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Dragon Ball Series Preservation (* unfinished project *) - much info & ongoing discussion

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I love this series (all of it Dragon Ball, Z and even GT sorta) but it has consistently gotten pretty shitty home releases. The closest we came to perfection is the Japanese Dragon Boxes for the original series all of the original series as those were made from the original negatives, but unfortunately they are out of sync, had their next episode previews out of order, need to be color and as many fans know, have rather poor Japanese audio. Toei junked the original master tapes after each episode was broadcast as the idea of any of the series getting some sort of home release seemed ridiculous to them. Thankfully the original broadcast audio does exist, albeit on VHS and Beta-max recordings of the episode’s original airing, however many of the fans who own these refuse to release them, and very few have gotten through the cracks.

Here is what I’m planning:

-I have the high quality rips and iso’s of the R2 Dragon Box sets which I will be using for the footage. I will make sure that they are the best encodes they can be to preserve quality(no I WILL NOT be scrubbing the image. The grain is there to stay!)
-For video editing I have Virtualdub, Avidemux and Premiere Pro. I will be using these programs to color correct the footage and put the next episode previews in their proper place before the credits.
-I also have the uncut Funimation audio with the original Kikuchi score and plan to get the uncut dub with the Faulconer score as well.
-Now this is the tricky part: I insist on using the original Japanese broadcast audio but it is rather hard to find, especially for all of the series. I already have the audio for episode 153 of Dragon Ball and episodes 1-17 and 95 of DBZ. I know there was a Japanese release called the “Big Box” in the late 90’s that included the original master audio for 2 episodes later in the series but have been unable to find a copy. If anyone has ANY episodes that I don’t have or knows where I can go/who I can contact to find something PLEASE let me know. I believe that Animax(or some station in Japan)still airs episodes of Dragon Ball GT with it’s original stereo audio(the first few episodes were in mono the rest in stereo)synced to Dragon Box footage and I believe there is a bootleg Mandiran release of the series that uses master sent to TV stations with high quality mono audio. I have been planning to tackle Z first of course, but seeing as materials for GT are easier to find I may do that first.

So the final product for each series should be something like this:

-R2 Dragon Box footage
-Japanese Broadcast Audio
-English dub with Kikuchu score
-English dub with American music
-English subtitles

Any interest?

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I have been flirting with the idea of this very project for a few years now, but I’ve never had the consistency in my own life to tackle a project with such scope. Although just tonight I’ve been working on syncing up the audio for GT using the very sources you speak of: the Taiwanese (not Mandarin) Bootleg set from ADC, the season sets, and the singles with the dubbed next episode previews.

If you want to do this, you’re gonna have to accept using the Dragon Box as the main source for the Japanese audio. Sure you can sprinkle in what is available, but nobody has this stuff just lying around except for the two people who sent the audio to Chris Sabat months ago. Also, the audio for 1-17 that you talk about is only compressed AAC, whereas the audio for episode 95 was encoded to match the DBOX standard of 448 kbps mono.

It might be worth looking into DrDre’s color correction algorithm for usage with the faded DBOX footage instead of manual correction. It’s made with restoring faded film footage in particular, which would apply here in spades.

she/her
mwah

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I know it’s been more than a year, but are you still interested? I am also interested in seeing this project completed, and can do it, with help.

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I’m interested in this but without the English dubs. Just the OG Japanese broadcast versions uncensored with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
Or maybe not.

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RayRogers said:

I’m interested in this but without the English dubs. Just the OG Japanese broadcast versions uncensored with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
Or maybe not.

If you want those, I suggest looking for the recent Winxbloom release.

she/her
mwah

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clutchins said:

RayRogers said:

I’m interested in this but without the English dubs. Just the OG Japanese broadcast versions uncensored with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
Or maybe not.

If you want those, I suggest looking for the recent Winxbloom release.

As Clutchins said, there was a recent leak of the broadcast audio for DBZ only (1-291 + 2 Specials). I’m not so concerned about that, its available now, the bigger struggle is fixing the colour, fixing frame alignment and painting out errors. Also, as Clutchins said about a year ago, it is such a huge project to undertake, one which preferably needs a team to complete, which is why I’ve come here. I have started doing it, but it’s taking so long, and with other commitments, it will take way too long to finish. I need a team to do it with. Preferably more than just two people. I also believe that for the first 39 episodes, the levels set should be used as a primary source, due to it being in 1080p as opposed to the 480p of the Dragon Boxes. Episodes 35-39 are of a lesser quality due to only being available on the ps3 store and xbox store and needing to be screen captured.

