AB Video to release original Dragon Ball on Blu-Ray

[sangofe]

it has been said that it will be a different HD remaster than the one crunchyroll used. as crunchyroll use Toei's one, where do you think that AB got their new HD remaster? only fool think that AB have 16mm filmprint so if it's not an astrores, why would they bother to do a "different one" if it's not an astrores one? people working into AB know very well that there is a high market potential with astrores AI upscale and they know it the same way as they knew about broadcast audios for db and that's not because some japanese hoarders keep them in their hand that they used it, it's only because it was publicly released, else NEVER you'll have seen an official release using that audios

Do you know that captain tsubasa less censored version is mangas exclusive? you cannot get it on dvd , do you know that the uncensored dragon ball gt dub is also "mangas exclusive"? that's why crunchyroll and adn don't (and won't) get this uncut audio

Basically it's not because crunchyroll have sailor moon rights now that it doesn't mean that later in the future, AB will not be able to released it legally, i even think that it's a way to "destroy" crunchyroll release and get the rights back later
sailormoon release by crunchyroll got a lot of complain cause it didn't even used the less censored french dub and that the "upscale look like trash", that's basically the same complain that people made about selecta db release and finally they did it

it's very easy to understand that if they deliberately said that it's a different HD remaster, it's basically to tease another astrores one

Where has it ever been stated that AB Groupe had the film prints? Nowhere has it ever been stated they do, nor has AB said so, nor doo I think anyone thinks that. It's been known for years now that they just AI upscaled & color-corrected the Dragon Box DVD masters.

For anyone that still doubts TOEI and AB Groupe being on good terms I think this definitively proves they are.

Thanks to Cure Dragon 255 for sharing this with me:

Basically, they're still fine.

They had the film reels for DB when they dubbed it but had to send them back. The VA for kid Goku confirmed that in a video on her channel.

Also, yeah, AB doesn't seem to have been booted from the Dragon Ball project which would have been a very bad business decision If Toei did. And remember, Toei wants easy money first and foremost.

[Scsigs]

Spoiler:

it has been said that it will be a different HD remaster than the one crunchyroll used. as crunchyroll use Toei's one, where do you think that AB got their new HD remaster? only fool think that AB have 16mm filmprint so if it's not an astrores, why would they bother to do a "different one" if it's not an astrores one? people working into AB know very well that there is a high market potential with astrores AI upscale and they know it the same way as they knew about broadcast audios for db and that's not because some japanese hoarders keep them in their hand that they used it, it's only because it was publicly released, else NEVER you'll have seen an official release using that audios

Do you know that captain tsubasa less censored version is mangas exclusive? you cannot get it on dvd , do you know that the uncensored dragon ball gt dub is also "mangas exclusive"? that's why crunchyroll and adn don't (and won't) get this uncut audio

Basically it's not because crunchyroll have sailor moon rights now that it doesn't mean that later in the future, AB will not be able to released it legally, i even think that it's a way to "destroy" crunchyroll release and get the rights back later
sailormoon release by crunchyroll got a lot of complain cause it didn't even used the less censored french dub and that the "upscale look like trash", that's basically the same complain that people made about selecta db release and finally they did it

it's very easy to understand that if they deliberately said that it's a different HD remaster, it's basically to tease another astrores one

Where has it ever been stated that AB Groupe had the film prints? Nowhere has it ever been stated they do, nor has AB said so, nor doo I think anyone thinks that. It's been known for years now that they just AI upscaled & color-corrected the Dragon Box DVD masters.

For anyone that still doubts TOEI and AB Groupe being on good terms I think this definitively proves they are.

Thanks to Cure Dragon 255 for sharing this with me:

Basically, they're still fine.

They had the film reels for DB when they dubbed it but had to send them back. The VA for kid Goku confirmed that in a video on her channel.

Also, yeah, AB doesn't seem to have been booted from the Dragon Ball project which would have been a very bad business decision If Toei did. And remember, Toei wants easy money first and foremost.

