New "Remastered Box Set" Information

Tenken · Post by **Tenken** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:12 pm

For those of you that didn't notice:

The trailer is in widescreen format, so I think its safe to say that the episodes will be too. It actually didn't seem funny seeing those clips in widescreen. Maybe its not that big of a deal.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:15 pm

*cuts and pastes own post from AnimeonDVD*

Time will prove me right or wrong, but here's my theory:

NO DragonBox masters were used here. The press release makes mention of removal of thousands of instances of dirt, scratches, etc...and I've seen no such things on the DragonBoxes. Why? Because they were already remastered themselves, and came directly from a new scan of the animation cels.

They used the old masters they already had and because either Toei wouldn't release the DragonBox masters/Toei wanted too much, had the firm in Texas remaster them (at 1080p? Hm...).

As for the 16:9 thing...wow. I can't begin to say how...wow. That doesn't even make sense.

-Corey

BrollysKin · Post by **BrollysKin** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:20 pm

Lets look at this in a positive way. Dub fans (me) are finally getting something they have wanted for a long time. "Remastered" footage, consistent box-sets and a better inclusion of the japanese audio.

Sure there are things that seem discouraging, like the widescreen bit. But at some point we should stop whining and just be happy for once. These releases look very nice.

theoriginalbilis · Post by **theoriginalbilis** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:27 pm

Here's my view:

Pros:
1) 39 eps. for $50.
2) Japanese music for the Japanese version and the English dub.
3) Cleaned-up picture quality (less film dirt, grain, scratches)...

Cons:
1) Widescreen. Bad news for the TV series, since it's fullscreen. That means at least 20% of the original picture is getting cut out.
2) 8 eps. per disc. That means they'll be pushing the video compression, which may not look as good.

I hope that this "widescreen" is some kind of optional feature or a mistake, I'd rather have the entire picture for the TV series. (It's OK for the movies though.) Regardless, I've seen the whole series already in fullscreen, so I'm still picking this set up.

My main reasons for wanting this: The entire series with Mr. Simmons' subtitles, and the English dub with the original score FINALLY. I still think this set will be worth the money.

Especially with the "revised English dialogue"... Does that mean "General Tao" will be changed to the more proper "Mercenary Tao" name, and FUNi will make the whole English dialogue for all 3 series sync together better? I look forward to seeing more details. I'm still very excited.

fps_anth · Post by **fps_anth** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:28 pm

I was just watching one of my R2 DVDs...after close inspection, there is room for improvement in quality. If you don't know what I mean, pop in an R2 DVD or DBZ D-Box DVD, and look closely at the screen. There's a lot of crap seen on the screen, expecially the backrounds. If you want to see it even clearer, fulscreen the DVD on Windows Media Player. You see, Funimation could possibly provide us with "better then D-Box" quality. Yummy.

Tenken · Post by **Tenken** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:34 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:*cuts and pastes own post from AnimeonDVD*

Time will prove me right or wrong, but here's my theory:

NO DragonBox masters were used here. The press release makes mention of removal of thousands of instances of dirt, scratches, etc...and I've seen no such things on the DragonBoxes. Why? Because they were already remastered themselves, and came directly from a new scan of the animation cels.

They used the old masters they already had and because either Toei wouldn't release the DragonBox masters/Toei wanted too much, had the firm in Texas remaster them (at 1080p? Hm...).

As for the 16:9 thing...wow. I can't begin to say how...wow. That doesn't even make sense.

-Corey

Its obvious that they aren't using the Dragon Box masters, what remains to be seen is whether or not the quality will be decent. I could care less if they are using them or not as long as the video quality is great. They aren't doing this themselves --a company, Video Post & Transfer, was mentioned. They mostly do indie post-production though. I couldn't find much on them though besides their website.

I think FUNi finally realized how shitty their dvds were. I'm going to buy regardless of how they stack up to the Dragonboxes anyways. the pros outweigh the cons.

