The Dragon Boxes and Their Faults

[Ssj3Engels]

I only ever owned the American DBoxes, and now I only have the 5th one (sold all others...). I was actually watching it again recently (mainly the Cell Games part) and I started to recall old discussions about the quality of DBoxes or lack thereof (either American or Japanese) here on this very board.

I mainly want to ask/start a conversation about the in/famous "audio issue". Simply put, do you personally have any grievance and/or nitpick with the way the DBoxes sound? I remember vividly that there was a crapton of discussion back in the day regarding the original broadcast audio and so on, but what do you think?

Do the DBoxes really sound that bad, not so bad, or not bad at all? We could start here, after it's been so long.

Thanks.

[Vegard Aune]

The thing with the audio is, it was the best audio that Toei had access to. The problem was that they literally wiped the source recordings, leaving only lower-quality copies that have deteriorated over time. And back in 2003, those original broadcast recordings did not seem to be very well known at all. If you look back through this very forum, people only started discussing them several years later. So while nowadays it seems entirely fair to lambast Toei for refusing to accept or even acknowledge those fan recordings that are objectively superior to what they have in storage, back in 2003, and honestly even in 2009-ish when the US Dragon Boxes came out, there really wasn't anything better available.
The fact that the only releases to compare to were the international DVDs that sounded even worse also helped the perception back then that the Dragon Box audio was "as good as it was gonna get". Because while the Dragon Boxes are undeniably muffled... They're nowhere as muffled as the old FUNimation DVDs.

...I do hear how the Dragon Box audio was also apparently slightly off-sync, though. Which is more damning, although it's not something I ever noticed personally.


...This is all talking about OG Dragon Ball and Z, though. For GT they had no excuse. They demonstrably still have the source audio. It still gets used in TV reruns. There was no reason not to use that audio.

[YoungDefender]

One question on the audio side is how does the Japanese audio hold up in the funimation Dragon boxes compared to what you hear in the funimation blu-rays (I assume the 30th anniversary releases use the exact same audio track?).

Assuming they use the same source and all that but do the blu-ray releases have a clear edge in sound quality upon viewing or is it more of less the same?

[Cure Dragon 255]

Rule of thumb, if its not from the Broadcast Audio it will ALWAYS sound like shit.
Second ROT, Crunchyroll will NEVER use Broadcast Audio, they are commited to mediocrity and putting out a subpar product.


If the second one gets broken I will be mega happy.

[mecha3000]

Just bought myself the Dragon Boxes and yeah, the Japanese audio isn't the best, but it's the best I can get (legally and physically) so I'm happy with them.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Just bought myself the Dragon Boxes and yeah, the Japanese audio isn't the best, but it's the best I can get (legally and physically) so I'm happy with them.

This is also true. The Dragon Boxes are the best we have available.

[mecha3000]

Just bought myself the Dragon Boxes and yeah, the Japanese audio isn't the best, but it's the best I can get (legally and physically) so I'm happy with them.

This is also true. The Dragon Boxes are the best we have available.

Definitely. Also, can anyone tell me if their Dragon Box 7 is slightly taller than the others? I just want to make sure I don't have bootlegs.

[TheGreatness25]

Just bought myself the Dragon Boxes and yeah, the Japanese audio isn't the best, but it's the best I can get (legally and physically) so I'm happy with them.

This is also true. The Dragon Boxes are the best we have available.

Definitely. Also, can anyone tell me if their Dragon Box 7 is slightly taller than the others? I just want to make sure I don't have bootlegs.

LOL Are you kidding me? I thought for sure that there was no way. I don't think I ever noticed it before, but every picture I have of them seems to show that box 7 is a little taller. I don't have my collection on-hand, but seems that way.

The Dragon Boxes are great. Honestly, the audio wasn't an issue until I started seeing fans talk about it. To me, it just sounded like an old show... kinda because it is. So, it sounds fine to me. I understand everyone's complaints, but I spent years watching Funimation's DVDs just fine. And the Dragon Boxes were even better.