If they had been, it would've been bad for Toei's business since AB's owned the rights since the 80s for the franchise & helped introduce it to different parts of Europe. It'd be like instead of forcing Sabat to replace the audio of TFS in Kai & forcing FUNi to greylist Lani, Kaier, Taka, & Masako from working there for a while, they completely yanked the DB license from them. It wouldn't be good for their business if they did that for such a dumb reason.

[Joujou]

Where has it ever been stated that AB Groupe had the film prints? Nowhere has it ever been stated they do, nor has AB said so, nor doo I think anyone thinks that. It's been known for years now that they just AI upscaled & color-corrected the Dragon Box DVD masters.

Some people in France were claiming that French "Dragon Box" on DVD were an internal scan made from AB from the 16mm print , cause Toei and AB weren't in good terms at that time (they were in bad terms almost 10 years ago yes) but it was just a stupid rumour, you just have to watch dbox and french dbox to know that it's the same scan, so the Japanese one... there is allways some stupid people in France that think that AB have kept filmprint for show or that they will ask them to remaster

Spoiler:

Where has it ever been stated that AB Groupe had the film prints? Nowhere has it ever been stated they do, nor has AB said so, nor doo I think anyone thinks that. It's been known for years now that they just AI upscaled & color-corrected the Dragon Box DVD masters.


Basically, they're still fine.

They had the film reels for DB when they dubbed it but had to send them back. The VA for kid Goku confirmed that in a video on her channel.

Also, yeah, AB doesn't seem to have been booted from the Dragon Ball project which would have been a very bad business decision If Toei did. And remember, Toei wants easy money first and foremost.

If they had been, it would've been bad for Toei's business since AB's owned the rights since the 80s for the franchise & helped introduce it to different parts of Europe. It'd be like instead of forcing Sabat to replace the audio of TFS in Kai & forcing FUNi to greylist Lani, Kaier, Taka, & Masako from working there for a while, they completely yanked the DB license from them. It wouldn't be good for their business if they did that for such a dumb reason.

the only reason that explain why funimation have filmprint for dbz (and that they used to have for db) is only cause they had the show later than other country so or they had a filmprint copy or choose to made a filmprint copy instead of regular digibeta copy like other country

[Scsigs]

the only reason that explain why funimation have filmprint for dbz (and that they used to have for db) is only cause they had the show later than other country so or they had a filmprint copy or choose to made a filmprint copy instead of regular digibeta copy like other country.

I remember Geekdom101 saying in a video with some other people concerning FUNi's home releases of Z that they got the film masters they did because apparently Toei wouldn't license them the DBox masters like they wanted at the time, so they requested film prints instead. Then when Toei DID, it was only after they started releasing the shitty Orange Brick DVD sets.
So, I guess if it weren't for Toei, we wouldn't be in the state we are in the US with FUNi's continued shitty rereleases of Z. God damn it.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Well Funimation were sent film originally when they first got the license in 1995, for the original series and Z at least. Funimation created their DigiBeta tape masters used for the DVD singles by transferring the film they acquired from TOEI to digital.

Clearly Funimation kept the film for Dragon Ball Z, which was what they used for the orange bricks and Steve Franko used for the base restoration for all their Blu-Ray releases (of course the Levels were left untouched and the season, steelbook and 30th anniversary discs had DNR on top but nonetheless a transfer from film was done). As far as I'm aware they were never in need of better film than what they used for the orange bricks, the orange bricks honestly could have been a fine remaster if they weren't cropped and only used minimal DNR. So technically the orange bricks were "Remastered in HD" as advertised, but as they were on DVDs they were downscale to SD but they did use a transfer done from film masters, which should have been untouched and given a Blu-Ray option.

Funimation (now Crunchyroll) may still have some film for original Dragon Ball, we don't know, but they did have film they could do as they pleased with throughout the 90s and into the 2000s, although they possibly threw out a lot due to the cost of storage. It was probably the best source they could realistically get, as they were never going to get the first generation film prints Pony Canyon used for the Dragon Boxes.

