Star Trek TOS DVD Box Sets Forthcoming 304
bluethundr writes "According to Trek Today: the diabolical Trek 'powers that be' have come up with yet another way to separate the hapless trekkie from his hard earned cash. The Original Series is being re-released as a Box Set. Reportedly, the sets should feature enough extras to make (they hope) the die-hard pony-up against their better judgement. They have an image of the box set on the R2 Project. One interesting aspect of this release is that the Region 2 release will package all original season eps in order of original air-date! One also has to wonder why in the world they are still refusing to offer the The Animated Series on DVD, forcing one to buy the bootlegs if you want to get your hands on a copy. VHS only, as far as official release goes. TAS featured most of the original cast, many of the original writers. What's more, is that one episode was penned by another author you may have heard of in which he mingled concepts of his own distinct mythology with that of trek-lore." Update: 05/06 14:54 GMT by S : Phrase by original submitter removed - apologies, I was completely unaware of etymology.
Re:Regions... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Regions... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Regions... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Your TV is multisystem and correctly handles the PAL signal. AFAIK, you are in the minority
2. Your DVD handles the conversion from PAL to NTSC and what you see on your TV is a converted signal.
From conversations with American friends, I believe you have succeeded with a fluke where others have spent lots to have acceptable results.
You ripped yourself off, bub (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Regions... (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the explanation of multi-region DVD players from amazon.co.uk [amazon.co.uk]
Re:Wow, I really must be showing my youth... (Score:3, Informative)
Here is the imdb entry [imdb.com]
Re:Who was that weird orange alien in TAS? (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, TAS is available on bittorrent. Get the
For those of you unware (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solly Cholly??? (Score:5, Informative)
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Solly+Cholly
Re:Regions... (Score:3, Informative)
I live in Finland, which is a PAL country. These days I have a new multinorm widescreen TV.
However, before that, all I had was an old 21" 4:3 tube that had never heard of NTSC. Yet I could easily play R1/NTSC DVDs - without conversions.
How? Component signal format. The TV also accepted RGB (In the US, YPbPr is more common). PAL and NTSC color codings are both ways to transmit color information. If I use RGB, the information is in "raw" format that the TV understands anyway.
Only requirement is that the TV can sync to both 50 and 60 Hz signals. This is very common and not advertised too often - even old tubes from the 60's could do it.
Use component format whenever you can. The picture quality increases tremendously compared to composite (S-Video is a compromise, and you still need to worry about PAL/NTSC). this does not only apply to DVD players, but also game consoles and whatever else you are connecting to TV.
Re:Regions... (Score:3, Informative)
Both my U.S.-purchased DVD players can be region-modded and can play PAL DVDs with NTSC output, and I paid $170 and $80 for them a year or more ago. It's not a fluke, it's smart shopping, although the DVD-CCA nazis may be making it harder these days.
Re:Who was that weird orange alien in TAS? (Score:2, Informative)
"Mingled concepts"? Worse than that (Score:5, Informative)
I actually argued about this with someone online once. He brought up Kzinti in a Trek context, based on that episode. I said they had no place in the Trek universe. But he insisted that since it was in TAS, it was canon.
OK, call me a fanboy, but this isn't a troll. I'm glad to see somebody else remembers this, anyway.
TAS was published on LD (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, I have the discs. No, I don't have a working LD player at the moment. Is anybody even making new ones anymore?
The distinction of the animated series that amuses me most is the appearance in six episodes of Lieutenant M'Ress serving as the communications officer.
Animated STAR TREK - Lt. M'Ress [danhausertrek.com]
A Google search will show that M'Ress is remembered surprisingly well among fans, for such an obscure character after such a long time passed without ever being seen again.
Re:Wow, I really must be showing my youth... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not too surprising you don't remember it, I was a kid when it was airing, and I never saw it. From what I've gathered over the years it didn't see really wide-spread distribution viewing-area-wise. I found out about it first in the 90's myself. You can find it online in newsgroups, on torrent sites and P2P. If you like Star Trek I'd recommend you hunt down an episode or two to watch to see what you think about it.
Re:Go the Animated Series (Score:3, Informative)
In Japan however, it is common practice to have all the voice actors in the scene in the same room at the same time. You can see them sometimes in extra clips in the recording room, cracking jokes with each other. Some of them become pretty good friends (or at least they seem to become good friends).
Arex (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Solly Cholly??? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For those of you unware (Score:2, Informative)
Check out the "Timeline" and "Episodes" sections.
Re:Go the Animated Series (Score:3, Informative)
Did you get this from Mr. Takei's interview or did you hear it somewhere else? I ask because according to the Animated Star Trek FAQ [danhausertrek.com]:
Re:Region 2 only? (Score:2, Informative)
The Digital Bits reported last October:
"Okay, folks... this was going around the Net yesterday as something in the works for Region 2, so I thought we'd get the skinny for you about Region 1. I've officially confirmed with Paramount that complete season box sets of Star Trek: The Original Series are in the planning stages for DVD release here in the States. However, you probably shouldn't expect them until after most of the work on the Star Trek: Voyager complete season DVDs is finished. Voyager is expected to be released, a season at a time, throughout 2004. I'm told that late 2004 is a possibility for TOS, but they might not be released until 2005. This is definitely going to happen, but it's early in the planning and plenty is still up in the air. So don't start warming up those phasers just yet."
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa79.htm
Re:Regions... (Score:3, Informative)
Easier said than done. One of the things that happens when a movie is released nation wide is that the movie company has to make several thousand copies of the movie on film. That is an expensive and time consuming process. It is also one of the reasons that movies releases are often staggered. The actual film copy is reused from one region to another for later releases.
Small or independant films don't even release nationwide. They make fewer copies of film and move them around to show them.
This is one of the reasons Lucas is pushing so hard to make digital releases: Low reproduction cost, and easier distribution. As richer cinema companies upgrade their projection systems, more movies can be distributed digitally. But its slow and expensive to replace thousands of projectors around the world. Many (most) can't afford it now or anytime soon. We'll be dealing with the expense and logistics of film stock for a while yet.