[quote name='ssjmichael']I watched the entire thing through the orange brick sets. A lot of people had problems with them but I personally didn't. They've been converted to widescreen so there's some cropping but it's not really noticeable to me in motion.
The series can certainly drag on at times, with battles going on for multiple episodes. I believe Kai fixes this problem somewhat, but I hear it also doesn't have the entire DBZ series. It stops after the Cell saga I think, omitting the Buu saga. But as you mentioned you can always continue that with the orange bricks.
I would try and just get the first Orange brick season and see if you don't mind the quality. I will say that the quality of the orange brick seasons do seem to improve later on in the series for some reason so the first season may not be a perfect representation either but it should give you a good impression of the cropping and colors.
The Dragon Boxes are probably the best way to view them, but you can't really get the whole series without paying an arm and a leg.[/QUOTE]
Thank you so much for the info. I'm really new to this series even though I've heard about it for years, and even watched all of GT (since it's shorter)
After hearing what you said, I might just go with the Orange Bricks. I watched everything up until the Frieza saga on the orange bricks a friend had before he sold his set off. I didn't mind the quality and didn't really notice the cropping either since it was the first time seeing it.
I did think some of the episodes dragged, especially during the frieza saga in terms of powering up. I just don't want to feel cheated and miss something that was labeled filler and see everything in its entirety. The only consideration I had in buying Kai was it was on blu ray.
I have heard of the dragon boxes being the best versions, but I saw how hard to find the first ones are along with price, so I don't really want to go that route.