Dragon Ball/Z/GT VCDs

[eledoremassis02]

Got this at my thrift store (as well as some other bootlegs) and I thought it would be cool to do a review of it and see if anyone else has them.


The cases are CD wallets and the case work is rather nice. Each case hold 13 discs and these two sets house Episodes 76-153
The CD's themselves are of nice quality with professionally printed labels (no sticker labels!)

The sale price for all of Dragon Ball/Z/GT was $350.00 $12.00 S/H

The other cool thing about these are the cases have spine art. I don't have all of them, but while doing some research, I was able to find all the volumes


Episodes all have their watermark from their source so if you downloaded these, you knew where you could get them.
However, the quality of their episodes (like their VHS counterparts) vary in quality and are all 231mb per episodes .

A+

A

A-

B-

D


The origin of most of the episodes are from multi-generation VHS of the Nippon Golden Network broadcast.

Because of this, many of the episodes have N.E.P and appropriate endings. However many of the episodes opening have been cut and replaced with one file that plays the 1st opening, but some episodes do have their original opening.

It should be noted that the first few episodes of DB and DBZ are subbed by the group who made these VCD sets, not NGN. I don't know what video source they used, but it seems to be a bit better than their NGN source. Another thing is, not all of the episodes are from fansub VHS tapes. Around the time that these were being made (around 2002-2004 I think), a lot of the Funi singles were out, so they just used rips of those for some episodes. The majority of them are fansubbed, but there are a select few that aren't






Some video clips:

DB episode 1 clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCxoP98k_8Q
DB episode 134 clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z-feufe9po
DB episode ending with NEP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ijmyyzQ_Yc
DBZ episode 1 clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsqra2Rj3CE
DBZ episode 31 recap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0fsZjLPF9c

Special thanks to lolman196 for updated information and video clips!

[VegettoEX]

Looks like they're just digital captures of the Nippon Golden Network broadcasts from Hawaii. Really awful captures, at that. Most tapes from that era weren't that great to begin with, but hot damn.

[eledoremassis02]

Looks like they're just digital captures of the Nippon Golden Network broadcasts from Hawaii. Really awful captures, at that. Most tapes from that era weren't that great to begin with, but hot damn.

That's the actual frame size too at the very least most of them are watchable. When I can find the time I was to copy the subtitles over to time them to the Dragon Boxs (if I can ever get them lol)

Fulls screen, the best quality episodes look like this -

Spoiler:

[SuicidalZerg]

Still better than the orange bricks.

[JackyBoi99]

For some reason I want these

[eledoremassis02]

I added a sample video clip under the screencaps

[Fulicer]

This reminds me of the videos I would find in the early 2000s. I remember buying some bootlegs from another person, that had classifications based on how good they looked -- used terms like "near dvd" and "HELLA quality." There was the occasional RealMedia file too.

This was back when it wasn't easy to get all of the (uncut) episodes on a legal format, and when Big Green existed but it probably wasn't as well known as it is today. I had the filipino english dub of Movie 6 with the horribly modulated Coola voice but I have lost it...oh well.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Again, maybe you could be of some help to Takarajima.

[shinmaru]

Looks like they're just digital captures of the Nippon Golden Network broadcasts from Hawaii. Really awful captures, at that. Most tapes from that era weren't that great to begin with, but hot damn.

That's the actual frame size too at the very least most of them are watchable. When I can find the time I was to copy the subtitles over to time them to the Dragon Boxs (if I can ever get them lol)

Fulls screen, the best quality episodes look like this -

Spoiler:

They are hardsubbed, it's very hard work and time consuming processes to get just one episode subtitle

[LordCrumb]

The first Dragon Ball related purchase I ever did was Dragon Ball GT on bootleg VCD. Quality wasn't too bad, but I guess the show wasn't that old.

[eledoremassis02]

Again, maybe you could be of some help to Takarajima.

I've talked to him about these

[UltimateHammerBro]

Again, maybe you could be of some help to Takarajima.

I've talked to him about these

tell us, tell us. I'm becoming increasingly interested in these old fansubs. Didn't he want to make subs out of them apart from those DVDs he was making?

[eledoremassis02]

Well the audio is not that great on these, they're similar to FUNi's source with added VHS sound (on most of them anyway). I sent some clips and see what he could do with them. I wish these had broadcast audio cause that would be awesome haha
For now, I'd like to make optional subtitles for the Dragon Box (when I get a Dragon box lol) with these subs so other can enjoy such moments as





I might post some clips of the end of an episode + NEP. While the order is opposite on the Dbox, it's nice seeing how it was originally ordered.

Does anyone still have the tapes? Dragon Ball + Ealy Z seem to be rare finds. Thats why I hadda jump on these because while there is some problems (I'm noticing some episodes have audio syncing issues), and not so good video quality, it was worth it because now I have almost all of Dragon Ball from Nippon Golden Network.

Also, here is a regular VHS from Nippon Golden Network from Anime Past to show you how different the quality is/could be
http://animepast.net/Time_Capsule/Fansu ... Names/NGN/

[SuicidalZerg]

Candy Cloud?!!

[GarrettCRW]

If it's a Candy Cloud, why has Yajirobe never eaten the mother cloud that all Kinto Uns come from?

[eledoremassis02]

With help from lolman196 I've updated the first post

[Jon Jon]

This reminds me of the videos I would find in the early 2000s. I remember buying some bootlegs from another person, that had classifications based on how good they looked -- used terms like "near dvd" and "HELLA quality." There was the occasional RealMedia file too.

This was back when it wasn't easy to get all of the (uncut) episodes on a legal format, and when Big Green existed but it probably wasn't as well known as it is today. I had the filipino english dub of Movie 6 with the horribly modulated Coola voice but I have lost it...oh well.

I have that dub of Movie 5 and 6 still in real media format.

I love these VCDs, since I have Dragon Ball episodes like 100~ - 153 in real media format with those fan subs from AGES ago. The nostalgia effect is huge on me right now.

I kind of want these as well.

[eledoremassis02]

I love these VCDs, since I have Dragon Ball episodes like 100~ - 153 in real media format with those fan subs from AGES ago. The nostalgia effect is huge on me right now.

I kind of want these as well.

Can you post a few screencaps? I wonderin what the quality difference is like

[dougo13]

Ikkk! Real Media. That format died out everywhere except a few holdout places. I should look at capping the old tapes before they become impossible to do so. I'll have to have a look at the color correction articles and see if it would be possible to apply them to my Pioneer 650 DVD recorder. It has very advanced color correction settings including some that would work well for old cartoon tapes. I'm uncertain if my Hauppage or Arcsoft software has similar if capturing using a HDPVR 2 capture device. Never needed it up to now...

[dougo13]

Looks like they're just digital captures of the Nippon Golden Network broadcasts from Hawaii. Really awful captures, at that. Most tapes from that era weren't that great to begin with, but hot damn.

That's the actual frame size too at the very least most of them are watchable. When I can find the time I was to copy the subtitles over to time them to the Dragon Boxs (if I can ever get them lol)

Fulls screen, the best quality episodes look like this -

Spoiler:

They are hardsubbed, it's very hard work and time consuming processes to get just one episode subtitle

Don't I know...

Especially in the days prior to The Amiga and Substation Alpha...