Orange Bricks vs Blu-Ray Season Sets

[TheBlackPaladin]

OK, so, I'll be the first to admit, I'm very late to the party on this, but I made the mistake of not getting the Dragon Boxes when they were still readily available. It's not my worst mistake as a Dragon Ball fan, as my preferred way to watch the show is through the dub of Kai anyway (and that's a home video release that I definitely do have), but I'd like to see if the orange bricks are worth replacing.

So, how do the orange bricks compare to the Blu-Ray season sets?

[Lord Beerus]

Blu-Ray sets everyday. The Orange Bricks are pretty bad in my opinion. But the Blu-Ray releases of DBZ had some major issues for the first three seasons. But Funimation did do a better job in handling the series on Blu-Ray once season five got released.

[Kendamu]

The BDs are definitely better. The dub audio options are the same, but the Japanese audio has been cleaned up and sometimes sounds better than the DBox. The colors are much more on-model this time around. The dirt and scratches have been cleaned up a lot better. The cropping is more selective so there's less awkward cutoffs of mouths, eyes, entire heads, etc. The cropping actually reminds me of shot framing in Battle of Gods. There are actual extras on the BDs where you're not getting much on the OBs.

Overall, the BDs are a better experience, they take up less space, the covers are a lot cooler, and the prices on Amazon are actually only a couple dollars more than the OBs on average. I wouldn't recommend the OBs to anyone, but I think the BDs are a reasonable way to collect DBZ while 4:3 options continue to be unreasonable or impossible to obtain for a compete release of the series.

EDIT: On the earlier seasons, you will notice some squiggles and blurry stuff that's a result of the grain wipe. If you're a reasonable distance from a smaller TV, you probably won't notice. But, you'll notice these things for sure on a large TV. In the later seasons, the grain wipe isn't as drastic and the source material isn't so bad to begin with, so they naturally look better than the early seasons.

[Kaboom]

The Blu-ray sets are definitely the lesser of two evils here. They have the same problems as the orange bricks, but to much less severe a degree. The cropping is selective instead of just arbitrary. The colors aren't so over-saturated that skin tones disappear. The blurring is hardly noticeable and doesn't cause frames to bleed into each other. Etc.

The Dragon Boxes and "Level" sets would be infinitely better options than either one for both DVD and BD, respectively, but... alas, the former are limited and rare and the latter were canceled early.

[Lord Beerus]

The Dragon Boxes and "Level" sets would be infinitely better options than either one for both DVD and BD, respectively, but... alas, the former are limited and rare and the latter were canceled early.

I know it may sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but why did the Level sets get cancelled? They were damn near perfect. Were sales not good enough? Or did it simply cost too much for Funimation to produce?

[JEFFMAN219]

The Blu Rays are way better then the orange bricks

[Gaffer Tape]

From my limited experience, I'd have to agree with the rest: the blu-rays are better than the orange bricks. But does that make them worth "upgrading" to? That's a bit tougher. I mean, it's basically replacing crap with crap. Is it worth it to get a shinier turd? I mean, I guess it depends on how much you can get for the orange bricks to invest in the Blu-rays. Personally, I'd say it's not worth it to bother.

I remember at one point MetalWario64 speculating that the last few orange bricks would probably have an edge over the corresponding Blu-rays. I'd be curious to know whether or not he was correct.

[Theophrastus]

The Dragon Boxes and "Level" sets would be infinitely better options than either one for both DVD and BD, respectively, but... alas, the former are limited and rare and the latter were canceled early.

I know it may sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but why did the Level sets get cancelled? They were damn near perfect. Were sales not good enough? Or did it simply cost too much for Funimation to produce?

AFAIK they didn't sell well enough to justify the relatively higher production cost, so a little from column A and a little from column B.

I'm not really sure what Funimation was expecting, though. Level 1.1 came out less than a month after Dragon Box Z Vol. 7, and while they were still in the process of releasing Kai 1.0 on DVD/BD. Who the hell thought that was a good idea and wouldn't backfire horribly, especially when they had a lot less episodes for the money compared to the OBs and Dragon Boxes?

[Kendamu]

From my limited experience, I'd have to agree with the rest: the blu-rays are better than the orange bricks. But does that make them worth "upgrading" to? That's a bit tougher. I mean, it's basically replacing crap with crap. Is it worth it to get a shinier turd? I mean, I guess it depends on how much you can get for the orange bricks to invest in the Blu-rays. Personally, I'd say it's not worth it to bother.