[MasenkoHA]

the only reason that explain why funimation have filmprint for dbz (and that they used to have for db) is only cause they had the show later than other country so or they had a filmprint copy or choose to made a filmprint copy instead of regular digibeta copy like other country.

I remember Geekdom101 saying in a video with some other people concerning FUNi's home releases of Z that they got the film masters they did because apparently Toei wouldn't license them the DBox masters like they wanted at the time, so they requested film prints instead. Then when Toei DID, it was only after they started releasing the shitty Orange Brick DVD sets.
So, I guess if it weren't for Toei, we wouldn't be in the state we are in the US with FUNi's continued shitty rereleases of Z. God damn it.

Toei definitely owes a brunt of the blame but I don't recall anyone forcing Funimation to crop the show to pseudo widescreen or do all the unnecessary DNR work they did. There's no reason the Orange Bricks couldn't have turned out at least as good as the Green and Blue Bricks (which aren't great but...). Hell, there's no reason, afaik, they couldn't have just repackaged the DVD singles as season sets and they certainly didn't need to cancel the UUE 2/3rd of the way through the Vegeta saga and tell fans who already bought those 9 DVDs to just rebuy those episodes to own the remaining 12.

[sangofe]

Where has it ever been stated that AB Groupe had the film prints? Nowhere has it ever been stated they do, nor has AB said so, nor doo I think anyone thinks that. It's been known for years now that they just AI upscaled & color-corrected the Dragon Box DVD masters.

Some people in France were claiming that French "Dragon Box" on DVD were an internal scan made from AB from the 16mm print , cause Toei and AB weren't in good terms at that time (they were in bad terms almost 10 years ago yes) but it was just a stupid rumour, you just have to watch dbox and french dbox to know that it's the same scan, so the Japanese one... there is allways some stupid people in France that think that AB have kept filmprint for show or that they will ask them to remaster

Spoiler:

They had the film reels for DB when they dubbed it but had to send them back. The VA for kid Goku confirmed that in a video on her channel.

Also, yeah, AB doesn't seem to have been booted from the Dragon Ball project which would have been a very bad business decision If Toei did. And remember, Toei wants easy money first and foremost.

If they had been, it would've been bad for Toei's business since AB's owned the rights since the 80s for the franchise & helped introduce it to different parts of Europe. It'd be like instead of forcing Sabat to replace the audio of TFS in Kai & forcing FUNi to greylist Lani, Kaier, Taka, & Masako from working there for a while, they completely yanked the DB license from them. It wouldn't be good for their business if they did that for such a dumb reason.

the only reason that explain why funimation have filmprint for dbz (and that they used to have for db) is only cause they had the show later than other country so or they had a filmprint copy or choose to made a filmprint copy instead of regular digibeta copy like other country

They had a copy of a film that was almost new... If only we had Trunks' time machine!

[Scsigs]

Toei definitely owes a brunt of the blame but I don't recall anyone forcing Funimation to crop the show to pseudo widescreen or do all the unnecessary DNR work they did. There's no reason the Orange Bricks couldn't have turned out at least as good as the Green and Blue Bricks (which aren't great but...). Hell, there's no reason, afaik, they couldn't have just repackaged the DVD singles as season sets and they certainly didn't need to cancel the UUE 2/3rd of the way through the Vegeta saga and tell fans who already bought those 9 DVDs to just rebuy those episodes to own the remaining 12.

