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

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

Post by Vegard Aune » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:41 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote:I wouldn't say either is "okay". Just that one is significantly less intrusive and detrimental than the other.
Some would defend the Orange Bricks and BluRays by saying that "Who cares if we lose a cloud or a few strands of hair?"... Now this is not a very good defense as those releases do in fact cut out important details at times, leaves the footage looking overly cramped much of the time, and cuts out parts of the image we are clearly meant to see ALL THE TIME.
That said... this defense is totally viable for the Blue Bricks, and also the widescreen-cropped versions of the movies. Because while there is less footage compared to other releases on both, said missing content is stuff placed outside this action-safe zone, and so even with the movies being cropped to widescreen and DB having a bit of the edges removed, we're still getting all the content Toei intended for us to see...


...I think. I mean, I don't own the Blue Bricks... Still, no, as far as I'm concerned, the amount of picture we're getting with those sets is perfectly acceptable, because we're only losing footage that genuinely is irrelevant.

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

Post by Fizzer » Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:45 pm

Not only do we not miss anything important with the blue bricks, but the frame doesn't feel claustrophobic like with the orange bricks either.

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

Post by Puto » Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:15 pm

dbboxkaifan wrote: I'd have liked to have had my Dragon Ball Z Kai BDs with the original Japanese credits and if that had happened, I'd have kept all of them just for that.
If it helps, other international releases of DBK have shown that Toei seem to have flat out not provided Japanese-texted masters to international licensors. This can be seen by the fact that even Japanese-language airings such as the French and Portuguese subtitled airings are completely blank (even title cards are blanked out).
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by dbboxkaifan » Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:56 pm

Oh fair enough, Kid.

Dragon Ball Z: Season Three (2013) [Blu-ray] - $31.49

The review section is opened so it's just a matter of time before they do it again "do not buy this cropped orange bricks blue ray!!!".

And I still remember that for the US Dragonboxes we had a guy called "Iumak" who kept giving it 1 star unfairly.. Amazon reviewers. :?
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by lansing » Mon Jan 20, 2014 5:38 pm

dbboxkaifan wrote:Oh fair enough, Kid.

Dragon Ball Z: Season Three (2013) [Blu-ray] - $31.49

The review section is opened so it's just a matter of time before they do it again "do not buy this cropped orange bricks blue ray!!!".

And I still remember that for the US Dragonboxes we had a guy called "Iumak" who kept giving it 1 star unfairly.. Amazon reviewers. :?
Talk about contradiction, look at that single review there by the name of John who rated it 4 stars. He said "picture quality is amazing" even when there's nothing to see, and then he's talking about trolls lol.

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

Post by qjz123 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:27 pm

Check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3zp0_YNgWU. Thegreenquality5th uploaded a scene from the level sets that he dnr'ed, it looks really good! The sad part is that this is what a fan created using the level sets. It shows that if Funimation put the time, money, and effort required to properly modernize the show it could actually look good if not great. When Funimation went from the level sets to this release not only did they do a complete 180 but they did it cheaply. Somebody on the bluray.com forums brought up something interesting. He said that all Funimation cares about is the next 3-4 month's, now they are a business so I don't blame them for that but what he said afterwards was very true. He said if Funimation remasters the series properly the first time they'll never have to do it again. So in the long term it would be a lot less work for them. For example if Funimation had Finished the level sets then they would be done, they would never have to remaster the series again. They could take their already cleaned up level sets crop them apply some Dnr and re release them. Then they could leave them uncropped and just apply Dnr to them and re release them again. Just like that Funimation would be able to re release the series multiple times without having to completely start over with their remastering process. The way things are now Funimation has to start over and begin their cheap 16x9 remastering from scratch and if they want to release the series in 4:3 in the future they'll have to start over from episode 40 to pick up where the level sets left off. If they just did it properly once they would set themselves up for multiple relatively easy re releases.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by EA575 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:42 pm