Li'l Lemmy · Post by **Li'l Lemmy** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:40 pm

MajinVegitaXV wrote:NO DragonBox masters were used here. The press release makes mention of removal of thousands of instances of dirt, scratches, etc...and I've seen no such things on the DragonBoxes. Why? Because they were already remastered themselves, and came directly from a new scan of the animation cels.

I think the way the trailer says the footage was lifted from "the original Japanese film masters" has some people confused and/or hopeful. While I still think these look very nice, I tend to agree that no, they are not the Dragon Box masters-- though admittedly, I am no expert. But why would there be a featurette about remastering the series if all that'd be involved in using Dragon box footage would be a simple transfer? You can't build a feature around that.

MajinVegitaXV wrote:They used the old masters they already had and because either Toei wouldn't release the DragonBox masters/Toei wanted too much, had the firm in Texas remaster them (at 1080p? Hm...).

Well, you own ALL the Dragon Boxes, don't you? Asuming you've seen the trailer, does it look anything like what you've got at home? Does it even look decent? Probably, you can't decipher too much from this one preview, but maybe you can tell us something we don't know.

MajinVegeitaXV wrote:As for the 16:9 thing...wow. I can't begin to say how...wow. That doesn't even make sense.

Still hoping out hope that this turns out to be an optional feature.

BrollysKin wrote:Lets look at this in a positive way. Dub fans (me) are finally getting something they have wanted for a long time. "Remastered" footage, consistent box-sets and a better inclusion of the japanese audio.

Sure there are things that seem discouraging, like the widescreen bit. But at some point we should stop whining and just be happy for once. These releases look very nice.

I'm a dub fan, too. And I'm making it a point not to complain, because even with the very preliminary information we've been given I am extremely happy with what I'm seeing. Love 'em or hate 'em, FUNimation doesn't owe us a damned thing; the series is OVER-- but here they're finally giving some sort of fanservice. I'm grateful, and this is likely the best we'll ever get.

fsp_anth wrote:I was just watching one of my R2 DVDs...after close inspection, there is room for improvement in quality. If you don't know what I mean, pop in an R2 DVD or DBZ D-Box DVD, and look closely at the screen. There's a lot of crap seen on the screen, expecially the backrounds. If you want to see it even clearer, fulscreen the DVD on Windows Media Player. You see, Funimation could possibly provide us with "better then D-Box" quality. Yummy.

I'd like to agree with you, but how can that be? If the masters FUNimation uses here are the same ones Toei gave them eons ago, then there's only so much they can do to improve the quality of what's already not-the-best quality to begin with. (Not their fault, but it's true.) Toei, on the other hand, has access to the original prints, and whether or not they did everything they could with them the fact remains that their base product is still better than anything we've ever seen stateside.

Your counter-argument, please.

EDIT: I still think these look fairly good, myself.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:43 pm

fps_anth wrote:If you don't know what I mean, pop in an R2 DVD or DBZ D-Box DVD, and look closely at the screen. There's a lot of crap seen on the screen, expecially the backrounds. If you want to see it even clearer, fulscreen the DVD on Windows Media Player. You see, Funimation could possibly provide us with "better then D-Box" quality. Yummy.

You do realize that by stretching out any image from its native resolution, there will be *some* distortion/artifacting, no? I see a little on my screen because my DVD player upconverts to 720p, but you've really gotta look. That's a problem that won't be resolved unless the series is released in an HD format.

Its obvious that they aren't using the Dragon Box masters, what remains to be seen is whether or not the quality will be decent.

It's obvious? Might wanna tell those who are asking here and on AnimeonDVD. It's not too obvious to them, it would seem ;p

And yes, I know they aren't doing the remastering, I already said it was a firm in Texas.

-Corey

P.S. -

Li'l Lemmy wrote:Well, you own ALL the Dragon Boxes, don't you? Asuming you've seen the trailer, does it look anything like what you've got at home? Does it even look decent? Probably, you can't decipher too much from this one preview, but maybe you can tell us something we don't know.

