Any Babylon 5 S2 reviews yet?

I'm glad I decided to get mine at a B&M. They haven't solved the packaging problem. Discs 2 and 4 were loose when I opened it up. Disc 2 was fine, but 4 has some small scratches on it. I need to see if the scratches are going to cause problems.

Well, I had to exchange it, but the second one I picked up was a pristine copy. All 6 discs were still firmly in their hubs.

And yes, I did the normal research to see if the first one I bought had any rattlers in it, but they didn't make a sound other than the booklet shifting (same sound the Transformers sets make). Probably should have opened it before I left the store, like I did with the exchange copy.

Picked up my triple-points Suncoast preorder this morning. All discs firmly attached. Watched the first 2 eps, now I am at work *sigh*.

Mine was shipped all the way from Canada and all the discs are firmly in place!

I am embarking now upon the second season and contemplating calling in sick tomorrow to watch this!

hehehe!!!

Im half way done with the season. This is where things get really good

capt

As of now, the B5 S2 DVD set is now ranked #2 on the Amazon.com DVD sales chart!

Yeah B5 sets are selling very fasy. Both sets sold out at our local bestbuy and other dvd selling stores on there release days

capt

Just to help the statistical cause:

Best Buy - opened the set before leaving - no loose disks.

I haven't watched any of these since the original showings, so this is really my first chance to see *how* much was foreshadowed

Thank you JMS,

It took me 10 minutes to find a copy at FutureShop. I missed the display entirely, because it was almost sold out. I got the 2nd last copy!

I only saw 3 copies at my local BB and that was when the store opened.

The gag reel is definitely there, although it is an abridged version of the season two gag reel I'd seen before. Which is annoying as some of the funnier stuff (with Bill Mumy: "Who does your bone?") was missing, but I assume it is a rights thing.

I'm sad about the way the credits are redone, by the way. In the original versions, the actors' names are in the letterbox portions; since the "letterbox portions" are now mostly taken up by the 16x9 frame, the credits have been redone (in an uglier font) and now cover the lower half of the actors' faces when they appear.

Not sure how I would have gotten around this, though, except perhaps to shrink the names down a bit. But I'm not sure that's contractually possible-- isn't there some sort of legal guideline for how large the talents' names have to be?

Other than that, it's a nice set, mostly. I think the framing looks a bit off, with too much headroom in some shots, and not enough in others, but this is apparently how JMS wants it, so that's how it will be.

Picked up the last copy on the shelf at the Best Buy on Madison's West side after work on Tuesday.

Hope to crack the shrink wrap on it and spin a few tonight!

Well I got my copy of B5 season 2 yesterday. I spent the better part of 9 hours watching it last night. I have to agree that the CGI is alot better then the first box set. There are still a few places that the picture is fuzzy, but I can live with it.

I hope that you all get your copies soon. They are great.

Yes, I noticed this too.

BTW, I'm down to the last 2 episodes on Disc 6. Just finished disc 5 this morning and I'll finish it up this evening after work.

I got my set on Monday via DeepDiscount which was shipped last Thursday.

Picture quality is still a bit substandard IMO. I have to sit about 15' away from my TV to get a fairly clear picture.

I think most of this comes when on-screen graphics appear, then disappear. It's most obvious during "And Now For A Word", when everyone's name and rank, etc appears during the documentary. Because they're pan-n-scanned shots bumped to 16x9 anamorphic, they have to pan down to fit the title card in, losing headroom, and if you look carefully you can see the slow re-adjustment upwards after the title card fades out.

I was thinking mostly of medlab scenes in the first two episodes. Perhaps this is because I find Franklin the least interesting character, and am more apt to have my eyes roaming during his scenes than in others.

If the computer graphics in medlab are CGI, this could be the reason. They look pretty simplistic to be CGI, though(a couple of blinking lights, etc.).

My set was shipped from Canada. It arrived a few days ago with no loose discs. This is an improvement over season 1, which was purchased locally and had 2 "floaters." Since the packaging appears to be identical to season 1, however, I suspect this is merely luck.

Hey Aaron, I replied to you in the thread about DVD Profiler.

Now back to B5, I am about half way through disk 4 and I notice that alot to the shots are chopped. The heads of the main characters are missing the top part. It is like they took a pan and scan pic and chopped the top and bottom to make a 16X9 format. I found that in alot of sceen with close up sceens of the actors, this is most noticable.

That is my 2 cents, I am still very glad to have bought it since I loved the entire story. I cannot wait to see the rest of the season box sets.

