Your Perfect Dragon Ball Release

[Satoshi25]

Funimation did a survey just before the new Blu-Rays were released about whether people would prefer a 4:3 fullscreen or a 16:9 cropped image, and the results were apparently in favour of 4:3, so in reality, all the mass market wants is an affordable release. That's the only reason FUNi's releases are selling. The funny thing is, if they'd never switched to using film, and just used the digibeta masters for the "Season" DVDs, it would have been even cheaper to produce, which would have probably meant an even more affordable release, which they actually wouldn't have been able to crop in the first place.

Just another in a long line of FUNi WTFs....

DB, Z, and both Z TV specials are mono-only, and unfortunately Toei threw out the good-quality masters, but people like Kei17 have high-quality betamax recordings from the original run of those that sound infinitely superior to anything on an official release, so if Toei can reach out to him or someone else like him(Or if they just use the high-quality Z and Z TV specials audio that Chris Sabat already has been sent by people who were sent Kei's audio), we could get a significant upgrade in audio quality.

Threw...them...out??? Good Lord. That actually makes my stomach hurt. Why wouldn't they preserve them?

[Vegard Aune]

DB, Z, and both Z TV specials are mono-only, and unfortunately Toei threw out the good-quality masters, but people like Kei17 have high-quality betamax recordings from the original run of those that sound infinitely superior to anything on an official release, so if Toei can reach out to him or someone else like him(Or if they just use the high-quality Z and Z TV specials audio that Chris Sabat already has been sent by people who were sent Kei's audio), we could get a significant upgrade in audio quality.

Threw...them...out??? Good Lord. That actually makes my stomach hurt. Why wouldn't they preserve them?

Home video releases of 500-episode TV-series were just in no way viable at the time. Toei just didn't see a reason to preserve the highest quality audio when, by the standards of the day, the audio on the film was "good enough", and they had no way of knowing that a few decades later, putting the entire show on a single home video release that wouldn't take up an entire bookshelf on its own would both be possible and have an actual market for it.

[superrayman3]

Threw...them...out??? Good Lord. That actually makes my stomach hurt. Why wouldn't they preserve them?

Unfortunately at the time DB/Z/GT was airing on TV Toei had no intention of releasing the DB/Z/GT series on home video and felt they didn't need to preserve the original audio masters (and yet they gave Sailor Moon a home video release despite that series being very long as well, now granted Sailor Moon isn't nearly as long as the DB/Z/GT series mind you, 200 episodes vs 508 episodes but still), in addition cinetapes (which were used as the original recording medium for the audio when the series was first being made) are big and bulky which makes storing them very costly as they take up a good amount of space in storage facilities so the decision to trash the audio masters made sense from a cost standpoint (although Toei still should have made proper non-optical backups of the audio on a more compact media that would have retained the higher fidelity and clarity of the cinetapes better because optical is bar none one of the WORST audio media formats when it comes to film).

Now on topic: If I could make what I would consider the "perfect" Dragon Ball release I would do the following.

1. Scan the film negatives at the highest possible resolution (I believe the current highest resolution standard is 8k), and downscale them to lower resolutions for a format that needs it at a lower resolution (after everything else is done).

2. Color correct the footage so that the colors accurately represent the original colors back when the film negatives were first created.

3. Clean the footage frame by frame to remove as many instances of film damage possible (and when I say frame by frame I literally mean frame by frame not some half baked effort)

4. Include every Japanese extra possible (all NCOPs, all NCEDs, all TV specials, all NEP's and FEP's both the normal and shorter ones that were used to help promote the films, the 'goodbye' cards at the end of episodes and possibly more)

5. Proper placement of NEP's and credits (in the original airings of DB/Z/GT in Japan the NEP plays before the credits so I would keep it that way instead of switching them around like the DBOX's did)

6. Broadcast Japanese audio sourced from the best home recordings possible (sans kei's Hi8 tapes since he's completely disappeared and isn't talking to anyone at all) and remastered to the highest quality possible.

7. Interviews with as many surviving staff members involved with he production of the series as possible including composers, animation supervisors (one interview I'd really like to see is one with Yukio Ebisawa, this guy in particular has always been a mystery to me and despite his rather infamous reputation in the fanbase I'm really interested in hearing about his experiences working on the series) and surviving Seiyū.

[Robo4900]

1. Scan the film negatives at the highest possible resolution (I believe the current highest resolution standard is 8k), and downscale them to lower resolutions for a format that needs it at a lower resolution (after everything else is done).