Do I wish that someone just put the Dragon Boxes on Blu-ray? I do. But, they still look pretty crisp. This is just an iconic set, to be honest. I am not a video expert, so I just go by what looks good. Yeah, we can compare the broadcast and various video sources and we can point out where Funimation went wrong and whatnot, but I look at them in isolation. Do the 30th anniversary Blu-rays look good if I just toss them on the TV and don't do a deep analysis on them? Sure. Do the Dragon Boxes? Sure. There's something really nostalgic about the Dragon Boxes. Like they don't hide the series' age. I like that. The colors and audio--they're just the best preservation of an old series without it being like a 40-year-old going to college parties.

[Vegard Aune]

There's something really nostalgic about the Dragon Boxes. Like they don't hide the series' age. I like that. The colors and audio--they're just the best preservation of an old series without it being like a 40-year-old going to college parties.

Thing is though, both the colors and audio of the Dragon Boxes are a result of the show not being stored right. The show was never intended to look/sound like this. Admittedly I'll take the underprocessed image of the Dragon Boxes over the overprocessed CR BDs any day, but the French BDs or the Seed of Might release are just far truer to what the show was actually meant to look like. (Though the French BDs are a bit overly darkened and I hope that future volumes improve on that because the first box did have a fair amount of dark detail just being erased.)

[TheGreatness25]

There's something really nostalgic about the Dragon Boxes. Like they don't hide the series' age. I like that. The colors and audio--they're just the best preservation of an old series without it being like a 40-year-old going to college parties.

Thing is though, both the colors and audio of the Dragon Boxes are a result of the show not being stored right. The show was never intended to lool/sound like this. Admittedly I'll take the underprocessed image of the Dragon Boxes over the overprocessed CR BDs any day, but the French BDs or the Seed of Might release are just far truer to what the show was actually meant to look like. (Though the French BDs are a bit overly darkened and I hope that future volumes improve on that because the first box did have a fair amount of dark detail just being erased.)

Yes, 100% agreed. The look and sound of the Dragon Box is not how the series intended to look, but it still does look and feel its age. The thing is, it wasn't meant to look and sound the way it does on DVD or Blu-ray on an HDTV either. The series was intended to be watched on a big old boxy TV where the picture quality can't measure up to what we pull up from a DVD and likely had serious cropping on all four sides. Not to mention, I don't know how broadcasting the series in this days affected the colors and audio (if at all).

I know by comparing the orange brick to watching one of the singles on an old TV that I had, that it was shocking how little difference there was vertically. I also realize that sometimes, playing a DVD or video game on that TV, there would definitely be something cropped off.

So, in any event, we'll never get the full "this is how it was meant to be seen" experience because we've already long since technologically evolved past the way it was meant to be seen.

[YoungDefender]

So I just got my hands on my first Dragon Boxes and I have to say... they are nice. Starting with the packaging and overall presentation - really top notch and puts a smile on your face right away. I thought the Dragon Books would have been bigger/thicker than they are in person but the overall quality is still great.

The menus are not animated like the Japanese release but oh well, the video quality however... is surprisingly nice on a 4K TV. The Japanese audio sounds not perfect but still good enough and mixed with the old school vibe of the colors and grain it isn't that out of place.

Of course nothing will replace my original Pioneer/Funimation singles from the dub side and the steelbooks are good enough (for me) from an HD perspective but really want to collect the rest of these both as a collector but also as the primary way to enjoy the series in Japanese.

Beyond owning the series in these three ways that the only thing I could ever want for is a Westwood physical release, just let me dream.

[Ssj3Engels]

The thing with the audio is, it was the best audio that Toei had access to. The problem was that they literally wiped the source recordings, leaving only lower-quality copies that have deteriorated over time. And back in 2003, those original broadcast recordings did not seem to be very well known at all. If you look back through this very forum, people only started discussing them several years later. So while nowadays it seems entirely fair to lambast Toei for refusing to accept or even acknowledge those fan recordings that are objectively superior to what they have in storage, back in 2003, and honestly even in 2009-ish when the US Dragon Boxes came out, there really wasn't anything better available.
The fact that the only releases to compare to were the international DVDs that sounded even worse also helped the perception back then that the Dragon Box audio was "as good as it was gonna get". Because while the Dragon Boxes are undeniably muffled... They're nowhere as muffled as the old FUNimation DVDs.

