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

[dbboxkaifan]

Both of them are cropped and have detail loss which makes it somewhat comparable to these Season Blu-rays.

What we're seeing from the TV broadcasts of Dragon Ball Kai: The Final Chapters is what'll probably be on the BDs/DVDs unfortunately.

Even if the user turns up the brightness the details won't magically appear again, they're gone that's it.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I still don't understand the issues with cropping.

[KentalSSJ6]

I still don't understand the issues with cropping.

The anime was never meant for the cropped 16:9 format.

[superrayman3]

I still don't understand the issues with cropping.

The issue with cropping (at least in the case of the original DBZ series) is DBZ wasn't meant to be cropped to 16:9 to begin with, the show was animated with the 4:3 aspect ratio (square TV's) in mind because DBZ was produced at a time when 4:3 was the standard aspect ratio that TV's used, now some could argue that the DB/Z movies were originally animated in 4:3 and cropped to 16:9 so what's the difference between the movies and the show? The difference is while the moves were indeed animated in 4:3 and cropped to 16:9, Toei animated the movies with all of the really important details in the center of the footage because they knew that the movies were going to be cropped, the DBZ series however wasn't animated like that, DBZ was animated with all of the important details being everywhere in the frame top, middle, bottom, etc... so when the DBZ series is cropped from 4:3 to 16:9, you're always going to lose a good amount of that important detail no matter how selective the cropping is.

[dan2026]

Some people also don't seem to understand that film grain is a natural optical texture of the medium Dragon Ball was made on. It's supposed to be there.

You can't erase it without destroying detail at the same time.

Look at this comparison of the two different Predator Blu-ray releases. DNR turned Arnold into a plastic man.

[Gaffer Tape]

I still don't understand the issues with cropping.

What is there not to understand? You're losing a substantial portion of the picture. When I watch something, I want to actually see it.

[IGhostUlt]

Other than the cropping and the lack of grain, what else makes this release "so bad"?

[Gaffer Tape]

Other than removing parts of the picture and ruining the image quality of all that remains? D-d-do I really need anything more than that? Because that sounds pretty bad.

[TheAldella]

The audio quality's great, the colours are good, and you're getting a ton of bang for your buck, with more extras than we've ever had to boot. If you're just a chill DBZ viewer, there's plenty to find in these, because they surpass the Season DVD sets in terms of cropping and line removal.

If we're looking for flaws, there's the cropping, as we mentioned SEVERAL times, and a bit of detail removal in the backgrounds and sometimes foreground. The only things "bad" about this set would be the remaster (zoomed ending too) and lackluster packaging.

It's not as bad as those YouTube filters, no matter what people say, and it'll be a pretty damn good way to watch the Buu saga.

[dbboxkaifan]

Considering that FUNimation didn't violate the final chapters of Dragon Ball Z on Orange Bricks as much as they did for the early ones it'll be interesting to see if the Season BDs will be better than the OBs.

It's possible to see the grain on the near-final OBs (something you don't get on the Season BDs) and overall they have great PQ but unfortunately they were cursed to be cropped, still, it doesn't make them unwatchable.

[TheAldella]

Makes me want a FUNimation-remaster of the Buu saga in 4:3, because apparently, their masters just work great for that era.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Other than the cropping and the lack of grain, what else makes this release "so bad"?

Here is the list of the flaws I see:

- ~20% of the original footage is missing.
- colors are improperly corrected and oversaturated.
- brightness and contrast are overdriven.
- heavy DVNR killed the classic look along with the details and affected original line work.
- painted backgrounds were totally messed up by DVNR.
- DVNR caused a strange smearing and artifacting in quick moving scenes.
- bits of not fully removed grain remain here and there and it creates nasty artifacting.
- sometimes, there is a strange kind of earthquake-like unnatural jittering present.
- blacks are crushed even more than on other releases from FUNimation (dark areas are completely black).
- 16:9 cropping made many scenes look claustrophobic. The fact that it is selective heavily affects the original director's vision when only the top or only the bottom of the frame is shown. I'm not even mentioning camera moves.
- they added artificial camera pans that were not in the original show.
(as long as some of the flaws are on the original source, I can tolerate them to some degree)

Nobody tells you to pay any attention or even believe this.

[dbboxkaifan]

Here's a sample of a jitter moment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2GMrG-HTqU

This doesn't feel natural and if they're really trying to give the complete experience then release the uncropped version with the top/bottom and sides then on Blu-ray in its raw aspect. Of course they won't do it.

[Hellspawn28]

After reading this whole topic for 3 weeks, i realized a lot of are guys are just plain hating on this release. This blu ray set was to give dbz the modern digital look that anime has today and it's done a brilliant job doing it. Not that old grainy, gate weave stuff that a lot of y'all want. We already have all of that already.

If they wanted it to have a modern digital look to it then they should have done a better job on it. Don't say DBZ is a old show and making it look better won't help is bull shit. Gatchaman: Complete Collection is based on a anime TV show from the early 70's and the Blu-Ray from Sentai Film Works looks better then the Blu-Ray sets that Funi puts out. It's sad that the Dragon Boxes from a decade ago look better then a Blu-Ray from 2014.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Well I'm not much of a videophile, Hell I don't even know what the heck DVNR is.

Too me these look great and that's all that matters, wide screen, no grain, bright and vibrant. I've seen the OB's, Dboxes, Level sets and I think these look the best.

[Gokuden]

If I didn't know any better, I'd think the Funimation bots have been unleashed.

[ABED]

Other than the cropping and the lack of grain, what else makes this release "so bad"?

That's like saying, "other than pouring blood on that carpet, what makes it so bad?"

[Metalwario64]

the colours are good.

I highly disagree.

The colors range from too pink, to too yellow, and in season 3 even too purple. Sometimes they're too bright, sometimes they're too dark, and they're always oversaturated.

I seriously think that outside of season 2, the DVD Orange Bricks have better colors:

Blu-ray:


DVD:


Here's the Blu-ray with some basic color balancing done, which is apparently something FUNimation/Post & Transfer is unable to do:

[Kendamu]

The DVD looks too bright on my end, but what type of TV or computer monitor you have has a lot to do with that.

[LordCrumb]

Well I'm not much of a videophile, Hell I don't even know what the heck DVNR is.

Too me these look great and that's all that matters, wide screen, no grain, bright and vibrant. I've seen the OB's, Dboxes, Level sets and I think these look the best.

Now I know for sure you're flat out trolling. No one who has seen the Level sets would ever say such a thing.

Ignorance is bliss though, so as long as you're happy with a shoddy release.. hell, some people in the world still can't tell the difference between Lossy and Lossless audio either.