(1) Does other material play in HD (Blu-ray, game, downloaded video, etc.)?
(2) Is your PS3 connected to an HD display either via component or HDMI?
(3) Are you playing "Kai" via the Blu-ray release?
What I assume is ACTUALLY the problem isn't even a problem -- I may be reading into it a bit, but based on experience, I'd wager you are confused that the video on the "Dragon Ball Z Kai" releases is displaying as 4:3 when you expect it to be 16:9.
"Kai" was produced and mastered in 4:3. It is based on the actual, original, physical animation originally created for the "Dragon Ball Z" TV series, and as such, is the same 4:3 it always was.
The series was aired on digital broadcast television in Japan in a cropped 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, but this has no relevance to how it was produced and how it was always intended to be seen. The original Japanese Blu-ray releases from Happinet are in a full-frame, high definition 4:3. The Japanese DVDs are unfortunately also cropped to widescreen, but they have a wealth of other issues beyond just the aspect ratio.
FUNimation made the wise and proper choice to release "Kai" in North America in its originally-intended 4:3 aspect ratio on both the Blu-ray and DVD releases. It is indeed encoded in high definition -- it is a full 1920x1080 pixel window size on the Blu-ray.
There is a slight deal with how Blu-ray must be encoded in that the window size must be a full 16:9 aspect ratio. This means that the 4:3 video for "Kai" (which, again, is how it was created and how it is intended to be seen) is sandwiched in between pillar bars in the video stream (1440 video with 240 pixels of a black pillar bar on both the left and right side). DVDs don't actually have this encoding quirk (imagine that!) and can be encoded both progressively and anamorphically... though they're just straight-up, old-school, 4:3 encodes like any other older show (albeit in standard definition, because DVDs are a standard definition format).
Hope that sheds some light on the situation -- yes, "Kai" is a 4:3 show!
You seem to know a lot about the technical aspects of these releases, Vegetto. But can 4:3 Aspect Ratio really be in 1920x1080? Isn't it more likely that its like a 1600x900 resolution, and since 900p is widely unknown to the mainstream that they just label it 1080p? Now I'm no expert and I'm not trying to bring offense, just trying to clear up the fog of war.
Sure, a 4:3 aspect ratio can totally be encoded in a 1080p full 16:9 space -- like I said, with pillar bars.
The "DragonBall Kai" Blu-rays (both from Happinet in Japan and FUNimation in North America) have a 4:3 video encoded into the full 1920x1080 video file. There is a 1440x1280 picture in the middle and then a 240x1080 black pillar bar encoded into the video stream on both the left and right sides (240 + 1440 + 240 = 1920 pixels across).
Again, like I noted, the Blu-ray spec that everyone uses doesn't really account for a "reverse-anamorphic" 4:3 spec that's flagged as such, or anything like that, so the pillar bars are physically encoded into the video stream to create the full 1920x1080 window.
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Getting the basics out of the way...
(1) Does other material play in HD (Blu-ray, game, downloaded video, etc.)?
(2) Is your PS3 connected to an HD display either via component or HDMI?
(3) Are you playing "Kai" via the Blu-ray release?
What I assume is ACTUALLY the problem isn't even a problem -- I may be reading into it a bit, but based on experience, I'd wager you are confused that the video on the "Dragon Ball Z Kai" releases is displaying as 4:3 when you expect it to be 16:9.
"Kai" was produced and mastered in 4:3. It is based on the actual, original, physical animation originally created for the "Dragon Ball Z" TV series, and as such, is the same 4:3 it always was.
The series was aired on digital broadcast television in Japan in a cropped 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, but this has no relevance to how it was produced and how it was always intended to be seen. The original Japanese Blu-ray releases from Happinet are in a full-frame, high definition 4:3. The Japanese DVDs are unfortunately also cropped to widescreen, but they have a wealth of other issues beyond just the aspect ratio.
FUNimation made the wise and proper choice to release "Kai" in North America in its originally-intended 4:3 aspect ratio on both the Blu-ray and DVD releases. It is indeed encoded in high definition -- it is a full 1920x1080 pixel window size on the Blu-ray.
There is a slight deal with how Blu-ray must be encoded in that the window size must be a full 16:9 aspect ratio. This means that the 4:3 video for "Kai" (which, again, is how it was created and how it is intended to be seen) is sandwiched in between pillar bars in the video stream (1440 video with 240 pixels of a black pillar bar on both the left and right side). DVDs don't actually have this encoding quirk (imagine that!) and can be encoded both progressively and anamorphically... though they're just straight-up, old-school, 4:3 encodes like any other older show (albeit in standard definition, because DVDs are a standard definition format).
Hope that sheds some light on the situation -- yes, "Kai" is a 4:3 show!
You seem to know a lot about the technical aspects of these releases, Vegetto. But can 4:3 Aspect Ratio really be in 1920x1080? Isn't it more likely that its like a 1600x900 resolution, and since 900p is widely unknown to the mainstream that they just label it 1080p? Now I'm no expert and I'm not trying to bring offense, just trying to clear up the fog of war.
Sure, a 4:3 aspect ratio can totally be encoded in a 1080p full 16:9 space -- like I said, with pillar bars.
The "DragonBall Kai" Blu-rays (both from Happinet in Japan and FUNimation in North America) have a 4:3 video encoded into the full 1920x1080 video file. There is a 1440x1280 picture in the middle and then a 240x1080 black pillar bar encoded into the video stream on both the left and right sides (240 + 1440 + 240 = 1920 pixels across).
Again, like I noted, the Blu-ray spec that everyone uses doesn't really account for a "reverse-anamorphic" 4:3 spec that's flagged as such, or anything like that, so the pillar bars are physically encoded into the video stream to create the full 1920x1080 window.