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New info on Crusade DVDs

Any idea when this set is coming out, and if JMS and WB agreed it was OK for for JMS to tell "The whole story of what TNT did to Crusade"
 
No release date yet, but JMS did say that he has recorded commentary tracks for the Crusade release, so Warner Bros. evidently backed down.

Regards,

Joe
 
Hooray! I haven't yet seen every episode of Crusade, so being able to get them in a set with jms's contribution is going to make it a nice purchase.
 
Is there any chance the Crusade DVD's will come out before Christmas?
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We know the commentary tracks and interviews are done, so I'd say there's no physical reason Warner Home Video couldn't get the Crusade set out by Christmas, and that's pretty much what I expect them to do, to wrap up the B5 DVD release this year and have all tha product out there and available to help build an audience (and anticipation) as they tease TMoS. For the same reason I have a feeling we'll see the Rangers movie relased either at the same time or shortly thereafter - somewhere in the November/December timeframe. (At least in the U.S. Their divisions in other countries may have their own production and marketing considerations to deal with, as is often the case.) If I'm right, we'll get an official announcement and a releae date sometime in September, or early October at the latest.

Regards,

Joe
 
Anyone know will it be widescreen or 4:3 ratio?

I hope it will be original 4:3 because Crusade is full of composite cgi images that would require cutting if transfered to widesceen.
 
Anyone know will it be widescreen or 4:3 ratio?
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Interesting question. I think the answer is, "Nobody knows."

For all the carping about the imperfect composite shots, I hope everybody realizes that we wouldn't have the B5 DVDs at all if The Sci-Fi Channel hadn't had demanded new widescreen transfers as part of its deal to air the show. They felt they needed something "new" to offer viewers since the show had aired a number of times on TNT, and because the rival network was running it six days a week (and twice on a couple of Saturdays) to get in one more complete run before SFC took the show over. (TNT aired "SiL" on a Saturday morning. SFC started airing the series the following Monday.) WB was being bombarded with requests for the series on DVD, but most of them insisted on full season sets in widescreen. (Fans having no idea of the problems anamorphic widescreen processing would entail.) Warner Home Video didn't want to pay to upfront to remaster 22 episodes in widescreen and produce the DVDs when they were still unsure of the show's appeal. But they also didn't want to produce a 4:3 only set that fans would ignore - which many of us would have because we had every reason to believe that a pristine widescreen edition was possible.

The SFC deal got Warner Home Video new widescreen masters for free. (I don't know if Warner Bros. Domestic Television or The Sci-Fi Channel itself paid for the new transfers. Either way the money didn't come out of Warner Home Video's budget, and that's all they cared about.) That's why they were willing to go forward with the first test disc and ultimately take a chance on the first season. Without the widescreen version, for all its faults, we wouldn't have B5 on DVD period and we certainly wouldn't be discussing the details of a Crusade release.

When it came to the 13 episodes of Crusade somebody balked at spending the money to create widescreen masters. It wasn't going to be an on-going "stripped" series like B5 and didn't have the same potential for return on investment. Whoever paid for the widescreen B5 didn't see the need to do the same for the sequel. In answer to a fan question at the time, either SFC or JMS said that the initial run of Crusade would be 4:3 and that they would revisit the widescreen issue later. Evidently they never did.

I know that at some point JMS and I had an exchange (and it may have been via private e-mail or in some other venue not archived by JMS News about the possibility of rendering the CGI in Super35 format, if not in "pure widescreen" for Crusade and future projects - something that had not been possible when they started production on B5:

We did not have the tech, at that time, to do our comps in widescreen super35 versions. The software that we used to dump the footage into couldn't handle it. So we had no choice but to render the CGI and the comps in standard ratio.
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I don't know if this later post points an attempt to do so:

We have, from the beginning, been shooting in widescreen and doing a complex audio mix and delivering conformed negatives for the purpose of working in the HDTV mode. We plan to do more in terms of digital delivery and 5-1 audio sound for Crusade, among some other tricks we're planning.
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If it does, a widescreen Crusade might not have the same problem with composite shots that B5 exhibited. If not, then the comp shots would be the same.

Another factor in the B5 DVD release is that by the time it started, Sci-Fi was airing the show in widescreen and advertising it as "the way it was meant to be seen". Doing a 4:3 DVD release would have seemed like a step backwards to the many new fans who were discovering the series on Sci-Fi and for whom the widescreen edition was the only one they'd ever seen. (Those of us who got hooked on the series in its initial release should realize that we are probably now a minority of the show's fans.)

Crusade has never aired in widescreen and there has never been a compelling reason for Warner Bros. Domestic Television or any network or cable channel to pay for new transfers. Warner Home Video would certainly be reluctant to spend its own money to create such transfers absent clear evidence that they'd gain enough in extra sales to cover the costs and return a profit. OTOH, WBDT may at this point think that Crusade can command a higher asking price when it is offered again in syndication (as a tie-in to the release of TMoS or in conjunction with a spin-off project) if it is widescreen, and therefore be willing to pay for or at least contribute to the cost of new widescreen transfers.

If Sci-Fi had broadcast Crusade in widescreen this would be a no-brainer. But the fact that they didn't means the decision will come down to money. If some Warner entity or combination of entities sees a good business reason for creating new widescreen masters than the DVDs will be widescreen. If not, not.

We'll just have to wait for the official announcement. Right now I'd say the odds are 70/30 in favor of a 4:3 release, but that's just my completely unscientific WAG.

Regards,

Joe
 
Does anyone know what formats were used to make the PAL version of Crusade? Not just the VHS cassettes but the version transmitted on terrestrial and satellite TV.
 
As far as I know the only video masters ever made from the original film elements and CGI were done at 4:3. That includes all broadcast masters, both NTSC and PAL. I'm not aware that any widescreen version of Crusade was ever produced anywhere. By the time the show was sold in PAL countries it was already a dead letter, long since out of production. I can't see anyone spending the money under those circumstances to produce a widescreen version from scratch solely for the European market. There simply wouldn't have been any economic incentive to do something like that, as there was for B5.

Regards,

Joe
 
As far as I know the only video masters ever made from the original film elements and CGI were done at 4:3. That includes all broadcast masters, both NTSC and PAL. I'm not aware that any widescreen version of Crusade was ever produced anywhere. By the time the show was sold in PAL countries it was already a dead letter, long since out of production. I can't see anyone spending the money under those circumstances to produce a widescreen version from scratch solely for the European market. There simply wouldn't have been any economic incentive to do something like that, as there was for B5.
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[Kosh Naranek] "Good." [/Kosh Naranek] :D
 
Unless I am mistaken, my official WHV PAL videos of Crusade are in widescreen - not sure on the aspect ratio as it does not specify on the box, but I can take a picture of my TV if you want :p
 
And that's why I said, "As far as I know..." :) I had not heard of any widescreen broadcast or home video release of Crusade in the U.K., but since I don't live there, I knew it was possible I had missed something. Funny that Crusade got a widescreen VHS release when B5 (excluding the TV movies) didn't.

Regards,

Joe
 
Babylon 5 was filmed in Widescreen but the CGI was not. It was therefore released to the TV companies in narrow screen. I do not know what size was used for the Crusade CGI but the computers were faster by 1998.
 
I have never seen the WS VHS tapes, I even had the set and put it on ebay last month and got £30 for it which is what I paid for it over two years ago, but in all that time when buying and selling I never came across a WS set. Are you sure about this?
 
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