I mean, yeah, I agree. However, the point I was getting at is that if Toei just let FUNi have the DBox masters circa 2005/06, they would've just used them instead of requesting film prints, we would never have gotten the shitty Orange Bricks, & the continual migraine that is the FUNi release history of DBZ on DVD from 2007 on.
As for FUNi's releases in general using the cropping, the harsh DVNR, the shit color correction & saturation, I agree. They used those, then also had bullshit marketing campaigns around them. To the point that, for some reason, they were apparently surprised that people immediately called them out on the 30th anniversary remaster's trailer looking like shit (doesn't help that Geekdom101 apparently heard from someone at FUNi that they were working on a new remaster of Z & because of that & how the person apparently told him about it, he ran with the narrative that Toei was spearheading a Z remaster with FUNimation helping out in some capacity even though there were no announcements or any visual things we could see to back up his claims, a problem that he has of spreading legit misinformation because he doesn't properly think through things that's come back to bite him several times over the years) & then released a second one days later with a damage control blogpost that meant to address everything they could think of, but instead just outed that they don't care about preserving DBZ's original look as closely as possible, but just wanna make as much money off of the show as possible.
What's more is that Geekdom for some reason thought at the time that Toei was remastering the first 3 shows just based on the fact that they remastered the movies & the 2 Z TV specials, even though there was nothing to confirm that at the time in 2019 & we have yet to see said remasters almost 5 years later. Toei remastered them specifically because the Super: Broly film was coming out the time & I assume they didn't wanna use FUNi's remasters & instead remastered their first gen film stock because they had yet to do so in HD & it was easier to both budget & do, even though they also did 2 versions; the Amazon Prime streaming versions which look great & are uncut & the Blu-Ray versions which feature really odd green tints & censorship in some of the films for some reason.

Well Funimation were sent film originally when they first got the license in 1995, for the original series and Z at least. Funimation created their DigiBeta tape masters used for the DVD singles by transferring the film they acquired from TOEI to digital.

Clearly Funimation kept the film for Dragon Ball Z, which was what they used for the orange bricks and Steve Franko used for the base restoration for all their Blu-Ray releases (of course the Levels were left untouched and the season, steelbook and 30th anniversary discs had DNR on top but nonetheless a transfer from film was done). As far as I'm aware they were never in need of better film than what they used for the orange bricks, the orange bricks honestly could have been a fine remaster if they weren't cropped and only used minimal DNR. So technically the orange bricks were "Remastered in HD" as advertised, but as they were on DVDs they were downscale to SD but they did use a transfer done from film masters, which should have been untouched and given a Blu-Ray option.

Funimation (now Crunchyroll) may still have some film for original Dragon Ball, we don't know, but they did have film they could do as they pleased with throughout the 90s and into the 2000s, although they possibly threw out a lot due to the cost of storage. It was probably the best source they could realistically get, as they were never going to get the first generation film prints Pony Canyon used for the Dragon Boxes.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. From what Geekdom also said in the video I referenced, from what he heard, FUNi got film reels for all of the shows, TV specials, & movies that they had originally licensed & dubbed from Toei in the mid-2000s. Before that, they were probably going off of digi beta tapes Toei gave them. Every DVD & Blu-Ray of them that FUNi has released since 2007 with the Z Orange Bricks & later Blu-Rays, the first 17 DB & Z movies, the 3 Z & GT TV specials, OG DB, & GT were remastered from said film stock & put on new releases. Said film stocks were 2nd or 3rd generation duplicated prints, so they're not as good as what we'd get from an official Toei remaster, but the base colors are fine & there's enough detail preserved that realistically, all they need to do is have a good pass through with grain removal & a pass at making sure the color balance is correct & they're completely fine to use. They're 16mm film for the shows (minus the few episodes from Z's Freeza Arc for some reason) & 35mm for the films & I believe the Z specials. Their remasters of DB, GT, & all of the movies are fine for the most part, minus the fact that DB is apparently cropped in a little too much, GT's a bit too red-skewed, & the 2nd DB movie had its frame rate halved for no reason. But, Z, they consistently screwed up in 1 way or another. However, after they did their remasters, they apparently completely threw out the film stock for everything BUT Z & probably the Z movies since they released THOSE on Blu-Ray, but not the 4 DB movies for some reason. And apparently because, in their words, they're "not as popular as Z."

