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

[samuraix123]

Hahahaha Okay! I looked at it(didn't bother going back to look at the original image because I just figured you just copied and pasted) and I thought ''Wow! I can't believe I didn't notice those on the picture'' hahaha It's all good though.

[Ajay]

Hahahaha Okay! I looked at it(didn't bother going back to look at the original image because I just figured you just copied and pasted) and I thought ''Wow! I can't believe I didn't notice those on the picture'' hahaha It's all good though.

Sorry! I've edited it with a properly resized version now.

[MarcFBR]

We've seen their masters from the Level Sets themselves as well the documentaries about the process. There does appear to be inherent crush but it's not to the same degree as this.

Which still isn't my point. It's easy to point at the dbox and something else and go 'this is different', my point is their actual masters appear to be crushed regardless (which you do mention) but it seems to be heavily based on the actual masters themselves.

Take a look at the single of Movie 2 compared to their 'remaster' that adopted the same process they've stuck with for some time now:

Spoiler:

It's pretty clear they've crushed the detail there. For whatever reason the difference seemed greater in Photoshop so you may want to throw the image in there for a more accurate look.

If you look at both caps there is a bit of a flat scratch a bit to the bottom left, that doesn't appear to be on their old DVD, which perhaps suggests that these come from different masters.

But yes, I do admit, it is pure conjecture on my part but I highly doubt their masters show anywhere near the same level of black crush as these HD versions do.

If it does? Then okay, that's one less thing I can feel annoyed by. I don't think that excuses their decisions regarding colour which are equally as destructive.

Spoiler:

Goku The Human Orange! He looks ridiculous.

Hopefully this elaboration makes me sound a little more sane and not just 'Mr. FUNi basher' as I've clearly come across as.

But again, many of the points are only valid if the colors aren't degraded on their masters, etc. Considering how many of Toei's own archival copies have color issues, it would neither be shocking or surprising to learn of different color issues on other masters. Which in and of itself kind of makes going 'look at how different these colors are' by comparing them to any dragonbox masters a bit odd. While I agree the Funi colors don't really look right, the Toei colors for say, DB movie 4, look washed out and not exactly what I would call pristine.)

[Ajay]

I understand your point about the blacks. That certainly makes sense.

My point about the colours wasn't the actual accuracy of them themselves. Toei notoriously don't bother doing anything to them - as seen on all of their Dragon Box releases. That's kinda sucky but hey, at least there's nothing artificial going on there and they're easily fixable.

With FUNi, my issue is the very clear artificiality of them. Those blown out colours aren't from any film degradation. That's pure digital vibrance pumped up to horrible amounts.

That's the stuff I take issue with. It's all about big, bold and vibrant with them rather than just accepting the format's aesthetics. I get it though; it's what sells and works. Doesn't stop me disliking it

[eledoremassis02]

Is it kinda bad I like the crushed blacks here...I think it gives it more atmosphere lol

[MarcFBR]

That's the stuff I take issue with. It's all about big, bold and vibrant with them rather than just accepting the format's aesthetics. I get it though; it's what sells and works. Doesn't stop me disliking it

To be clear, I don't believe the Funi colors are right (or even preferable.) My point was more, was there something inherent with the masters they used that made them feel like they had to play with it on this occasion, when in the past they've generally used a more deft hand with anything that doesn't end with a 'Z.' It's possible they just decided to try and pump them up. I'm more curious if there was a reason for it, and did the reason add to the look of them, or was it just a case of "We're gonna do the DB movies in HD, let's play with it."

I'm not 100% convinced these are from film and aren't just upscales despite some people being rather sure of it (although a few small details suggest they might have different masters than they've had in the past for these films based on some of the caps you guys have posted.)

[dbboxkaifan]

Forget the movies. I'd rather have funimation release all five seasons of Dragon Ball on blu ray

That's a bad idea because DB doesn't have seasons then again this is FUNimation so they'd probably use that format regardless. And we don't know if they have the DB series to remaster in HD or else they'd have to simply upscale it for a Blu-ray release and I don't think people really want that (give them time to have the HD footage).

Is it kinda bad I like the crushed blacks here...I think it gives it more atmosphere lol

I watched DB #1 of FUNimation's remastered edition and was OK it with, I tend to watch DB/Z films once or twice and then pack them away so I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, although I love rewatching DBZ #13 it's just that awesome!

Oh yeah, you posted another screenshot of it on the other DB HD topic, that one looks really nice too.

Here's the screenshot:

Spoiler:

Edit: Screenshots I just took now.

Spoiler:

[Puto]

Now that they're done with the Season Blu-rays please release the Dragon Ball films (1-4) on Blu-ray because they've proven to have it in HD.

Spoiler:

After this, a proper HD remaster of the Dragon Ball Z films would be really nice plus with the Japanese audio straight from the Japanese Dragon Boxes or better (the Laser Discs had superior audio, I think).

Forget the movies. I'd rather have funimation release all five seasons of Dragon Ball on blu ray

As far as we can tell, FUNimation don't have film masters to the original Dragon Ball beyond the first 13 (or possibly 26) episodes and the movies. So remastering the series in HD wouldn't be an option.

