I envy the British!

[Deja Q]

Man, they've already gotten great releases of "Doctor Who" stories, with the latest being "Pyramids of Mars" and "The Visitation". Oh yum, I can't wait! Along with "Earthshock", "The Two Doctors", "The Seeds of Death", and others...

Meanwhile, the US releases are coming out much more slowly and we have to wait to see what they decide gets release.d

And when Warner Bros (the US distributor) deviates from the remastered epiosodes the UK Restoration Team has done (so far ONLY the Key to Time" season), the difference in quality is noticably worse (namely video dropouts/lines and audio hiss, all removed from the stories the UK team cleaned up...)

Oh well. At least it's not like Red Dwarf. 8 seasons in all. 2 seasons released per year. That's slower than Dr Who!

[Shananigans]

1. Why...

is the US so much slower?

[Kellanved]

2. usually the US is faster

It's simple: Europe has to wait years for US productions, and the US has to wait years for the European productions.

[Kamika]

4. lucky eu doesnt have asmuch stuff we do

would suck to have to wait for all american stuff

[DS1]

6. The good stuff is released the same day internationally

LOTR for example.

[Kamika]

7. But tv shows etc

Like star trek, babylon5, jeremiah etc etc

I wonder why EU never do any good tv shows

[DS1]

12. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

you get the idea

[Kellanved]

14. there *are* good European TV shows

Few of them get released anywhere else. For starters the budget is far smaller, some are even educational (:evilgrin:).
Many European shows don't even get recognized as such: remember that (IMHO bad) Dune Miniseries? European TV.

In some genres Europe was even faster than the US, example:
http://www.schwanstein-entertainment.de/orion/orion_wsmall.wmv
http://www.schwanstein-entertainment.de/orion/orion_wgross.wmv

And don't forget Hypno : do you think he misses bad shows? He isn't, trust me on this.

[Kamika]

18. dune??

that was a pretty good mini series.. didnt know it was european

[Kellanved]

19. co-production

AFAIR

[CanuckAmok]

20. What about the Prisoner? The Kingdom? Britcoms?

all better than American fare, IMSQO (SQ=Somewhat Qualified)

[CanuckAmok]

9. They release HUGE blockbusters simultaneously because...

their broad appeal makes them candidates for bootlegging if one region gets them before another.

Something a little more 'fringy' gets release dates based on other criteria, like market share.

[Kellanved]

11. almost never

Matrix, LOTR are exceptions. Lost in Translation is new this week; Underworld etc. not even released.

[Kellanved]

10. It royally sucks

For several reasons: you read about the good stuff to come; yet you have one year of almost no legal way to get it ; then you have one year to buy the DVD and then you can maybe watch it on TV - dubbed:grrr:
Sometimes it's faster (i.e. skipping the DVD).

Import is only feasible in times like now, with a cheap Dollar. And even then it's problematic, as the custom officials tend to forward DVDs and Video games to the copyright owners, not the intended receivers. Getting a Sony lawyer to release a DVD can take weeks.

The only little upside is that Japan is in the European DVD region for some reason (not that anybody bothers - regions are there to be removed).

Maybe an example for you o appreciate the pain: do you know Staplerfahrer Klaus? No US DVD yet! :evilgrin:

[Deja Q]

3. Dunno. Warner Bros isn't very talkative...

:-(

Initially they were testing the waters to see if it was viable.

I think we in the US have proven that Who is viable.

I'd buy as many as I could at once. :9 I hate waiting!

PBS won't run them, they've got AWESOME extras, some of them have 5.1 sound which is freakin' trippin' on my 5.1 audio system as until season 25 every episode made was in mono... yes, mono recordings turned into 5.1 is very trippy indeed. :-) Awesome sound effects...

[CanuckAmok]

Hypnotoad...

I worked on the Doctor Who movie with Eric Roberts and Paul McGann.

Jealous...? You're jealous, I can tell :D

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/gallery/tvmovie/

http://www.learmedia.ca/product_info.php/cPath/8/products_id/950

[Screaming Lord Byron]

13. couldn't you have done something to stop it?!

[Deja Q]

16. LOL! But that's mean... I liked the movie when I first saw it...

A few days after my birthday too...

Hasn't aged well, the Americanism was crap (stupid car chases, mocking the British), it tried to do too much at once to re-educate the viewers (uh, telling a good story is more imporant and details can be given out more slowly should they have made a series at the time), and the worst part of the film was the writing: Written by a British guy trying to appeal to American viewers. Didn't work at times, but when it did it rocked.

I'm not sure how the new BBC version to launch in 2005 will fare either...

[Screaming Lord Byron]

17. yeah, apologies, it was a cheap shot. I have high hopes for 2005

[DS1]

5. Of course you do, we rock

:evilgrin:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

8. You can find shitloads of Dr Who episodes at Kazaa

not that I'm suggesting anything underhand, though!

[Deja Q]

15. I own most of the videotapes already!

Need to buy the End of the Universe collection as welll...

I've also started a conversion to DVD process. I digitize the eps, remove audio hiss, and use some filtering effects to remove some of the grain and improve color saturation and contrast. Takes a while, and certainly isn't DVD quality in terms of sharpness (they look a bit softer but better than the VHS quality), but is worth it.