Has Dragon Ball been remastered to HD or not?

[KBABZ]

Knowing my luck, by the time I finish my hard work on my Buu Arc edit, HD D-Box footage will become readily available, isn't it always the way?

After redoing T1C to incorporate the Dragon Box footage, I know exactly how you feel! Next thing you know it'll be mid 2018, I'll be putting the finishing touches on T1C, and then Funimation will announce the Blu-Ray sets of DB and GT and I'll be like "Goddammit!"

[HakkaiBills93]

Something interesting floated around the Internet this week. I don't know what to make of it but it definitely is interesting.

A 720p "WEBrip" encode of Dragon Ball episode 1 had briefly surfaced and disappeared. I took a look at it and it does look a step above the Dragon Box.

Now before I continue, I'm not advocating piracy or encouraging it on this thread, this is simply a discussion about what might be going on behind the scenes.

What do I think? Well, I'm not sure of anything but it seems like an HD transfer of the film print. First I present a few screenshots of the encode. (I made sure to get a lot of Bulma in memory of Hiromi Tsuru).

https://imgur.com/a/bdrIA

Next, I did a little bit of digging, particularly at the Japanese Netflix to see if it had originated there and I did see something interesting there as well. When I went to take a look at the resolution control, I saw the maximum was at "910." This number presumably being the height. Had it been in 480p or somewhere around there, the maximum would have been "560" as shown in the following screenshot.

https://i.imgur.com/EtpftnY.png

So what do you guys think? Is this a legitimate remaster from Netflix or is this just a really good DNR/upscale job?

i have seen the torrent in question and it's not an HD remaster at all...if you can grab the french dragon box for dragon ball, it is slightly sharpener than the japanese dragon box (even if it's the same master...maybe it is caused by the pal resolution higher than the japanese one (720x560 against 720x480 for japanese)... there is also slightly more crop in this "supposed" remaster.. this 720p stuff is similar to this french dvd (and have the same crop) it is maybe just the material given to amazon or just this guy used french dvd doing an upscale (i even know a chinese R3 upscale encode looking sharpener than the dbox) it looked like a hoax anyway (he deleted the file few days after) as the link he gave for amazon streaming never show HD footage but only sd episodes


about your screenshots, it's write "bitrate" and not resolution so it doesnt mean anything as the bitrate didn't have anything to do with resolution
Toei can do better things for sure as if you take the direct transfer without the crop (dragon box have been zoomed in slightly compared to the old master like you can see with animax japan airing of dbz) remove the zoom will make it sharpener than the dragon box for sure but it's not the case here. For example Toei did a transfer of Saint Seiya the same way of Dragon Ball and a chinese R3 dvd release don't have the slightly zoom in for it and it make this release far sharpener than the saint seiya japanese dvd and even more beautiful than the ugly bd upscale
I really think it's just that the dragon box is 720x480 that make this look sharpener and only that

I miss Kei17. Where is he when you need him? I wish he was here to confirm if it's a brand new HD master.

Kei is only on his private twitter now i don't think he will came back here as he didn't even connect here anymore

[Robo4900]

It would also be interesting to get the exact same frame and compare it to the Dragon Box to try and see if the grain is identical.

It is. But, this HD version is a lot clearer; the DVD version has a lot of the grain slightly blurred and/or crushed out. With this, it's crystal clear.

Even if they've explicitly denied Funimation use of these supposed HD masters, that's way beside the point... Why has Toei just sat on them for 14 years!?

It's Toei. They forgot about GT's master audio, and the film master for the GT special, and they forgot the farewell card from one of the Z specials, and they forgot about the stereo mixes of a handful of the movies, and they forgot the movie previews...

You got me. There were many chances in the past to do that, primarily the onset of Blu-Ray (which began in earnest when HD-DVD died in 2008) and the 30th Anniversary last year. Even if you put aside the Dragon Boxes, the masters would have been re-scanned anyway as part of the process of making Kai, albeit not entire episodes since only the stuff used in the cut of each Kai episode would have been recorded at the time.

