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

[Soul]

Think the bottom of the line thing is, all companies put out both good and bad products, be it FUNimation, Viz or even Disney.

To reiterate an earlier statement Marc, Viz HAS been improving within the last 2 to 3 years; this whole debacle with Sailor Moon's video definitely set them back in a lot of fans' eyes though. Which is unfortunate because, OUTSIDE OF THE VIDEO, the release pretty damn great; be it with packaging, extras and of course, the new dub. The amount of effort they put into the release aside from the video shouldn't be understated.

On that note: Julie McDonald needs to be fire or demoted at the very least in terms of how excruciatingly insulting she is.

[MarcFBR]

Yikes, Highlander S1 does look bad, but still I think Sailor Moon looks a lot better than that heck even DBZ looks better than that does. I have my perfect HD release of DBZ that being Kai then again I am not a videophile like you seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm just glad that I finally can own a legal release of Sailor Moon. The Japanese audio on it sounds great which already makes it better than ADV's crap release. I may be the only one who actually doesn't mind the Sailor Moon release.

While I consider myself a videophile, I've never minded going 'eh, good enough' in certain cases. As an example, the rare cases of a Funimation release being slightly brighter which introduces slight banding has never really bothered me, or the minimal compression differences between Japanese Ranma BDs and Viz Ranma BDs I consider inconsequential and not noticeable during actual viewing. I just happen to find this specific release especially insulting because of all the talking up they did about how they were improving it, it was going to be better than the Japanese DVDs (and still are talking about how great it is.)

Think the bottom of the line thing is, all companies put out both good and bad products, be it FUNimation, Viz or even Disney.

Yes, but it gets people queasy because Viz has a long history of this sort of thing, and not actually fixing stuff when it comes up (the one time I can recall them fixing a DVD video problem, they apologized by sending people... VHS tapes... of different content, while waiting for them to fix the DVDs, which, was nice... but this was when VHS was basically obsolete and it was obvious they were just throwing extra stock at people as mock gifts.)

To reiterate an earlier statement Marc, Viz HAS been improving within the last 2 to 3 years; this whole debacle with Sailor Moon's video definitely set them back in a lot of fans' eyes though. Which is unfortunate because, OUTSIDE OF THE VIDEO, the release pretty damn great; be it with packaging, extras and of course, the new dub. The amount of effort they put into the release aside from the video shouldn't be understated.

Yes, with releases that in general are nearly prepared for them. The first time they did something on their own in quite awhile, they stumbled with the video in nearly every way possible, while still smiling and talking about not only how great the video was, and charging a premium price for it.

And effort is nice, but you know what's better... a quality product. It's a shit product, at a shit price, and concerns have basically been dismissed and ignored.

On that note: Julie McDonald needs to be fire or demoted at the very least in terms of how excruciatingly insulting she is.

My only comment was that it was a very painful interview to listen to, and I hold Zac in esteem regard for staying professional despite a few times sounding like he was painfully close to the edge.

[dbboxkaifan]

While the Sailor Moon Blu-ray is pretty bad I still think DBZ is a lot worse just because it was cropped.

The detail on the DBZ Blu-rays are still there and despite that it's cropped you can see most of it whereas the Sailor Moon BDs eliminated in an attempt to turn it to a Disney animated production. It's just so bloody awful and the worst part is, they're wasting Blu-rays with this shit.

Look at this mess:



For someone who wouldn't know how the original looks like they'd probably think of it like this: She's got the umbrella opened for fashion and she's apparently on the grounds of ice skating or such.

[Metalwario64]

Yeah, I've complained about the new DBZ Blu-ray season sets, but that was mostly on the principle of being against the cropping and tampering, but at least they look acceptable (in terms of picture quality).

These Sailor Moon Blu-rays are extremely blurred, and suffer from terrible ghosting and, oddly, dot crawl. Honestly, I don't see why anyone would waste the money on the Blu-rays when the DVDs don't look any worse (on a 16x9 TV at least).

I'm also curious to see whether the pillarboxing will actually be corrected on the second set. I have an odd feeling that it actually won't be.

[MarcFBR]

I'm also curious to see whether the pillarboxing will actually be corrected on the second set. I have an odd feeling that it actually won't be.

Their generic defense has been 'no, there's no issues, everything we have done has been our own choices for artistic reasons' even when it's obvious they've screwed up.

Now that they've said factually set 2 will not be pillarboxed, they have to have the DVDs non-pillarboxed or they lose what little credibility they have left among the small group that still believes them that they know what they are doing. It'll be encoded and flagged 4:3.

[Bananape]

On that note: Julie McDonald needs to be fire or demoted at the very least in terms of how excruciatingly insulting she is.

Couldn't agree more. She was belittling the host and was completely ignorant of the facts presented before her. Very unprofessional.

[Fulicer]

On that note: Julie McDonald needs to be fire or demoted at the very least in terms of how excruciatingly insulting she is.

Couldn't agree more. She was belittling the host and was completely ignorant of the facts presented before her. Very unprofessional.

Maybe I'm totally out of the loop here, but I can't seem to find the video that you guys are referring to on this thread (after skimming the previous pages). Who did she talk to and when?

