Does anyone know the S5 R2 Release date?!?!

According to that site the effects shot have the same flaws in both R1 and R2. He does note however that the effect shots are framed differently and that it differs from scene to scene whether R1 or R2 has better framing.

It should also be noted that B5 was shot on film and thus suffers from PAL speedup.

The difference in cgi framing seems to suggest a seperate PAL master so R2 seems indeed to be enjoying the superior PAL resolution.

Although I live in a region 2 area I opted for region 1 when bying B5 on dvd.

I have done side by side comparison between NTSC and PAL versions of In The Beginning and the problem is only in the NTSC-version. I also have taken screenshots but I'm unable to show them here due to copyright issues. Anyways the method by simply resizing each field is only used in NTSC-version. on PAL they've first deinterlaced the image and after that done the resizing.

A late reply here as I have been busy with other things.

I have read through the page you linked to very thoroughly and have drawn the following conclusions:

1. All the region 1 season sets are transfered the wrong way as we agree on. The author has yet to examine season 5 though but I doubt there will be any changes to the cgi transfers.

2. The author seems unclear about the region two sets. He indicates that the cgi is incorrectly transfered for seasons 1 and 2:

"As I assumed from the Second Season PAL edition, the special effects are transferred in exactly the same way as I have described in this article."

But later he seems to contradict himself here:

"This can be seen, for instance, in Fall of Night's Keffer's Starfury's surveillance camera shots: in the PAL version, the word "Keffer" is completely visible, while in the NTSC version, only the upper part of the letters can be seen (and the NTSC version flickers like crazy on a proper 16:9 display device because of the way the SFX are converted)."

Thus he does not provide a clear verdict about season 2. He does indicate that the special effects are correct for season 3:

"Notice, however, that remnants of the jaggies that were so present for two first season R1 transfers are conspicuously absent in this season 3 R2 transfer, which might be or not be a hint for the R1 transfer."

He then notes that the region 1 transfer is not correct.

The R2 CGI in S3 and 4 looks very good, I can't really see the problems that were present in season 1. Season 2 is a mixed bag. It still suffers from the mixed shots that contain CGI and live elements, in that the live elements look rather soft.

Was looking for something else at choicesdirect.co.uk when I came across a UK release date for season 5 - appears to be 15 November 2004.

No idea how true or final that is but hopefully will give some indication at least.

I'm glad I went for region 1, yes.

Dude!

Thats good news.

Well... 15. November. It doesn't sound that bad anymore. Anyway, we'll have movie set before that date... R1 version of course... I don't know how someone with a clear mind would buy that R2 version which contains only 3 movies out of 5.

I don't know how someone with a clear mind would buy that R2 version which contains only 3 movies out of 5.

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Those who don't hang out on internet discussion boards and dedicated DVD websites will probably be none the wiser, and pleased to get the three movie set.

Hmm. Now Play.com has also put season 5 r2 on 15/11/2004. Maybe that's the real date then. Here's the link to play.com page.

I don't know how someone with a clear mind would buy that R2 version which contains only 3 movies out of 5.

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Presumably the R2 3-movie set is cheaper than an R2 5-movie set would be, and also cheaper than importing the R1 5-movie set. So I don't see why someone to whom the extras and pretty boxes are not important, and who already owns ItB and TG can't select the 3-movie set either the R1 set or a hyopthetical 5-moive R2 set without having his/her mental health called into question. If the 5-movie version and the 3-movie version cost the same you'd have a point, but they certainly wouldn't if there were a UK version, and I suspect that even with the exchange rate import duties and the like would drive the cost of the R1 set well above the R2 version. Please correect me if that's a mistaken assumption.

The same goes for someone who doesn't own any of the movies. Why is buying 3 of them together irrational? I just hope that WB in the U.K. stops producing the exitings TG and ItB discs and that retailers either return or deeply discount their remaining stock (as they did with the VHS tapes in advance of the DVD release) before the inevitable R2 release of the special editions.

And yes, November 15th does seem to be the official date. As for Crusade - that release hasn't officially been announced at all on either side of the Atlantic, and probably won't be - even in R1 - until after the TV movie set debuts in North America.

Regards,

Joe

Well, Joe. You have a point, BUT.

