Do you think this will happen?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Alright, so my DVD-set is on the way... the money is totally worth it really, but it ocurred to me something the other day, what if, after season 4 or 5, with great sales, WB decides to do another s1 set with more stuff? or a new "edition", with a different cover? (i mean, the "fives" on the side are going to look pretty ugly when you have the five box sets next to each other). that would totally suck, and i would feel cheated. i just hope that if someone thinks of that JMS gets it and prevents it from happening.

i mean, look at what happened with the Lord of The Rings, and series like South Park, which were first released in DVDs with 4-5 episodes and later in better, cooler, entire season sets.

i mean, one of the reasons me (and everyone else here, actually) are buying it is to make sure new seasons come out, but id rather not be the idiot who buys something just so WB sees theres a market (already did that with ITB).

dont get me wrong, im quite sure the set will be amazing, but im also quite sure that when you compare de extras in this one they will be quite limited compared to those we will have in say, season three. I just hope WB doesnt play with us.

What do you think?

 

[Sigma]

It is nearly impossible that Warner will re-release season box-set DVD-s. Maybe they will do it with "In the Beginning", but not with box-sets.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Nah, they're not being released by Lucasfilm.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Nah, they're not being released by Lucasfilm.

[/quote]

heh, whats wrong with the star wars DVDs?

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I guess B5_Obsessed was referring to the fact that Star Wars disks (to my knowledge) have been relased in three different versions, each with a different level of extras (or lack of them).

 

[Sigma]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I guess B5_Obsessed was referring to the fact that Star Wars disks (to my knowledge) have been relased in three different versions, each with a different level of extras (or lack of them).

[/quote]
I'm 99,9% certain that only Star Wars released on DVD have been episode1 (last year + i heard that they will re-realease it this year) and episode2 (nov.4 if i'm not mistaken).

No "original SW series" (ep3-6) have been released on DVD - only on LD. And if i'm not mistaken, "Indiana Jones" movies are also LucasArts production and they too have not been released on DVD. Not very smart DVD policy, if you ask me. Dont know what they are waiting.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Correct. And before that, there were the Star Wars Special Edition VHS editions.

Lord of the Rings gets a boo-hiss from me too with their release of three different editions (regular, widescreen, and deluxe). Just release one good one and stop taking advantage of the fans.

 

[LightNZ]

But with LOTR they did tell everyone that they were going to do that, right from the start - so you can choose which one you wanted to buy

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

It is really unfair base your concerns on The Lord of the Rings and South Park.

It is becoming increasingly common to offer widescreen and P&S versions of feature film releases, especially special editions where there is no room to include both versions on a single disc. So I don't think the WS & PS versions should even be an issue, because hardly anybody is going to buy both. The whole point of that is to give consumers a choice.

As for the theatrical vs. extended editions (and the collector's edition): These, again, are a matter of offering consumers a choice. The theatrical version is just that plus some really nice extras. The extended version is an alternate cut of the film plus a boatload of additional extras - which deliberately do not duplicate those in the theatrical release. Think of it as an optional add-on The deluxe edition is the extended version with non-disc collector's items like film-frames, booklets and other "value added" stuff. There have been such collectors editions since the early days of DVD (and before that in the days of laserdisc.) As noted, the studio announced well in advance that there would be multiple versions, and so people could pick & choose and plan accordingly.

South Park was originally licensed to another company for release. They put out 2- or 3-disc packs of the episodes in order. When Warner Bros. took control of the show back they decided to release "best of" sets, as they later did with Friends. That's what their (dated) market research indicated would sell. Finally they were persuaded to release TV series in full-season sets, beginning with Friends, followed by South Park, and now Babylon 5. This was a matter of them learning what worked for TV shows on DVD as they went along, not a cynical ploy to sell more discs. Were episodes duplicate among the various releases? Yeah. But what would the alternative have been? Release "full season" sets, only skip the episodes that were already released?

As for concerns about a future "super duper special edition" of the B5 sets - I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. While it can make sense to revisit a feature film that was done on the cheap the first time, it would be too expensive to recycle an entire TV show in the same manner. They're putting about as many extras as can reasonably fit on the S1 set to begin with, so I'm really not sure what they'd add. (Most of the requested stuff that isn't there is missing because of legal complications or licensing costs, so it is unlikely that say, the bloopers, would turn up on a later version. The studios know that people will spend another $20 for a genuinely improved version of a favorite film, but they aren't going to shell out $75 x "X" number of seasons more than once. Besides, most "double-dip" movie DVDs are made in response to customer requests, not simply out of greed. A studio will release a movie-only version of an old catalog title it doesn't think will sell very well, only to discover that it has a huge cult following who write and beg them to issue it as an SE. What do you expect the studios to do, say, "No thanks, we don't want any more of your money"?)

