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Babylon 5 DVD Season 1 Box Set

B

Belran

Regular
I got an email from a friend who is fairly much in the know about release dates for DVDs. It seems that the release for the DVD box set will by the end of this year. We can only hope!

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'We live for The One, We die for The One, but we don't die stupidly' - David Martel B5LR: TLADIS
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Belran:
I got an email from a friend who is fairly much in the know about release dates for DVDs. It seems that the release for the DVD box set will by the end of this year. We can only hope!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just in time for the holidays perhaps? Can't wait to hear more ...

*starts earmarking some of her salary for the DVDs*

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Monica Hübinette | Abyss : B5 | Rangers Sponsor List
Pouch-sucking spawn of a bladder fish! Son of a fitch piece of smelt! Tok-swallowing fenbarger! Thrak it! --Na'Feel swearing in B5LR
 
Back on January 25th, The Digital Bits reported that the first season would be released this fall. No word on features, or how frequently WHV will be releasing the sets. (Fox does an X-Files every six months, but Paramount is planning to release a Star Trek: TNG set every other month.) The Bits is a pretty reliable source; even when they're wrong, they're right.
smile.gif


For instance, in the late summer of 1999 they reported that Warner Bros. would be releasing B5 on DVD. Obviously the discs never arrived, but they were planned at the time. Warner Bros. just changed their minds later. That isn't likely to happen this time, because conditions have totally changed.

WB was originally planning a B5 release similar to Paramount's Trek: TOS discs - single disc releases every few months, two episodes per disc, $20 MSRP, essentially no extras. And, in WB's case, 4:3 TV ratio only, since no suitable widescreen masters existed, and they weren't about to pay for them.

But then several things happened. Paramount's TOS discs sold more slowly than expected, Fox scored big with an X-Files boxed set, and WB began to hear from fans insisting on a widescreen release. Then the VHS tape sales dropped. The studio was convinced that if B5 could be sold on DVD at all (and they were dubious) it would have to be in widescreen and in boxed sets. But that was too expensive, so they just shelved their plans.

Almost three years later there are new hi-def widescreen masters that they didn't have to pay for, their first test disc sold (to their surprise) well enough to justify continuing with the episodes and almost the entire industy has been forced to see the virtues of the full-season set. (Even WB itself recently announced, "Friends: The Complete First Season" after failing with their "Best of Friends" sets.)

So I'm very confident that the current report is true, and that we'll have at least season one by the end of the year. Now the question is, "Will there be any extras, and what will they be?"

If you have any thoughts on that subject, allow me to suggest that you write a nice letter to this fellow (who ultimately decides this sort of thing at Warner Home Video):

Mr. Douglas Wadleigh
Vice President, Marketing & Special Features
Warner Home Video
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91522

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
What bearing would this have on the UK market? Not that I'm personally bothered since I'd get a US format one if it comes quicker, but would WB hold back on a UK release even if a company was interested in doing it?


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"You know I? I rather like this GOD fellow. He's very theatrical you know, a pestilence here, a plague there... Omnipotence, Got to get me some of that, Hmmm?" - Stewie (Family Guy)
 
huzzah

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"Crying isn't gonna get your dog back. Unless your tears smell like dog food. So you can sit here eating can after can of dog food until your tears smell like dog food or you can go out there and find your dog."-Homer in The Canine Mutiny
 
My eyes are currently lighting up "like two tiny suns. And do you know what words these two tiny lights spell out?"

"MINE! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!"

The series coming to DVD is great news.

Joe

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I certainly hope they start releasing box sets. I want the whole series on dvd. Hell, go ahead and release crusade as a boxed set too!
wink.gif


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-----Khurzhor-----

"Farewell friend. I was a thousand times as evil as thou."
-Stormbringer
 
Just a thought on the Crusade boxed set. "IF" they realesed it in a boxed set and "IF" it sold almost as well as the B5 sets will, do you think they might start rethinking about Crusade, maybe bring it back if it does good enough. Please keep in mind this is just my mind taking a wild tangent and hoping for the best.

Sinc
Jerome

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I am a Ranger. We walk in the dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the one.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>...but would WB hold back on a UK release even if a company was interested in doing it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure I understand the question. The thread is about how they are going to release the series, nothing about holding anything back, and the only company in the U.K. that could release the show is Warner Bros. itself. Unlike the VHS and LD situation, studios rarely license product to third parties for DVD release, and I don't think Warner Bros. has ever done so.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>...do you think they might start rethinking about Crusade, maybe bring it back if it does good enough.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. A DVD is doing pretty well if it sells 100,000 copies. A series that draws that many viewers gets cancelled during the first commercial break.
smile.gif
There's no real correlation. If the million or so people who were watching B5 and Crusade when they first aired on SFC weren't enough to convince them to bring the show back, a couple of hundred thousand DVDs aren't going to change anybody's mind. Warner Bros. might be happy with the DVD sales, but they can't bring a show back if there isn't a network to run it.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

[This message has been edited by Joseph DeMartino (edited February 09, 2002).]
 
