Hi All,
Since A&E now owns the video distribution rights in the USA
for "UFO" and the rest of the Gerry Anderson series, I was
quite interested to see what the new A&E "Prisoner" DVDs
looked like, even though I was planning on putting them
on my Christmas wish list. So, as a compromise, I just
bought the first set and kept the 2nd on my wish list. :-)
After spending a little time with this first set, I'd
say the Anderson series are in good hands. The picture quality
is stunning -- better than the UFO Japanese laserdiscs.
The audio quality is very good, and *much* better than
the UFO Japanese laserdiscs. The audio soundtrack
is in it's original mono form, with no annoying
stereo processing. The extra's are mildly interesting
-- on the first disc, the main extra is an alternate
version of an entire episode! (The Chimes of Big Ben).
It also includes the commercials that were originally
used for each episode ("coming next week!"), which
I'd never seen before, plus the some footage shot
for foreign language versions of the series.
It's interesting that there was significant fan involvement
in putting together this release -- the head of the
USA chapter of the Prisoner fan club was involved with
the DVD extras and the liner notes, so they're spiced
up with trivia, quotes, publicity & behind the scenes
photos, and debates about the proper episode order.
A nice touch.
As for the drawbacks? I hear on the Internet some
complaints about the audio on set 2, which I haven't
seen. Apparently, both the VHS and DVD versions of
set 2 have some sort of metallic quality to them,
but I'm not sure what caused that, or how annoying
it is. Also, I found the "publicity photo" section
of the DVD extras a bit dissapointing, as these
photos only take up about a quarter of the available
screen, so the resolution is nowhere near what you
can see from scans on the Internet or 8x10" photos.
Also, I think the fact that the front cover design
for volumes 1 and 2 (set 1 consists of volumes 1 and 2,
each with their own case) are so similiar is
unfortunate, as I prefer the method employed by the
Digital Entertainment UFO releases, in which every
cover is completely different, thereby maximizing
the number of photos used on the covers.
But overall, I still think that "UFO" is in good
hands here in America... now we just have to
hope that A&E actually releases it, and the
demand is high enough for initial release so
that A&E will continue to release the rest of
the series. I predict that Thunderbirds will
sell very poorly in the USA, and A&E won't
release anything past the initial sets...
--
Marc Martin,
[hidden email]
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