Dragon Ball Blue Bricks

[Masa95000]

I have a question about the Dragon Ball Season Sets. I already own the first one, but I was just wondering if the digital remastering of them was done the same way as the Z Season Sets or were they done in a similar fashion as the Dragon Boxes. Does this also apply to the GT Season Sets and Box Set?

[Kaboom]

Dragon Ball was the last of the three series FUNimation took their own remastering approach with, and by this point they got the hang of it. The automated remastering process was not done to nearly as excessive an extent as the DBZ sets, so the footage is nice, clean, and crisp looking without being blurred. The footage is progressively encoded and not cropped or otherwise messed with. The only minor problem with the video is that they're somewhat zoomed-in compared to the Dragon Boxes (and possibly the original FUNi singles? I can't remember), and of course, the lack of alternate angles means the titles are only in English. But this is not nearly as much of a problem as with Z or GT since FUNimation never replaced the main logos for DB anyway; only the episode titles.

All in all, the Dragon Ball season sets are a very good and respectable release in the video department.

[bkev]

I can't pull up the comparisons but from what I remember they are severely zoomed in. The lack of Japanese title cards in a show like DragonBall is pretty bad, considering the titles have nothing to do with the originals quite often (whereas with Kai I wouldn't care.) Now that there's this rerelease, the "rare" original sets have gone down in price; they're also something to consider. I was perfectly happy with the ones of those that I owned, although I'm sure the progressive encoding of the season sets is a plus.

[CashmanX]

I can't pull up the comparisons but from what I remember they are severely zoomed in. The lack of Japanese title cards in a show like DragonBall is pretty bad, considering the titles have nothing to do with the originals quite often (whereas with Kai I wouldn't care.) Now that there's this rerelease, the "rare" original sets have gone down in price; they're also something to consider. I was perfectly happy with the ones of those that I owned, although I'm sure the progressive encoding of the season sets is a plus.

The lack of next episode previews, openings and endings is also a negative.

[xzero]

^^True, but there's no domestic release of Dragon Ball that has next episode previews or the correct OP/EDs.

On the zooming point, I have to take what's probably the minority position here and say that at least for my viewing experience, I really didn't care. In fact, the last time I watched Dragonball was last spring (2010). I watched a couple of episodes a day for about 3 months. I used the Season Sets for the first 120-some episodes, but ran out after Season 4 because 5 came out last summer. For the remainder of the Piccolo episodes, I used my Saga Sets. I honestly didn't even notice the zooming at all on my 32" TV. What I did notice was the massive amount of grain and how much better the Season Sets looked.

As for the Japanese title cards, for me, it's another thing where I just don't care. I get the completeness argument and all of that. I also recognize that the majority of Funi's dubs use episode titles that are reasonably close to their Japanese counterparts, so it's not as much of an issue as it is for all of the DB stuff except for Kai. Still, in the end of the day, I'm the type of fan for whom the Japanese version is more of a curiosity that I'm only marginally interested in. I prefer to watch the show dubbed. Thus, Japanese title cards are unimportant for my viewing experience.

For the Blue Bricks, if the zooming and title card issues bother you, the Saga Sets are the better (but incomplete without importing the Region 4 Saga of Goku set) choice. Otherwise, the Blue Bricks are by far the better option for superior video quality.

[BluezaBladeNZ]

Here's a comparison between the Blue Brick and the Dragon Box if anyone is still curious about how zoomed in it is:

[Pokewhiz7]

I started a thread a while ago about this. In my opinion, the zooming is not that bad at all. While you do lose almost as much as the orange bricks, it was framed for 4:3, so it doesn't look as awkward. The footage is very clean yet sharp. The orange bricks removed excessive amounts of grain leading to disappearing lines. The green bricks didn't have this issue, however they looked, in my opinion, very, very, blurry. Probably the only issue is the lack of Japanese title cards and credits. I didn't notice it during the episodes, but for some reason, the opening has excessive color banding, which I think is the right word.

[TheGreatness25]

Here's a little comparison of all the different types of releases in North America... and the Dragon Box.

Dragon Ball: Saga of Goku (Ocean dub release)



Dragon Ball: Saga of Goku (FUNimation dub release)



Dragon Ball: Season 1



Dragon Ball: Dragon Box



Dragon Ball: Piccolo Jr. Saga



Dragon Ball: Season 5



Dragon Ball: Dragon Box



The Dragon Ball Season Sets are zoomed in, but the brightness was tweaked just a little bit to not be as in your face as before. It is smoother, but looks pretty blurred. Ah Dragon Box... If you got it, use it. I'm so happy I got it lol It's just there for the fun of it, and to show that FUNimation has a while to go before they match up to that.

[redlinks]

I've got a sample shot here if anyone's interested.


Funimation (left) Dragon Box (right)

Personally, I'm holding out on the Blue Bricks and planning on waiting for a US DB Dragon Box release. The blue brick's quality is just too severely zoomed in for me.

[bkev]

Man, everything I've seen from the original series' Dragon Box looks stellar. But for some reason, I've never entirely cared for the Z box's colors/grain structure/etc. Anyone else?

[KiddoCabbusses]

Actually,the green hue in the DBDBoxes kinda bothers me, moreso than the Pinks in Z for some reason.

That being said, are there any notable times in the show where that missing picture portion hides something important?

[Tanooki Kuribo]

Man, everything I've seen from the original series' Dragon Box looks stellar. But for some reason, I've never entirely cared for the Z box's colors/grain structure/etc. Anyone else?

With DBZ there were certain parts in the Dragon Box sets I didn't like but, most of it was pretty awesome.

There is grain in the those Dragon Ball shots too, you just can't see it because TheGreatness25 and redlinks posted screen shots that, I don't think are actual size. They don't actually look like that. The colors maybe, but don't use it to compare picture quality.

[nathantheguitarist]

All of the screenshots posted are shit. Stop that.