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Geekdom101 apparently heard from someone at FUNi that they were working on a new remaster of Z & because of that & how the person apparently told him about it, he ran with the narrative that Toei was spearheading a Z remaster with FUNimation helping out in some capacity even though there were no announcements or any visual things we could see to back up his claims, a problem that he has of spreading legit misinformation because he doesn't properly think through things that's come back to bite him several times over the years)

As I recall Geekdom was told there was a remaster coming for the 30th anniversary, he asked if it was only for Japan, he was told it would be released in the US, he then asked would it be the same remaster Funimation used for the season Blu-Rays and he was told no it would be a new remaster. Clearly whoever he spoke to didn't clarify it was not a new remaster from TOEI and that it was only going to be for English-speaking territories.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. From what Geekdom also said in the video I referenced, from what he heard, FUNi got film reels for all of the shows, TV specials, & movies that they had originally licensed & dubbed from Toei in the mid-2000s.

I got that, but it's a misunderstanding because that was not what happened.

Before that, they were probably going off of digi beta tapes Toei gave them. Every DVD & Blu-Ray of them that FUNi has released since 2007 with the Z Orange Bricks & later Blu-Rays, the first 17 DB & Z movies, the 3 Z & GT TV specials, OG DB, & GT were remastered from said film stock & put on new releases.

This is not true.

TOEI never gave Funimation digibetas for original Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z, they gave them film and left Funimation to do the transfer themselves. GT was a different story, TOEI transferred episodes of GT to tape and sent those tapes to whatever TV stations or distributors were interested in it. Everything other than GT was sent to Funimation exclusively on film and the orange bricks was based on the same film prints, not new ones.

By 2008 or 2009 Funimation had done HD transfers of the 17 movies, 2 Z TV specials, all of Dragon Ball Z and maybe a few early episodes of original Dragon Ball, which was re-transferred for the Blue Bricks.

Z was probably held on to for longer while Funimation held out for the chance to do a better transfer, which they got in 2010/2011 when Steve Franko did the transfer for the Level sets, but basically all Funimation's Blu-Ray releases were transferred from the same film stock as the single DVDs.

We know Funimation had all this film because there were private collectors who got a hold of it when they were being thrown out. Why were they thrown out? Likely as a cost cutting measure because Funimation thought since they had done HD transfers of everything they could profit off of (which knowing them probably doesn't include original Dragon Ball) there was no need keeping that film around.

[sangofe]

Geekdom assumed a remaster for the animes would come out solely on the special remasters. But let's please go back to the original topic now.

[Scsigs]

Geekdom101 apparently heard from someone at FUNi that they were working on a new remaster of Z & because of that & how the person apparently told him about it, he ran with the narrative that Toei was spearheading a Z remaster with FUNimation helping out in some capacity even though there were no announcements or any visual things we could see to back up his claims, a problem that he has of spreading legit misinformation because he doesn't properly think through things that's come back to bite him several times over the years)

As I recall Geekdom was told there was a remaster coming for the 30th anniversary, he asked if it was only for Japan, he was told it would be released in the US, he then asked would it be the same remaster Funimation used for the season Blu-Rays and he was told no it would be a new remaster. Clearly whoever he spoke to didn't clarify it was not a new remaster from TOEI and that it was only going to be for English-speaking territories.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. From what Geekdom also said in the video I referenced, from what he heard, FUNi got film reels for all of the shows, TV specials, & movies that they had originally licensed & dubbed from Toei in the mid-2000s.

I got that, but it's a misunderstanding because that was not what happened.

Before that, they were probably going off of digi beta tapes Toei gave them. Every DVD & Blu-Ray of them that FUNi has released since 2007 with the Z Orange Bricks & later Blu-Rays, the first 17 DB & Z movies, the 3 Z & GT TV specials, OG DB, & GT were remastered from said film stock & put on new releases.

This is not true.

TOEI never gave Funimation digibetas for original Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z, they gave them film and left Funimation to do the transfer themselves. GT was a different story, TOEI transferred episodes of GT to tape and sent those tapes to whatever TV stations or distributors were interested in it. Everything other than GT was sent to Funimation exclusively on film and the orange bricks was based on the same film prints, not new ones.

By 2008 or 2009 Funimation had done HD transfers of the 17 movies, 2 Z TV specials, all of Dragon Ball Z and maybe a few early episodes of original Dragon Ball, which was re-transferred for the Blue Bricks.