You're right that the highest standard is probably 8K, and I'd like to add at this point that 8K is probably about as high as 16mm will go. You can scan it at whatever resolution you like, but once you go past 8K, you're not really gaining any more useful picture information, and even going beyond 1080p is difficult.
Just thought I'd put that out there for anyone interested.

Rest of your post sounds great too. I'd love to hear some interviews with the original animators and such.
As for Kei, there are still people who talk to him. I imagine if Toei reached out to him with the intent of using his audio, he very well might come forward and give the audio to them. But I can't imagine any other situation in which he'd step out of the shadow he's been hiding under for so long.

[tellyzbad1]

1. Scan the film negatives at the highest possible resolution (I believe the current highest resolution standard is 8k), and downscale them to lower resolutions for a format that needs it at a lower resolution (after everything else is done).

You're right that the highest standard is probably 8K, and I'd like to add at this point that 8K is probably about as high as 16mm will go. You can scan it at whatever resolution you like, but once you go past 8K, you're not really gaining any more useful picture information, and even going beyond 1080p is difficult.
Just thought I'd put that out there for anyone interested.

Rest of your post sounds great too. I'd love to hear some interviews with the original animators and such.
As for Kei, there are still people who talk to him. I imagine if Toei reached out to him with the intent of using his audio, he very well might come forward and give the audio to them. But I can't imagine any other situation in which he'd step out of the shadow he's been hiding under for so long.

Toei would only need to go to Kei17 or someone like him for DB audio. This is because regarding "higher quality DBZ recordings" I've realised there isn't much of a difference between the Tokai TV recordings and the Ishikawa & Fuji TV recordings. The buzzing noise is also present in the Ishikawa recordings but just a little quieter than the ones on Tokai. As for the Fuji video8 recordings, they have no buzzing but they have the full frequency range which means more white noise than the other two. Other broadcasts mediated the white noise by just cutting off high frequencies. The alternative is to use noise reduction filters which can hurt the fidelity of the audio. Beyond these traits of each set of audio that Kei17 has in mass amounts, the Tokai audio's sound quality isn't very inferior to the others So for a Z release, I think Toei have the audio they need via cooperation with FUNimation/Chris Sabat.

Also, for DB, it's still unknown how much of the whole series that Kei17 and other collectors have.

[HakkaiBills93]

i heard that tokai audios on a torrent website have one episode with not complete audios and do you think they will be a release if the full series audio aren't in their hands? it won't be very professional

[tellyzbad1]

i heard that tokai audios on a torrent website have one episode with not complete audios and do you think they will be a release if the full series audio aren't in their hands? it won't be very professional

It's not known whether kei17 has 218 in full for any of his other collections. Ishikawa set is incomplete and only goes up to Garlic Jr arc. For Fuji recordings, Kei17 initially struggled to acquire any of it from a stubborn person he knew who had lots of it. It's unknown how much of it he eventually managed to get. AnimeMaakuo claims to have the entire series as Fuji TV recordings but this is more than likely a lie. Toei could release the entire show with episode 218 missing and simply label it "lost". It's perfectly fine and isn't any less professional than using fan-provided betamax recordings in the first place...

[HakkaiBills93]

okay thanks for all informations.
about ishikawa i think that maybe others exist than only until garlic cause i have 120 and someone have 184 from this ishikawa (the 400mb files) so maybe more exist

[tellyzbad1]

okay thanks for all informations.
about ishikawa i think that maybe others exist than only until garlic cause i have 120 and someone have 184 from this ishikawa (the 400mb files) so maybe more exist

Uh, they're probably not Ishikawa...

[HakkaiBills93]

okay thanks for all informations.
about ishikawa i think that maybe others exist than only until garlic cause i have 120 and someone have 184 from this ishikawa (the 400mb files) so maybe more exist

Uh, they're probably not Ishikawa...

okay it is same filesize of the firsts ishikawa audios i saw

[tellyzbad1]

okay thanks for all informations.
about ishikawa i think that maybe others exist than only until garlic cause i have 120 and someone have 184 from this ishikawa (the 400mb files) so maybe more exist

Uh, they're probably not Ishikawa...

okay it is same filesize of the firsts ishikawa audios i saw

I could loop Darude - Sandstorm into a 20 minute audio file and give you a similar file size to Ishikawa episodes.

[DragonBallKing]

So from my understanding the dragonboxes didn't sell well, and that's why more weren't made.

[tellyzbad1]

So from my understanding the dragonboxes didn't sell well, and that's why more weren't made.

Lol, do you mean the Level Sets? Dragon Box was just a limited edition release. The entire series was completely released.