I don't know what the process for Kai was. I presume they only did actual digital files and the actual remastering itself for parts of the episodes, although they probably ran entire episodes through the scanning machines.

[Puto]

On a side note, Dragon Ball Z appears to have gotten the same treatment. Dragon Box master in 720p.

https://i.imgur.com/6AKCuw3.png

That's the bitrate, not the resolution. 910kbps would be pathetic for 720p (Netflix typically go around 3mbps for 720p video, for what it's worth...)

[Arian]

On a side note, Dragon Ball Z appears to have gotten the same treatment. Dragon Box master in 720p.

https://i.imgur.com/6AKCuw3.png

That's the bitrate, not the resolution. 910kbps would be pathetic for 720p (Netflix typically go around 3mbps for 720p video, for what it's worth...)

Fair enough, but where did the high-resolution encode come from then? It says it's a "WEBrip" or "WEB-DL" meaning it had to be sourced from some online stream.

[KBABZ]

You got me. There were many chances in the past to do that, primarily the onset of Blu-Ray (which began in earnest when HD-DVD died in 2008) and the 30th Anniversary last year. Even if you put aside the Dragon Boxes, the masters would have been re-scanned anyway as part of the process of making Kai, albeit not entire episodes since only the stuff used in the cut of each Kai episode would have been recorded at the time.

I don't know what the process for Kai was. I presume they only did actual digital files and the actual remastering itself for parts of the episodes, although they probably ran entire episodes through the scanning machines.

This page on the main site covers it. From what I understood, they went through the masters to get specific scenes, although the article itself is a bit ambiguous as to whether entire episodes where scanned in or just the bits they needed. We can certainly assume that the actual remastering was done on a "actual included content" basis, as it would be a huge waste of time and resources to remaster footage you weren't going to use, especially in a show as long-running as DBZ.

[Puto]

On a side note, Dragon Ball Z appears to have gotten the same treatment. Dragon Box master in 720p.

https://i.imgur.com/6AKCuw3.png

That's the bitrate, not the resolution. 910kbps would be pathetic for 720p (Netflix typically go around 3mbps for 720p video, for what it's worth...)

Fair enough, but where did the high-resolution encode come from then? It says it's a "WEBrip" or "WEB-DL" meaning it had to be sourced from some online stream.

Or, it's some convincingly well-done upscale done by a fan trying to trick people.

For what it's worth, the audio in that "WEB-DL" is literally the Dragon Box audio stream, without any reencoding, which doesn't make much sense for a "WEB-DL"...

[HakkaiBills93]

On a side note, Dragon Ball Z appears to have gotten the same treatment. Dragon Box master in 720p.

https://i.imgur.com/6AKCuw3.png

That's the bitrate, not the resolution. 910kbps would be pathetic for 720p (Netflix typically go around 3mbps for 720p video, for what it's worth...)

Fair enough, but where did the high-resolution encode come from then? It says it's a "WEBrip" or "WEB-DL" meaning it had to be sourced from some online stream.

i answered to your question it's not a webrip that's why he delete the torrent

[sangofe]

That's the bitrate, not the resolution. 910kbps would be pathetic for 720p (Netflix typically go around 3mbps for 720p video, for what it's worth...)

Fair enough, but where did the high-resolution encode come from then? It says it's a "WEBrip" or "WEB-DL" meaning it had to be sourced from some online stream.

i answered to your question it's not a webrip that's why he delete the torrent

Do you know what it is? And how?

[HakkaiBills93]

some people have talked with the uploader on a piracy website before he deleted his link and he said that it was amazon webrip HD BUT (and you can search about this yourself by connecting each amazon website) there is no HD stream for any Dragon ball episodes on amazon so it show that it's a lie. only this lie show evidence it is a hoax.

i can't say which source he used but like i said and you have french dragon box you can see yourself that the french dvd are slightly sharpener than the dragon box (like i said maybe caused pal dvd are 720x576 instead of 720x480 for japanese) and it have the same crop as the french dvd (which are slightly more crop than dragon box)

But for me it's only an upscale encode i have seen on chinese private p2p tracker that also used a well mastered sharpening filter

for example i show you just by a quick test that it can't be proper HD
here what i did with ep2

[sangofe]

So it's a troll after all?

