FaustBos

Has anyone purchased or otherwise seen the updated box set of Season One of Space 1999? I understand its been newly remastered and cleaned up. The source materials I understand were film quality. The original release had some ups and downs, though still looked stunning.

I'm quite interested in the upgrade.

I believe this is the release: http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=s...2&title=705154

Its only available in Zone 2. And I understand only Season 1 will get a remaster (though ya never know)

Sid Yobbo

Yes, I got this last week. Basically it's an outstanding release. The episodes have been remastered and restored in HD and then gone through frame by frame in an effort to electronically paint out any remaining print damage. The colour, clarity and sharpness of the picture is immaculate. If you want a comparison these are at least as good as the Carlton restoration for Anderson's earlier UFO series (in the US on the A&E label) and a giant leap over the A&E '1999' release. Network's own website has screencap comparisons between the old/new DVD's at

http://www.networkdvd.co.uk/space1999series1.htm

with further screencaps from the new release at this fansite (check out the colour grading on 'Testament of Arkadia'!)

http://www.space1999.net/~sorellariu...creengrabs.htm

As well as retaining the original mono audio and a music only option the 5.1 remix is very impressive indeed. The mix appear to have been created from the original seperate M&E (music and effects) and dialogue mono tracks. In addition the opening and end titles have been remixed in true stereo and they sound simply awesome.

The extras listed by Play are not quite accurate. There is no Sylvia Anderson commentary but there are two by Gerry Anderson on 'Breakaway' and 'Dragon's Domain'. The real highlight of the extras is 'These Episodes', an in-depth look at the making of specific episodes with input from cast and crew. It runs for over an hour and it's very impressive. There's also trailers for the cobbled together feature films, the original opening and end titles and loads more including about 10 mins worth of unused special effects footage - some of which is quite interesting. All in all it's an outstanding set with the only downside being the occasional glitch in the encoding resulting in some macroblocking for one or two frames. It's very faint though (don't let yourself be put off as chances are you won't even notice it). Oh yes, the set also includes two glossy booklets covering the production of Year One, Gerry Anderson's intro to the series written for the recent 30th Anniversary bash at Pinewood studios, an episode guide and a detailed look at the HD restoration by the man largely responsible for it, Jonathan Wood of BBC Resources.

In short, the set comes highly recommended. It blows any previous video release out of the water. I can't overstate how stunning these 24 episodes now look.

buckee1

In a word...WOW! I have the entire R1 series and am now seriously jealous! If they were to clean up the entire series like this I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

bboisvert

Wow, I had no clue anyone was doing this... I think I'll sit back a bit and see if they do the rest of the show and/or A&E plans a R1 release. But I'm very interested.

FaustBos

Well i'm sold :-) I have the complete zone 2 series 1 and 2 (as well as UFO). But i'm going for the upgrade. When I got my first DVD player back in 1998, Space 1999 was the first thing I looked for. thanks for the great review.