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Munchmunch
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 Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:51 am
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Does anyone know if Dragon Ball Z/DBZ Kai was given a proper HD transfer, or if it was just an upscale? I know the short-lived Level sets attempted to do a full-on frame-by-frame restoration, but I've always been under the assumption that the current HD releases have just been an upscale of the existing SD materials.
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MarshalBanana
Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5525
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:30 pm
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So is this why Fox haven't bothered releasing the Simpsons on Blu-Ray.
| Munchmunch wrote: | | Does anyone know if Dragon Ball Z/DBZ Kai was given a proper HD transfer, or if it was just an upscale? I know the short-lived Level sets attempted to do a full-on frame-by-frame restoration, but I've always been under the assumption that the current HD releases have just been an upscale of the existing SD materials. |
I heard that Kai was was a frame by frame redraw of the show.
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Philmister978
Joined: 12 Jun 2011
Posts: 336
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 2:20 pm
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| MarshalBanana wrote: | So is this why Fox haven't bothered releasing the Simpsons on Blu-Ray.
| Munchmunch wrote: | | Does anyone know if Dragon Ball Z/DBZ Kai was given a proper HD transfer, or if it was just an upscale? I know the short-lived Level sets attempted to do a full-on frame-by-frame restoration, but I've always been under the assumption that the current HD releases have just been an upscale of the existing SD materials. |
I heard that Kai was was a frame by frame redraw of the show. |
Not entirely. Only certain scenes that were too damaged got redrawn. And it shows. Though that's only within the first 98 episodes, which were otherwise upscaled and cleaned up at Q-Tec, while the Buu saga was Toei's own "handiwork" with no redrawn frames.
You be the judge as to which one is worse than the other.
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FLCLGainax
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 2:30 pm
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The process sounds similar to how Disney first remastered Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs back in 1993, which saved the film scans as Cineon files (a predecessor of DPX). I wouldn't be surprised if they kept referring back to those same scans, because the original negative was already brittle by 1987.
| MarshalBanana wrote: | | So is this why Fox haven't bothered releasing the Simpsons on Blu-Ray. |
There is an HD version airing on FXX. I believe they rescanned the show starting with season 2. Season 1 definately looks like an upscale and they rarely air it.
| MarshalBanana wrote: | | I heard that Kai was was a frame by frame redraw of the show. |
Not quite. While various shots were redrawn, the majority was recycled footage from Z which Toei had rescanned from the original film reels.
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ssgOverlord
Joined: 02 Sep 2010
Posts: 91
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 2:55 pm
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| Munchmunch wrote: | | Does anyone know if Dragon Ball Z/DBZ Kai was given a proper HD transfer, or if it was just an upscale? I know the short-lived Level sets attempted to do a full-on frame-by-frame restoration, but I've always been under the assumption that the current HD releases have just been an upscale of the existing SD materials. |
Funimation's current sets are using the same scans they planned on using for the Level sets, however the remastering process was completely automated - except for the cropping, which also uses "tilt and scan" to keep important footage from getting cropped.
That said, the Level sets were absolutely beautiful and I hope DBZ gets a remaster someday in the far future on par with that. The Level sets will always stay in my collection as the most beautiful version of the first 34 episodes, but it's unfortunate they had to attempt it when Kai and the Dragon Box sets were still fresh in the market.
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belvadeer
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 3:49 pm
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Factoring in what Justin covered in the article, I wonder what the most expensive remastering to date has been (anime or otherwise).
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KabaKabaFruit
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1903
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 4:49 pm
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| ssgOverlord wrote: | | That said, the Level sets were absolutely beautiful and I hope DBZ gets a remaster someday in the far future on par with that. The Level sets will always stay in my collection as the most beautiful version of the first 34 episodes, but it's unfortunate they had to attempt it when Kai and the Dragon Box sets were still fresh in the market. |
Unfortunate in the sense that when it comes to anything Dragon Ball, FUNimation always seems to handle it in a dysfunctional manner. However, the dysfunctionality will almost always be disregarded long-term by the fanbase due to FUNimation making Dragon Ball Z a powerhouse show in the west. It's pretty much become a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation to anything Dragon Ball Z at this point.
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professorwho
Joined: 11 Aug 2017
Posts: 74
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:14 pm
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| Philmister978 wrote: | | Though that's only within the first 98 episodes, which were otherwise upscaled and cleaned up at Q-Tec, while the Buu saga was Toei's own "handiwork" with no redrawn frames. |
Nope. Kai was an HD scan and not an upscale. If it were it'd look like s**t because it's Q-Tec who is the devil when it comes to anime releases- they make the worst upscales out there.
