How good is this Box?

[Solid Snake Way]

I'm looking for reviews but has anyone here seen a sample or something somewhere? Just out of curiosity.

http://www.amazon.es/Dragon-Ball-Saga-L ... roduct_top

EDIT: Found another thread with comparison images. http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... 9&start=40

[dbboxkaifan]

Pretty vague title you have here, you might want to change to "How good is the Spanish Dragon Box Z?" because asking how good a box is, well, a box's box.

Moving on, the Spanish Dragon Box is a really good release for those that know Japanese, Castellano, Catalán, Euskerá or Gallego and as for the picture quality, it's 4x3 with some DNR to clean it up (I'd provide some screenshots but I don't have it any more). And lastly, the NEPs are on the Extras' section so they're there if you want to watch them.

Price is much lower than Toei/FUNimation's Dragon Boxes Z releases.

Oh btw, since this is PAL (720x576) I think it's been sped-up but I never had problems with it as I don't notice anything odd when watching PAL DVDs.

[UltimateHammerBro]

As far as I know, it's not a bad box. It's the third Spanish DVD release, and second by Selecta Visión, and it shares many things with their previous release (which I own) but with improvements.
The first edition suffered from ghosting problems, but the video quality is better now, and it doesn't suffer from deinterlacing. There is some slight color correction and the footage isn't as good as the Japanese Dragon Box, which it uses as a base, but I can tell that, even though the screenshots in the topic suggest otherwise, this release looks good in movement (I saw a few snippets, but I don't remember where it was. Maybe it was in Selecta's YouTube channel, but I'd have to check).
It does share the audio with the previous release though. Some fans didn't like it for some technical reasons I don't really remember nor understood back in the day. The only thing I recall was that the first edition there was in DVD (which wasn't made by Selecta Visión) had a better quality audio, but wasn't uncut, since they used the TV-edited footage. To my ears, both in a TV and using headphones, it sounds pretty good (given that it's a 20-year old dub).

It contains the original Japanese audio plus the Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque dubs (that is to say, four out of the five dubs which were produced in Spain in the 90s. They were going to include the fifth, the Valencian dub, but had problems with the TV channel holding the rights) and Spanish subtitles. It's uncut, the aspect ratio is 4:3, and it's PAL.

I... don't really know what else to say about it. It's a decent release, I guess. Not as good as the Dragon Boxes, but way better than the Orange Bricks. They've released all of DBZ and DB, IIRC (not sure if there is one DB box left). As far as I know, GT and the movies haven't been announced, but given that they released all of it in their previous edition, it's likely that they'll re-release them too.

[Solid Snake Way]

Pretty vague title you have here, you might want to change to "How good is the Spanish Dragon Box Z?" because asking how good a box is, well, a box's box.

Moving on, the Spanish Dragon Box is a really good release for those that know Japanese, Castellano, Catalán, Euskerá or Gallego and as for the picture quality, it's 4x3 with some DNR to clean it up (I'd provide some screenshots but I don't have it any more). And lastly, the NEPs are on the Extras' section so they're there if you want to watch them.

Price is much lower than Toei/FUNimation's Dragon Boxes Z releases.

Oh btw, since this is PAL (720x576) I think it's been sped-up but I never had problems with it as I don't notice anything odd when watching PAL DVDs.

Box in caps = proper name. Plus I put the link so I don't think there would be any confusion.

Thanks for the info. Not really interested in buying it but I was curious about its quality. I'm missing Funimation DBOX 1 and 2, I refuse to buy them at those prices. I do know Spanish but I honestly can't bear to hear any kind of accent in a cartoon (heavy Spain accent in these ones, plus the dub is bad I think?). They do have subtitles plus the Japanese track which is good (although the subtitles would still have things from Spain Spanish, but it's easy to just change that in your mind when you're reading ).

[UltimateHammerBro]

Thanks for the info. Not really interested in buying it but I was curious about its quality. I'm missing Funimation DBOX 1 and 2, I refuse to buy them at those prices. I do know Spanish but I honestly can't bear to hear any kind of accent in a cartoon (heavy Spain accent in these ones, plus the dub is bad I think?). They do have subtitles plus the Japanese track which is good (although the subtitles would still have things from Spain Spanish, but it's easy to just change that in your mind when you're reading ).