Edit: oh right, here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast ... -13/.81009 Not sure I would want to listen to some interview of people being jerks....or maybe I can search for the timestamp(s) where "harsh language" appears.

[qjz123]

Dragon Ball Z Season 6 Blu ray vs Season 6 Orange Brick comparisons.

Spoiler:

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That's assuming that the person looking to purchase the Blu ray's already owns the Orange bricks which isn't always the case. If someone does indeed own the Orange bricks then I would say that you have a valid point in that the Blu ray's may not be worth the upgrade but for someone who doesn't own the Orange bricks and is looking to purchase the series I think the Blu ray's are a better option and they are priced competitively with the Orange bricks.

I'm 99% sure he's talking about the Sailor Moon disks.

Edited

[MarcFBR]

That's assuming that the person looking to purchase the Blu ray's already owns the Orange bricks which isn't always the case. If someone does indeed own the Orange bricks then I would say that you have a valid point in that the Blu ray's may not be worth the upgrade but for someone who doesn't own the Orange bricks and is looking to purchase the series I think the Blu ray's are a better option and they are priced competitively with the Orange bricks.

I'm 99% sure he's talking about the Sailor Moon disks.

[dbboxkaifan]

Dragon Ball Z Season 6 Blu ray vs Season 6 Orange Brick comparisons.

Spoiler:

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The colours look better on the Orange Bricks but in an overall aspect the Season Blu-rays are an improvement from it and IMO it sorta looks like Kai ('cept for the colours again).

Cell's wings on the Orange Bricks are crushed black but on the Season BDs you can see the details' there. This is something the Sailor Moon BDs are missing entirely.

[Ajay]

It's depressing when the Orange Bricks look better than the Season Sets at times.

Vegeta's bleached skin looks abysmal in comparison to its Orange Brick counterpart, as do many of the characters.

So not only does this release have wobbly streaks of grain all popping in out and out, it's also horribly blurry with horrendous faded skin tones.

Not that we didn't know all this already but fuck me, it's depressing to lay it all out like that.

[Vegard Aune]

Really? Because I'd say the BD looked better on each of those screens. Granted I understand that the flaws of the BDs only become truly appearent when seen in motion, but just in terms of color, contrast, sharpness and image-framing, I'd say the BDs win.

[JEFFMAN219]

It's depressing when the Orange Bricks look better than the Season Sets at times.

Vegeta's bleached skin looks abysmal in comparison to its Orange Brick counterpart, as do many of the characters.

So not only does this release have wobbly streaks of grain all popping in out and out, it's also horribly blurry with horrendous faded skin tones.

Not that we didn't know all this already but fuck me, it's depressing to lay it all out like that.

Are you kidding me? The orange bricks look like crap compared to the blu rays. But ya some of the problems you pointed out with blu rays are true.

[Ajay]

It's been pointed out numerous times over dozens of pages that the clarity and colour in many (not all) episodes are far superior on the Orange Bricks.

I'm not saying the overall quality is better. It's not. Clearly the Season Sets are the better product but it's not unanimous in every department and that's my point.

[dbboxkaifan]

The Season Blu-rays have the same problem as Kai 2.0, the colours but otherwise it's an acceptable release considering there's not a better release than this for the English market (unless the consumer's willing to spend big bucks on the out of print Dragon Boxes Z).

Adjusting the colours isn't much of an issue but it tends to mess up another part on the video but honestly I was never really concerned with it (I've done it for the DB Saga Sets & DBZ Movie Singles).

[eledoremassis02]

Caught some tape marks on the youtube clip. No bigy but lol

[lansing]

Caught some tape marks on the youtube clip. No bigy but lol

Well, this is the main reason why they make 16:9 instead of 4:3. No extra cleaning required, just simply chop off the top and bottom of the screen, send it to the cheap DNR machine, ran a level filter to adjust the darkest area to hit 0 and the brightest area to hit 100, and bang, there goes the final product.

[sangofe]

It's depressing when the Orange Bricks look better than the Season Sets at times.

Vegeta's bleached skin looks abysmal in comparison to its Orange Brick counterpart, as do many of the characters.

So not only does this release have wobbly streaks of grain all popping in out and out, it's also horribly blurry with horrendous faded skin tones.

Not that we didn't know all this already but fuck me, it's depressing to lay it all out like that.

Huh? I think the colors look more natural and better on the BD's, at least those on those comparison shots.

[Ajay]

Huh? I think the colors look more natural and better on the BD's, at least those on those comparison shots.

The skin tones just look terrible on the Season Sets. I'm with you on a majority of the other stuff. Colours definitely look more natural on clothing whereas they're super crushed on the Orange Bricks.

[theoriginalbilis]

In retrospect, the colors and contrast on the Blu-Ray Season Sets never bothered me. Sure they're a little inconsistent, but so were the Orange Bricks and even the Dragon Boxes to an extent. I think the colors look far better on FUNimation's release than say... what Toei has done with the Buu arc of Kai.

Of course, Kai "1.0" still wins IMO by having the best colors and remastering quality out of all the various DragonBall releases.

For DBZ TV: Kai 1.0>>Levels>>Dragon Boxes>>FUNi DVD singles>>Season Blu-Rays>>Kai Buu arc>>Orange Bricks