UFO DVDs

I just hope they release the DVDs in the USA. I also hope they let us
know they are here. Publish the date and let us know. Do not keep it a
secret and tell us where we can get them. Elaine


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>I just hope they release the DVDs in the USA

I think that's a pretty safe bet, as I've already received
an e-mail from folks working on the USA UFO DVD's looking
for extra materials. That's why I was asking about what
people would like to see as extra materials. Unfortunately,
saying that you want Straker & Ellis dolls isn't exactly
what I would call helpful feedback... :-/

I get the impression that actor/production people
commentaries & behind the scenes footage seem to be the top
priorities. A music-only track would also be nice, but
I doubt that A&E's going to want to go to the effort
to construct one, nor will they probably be able to
aquire the necessary permissions.

As for things like photo galleries, I've never personally
found these to be of much interest as a DVD extra feature.  
Has anyone else?

Marc

>I think that's a pretty safe bet, as I've already received
>an e-mail from folks working on the USA UFO DVD's looking
>for extra materials. That's why I was asking about what
>people would like to see as extra materials.

Oh that's so cool! Will you be providing cover photo's for them Marc? ; - )

One of the most disappointing things about the A&E Space 1999 DVD boxes
was the fact they ignored the series logo and used black and white
photos. UFO should have the proper logo, or font (Eurostyle something or
other...right?) and should have color photos. The pictures should have a
lot of the models I think from the show, some of the most eye catching
stuff and attention getting when on a shelf in a store. I like the look of
the R2 Space 1999 DVD's, they put an actors photo on each of the sleeves of
the disk jackets, perfect for an autograph at a convention! The Space 1999
boxes are very eye catching (Region 2 version) but maybe too much so. Look
here for pictures of what I'm talking about.
http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/merc/vmvdvduk.html

Unfortunately it doesn't show the box art for Year two but you get the idea
of what I'm talking about.

There was a lot of "discussion" about the quality of the prints used on the
transfers for Space 1999, I would hope A&E would use good quality prints
for UFO. Wasn't the show just redone for the BBC's recent broadcast?

As far as extras are concerned, the episodes themselves are the most
important thing. I'd like to see interviews, especially of Ed Bishop who
says many nice things about the show and then the rest. Also important are
interviews from Gerry and Sylvia. Would Gerry do one if Sylvia was on the
DVD's? Keith Wilson would be a good interview also as he has stated at
conventions that he designed the costumes for UFO not Sylvia!

No one has mentioned the Fanderson documentary, that would be a nice bonus
I think

>As for things like photo galleries, I've never personally
>found these to be of much interest as a DVD extra feature.
>Has anyone else?
>Marc

I've found the photos to be hard to see, the only ones of true interest are
behind the scenes photos for me but they always seem so small on my TV
screen. On the Year Two R2 Space 1999 disks they do a section on the
novels, the print about the books is very small and the pictures of the
books are also hard to see. Much better stuff available on the web if your
into it.

Oh, Some of the drawings and paintings by Bob Bell might be good i think
but not stills from the episodes. Do you think they'll spend any money on
the DVD menus? An animated interceptor rising out of the crater? That
might be cool to see!

>Will you be providing cover photo's for them Marc?

I suppose it's possible... after all, I did do that for the
Digital Entertainment PAL VHS releases from a few years ago
(with the help of Angelo Finamore, Paolo Malaguti, and Helen
Weber). And I own even more UFO photos now than I did
then!

>UFO should have the proper logo, or

I agree, but I think that A&E's consultant pushed for
the proper font on the Space:1999 DVD's, but for
some reason lost that battle. Unfortunately, I
haven't been that impressed with A&E's cover designs
for the Thunderbirds & Space:1999... :-/

>There was a lot of "discussion" about the quality of the prints used on
the
>transfers for Space 1999, I would hope A&E would use good quality prints
>for UFO. Wasn't the show just redone for the BBC's recent broadcast?

Yes, UFO was remastered in 1997 for the BBC 2 broadcasts, and
at the time people said how great it looked. But the rumblings
I've heard more recently is that those remasters are now
of unacceptable quality (?!), so they're remastering them
again! Of course, there's no reason to complain about this,
as that means that UFO will look better than anyone has
ever seen it before! And hopefully this will apply to
both the UK and USA releases.

>I'd like to see interviews, especially of Ed Bishop who
>says many nice things about the show and then the rest.  
>Also important are
>interviews from Gerry and Sylvia.  
>Would Gerry do one if Sylvia was on the
>DVD's?

I'd love to see some commentaries from various actors
& producers, but so far A&E hasn't done any commentary
tracks on their Thunderbirds, Space:1999, or Prisoner
DVDs... :-(

>No one has mentioned the Fanderson documentary

Yes, that would be excellent, although I wonder
if A&E will do that. Or Carlton, for that matter?

Also, that UFO music video from "Power Themes 90"
would also be nice... :-)

Marc

--- Marc wrote:
>
> As for things like photo galleries, I've never personally
> found these to be of much interest as a DVD extra feature.
> Has anyone else?