[Robo4900]

Or, it's some convincingly well-done upscale done by a fan trying to trick people.

For what it's worth, the audio in that "WEB-DL" is literally the Dragon Box audio stream, without any reencoding, which doesn't make much sense for a "WEB-DL"...

No. It's too much effort to be a lazy troll, and too little effort to be a clever troll.
If it is a fan effort, it's incredibly well done(Impossibly so, I'd say), enough to fool many of us here... So why only do one episode, and then take it down suddenly? It just doesn't make any sense. If it's a fan upscale, too much effort was put into it for it to be some lazy troll, but if they were a smart troll, they'd have kept it up, and strung people along further. As it is, this just doesn't make sense.

As for the audio, the guy said in the torrent description that he replaced the audio with the DBox audio.

some people have talked with the uploader on a piracy website before he deleted his link and he said that it was amazon webrip HD BUT (and you can search about this yourself by connecting each amazon website) there is no HD stream for any Dragon ball episodes on amazon so it show that it's a lie. only this lie show evidence it is a hoax.

Could be that it was on Amazon, but was removed; could be that he forgot which streaming platform it was on, and misspoke; could be that he lied to hide where he got his golden goose...
There are many explanations for that particular oddity.

i can't say which source he used but like i said and you have french dragon box you can see yourself that the french dvd are slightly sharpener than the dragon box (like i said maybe caused pal dvd are 720x576 instead of 720x480 for japanese) and it have the same crop as the french dvd (which are slightly more crop than dragon box)

But for me it's only an upscale encode i have seen on chinese private p2p tracker that also used a well mastered sharpening filter

for example i show you just by a quick test that it can't be proper HD
here what i did with ep2

I don't understand what you're saying here...
But in any case, from what I've seen, this HD version has a lot of detail that was simply crushed/compressed out of the DVD version, so even if this is an upscale, it's not one done by a fan; this is something that comes from an uncompressed master.
Anyway, if you really want to disprove this, why not do your mock upscale and compare that to an actual screenshot of the HD video? Pretty silly to do this with episode 2, when you could easily do it with episode 1 and then compare it to the HD episode 1, and we can see for ourselves how it compares...

BTW, you're Jasonspidey, right?

-

Look, everybody...
Either Toei scanned the Dragon Box in ~720p and downscaled it for the DVD and thus the main video master, and then recently gave that 720p version to some sort of streaming service online...
Or a fan grabbed a source of the Dragon Box video that doesn't have any MPEG2 artifacts, then upscaled it and put it online claiming it to be a web-DL which they put the DBox audio on, then took it down before it could become widespread...

One of these is much simpler than the others.

Anyway, until we know more, it's foolish to assume anything either way.

[Kokonoe]

That is freakin' gorgeous. WOW. I'd pay a bag full of zeni for a release with this.

[90sDBZ]

I'd buy the original Dragonball on Blu-ray for sure. I'd say it's long overdue.

[HakkaiBills93]

Or, it's some convincingly well-done upscale done by a fan trying to trick people.

For what it's worth, the audio in that "WEB-DL" is literally the Dragon Box audio stream, without any reencoding, which doesn't make much sense for a "WEB-DL"...

No. It's too much effort to be a lazy troll, and too little effort to be a clever troll.
If it is a fan effort, it's incredibly well done(Impossibly so, I'd say), enough to fool many of us here... So why only do one episode, and then take it down suddenly? It just doesn't make any sense. If it's a fan upscale, too much effort was put into it for it to be some lazy troll, but if they were a smart troll, they'd have kept it up, and strung people along further. As it is, this just doesn't make sense.

