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

[BluezaBladeNZ]

It just occurred to me. Since they filled in the sides, what did they do about the close up of Gohan before he runs to Goku at the start of the second half?

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1313/mcn1.png

Thanks. I was expecting them to either crop that bit or somehow extend the drawing.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Some more footage but with the eyecatches this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsdoEr ... ata_player

[PhoenixEX]

Some more footage but with the eyecatches this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsdoEr ... ata_player

That actually looks pretty damn great.

[Metalwario64]

Some more footage but with the eyecatches this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsdoEr ... ata_player

It looks like they didn't use the stabilization, or it's not working as well this time because that looks really jittery. It looks like there's an earthquake going around when Yajirobe's looking from behind that rock.

Also, wow, in that eyecatch, Gohan is being digitally shifted to the left when he's running to Goku... Looks awful... and if those digital pans are as bad as I imagine, then those two things kinda of remind me of the digitally sped up shots in the old FUNi-Ocean era episodes.

[samuraix123]

Some more footage but with the eyecatches this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsdoEr ... ata_player

That actually looks pretty damn great.

I agree! Has that specific video been tampered with in anyway? Because I know how Youtubers like to mess with quality. But regardless I agree. I just wished it was 4x3 but eh...No point in crying over spilled milk. I'm just gonna go ahead and give these OB's to my brother.

Edit- Also This release still isn't on Walmart.com....

[dbboxkaifan]

Some more footage but with the eyecatches this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsdoEr ... ata_player

It looks really good and that scene where Vegeta keeps on blasting Gohan reminded me of the new animation they had in Kai which looked very similar, and all that FUNimation did was use filters rather than reanimate.

Oh I read this comment from that video and I can't tell if he's serious or trolling:

Do you think these were just orange brick upscales with filters and sharpening? Because I can't think of any other reason why FUNi would absolutely mess up the colours like they did with the orange bricks

Mess up the colours? They're far better than what's on the Dragonboxes, more accurate to the original broadcast and about the same as they were on the Level Blu-rays.

I know it's pointless to be responding to this comment here but I'm not going to sign up for Google+.

It looks like they didn't use the stabilization, or it's not working as well this time because that looks really jittery. It looks like there's an earthquake going around when Yajirobe's looking from behind that rock.

Also, wow, in that eyecatch, Gohan is being digitally shifted to the left when he's running to Goku... Looks awful.

Hm, true that but I didn't notice these flaws on the video until I read your comment. I'd guess the others who're just watching and not nit-picking won't see them in the flesh either.

[Bobby55]

Season Set Blu Ray vs Dragon Box:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnzM9CHWDfo

[kei17]

During certain shots, yes. When Goku and Piccolo are double-blasted by Raditz (where Piccolo loses his arm,) the shots of the two falling as the blasts destroy mountains in the background, there's a noticeble pan upward. Also, when Gohan bursts out of Raditz's space pod, they pan-and-scan upward to follow Gohan. It doesn't look like a natural camera pan though, it looks like a digital pan.

Oh my... That sounds atrocious...

Now the shit is even worse with this weird digital pan. Looks like stabilized anime videos on YouTube.

[Enigmo]

To be honest, other than the nonsensical blurriness, Kai is the best remaster of DBZ. With some sharpening, it is DEFINITELY the best quality of DBZ you'll get. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv9-CBDW8eA

The level sets aren't THAT good imo..... They still don't look completely sharp and the grain that everyone is so fond of looks artificial to me. Why they would use artificial grain? Most likely to hide sharpening artifacts, or to give the illusion that the the image behind the crystal clear grain is also sharp. It doesn't even look like grain if you ask me, looks more like a static noise overlay. But yeah, I still feel Kai is the best remaster of DBZ except of course for the blurriness and the new digitally animated scenes. They also have the best colours, imo.

[kei17]

Season Set Blu Ray vs Dragon Box:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnzM9CHWDfo

You should use the Japanese DBox for comparisons because FUNi's are a little blurry.

[Ajay]

To be honest, other than the nonsensical blurriness, Kai is the best remaster of DBZ. With some sharpening, it is DEFINITELY the best quality of DBZ you'll get. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv9-CBDW8eA

The level sets aren't THAT good imo..... They still don't look completely sharp and the grain that everyone is so fond of looks artificial to me. Why they would use artificial grain? Most likely to hide sharpening artifacts, or to give the illusion that the the image behind the crystal clear grain is also sharp. It doesn't even look like grain if you ask me, looks more like a static noise overlay. But yeah, I still feel Kai is the best remaster of DBZ except of course for the blurriness and the new digitally animated scenes. They also have the best colours, imo.