qjz123 wrote:Check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3zp0_YNgWU. Thegreenquality5th uploaded a scene from the level sets that he dnr'ed, it looks really good! The sad part is that this is what a fan created using the level sets. It shows that if Funimation put the time, money, and effort required to properly modernize the show it could actually look good if not great. When Funimation went from the level sets to this release not only did they do a complete 180 but they did it cheaply. Somebody on the bluray.com forums brought up something interesting. He said that all Funimation cares about is the next 3-4 month's, now they are a business so I don't blame them for that but what he said afterwards was very true. He said if Funimation remasters the series properly the first time they'll never have to do it again. So in the long term it would be a lot less work for them. For example if Funimation had Finished the level sets then they would be done, they would never have to remaster the series again. They could take their already cleaned up level sets crop them apply some Dnr and re release them. Then they could leave them uncropped and just apply Dnr to them and re release them again. Just like that Funimation would be able to re release the series multiple times without having to completely start over with their remastering process. The way things are now Funimation has to start over and begin their cheap 16x9 remastering from scratch and if they want to release the series in 4:3 in the future they'll have to start over from episode 40 to pick up where the level sets left off. If they just did it properly once they would set themselves up for multiple relatively easy re releases.
This is really making me second guess buying any DBZ release from Funimation. Sure, it supports the series, but if the series is handled by people who care more about making money off it than the series itself and giving it a proper home release then I just can't do it. I guess I'll just stick to buying the video games.

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

Post by Tanooki Kuribo » Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:06 pm

EA575 wrote:This is really making me second guess buying any DBZ release from Funimation. Sure, it supports the series, but if the series is handled by people who care more about making money off it than the series itself and giving it a proper home release then I just can't do it. I guess I'll just stick to buying the video games.
Are you aware that making money off of a series they licenses is actually their main goal as a company? I know you might not like what they're doing, I'm not saying I do either. But, as a company... they just have to do what sells.

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

Post by EA575 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:50 pm

Tanooki Kuribo wrote:
EA575 wrote:This is really making me second guess buying any DBZ release from Funimation. Sure, it supports the series, but if the series is handled by people who care more about making money off it than the series itself and giving it a proper home release then I just can't do it. I guess I'll just stick to buying the video games.
Are you aware that making money off of a series they licenses is actually their main goal as a company? I know you might not like what they're doing, I'm not saying I do either. But, as a company... they just have to do what sells.
I understand that completely, but there are other ways of doing proper releases as qjz123 pointed out. I don't mind the 16x9 cropping nor the DNR if that's what they believe will attract new fans and bring in more revenue, but from the comparisons I've seen throughout this thread it seems like they did a poor job at the remastering while some fans are doing a better job than them. Companies doing work halfheartedly is just disappointing. It seems like they don't care about the series as much as the fans do.

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

Post by dbboxkaifan » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:10 pm

Honestly, FUNimation can't keep sucking off the cow because it'll be dry eventually and with so much anime series out there that are unknown to the English anime audience they could very well profit from those.

The definitive HD version on Blu-ray was Dragon Ball Z: Levels and FUNi killed it, so all hope is now on Toei Animation to do it.

One of the series I'd truly love to get an English release would be 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother. I'd then have other picks such as: Pocket Monsters (001-276 eps), Yu Gi Oh, Medabots, Heidi, Captain Tsubasa Road to 2002, Doraemon, Shin-chan Uncut, Sonic X and many others.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Daimo-Rukiri » Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:23 am

Doesn't the Pokemon company have rights for every episode at this point? I would have liked to see an uncut release of the kanto region though!

Funimation doesn't have to remaster at all, the raw film looks gorgeous! Just release that and we'll be fine! I do however think the transfer process continued but the level portion did not, would be interesting to see a back to back release basically at the end of these season releases.

I don't think the seasons look that bad when you're couch is 8 feet away and you're not right in front of a monitor, but it certainly has flaws! Is Funimation's film that bad where they HAVE to crop it? If it is, why can't they get better masters for those bad batches of episodes?
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by KingofWisdom » Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:41 am

Daimo-Rukiri wrote:Is Funimation's film that bad where they HAVE to crop it? If it is, why can't they get better masters for those bad batches of episodes?
I guess because Toei doesn't want FUNimation to put out a release that would rival their own.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Daimo-Rukiri » Tue Jan 21, 2014 2:30 am

KingofWisdom wrote:
Daimo-Rukiri wrote:Is Funimation's film that bad where they HAVE to crop it? If it is, why can't they get better masters for those bad batches of episodes?
I guess because Toei doesn't want FUNimation to put out a release that would rival their own.
If that's the case, that would suggest Toei is working on an HD release of the entire series but who's to say they just won't kai it? Wouldn't they go back to Pony Canyon? Or because the remastering was already done, wouldn't they just cheap out and scan the film to 1080p and release it and call it a day?
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Metalwario64 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 2:40 am

Daimo-Rukiri wrote:Is Funimation's film that bad where they HAVE to crop it?
I doubt it.

The only damage really oriented to the top and bottom are splice marks between scene changes, and they seem to have taken care of those by duplicating the frame before or after each mark, which is a relatively quick and simple process, just time consuming.

