Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" On Blu-ray: News & Discussion

[Kendamu]

It's not faltered. Like the other Season releases on DVD, you just have to wait until they've been out a little while or go on a really good sale.

[Gokuden]

It's not faltered. Like the other Season releases on DVD, you just have to wait until they've been out a little while or go on a really good sale.

Maybe on black friday, amazons internationals will got nuts on the pricing, same with rightstuff, and free shippings to the great white north.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Which is what happens when you release your expensive blu-rays a month and change after you release your last Dragon Box. They wanted- expected- the Dragon Box audience to double-dip on command, it didn't, because that audience had just spent $200-$300 on DBZ over the past 18 months or so, or was in the process of doing do. FUNI jumped the gun. There's no version of this story where that's not the punchline.

110% agree! Hell knows what FUNimation was thinking when they decided to release the Level sets. Even the advertising campaign was extremely poor. I remember when I first saw a bunch of screenshots from Level 1.1. I was completely stunned by their quality, so I started to spam about it everywhere. People's reaction was: “What? DBZ on Blu-ray? Nah...”, <nothing>, “DBZ in HD? You mean Orange Bricks?”, “It's fake.” or “Nothing is better than Dragon Boxes”. Most of the hardcore fans were under the charm of Dragon Boxes and they couldn't believe that FUNitmation just released something that is even better. It's hard to blame them...

I wouldn't be surprised if, sometime next year, we get an announcement that there'll be some limited Blu-ray release in minimal packaging with Steve's transfer in a reasonable 4:3 AR (the raw scans have those round corners to them and wouldn't look right) with subtitles attached and the dub thrown on as an afterthought. It would pretty much take almost no effort relatively speaking. I'm talking minimal color correction, image stabilization (if any), and the edges cut off enough to make it a real 4:3 frame that cuts off the worst of the tape and glue from parts of the frame that nobody would've seen on TV in the 90s anyway.

Yep, we're all saying the same thing.

Just put out an inexpensive bare-bones release of 4:3 DBZ on Blu-Ray with minimal "remastering" done to it; it's a win-win for FUNimation.

It really would take minimal effort: we all know the dub, subtitles, audio, and video are sitting in their facilities. Fans of both the 16:9 and 4:3 ratios will be satisfied at that point, and FUNi will be able to make some profit from those who held out from buying the 16:9 "Seasons."

Should we expect that? Does FUNimation even know that there are people who would buy such a release? Is there enough of us to make this project cost efficient? I guess that the Level sets failure is a clear message to FUNimation: “Making the show look as true as possible” does not work.

There would have to be some minimal work done to it. The raw scan isn't 4:3, so it'd have to be cut down to a reasonable 4:3 that doesn't lose anything important, but doesn't show half-finished art or tape & glue we were never meant to see. Then, the colors would need some correction for consistency, but nothing nearly as extensive as the Levels or Seasons. Lastly, a bare-bones release like this would have a lot of dirt, scratches, and frame shaking. So, what we would get wouldn't look wonderful. Instead, it would look like an old TV show cheaply slapped onto a disc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moAy02J2fd8#t=140

The material we call “Steve's transfer”, which was received by FUNitmation for remastering, is already color-corrected. To make the process cheaper, I would just slap everything that was scanned onto a final disc and do the framing with my own eyes while watching We already see parts of the picture that was never meant to be seen on all 16:9 releases. Leaving something that wasn't meant to be seen is not that problematic as deleting something that was meant to be seen. I am an extremely individual personality, intelligent enough to judge what's better for me by myself and I don't like when somebody does the job for me (to some extent).

Personally, I'm okay with that. It would be nowhere near DBox or Level quality, but it would be a native 1080p release with subs. The only thing I would ask for is, because it already exists, that they use their cleaned up JP audio from the Season BDs. Question is, would that still sell to other hardcore 4:3 fans who are sad about the super high quality DBox being limited and the Levels being canceled?

I would prefer this kind of release to Dragon Box.