If 16mm grain looks like 'static noise' to you then you've got the sharpening on your TV turned up waaaaaaaay too high.

I sincerely hope you're just joking when you imply that Funimation added artificial grain to hide 'sharpening artifacts'. That's a gross misunderstanding of the format.

Kai is a great example of how to remaster the show for a modern audience; something that Funimation should have taken note of. It looks great on modern TVs and has none of the 'cons' of film whilst retaining the integrity of the linework and backgrounds.

The Level Sets are the near-perfect restoration of the original show. 16mm grain in tact, relatively accurate colours and a great deal of clarity that simply isn't present in any other release.

[Enigmo]

To be honest, other than the nonsensical blurriness, Kai is the best remaster of DBZ. With some sharpening, it is DEFINITELY the best quality of DBZ you'll get. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv9-CBDW8eA

The level sets aren't THAT good imo..... They still don't look completely sharp and the grain that everyone is so fond of looks artificial to me. Why they would use artificial grain? Most likely to hide sharpening artifacts, or to give the illusion that the the image behind the crystal clear grain is also sharp. It doesn't even look like grain if you ask me, looks more like a static noise overlay. But yeah, I still feel Kai is the best remaster of DBZ except of course for the blurriness and the new digitally animated scenes. They also have the best colours, imo.

If 16mm grain looks like 'static noise' to you then you've got the sharpening on your TV turned up waaaaaaaay too high.

I sincerely hope you're just joking when you imply that Funimation added artificial grain to hide 'sharpening artifacts'. That's a gross misunderstanding of the format.

Firstly, no, this is based on raw screenshots I was given and have seen here as well, and also some video clips that were compressed and so really messed up the grain but it was still enough to give the message - so no, it's not to do with my TV's sharpening. And the reason it looks like static noise to me isn't because of how visible the grain is, but more to do with the size of the grain. I've seen the grain in the Dragon Boxes, which looks natural and real, and the size of the grain shouldn't suddenly get smaller - so based on DBoxes and sharpened Kai and even other Animes that were possibly on 16mm for example Yu Yu Hakusho, I think I can get a pretty good sense of what 16mm film grain looks like.

'I sincerely hope you're just joking when you imply that Funimation added artificial grain to hide 'sharpening artifacts'.' Haha, no mate, I wasn't implying that, I clearly said it. Why would I think FUNimation would do such a thing? Well I mean, I'm not saying they actually did do it, but knowing FUNimation, why would they not? They lie a LOT in their advertising especially when it comes to remastering DBZ. In their behind the scenes for the level sets (I suggest you find and watch it again) they say they went through a frame by frame process of removing grain. Let that sink in..... for the LEVEL SETS......they said......they were removing grain, frame by frame.

Then there's them trying to sound impressive as fuck and say they had grayscale footage and matched new colours to different shades of the gray..... but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKiydAWAhGg lol..... obviously not exactly the same, but I managed to more or less achieve the level set colours without this fancy grayscale conversion crap, and chances are, this is what FUNi done - just touch up the alpha levels, hue, gamma and saturation.

Now you might be wondering, this makes their remastering process for the level sets seem cheap, so what makes their new bluray remasters cheaper? Well, the most logical conclusion I came down to was the level set episodes had so much grain which obviously made their file sizes really high, and with Bluray discs, it's to do with file size rather than video length, so yeah, the grain meant they could only fit a few episodes on each disc, but with this new remaster, there's no grain at all so much lower file sizes and therefore more episodes on discs, therefore less consumption of Bluray discs, therefore less money having to be invested in using Bluray discs, therefore cheaper. Just look at the size of the boxes lol - they're fitting 40 episodes into what with the level sets only had 17 eps.

[VegettoEX]

I think comparing the look of the new Blu-ray sets versus the look of the Kai remastering makes this relevant:

With the Q&A session, we were specifically told that different creative teams treat both Z-proper and Kai as "different" series. With the understanding/assumption that pretty much no-one else here actually works in the marketing realm (is there anyone besides me...?), what do you think of this decision? Could the home release of Kai have BEEN this HD master for the masses, either cropped or full 4:3?

