Conan the SSJ wrote:Not sure about the bitrate issue for the original DB discs, but from what I know, they only have 2 audio and subtitle tracks for each version as well as some trailers. So if they're dual-layered, there shouldn't much of any technical problems going on. Ya' know Corey, since you seem to be eager for a dub with Japanese BGM, the original DB dub is open for the full-screen catching.
DragonBall Z's discs only had 2 audio and subtitle tracks too, but they still had bitrate issues. Not using the full disc capacity and so forth. It made the episodes/movies really look like a mess when high speed action kicked in, especially since my setup upscales to 720p. Kinda depressing since I have other FUNi discs (Fruits Basket, Blue Gender, Samurai 7) and they haven't looked like such rush jobs (though I haven't seen the latter two fully, admittedly).
As for the dub, I saw parts on Cartoon Network, and while I may get it someday...it's around the bottom of the list. I own the series already, so buying it *again* wouldn't be too productive. I've got school to pay for, work to do on my pistols, other series I don't own yet that I wanna buy (waiting on my first volume of Kenshin to arrive currently), stuff on my car, etc.
Maybe when FUNi has the full series out I'll hit it during a sale at DeepDiscountDVD, but right now...I'm not worried. I considered getting these remastered sets fleetingly, but I snapped back out of it. I typically only buy something if its a significant upgrade, and I don't see anything surpassing the DragonBoxes for awhile, which is cool since I'm not ready to upload another ~$2800 on DragonBall (though it was over what, 3 years?) ;p
Tenken wrote:EDIT: oh yeah, and from what I could tell (or from what VLC is telling me, heh), the encode is VBR and peaked around 9 mbps...with 7 eps filling about 6.9 gigs of space on a dvd 9.
Hm, not bad. I'm not sure why they didn't use the extra 1GB and change they had, but the still images don't look too bad. I'd have to see it in motion, but if they got DragonBall right then good for them (and for you guys, of course...assuming it ever comes out over here ;p).
The DragonBox: The Movies are widescreen. In the end of movie 13 there are clips from the series in widescreen. I ripped it, here is good idea of how the FUNimation widescreen version would look (not talking about quality).
I wonder, can someone post the FUNi disc's version of the ending? I'm just curious as to whether Toei reframed the shots to begin with for widescreen, or just letterboxed the original animation from that episode.
ect5150 wrote:I don't think Funi's ever bothered to actually fill the discs. From what I remember, the movies fit on to a DVD-5 disc, giving them 4.7 Gigs of space roughly, but I remember movie 12 taking up roughly 2 gigs worth of space. It seems like they just have standard settings they run across each episode and never bothered to really optimize anything that much.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Someone probably wrote a processing script for the MPEG-2 encoding, with a constant bitrate instead of a variable one. Why they set the bitrate so low is my question though. Colors get lost, mosquito noise reigns supreme, and high movement scenes are just a dirty blur. Look at Piccolo fighting Sauza and Coola's minions in movie 5, it's painful.
-Corey
). Since the dub was so beautiful, and the Japanese music was intact (a huge reason why I'm so hyped by the whole "Japanese music with English dub" thing), what else can they add besides the refurbished footage and.....widescreen? Maybe some commentary? Or unexpected extra stuff. 