Before, I and possibly others thought they were redrawing and or splicing details from surrounding frames to clean up said marks, but someone posted an example of them just duplicating the next/previous frame, which means they already took shortcuts in the Level set remasters (and in said example, fudged up by replacing a tape mark frame with the second frame back, making the scrolling clouds jump back a bit).

They did this process with the blue bricks. I only discovered it recently when I went through a few scenes frame by frame to make GIFs.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Kendamu » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:49 am

Fizzer wrote:Not only do we not miss anything important with the blue bricks, but the frame doesn't feel claustrophobic like with the orange bricks either.
The Blue Bricks don't feel cramped because, while they are a smaller 4:3 than other releases, one of those releases is the Dragon Box, which has a much larger 4:3 frame than what likely originally aired on TV. Taking tape marks being hidden and TV overscan into account, we can assume that the Blue Bricks are only slightly smaller than what an airing in the 1980s would've looked like. We're missing very little in the way of what was intended to be on-screen during TV airing.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Metalwario64 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:58 am

Kendamu wrote:
Fizzer wrote:Not only do we not miss anything important with the blue bricks, but the frame doesn't feel claustrophobic like with the orange bricks either.
The Blue Bricks don't feel cramped because, while they are a smaller 4:3 than other releases, one of those releases is the Dragon Box, which has a much larger 4:3 frame than what likely originally aired on TV. Taking tape marks being hidden and TV overscan into account, we can assume that the Blue Bricks are only slightly smaller than what an airing in the 1980s would've looked like. We're missing very little in the way of what was intended to be on-screen during TV airing.
Yep.

Still makes me wish FUNimation had just done the same with Z back in the day using their Digibeta masters. It still would have been "digitally remastered", and would have been much more cost effective than buying new film masters.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Kendamu » Tue Jan 21, 2014 4:44 am

Metalwario64 wrote:
Kendamu wrote:
Fizzer wrote:Not only do we not miss anything important with the blue bricks, but the frame doesn't feel claustrophobic like with the orange bricks either.
The Blue Bricks don't feel cramped because, while they are a smaller 4:3 than other releases, one of those releases is the Dragon Box, which has a much larger 4:3 frame than what likely originally aired on TV. Taking tape marks being hidden and TV overscan into account, we can assume that the Blue Bricks are only slightly smaller than what an airing in the 1980s would've looked like. We're missing very little in the way of what was intended to be on-screen during TV airing.
Yep.

Still makes me wish FUNimation had just done the same with Z back in the day using their Digibeta masters. It still would have been "digitally remastered", and would have been much more cost effective than buying new film masters.
At this point we're stuck with so many 16:9 DBZ fans that are either clueless or they just don't care that I doubt that FUNi will do just that. As much as I'd love to see another "this'll shut the super fans up for a couple years" niche release from them and as much as I'm hoping to see it after theses sets are done, I'm not going to count on it.

Seriously, though: Is it too much to ask for a "DBZ: The 'We Didn't Fuck with It This Time' Edition" on Blu-ray?
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by KingofWisdom » Tue Jan 21, 2014 12:40 pm

We'll see what happens when the current release is over. I'd honestly be more surprised if DBZ took a break for a year or two over us getting another 4:3 release immediately following the remastered season BDs.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by Black_Anime_Fan » Tue Jan 21, 2014 12:49 pm

KingofWisdom wrote:
Daimo-Rukiri wrote:Is Funimation's film that bad where they HAVE to crop it? If it is, why can't they get better masters for those bad batches of episodes?
I guess because Toei doesn't want FUNimation to put out a release that would rival their own.
Well, FUNimation put out the Level Sets and Toei didn't seem to mind. Although, we probably don't know that.
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Re: Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" Coming To Blu-ray (Updated 12/31

Post by qjz123 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:11 pm

Black_Anime_Fan wrote: Well, FUNimation put out the Level Sets and Toei didn't seem to mind. Although, we probably don't know that.
That's because Toei still has the superior source material. So it doesn't necessarily mean that Toei doesn't want anyone to release a better looking release than they have released them selves. Toei gave Funimation inferior film prints so that if they wanted to do their own blu ray release they would still have an advantage over Funimation.
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AjayLikesGaming wrote:If you put out untouched footage, someone like me is going to take it and turn it into a perfect release. Someone not like me is going to do the same and share it instead. You give pirates the opportunity to do better than companies and people will jump on that so fast.
This is an 80s/90s animated all-ages show that was popular amongst kids. It's not some potent super weapon that might fall into the wrong hands that we have to protect from evil.

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