Neither have I.
At least not the kind of photo galleries I saw on so much DVDs: small
shots from the movie/episode(s) which do not fill the full screen and
which are sometimes presented distorted (!) (like in the american THE
AVENGERS sets). But it would be of interest if they use behind-the-
scenes pics in full screen.

Oh, yes! And the UFO documentary from Fanderson would be great,
but I understand that these docu could be for sale only to members of
Fanderson, because of copyright restrictions. Am I right?

And Marc: keep at it! :-)
I fear that I will buy the american DVDs also...

And please: not such covers in the style of Digital Entertainment!

Christian

--- Marc wrote:
>
> Also, that UFO music video from "Power Themes 90"
> would also be nice... :-)

I'd like to support that!

Christian

Marc,

That's great news that you're in contact with folks
working on the *US* release of UFO. Here are my
suggestions...

1) Interactive menus (ala the MGM James Bond DVD
releases); the little audio bites and drops going to
and from menu selections are nice.

2) Ed Bishop and Co. interview segments. I think that
commentary on episodes would be way, way too much.
Even if someone did commentary on ONE episode, that
would open up the genie bottle. I would prefer an
extensive interview with Bishop and/or any other
actors involved in the series, provided they were
available.

3) A "Story of UFO" segment; the documentary of how
the show came to being, development storyboards,
proposed characters. If such a documentary already
exists, it should be added to the material as a bonus
DVD.

4) Music-only track (if possible)

5) Behind the scene/making of photos and character
photo gallery.

6) An English translation of the Japanese booklet and
materials that are included with the LD box sets and
included as a "collectible booklet" inside the DVDs.

Thanks for reading.

JF

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At 02:35 PM 1/10/02 -0800, you wrote:
> >UFO should have the proper logo, or
>I agree, but I think that A&E's consultant pushed for
>the proper font on the Space:1999 DVD's, but for
>some reason lost that battle.

Which is crazy as one of the more memorable things about Space 1999
(Besides the Eagle and Barbara Bains hair) is the slanting logo. UFO had a
less memorable Logo but still..."Looks right" with it. The fact that A&E
overrode Scott Bosco is ridiculous. BTW is Scott working on UFO for A&E
also? I think I read that somewhere on Online Alpha but i don't remember.

> Unfortunately, I
>haven't been that impressed with A&E's cover designs
>for the Thunderbirds & Space:1999... :-/

I didn't think too much about the cover design for Thunderbirds but I do
remember years ago on FAB-UFO the greatest thing in the world was watching
UFO on the Sci Fi channel! And now here we are preparing for the DVD
release! In our own DVD region no less! Sometimes I have to pinch myself
to really believe it's coming out! Amazing. Weren't we all trading tapes
a few years ago or listening to audio tapes of episodes!

>Yes, UFO was remastered in 1997 for the BBC 2 broadcasts, and
>at the time people said how great it looked. But the rumblings
>I've heard more recently is that those remasters are now
>of unacceptable quality (?!), so they're remastering them
>again!

I must be too much of a nitwit to understand all the remastering stuff,
especially in light of the Space 1999 stuff, but if they redo UFO BEFORE
the release (For a change) it's possible we'll avoid all the hassle we've
had on the recent DVD releases of 1999.

> Of course, there's no reason to complain about this,
>as that means that UFO will look better than anyone has
>ever seen it before! And hopefully this will apply to
>both the UK and USA releases.


>I'd love to see some commentaries from various actors
>& producers, but so far A&E hasn't done any commentary
>tracks on their Thunderbirds, Space:1999, or Prisoner
>DVDs... :-(

Did you get the R2 DVD's for Space 1999 Year two Marc? There are some
pretty good extra's on the Region 2 disks and the menus are cooler. But
the US R1 version of those isn't out yet so we have nothing to compare it to.

>Yes, that would be excellent, although I wonder
>if A&E will do that. Or Carlton, for that matter?

Yeah, I don't think there would be a copywrite problem with the documentary
since Carton owns the material now, doesn't it? Just a matter of paying
Kindred for it.

>Also, that UFO music video from "Power Themes 90"
>would also be nice... :-)


I was very happy with the DVD for Star Trek The Motion Picture, did anyone
here get that disk? I thought the extra's on that (The Directors Cut) are
a great example of what a DVD could and should be. Especially with the
commentary by Robert Wise, Doug Trumble (SP?) and Jerry Goldsmith. The
documentaries on disk two are also good but didn't go far enough into the
history of the project. But the movie looks great and a lot of the flaws
are gone. The story is still pretty thin but the fixing on the DVD takes
away a bit from those flaws.

>The fact that A&E overrode Scott Bosco is ridiculous.  

Yeah, it's kind of silly -- you hire a consultant,
and then ignore them! I suspect we'll see this
with the UFO DVDs as well... the folks on this list
know far more about what should be on these discs
than A&E does, so we probably should just
be happy that the episodes are coming out at all!  
(which is, I think, amazing, since all 26 episodes never
came out on VHS or Laserdisc in the USA)

>BTW is Scott working on UFO for A&E also?  

Yes, Scott is working on all the A&E Gerry Anderson
titles.