I do hope the WB will do the TV movies as special editions right out of the gate, with extras similar to those on the S1 set, and that this leads them to re-issue the first two films with DD 5.1 remixes, commentary tracks and as many extras as they care to cram in. I will be more than happy to buy them again. But I neither expect nor worry about them reissuing the season sets themselves.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Oatley1]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
No "original SW series" (ep3-6) have been released on DVD - only on LD. And if i'm not mistaken, "Indiana Jones" movies are also LucasArts production and they too have not been released on DVD. Not very smart DVD policy, if you ask me. Dont know what they are waiting.

[/quote]

I have heard from somewhere that there is a reason why the Indiana Jones films have not been released on DVD, and that it had to do with broadcast rights lapsing, or some other rights lapsing for another company.

Can anyone else confirm this? Joe?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The Indy situation has nothing to do with broadcast rights, period. (Those generally don't affect home video rights in any case, except in limited situations like the agreement not to release each Buffy season in the U.S. until after it had aired once in syndication.) Nor does any other company have any control over these. They were produced by George Lucas. As with the later Star Wars films, the studio only acted as a distributor. He has been financing (and therefore owning and controlling) his own films for some time.

This is purely a matter of LucasFilm owning the movies and taking their sweet time about releasing them. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles are coming to DVD next year, but the original films aren't for the foreseeable future. Maybe after Lucas finishes with the last Star Wars film, and then the special edition DVDs of the original trilogy, and the mega-super-uber-six film boxed set that you'll need a forklift to move, he'll get around to "restoring" the Indy pictures and releasing them.

Regards,

Joe

 

[GKarsEye]

Man, I can't believe there are still misconceptions about the Lord of the Rings DVDs. What next, people complaining about the lack of an "ending?"

We're still praying that they'll release a season 2, forget about any re-releases. In fact, the only TV show DVDs they are re-releasing at all are the ones that only had compilations or individual episodes, like Friends. No show to my knowledge that released season box sets have re-released season box sets.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Yeah, really. What kind of an ending was that anyway? /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I don't know if you're referring to my misconceptions about the DVDs, but despite advance warning (unlike what those pricks did with Pearl Harbor) I still believe they are unnecessarily milking the product. People who wanted to see the movie or own it right away, were stuck with the pan and scan version. Not all folks are as DVD-aware as we are. The first disk sold and rented quite well, and I would think that when a lot of folks saw an ad for the yet to be released super duper deluxe version, they probably felt disappointed. I didn't buy the movie, but I rented it right away and I'm going to have go out again and rent the big one if I want to see those special features. Not a complaint, just a fact.

And then there's the poor diehard collector, who will of course, have to buy all three - and anything else that comes down the line.


There's a lot of a discrepancy on just how much you can fit on a DVD, which confuses me. Sometimes you have to turn the disk over, other times both versions fit on the same side of the disk and let you choose your preference from the main menu. Some DVDs manage to fit all this, and then beaucoups extras on the same disk, while others only fit only the movie on disk one, and disk two contains some pathetic excuse for extra features.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
People who wanted to see the movie or own it right away, were stuck with the pan and scan version.

[/quote]

???? No, they weren't. The theatrical version was released in both WS and Pan and Scan versions. Hell, I rented the widescreen version of theatrical cut from Blockbuster of all places. There's no point in getting all worked up about something they didn't do. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As for disc contents -

The only discs you have to flip-over in mid-film are some early releases of very long films from 1997 and '98, before the dual-layer process was perfected. They simply couldn't fit the whole film on one layer of one side without badly compromising quality. You'll be pissed-off to know that Warner Bros. and other studios are considering re-issuing some of these "flipper" discs in new single-sided editions. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Other two-side discs either have different films on each side (the Fox "double-feature" series, the R1/R4 version of the first B5 disc.)

As for other variations: DVD is a digital format. An analog format like tape or LP has a capcity expressed in time. Regardless of the source material, you can fit "x" minutes of stuff in a given amount of tapes, number of album size or sides of a laserdisc. (The video in laserdisc is analog, although the sound is often digital.) For a digital format like DVD capacity is expressed in gigabytes. How much source material will fit in a give number of bytes is a function of compression technology and source material. Some stuff compresses very well with little or no loss of quality. Some compresses badly. The compresssion rate in a DVD is variable, the compression artists compress the heck out of things where they can, back off where they have to. So two films of identical length can end up with very different data requirements on DVD.

