FUNimation DBZ TV Blu-ray Official On-Going Thread

[Majin Buu]

I've skimmed through this thread and checked out some image comparisons. The blu-rays do look sharper than the Dragon Boxes, though I'm not really a fan of the colors they used. All in all, I don't see enough of a difference in the picture quality to justify buying these when I have the Dragon Boxes, which have very good picture quality as far as I can tell, so they're good enough for me in that department (I'm not a videophile, I don't need to have the absolute best picture possible).

In addition, the packaging and extras pale in comparison to the Dragon Boxes. The fancy packaging of the Dragon Boxes helps make them feel like a valuable product. The packaging for the blu-rays just look bland in comparison. As for extras, those Dragon Books spoiled me (I'm a sucker for art/guidebooks). The absence of any extras like that take the blu-rays down a notch in my book. Finally, I'm with the people that say the absence of the next episode previews is a minus. I prefer to own the episodes in their complete form. Previews and all.

To sum it up: I don't see any reason to get the blu-rays when I have the Dragon Boxes and am fully satisfied with those.

[dballfan]

I've skimmed through this thread and checked out some image comparisons. The blu-rays do look sharper than the Dragon Boxes, though I'm not really a fan of the colors they used. All in all, I don't see enough of a difference in the picture quality to justify buying these when I have the Dragon Boxes, which have very good picture quality as far as I can tell, so they're good enough for me in that department (I'm not a videophile, I don't need to have the absolute best picture possible).

In addition, the packaging and extras pale in comparison to the Dragon Boxes. The fancy packaging of the Dragon Boxes helps make them feel like a valuable product. The packaging for the blu-rays just look bland in comparison. As for extras, those Dragon Books spoiled me (I'm a sucker for art/guidebooks). The absence of any extras like that take the blu-rays down a notch in my book. Finally, I'm with the people that say the absence of the next episode previews is a minus. I prefer to own the episodes in their complete form. Previews and all.

To sum it up: I don't see any reason to get the blu-rays when I have the Dragon Boxes and am fully satisfied with those.

The colours they used were the originals, but if you're satisfied then it's all good. I'm warning you though, if you ever buy one you won't look back. They easily trump the Dbox on the quality.

[AgitoZ]

the colours they used were the originals. But if your satisfied then it's all good. I'm warning you though, if ever buy one you won't look back. They easily trump the Dbox on the quality.

They're closer to the colors on the original broadcast. Even then, those colors are still up to debate. And that's only video. Everything else is either about the same, or less.

[Majin Buu]

The colours they used were the originals, but if you're satisfied then it's all good. I'm warning you though, if you ever buy one you won't look back. They easily trump the Dbox on the quality.

If I ever decide to buy one of these (and that's a huge if), I'm pretty sure I will "look back". Again, I'm not a videophile. Even if the picture quality is better on these blu-rays, I'm satisfied with the quality on the Dragon Boxes. And taking into account the things the Dragon Boxes have that these blu-rays don't (great presentation, great extras, next episode previews), I very much would "look back" if I ever got one of these.

[Buda64]

I guess I'm the only person that prefers the dragon box's colors.

[ect5150]

I guess I'm the only person that prefers the dragon box's colors.

Well, all we have is the first Orange Box's episodes worth from the Blu-rays to compare. Those episodes always seemed to have the biggest difference in colors - the rest of the series' color difference between the DBox and Orange Box seems to get closer as we move through the series... so I'm expecting the same for the Blurays.

(one a side note, I can think of a few episodes on the DB Dragon Box that are just too 'brightened' and start to a pastel color tone).

Either way, my Level 1.2 BD set just came in the mail... maybe I'll do another comparison video or two.

[ect5150]

Can anyone who has the Blu-ray post the corresponding version of this screenshot?



I believe it was Tanooki Kuribo who posted the Kai Blu-ray version of that shot a while back, and I have it saved on my hard drive and would like to compare the FUNimation Z Blu-ray with the Kai Blu-ray.

Here you go... click to see the full size:



I'll post some more shortly... and I might do another comparison video... but that wouldn't be until much later.

[ect5150]

Here are a few more comparisons since I haven't seen them for the 1.2 level set (maybe I missed them).

It does seem like there isn't as much grain as the early episodes, so the encoding seems to be a bit better (less blocky due to the grain in the early few eps).

The first set here are comparison shots of old stuff we did a while back I had sitting on my Photobucket account (so frames are not exact, I just eyeballed it). The rest are just random cool shots.

As usual, to conserve bandwidth for all... click each one for the full lossless version.







It would be neat if someone can grab the US DBox shots of the same to see the differences.

[Pokewhiz7]

Here's two. I didn't know what episode the rest where from. I would use MPC, but it's acting up. These are from VLC, so if you would rather have MPC caps, I apologize.
http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc3 ... m25s12.png
http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc3 ... m52s70.png

[Buda64]

So, let me get this straight.

FUNi puts out Kai and markets their re-dub (which is a fantastic dub) as one of the main reasons to buy Kai.

Now, FUNi releases 17 episode sets of the original Z series, with picture quality that rivals that of the Dragon Boxes, but it has the old orange brick English audio?

I hate to be bashing FUNi because I know they put a ton of hard working restoring the film to make it look the best it's ever been, but they decided to add the old audio so that they could
re-re-re-re-release again but with their Kai dub, and perhaps more extras?

AND they have yet to touch DB or GT.

Am I insane or are FUNi way too greedy with this property? Am I not understanding something here?

[Metalwario64]

So, let me get this straight.

FUNi puts out Kai and markets their re-dub (which is a fantastic dub) as one of the main reasons to buy Kai.

