Posted by Marc Martin on
URL: https://www.shado-forum.com/UK-UFO-DVD-s-Officially-Announced-tp1494380p1494401.html

>Do you know why A&E is skimping out on the extras? The Thunderbirds stuff
>from the UK sets is great, and I was very disappointed they were left out on
>the US sets. I've also heard the transfers are better in the UK.
>Compromises on either of these seems very odd since the masters have already
>been produced by Carlton. They probably had to spend money to remove the
>information on the A&E boxes, which is the biggest mystery to me.
>Anyone know more about this, and A&E's logic?

It *does* seem odd that the UK and USA DVDs are so different from
each other for the Anderson titles. After all, I'd think that in a
perfect world, they'd be identical. However, it's not a perfect
world, and there are different staffs working at Carlton Video and
A&E, and they have their own opinions about how to do things, and as
a result, the final products are different. You need to remember
that Carlton Video and A&E are both licensees of titles owned by
Carlton International, and each company is on it's own to come up
with extras, cover art, etc. Carlton International merely supplies
the episodes to Carlton Video and A&E.

I think A&E truly believes that people in the USA don't care about
most of these sorts of extras, or that the TV series are too obscure
to justify the cost of obtain extra materials. Also, in the past,
the working relationship between A&E and Carlton Video has not been
good, so there is no cooperation among the companies.

Whatever the reason, I don't think things are going to be different
for UFO than they were for Thunderbirds & Space:1999, so the hardcore
UFO fan in America will probably end up buying both sets -- the UK
set for the extras, and the USA set for the best picture quality on
American TV sets -- and the correct running speed (episode length 50
minutes instead of 48)

Perhaps it's a good time to to start e-mailing A&E to complain about
the inequality of extras on Thunderbirds & Space:1999 between the UK
and USA releases, which may encourage them to do something about it
before UFO comes out?

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]

P.S. On the flip side, A&E rejected the masters of Space:1999 Year
Two episodes that Carlton Video has already released in the UK, so
they were remastered solely for the A&E release!