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

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Whilst I agree that Season 6 and up the OB's aren't that bad. But these Blu Ray's are miles better then them and you can't compare later OB'S to Season 1 Blu Ray you just can't.

[kei17]

FUNimation's is a straight crop down the middle. No attempt to re-frame the shots to keep from losing important material was made.

That's not true I don't have a copy of the release yet but from this screenshot from bluray.com the image has clearly been reframed, its been moved down to avoid cutting off Gohan's arm.
Season 1 blu ray
http://imageshack.us/a/img32/9305/j2ye.jpg
Orange bricks
http://imageshack.us/a/img189/6875/hgmr.png

That's just because the Blu-ray version has more image at the bottom and the left and right sides. It's still automatically center-cropped.

Whilst I agree that Season 6 and up the OB's aren't that bad. But these Blu Ray's are miles better then them and you can't compare later OB'S to Season 1 Blu Ray you just can't.

A more logical explanation would be nice.

[SSJ3_Zack]

Can someone post a clip of what the footage looks like please? I may buy these as cropping isn't really an issue for me to be honest (Although I will notice it) I'm more interested in seeing what the colours and details look like and whether they're better than the Orange Bricks restoration.

[ect5150]

Here is the shot compared to the Level Set:

Click to enlarge--


Someone feel free to make a downscaled version of each and "crop" the Level Set so we can see what that would look like

EDIT: Did my best here--

Click to enlarge--


I might not have grabbed the exact same frame as there are rocks flying the background.

Some of you might like this... it's a nice website for screenshot comparisons.

[sangofe]

I'm a bit afraid of my question getting buried in other replies, so putting it out there again...

I wonder if the new Blu Ray set has previews?

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Well, you may or may not like the Blu-Rays, but one thing is certain: the remaster is 1000x better than the Orange Bricks.

I'm getting deja vu...

You too, huh?

Whilst I agree that Season 6 and up the OB's aren't that bad. But these Blu Ray's are miles better then them and you can't compare later OB'S to Season 1 Blu Ray you just can't.

These BDs are comparable to those awfully filtered "2K/4K HD" upscales on YouTube, and while the earlier Orange Bricks may have looked just a tiny bit worse, they at least looked like film. The later Orange Bricks definitely looked better though, and 180'd all of the problems the earlier ones had (besides the cropping, for consistency purposes of course), and best of all, the background details didn't look like painted art

[sumpter360]

I know most of the Kanzenshuu users feel like these Season sets are too "clean," as there's literally no grain remaining in the picture due to FUNimation's remastering. But if done right, no grain doesn't inherently mean no detail. Look at animation cels. They are basically the original source, before anything is even put onto film.

The Orange Bricks were a failed attempt at cleaning the footage to look like cel-quality, modern footage. It was awful and we all know it. This Blu-ray "Season" release, on the other hand, is, for the most part, gorgeous, if you can get past the widescreen aspect ratio and lack of grain. This type of remastering is probably the closest we'll ever get to a cel re-scan of the show.

I can say this (as my opinion, obviously) as I own the set and have watched the first 15 episodes. Shots that have diverse color palettes look fantastic and characters and important objects are usually well defined and sharp; definitely worthy of high definition Blu-ray.

My biggest beef(s) with the remastering happens when colors of certain brightness' are too close to each other. For example, when black is next to dark blue or dark green. Occurring particularly during nighttime scenes, the darker of the dark colors sometimes results in details not being visible. This was worst during some of Gohan's wilderness survival episodes. Similarly (though far less often) some of the brightest colors, if set next to white, looks far too white. Fortunately, this seemed most apparent during Kame House scenes of the first few episodes and hasn't been noticeable since.

To be honest, I'm okay with the set's only negatives. They are issues, but they're ones that could easily be fixed in future sets, since it'd only require a simple adjusting of the contrast setting (or saturation? I don't know.)

Anyway, I just think people are complaining a whole lot when they haven't seen the footage in motion (outside of YouTube videos, which truly does not do the footage justice) which I understand is their opinion, but it's just difficult to see their perspective when most haven't given it any sort of a chance. In truth, I was like them before seeing the first screenshots. I was 100% prepared to hate this release, but upon seeing the vast improvement over the Orange Bricks, I've completely changed sides. I still see the negatives that exist (yes, I acknowledge that it's not a perfect release ((there's no such thing))), but the positives FAR outweight them in my opinion.

[Blu-ray_Mistress]

Some screencaps of the new Blu-ray sets seem like they are better than the OB but then there are others that show a few of the scenes are still badly saturated. Plus, the cropping of the image...though better the automatic cropping done on the Orange Bricks is still not right. As a result, I'm not going to buy these and am just stick with my Kai Parts.