Spoiler:

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Spoiler:

(Yes, I know that there are scenes that are WAY more damaged. I accept them as they are)
(I'm sure that awareness of the fact that these examples come from a compressed youtube video and that they are downsized, while joined with the knowledge of how the Level sets were remastered and how a 1440x1080 ~25Mbps AVC video stream looks is enough to make you imagine how this kind of release could look)

Also, how much would it actually cost FUNimation to do a made-to-order run with a limited pre-order window? I'm sure these wouldn't sell well enough for wide distribution so what kind of cash FUNi would have to lay down is also worth considering on a release like this.

That's the question. I would say: Costs of the Season sets minus “demastering” job.

As for now, we can watch those and cry... a) DBZ Sample 1 b) DBZ Sample 3

[Ajay]

People already do this with already heavily-altered releases. That's why there are neon-tinted "4K" uploads of Orange Brick footage of YouTube. So, it really wouldn't matter one way or the other. Besides, the people who do things like that and widely distribute them would probably stretch the footage to 16:9, shoot the contrast through the roof, and call it "true SuperHD" after the fact. If that's what FUNi has to compete with, they'll be getting our money long before we resort to downloading that garbage.

But those people are using the Orange Bricks and the Season Sets and shoving them on YouTube in tiny little clips. Nobody with any sense is going to take any notice of those on a level outside of just revisiting some scenes on YouTube. There are no full releases like what you're describing.

If you put out untouched footage, someone like me is going to take it and turn it into a perfect release. Someone not like me is going to do the same and share it instead. You give pirates the opportunity to do better than companies and people will jump on that so fast.

[dbboxkaifan]

If FUNimation's using the "Steve Transfer" and the colour-correction is already done then they could just crop it slightly to take out those yellowy parts out and then make a Blu-ray release out of it. They'd be spending a pretty low amount of money so it's not like they'd be losing out anyway.

[Kendamu]

People already do this with already heavily-altered releases. That's why there are neon-tinted "4K" uploads of Orange Brick footage of YouTube. So, it really wouldn't matter one way or the other. Besides, the people who do things like that and widely distribute them would probably stretch the footage to 16:9, shoot the contrast through the roof, and call it "true SuperHD" after the fact. If that's what FUNi has to compete with, they'll be getting our money long before we resort to downloading that garbage.

But those people are using the Orange Bricks and the Season Sets and shoving them on YouTube in tiny little clips. Nobody with any sense is going to take any notice of those on a level outside of just revisiting some scenes on YouTube. There are no full releases like what you're describing.

If you put out untouched footage, someone like me is going to take it and turn it into a perfect release. Someone not like me is going to do the same and share it instead. You give pirates the opportunity to do better than companies and people will jump on that so fast.

Pretty much anyone who is going to mess with a release like that is going to do to it what they do to their "4K FULL FIGHTS" on YouTube. I thibk that if there were a widely-pirated "perfect release" of a color-corrected DBox or something, we'd all be PMin and Tweeting each other about it instead of hoping FUNi will do something cool for us. If a DVD-quality perfect release doesn't already exist for pirates, I doubt anyone's gonna take the time to do it with something that needs a lot more than a little color correction to be perfect.

Remember, there's tons of shaking, tape marks, glue, dirt, tearing, etc. all over FUNi's masters. No random fan is going to remaster that frame-by-frame into the perfect release and widely distribute it. They'd have done color correction on the DBox and released it by now as it's much easier if they were going to do anything.

This is an 80s/90s animated all-ages show that was popular amongst kids. It's not some potent super weapon that might fall into the wrong hands that we have to protect from evil.

[Ajay]

This is an 80s/90s animated all-ages show that was popular amongst kids. It's not some potent super weapon that might fall into the wrong hands that we have to protect from evil.

Pahaha, I love that.

You're probably right. I just assume everyone's as insane as I am.

[samuraix123]

Any chance of getting some screen caps from season 8?

[Im insaneFromEarth]

Ok, since we have seasons 1-8 on blu ray how are they so far? (I haven't been on here on sometime, and I have so many pages to read) I've heard they are not as bad as the OB. I would love to own these, more so since it's almost the holidays I can ask for them.

