One of the original DBZ directors says FUNi Blu-rays where "what it was supposed to look like to begin with"

[Baggie_Saiyan]

If the director actually made a comment, I suspect he was looking at the material before it was messed up with cropping and DNR.

I am sure they saw the episodes in the full remaster however I agree it probably wasn't crop because cropping it was a last minute decision given the evidence we had.

[Marugoto]

I remember someone from Funimation (I think it was Chris Sabat but I'm not sure) saying the same thing in regards to the Level sets back in 2011. Maybe Justin Cook got the stories mixed up, since that claim would make a lot more sense that way. The levels kept the original aspect ratio and seemed to be pretty ok overall.

[TheGreatness25]

Maybe this was an extra that was supposed to go on the Level Sets and they were like, "Ah, same shit." lol But anyway, I have to say: Justin Cook cleaned up nicely since I saw him on that Budokai 3 bonus disc. He kind of looked like they found him sleeping on a park bench an hour before shooting.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I don't understand why people are so strong in their stance on the grain. It wasn't drawn with the grain. Basically you're saying that just because it aired with dirty film, that's the way it is. Like... no. Obviously, it wasn't drawn with dirt or gain, right?

Simply put, the process they put it through to remove the grain also melts the backgrounds and fucks with the line work, erasing detail. There's no way around this, both grain and detail are the same part of the image, you can't remove grain without destroying the detail embedded in it. (The obvious exception being Kai 1.0, who knows what kind of Black Magic they used on that one?)

Even more simply put, grain is aesthetically bad, but removing the grain is far worse.

[Kendamu]

Maybe this was an extra that was supposed to go on the Level Sets and they were like, "Ah, same shit." lol But anyway, I have to say: Justin Cook cleaned up nicely since I saw him on that Budokai 3 bonus disc. He kind of looked like they found him sleeping on a park bench an hour before shooting.

I was just thinking about this myself. Some of these,extras have Level Set footage as their B-Reel. I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to move them over to the Season Sets.

For all we know, that Toei director could be talking about the Level Set footage!

[Cipher]

Simply put, the process they put it through to remove the grain also melts the backgrounds and fucks with the line work, erasing detail. There's no way around this, both grain and detail are the same part of the image, you can't remove grain without destroying the detail embedded in it. (The obvious exception being Kai 1.0, who knows what kind of Black Magic they used on that one?)

Kai 1.0 also has some blurring, but whatever they did was incredibly non-intrusive. You can mostly catch it if you scrutinize the background art, looking for the edges of brush strokes, etc.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Kai 1.0 also has some blurring, but whatever they did was incredibly non-intrusive. You can mostly catch it if you scrutinize the background art, looking for the edges of brush strokes, etc.

Oh, I know, but it's genuinely strange how well it was kept intact for there hardly being any grain.

[Puto]

Kai 1 succeeded where FUNimation failed, because FUNimation doesn't know the meaning of moderation. If you use appropriately low amounts of DNR, you can preserve 99% of the detail without the picture looking like it's gone through twenty stages of overlapping grain. But both the Orange Bricks and the Season Blu-rays use DNR at absolute maximum settings, being desperate to get rid of all grain, so the result is the blurry mess we have.

[RedShift]

What I don't get is why it's so blasted hard for them to get the original masters and work on touching things up from the ideal source material?

Do all of the color corrections, sharpening, and touch up work to improve picture quality as much as you can, but don't turn the product into something it's not.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

What I don't get is why it's so blasted hard for them to get the original masters and work on touching things up from the ideal source material?

Toei just won't give it to them, that's more than likely the long and the short of it. However, Funimation's masters aren't even the problem, the company itself is. The Levels proved that, dark detail aside, they can make a fantastic product with what the source have at HQ right this minute. Even the crushed blacks largely (although not entirely) disappear after the Saiyan Arc of their material.

[TheGreatness25]

I'm pretty sure that they tried with the Level sets -- which is a reason why they're so highly-regarded. They disclosed that it cost way too much on their end to do it and scrapped the project in favor of these Blu-ray seasons. I'm assuming that it cost them too much, the release would take forever (only a dozen or so episodes per release), and I guess not enough fans were buying. So they went a cheaper route that made more sense for them.

I think either way, they're done with Dragon Ball Z. There is no other way for them to capitalize on it. They already ran the well dry, I believe. Onto Super and Kai 2.0.