I mean, we were confused the whole time about the "Level" sets 'cuz it was like... well... you HAVE an HD version of the show that you're already releasing, so why compete with yourself? And I mean, they even said right there they don't want to compete with themselves. But weren't they? Competing with their own product? How do you tell people "This is awesome DBZ in HD!" while simultaneously telling them about a different product "This is awesome DBZ in HD!"...?

[Enigmo]

I think comparing the look of the new Blu-ray sets versus the look of the Kai remastering makes this relevant:

With the Q&A session, we were specifically told that different creative teams treat both Z-proper and Kai as "different" series. With the understanding/assumption that pretty much no-one else here actually works in the marketing realm (is there anyone besides me...?), what do you think of this decision? Could the home release of Kai have BEEN this HD master for the masses, either cropped or full 4:3?

I mean, we were confused the whole time about the "Level" sets 'cuz it was like... well... you HAVE an HD version of the show that you're already releasing, so why compete with yourself? And I mean, they even said right there they don't want to compete with themselves. But weren't they? Competing with their own product? How do you tell people "This is awesome DBZ in HD!" while simultaneously telling them about a different product "This is awesome DBZ in HD!"...?

I wouldn't say they're competing simply because they're both HD. Kai would be advertised as: "DBZ, no filler, remastered in HD, new audio." Level sets/this: "The uncut, HD restoration of the original with classic/original audio." Both have their own unique selling point I guess.

[VegettoEX]

One would think so, but from the sounds of it, that tactic isn't really working for them. If it were, the "Level" sets would still be in production. Or was it some other factor? I mean, they dance around answering that so much (which I'm not entirely surprised about, since some of it they'd probably consider sensitive/proprietary research and business data) that it's impossible to tell.

[Metalwario64]

Could the home release of Kai have BEEN this HD master for the masses, either cropped or full 4:3?

I don't know about that, but I do know that Kai was definitely the version of the show "brought into the modern era", which makes FUNimation's attempt to do the same with Z look rather questionable.

If the fans wanted the show to be more like it was made today... then Kai would be more successful, though I suppose you could argue its lack of success is mostly due to FUNimation's terrible marketing for Kai... or lack thereof. Just to clarify, by "success" I refer to the admittedly lackluster home video sales.

[VegettoEX]

And I think that's what I'm getting at. Kai's underlying purpose WAS "made to look (and sound) like it's for the modern era". OK, that's great... except then you bring out another product whose purpose is also to do the same thing.

So why? Why not double-down on the one that's already out there instead of competing with yourself?

[Ajay]

I wonder if their market research came back with the unfortunate number of people wishing Kai had 'the old voice actors' back with 'the memorable speeches'. I guess the demand is there for that version of the show in HD so perhaps that's part of it?

[dbboxkaifan]

To be honest, other than the nonsensical blurriness, Kai is the best remaster of DBZ. With some sharpening, it is DEFINITELY the best quality of DBZ you'll get. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv9-CBDW8eA

With the DBZ Levels 1.1 and 1.2 it makes your statement invalid because that's actually the definitive best HD quality for Dragon Ball Z.

Dragon Ball Kai has a clash between the original animation and new animation which is very obvious to anyone and at times it was annoying but also nice because it took away from that blurry old footage (Levels fixed it) which we've seen for more than 20 years.

[VegettoEX]

I wonder if their market research came back with the unfortunate number of people wishing Kai had 'the old voice actors' back with 'the memorable speeches'. I guess the demand is there for that version of the show in HD so perhaps that's part of it?

I'm sure that's part of it. I'm sure another part of it was a confusing contradiction of "make it look and sound new" but also "be exactly the same as it used to be". Like, what on Earth do you DO with that...?

I mean, the most casual of audiences - the ones they're aiming for with the Blu-ray sets - probably don't even know that it's a different composer for 1-67 then it is for 68-291, don't even know the narrator was replaced for a while, don't even know Sabat and some others redubbed their lines for a while, don't even know filters are missing on certain characters, etc. They think it's what they watched, but it isn't really, and you can't even get that version unless you collected the old single-disc releases.

It's been such a haphazard production from the same company (one that's gone from totally amateur to leading the business) over such a long period of time that it's almost like the series is its own undoing.