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

[samuraix123]

Wonder how long it's going to take Funimation to decide to remaster the movies? Again. haha Honestly..if they said ''Oh yeah were remastering them like the Level sets'' I would already have them ordered haha

[kei17]

I never thought that I would see something even worse than the orange bricks. Did they hire those fucking idiots who uploaded their own "2K" remasters on YouTube?

Or maybe they learnt something wrong from Kai. "Hey, Toei digitally redrew some shots for Kai. How about making everything look like 'em? It would be nice!"

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

Some other screen shots I was able to take from the video before it was taken down (glad I got them when I did)
(Image snipped)

Your image is broken. Can you upload it again?

FUNimation certainly took one step back from being very good remastering company. The Level Sets were so far and above Dragon Box, it isn't even funny. Now they decided to DNR the footage. Now what?

Edit: Even so, the Blu-Ray looks better than the Orange Bricks, at least.

[eledoremassis02]

here ya go I wont image tag it cause the other one works for me so I don't want to overglow the thread with the same image
http://s16.postimg.org/cccltv6n9/image.jpg

[Metalwario64]

Edit: Even so, the Blu-Ray looks better than the Orange Bricks, at least.

Obviously opinions are opinions, but I can't believe anyone would think the new Blu-rays are better than the season DVDs. Even the blurry first season still more resembles the original film.

I never thought that I would see something even worse than the orange bricks. Did they hire those fucking idiots who uploaded their own "2K" remasters on YouTube?

Or maybe they learnt something wrong from Kai. "Hey, Toei digitally redrew some shots for Kai. How about making everything look like 'em? It would be nice!"

I share the sentiment.

[kei17]

Even so, the Blu-Ray looks better than the Orange Bricks, at least.

It looks better resolution-wise, but the orange bricks at least looked like cel animation. Now it does not.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

Edit: Even so, the Blu-Ray looks better than the Orange Bricks, at least.

Obviously opinions are opinions, but I can't believe anyone would think the new Blu-rays are better than the season DVDs. Even the blurry first season still more resembles the original film.

Not really. FUNimation blurred and saturated heck out of season sets. FUNimation even went so far to bleach everything on Season 2, it wasn't even funny. Most of the important details was removed. The brightness was turned so high.

The Blu-Ray at least has the colors look presentable. The brightness looks just right.

[kei17]

It would be like this if Q-TEC upscaled FUNi's old digibeta footage.

[Zenkai]

The Blu-rays look good so far. I'd probably get them if I didn't already have the orange bricks.

[theoriginalbilis]

I'm... conflicted. I don't like the fact that it's cropped and there's loss of detail, but the quality and colors look more competently done than the blurred, near-VHS quality of the first couple Orange Bricks.

Me thinks I'll be very interested to see what the footage looks like in motion/higher-resolution.

[Roland_ELoG]

"... a frame by frame restoration proces..." I frankly do not think that's true. Either they reused the description from the Level Blu-rays, or they're using a pretty loose interpretation of "frame by frame." Maybe it means every frame will be altered. With highly destructive digital grain removal (that also removes hefty chunks of FACE).

The part that captured my interest (and may well have been thoroughly remarked on, this thread is way too long for me to read all of it), is the "precise shot by shot reframing" of the whole thing. If this was actually done very well, and very carefully, it would make these sets slightly less of an affront than the Remastered Bricks (which were so lazy they cut off the bottom half of the word "Dragonball Z" from the interstitial cards).

[Metalwario64]

Not really. FUNimation blurried and saturated heck out of season sets.

These are blurred and even more oversaturated. They enhanced the edges, and blurred the backgrounds far more than on the orange bricks. Look at the image of the sun, all the details have been reduced to large patches that look like they were drawn in MS Paint. It lacks "depth" as all of the details are ridiculously smudged with really hard edges making everything look very patchy. On the Orange Brick you can still make out some of the finer details. Even though they overall look blurrier, they're still more natural, and more consistent, as the footage doesn't wildly range from overly sharp to overly smudged within every little detail.

Here are comparisons:

DVD:

Blu-ray:

DVD:

Blu-ray:

DVD:

Blu-ray:

DVD:

Blu-ray:

DVD:

Blu-ray:

DVD:

Blu-ray:

Look at all of the details that are missing on the rocks in the background in this shot!


This is hardly better than any of those "2k HD" filter hell videos on YouTube. Frankly, I can't believe I'm defending the freaking Orange Bricks...

[Roland_ELoG]

Hardly better than those? Hell, it's the same.

My internet sucks the big one so I watched the various trailers in low res and didn't notice that at all. Nice image comparison, it makes me wonder what if anything they won't do for the illusion of HD.

[KentalSSJ6]

Aside from the cropping, am I the only one who thinks the bluray version looks fantastic? I'm not getting them due to it not being the Kai dub (well..maybe, still havent watched it all in Japanese) but I think it looks great.

[kei17]

Aside from the cropping, am I the only one who thinks the bluray version looks fantastic?

I hope it's really only you.

[Metalwario64]

*redacted*

[KentalSSJ6]

Aside from the cropping, am I the only one who thinks the bluray version looks fantastic?

I hope it's really only you.

I admit I'm a self proclaimed "quality whore". It may due to having a HD laptop screen but I honestly dont see much issue with the picture. If someone can point out what everyone is seeing id appreciate it.

[Weejus]

It does LOOK nice but the real question is who voted for 16:9 on FUNi's survey? Another worry is that the 'remastering' process on the OBs ended up in a lot of outlines removed (I remember a filler episode in Season 1 had a scene where almost all the outlines on Launch's face disappeared) and I at least hope FUNi will take more care with the show that gave them their claim to fame.

[KentalSSJ6]

And, of course, that leaves us (and more specifically, FUNimation) with one more question:

If THESE don't sell to expectations, what do they do?

I mean, they're positioning them pretty well for fans (blow out the colors, cheapen the price, etc.), but still. What if they don't sell? World collapse!

They will milk the very air out of DBZ for as long as they can. Seeing as DBZ is essentially the series that put Funimation on the map, I doubt they will stop releasing and remastering the series. A noble intention, not giving up on the series that pretty much got you started, but a botched execution with products such as these. Had this been the Kai cast and in 4:3, id have preordered these as soon as the details came out. Sadly it looks like I'm sticking with the Kai Season 1-8 Blu Ray sets.

[kei17]

If someone can point out what everyone is seeing id appreciate it.