Now, FUNi releases 17 episode sets of the original Z series, with picture quality that rivals that of the Dragon Boxes, but it has the old orange brick English audio?

I hate to be bashing FUNi because I know they put a ton of hard working restoring the film to make it look the best it's ever been, but they decided to add the old audio so that they could
re-re-re-re-release again but with their Kai dub, and perhaps more extras?

AND they have yet to touch DB or GT.

Am I insane or are FUNi way too greedy with this property? Am I not understanding something here?

Do you even know what Kai is?

There's no way in hell they could sync the Kai dub up with Z, because so much material was cut out.

That aside, here's a comparison of Kai, the Dragon Boxes and the new Blu-ray set:
Z BD (downscaled - click for full-size):


Dragon Box:


Kai DVD (click for BD shot):


I lined up the Z BD shot with the Kai one so that the difference would be easier to compare. Just open both in separate browser tabs.

While the Z BDs colors are overall probably preferable to me, I strongly dislike that once again, the darker colors are murky and faded, resulting in lots of lost details. These details, which FUNimation's footage never had were a large part of why I did (and still do) like the Dragon Box footage.

Here are some examples:





So, while the colors are overall closer to how they should be, I don't think that and sharpness alone automatically make the footage superior, but it's definitely not bad. Though details were lost, Kai also loses details due to the noise reduction. You can see more details in the Z BD that are more blurred in the Kai footage. Given what FUNimation had to work with, this is surely the best their masters will ever look.

[Buda64]

So, let me get this straight.

FUNi puts out Kai and markets their re-dub (which is a fantastic dub) as one of the main reasons to buy Kai.

Now, FUNi releases 17 episode sets of the original Z series, with picture quality that rivals that of the Dragon Boxes, but it has the old orange brick English audio?

I hate to be bashing FUNi because I know they put a ton of hard working restoring the film to make it look the best it's ever been, but they decided to add the old audio so that they could
re-re-re-re-release again but with their Kai dub, and perhaps more extras?

AND they have yet to touch DB or GT.

Am I insane or are FUNi way too greedy with this property? Am I not understanding something here?

Do you even know what Kai is?

There's no way in hell they could sync the Kai dub up with Z, because so much material was cut out.

Yes I know what Kai is, and yes I understand that the audio from Kai wouldn't match up due to the difference in length in both series.

What I don't understand is why FUNi would boast about their new dub, then just decide to release their old dub again. All this does is give FUNi another reason to re-release these "Level" sets again.

[Metalwario64]

What I don't understand is why FUNi would boast about their new dub, then just decide to release their old dub again. All this does is give FUNi another reason to re-release these "Level" sets again.

There's a difference in cost between dubbing a 98 episode series, and a 291 episode series.

[Buda64]

What I don't understand is why FUNi would boast about their new dub, then just decide to release their old dub again. All this does is give FUNi another reason to re-release these "Level" sets again.

There's a difference in cost between dubbing a 98 episode series, and a 291 episode series.

I understand that too. But it just seems lazy on FUNi's part. Like I said, I don't have the intention of bashing FUNi, it's just that it seems like FUNi could have dubbed all of Z using their Kai cast, but instead decided to put out these level sets first, and will probably redub all of Z using their Kai cast once this release is done.

I mean, I understand it's their cash cow, but It just seems..insulting to the fans of the show.

Each release is always marketed as "The definitive way to watch Dragonball", but it seems as though there's always something they'll leave out or change in order to have an excuse to re-release.

I really don't know how to put it..

[JulieYBM]

FUNimation doesn't have the three million dollars it would take to redub Dragon Ball Z laying around.

[Levlik]

Not to mention there are two types of Dragon Ball fans:

1: People who prefer the original version and enjoy Kai because of that.

2: People who prefer the original English dub and despise Kai because of that.

Of course there are exceptions but that's definitely the majority. Even though the recent DVDs and Blu-Rays don't even contain what was on Cartoon Network until the Trunks episodes, dub fans just stick with what they have. They don't care about accuracy or what have you. FUNi realizes this and for good reason. If you didn't like the dub before you've probably been watching it in Japanese for ages, and when Kai came out, while it's a nice curiosity, it's not a replacement. It's certainly an excuse to make Kai worth watching, but again, to me it's just a nice curiosity. FUNi doesn't have nearly enough of a large market to justify a complete redub of the entire series. There's two sides of the spectrum and both are satisfied.

[AgitoZ]

Not to mention there are two types of Dragon Ball fans:

1: People who prefer the original version and enjoy Kai because of that.

2: People who prefer the original English dub and despise Kai because of that.

I think you missed the biggest group:

3: People who don't care either way.

These said people don't need a new dub. Why should FUNi have to waste money producing one?

[Android 50]

FUNimation doesn't have the three million dollars it would take to redub Dragon Ball Z laying around.

Somehow i doubt it costs that much to dub a series despite the incredible episode length. Probably somewhere in the 100,000s.

[Gonstead]

FUNimation doesn't have the three million dollars it would take to redub Dragon Ball Z laying around.

Somehow i doubt it costs that much to dub a series despite the incredible episode length. Probably somewhere in the 100,000s.

I don't think you have an understanding on just how much it can cost to produce these sorts of things.

$100,000 is like pocket change compared to a fully licensed and produced dub.

[JulieYBM]

Somehow i doubt it costs that much to dub a series despite the incredible episode length. Probably somewhere in the 100,000s.

Ten thousand dollars an episode multiplied by nearly three hundred episodes. Ignore that man also named Jacob who cannot do math.