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

[qjz123]

Here you go

Thank you, now I can see where they cropped and fixed the tape marks. I wonder if they cropped (like you did) if it would save as much as converting it 16x9?

They would but then it's like pick your poison. If you look at the dragon ball blue bricks which are copped/zoomed in but still 4:3 you end up loosing almost the same amount of the image the only difference is where you're loosing it from, for a 4:3 crop/zoom in you loose image on the bottom and the left and right sides and with a 16:9 crop you loose image on the top and bottom. If Funimation did a 4:3 crop they would probably crop out a lot more of the image than I did just in case later episodes where more damaged.

[qjz123]

Here's an interesting theory. Target has the level sets listed as wide-screen 16x9 (because the black bars are part of the picture?). Could this be the same error everyone esle is making? Of course we must wait for FUNi to say something about it. But it just crossed my mind.

http://www.target.com/p/dragonball-z-le ... A-13775144

No look at this http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Dragon-Ba ... ray/85277/
It says Aspect ratio: 1.78:1(16:9)
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1(4:3)

[qjz123]

I think I prefer it with the grain intact, honestly. It's so thick with grain that with any denoising they do, it just results in grain that looks more like artifacting than anything.

I don't know? I don't think it looks too bad.
http://imageshack.us/a/img571/7290/awjm.png
But I get where your coming from.

The sky and parts of his eyebrow are the main offenders. They look so smudgy.

What about this?
http://imageshack.us/a/img30/2048/8hb.png
I get what your saying about wanting the grain to be left intact but I wouldn't call the level sets smudgy in that scene.

[Fizzer]

The raw transfers look so fricking good

[Luso Saiyan]

I think I prefer it with the grain intact, honestly. It's so thick with grain that with any denoising they do, it just results in grain that looks more like artifacting than anything.

There's natural grain, which is present on the original negative, and excessive grain, which is present on film prints when the grain from the print is added to the grain from the negative. Since they are not using the original negatives, I don't see the problem in removing a bit of excessive grain for clarity.

[Ajay]

There's natural grain, which is present on the original negative, and excessive grain, which is present on film prints when the grain from the print is added to the grain from the negative. Since they are not using the original negatives, I don't see the problem in removing a bit of excessive grain for clarity.

I understand that, I just don't like noise removal in any form. Obviously what they've done isn't excessive but I don't like the results:

[KingofWisdom]

Even if the remastering comes out okay, I still wouldn't want to buy it in fear of a better release coming out in the near future. FUNimation ended up putting out the Dragon Boxes not long after I bought the orange bricks, so I didn't want to spend another $200+ to buy it again (I still haven't gotten over it). Maybe I'm just dreaming here, but they could use the money made from this release to put towards more Level-style remasters.

[ect5150]

I understand that, I just don't like noise removal in any form. Obviously what they've done isn't excessive but I don't like the results:

Some of those issues are present in the level sets because the bitrate wasn't as high as it could/should have been. I wish they would just maximize the bitrate on the video (which is something like 40 MBits/sec)... I think the level sets used something like 23 MBits/sec. With that much grain - if the bitrate isn't high enough - the grain becomes boxes.

But I tend to agree with you - I don't like grain removal in any form in situations like this. Those raw images look fantastic. Fuck the results of the survey

[Martinrock]

Hi everyone, the price of the Blu-ray season fell on Amazon. http://amzn.com/B00F9IB1M4 It is now at only $24.99! There are about two years, the Levels set which contained nearly half a "season" cost $35 . I highly doubt at this price we can hope to get close to the Levels set. How many released versions are there of Dragon Ball Z since the Vhs? This is all about money. Funimation is not big fan of Dragon Ball but a trading company. Like Star Wars, you will get a "correct" version only after pay for mediocre versions. The film released in 2013 rekindled interest for Dragon Ball (z) series and it is for this reason that it is preparing a new adventure of "remastering" modeled on the dvd. I already pre-ordered the new set because I can not wait another 5 years for a new version. There is still a chance, very thin, that the original format prevail. If this is the case, I would be the happiest man on earth.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

How many released versions are there of Dragon Ball Z since the Vhs? This is all about money. Funimation is not big fan of Dragon Ball but a trading company.

Of course it's about money. I don't see why people have a problem with this idea. It's how the world works.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

How many released versions are there of Dragon Ball Z since the Vhs? This is all about money. Funimation is not big fan of Dragon Ball but a trading company.

Welcome to the real world.

[qjz123]

Hi everyone, the price of the Blu-ray season fell on Amazon. http://amzn.com/B00F9IB1M4 It is now at only $24.99! There are about two years, the Levels set which contained nearly half a "season" cost $35 . I highly doubt at this price we can hope to get close to the Levels set. How many released versions are there of Dragon Ball Z since the Vhs? This is all about money. Funimation is not big fan of Dragon Ball but a trading company. Like Star Wars, you will get a "correct" version only after pay for mediocre versions. The film released in 2013 rekindled interest for Dragon Ball (z) series and it is for this reason that it is preparing a new adventure of "remastering" modeled on the dvd. I already pre-ordered the new set because I can not wait another 5 years for a new version. There is still a chance, very thin, that the original format prevail. If this is the case, I would be the happiest man on earth.