...I do hear how the Dragon Box audio was also apparently slightly off-sync, though. Which is more damning, although it's not something I ever noticed personally.


...This is all talking about OG Dragon Ball and Z, though. For GT they had no excuse. They demonstrably still have the source audio. It still gets used in TV reruns. There was no reason not to use that audio.

It seems Toei always chooses the "cheaper" option.

I believe Kei17 or some other fan here was the first to mention both issues: the muffled audio and the off-sync issue.

Oh, and there is apparently a problem with the colors as well. For example, in the Saiyan Arc, the green sky should, obviously, supposed to be blue (during the Vegeta fight, that is).

[Bloodthroe]

Is it only the western Dragon Boxes where the audio is off, or, is it also the Japanese Dragon Boxes with off sync audio?

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I have them all, and i cherish them as prized parts of my Dragon Ball home video collection because i got all 7 via some lucky deals over the four years i was going about collecting them. Hell, my copy of DBox 1 came from a movie store used for $25 and if that's not a hell of a deal i don't know what is. Most of the rest came from eBay ranging from $70 on the low end of the scale, to $200 at the highest range for Dragon Box 4. I acknowledge they're not perfect releases, but the remaster itself was done (by Toei/Pony Canyon, FUNi was just given the masters more or less as is for their own release) back in the early 2000's at that standard so of course they're not the best by the current standards.

Of course, i've since upgraded the versions i have which i actually watch from the copies on the actual discs to the ones widely available online with the synced original broadcast audio. It's so awesome now being able to watch the show with the level of audio clarity as it was aired with in Japan. And the same with both OG DB and GT as well, so having the complete 508 episode run with the crystal clear sound (not the muffled ass mess of the optical mono track) is such a nice feeling to me.

[TheGreatness25]

I have them all, and i cherish them as prized parts of my Dragon Ball home video collection because i got all 7 via some lucky deals over the four years i was going about collecting them. Hell, my copy of DBox 1 came from a movie store used for $25 and if that's not a hell of a deal i don't know what is. Most of the rest came from eBay ranging from $70 on the low end of the scale, to $200 at the highest range for Dragon Box 4. I acknowledge they're not perfect releases, but the remaster itself was done (by Toei/Pony Canyon, FUNi was just given the masters more or less as is for their own release) back in the early 2000's at that standard so of course they're not the best by the current standards.

Of course, i've since upgraded the versions i have which i actually watch from the copies on the actual discs to the ones widely available online with the synced original broadcast audio. It's so awesome now being able to watch the show with the level of audio clarity as it was aired with in Japan. And the same with both OG DB and GT as well, so having the complete 508 episode run with the crystal clear sound (not the muffled ass mess of the optical mono track) is such a nice feeling to me.

I plan to "upgrade" mine as well. I just wish it wasn't such an undertaking. I want to make an MKV file from the Dragon Box (lossless) syncing in all sorts of audio tracks, including the Latin American and Westwood/Blue Water dubs (depending on if it's DB/Z/GT). And on the very slight off chance that a better Blu-ray or 4K release will come out, I'll just do the same with that. But this project is very time consuming. No to mention that I have other things I'm working on.

[TheGreatness25]

I have them all, and i cherish them as prized parts of my Dragon Ball home video collection because i got all 7 via some lucky deals over the four years i was going about collecting them. Hell, my copy of DBox 1 came from a movie store used for $25 and if that's not a hell of a deal i don't know what is. Most of the rest came from eBay ranging from $70 on the low end of the scale, to $200 at the highest range for Dragon Box 4. I acknowledge they're not perfect releases, but the remaster itself was done (by Toei/Pony Canyon, FUNi was just given the masters more or less as is for their own release) back in the early 2000's at that standard so of course they're not the best by the current standards.