[Robo4900]

I'm pretty sure that they tried with the Level sets -- which is a reason why they're so highly-regarded. They disclosed that it cost way too much on their end to do it and scrapped the project in favor of these Blu-ray seasons. I'm assuming that it cost them too much, the release would take forever (only a dozen or so episodes per release), and I guess not enough fans were buying. So they went a cheaper route that made more sense for them.

I think either way, they're done with Dragon Ball Z. There is no other way for them to capitalize on it. They already ran the well dry, I believe. Onto Super and Kai 2.0.

The reason the Levels failed is because they were put out in 2011, right in the middle of Kai, and just in the wake of the Dragon Boxes(2009-2011). And right before that(2007-2009) you had the DVD seasons, and right before that(2005/2006) they had the ill-fated Ultimate Uncuts, which were following right on the tail of the DVD singles(1999-2004).

By the time the Levels came out, people already owned DBZ, in some cases multiple times. They didn't want to buy it again in HD, because if they were hardcore enough to want that, they already owned the Dragon Boxes, which were pretty damn expensive on their own. If someone wanted DBZ in HD in 2011, they'd probably go for Kai, because they'd actually be getting something they don't already own, and they'd have decided to go for Kai instead of Z in 2009 when choosing between DBoxes and Kai.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I'm pretty sure that they tried with the Level sets -- which is a reason why they're so highly-regarded. They disclosed that it cost way too much on their end to do it and scrapped the project in favor of these Blu-ray seasons. I'm assuming that it cost them too much, the release would take forever (only a dozen or so episodes per release), and I guess not enough fans were buying. So they went a cheaper route that made more sense for them.

I think either way, they're done with Dragon Ball Z. There is no other way for them to capitalize on it. They already ran the well dry, I believe. Onto Super and Kai 2.0.

Mostly true. The release wouldn't actually have taken that long, they released over 10% of the series just in those first 2. They weren't nearly as expensive as they're made out to be, either. Approximately Dragon Box quality for half the price.

As for the financial failure of the series, it happened. People weren't buying them, there's no doubt about that. However, this is because they had literally been releasing the series for years and years and years, over and over and over again. They squeezed the life and money out of the fanbase before even attempting a good, yet affordable release. In fact, I'm willing to bet that if the Level Sets had begun in 2013, they would have succeeded almost as well as the Season Sets did. They released them at a good time, going the "cheaper route" was a peripheral advantage at best.

As for Z being done, I don't think so. I predict one last release once 4k becomes the norm. That will be a little while longer still, so I won't predict the details. Funimation could become an entirely different company in that time after all. Either way, that would be their last chance to give us a good release. After that, the returns of higher resolutions would diminish to a point where anything more would be counterintuitive for everyone.

[TheGreatness25]

I just don't know if Funimation is willing to put in the money that it costs to put out another Z series, especially now when their prayers have been answered and they have never-before-touched Dragon Ball content to pump out.

The issue with the Level Sets' episode count wasn't just that it was low, it's that it took a couple of years pumping out the Orange Bricks and Dragon Boxes, which had as many as 40+ episodes per release compared to the Level Sets' 17. If each release came out three months apart (which was the norm), it would take four years and three months to release. That's a really, really long time. Kai also had a little more than a dozen episodes released at a time, but there were only 100 episodes compared to the Level Sets' 291; and even so, it took quite some time for it. I am not sure if anyone wanted to collect 68 episodes per year, when the Dragon Box put out 42 episodes (nearly 62% of that) in its first release. I remember that was my issue with the Level Sets. Like, "Ugh, really? I'm going to be spending years getting these." And then, just shortly thereafter, it was like, "Ugh... No guess not... But I get to own the exact same episodes yet once again! At least there are a bunch more episodes this time."

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I just don't know if Funimation is willing to put in the money that it costs to put out another Z series, especially now when their prayers have been answered and they have never-before-touched Dragon Ball content to pump out.

You could be right, but Z is such a cash-cow. A good portion of the old dub fanbase actively hates new material for not being old material. That market, if no other, is still there, and that's being totally dishonest, excluding a huge portion of people who just want another, hopefully better release. Obviously, now isn't the time, but like I said, in 5-10 years when 4k is the norm, why not? I'd certainly upgrade, it's not like what I own now could be much better.

[eledoremassis02]

My question is, did this guy work on Kai? If so that might also explain his explinaton (having possibly worked on TOEI's own modernization of the show) which in some regards I would say the FUNi blurays do look a tad better than in terms of sharpness.