>Did you get the R2 DVD's for Space 1999 Year two Marc? There are some


No, unfortunately there are only a handful of Space:1999
Year Two episodes that I can even tolerate, so I'll
just settle with listening to the soundtrack CD... :-)

Marc

> Oh, yes! And the UFO documentary from Fanderson would be great,
>but I understand that these docu could be for sale only to members of
>Fanderson, because of copyright restrictions. Am I right?

As I recall, the Fanderson UFO Documentary was shown on
British television several years ago (on the UK cable
channel "Bravo"). So I'm sure if A&E wanted to put it
on the DVD, they could pay for the rights to do it.

>And please: not such covers in the style of Digital Entertainment!

Am I the only one who *liked* the Digital Entertainment
covers?! Certainly they are much better than any
of the A&E Gerry Anderson DVD covers I've seen!!!

Marc

At 03:57 PM 1/10/02 -0800, you wrote:
>No, unfortunately there are only a handful of Space:1999
>Year Two episodes that I can even tolerate, so I'll
>just settle with listening to the soundtrack CD... :-)
>
>Marc


Oh! Let me guess! Beta Cloud, Rules of Luton and One Moment of
Humanity? : - )

Sorry to go OT but I couldn't resist!

The extra's are cool on the Y2 R2 1999 disks though.

Marc Martin wrote:

> >I just hope they release the DVDs in the USA
>
> I think that's a pretty safe bet, as I've already received
> an e-mail from folks working on the USA UFO DVD's looking
> for extra materials. That's why I was asking about what
> people would like to see as extra materials. Unfortunately,
> saying that you want Straker & Ellis dolls isn't exactly
> what I would call helpful feedback... :-/

<smirk>

> I get the impression that actor/production people
> commentaries & behind the scenes footage seem to be the top
> priorities. A music-only track would also be nice, but
> I doubt that A&E's going to want to go to the effort
> to construct one, nor will they probably be able to
> aquire the necessary permissions.

Yeah, commentary and behind the scenes sounds good to me.

> As for things like photo galleries, I've never personally
> found these to be of much interest as a DVD extra feature.
> Has anyone else?

What is this exactly? I have very limited experience with DVDs.

-- Y

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What is this exactly? I have very limited experience with DVDs.

Photo galleries are exactly what they sound like -- a collection
of still photos that you can "step" through using your DVD
player's remote control. Unfortunately, these have been
very poorly executed on the Thunderbirds & Space:1999 DVD's
put out by A&E, because:

* many photos look like they're just scenes from
the show (in other words... nothing new)

* typically, the photos are overexposed, or fuzzy
(not nearly as nice as something you'd expect
from a website)

* usually, the photos don't even take up the whole
screen area, so they don't even take advantage
of the maximum resolution of the TV screen!

Now, I *have* seen DVDs & laserdiscs do photo galleries
correctly (behind the scenes photos, well exposed, taking
up the whole screen), but not on the A&E discs... :-/

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]

Marc Martin wrote:

Oh, bummer. Thanks for the info!

-- Y

--
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Yuchtar zantai-Klaan | [hidden email]
I am not a number! I am a FREE FAN!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"An apple a day keeps the, uh ....
No, never mind."
-- Doctor Who
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
http://yuchtar.users4.50megs.com/
http://nunzie.users2.50megs.com/

> Am I the only one who *liked* the Digital Entertainment
> covers?! Certainly they are much better than any
> of the A&E Gerry Anderson DVD covers I've seen!!!
>

No, I liked them as well - nice clean design and very striking
with the red covers. Although to be fair the episode synopses
they printed on the covers left a bit to be desired .. but
weren't nearly as bad as the text on the Polygram covers.

(just for interest) this is part of the text on the Polygram
synopsis for 'The Dalotek Affair', absolutely verbatim:


When communications between Dalotek and the earth
mysteriously break doun, commander straner insists
a immediate investigation into Dalatek's affars

Phil Merkel wrote:

> I must be too much of a nitwit to understand all the
> remastering stuff, especially in light of the Space 1999
> stuff, but if they redo UFO BEFORE the release (For a change)
> it's possible we'll avoid all the hassle we've had on the
> recent DVD releases of 1999.
>
>

Someone (Marc?) posted a few months ago that work on remastering
UFO had begun and the results were reported as being very good.
But I can't remember whether it was being done by BBC Resources
or some French company .. can anyone remind me?

James

www.play247.com now have both UFO boxsets listed.


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--- Gareth Bevan wrote:
>
> www.play247.com now have both UFO boxsets listed.

And www.amazon.co.uk has the first two volumes at 14.99 pounds.
But even better - Marc: www.blackstar.co.uk has the box set at 40.69
pounds (no T-shirt offer so far :-)

Christian

--- Marc wrote:
>
> As I recall, the Fanderson UFO Documentary was shown on
> British television several years ago (on the UK cable
> channel "Bravo"). So I'm sure if A&E wanted to put it
> on the DVD, they could pay for the rights to do it.

Thanks, Marc.
I didn't know that. I hope someone WILL bring it out on DVD!

Christian

How much is postage at Amazon?



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