DVD Singles or Blu-ray Season Sets for Faulconer score?

[GokuBlack9000]

I'm a fan who's just started looking into owning DBZ on home video, but I'm also a fan of the US score by Bruce Faulconer, so at the moment I've been trying to figure out the best way to own the series with Faulconer's music.

So far I've ruled out...

The Dragon Box sets - Only on the basis that they don't include any audio tracks with Faulconer's music, although they are still worth collecting since they're considered to be the best release for watching the Japanese version of DBZ.

The Orange Brick sets - Which do have Faulconer's music, but everyone agrees that those sets are badly cropped garbage and not worth the money.

The Blu-ray Level Sets - Which were discontinued towards the end of the Vegeta Saga, which means that they never reached the point where the series would have started having the Bruce Faulconer score anyway.

So I've narrowed it down to either...

The old single DVD releases from FUNimation:



Or their more recent Blu-ray Season Sets:



Between the two of these, which would you suggest is the preferred way to own DBZ with the Bruce Faulconer score?

[90sDBZ]

It depends on a few things. The singles feature the original Funimation dub with the Faulconer score exactly as it originally aired, while the Blu-rays feature the partial redub which made a few changes to the Faulconer placement for some of the Ginyu saga episodes eg. Vegeta's theme and Frieza's Power up theme playing while Goku powers up for Ginyu. Also the singles are the only way to watch the longer original Funi version of "Ginyu Assault", which was where Faulconer first originally played. If you get the Blu-rays, the "Ginyu Assault" episode starts at a later point due to the earlier part being covered in the earlier re-dub featuring the Nathan Jonson score.

But the Blu-rays are much easier to track down and are probably more affordable too at this point. You could always get the first couple of Ginyu singles and then get the Blu-rays for the remaining episodes though, but then there's the inconsistency with the original dub and the partial redub, so it might be worth getting the singles up to the end of Garlic Jr at least.

Another reason to get the singles if you're a Faulconer fan is they feature his intro/ending for most of the series, while the Blu-rays only use the "Remastered" DBZ intro.

[obiwan23s]

If you're just going for the broadcast music track as your main incentive to purchase a DBZ home video release, go with the Blu-Ray. It may be difficult to track down ALL of the single disc releases at this point. Amazon is doing a box set release for $175 which I think is a pretty good deal for all 9 season sets. Acquiring all 85-some odd single releases will probably run you more than $175. You'd have to get each single release for an average price of $2.00 per disc to do better than that.

https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ball-Seas ... +z+blu+ray

[DHM211]

Get the Blu-ray season sets. They're cheap and look pretty good as you sit a few feet away from your TV.

[Bardo117]

Orange Bricks and Blu-Ray sets are fundamentally the exact same thing. I'd go with the Orange Bricks because of the better packaging, and cheaper price point. They look nice on a shelf and look good on any HD Tv.

[SupremeSSJ]

Me personally I would go for the singles, you should be able to get them (some) used for a couple bucks. You would be getting what your asking for plus it won't be cropped, you'll see dirt and artifacts with this set but that's just nitpicking they are perfectly watchable. If I'm not mistaking don't they have the original title cards also?

If you don't feel like browsing Amazon or eBay then just get the blu-rays.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The Blu-Rays are the best overall option for price, quality and shelf space.

As for the other options, I wouldn't go for the orange bricks if you want a decent transfer, and the singles, while watchable are more pricey and time consuming to hunt down in the long run.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I would recommend singles however the uncuts only go to half way through the Saiyan saga. So I would go to the Blue-Rays.

[Metalwario64]

A couple of singles have gone up in price (a couple of Freeza ones were around $30 used) for whatever reason last I checked, so honestly, despite what I feel about the season sets, I'd recommend getting them over the singles because of convenience.

[Robo4900]

The DVD singles are strictly better than any other release for Funimation dub viewing in my opinion; on all later releases, they slightly rearranged Faulconer score, and redubbed some voices in a weird, jarring way that really doesn't fit, and a bunch of vocal effects(Super Boo's voice being pitched down, for example) were unintentionally removed, and have never been reinstated. Plus, about half of episode 67 was originally dubbed by Funimation back in the day, with the old crew and Bruce Faulconer, but you can't get that on any other release. The reason this was done was because Ocean's final episode under Saban, episode 53, ended half-way through the uncut footage for episode 67, so Funimation had to do things in a slightly weird way.

Get the DVD singles, and enjoy Funimation's episodes 54-276/67.5-291 the way they aired originally.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

If you want the faulconer score then you're likely after the broadcast dub, also wasn't there unreleased tracks on the singles that were removed in later releases?

[Robo4900]

If you want the faulconer score then you're likely after the broadcast dub, also wasn't there unreleased tracks on the singles that were removed in later releases?

Yeah, I think so.

The broadcast dub technically has never been released, as the DVD single version contains some scenes which were cut for the TV airings, and the cut-off points for the start/ends of episodes is slightly different in the first 5-6 episodes(On home video, they added 10 minutes to the start of episode 54 so they could immediately get to being in-phase with the uncut footage; on TV, they cut the episodes down, started in the same place as the DVD version, but the ending point of episode 54, and the start/end-points of the following few episodes were different, and they gradually moved closer and closer towards being properly in-phase with the uncut footage).
But, in practise, this makes no real difference. It's only about 5 episodes, and the only real difference you'll get is that Dale Kelly tells you to "STAY TUNED" at different points than he would have if you were watching it on TV in '99 for the first few episodes.

[sintzu]

Orange Bricks and Blu-Ray sets are fundamentally the exact same thing.

The differences between them are night and day. The only thing they have in common is the amount of sets.