[jjgp1112]

Well, you may or may not like the Blu-Rays, but one thing is certain: the remaster is 1000x better than the Orange Bricks.

I'm getting deja vu...

Alas, they are inferior to the Level Sets, but superior to those God awful orange bricks of shame.

Well... The first two at least.

Definitely doesn't compare to seasons 6 and up:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Cropping aside, I actually think Seasons 8 and 9 look better than the corresponding Dragon box episodes.

[sangofe]

[quote="sumpter360" Shots that have diverse color palettes look fantastic and characters and important objects are usually well defined and sharp; definitely worthy of high definition Blu-ray.
[/quote]

In almost all shots I've seen involving the back ground, there's been no details left whatsoever. It's looked terrible...

[qjz123]

FUNimation's is a straight crop down the middle. No attempt to re-frame the shots to keep from losing important material was made.

That's not true I don't have a copy of the release yet but from this screenshot from bluray.com the image has clearly been reframed, its been moved down to avoid cutting off Gohan's arm.
Season 1 blu ray
http://imageshack.us/a/img32/9305/j2ye.jpg
Orange bricks
http://imageshack.us/a/img189/6875/hgmr.png

That's just because the Blu-ray version has more image at the bottom and the left and right sides. It's still automatically center-cropped.

Are you serious? look at the image there isn't any noticeable extra image on the sides if anything its a few millimeters it doesn't magically add half an inch of space under Gohan's arm. Look at the flat part of gohan's hair on the right side it's clearly noticeable that the frame has been moved down.

[PhoenixEX]

Even though we lose like 20% of the image, at least we gain an extra 5% on the sides. I prefer the image on the sides than on the top in bottom IMO. Still, with a show like DBZ and out of respect for the show, I do agree that the original 4:3 aspect ratio would have been the better choice.

[kei17]

Are you serious? look at the image there isn't any noticeable extra image on the sides if anything its a few millimeters it doesn't magically add half an inch of space under Gohan's arm. Look at the flat part of gohan's hair on the right side it's clearly noticeable that the frame has been moved down.

You can "magically" add more vertical image on Blu-ray because widescreen DVDs are slightly wider than 16:9. To be exact, they're 20:11.

My guess is that they just scanned the film a little differently. The shot of grinning Nappa also has more image at the bottom.

[supersaiyan3]

I'm a bit afraid of my question getting buried in other replies, so putting it out there again...

I wonder if the new Blu Ray set has previews?

Nope no next episode previews

[sangofe]

Even though we lose like 20% of the image, at least we gain an extra 5% on the sides. I prefer the image on the sides than on the top in bottom IMO. Still, with a show like DBZ and out of respect for the show, I do agree that the original 4:3 aspect ratio would have been the better choice.

You do know that things they didn't want the audience to be seen was sometimes left in on the sides?

[dbboxkaifan]

Nope no next episode previews

That comes as no surprise because so far the only releases that I'm aware of which have are the US/JP Dragon Boxes, not sure about the French DBZ boxes but they probably don't have it.

Neither do the Spanish Dragon Boxes even though they're called "Dragon Box".

I just wish Toei Animation would fucking take Kei17's Japanese broadcast audio of DBZ and use it for their next DBZ release, the muffled audio has gotta go.

[samuraix123]

I wonder why we can't get the next episode previews and such on newer releases?

[dbboxkaifan]

I wonder why we can't get the next episode previews and such on newer releases?

FUNimation's using their own source than Toei Animation's video.

I guess the US Dragonbox was a rental for FUNimation and then that was off their hands.

[Dalesy]

Are you serious? look at the image there isn't any noticeable extra image on the sides if anything its a few millimeters it doesn't magically add half an inch of space under Gohan's arm. Look at the flat part of gohan's hair on the right side it's clearly noticeable that the frame has been moved down.

You can "magically" add more vertical image on Blu-ray because widescreen DVDs are slightly wider than 16:9. To be exact, they're 20:11.

My guess is that they just scanned the film a little differently. The shot of grinning Nappa also has more image at the bottom.

Just drummed up a little side by side comparison in Photoshop. It's obvious that the frame has been shifted. There is a little extra space on the sides, but it would in no way result in a shift like this.

[Metalwario64]

Cropping aside, I actually think Seasons 8 and 9 look better than the corresponding Dragon box episodes.

I feel the same way. I still really like the colors on those sets. The Dragon Boxes' colors were all over the place in those episodes, and the inside Boo episodes were ridiculously bright, while the Kid Boo episodes had a very strong green tint.