Z was probably held on to for longer while Funimation held out for the chance to do a better transfer, which they got in 2010/2011 when Steve Franko did the transfer for the Level sets, but basically all Funimation's Blu-Ray releases were transferred from the same film stock as the single DVDs.

We know Funimation had all this film because there were private collectors who got a hold of it when they were being thrown out. Why were they thrown out? Likely as a cost cutting measure because Funimation thought since they had done HD transfers of everything they could profit off of (which knowing them probably doesn't include original Dragon Ball) there was no need keeping that film around.

Why would FUNimation get film masters back in the 90s? They barely had any money & were just getting started. I don't understand why they'd get film stock at the start. It makes more sense to me that Toei just sent either digi beta tapes, or VHS tapes of the show for them to dub over, then FUNi got film stock later for their own remasters of the shows & movies.

Geekdom assumed a remaster for the animes would come out solely on the special remasters. But let's please go back to the original topic now.

I know. I just brought that up because, whether people here like or respect him or not, Geekdom was 1 of the reasons people had high expectations for the 2019 remaster because rather than keep his mouth shut until an official announcement was made & an official trailer or screenshots came out, he decided to mention what he'd heard about it every so often in 2018, which raised expectations & then he still said Toei's working on it in the video he did with Ajay after Ajay's videos came out about the announcement trailer for some reason. Clearly that's not true 5 years on because we haven't gotten so much as an actual trustable rumor, let alone announcement on that, so I don't see why. They only remastered the movies & 2 Z TV specials. That's it. If they were gonna remaster the shows themselves, we would've seen it by now if they started doing so in 2018/19. Bro got too big for his britches to try to make his credibility go up.

I don't know how to transition back to the original topic...

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Why would FUNimation get film masters back in the 90s? They barely had any money & were just getting started. I don't understand why they'd get film stock at the start. It makes more sense to me that Toei just sent either digi beta tapes, or VHS tapes of the show for them to dub over, then FUNi got film stock later for their own remasters of the shows & movies.

Because TOEI always sent foreign distributors film at this time, if they had done their own digibeta masters to send to companies like Funimation more of the various international airings and home releases of the series would look the same, but the colours vary among them, which happened because different companies did their own transfers.

Barry Watson's brother confirmed this during Adam Campetti's college project (which has since been removed from YouTube) where he interviewed both of them:

Byron Watson says:
We get the film from Japan, we transfer it in Dallas to Digital Beta, and then I take the Digital Beta, and we edit the shows together, then we send that to censorship people, and the censorship people make comments, they send that back to me, then I go through the show and fix all the video fixes that-- uhh, all the paint work.

Funimation may have had tapes from Latin America (who would have done transfers of film they got from TOEI to digibeta) for the actors to dub over, but they most certainly had film, as we can see from the quality of the DVD singles. It's possible they acquired more film in the mid-2000s whenever they started doing the transfer for the orange bricks but it wasn't their first time doing a transfer from film to digibeta.

I don't know how to transition back to the original topic...

Like all foreign distributors who weren't importing from others (for example Ocean importing Funimation's digibetas for the Westwood dub as well as AB's transfers for the last 4 Z episodes and the entirety of the Blue Water dubs) any companies that were acquiring masters from TOEI for anything other than GT from the late 80s to early 2000s got film.

Of course we have examples like this Blu-Ray that uses upscale of the Dragon Box masters, but at no point did TOEI send these companies pre-transferred digibetas for original Dragon Ball or Z. Companies like AB always did their own transfers for original Dragon Ball unless they were doing their own localised versions of the Dragon Boxes (which AB did) or importing another non-Japanese countries video masters.

I'm not familiar with the French home releases in general but I'd say its safe to say any of their pre-2003 VHS or DVDs would have been done in a similar fashion to Funimation, by creating their own digibeta masters from transferring film they acquired from TOEI. Thankfully in 2003 TOEI transferred their first generation film prints for the Dragon Boxes as it gave AB the chance to acquire a better source to work with for this release than the second or third generation prints they would have likely received in the beginning.

[sangofe]

You misquoted me. Please be careful in the future. Let's wait for some actual comments or news on the AB project.