Of course, i've since upgraded the versions i have which i actually watch from the copies on the actual discs to the ones widely available online with the synced original broadcast audio. It's so awesome now being able to watch the show with the level of audio clarity as it was aired with in Japan. And the same with both OG DB and GT as well, so having the complete 508 episode run with the crystal clear sound (not the muffled ass mess of the optical mono track) is such a nice feeling to me.

I plan to "upgrade" mine as well. I just wish it wasn't such an undertaking. I want to make an MKV file from the Dragon Box (lossless) syncing in all sorts of audio tracks, including the Latin American and Westwood/Blue Water dubs (depending on if it's DB/Z/GT). And on the very slight off chance that a better Blu-ray or 4K release will come out, I'll just do the same with that. But this project is very time consuming. No to mention that I have other things I'm working on.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I have them all, and i cherish them as prized parts of my Dragon Ball home video collection because i got all 7 via some lucky deals over the four years i was going about collecting them. Hell, my copy of DBox 1 came from a movie store used for $25 and if that's not a hell of a deal i don't know what is. Most of the rest came from eBay ranging from $70 on the low end of the scale, to $200 at the highest range for Dragon Box 4. I acknowledge they're not perfect releases, but the remaster itself was done (by Toei/Pony Canyon, FUNi was just given the masters more or less as is for their own release) back in the early 2000's at that standard so of course they're not the best by the current standards.

Of course, i've since upgraded the versions i have which i actually watch from the copies on the actual discs to the ones widely available online with the synced original broadcast audio. It's so awesome now being able to watch the show with the level of audio clarity as it was aired with in Japan. And the same with both OG DB and GT as well, so having the complete 508 episode run with the crystal clear sound (not the muffled ass mess of the optical mono track) is such a nice feeling to me.

I plan to "upgrade" mine as well. I just wish it wasn't such an undertaking. I want to make an MKV file from the Dragon Box (lossless) syncing in all sorts of audio tracks, including the Latin American and Westwood/Blue Water dubs (depending on if it's DB/Z/GT). And on the very slight off chance that a better Blu-ray or 4K release will come out, I'll just do the same with that. But this project is very time consuming. No to mention that I have other things I'm working on.

Yeah, i actually did this myself months ago with copies of all of DB/Z/GT ripped from the Dragon Boxes that one user (i believe it was iKaos, a well known one in the community) posted over on the IA (Internet Archive) that has the original Broadcast audio synced onto it among other tracks. I did this for all three series, and also converted the dub tracks though i mainly did it only with OG DB and GT since from Z i already converted the dub track with Japanese score from the FUNi versions before that.

Funny about the Blue Water/Westwood dubs, i also downloaded and ripped copies of those as well to watch those versions in good quality. And even the run of the original FUNi in house Z dub (From the Ginyu fight up to Future Trunk's arrival) synced to the Dragon Box footage just to have it with the original original dub audio in Dragon Box quality since the domestic Dragon Boxes didn't have that track (Well, the "Remastered" partial redub version) included back then apparently for storage and quality reasons.

[Ssj3Engels]

Is it only the western Dragon Boxes where the audio is off, or, is it also the Japanese Dragon Boxes with off sync audio?

As far as I know, this problem unfortunately is from the original release and was carried over to the US one.

In other words, the Japanese Dragon Boxes also have the off-sync audio.

[ZLADMAN]

While the Dragon Box audio has become obsolete, it still has its own charm. It sounds very vintage. My biggest issue with Dragon Box Z is the faded colors and general discoloration. I admit that the Dragon Box Z color scheme has its own charm as well, but I can't get over the green skies on earth. Keep in mind, I am strictly speaking about Dragon Box Z here. The yellow tint in the Dragon Box for the original Dragon Ball anime series renders it completely unwatchable at many times, in my opinion.

[GhostEmperorX]

It sounds very vintage.

Just saying, insofar as it's Toei (like Saint Seiya or FotNS), not so with contemporary anime series by most other studios.