Yeah, I own all of them, and I've seen the trailer. It doesn't look bad, but then again it's a streaming ASX file so I won't try and compare it to MPEG2 streams. It's hard to get a grasp since it seems to show a second of footage then cut to the CG segments announcing the features.

ASX = Compression = Loss of color accuracy, but it still looks like FUNi is pushing the colors. Piccolo looks a darker shade of green than he should be (though it may be my monitor at work, it does suck). I'll reserve judgement, I may pick it up at Best Buy or something to compare the two assuming people don't come out of the woodwork saying it's awful.

-Corey

SonGokuGT · Post by **SonGokuGT** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:46 pm

I just rushed home from work to read the announcement...
All I have to say is Thank God Almighty!!! FUNimation, I love you... With this you shall atone for all your years of sin. This is just unreal to me, and my eyes started to tear up reading the press release! Wow... just WOW!

Taking DragonBox footage and further improving it to 1080p!? I'm incredibly stoked about being able to see the dub with the original score, since the Faulconer/Menza music was the only thing really turning me off about the dub.

As lame as it is that it's Widescreen, at this point I couldn't give a shit less! Seriously, my widescreen TV crops the video as it is so I'm kind of glad that it can be displayed at that format. Think about it, more and more people are buying HDTVs, and with the 1080p transfer that's what they are catering to.

I'm seriously blown away by this... my brother's gonna fucking flip when he hears this! And the release date is the day after my birthday!

MajinMetroid · Post by **MajinMetroid** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:49 pm

*puts all 30 of his DBZ dvds on eBay 9 months late...*

I was too chicken... UNTIL NOW!

SonGokuGT · Post by **SonGokuGT** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:52 pm

MajinMetroid wrote:*puts all 30 of his DBZ dvds on eBay 9 months late...*

I was too chicken... UNTIL NOW!

HAHA! Time for me to do the same!

theoriginalbilis · Post by **theoriginalbilis** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:55 pm

Heh heh. Luckily, I only own the DBZ movies and the 2 TV specials on DVD. So, this will be my first time buying most of the TV series in DVD.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:55 pm

SonGokuGT wrote:Taking DragonBox footage and further improving it to 1080p!? I'm incredibly stoked about being able to see the dub with the original score, since the Faulconer/Menza music was the only thing really turning me off about the dub.

As lame as it is that it's Widescreen, at this point I couldn't give a shit less! Seriously, my widescreen TV crops the video as it is so I'm kind of glad that it can be displayed at that format. Think about it, more and more people are buying HDTVs, and with the 1080p transfer that's what they are catering to.

I'm actually asking my contact at FUNi who helped me recently with a Samurai 7 box that I bought and didn't include some stuff, but I'm 99.5% sure that they used the masters they always had. The press release seems to support me on this one.

And while it's mastered in 1080p supposedly, it won't actually be an HD release. It'll be a DVD, which will always have a resolution of 720 × 480 max. I just don't want people to be disappointed on this one, it's better to know before putting down your cash on it.

-Corey

SonGokuGT · Post by **SonGokuGT** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:59 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:
SonGokuGT wrote:Taking DragonBox footage and further improving it to 1080p!? I'm incredibly stoked about being able to see the dub with the original score, since the Faulconer/Menza music was the only thing really turning me off about the dub.

As lame as it is that it's Widescreen, at this point I couldn't give a shit less! Seriously, my widescreen TV crops the video as it is so I'm kind of glad that it can be displayed at that format. Think about it, more and more people are buying HDTVs, and with the 1080p transfer that's what they are catering to.
I'm actually asking my contact at FUNi who helped me recently with a Samurai 7 box that I bought and didn't include some stuff, but I'm 99.5% sure that they used the masters they always had. The press release seems to support me on this one.

And while it's mastered in 1080p supposedly, it won't actually be an HD release. It'll be a DVD, which will always have a resolution of 720 × 480 max. I just don't want people to be disappointed on this one, it's better to know before putting down your cash on it.