Also the other problem is we're seeing with widescreen what we saw with full screen (4:3 for those who don't know) for so long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m1-pP1-5K8
Now you can make the argument "Pan and scan takes more picture out than cropping now. Thats true but the statement still stands that you are not following the inteded framing.
Here is an example of a shot from the Season Blurays

Now FUNimation did go back and try to even out some of the issues including pan and scanning to try and make up for the lost information but they didn't get it all. This problem at the very least shows there wansnt 100% dedication to this release. Now we look at Kai's equivialnt to see what proper framing looks like

Not as bad but there is still an issue with the overall framing and that is the costlofobic feel. There is no space for the space to breethe and that is the main issue with cropping 4x3 footage just as it was with pan and scanning.
Here is as full frame as we can get of this shot and you can see how much more balaced or open the shot is.

Even on FUNimations old zoomed in (perhaps even a good example of what you might have seen on old TVs) masters the image is still allowed to breethe tho


In a lot of sence what is going on now is the same as colorizing black and white movies.

Instead of adding color we're cropping and smoothing because grain and black sides bother people now. (Tho ironically that was not the case with The Simpsons who's TV Remasters don't look too different these blurays). We are not protecting the original intent, the artistic choice of the show.

I also don't get peoples issue with grain? Is it really that distracting was it before because it's always been evident. DNRing to the extremes that have been done on these sets change the medium as a whole (as their intent to make it look like modern show) which is like trying to take a oil paining and make it look digital

The other major flaw is that is brings out major flaws. I don't know if it's telecine wobble or if it's a wetgate scan but the image often looks like it's submerged in water or behind a things of gas as the pricture is often wavy. Its much harder to notice on level sets.

But at the end of the day it has been done and if you enjoy it thats fine but there does need to be proper restoration at some point...and thats perhaps why the Dragon Boxes cost so much cause they are the closest we have (which isnt saying much).

[GokuDaimao]

When we say “it’s not how the original was supposed to look”…well, the original intention for DBZ was for it to look “modern”. What could I possibly mean by that? Well DBZ from its artistic aspect wasn’t supposed to suffer from film effects like grain, dust and jittering. Therefore the truest presentation of DBZ (in its original artistic intent) would be for it to not have those things, which in other words means it’d pretty much look “digital”. If you look at cels, it’s not like they look so different from how “digital” drawings/colorings look.

Also, DNR isn’t as bad as you guys make it out to be. FUNi’s blurays having a “smudged”/”watercolor” look is more down to the enhancement filters they applied, post-DNR, rather than the DNR itself. DNR’ing alone will cause mostly a blurry look which unfortunately might be something we just have to accept for DBZ originating from 16mm film, if we want to remove grain and other film effects and watch it in (as how I’m defining) its “original intent”.

But regarding what the FUNi blurays actually are…yeah, they’re far from how DBZ was “supposed to look”. DBZ should look like the cels. Some assume the artists made the cels with foresight of how film and TV would manipulate the colors, and thus the original TV broadcast had the intended colors, but I don’t know about that.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

When we say “it’s not how the original was supposed to look”…well, the original intention for DBZ was for it to look “modern”. What could I possibly mean by that? Well DBZ from its artistic aspect wasn’t supposed to suffer from film effects like grain, dust and jittering. Therefore the truest presentation of DBZ (in its original artistic intent) would be for it to not have those things, which in other words means it’d pretty much look “digital”. If you look at cels, it’s not like they look so different from how “digital” drawings/colorings look.

That's just not true. They made the product knowing the technology at the time and how it would affect the image; dust, grain, jitter, and all. Your premise lies on a misuse of the word "modern", which is a context-dependent term. The Cel Art isn't as indicative of how the final product is supposed to look as you make it out to be. However, let's forget original intent, since that's, quite frankly, a foolish way to evaluate something like this.

Also, DNR isn’t as bad as you guys make it out to be. FUNi’s blurays having a “smudged”/”watercolor” look is more down to the enhancement filters they applied, post-DNR, rather than the DNR itself. DNR’ing alone will cause mostly a blurry look which unfortunately might be something we just have to accept for DBZ originating from 16mm film, if we want to remove grain and other film effects and watch it in (as how I’m defining) its “original intent”.

You're kind of right (but only a little). First off, yeah, the DNR is as bad as we make it out to be. Maybe it's okay if you haven't seen the way it's supposed to look, but you can't unsee the real deal. Secondly, as someone who's experienced with different variants of convolution, including some programs that will run appropriate DNR for you, I've run into the watercolor issue with several cartoons. It's just a fact that too much DNR has that effect. You're right in that Funimation's filters exacerbated the problems, but not even as much as you'd think. And once again, they made the show fully knowing the technology and equipment that was used at the time, the show was not intended to look like the raw cells. It would have been idiotic for them to think in such a way.

