E-Z-B

Yeah, I know it was $15 per season in the past at a couple locations, but for those who did a blind buy for Battlestar Galactica might enjoy this.

http://www.amazon.com/Babylon-5-Comp...0007056&sr=8-1

critterdvd

Just a heads up I've read a couple times that Warner Brothers might be prepping a real complete series release in the near future...

temp81830

Unless complete means redone CGI, I'll probably pass. I picked up all five seasons from Sam's Club a week ago for $19.88 each. Once the movies set arrives in the mail, I'll be all set. Although I'm interested in seeing what they would do with it.

golden_rod

In case anyone's interested, the region 2 set is much cheaper on Amazon.uk. It also has all the TV movies, the spin-off Crusade, and the recent direct-to-DVD movie included with the complete series. It's a pretty great set.

conehead433

I was able to pick up the movie box set at Big Lots recently for $6. I would have to agree that the Amazon.uk deal has been a much better deal on an expanded set if you have a player that is region free. For those not familiar with the series it starts out a little slow in the first season, but by the third and fourth seasons the story arc was one of the best sci-fi stories ever to appear on television.

temp81830

I tried so hard to get it at Big Lots, but couldn't find one in my area... Ended up getting one from eBay for 23 shipped. I hate the packaging soooo much.. I'm gonna get some slim cases (5 of them) and put each disc in those instead of the inner part of the packaging. Print a cover for each and it will be much nicer.

davidh777

Would "complete" include all the movies and Crusade (guessing not the latter at least)? That would be cool in space-station packaging.

E-Z-B

Where did you read this?

tena73

If it's ever revamped for Blu-ray, I'm all over it.

temp81830

I'm hoping Blu-ray is the thing that makes Warner Bros redo the CGI as to actually get a proper transfer. If they did that, I would definitely buy it. I don't even have a Blu-ray player yet, but I'd definitely get that too just to see Babylon 5 how it should have been like.

Here's hoping.

critterdvd

I'm trying to find the source during my freetime at work today. All I remember is that it was a mention about 2-3 months ago. I just searched through the forum's here, HTF and TVShows-on-DVD. I'm going to search Entertainment Weekly, Variety and sci-fiwire later... I can't of where else I would have read it.




Wouldn't redoing the CGI cost an incredibly amount of money considering its 110 episodes worth of effects (not to mention the movies and spin-off)?

temp81830

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what the cost would be like. They do have some of updated models from the Lost Tales DVD, so it would be a matter of creating the rest and framing them correctly. Rendering wouldn't be too bad.

Not sure how affected the movies and spin off are, having seen them in a while, but 110 episodes could be a lot, but I know after seeing the Lost Tales, the CGI just looks so much better (some of it is newer technology, but also it looks sharper because of the transfer).

It's not like they haven't made some serious money of the DVDs, and I assume they would make a lot of money of redoing it as well. Oh well, probably won't happen.

noworries81

I'd probably hate it if they'd replace the CGI. It just wouldn't feel right, knowing how the episodes had looked before. I don't think they'll do that, though. To me it seems like an awful lot of work and not worth it, since I think many fans would be upset about it.

temp81830

I don't mean change much, just make it HD. The current transfers are the worst possible. The CGI now is 4:3, so they enlarged it to fit the whole 16:9 area, then cropped out the top and bottom portions. So it just looks bad on the DVDs. They would have to redo the CGI to clean it up, and that's all I mean. They wouldn't be changing much, it would just look more detailed (not necessarily the models), and ready for Blu-ray.

noworries81

Oh, right. I'm all for it, then.

bsmith

I remember reading about this before. The goal apparently was to take the existing CGI models and re-render them for the 16x9 format (would also work for HD). Unfortunately, the models were lost so they decided to just take what was already available and just stretch them. Rendering the models again I assume wouldn't have been too costly, but to recreate the models would require a big payoff in that end this series probably wouldn't generate like Star Trek.

I don't know why they just didn't leave them as 4x3, it would have been the better solution in my opinion. I bought these sets in one of the sales recently but haven't gotten around to watching yet.

temp81830

I think they were released as 16x9 because they were filmed with that in mind. I can see why they didn't recreate the CGI when the DVDs were first released, but now, I know they have made some money, and with HD stuff finally here, I know they will sell well again if they made it HD friendly.

Now that I thought about it, the most time consuming part would be framing the new CGI. Creating the models (some which are already created with Lost Tales) isn't too bad as they reuse a lot of the models. Especially with today's technology and what can be done with games, models shouldn't be too bad. Also, it's not like Babylon 5 had a large budget anyway.

Basically, it's just Warner Bros not giving the series the love it needs. It was that way when the series was running, it was that way with the Lost Tales (and why there are no more currently), that's why there is no movie, and that's why the DVDs were as poorly transferred as they are (not too poor to enjoy again though. I plan on it now that I have the movies).

Oh well, if they someday do what is necessary for HD, I will be pleasantly surprised.

greymatter

Ordered it today, should be here by friday.