What is true of the film itself is also true of the extras, menus and soundtracks. They all take up space. Elaborate animated menus take up more space than simple ones. Multiple language and commentary tracks, ditto. And all of these things interact with each other, because if you need more space for a soundtrack, you have to steal bytes from somewhere else. The total number of bytes available is fixed. The first release of The X-Men was originally intended to have both Dolby Digital and dts 5.1 soundtracks. When they screened a test version of the disc at Fox the powers that be decided the lower video bit rate required to fit both on the disc had degraded the picture quality, so with regret they jettisoned the dts track.

As the format matures, both the techonology and the users of that technology get better, so things that were impossible in 1997, or even 2000, are commonplace now. DVD is not a "one size fits all" format.

Regards,

Joe

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Seeing how the release date for both full-screen and pan-n-scan was August 6, it would seem that my local Blockbuster is to blame for only picking up the Pan and Scan for initial release. Point taken.

Still, the extended edition was held back until November 12 - just in time for Christmas. On Christmas morning, many folks will be sliding it into their DVD cabinet right next to the one they bought in August.

ps. I'm not "worked up" over this, just stating my opinions.
Nor would I get "pissed off" to find that DVD manufacturers are re-releasing an improved product for a valid reasons. More power to them.

I actually didn't mention "split" movies in my post, but that's okay. I was referring to some movies having both widescreen and P&S versions (3-1/2 to 4 hours worth of movie) plus special features (sometimes in excess of 30 to 60 minutes) all on one side of a disk as compared to DVDs that sometimes contain two disks with very little on them.

We do know that all DVDs are not created equal, right?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The "basic" edition was released in August, 10 months after the film's theatrical release. This is actually a pretty long wait, since films are commonly released to home video within 3 to 6 months of their theatrical release. The studios like to strike while the iron is hot, and the film is still "alive" in the minds of the public. This is especially important for the rental side of the business. The studios make a lot of money selling discs to the video stores, and they have revenue-sharing arrangements with some of the chains that let them make more on discs that rent heavily.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Still, the extended edition was held back until November 12 - just in time for Christmas.

[/quote]

1) The extended edition took more time to put together. 2) It is not only "just before Christmas", it is also "just before the second film debuts in theaters." Fox is re-releasing The X-Men in a special edition right before the arrival of X-Men 2 for much the same reason. The DVD piggybacks on the press coverage and advertising for the sequel, and itself acts as advertising for the sequel (since it includes a trailer for the next film as well as the original.) This is just smart business.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
On Christmas morning, many folks will be sliding it into their DVD cabinet right next to the one they bought in August.

[/quote]

Only the people who want both. And since the two editions were carefully designed not to have overlapping content, nobody's getting ripped off.

A few discs do have WS and P&S versions of different sides of the same disc. If there are a fair number of supplements this can be necessary because everything wouldn't fit in a dual-layered single side. (SS/DL discs have slightly less total capacity than DS/SL discs do.) Other films include both versions on one side. Still others have separate WS and P&S editions. It all depends on the whim of the studio and the requirements of each title. Some films place a relatively small number of supplements on a second disc just to keep up the picture and sound quality of the main disc. There is also a marketing consideration. People feel like they get "more value" when they have two physical discs when paying a premium price for a special edition than when they get just one - even when the contents are identical. This may not be rational, but then, whoever said human beings were rational. But Fox's VP of marketing once told me that they had rejected the idea of using dual-layered/dual-sided discs for packed special editions for a number of reasons, "perceived value" being one of them. They much prefer to offer 2-disc sets. (The fact that DS/DL discs actually cost more to make - due to a higher defect rate - than 2 SS/DL discs, and that they can't have silk-screened artwork were other factors.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[GKarsEye]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
And then there's the poor diehard collector, who will of course, have to buy all three - and anything else that comes down the line.

[/quote]

I'm sorry, but you will be hard pressed to get me to feel any pity for anyone who can afford to spend much dough to buy multiple copies of a movie just to have them all sitting on his shelf. There is simply no point to it.

The theatrical and extended versions of the movie are both available for the public to choose. How can this possibly be a bad thing?

Besides, and true movie fan will simply not buy a Pan & Scan release. I'm dying to watch and own Lost Highway, but the only DVD is P&S. No dice.

The extended version was not "held back," it simply takes longer to make a 4 disc set, put in new footage, make it sync up with the rest of the movie (music, editing, etc), do all those commentaries and interviews, etc.

Considering how erratic DVD releases are, I always laugh when people complain, of all things, about these DVDs. They are simply doing everything perfectly.