But regarding what the FUNi blurays actually are…yeah, they’re far from how DBZ was “supposed to look”. DBZ should look like the cels. Some assume the artists made the cels with foresight of how film and TV would manipulate the colors, and thus the original TV broadcast had the intended colors, but I don’t know about that.

Why don't you know about that? For the 3rd time, that's the technology they had at the time, they had a sense of how to make it look in accordance. Even if it wasn't a conscious effort, the symbiotic relationship demands it be the case.

It's fine if you like the Orange Bricks and Blu-rays, but they aren't the way it was meant to be seen, and they aren't even the product of a decent idea. They tried to make something old into something new, which was impossible given the low amount of effort put in. If they had done a half decent job with either, I wouldn't be so adamant about this, but I've honestly never seen a franchise treated as poorly, as condescendingly as this one, and it's worthy of every last bit of contempt it gets.

[funrush]

IMO the Levels are the best Dragon Ball Z has ever looked. It's a shame it was so expensive to produce and the timing was so poor. The Blu-ray seasons have cropping and smudging, the Dragon Boxes are SD with distorted color palettes (see: the green sky in the Goku vs. Vegeta battle.)

I appreciate the supposed accuracy the Seasons have to the saturated colors of the cel art, but a lot of the other factors kill it for me.

[GokuDaimao]

That's just not true. They made the product knowing the technology at the time and how it would affect the image; dust, grain, jitter, and all.

Did I say they did not make the product knowing it’d suffer from the effects of film? I don’t…I say it “wasn’t supposed to” suffer from those effects. When the show was being produced do you think they were telling themselves “Ah! You know what?! Let’s record this on film so it can undergo effects such as grain, dust and jitter.” I’m pretty sure no one in the past who recorded on film would think that. There was just no better alternative. You’re literally saying that they made DBZ pre-prepared for grain, jitter and dust… No, that’s ridiculous. Explain to me exactly what they’d do during drawing, coloring and animating to prepare the source for film effects like dust, grain and jitter?

Your premise lies on a misuse of the word "modern", which is a context-dependent term. The Cel Art isn't as indicative of how the final product is supposed to look as you make it out to be.

“Misuse of the word”? Nope. I’m using modern as in referring to today’s age, which is made obvious when I then explain that DBZ would look “digital” if it was recorded on a medium that didn’t degrade the input source with things like dust, grain and jitter. And…lol…I don’t recall making the cels out to be indicative of how the final product is supposed to look. All I say is that if you look at the cels, they don’t look far from digital drawings/colorings. That was to illustrate what I meant earlier about if the final product didn’t undergo film effects, and was recorded on a better platform, it’d look digital, i.e. look “modern”.

You're kind of right (but only a little). First off, yeah, the DNR is as bad as we make it out to be. Maybe it's okay if you haven't seen the way it's supposed to look, but you can't unsee the real deal. Secondly, as someone who's experienced with different variants of convolution, including some programs that will run appropriate DNR for you, I've run into the watercolor issue with several cartoons. It's just a fact that too much DNR has that effect.

No DNR involved there. It’s just ugly sharpening (enhancement) filters. Why should both sharpening and DNR (individually) have the same watercolor effect? Well, they don’t. It’s bad sharpening that causes it. DNR blurs the footage, and sharpening on top of it causes the blurred image making it look like watercolor.

And once again, they made the show fully knowing the technology and equipment that was used at the time, the show was not intended to look like the raw cells. It would have been idiotic for them to think in such a way.

Again, yes they made the show knowing the technology they had, but that again leaves you implying that the source was somehow prepared for it. How exactly did Toei produce the show for it to be prepared for things like grain and dust? They didn’t. If there was a better medium at the time that didn’t cause the footage to suffer from things like grain then they would have used it. Why exactly would it have been “idiotic for them to think” the show should look like the cels? You’ve called it idiotic but please explain.

Why don't you know about that? For the 3rd time, that's the technology they had at the time, they had a sense of how to make it look in accordance. Even if it wasn't a conscious effort, the symbiotic relationship demands it be the case.

…Again, film effects are flaws of recording on that medium. The film effects I named were “grain, dust and jitter”, and you said they supposedly made the product prepared for those effects. Well try to actually explain how the artists prepared the show to be in accordance with “grain, dust and jitter” and you’ll probably see why I “don’t know about that”.