Best Dragon Ball Releases

[eledoremassis02]

You can buy Dragon Ball Z on Amazon video http://www.amazon.com/Nimbus-Speed/dp/B ... gon+Ball+Z Its the same as the new blurays and only HD release of the show!

[Danfun64]

Because the Level Sets and DBZ Kai don't exist...

[SSGSS Goku]

Because the Level Sets and DBZ Kai don't exist...

Well, there were only 2 Level sets, but yeah. There's still Kai

[Ringworm128]

Isn't it possible to download the video from the level sets onto PS3 via the PlayStation Network? IRC it even has some of the unreleased episodes that were supposed to be on Level 2.1.

@Lord Beerus, Kai's picture is too inconsistent. blurring, redrawn scenes etc put it way below the Dragonbox if you want optimal picture.

[SSGSS Goku]

I forgot to mention various specials such as the Dragon Ball x One Piece x Toriko, the Year end special and movie overview specials considering they don't exist as home releases. I like to support the official release, but I guess there is no other option but to find recordings online of them. As for the Terebikko special, there was a vhs release, but it's so rare, I can't even find it on Yahoo Auctions, but if you do happen to find it, get it

[thejeremymenace]

DBGT in Japanese: Unfortunately, thejeremymenace's subtitle conversion script doesn't cover the Singles, which are the best release for DBGT with subs (contain NEPs which the Green Bricks lack). You might need to sync the Singles subs with the Toei Dragon Boxes by hand... Additionally, you'll want to sync the Animax audio to the Dragon Boxes as well, which isn't easy to find.

I would actually like to create a set of frame differences for the singles , but there are two small issues. One -- I don't own them, at least not anymore. Two -- the singles are encoded interlaced, while the season sets & Dragon Box are progressive. It's a little bit more difficult to get them frame-perfect when the field types are mismatched, and especially with Funi's alternate angles causing some weird single-frame blips at chapter points.

I've tried syncing the original Freeza Saga singles with the Dragon Box and, with all the weird anomalies, quite frankly it's a little more trouble than it's worth. The nice thing about syncing the season sets is that they are mostly consistent with frame differences between episodes, or at least follow a pretty simple pattern. The Z singles are all over the place. That said, the GT singles were obviously based on something close to the Dragon Box master so it might not be too bad.

I won't know until I try, but I have no current plans to do so. Right now I am working on a one-stop-shop program for anyone that wants to sync season set DVD subs/audio from any series (or movies) to the Dragon Box video, and mux to MKV. You can check my progress here: https://github.com/gravitypriest/dragon-radar

[clutchins]

That program sounds incredible. Do you have a thread in the fan-created works section for it yet?

[thejeremymenace]

Not yet, since it's still mostly a work in progress. I still need to collect framedata for the rest of the Orange bricks and do some more testing. I hope to have something ready before the summer.

[Danfun64]

I wonder what your long term plans for this program are. You already mentioned syncing Orange Bricks, Green Bricks, Blue Bricks, Funi Dragon Box, and DVD Double Features subtitles and audio to the Toei Dragon Boxes. You also mentioned that interlacing is problematic. Do you also plan on having your scripts utilize other resources, like Toei Dragon Box (The Movies) to the French Movies set Vol. 2, or Toei Dragon Box (The Movies) and/or the Pioneer Movie DVDs (or even Laserdiscs) to Ultimate Uncut movies? What about Big Green, Speedy and Japanese Laserdiscs to French Movies set Vol. 2 and Toei Dragon Box (The Movies) or even something as complex as German DB and DBZ series to Toei Dragon Box and Toei Dragon Box Z (due to the french cuts) and maybe even either Pioneer singles or Rock the Dragon edition to Toei Dragon Box Z during those rare times where the Saban dub mostly overlaps with the uncut footage?

[thejeremymenace]

When it comes down to it, most of the work is just plain opening the videos side by side in VirtualDub and recording the times where they differ and the number of frames difference. It's a time consuming process, but accurate between similarly encoded sources. It's simplest between the Season sets & Dragon Box because both are NTSC progressive and are easy to get a frame-perfect match.

It becomes slightly more convoluted when introducing interlaced sources like the original single DVDs, which also have different OPs, missing eyecatches and other weird encoding quirks. Introducing PAL video would be even more difficult, since now you have to compare sources with entirely different frame rates.

I will eventually document my process and allow people to create the same format of data (see here: https://github.com/jcrafts/dragon-radar ... fsets.json) using the source of their choosing, then allow the user to use that data in the program.

As for edited releases -- cutting the video to fit other audio is, unfortunately, outside the scope of this project. I've tried cutting the Dragon Box video to fit the original edited English dub audio before, and it's simply too much hassle. The sped-up cuts in those episodes really makes things much more tedious than normal. I would like to revisit the idea in the future, though.

I also want to avoid any unnecessary encoding since it's time consuming and affects quality. The purpose of Dragon Radar is to create the highest quality version of the show.

I only have access to English releases, so my default data relates to the English subs and audio. However, I will welcome contributions if anyone wishes to contribute framedata for other languages' releases.

[gogeta97]

"I love the series its my favorite!"

"How do I steal money from all of the people that made it possible?!"

You just piss right off, kid.

Calm down, he never said anything about illegally downloading, the title even asks about the best "release". I mean an official and legal download, free or not, is definitely easier than searching for multiple, potentially quite expensive DVDs/Blu-rays.

[eledoremassis02]

"I love the series its my favorite!"

"How do I steal money from all of the people that made it possible?!"

You just piss right off, kid.

Calm down, he never said anything about illegally downloading, the title even asks about the best "release". I mean an official and legal download, free or not, is definitely easier than searching for multiple, potentially quite expensive DVDs/Blu-rays.

I'd try amazon or Hulu. Hulu you can watch it free but they don't have the complete series (all of Dragon Ball subbed in on there tho)