1) How does factually stating that this new BD release is better than the orange brick release giving it an accolade? You’re the one jumping to that conclusion. Myself and many others have merely observed that yes indeed, this is a better release than the orange brick set. It doesn’t matter if it didn’t take much work from Funimation to make it a better release. It’s a better release. I find the cropping to be a nuisance as well, but again, it’s better than what we have before. And also, it’s a cheaper alternative for many in getting a new and recent release of DBZ.AjayLikesGaming wrote:To go the total opposite way; no, they're pretty abysmal.RocktheDragon wrote:Going beyond simple "lol" responses, yes these BD season sets are decent, depending on how you look at it.JEFFMAN219 wrote:Are these new blu ray sets even good lool?
They are a marked improvement over the orange brick releases and can really pop on an HD TV. The cleaned up Japanese audio is a huge plus for me and many others as well. Though I would have welcomed the inclusion of the original Japanese title cards and end credits.
1) Being an improvement over the Orange Bricks is hardly an accolade, especially when the improvement really isn't that much. Yeah, no vanishing lines is a plus but the crop isn't exactly as good as some are making it out to be; at least when compared to Kai's efforts.
2) In exchange for no vanishing lines and a higher resolution, you now deal with a constant instance of grain attempting to fight its way though the heavy use of DNR, as such the backgrounds and characters' shading 'wobbles' where the grain is moving. As you can see in the screenshots above, any small amount of detail is smudged to pieces by the aggressive filtering. That's poor work on Funimation's part since we've seen via Kai that you can actually remove the grain while retaining details.
3) Inconsistent brightness as well as strange shifts in colour plague every season on top of the already terrible over-contrasted and saturated image. It's just not good.
4) No filtering of the Japanese audio is ever going to make up for how undeniably awful everything else is.
5) Yes, it's cheap, it's an entire 'season' per release but that doesn't negate what the actual content is. It doesn't matter what their 'aim' was, the product should be judged based on aspects that every media release is subjected to.
2) Yes we all understand and know that this is a poor release in terms of the removal of grain, heavy DNR, and water color like presentation of the series. I don’t think anyone is arguing that DBZ looks terrific in this BD release, but its serviceable and does the job for the 16 dollar price tag.
3) Is the inconsistent brightness the fault of Funimation, or is it the work of their masters? I’ve seen both said on here and I’d like this cleared up.
4) It can’t make up for every other imperfection but it can go a long way in making this a worthwhile purchase, or at least providing some kind of silver lining for many customers. Myself included.
5) It should be judged and it is being judged. Why are you acting like people don’t know how horrible of a release this is? Blu-ray.com covered its imperfections and downgraded Season 2 accordingly. People know that this is not a faithful rendering of the content, but again, what choice do people have to pick up DBZ on the cheap or at all? Especially on BD? It's easy to say that people just shouldn't be bothering with it and not buying it, but really, even with all of its horrible imperfections it's a decent release.
you guys ain't fudging with the quality are ya? 
just kidding.