I remember at one point MetalWario64 speculating that the last few orange bricks would probably have an edge over the corresponding Blu-rays. I'd be curious to know whether or not he was correct.

The price point between the OBs and the BDs are within a few dollars of each other on Amazon. You can find similar prices at Best Buy. The BDs are definitely a better choice between the two. If someone had neither, I'd encourage them to get the BDs. If they owned the OBs and wanted to upgrade, it would be worth it. If they had the OBs and didn't want to upgrade, I wouldn't push the issue.

If they had the DBox and wanted to also have the Faulconer score or a "beater copy" of the show to keep the DBox in better condition, I would recommend the BDs. In no instance would I urge someone to get the OBs over anything else.

[theoriginalbilis]

I'd have to agree that the Season Blu-Rays are slightly better than the OBs. If you were one of the unlucky souls that missed out on the Dragon Boxes, these are your next best bet for original DBZ.

They do have their share of video issues, but it's a far more professional job than the OBs, which had even more detail loss and certain episodes blurred to near-VHS quality levels. If you can snag them for less than $30 a set, I'd say that's a reasonable price for the quality you're getting.

[Kendamu]

Here's a direct comparison:

Spoiler:

[BlackCatScott]

I guess I have a soft spot for the orange bricks because they were the first time I ever owned the complete series. Being from the UK, the series had never been released here and when I heard the orange bricks were being released I'd asked my mother if she'd get me Season 1 for Christmas...she surprised me by getting me the first three Seasons on DVD, and I don't think I've ever been happier at receiving a present. They're a pretty poor release, looking back. But I'll always keep them because they are pretty special to me in that regard.

Anyway, for yourself, the Blu-rays are definitely the way to go. The only better option available to you at present is the Dragon Boxes but unless you've got money to burn you'll never be able to own the complete set. You can get the Blu-rays at a really cheap price on Amazon.

[Metalwario64]

To me, if you already have the Orange Bricks, I'd just pass on these Blu-rays. They're a marginal improvement at best (mostly in sets 4 and 5), and they're just as bad, if not worse at their worst.

The lines don't disappear on the Blu-rays, and while the image is usually a bit sharper, there are plenty of oddly, extremely smeared episodes that make the corresponding brick episodes look like the Dragon Boxes in comparison, like so:

Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Another problem, is that, while the lines don't disappear anymore, there is problem that's almost as bad, and that's the "imperfect" grain removal. The grain "removal" didn't get the grain around edges, so you have a smooth image with the edges constantly jumping around each frame, and it looks terrible in motion, and unlike the disappearing lines, it happens for the duration of the show. I'm unaware if later sets had this problem or not, but I know the first one did for sure.

Plus, the "pan and scan" used is very sloppy and distracting. It's also used in really odd places, where it doesn't add anything, but the question of "why did they do this?"

Here are some examples I posted last year:

Spoiler:

I just made a GIF comparison between the DVD and Blu-ray season sets of Goku's transformation:

Left is the DVD, and right is the Blu-ray:



I noticed while making this that the camera is panning all over the place before Goku's head even lifts up. Why? Also, the camera pans DOWN when Goku's head shifts up, resulting in more of the top of his head getting cut off. That looks terrible, and it's extremely counterproductive. It also messes with the scrolling of the rocks (which don't shift with the camera in the original footage), and makes it overall look like someone with a shaky camera filming it off screen. I also noticed that the Blu-rays have a random black bar on the left side of the footage for a few frames in the middle of this shot. I don't know what that's about.

These flaws are very obvious to me.

Spoiler:

Oh ok, another thing I noticed is that it looks like some of the colours are bleeding. Am I the only one seeing this?

No, this was visible on the Orange Bricks too. It might be an artifact from the film copying process.

Anyways, some of these episodes are so dark, oversaturated and purple tinted. I'd take Season Two's lighter, yellowish tint over this. In this case I think the Orange Bricks colors look better. Whoever was in charge really needs to learn how to color balance.

Blu-ray:


DVD:


I took the Blu-ray shot into Photoshop and did some very quick and simple RGB adjustments to it, and that's all it took to get the colors looking good:



This is something FUNi/Post & Transfer or whoever could have easily done with their equipment.

Spoiler:

Looks like that one super bright episode from the DVD season three is still very bright, which is odd since they fixed the overbrightness on the "season two" Blu-ray.

