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Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

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Marc Martin

Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

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Hi all,

There's been rumors floating around for the past week regarding ANOTHER UFO Blu-ray release... this time in Australia. I have yet to get official confirmation, but unofficially this may be out around the March - May 2017, and released by MadMan Entertainment. I've sent a message to MadMan asking about this, so maybe they will respond.

Marc

Marc Martin

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

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And of course, this may be an opportunity to get problems with the current Blu-rays fixed. I think we know what all the problems are with the Japan/German releases, but I'm not sure if we've identified all the problems with the UK release as of yet. At least, I know that I haven't watched all 26 episodes yet.

Marc

Branko

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

And I won't be watching them. I started watching the series a few weeks ago, but I am using Japanese set, not UK one. Tried, but it's just a torture so I gave up...

Branko

On 19.12.2016., at 21:02, "Marc Martin [via SHADO]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

And of course, this may be an opportunity to get problems with the current Blu-rays fixed. I think we know what all the problems are with the Japan/German releases, but I'm not sure if we've identified all the problems with the UK release as of yet. At least, I know that I haven't watched all 26 episodes yet.

Marc

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Marc Martin

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

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On December 19, "Branko [via SHADO]" <[hidden email]> wrote:
> And I won't be watching them. I started watching the series a few weeks ago, but I am
> using Japanese set, not UK one. Tried, but it's just a torture so I gave up...

Yes, I find the UK Blu-rays to also be poor compared to the previous Blu-rays, but I am going
through them all... I've probably seen almost half of them now.

I suspect that the Australian set will use the UK remasters, although who knows... maybe
they'll use the Japanese masters and fix the few errors in them.

Marc

Marc Martin

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

Administrator

MadMan customer service seems to have no knowledge of a UFO Blu-ray release. Here is a reply I just received:

"I'm not sure how that particular title made its way to the DVDLand
website, but we've currently got no concrete plans for a Blu-Ray
release of the UFO TV series."

Marc

Marc Martin

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

Administrator

Okay, after MadMan's customer service consulted with their TV department, they replied with this:

"So the word from our TV team is that we're currently in the midst of contract negotiations regarding the video assets, so we're unable to confirm our release at this time. "

Marc Martin

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

Administrator

Also, after some more research, it appears that MadMan might be getting out of the "retro TV" genre, so it might be possible that UFO won't be released at all. This might have been "in the works" at one point, but after a change in focus, it may end up being cancelled, or not as impressive as we might expect given their past UFO DVD release.

We'll have to wait for an official announcement.

Clare Cross

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

This post was updated on .

Do we really need yet another UFO DVD or Blu-ray release? Unless the company responsible is going to go back to the original negatives and start a restoration 'from ground up' can it ever be any better than what is available already?

As far as special features go; the Fanderson documentary and the new one from Anderson Ents. more or less feature everyone from the series telling just about every story we could ever wish to, or hope to, hear. At this late stage could these be improved upon? It's easy to say 'yes' - the world is full of 'armchair experts' - but there is a real limit to what these guys actually remember about a job from 47 years ago. Gabrielle Drake was invited to take part in the recent Network documentary but declined, as did Steven Berkoff and one or two others, on the grounds that they just couldn't remember enough about it. The story of UFO has been documented now so many times that there really is very little that is likely to come to light beyond that which is already out there. Admittedly an archive interview with Michael Billington would be nice, but does such a thing exist?

Personally, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for another release, and certainly not one that improves upon what we already have.

I shall be looking forward to opening Chris Bentley's book on Christmas Day AND watching some more of the Network Blu-ray. And that, for me anyway, is enough.

Merry Christmas one and all.

Marc Martin

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

Administrator

A lot of people in the USA have complained that they'll never be able to watch the Network Blu-ray because of its region encoding. So yes, some people probably do need another Blu-ray release. I imagine at some point there will be releases in the USA, Italy, and Australia, as there was for the DVDs.

And yes, the image quality could have been improved upon in ways that were not done for the Network release. At this point though, I doubt it will happen. Although that Australian company did do extensive improvements to Buck Rogers, based the scans provided to them, so who knows.

As for special features, mostly I see complaints that existing commentary tracks were omitted from this new release, or the Fanderson documentary was omitted, so really the only thing that needs to be done to make those people happy is to include all the extras from the Australian UFO DVDs.

From my perspective, one could always come up with new extras... script PDFs, music-only tracks, additional ISOSHADO video interviews, other commentary tracks that have been recorded at past conventions, etc. However the real shortcoming for me is the less-than-perfect image quality on every Blu-ray release, due to nobody wanting to fund a proper restoration. Not even Network...

Marc

Branko

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

In reply to this post by Clare Cross

What we need (and really need) is a decent Blu-ray release, from which this Network release is far removed, unfortunately. Doing a new one, but not properly-from the original negatives, makes no sense at all, as does this Network's, which is, actually, way worse then Japanese, (disappointing in itself)... Network's Blu-rays are so bad, I can't watch them anymore, and am watching Japanese instead.

Branko

On 23.12.2016., at 14:19, "Clare Cross [via SHADO]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Go we really need yet another UFO DVD or Blu-ray release? Unless the company responsible is going to go back to the original negatives and start a restoration 'from ground up' can it ever be any better than what is available already?

As far as special features go; the Fanderson documentary and the new one from Anderson Ents. more or less feature everyone from the series telling just about every story we could ever wish to, or hope to, hear. At this late stage could these be improved upon? It's easy to say 'yes' - the world is full of 'armchair experts' - but there is a real limit to what these guys actually remember about a job from 47 years ago. Gabrielle Drake was invited to take part in the recent Network documentary but declined, as did Steven Berkoff and one or two others, on the grounds that they just couldn't remember enough about it. The story of UFO has been documented now so many times that there really is very little that is likely to come to light beyond that which is already out there. Admittedly an archive interview with Michael Billington would be nice, but does such a thing exist?

Personally, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for another release, and certainly not one that improves upon what we already have.

I shall be looking forward to opening Chris Bentley's book on Christmas Day AND watching some more of the Network Blu-ray. And that, for me anyway, is enough.

Merry Christmas one and all.

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Clare Cross

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

Fair enough. But from what I can gather, a superior version is unlikely to be forthcoming from Madman.

Sooner or later all forms if physical release will be obsolete and so maybe it'll be remastered again when that time comes and the ultimate version will be delivered to our digital devices at the touch of a screen.

Until then, I rather suspect that we've seen the best (and maybe last) UFO release for a while...

Branko

Re: Autralian UFO Blu-ray release

I am also pessimistic. And that best UFO release is not the last one, but penultimate, the Japanese one.

Branko

On 24.12.2016., at 12:54, "Clare Cross [via SHADO]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Fair enough. But from what I can gather, a superior version is unlikely to be forthcoming from Madman.

Sooner or later all forms if physical release will be obsolete and so maybe it'll be remastered again when that time comes and the ultimate version will be delivered to our digital devices at the touch of a screen.

Until then, I rather suspect that we've seen the best (and maybe last) UFO release for a while...

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