The dub is a 'love it or hate it' case. Most of the performances are decent, but it's the translation mistakes which kill it (although when you're actually watching the series, they aren't as frequent as compilations of lines may lead some people to think).

May I ask where you're from? I'm just curious judging from your comment about the accent. There really is no accentless Spanish: the different ways of speaking between countries, and even in different parts of a same country, are too big. That's why two dubs are almost always made: Castilian Spanish dubs sound accentless to us, but too Spanish for Latin Americans, and Latin American dubs sound accentless to them, but too Latin American for us. The few attempts at finding a truly neutral accent for all the Hispanosphere (for instance, Halo 2) have failed miserably.

EDIT: The subtitles' translation is completely separate from that of the TV series. They will only sound off if you're accustomed to the other dialect: words are spelt the same way and the language used in subtitles rarely contains region-specific expressions. The verb conjugation differences are the only thing which may surprise someone whose mother language isn't Spanish: it's something similar to the differences in spelling between British and American English.

[Solid Snake Way]

Thanks for the info. Not really interested in buying it but I was curious about its quality. I'm missing Funimation DBOX 1 and 2, I refuse to buy them at those prices. I do know Spanish but I honestly can't bear to hear any kind of accent in a cartoon (heavy Spain accent in these ones, plus the dub is bad I think?). They do have subtitles plus the Japanese track which is good (although the subtitles would still have things from Spain Spanish, but it's easy to just change that in your mind when you're reading ).

The dub is a 'love it or hate it' case. Most of the performances are decent, but it's the translation mistakes which kill it (although when you're actually watching the series, they aren't as frequent as compilations of lines may lead some people to think).

May I ask where you're from? I'm just curious judging from your comment about the accent. There really is no accentless Spanish: the different ways of speaking between countries, and even in different parts of a same country, are too big. That's why two dubs are almost always made: Castilian Spanish dubs sound accentless to us, but too Spanish for Latin Americans, and Latin American dubs sound accentless to them, but too Latin American for us. The few attempts at finding a truly neutral accent for all the Hispanosphere (for instance, Halo 2) have failed miserably.

EDIT: The subtitles' translation is completely separate from that of the TV series. They will only sound off if you're accustomed to the other dialect: words are spelt the same way and the language used in subtitles rarely contains region-specific expressions. The verb conjugation differences are the only thing which may surprise someone whose mother language isn't Spanish: it's something similar to the differences in spelling between British and American English.

I'm from Colombia but I've lived in the US for a long time. As for the accent, the Latin American dub was made by Mexicans, and if the characters had a Mexican accent, I wouldn't have watched it, no one would have watched in Latin America, I'm not sure even Mexicans would have watched it. So it is pretty neutral, there's no Mexican accent or Mexican colloquialisms and things like that. Do you notice a discernible accent in the Mexican dub? Or does it just sound like not a Spain accent? In general, you don't think certain Latin American dubs sound more neutral than Spain dubs? I'm curious.

As for the Spain subtitles. I've seen some, they seem very accurate. And yeah, as you said, the verbs, for example "Si no os la coméis", no one talks like that in Latin America, but that's easy to change in your head when reading it.

I'm wondering, would British people be ok with a dub with British accents? Would it sound weird to you? How does the American dub sound to you aside from the cheesiness and bad translations, does it sound weird to you because it's American actors?

In my case, I would not want to listen to cartoons with any of the many Colombian accents, including my region's, it would be unwatchable. Actually, it it were like a comedy cartoon made in Colombia, it wouldn't be unwatchable, but if it were like Tom and Jerry or any anime, it would sound really bad.

[Ajay]

I'm wondering, would British people be ok with a dub with British accents? Would it sound weird to you? How does the American dub sound to you aside from the cheesiness and bad translations, does it sound weird to you because it's American actors?

British dubs weird me out so much. We're so used to American actors in our media here that it's very strange to hear a cartoon with genuine English actors throughout.