[TheGreatness25]

I've made this argument and while it may not be 100% confirmed, I believe that the Dragon Boxes didn't sell well just because of what happened with the release. I'm sure that what the poster meant was that the sales affected Funimation not making more Dragon Boxes, which is why now they have ridiculous pricing online. My personal feelings as to why the Dragon Boxes didn't sell well are because hey started off with an $80 MSRP which quickly dropped for subsequent releases, nobody ever said that they were a limited edition release until they were all gone, and Funimation alluded to the fact that they got the rights to the Dragon Box movies and those never saw the light of day under the Funimation banner. Essentially, this is what leads to rumors that the Dragon Boxes didn't sell well. Let's also not forget that the rights to the Dragon Box footage must have cost a petty penny for Funimation and yet, that release was totally underwhelming from their side of things an they quickly moved on to other things like the Level Sets (which they abandoned) and then into the less popular (among many fans; personally, I don't mind it) Blu-ray release that they actually completed.

[DragonBallKing]

So from my understanding the dragonboxes didn't sell well, and that's why more weren't made.

Lol, do you mean the Level Sets? Dragon Box was just a limited edition release. The entire series was completely released.

I'm not sure, I'm a complete noob as you can see.

[JEFFMAN219]

My perfect Dragon Ball home release would be the DBZ Level sets with DBZ Kais level of dubbing in it.

[Robo4900]

Also, for DB, it's still unknown how much of the whole series that Kei17 and other collectors have.

From what I've heard, although he has quite the mix of sources, he does have all of DB in some form.

i heard that tokai audios on a torrent website have one episode with not complete audios and do you think they will be a release if the full series audio aren't in their hands? it won't be very professional

It's not known whether kei17 has 218 in full for any of his other collections. Ishikawa set is incomplete and only goes up to Garlic Jr arc. For Fuji recordings, Kei17 initially struggled to acquire any of it from a stubborn person he knew who had lots of it. It's unknown how much of it he eventually managed to get. AnimeMaakuo claims to have the entire series as Fuji TV recordings but this is more than likely a lie. Toei could release the entire show with episode 218 missing and simply label it "lost". It's perfectly fine and isn't any less professional than using fan-provided betamax recordings in the first place...

There are fansubs of #218 out there with much better audio than what we currently have, so they can patch up the missing bits with those. In fact, I think that's exactly what the torrent leak did.

Despite the common reputation they have, fansubs can actually have good audio, and for many of them, aside from some noise, the audio is often better than the official/DBox audio. It depends on the fansub though, of course.

Anyway, the idea that #218 is missing is a misconception; episode #218 is missing the first 9 minutes, and a couple of short sections just after that. That's it. The remaining ~14 minutes are intact. A few other episodes from the end of the Boo arc are missing small sections due to digital corruption(The metadata still lists the files as having the correct length, but some -- like #233 -- only contain about 15 minutes of audio), but those can also be patched up with fansub audio.

As for AnimeMaakuo having the Fuji TV recordings, let's not assume he's lying just yet. After all, he does post on these forums. If he has the Fuji audio, perhaps he'd be willing to prove it somehow.

[HakkaiBills93]

Also, for DB, it's still unknown how much of the whole series that Kei17 and other collectors have.

From what I've heard, although he has quite the mix of sources, he does have all of DB in some form.

Anyway, the idea that #218 is missing is a misconception; episode #218 is missing the first 9 minutes, and a couple of short sections just after that. That's it. The remaining ~14 minutes are intact. A few other episodes from the end of the Boo arc are missing small sections due to digital corruption(The metadata still lists the files as having the correct length, but some -- like #233 -- only contain about 15 minutes of audio), but those can also be patched up with fansub audio.

As for AnimeMaakuo having the Fuji TV recordings, let's not assume he's lying just yet. After all, he does post on these forums. If he has the Fuji audio, perhaps he'd be willing to prove it somehow.

233 from tokai is full i check it in audacity maybe that the files you got was corrupt (it often happened when downloading files)

[Robo4900]

233 from tokai is full i check it in audacity maybe that the files you got was corrupt (it often happened when downloading files)

In the torrent that went out, they patched it up, and in the original FLAC file, Winamp and such list it as being the proper ~20-minute length, but put it in Audacity, and it'll show up as 16 minutes.

Again though, this only applies to the original FLACs. The version in the torrent will have been patched up.

[tellyzbad1]

I suppose the FLACs that the leaker acquired were corrupted during file transfer (especially given the multiple instances of file transfer that occurred).
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Original Tokai audio that were backed-up (and I believe the ones Derek Padula came to possess) don't have this problem.

So, I think, audio-wise, missing less than half of only episode 218 doesn't prevent Toei/FUNi to begin a (near-)perfect release of at least Z.