Why would FUNimation get film masters back in the 90s? They barely had any money & were just getting started. I don't understand why they'd get film stock at the start. It makes more sense to me that Toei just sent either digi beta tapes, or VHS tapes of the show for them to dub over, then FUNi got film stock later for their own remasters of the shows & movies.

Because TOEI always sent foreign distributors film at this time, if they had done their own digibeta masters to send to companies like Funimation more of the various international airings and home releases of the series would look the same, but the colours vary among them, which happened because different companies did their own transfers.

Barry Watson's brother confirmed this during Adam Campetti's college project (which has since been removed from YouTube) where he interviewed both of them:

Byron Watson says:
We get the film from Japan, we transfer it in Dallas to Digital Beta, and then I take the Digital Beta, and we edit the shows together, then we send that to censorship people, and the censorship people make comments, they send that back to me, then I go through the show and fix all the video fixes that-- uhh, all the paint work.

Funimation may have had tapes from Latin America (who would have done transfers of film they got from TOEI to digibeta) for the actors to dub over, but they most certainly had film, as we can see from the quality of the DVD singles. It's possible they acquired more film in the mid-2000s whenever they started doing the transfer for the orange bricks but it wasn't their first time doing a transfer from film to digibeta.

I don't know how to transition back to the original topic...

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

You misquoted me. Please be careful in the future. Let's wait for some actual comments or news on the AB project.

Sorry, I forgot to edit your name out. I only intended for my replies above to quote Scsigs.

[jjgp1112]

Why would FUNimation get film masters back in the 90s? They barely had any money & were just getting started. I don't understand why they'd get film stock at the start. It makes more sense to me that Toei just sent either digi beta tapes, or VHS tapes of the show for them to dub over, then FUNi got film stock later for their own remasters of the shows & movies.

Because TOEI always sent foreign distributors film at this time, if they had done their own digibeta masters to send to companies like Funimation more of the various international airings and home releases of the series would look the same, but the colours vary among them, which happened because different companies did their own transfers.

Barry Watson's brother confirmed this during Adam Campetti's college project (which has since been removed from YouTube) where he interviewed both of them:

Byron Watson says:
We get the film from Japan, we transfer it in Dallas to Digital Beta, and then I take the Digital Beta, and we edit the shows together, then we send that to censorship people, and the censorship people make comments, they send that back to me, then I go through the show and fix all the video fixes that-- uhh, all the paint work.

Funimation may have had tapes from Latin America (who would have done transfers of film they got from TOEI to digibeta) for the actors to dub over, but they most certainly had film, as we can see from the quality of the DVD singles. It's possible they acquired more film in the mid-2000s whenever they started doing the transfer for the orange bricks but it wasn't their first time doing a transfer from film to digibeta.

I don't know how to transition back to the original topic...

Like all foreign distributors who weren't importing from others (for example Ocean importing Funimation's digibetas for the Westwood dub as well as AB's transfers for the last 4 Z episodes and the entirety of the Blue Water dubs) any companies that were acquiring masters from TOEI for anything other than GT from the late 80s to early 2000s got film.

Of course we have examples like this Blu-Ray that uses upscale of the Dragon Box masters, but at no point did TOEI send these companies pre-transferred digibetas for original Dragon Ball or Z. Companies like AB always did their own transfers for original Dragon Ball unless they were doing their own localised versions of the Dragon Boxes (which AB did) or importing another non-Japanese countries video masters.

I'm not familiar with the French home releases in general but I'd say its safe to say any of their pre-2003 VHS or DVDs would have been done in a similar fashion to Funimation, by creating their own digibeta masters from transferring film they acquired from TOEI. Thankfully in 2003 TOEI transferred their first generation film prints for the Dragon Boxes as it gave AB the chance to acquire a better source to work with for this release than the second or third generation prints they would have likely received in the beginning.

Yeah, if you look at the colors from the Rock The Dragon set they're pretty similar to the Level sets. And just like with the Level Sets, footage from Z episode 1 is super grainy and notably darker. They had the masters from the beginning