The best one in recent memory was Studio Canal's Arrietty dub which was above and beyond the Disney efforts.

It's pretty rare though, I think.

[UltimateHammerBro]

To answer your cuestion, I do find Spanish dubs a lot more neutral than Latin American dubs. However, that's entirely a matter of how it sounds to your ears. I don't think that one dub is more neutral than the other, but rather than they both appeal to different audiences.
The range of accents within Spain is HUGE, and our dubs have an accent which no one really has, but we've grown up accustomed to. It's pretty much the same as in Latin America: the difference between a Galician and an Andalusian speaking (top south and top north of Spain) could somewhat compare to a Mexican and an Argentinian. And we wouldn't like to see characters in dubs talking with real accents, just like you've said about the Colombian accent.

That said, when we listen to Mexican dubs, we notice an accent which, even if it has nothing to do with the one really spoken in Mexico, sounds Mexican to our ears (even if it is, let's say, Venezuelans or Puerto Ricans faking it). We don't notice any accent in our own dubs because we don't find any foreign characteristics in it, even if we don't really talk like that. Even though Mexico and Spain both started their dubbing traditions in the early 1930s, some Mexican dubs were distributed for decades in Spain, both animation and live action, and we didn't find them neutral by any means. Pretty much the same thing which would have happened if Spanish dubs were distributed in Latin America: you would notice our accent the same way we notice yours.

So, to sum up, dubs using Neutral Castilian Accent will sound more neutral to a Spaniard than Neutral Latin American Accent, and for Latin Americans, it'll the other way round. It's impossible to make a real neutral accent, and I think that the solution of making two dubs works well enough.

NOTE: I just wrote that looooooong thing regarding accents because I thought that you were from a non-Spanish-speaking country who had learned Mexican Spanish and was put off by a different dialect. If you do speak the language, that's an entirely different matter.

[dbboxkaifan]

Castellano is the traditional language spoken around Spain so even on parts where their main is Gallego/Catalán/etc they still acknowledge Castellano because more people know it and the tourists prefer it too (it's somewhat easy to learn) so it works out for both sides.

Personally, Gallego sounds more like Portuguese (because it's a mix) than Brazilian Portuguese as PT-BR sounds a lot like Latin Spanish than actual Portuguese, but this is off-topic.

[Solid Snake Way]

To answer your cuestion, I do find Spanish dubs a lot more neutral than Latin American dubs. However, that's entirely a matter of how it sounds to your ears. I don't think that one dub is more neutral than the other, but rather than they both appeal to different audiences.
The range of accents within Spain is HUGE, and our dubs have an accent which no one really has, but we've grown up accustomed to. It's pretty much the same as in Latin America: the difference between a Galician and an Andalusian speaking (top south and top north of Spain) could somewhat compare to a Mexican and an Argentinian. And we wouldn't like to see characters in dubs talking with real accents, just like you've said about the Colombian accent.

That said, when we listen to Mexican dubs, we notice an accent which, even if it has nothing to do with the one really spoken in Mexico, sounds Mexican to our ears (even if it is, let's say, Venezuelans or Puerto Ricans faking it). We don't notice any accent in our own dubs because we don't find any foreign characteristics in it, even if we don't really talk like that. Even though Mexico and Spain both started their dubbing traditions in the early 1930s, some Mexican dubs were distributed for decades in Spain, both animation and live action, and we didn't find them neutral by any means. Pretty much the same thing which would have happened if Spanish dubs were distributed in Latin America: you would notice our accent the same way we notice yours.

So, to sum up, dubs using Neutral Castilian Accent will sound more neutral to a Spaniard than Neutral Latin American Accent, and for Latin Americans, it'll the other way round. It's impossible to make a real neutral accent, and I think that the solution of making two dubs works well enough.

NOTE: I just wrote that looooooong thing regarding accents because I thought that you were from a non-Spanish-speaking country who had learned Mexican Spanish and was put off by a different dialect. If you do speak the language, that's an entirely different matter.

Ah, I see. That's pretty interesting.