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I operate under two principles:

  • “First do it; then you can go back and do it better.”
  • “Perfect is the enemy of good enough.”

All I can say is the audio came from a FOAF, who got it from someone else who got it from someone else (except 2-17, those were one step from the source).

And indeed, those are exactly the sources I used, videowise.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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How’s the original audio for both the dragon ball series and the 13 dragon ball z movies coming along?

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The only audio out for DB is for eps 1-7 and the last episode. The movies already have good Japanese audio.

she/her
mwah

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clutchins said:

The only audio out for DB is for eps 1-7 and the last episode. The movies already have good Japanese audio.

You mean the movies audio is the only ones not affected by this? If that’s the case then i hope all the audio for dragon ball is eventually found then. Audio that has been released as of now do they included color correction? Because the dragon boxes color’s wrong.

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greenlanternslight said:

clutchins said:

The only audio out for DB is for eps 1-7 and the last episode. The movies already have good Japanese audio.

You mean the movies audio is the only ones not affected by this? If that’s the case then i hope all the audio for dragon ball is eventually found then. Audio that has been released as of now do they included color correction? Because the dragon boxes color’s wrong.

If you want to get technical, the movies are a weird dual-mono mix where one aspect of the mix (dialogue, sfx, or music) is stereo and the rest is mono. I can’t remember which part is stereo, though. But the audio is pretty much the master audio in terms of quality.

Nobody has color corrected any series and released it yet.

she/her
mwah

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clutchins said:

greenlanternslight said:

clutchins said:

The only audio out for DB is for eps 1-7 and the last episode. The movies already have good Japanese audio.

You mean the movies audio is the only ones not affected by this? If that’s the case then i hope all the audio for dragon ball is eventually found then. Audio that has been released as of now do they included color correction? Because the dragon boxes color’s wrong.

If you want to get technical, the movies are a weird dual-mono mix where one aspect of the mix (dialogue, sfx, or music) is stereo and the rest is mono. I can’t remember which part is stereo, though. But the audio is pretty much the master audio in terms of quality.

Nobody has color corrected any series and released it yet.

Including the the 13 movies and the 2 specials of dragon ball z?

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clutchins said:

Including those.

That’s a shame hope someone color corrects all 153 episodes of dragon ball,the trunks special,and the 13 dragon ball z movies plus all them with the clearer audio.

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…is my work on the Z specials chopped liver?

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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😉

I’m used to my releases being chopped liver, just that my release of the series proper and the two specials happened to spark basically a conflagration over on a certain torrent site, so it was a bit of a different matter than usual. 😛

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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Molly said:

😉

I’m used to my releases being chopped liver, just that my release of the series proper and the two specials happened to spark basically a conflagration over on a certain torrent site, so it was a bit of a different matter than usual. 😛

Why isn’t it on myspleen? Also could you look into doing edit of z and dragon ball in way of kai because i prefer the japanese dub of z over japanese kai.

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greenlanternslight said:

Molly said:

😉

I’m used to my releases being chopped liver, just that my release of the series proper and the two specials happened to spark basically a conflagration over on a certain torrent site, so it was a bit of a different matter than usual. 😛

Why isn’t it on myspleen? Also could you look into doing edit of z and dragon ball in way of kai because i prefer the japanese dub of z over japanese kai.

That project already exists. I guy named whoisthemilkman is what you’re looking for.

Also, yeah why isn’t it on myspleen, Molly?

she/her
mwah

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clutchins said:

greenlanternslight said:

Molly said:

😉

I’m used to my releases being chopped liver, just that my release of the series proper and the two specials happened to spark basically a conflagration over on a certain torrent site, so it was a bit of a different matter than usual. 😛

Why isn’t it on myspleen? Also could you look into doing edit of z and dragon ball in way of kai because i prefer the japanese dub of z over japanese kai.

That project already exists. I guy named whoisthemilkman is what you’re looking for.

Also, yeah why isn’t it on myspleen, Molly?

Whoisthemilkman’s edit isn’t on myspleen and i don’t know any safe websites other than myspleen to go to.

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Doesn’t myspleen explicitly forbid taking torrents from public trackers and just reuploading them?

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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What version of the audio is Tokyo tower etc.? Because Tokyo tower is the higher quality. also is this color correction of the dragon boxes as well? Please answer all questions.

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I used the best resources that were available to me and handled them the best I could. That is all I’ll say.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)