks are far more tolerable than what FUNi has done to Z with this release.

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by WittyUsername » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:29 pm

So overall, are these blu-rays better or worse than the Orange Bricks?
Last edited by WittyUsername on Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by theoriginalbilis » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:44 pm

It depends on what you're looking for...

In MY opinion, they're better than the Orange Bricks, though not by much.

PROS:
- Slightly less intrusive/selective cropping
- More consistent color scheme compared to some Dragon Box episodes
- Higher bitrate than DVD
- Improved/less muffled Japanese audio track compared to the OBs
- NO DISAPPEARING LINES during shaking or fast motion scenes, which a big positive in my book
- The 5.1 English track with Japanese music sounds great, even better than the OBs
- Shiny new custom cover art for each release

CONS:
- still cropped, bleh
- super high-contrast. Darks are too dark (so much so that details are lost.)
- brightly saturated colors (more subjective though)
- heavily cropped and zoomed-in Zenkai Power ending theme, even more cropped than everything else
- Digital pan-and-scan during certain scenes, which are super-obvious and don't look like natural film pans

So... pick your poison. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for these.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by dprez » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:52 pm

I'd choose these just because they're on blu-ray and the Japanese audio is better I hear. But yea you're just picking your poison with these...

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by eledoremassis02 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:53 pm

dprez wrote:I'd choose these just because they're on blu-ray and the Japanese audio is better I hear. But yea you're just picking your poison with these...
Same here. I'd take the audio and add them to my Dragon Boxes lol

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by WittyUsername » Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:05 pm

theoriginalbilis wrote:It depends on what you're looking for...

In MY opinion, they're better than the Orange Bricks, though not by much.

PROS:
- Slightly less intrusive/selective cropping
- More consistent color scheme compared to some Dragon Box episodes
- Higher bitrate than DVD
- Improved/less muffled Japanese audio track compared to the OBs
- NO DISAPPEARING LINES during shaking or fast motion scenes, which a big positive in my book
- The 5.1 English track with Japanese music sounds great, even better than the OBs
- Shiny new custom cover art for each release

CONS:
- still cropped, bleh
- super high-contrast. Darks are too dark (so much so that details are lost.)
- brightly saturated colors (more subjective though)
- heavily cropped and zoomed-in Zenkai Power ending theme, even more cropped than everything else
- Digital pan-and-scan during certain scenes, which are super-obvious and don't look like natural film pans

So... pick your poison. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for these.
Meh, I think I'll pass on these until the price drops a bit.

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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Metalwario64 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:10 pm

Not to mention the random splotches of grain remaining, which is quite distracting. I'd put that close to the disappearing lines issue, because it happens 100% of the time.

Plus sets 6-9 on the orange bricks retained the grain and had very minimal DVNR. I prefer the bricks, which is sad (though I genuinely like aforementioned sets a lot).
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Hellspawn28 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:51 pm

Has Blu-Ray.com review been posted yet? They seem to give it a okay review.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Dragonbal ... 77/#Review
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by AgitoZ » Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:59 pm

Hellspawn28 wrote:Has Blu-Ray.com review been posted yet?
Yes, yes it has. It was a while back so it's probably fine to post it again.
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