As for the audio, the guy said in the torrent description that he replaced the audio with the DBox audio.

some people have talked with the uploader on a piracy website before he deleted his link and he said that it was amazon webrip HD BUT (and you can search about this yourself by connecting each amazon website) there is no HD stream for any Dragon ball episodes on amazon so it show that it's a lie. only this lie show evidence it is a hoax.

Could be that it was on Amazon, but was removed; could be that he forgot which streaming platform it was on, and misspoke; could be that he lied to hide where he got his golden goose...
There are many explanations for that particular oddity.

i can't say which source he used but like i said and you have french dragon box you can see yourself that the french dvd are slightly sharpener than the dragon box (like i said maybe caused pal dvd are 720x576 instead of 720x480 for japanese) and it have the same crop as the french dvd (which are slightly more crop than dragon box)

But for me it's only an upscale encode i have seen on chinese private p2p tracker that also used a well mastered sharpening filter

for example i show you just by a quick test that it can't be proper HD
here what i did with ep2

I don't understand what you're saying here...
But in any case, from what I've seen, this HD version has a lot of detail that was simply crushed/compressed out of the DVD version, so even if this is an upscale, it's not one done by a fan; this is something that comes from an uncompressed master.
Anyway, if you really want to disprove this, why not do your mock upscale and compare that to an actual screenshot of the HD video? Pretty silly to do this with episode 2, when you could easily do it with episode 1 and then compare it to the HD episode 1, and we can see for ourselves how it compares...

BTW, you're Jasonspidey, right?

-

Look, everybody...
Either Toei scanned the Dragon Box in ~720p and downscaled it for the DVD and thus the main video master, and then recently gave that 720p version to some sort of streaming service online...
Or a fan grabbed a source of the Dragon Box video that doesn't have any MPEG2 artifacts, then upscaled it and put it online claiming it to be a web-DL which they put the DBox audio on, then took it down before it could become widespread...

One of these is much simpler than the others.

Anyway, until we know more, it's foolish to assume anything either way.

jasonspidey is ionutbigiu here i am french not romanian

what i want to say you is that it can't be real HD , maybe toei scanned master on HD, maybe one foreign release of the dbox have better compression or look better than dbox chinese r3 taiwanese dvd of saint seiya look far better than japanese dvdbox and more sharpen than this one even if they used the same masters

it can also be an upscale as i have seen an upscale done by chinese that look better than dbox (no color correction) they are really strong in encode script as they solve lot of dragon box issue and if i didn't know it is an upscale without knowing things i would have been tricked

here some screenshot of the so called encode (from a chinese tracker)




my "test" are not great stuff as anyway i dislike using sharp filter as it's only artificial and i am not the best encoder it was only to show that with filter it can look better than dbox

about the "webrip" do you really think that a stream website would have uploaded them without anyone seeing them then removed them?
why the uploader deleted his work after enigmo show him that he lie? he could have shown that enigmo was wrong...

they are plenty explanation of those

french dvd have better sharpness like you can see there so the source can be any foreign release having better resolution than dbox (720x480 but pal are 720x576)


it can also be a straight recording of japanese tv channel which aired an upscaled version of dragon ball and dragon ball gt that looked not so bad

i can think toei have done any HD scan no one can know BUT i can't think that this removed upload is an evidence of that scan.

If there is really an HD stream of Dragon Box footage then i invite anyone to proove it. Amazon only have SD footage , japanese VOD sites only used sd footage

[KBABZ]

Can someone do a side-by-side of a frame from the (qoute-unquote) HD stream next to the same frame from the Dragon Box/French DVD scaled up to the same size?

[HakkaiBills93]

the HD stream i don't kept it but
here french vs dbox

[KBABZ]

the HD stream i don't kept it but
here french vs dbox

I was kinda hoping for the Japanese Netflix stream to be in the comparison. Sorry if I wasn't being clear!

[HakkaiBills93]

i don't have it sorry but it's not HD stream for sure

[KBABZ]

i don't have it sorry but it's not HD stream for sure

Well the point of laying it side-by-side is to see whether or not that's true! Hopefully Arian will come along soon with that.