Honestly if it looks anything like this I'd be fine.
16:9 crops of raw film scans.
http://imageshack.us/a/img29/6952/0qcg.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img801/7742/ffoa.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img22/8508/gmal.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img5/5708/6j28.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img4/6421/v8if.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img707/9775/6bgr.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img202/2929/adlp.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img24/2860/ewac.png

[qjz123]

How many released versions are there of Dragon Ball Z since the Vhs? This is all about money. Funimation is not big fan of Dragon Ball but a trading company.

Of course it's about money. I don't see why people have a problem with this idea. It's how the world works.

People act like Funimation should take some moral stand about treating Dbz as a work of art instead of trying to making money.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

People act like Funimation should take some moral stand about treating Dbz as a work of art instead of trying to making money.

Yeah, because, I mean it, a company that licensed domestic Dragon Boxes, treated the Kai dub as a second chance to make up for an original dub that could choose not to consider flawed, and made the level sets on their own dime and cancelled them because they didn't sell doesn't care. Come on, people, you can count the number of other licensees who did the first two on one hand, and the latter has no precedent. DBZ is their cash cow, and their allowed to use it that way; particularly if they aren't nuking the colors and someone is actually making sure the cutting makes sense.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Of course it's about money. I don't see why people have a problem with this idea. It's how the world works.

Exactly. I totally agree with that. Let us all become uneducated ignorants and let's start to accept everything. Corporations profits should be the most important thing in our lives.
But yes, you're right - that's how the world works. We may support it or not.

People act like Funimation should take some moral stand about treating Dbz as a work of art instead of trying to making money.

I think that people want a solid product and they don't give a sh*** about FUNimation's money.

[qjz123]

From a business perspective this release makes a lot of sense for Funimation, it's really appealing to the people who liked the orange bricks. If you look at this walmart listing they have the same name besides the distinction that it's on blu ray. http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng ... raint=4096 The general fan who walks into walmart and sees Dbz on the shelf is gonna say "Oh look I remember this wow 39 episodes for $20 and I can get it on blu ray for only $5 more". Where as with the Level sets 17 episodes for $30 not gonna happen. After all of the orange bricks were released Funimation announced that they had acquired the rights to the Dragon boxes. So if these blu rays sell well maybe we'll get the continuation of the level sets. That would be in 2016 which would also fall in line with Funimation's 20th anniversary of their Dbz dub.

[Fizzer]

Thinking about the Kai dub, the levels sets and the freaking Dragon Boxes (just think about that for a second, the fought to get us the Dragon Boxes) I feel really bad about Funimation being spammed with angry comments about this particular product being cropped. They clearly do want to please the hardcore fan base as well as the casuals. It makes us look like spoiled brats throwing tantrums because our parents bought us the wrong colour iPhone.

[qjz123]

Thinking about the Kai dub, the levels sets and the freaking Dragon Boxes (just think about that for a second, the fought to get us the Dragon Boxes) I feel really bad about Funimation being spammed with angry comments about this particular product being cropped. They clearly do want to please the hardcore fan base as well as the casuals. It makes us look like spoiled brats throwing tantrums because our parents bought us the wrong colour iPhone.

So true. I understand why this release would upset people but at the same time there are multiple releases available if this one's not your cup of tea then get another.

[Kendamu]

Thinking about the Kai dub, the levels sets and the freaking Dragon Boxes (just think about that for a second, the fought to get us the Dragon Boxes) I feel really bad about Funimation being spammed with angry comments about this particular product being cropped. They clearly do want to please the hardcore fan base as well as the casuals. It makes us look like spoiled brats throwing tantrums because our parents bought us the wrong colour iPhone.

I'm sure they don't feel bad. They're gonna get angry comments no matter how it's released.

[OutlawTorn]

The general fan who walks into walmart and sees Dbz on the shelf is gonna say "Oh look I remember this wow 39 episodes for $20 and I can get it on blu ray for only $5 more". Where as with the Level sets 17 episodes for $30 not gonna happen.

Well, there's only one thing I can say to this and that is "you get what you pay for." It's a shame people have such an entitlement complex that they expect companies to practically just give away their product, the cost of producing said product be damned.

I think the argument of the price of the Level sets vs. the Season sets is BS, considering the same model was used for the Kai releases before they bundled them into seasons of their own. They must have sold well as 2-disc sets, otherwise they wouldn't have completed them. With the Level sets, the market was already oversaturated with different versions of the same material, whether it was the orange sets, the just completed Dragon Boxes or the Kai releases, there was Dragon Ball out the ass. I bet things would have been different had they not jumped immediately into another release as soon as the Dragon Boxes finished.