-Corey

They mentioned Japanese masters... They've always HAD Japanese Masters! Why would they make a big deal about it now?

SatoSky · Post by **SatoSky** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:01 pm

Wether or not these are from the Dragon Box prints, FUNimation is still advertising them as being from a film source. Weren't their old "masters" on digi-beta? In any case these new DVD's should be better than FUNi's previous releases. Also, there is no video on Earth that can be absolutley perfect. Even the Dragon Box footage can be cleaned up some more.

EDIT: Just my two cents.

Post by **SaiyaJedi** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:01 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:Time will prove me right or wrong, but here's my theory:

NO DragonBox masters were used here. The press release makes mention of removal of thousands of instances of dirt, scratches, etc...and I've seen no such things on the DragonBoxes. Why? Because they were already remastered themselves, and came directly from a new scan of the animation cels.

Actually, the Dragon Boxes did remove a ton of dirt and scratches from the masters, and corrected a lot of compositing errors by realigning them digitally. Just because they're still 10+ years old after the restoration, isn't the fault of the restoration process...

Grandmaster J · Post by **Grandmaster J** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:03 pm

I just saw the trailer too. Everything looks and sounds nice. So basically, FUNi will be releasing the Dragonbox footage, correct? That's what it sounds like to me. I'm all for it. Let's just hope that FUNimation doesnt ruin the "Japanese film masters", if you know what I mean.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:07 pm

SaiyaJedi wrote:
MajinVejitaXV wrote:Time will prove me right or wrong, but here's my theory:

NO DragonBox masters were used here. The press release makes mention of removal of thousands of instances of dirt, scratches, etc...and I've seen no such things on the DragonBoxes. Why? Because they were already remastered themselves, and came directly from a new scan of the animation cels.
Actually, the Dragon Boxes did remove a ton of dirt and scratches from the masters, and corrected a lot of compositing errors by realigning them digitally. Just because they're still 10+ years old after the restoration, isn't the fault of the restoration process...

...I meant if they were using the DragonBox masters, which were 'remastered' primarily by scanning the original cels and making a new master print altogether, then FUNi/their remastering firm wouldn't have to re-remove scratches and dirt that didn't exist on the new masters. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

-Corey

Post by **desirecampbell** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:08 pm

Oh. My. Kami.
Remastered video - They won't be from Dragonbox footage, that's hoping too much. I just hope it's decent.
HD - well, it's not "HD", it's only on DVDs, it can't be that big. Though I've never cared about that, really, 720-wide is more than enough for me.
Original score for either language - wow, I never expected that. I don't care really, I'll never watch the dub. But my dubbie friends will be able to listen to actual music instead of Falcon-crap.

Widescreen - eh? But DragonBall was never animated in widescreen... this could be bad

I should've pre-ordered two of these

fps_anth · Post by **fps_anth** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:11 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:
fps_anth wrote:If you don't know what I mean, pop in an R2 DVD or DBZ D-Box DVD, and look closely at the screen. There's a lot of crap seen on the screen, expecially the backrounds. If you want to see it even clearer, fulscreen the DVD on Windows Media Player. You see, Funimation could possibly provide us with "better then D-Box" quality. Yummy.
You do realize that by stretching out any image from its native resolution, there will be *some* distortion/artifacting, no? I see a little on my screen because my DVD player upconverts to 720p, but you've really gotta look. That's a problem that won't be resolved unless the series is released in an HD format.

That's what I mean. HD format FTW! I mean, is Toei/Funi going to make ANOTHER restoration in five years to make them HD? If Funimation does not just take the Dragonbox footage, what is the point of making a slightly worse/better quality version of the Dbox footage, when they could be making the series in HD? Sure, it might be released later then expected, but think about it. We get these DVDs released in 07/08, then Funi releases EVEN MORE HD DVDs in 09/10? I wouldn't really like that, but then again, knowing me, I'd buy both...

Kanzenshuu

New "Remastered Box Set" Information

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