UK (R2) - 3 movie version costs 43 euros
USA (R1) - 5 movie version costs 42 dollars (~38 euros)

Do you see my point here? 5 movie box set is cheaper. Add 7e postage (or if you order from play.com it ships for free) and that will be:

UK (R2) - 3 movies 50 euros with delivery
USA (R1) - 5 movies ~48 euros WITH delivery

The only minus side in this thing is this one: The delivery from USA to Europe takes about 2 weeks. Inside Europe 4-5 days. So, based on my "analysis" there is no reason at all to buy 3 movie set. R2 users - we're screwed up ta bum once again!

Ah have to edit this, my main point was forgotten.

Yes Joe, importing a 5-movie box set costs the same, or it's even cheaper. Depends on where you will buy/order it. So.. I don't actually get the point of this. Why UK WHV would release a "crippled" set that costs the same. I've took the price of both sets from Amazon.com for R1 set and from play.com for R2 set. If you own a credit card... I see no point at all to buy crippled R2 version. Well, ok, dvd player may not be a region free, but that's not a big problem nowadays. I just don't get the strategy of WHV this time.

Well, since I live in the States I don't know the ins and outs of importing discs from the U.S. into any other country. But other threads in this area, both here and at the Home Theater Forum, have left me with the impression that in at least some countries there is an import tax or duty in addition to the delivery charge or some other form of "value added tax" (a nearly perfect misnomer) that has to be taken into an account. Perhaps this isn't the case (or is no longer the case) in the U.K. or I misunderstood the earlier discussions.

Regards,

Joe

GeoKuutio lives in Finland rather than the UK. Which is why he is using euros rather than pounds.

WB UK have announced S5 for Nov 15th. I can see them releasing the two other movies seperate. Looks like I'll be buying a holder for the 5 movies and hopeing someone does a nice cover for the set

Like already mentioned, I live in Finland. And, of course, I calculated those prices accordingly. Back here, if you purchase a product abroad, you only have to pay import tax if your product goes over some limit. I do not remember exactly how much that limit was, but ordering DVD sets, movies etc. abroad is cheap enough so they don't take that into account. I mean, I ordered two season of SG-1 from USA, and it cost me like... 70 or 80 euros. No import taxes. Faintly I remember when we used finnish currency (Finnish markka that was) import tax struk at you if it was over 1000mk which is about 150-160 euros. Everything that costs less than that, zero taxes.

So, it is country-based this whole import tax etc. Finland has some limit. Maybe in UK they take some of every product you buy abroad. Don't know about that. But Finland, Sweden and Germany were those "zero countries" until some limit hits the fan.

Sorry, sometimes I lose track, especially since most of the questions about this do come from the U.K.

Also remember that there may be no such thing as "the R2 release". The earlier movies and the season sets did not get uniform release throughout Europe but themselves varied in content, release date and price - and this is typical of DVD releases generally. R1, encompassing only two countries that share a common primary language often (but not always) gets a single DVD release of a given title, but this is rarer for R2. (And in R1 here there may be a separate Canadian release with different content than the U.S. version, although this doesn't happen often.)

Regards,

Joe

According to EU rules you can import goods up to 18 pounds without paying VAT or customs duty. The 18 pound limit is the price of the product without the shipping cost. Buying the TV movie set from amazon.com and importing it to England would be 22 pounds without shipping. Thus VAT and possibly customs duty would be added to that price and then there is the shipping cost.

Amazon.co.uk is selling the three movie set for about 26 pounds. The final price of importing the US set should be similiar to that...perhaps slightly higher.

Given that the prices for both products are similiar but the region 2 product is inferior one has to conclude that it is unreasonably priced.

I am not sure what strategy WHV UK is following but it seems they will either release the 5 movie set at a later date or more likely give the 2 movies excluded from the inital set seperate "special edition" releases.

Another way around the import charge if you live in the UK is to order from Canada - which (presumably because it is a fellow Commonwealth member) does not carry an inport charge at all.

Recently ordered Jeremiah S1 from dvdboxoffice.com. Cost me less than £37, with free shipping and (of course) no import charge.

The UK import threshold is £18, this is not the same for all EU countries, it varies from country to country and some countries have no such duty. I believe that most EU countries have a higher threshold.

Ordering from Canada is a good idea however this does not get past customs regardless of the fact that they are former British colony. Import duty and VAT still apply on items costing more then £18. Etailers such as DVDsoon used to declare a false value on ALL transaction to the UK (I believe it was $12CAD) but have been warned against continuing such practise if they wish to continue to deliver in the UK. I have no problem paying such a tax, even factoring this in it is still cheaper to import, what I do detest and take offence to is the fact that the Royal Mail charge a ludicrous £4 handling charge for simply paying the customs charge on my behalf and then get this I “I pay them back plus £4.”