Is it possible that Brazilian fans will get their hands on this boxed set???

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If you drink wine, you should be able to enjoy the hangover or learn from it, if you can't do that, dont drink wine.
 
Naturally, by ordering them from abroad, as people do all over the world. You will just have to ignore the DVD region code system (which is considered natural as the system is inherently flawed).

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"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn
 
I know what's on MY Christmas list next year (if they're released in December...if it's in November or earlier I won't be able to wait)... kinda makes you want to go on worker's compensation for a couple weeks just so you could do nothing but eat, drink, go to the bathroom, sleep, and WATCH B5 12 HOURS A DAY!... just think, even if just a week of bedrest were prescribed (along with a lot of percocet or vicodan), you could watch season one at LEAST three times. I hate to think what my wishes will be when S3 and S4 come out. Strange what we wish for when we become B5-obsessed... wonder if this is a psychlogical condition... this is one addition from which I do NOT want to be cured!

HA, just saw the Avalance commercial with Marcus... excellent! No, thank you!
cool.gif



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Wipster

"Live Long in Prosser"

[This message has been edited by wipster (edited February 16, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by wipster (edited February 16, 2002).]
 
Assuming 45 minutes per episode (deducting commercials, but allowing for opening and closing credits, disc swaps and the like) a 22 episode season could be watched in 16.5 hours. Eat in front of the TV and subsist mostly on microwaved foods and you should be able to watch a whole season per day and still get a decent amount of sleep.
smile.gif


Once the whole series is out I may actually devote a week's vacation to doing this.
laugh.gif
At least to have the experience once. (Of course, I'm a little strange this way. I once saw all the Planet of the Apes films back-to-back in twelve hours or so at a theater.)

And it looks like the first set is due in the fall, which could mean anywhere from September to mid-November. Depending on how frequently the sets are released, we could end up with two full seasons by year's end, at least in the U.S.

Regards,

Joe



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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
If season 2 could come out before the end of the year as well, as you mentioned is possible, wouldnt we also hear about that before hand too?

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'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>...wouldnt we also hear about that before hand too?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Probably, just as we heard that Paramount would be releasing ST:TNG every other month before the first season was officially announced. Certainly we'll know before S2 is actually released, because Warner Home Video has to announce product to video dealers and distributors about two months before street date so that the sets can be ordered. But so far, remember, we haven't even see official word that S1 is in fact going to be released, much less when or how. There are a lot of variables the WHV has to consider in all of this, including replication plant capacity and what other titles (film and TV) they'll be releasing between now and the end of the year.

They may want to wait and see how S1 does before commencing on S2, for instance. OTOH none of the subsequent seasons are likely to sell fewer copies than S1 (S2, 3, and 4 will likely do better, and S5 about the same would be my guesstimate), so if S1 does well enough to justify their releasing S2, WHV may decide to get the rest of them out as quickly as possible to capitalize on the interest the first season generates.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
They may want to wait and see how S1 does before commencing on S2, for instance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Regrettably, that seems to be a pattern with all things B5. I would suspect that is more likely what is going to happen.
wink.gif


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'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK
 
And at several times the price judging by the 'Gathering/ In the Begining' releases.

OTOH we already have 3 sesaons of Buffy on DVD, and I undestand that R1 has only just got Season 1, so sometimes we get lucky (though that is released by 20CFox)

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He's associated with rebels, you see... and very popular with rabbles. They will follow him, and he will fight... to the last drop of their blood. Idealism is a wonderful thing, all you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use.
- Avon
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Regrettably, that seems to be a pattern with all things B5.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, except for the VHS release, which started years earlier in the U.K. than it did in the U.S., and which was also completed, something we can't claim. You also got all of Crusade on VHS, and the TV movies in widescreen. We didn't get Crusade at all, got only two of the TV movies, and the VHS and LD versions of In the Beginning weren't widescreen.

So if we get the DVDs a few months earlier than you do, the shoe will merely be on the other foot for once.
smile.gif


Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
So if we get the DVDs a few months earlier than you do, the shoe will merely be on the other foot for once.
smile.gif

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You live in the U.K. Joe? I thought you lived in Florida or something. Cause I live in Chicago, and your post read like one of the two of us was overseas.

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'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK
 
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