Blu-ray:


DVD:


Then you've got some episodes that are really dark, blue-tinted and very saturated:

Spoiler:

I have some comparisons now:

Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:


Orange Brick:


Blu-ray:

Overall, in my eyes, you're just trading one set of problems for a few fixes, and another set of problems. Plus, by supporting these sets, you're sending FUNimation the message that it's okay for them to do this to the series (though it seems the sales have been great, so I guess they've already gotten that message). It's best to save your money to spend elsewhere.

[Kendamu]

On the last set of comparisons, the Blu-rays look better than the Orange Bricks in about every shot. As for grain removal, it evens out by Season 4. In terms of dirt/dust/tape/etc. removal, framing, and stabilizing the Blu-Rays are a ton better. I'd love to tell people to save a couple bucks, but you're the only person who seems to be finding the Bricks as the better alternative. And, if it's only a couple bucks difference, I'd recommend the Blu-rays any day.

[Metalwario64]

Well, I've said they have some benefits, but they also have other issues.

If he didn't already have the bricks, I'd recommend the Blu-rays over them, because they're at least sharper and later on have better colors, but I personally think that since he already has the bricks, that it wouldn't be a very justified upgrade, since they also have their own fair share of issues.

I guess that, maybe instead of relying on others' opinions, perhaps he could buy a copy of any set after Season Three (the first three just have too many color problems to me) if he can find one for cheap enough, and see how he likes it compared to his bricks. If he doesn't like it enough to justify repurchasing the series, then sell it, and if he thinks it's a big enough upgrade, then go ahead and invest.

Even if I think they're not good enough to upgrade, it's still just my opinion, and maybe I'm still bitter over the Level sets.

[XanatosVanBadass]

Wow. I really don't know what to think. I guess I'm sticking with my Kai DVDs for now.

[sayian_nation_]

If you like the blu rays then sell your OB sets as you're getting the blu ray sets. That's what I would do, you'll probably get all if not most of the money back.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

The BD sets are amazing. The only flaw they have is that FUNimation decided to crop the image into 16:9. Other than that they have the english dub with both the Faulconer score and Kikuchi's score, and the japanese version as well. The images are crisp and clear, sharper, and look great. The orange bricks were known to have a filter that blurred the image and caused a major loss of detail. That is absent in the BD sets.

Orange Brick Quality

Spoiler:

Original Left/Orange Brick Right

Spoiler:

BD sets 100% of the way. The only way it could be better is if they had left the image in 4:3. Other than that it's perfect. =)

EDIT: Here's a review solely on the BD remaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijHfBlL1DHE

[Ajay]

EDIT: Here's a review solely on the BD remaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijHfBlL1DHE

This isn't a review. This is someone yelling uninformed nonsense into a microphone for 10 minutes.

The Blu-rays are far from perfect. The cropping is the absolute least of its issues.

Their filtering process has left everything looking exceptionally flat with streaks of grain smearing in and out of the image. The show doesn't use razor-sharp edges for its shading; everything is a little soft and more natural looking. This release flattens everything for this weird vector-like appearance which even the Orange Bricks didn't have.

Even worse, the line-art is a blurry mess:

Spoiler:

It looks absolutely dreadful. Even the colours are an inconsistent mess, with skin tones varying from prawn pink to lemon yellow.

The later seasons improve marginally, but you still get blurry line-art in long distance shots. You'd have to be sitting pretty far back from your TV to negate this issue.

Even Boo Kai's Blu-rays look better. Softer shading is retained with no unnaturally sharp edges. Green tint, sure, but at least that's fixable with some small adjustments.

Whatever product you pick, you're getting a pretty shitty one. The Season Sets are the lesser of two evils, but let's not give praise where praise is absolutely not due.

[Lord Beerus]

The Dragon Boxes and "Level" sets would be infinitely better options than either one for both DVD and BD, respectively, but... alas, the former are limited and rare and the latter were canceled early.

I know it may sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but why did the Level sets get cancelled? They were damn near perfect. Were sales not good enough? Or did it simply cost too much for Funimation to produce?

AFAIK they didn't sell well enough to justify the relatively higher production cost, so a little from column A and a little from column B.

I'm not really sure what Funimation was expecting, though. Level 1.1 came out less than a month after Dragon Box Z Vol. 7, and while they were still in the process of releasing Kai 1.0 on DVD/BD. Who the hell thought that was a good idea and wouldn't backfire horribly, especially when they had a lot less episodes for the money compared to the OBs and Dragon Boxes?

So basically, oversaturation of Dragon Ball releases, effectively killed the Level Sets.