[Attitudefan]

Even with the ghosting problems, I think there MIGHT be a reason for it:

• It is due to Beta tapes that have PAL/NTSC aliasing that needs to be corrected/or someone leaves the setting on the Video export to have that function when it isn't needed
• VIZ's masters are screwed up
• Somebody at VIZ has no idea what they are doing

If none of those, then what?

I mean, it can't really be intentional to correct film/tape marks/errors/blemishes but it could be the masters themselves; such as if VIZ doesn't store their copies properly...

[Ajay]

Season 8 shots for you - http://minus.com/mbrUvss1xvnbl7

Spoiler:

Same issues as always.

[LordCrumb]

I love the animation style in 'Season 8 / Boo Saga'. If they had carried on with this style into Dragon Ball GT, i think it would have been a lot more popular. There is a lot more consistency to the animation unlike the previous seasons when in one episode the animation is great, then the very next episode (INCLUDING some of the scenes which are re-capped) suddenly change to a really bad drawing.

[dbboxkaifan]

Season 8 shots for you - http://minus.com/mbrUvss1xvnbl7

Spoiler:

Same issues as always.

I must say that the Majin Boo screenshot looks gorgeous and the others look really good too though I don't know about in-motion but I'm kinda tempted since these screens look better than the previous remastered seasons, and it includes Goku's Super Saiyan 3 scene.

Could someone upload a sample of Season 8's SSJ3 Goku with the English dub on YouTube?

[JEFFMAN219]

Ok, since we have seasons 1-8 on blu ray how are they so far? (I haven't been on here on sometime, and I have so many pages to read) I've heard they are not as bad as the OB. I would love to own these, more so since it's almost the holidays I can ask for them.

Its not that bad of a release. There's some problems here and there but so far I'm loving watching DBZ in HD. If don't care about the cropping then in my opinion you should get them.

Oh ya season 9 comes out next Tuesday.

[dbboxkaifan]

Oh ya season 9 comes out next Tuesday.

Damn. It's that time already?

Once all nine seasons are out FUNimation has the Widescreen audience covered and then the only one remaining is the Fullscreen audience, other than that they'll be done with DBZ.

Come on FUNimation, give us Dragon Box: The Movies or a reprint of the Steelbook series. ^_^

[SupremeSSJ]

I really want a Dragon Ball release (Dragon Box).

[Puto]

If they toned down the sharpening to about half of what they have, this would actually be a somewhat acceptable release, cropping aside. As-is though, absolutely not.

Maybe it's just my experience from encoding anime overall, but when I can look at a release and tell exactly that filters A, B and C were used and to too large a degree, something is clearly not right :/

In this instance, it's pretty obvious to me that they used a filter called LimitedSharpen (or its updated variant, LSFmod) which when used at too high a setting, causes this ‘watercolour’ look. It's meant to allow one to sharpen video footage without causing haloing artifacts—and it does a pretty decent job of it at low settings—but when used too much, or used on footage that isn't blurry to begin with, the lines start getting weird and causing this strange look.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Season 8 shots for you - http://minus.com/mbrUvss1xvnbl7

Spoiler:

Same issues as always.

I must say that the Majin Boo screenshot looks gorgeous and the others look really good too though I don't know about in-motion but I'm kinda tempted since these screens look better than the previous remastered seasons, and it includes Goku's Super Saiyan 3 scene.

Could someone upload a sample of Season 8's SSJ3 Goku with the English dub on YouTube?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAjySzGiBw

[Lord Beerus]

Could someone upload a sample of Season 8's SSJ3 Goku with the English dub on YouTube?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAjySzGiBw

I have to say, that looks fucking great! The Blu rays for DBZ have really improved in quality since season 6, but that's not saying much.

[Im insaneFromEarth]

Ok, since we have seasons 1-8 on blu ray how are they so far? (I haven't been on here on sometime, and I have so many pages to read) I've heard they are not as bad as the OB. I would love to own these, more so since it's almost the holidays I can ask for them.

Its not that bad of a release. There's some problems here and there but so far I'm loving watching DBZ in HD. If don't care about the cropping then in my opinion you should get them.

Oh ya season 9 comes out next Tuesday.

From what I've been hearing it's not so bad. I will give it a shot.