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B5 Movies on dvd

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Guest
hi
i no that IN THE BEGINING is out on dvd but is there any word on the others coming out?
 
The Gathering was also released on DVD last year. (As a separate disc in R2, as side "A" of a double-sided disc with In the Beginning in R1 and R4.)

Warner Bros. seems to be releasing things in roughly chronological order (the 2240s prequel, the 2257 pilot, the first season in 2258.) I would expect Thirdspace to be the next film released, around the time S4 comes out (probably April 2004), with the rest of them being released around the time S5 is (although not all at once), since they all take place after 2262.

In any event, it seems unlikely that Warner Bros. will invest more money in B5 DVDs until it sees how the first season does in the marketplace. Once that's a certified success they'll probably concentrate on the rest of the seasons before dealing with the post-2262 movies. (Although they might consider rereleasing the first two films with 5.1 remixes and extras if they think they can sell enough copies of them.)

Rangers is a bit of a wild card. It is possible that Warner Bros. will release that film on DVD in countries where it has never been broadcast before they get around to releasing it in the U.S. and Canada.

Regards,

Joe
 
Well if the dvd's are successful we will according to rumors of possible release dates have to wait some time before the next season .Definately not like Paramont's aggressive release of STTNG.
 
I have the R2 release of both 'The Gathering' and 'In the Beginning' and they are in 5.1.
Strange, as it says it's in stereo on the back.
My system however on 'Auto format decode' plays it through all five speakers.
I take it that this is not the case on the R1 release?

X-Files Season 3 and 4 are the same, specifying stereo 2.0, but actually being 5.1. Ditto 24.

X-Files season 1 and 2, however, only plays through the two speakers.

Strange eh!
 
Playing through all five speakers does not mean that you have a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Dolby Pro-Logic (which is encoded in two channels) will also play through all five speakers, even if the receiver is an analog-only unit which is totally incapable of playing a DD 5.1 track. (Three semi-independent channels for the front three speakers, a single mono "surround" channel for both rear speakers, are used in Dolby Surround and Pro Logic.) Because what amounts to four channels is matrixed into two, there is some bleed-over between the channels. DD 5.1 has six separate audio channels (the sixth is the low frequency effects channel, which handles low bass.) They are totally isolated from one another.

When I was shopping for a DD receiver the salesman demoed The Lion King for me on laserdisc. (This was before DVDs, so LD was the only format that offered Dolby Digital 5.1.) First he played the Pro Logic track, and turned off the speakers one at a time. When he stopped only the center channel was playing. On the closing theme I could hear Elton John singing along with the orchestra. Then he switched to DD 5.1, and went though the same process. When he got down to the center speaker the only thing I could hear was Elton's voice. No music. That's discrete 5.1.

TG and ItB are Dolby Pro Logic tracks, which is how they were mixed for television. (Since, at the time, there was no digital broadcasting and therefore way to transmit DD 5.1 over the air.) They are encoded on the discs as Dolby Digital 2.0, because the DVD spec requires that all DVDs have a DD track. It is the standard sound format for DVD. But Dolby Digital can be anything from pure mono (DD 1.0) to 5.1. (And the more recent DD EX version can be up to 6.1 channels, adding a "center rear" channel.)

So the discs are "stereo", being encoded as 2 channel and playable on a stereo system. But a Pro Logic or DD receiver can decode the matrixed signal and play through all five speakers. It is even possible that the first two X-Files seasons are in Dolby Pro Logic or Dolby Surround, and just not flagged properly for your system to recognize them as such. (I honestly don't remember how those seasons were mixed.) You might try manually setting your receiver to Pro Logic and see what happens.

If your player is not connected to a DD sound system via a digital connection, it will automatically down-mix a DD 5.1 track to analog Pro Logic. Some discs include a separate Pro Logic surround track in addition to the mandatory Dolby Digital track, because these are supposed to sound better than downconverted Dolby Digital. But space considerations or multiple commentary tracks often make this impossible.

Regards,

Joe
 
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