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Munchmunch
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:20 pm
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| belvadeer wrote: | | Factoring in what Justin covered in the article, I wonder what the most expensive remastering to date has been (anime or otherwise). |
I'm pretty sure the most expensive remasters ever produced outside of animation were The Godfather trilogy and Ben-Hur.
Within the realm of animation, I'd have to believe that it's an older Disney movie or something like that. It's hard to know unless whoever's releasing it specifically talks about how much time/money goes into the remaster.
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GeorgeC
Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Posts: 795
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:20 pm
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| belvadeer wrote: | | Factoring in what Justin covered in the article, I wonder what the most expensive remastering to date has been (anime or otherwise). |
Of the classic sci-fi series, I know SDF Macross has has videos restorations (TWICE -- for the original US DVD release and the Japanese Blu ray edition) and Gundam has been restored visually as well as having the the audio re-recorded.
I think for the US Macross release Animeigo spent in excess of $100,000 restoring the series from 16mm film dupes Tatsunoko gave Harmony Gold over 30 years ago for the original Robotech broadcast. For years, that was considered a "gold standard" for restoration even though if you looked closely there even a few issues with that restoration... I noticed some "ink line" dropout in scenes.
Those restorations were done because the companies involved still make money off of re-releases of those series (although I've heard the Macross Blu ray release didn't sell as well as hoped in Japan... There have been series that have had restoration for Blu ray that didn't hit sales goals like ST:TNG in the West, too.)
Many of the older pre-1980s anime series I've seen don't seem to have any kind of significant restoration. I noticed color issues in episodes of both Mazinger Z and the original Gatchaman. Gatchaman in particular has some dark episodes (colors shifted) on the original ADV DVD release. I don't know if those issues were corrected in the later Sentai Blu ray release of the original Gatchaman. I hope they were! I haven't watched my Blu ray set yet...
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Gina Szanboti
Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11626
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:57 pm
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| Quote: | | 100 feet is about 2 minutes 45 seconds of footage for 35mm, and 1 minute 40 seconds for 16mm. |
Isn't that backwards? Using 24 fps, plugging it into a frame calculator gives 1min 6 sec for 100' of 35mm, and 2 min 47 sec for 16mm.
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professorwho
Joined: 11 Aug 2017
Posts: 74
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 7:11 pm
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| belvadeer wrote: | | Factoring in what Justin covered in the article, I wonder what the most expensive remastering to date has been (anime or otherwise). |
Ghibli scanned all their films at 8K and did restorations at 4K, so I'd guess that's the most expensive for anime films. For TV, anything by Bandai Visual and Sunrise. Top tier remasters.
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 947
Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 8:23 pm
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| Justin wrote: | | footage -- literally the number of feet of film |
How did I not realise before now that's the origin of the term "footage" to mean "video/film of something"?
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G S Palmer
Joined: 02 Oct 2015
Posts: 246
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 9:09 pm
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| Sakagami Tomoyo wrote: |
| Justin wrote: | | footage -- literally the number of feet of film |
How did I not realise before now that's the origin of the term "footage" to mean "video/film of something"? |
I know, I can't believe I didn't realize it before. I love things like that.
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PurpleWarrior13
Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 2035
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 9:26 pm
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There are some old 16mm shows that desperately need new scans. Sailor Moon is an obvious example. Look what happened when they tried to upscale that ancient 2003 remaster. The movies (shot on 35mm) did get new scans though from the original negatives, and look fantastic. Toei has to still have the original film for the TV show. They're just too lazy to do a new scan.
Toei does junk a lot of their audio elements though. From what I've read, they kept Sailor Moon's audio master tapes because the show was released to VHS and LaserDisc during its broadcast. However, they did junk the audio master tapes for Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Saint Seiya, and Fist of the North Star, which is why those shows have terrible-sounding Japanese audio. It's pretty much impossible for those to have remastered audio (DBGT and the DB/Z movies sound better because those tapes were kept). Some hardcore fans try to track down old broadcast recordings to get better sound, but it still doesn't sound as good as a fresh remaster from the original masters. FUNimation remastered and remixed their own dub for DBZ because they kept their original audio stems (which apparently were captured on tape in the very beginning).
| Munchmunch wrote: | | Does anyone know if Dragon Ball Z/DBZ Kai was given a proper HD transfer, or if it was just an upscale? I know the short-lived Level sets attempted to do a full-on frame-by-frame restoration, but I've always been under the assumption that the current HD releases have just been an upscale of the existing SD materials. |
FUNimation's orange brick sets were actually new transfers of their own 16mm prints. They just heavily tinkered with it afterwards. I would kill for the Level sets to be continued.
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