Stephane

Stephane:

Diffrent Aaron, actually.

Whenever there is a computer generated effect on screen merged in with live video (or a virtual set), there's going to be cropping of the 4:3 image and upconversion instead of broadening to the 16:9 frame. In some cases (in Season 1; haven't run across this yet in Season 2), the 4:3 frame is stretched to 16:9 instead.

I think it looks like a$$ myself, but other "purists" apparently consider it good enough. And since we're not likely to ever see the series on DVD in its original 4:3 ratio (because WB never cared much for the series, and because it was a cult hit and not really a pop hit), there's really no choice but to make the purchase despite the (IMO) hacked-up imagery, if you want the show.

Sorry about that Aaron, I should have looked...

Can anyone clarify why they only did CGI effects on the 4:3 frame? This is most noticeable on live-action shots, but also the space CGI shots are very noticeable as well, especially when they pan and tilt and the main object gets lost in the "black bars" like in the docking scenes when a ship comes into B5 and moves up into a docking bay.

Because they only did the minimum amount of effects work neccisary to get the show out on time. The thought was to rerender the stuff later when it came time for higher quality formats. Course, that was all screwed when WB lost the files.

Jason

And WB probably wouldn't have paid the cash to have them re-rendered anyway. Hopefully the strong S1 & S2 sales will make them reconsider their attitudes towards the show?

I've watched the first three episodes on disc 1 and I'm seeing a lot of grain.

I've watched 8 eps and quite a few were fuzzy at first. Some parts here and there, later on disc 2, are VERY clear to my eyes (at least on my 27" POS). The advancement in CG tech for S2 makes the shimmering from the stretching a lot less noticeable.

Here's the official reason from JMS.

I think the 2nd Season is much improved in video quality. Still some grain in the dark scenes with the actors but the CGI shots are much improved. The hub in the case are tighter this time too. I got no floaters. I hope the strong sales speed up the release of the next 3 seasons as the best is yet to come.

Picked up season two last night! YAY! After going to a couple of Future Shop outlets, as the first ones I went to were sold out already! (Which is a good thing for the continued success of this series on DVD!)

Bummer though.. haven't had a chance to watch any eps yet. I know what I'll be doin' this weekend!

Just in general reference for all TV series on DVD, especially popular TV series, why do people still worry if the complete series will come out on DVD?

For example, here now we have 2 seasons of B5 on DVD. So why on Earth would the studios not release the last 3? And aparently as fast as they are selling, it would be totally ignorant for the studios NOT to release the remaining seasons.

And the same goes for all other series that has at least two seasons out on DVD. Whay start something and not plan on finishing it?

Obviously the studios plan to release the complete series every time they start one of these TV releases. But plans change.

If Fox sees that seasons 7 and 8 of The X-Files sell substantially few copies than the first six, few enough that they are unprofitable, they could well stop at that point. I'm sure they intended to release all of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. But the first season didn't meet sales expectations and they stopped.

Heck, Warner Bros. planned to release all of B5 on VHS and laserdisc, as evidenced by the fact that they started by releasing S1 and S5 at the same time. (So that those who had missed the final season when the show moved to cable could catch up.) They got almost half-way through a full release when plunging sales forced them to drop the project.

I think it is the case that you can expect each subsequent season of most shows to sell about as many copies as the first season did - assuming the quality of the show itself was pretty consistent over time. (In the case of B5 my prediction was always that S1 would sell well, S2, S3 and S4 would sell even better, and the S5 would sell about as well as S1 did.) This is especially true for shows with continuing stories and at least semi-logical endings. But there are many shows where people are apt to lose interest after two or three seasons because of changes the show underwent. Don't forget, a lot of shows don't "end" - they're cancelled because the ratings are dropping. The seasons that saw the ratings drop may also see poorer sales if the reason the ratings fell was that the show was no good any more.

(OTOH there are some shows that get poor ratings because the network has no idea how to market them, or because the very title is a turn-off. I've been watching Sports Night on DVD and loving it. I never watched the show on the network, and was only dimly aware of it. I discovered it a month or so ago thanks to Comedy Central's reruns. This was a fantastic show that I'm convinced millions of people never saw because ABC did not do enough to sell it as a smart, funny comedy and because too many people flipping through the TV listings thought it actually was a half-hour sports show and never tuned in. Or else thought it was a half-hour sports comedy and - fearing another Coach - refused to watch.)

Regards,

Joe