[EmmaWinters]

After seeing these movies, I don't trust them to handle it properly even if they had what they needed.

[JEFFMAN219]

Now that they're done with the Season Blu-rays please release the Dragon Ball films (1-4) on Blu-ray because they've proven to have it in HD.

Spoiler:

After this, a proper HD remaster of the Dragon Ball Z films would be really nice plus with the Japanese audio straight from the Japanese Dragon Boxes or better (the Laser Discs had superior audio, I think).

Forget the movies. I'd rather have funimation release all five seasons of Dragon Ball on blu ray

As far as we can tell, FUNimation don't have film masters to the original Dragon Ball beyond the first 13 (or possibly 26) episodes and the movies. So remastering the series in HD wouldn't be an option.

So is it impossible for them to upscale DB even though they don't have the film masters?

[Puto]

'Upscaling' is exactly what you DON'T want to do when releasing a Blu-ray. Upscaling is the act of taking something in SD and blowing it up to HD without any actual improvement in quality. You need film to get the video in HD without upscaling, with actual extra detail and quality.

[Puto]

I'm not 100% convinced these are from film and aren't just upscales despite some people being rather sure of it (although a few small details suggest they might have different masters than they've had in the past for these films based on some of the caps you guys have posted.)

Think about it like this: They already rescanned the film in 2010 for their remastered DVD release. By 2010, it's unlikely they'd have scanned it at 480, which means they likely have a 1080 transfer. And if they have a 1080 transfer on hand, why would they upscale it for the stream?

And on an unrelated matter, the blacks on the streams are even more crushed than on the 2010 DVDs because whoever encoded it for the website erroneously gave it a levels conversion (a 16-235 range to 0-255 conversion from a source that was already in 0-255 to begin with). If you run the reverse transformation (0-255 to 16-236) you get colours that more or less match the DVD.

[dbboxkaifan]

After seeing these movies, I don't trust them to handle it properly even if they had what they needed.

They just need to lay off from crushing everything to black and losing detail everywhere because the rest is actually decent (i.e, colours). Heck, take that Bulma screenshot for example, it's hard to tell the colour of her glove and what she's holding due (it's actually just her fingers ) to the blackness of it.

This is pretty bad 'cause of the blackness, again.

[eledoremassis02]

I just noticed that the Z movies all have Japanese title cards and credits. I wish they had those for the Blurays. Also, GT is all Japanese opening text, ect as well

[MarcFBR]

'Upscaling' is exactly what you DON'T want to do when releasing a Blu-ray. Upscaling is the act of taking something in SD and blowing it up to HD without any actual improvement in quality. You need film to get the video in HD without upscaling, with actual extra detail and quality.

Not 100% correct. You generally don't want to upscale stuff, if native can be done. If you can't do it, and you upscale with a deft hand, it will look far better than SD, and is generally preferable to a DVD, if only to get away from the more destructive encoding of MPEG2. Funi when left to their own devices has generally done very well upscaling, to the extent that if you compare the handful of releases that the Japanese did on their own, versus ones Funi did on their own, the Funi ones are definitely better.

Think about it like this: They already rescanned the film in 2010 for their remastered DVD release. By 2010, it's unlikely they'd have scanned it at 480, which means they likely have a 1080 transfer. And if they have a 1080 transfer on hand, why would they upscale it for the stream?

I assumed the movies in 2010 were based on nicer tape copies actually. Them having film for them would make sense, but it never really came to mind one way or the other. Outside of Z itself everything they've done has been based on tape copies, but having these 4 on film would make sense.

[samuraix123]

Got season 9 in the mail! Just 1 more! I was hoping I would luck out and get one those limited releases that had the card included but I didn't. ah well..can't win em all. haha

[JEFFMAN219]

Got season 9 in the mail! Just 1 more! I was hoping I would luck out and get one those limited releases that had the card included but I didn't. ah well..can't win em all. haha

Nice bro. Which season are you missing?

[samuraix123]

Got season 9 in the mail! Just 1 more! I was hoping I would luck out and get one those limited releases that had the card included but I didn't. ah well..can't win em all. haha

Nice bro. Which season are you missing?

Just season 8. On amazon it says that it's Temporarily out of stock. and you know how people are when stuff like that happens...they jack the price up so high! haha so I'm waiting for more to come in and lower to around 24? maybe 26? But I'm so close!

[JEFFMAN219]

Hey guys did Super buu's voice had a filer on it in the original dub because his voice sounds a little deeper in the original dub then it did on the remastered dub.

[samuraix123]

I noticed it on the Orange Bricks back when I had them and I want to say Yes! it was different...I don't know about a voice filter? but it was definitely different!
I know android 19 did have a voice filter that was removed. Wanna know something funny? As a Huge supporter of Funimation I have to laugh at em and make fun of them a bit. I look for them to release Z again *But this time we'll be getting stuff that they screwed up now for the past two releases! Filters! Tien's words returned instead of nothing but a useless mouth flap! Goku's Kamehameha restored! Majin Boo's voice restored! Android 19's voice filter restored! missing title card restored! and much more!!! Buy it...Nooooow*