Is the b&w era of TV on DVD slowly coming to an end? (3 Viewers)

[Gary OS]

It's not an either/or situation with Shout wanting to eliminate competition vs acquiring another business's properties and rights. It's both/and. Shout both eliminated a competitor AND, at the same time, acquired an additional outlet to sell from. This is why we are seeing some of the previous releases (like M-Squad) being re-released. Now Shout gets a part of the sales, while putting out almost nothing because the hard work was already done for them by Timeless. So it's a win-win from their perspective.

Where we, the buyers, lose out in this deal is that now we have no advocate for the kind of older shows Timeless was releasing before the takeover. The owner of Timeless was a huge reason we were seeing some neat, more obscure series released. He was a fan of those type of shows himself. Shout doesn't have the same emphasis and that's why we aren't seeing as many of those type of dvd releases. They'll use Timeless as a subsidiary, of sorts, to release some of those type of titles, but overall the output has been severely diminished. And that's why many of us were concerned when we first heard the news of the "merger" back a couple of years ago. And unfortunately our concerns were well founded.


Gary "hopefully that explains things" O.

 

[ChrisALM]

I think the advocate part of this situation cannot be overstated, because in the case of Timeless, the advocate was the owner and could call the shots. And I get your perspective on Shout seeing it as a both/and.
Thanks, Gary.

 

[Gary OS]

I think the advocate part of this situation cannot be overstated, because in the case of Timeless, the advocate was the owner and could call the shots.

Exactly, Chris. That was the primary reason I hated to see the merger/takeover in the first place.Gary "it was, sadly, the end of an era" O.

 

[ChrisALM]

Yeah, it was the end of an era.

 

[Tooncy]

Don't forget how horrible some of the Timeless releases were. I have a western (a blind buy) and it was all taken from VHS tapes.

 

[Tooncy]

Don't forget how horrible some of the Timeless releases were. I have a western ( blind buy) and it was taken from VHS tapes.

 

[ChrisALM]

Timeless was somewhat at the mercy of the material they could get their hands on. In some cases, like Checkmate and Alias Smith and Jones Season 2-3, the quality of the releases was quite variable. I still picked them up because Universal wasn't making any moves to release these shows. However we also had The Virginian, which had been remastered for Encore, and this show looked beautiful, with the exception of The Men From Shiloh.
Many of their releases looked quite good, although admittedly not a CBS B/W remastered in HD quality. Timeless released material that no other company would touch. I give them credit for that and trying to get these more obscure shows out. The fact that a few of the releases were disappointing quality-wise doesn't overide the fact of the many good releases they were able to bring to us. I would much prefer something than what we have now, which appears to be little to nothing with Shout running the show.

 

[Osato]

It was telling when A&E only released 2 smaller sets of the saint's black and white episodes. Many of the episodes remain unreleased on DVD in the US.

 

[LouA]

It was telling when A&E only released 2 smaller sets of the saint's black and white episodes. Many of the episodes remain unreleased on DVD in the US.

There are complete B&W and color box sets available in England if you have an all region player.

 

[Osato]

There are complete B&W and color box sets available in England if you have an all region player.

Yep. I have the network sets. They are great!!!

 

[HenryDuBrow]

Is the former owner of TMG, under an agreement not to speak about the takeover. Surely he would know their plans, but perhaps can't say it(?). I agree, we'd probably seen more new stuff by now if the intentions for the takeover were good news for classic TV fans, and yet we don't know what goes on behind the scenes so something new and big there might open up eventually. S!F seemingly doesn't care too much anymore for older drama titles (it seems), so the two really always catered to different audiences to a large extent which is why sitting on titles - like everybody laments the major studios for doing - doesn't make sense that S!F should become this 'monster of industry' they must've hated too once upon a time.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

Interestingly enough, S!F just posted some news on their Facebook page a few hours ago about 'their friends at TMG...'. Wonder if any HTF users here ever asked them the question we ponder directly, about Timeless.

 

[Gary OS]

Some good news concerning Timeless. Looks like The Rebel is still coming. Hopefully we get news sooner rather than later. A few other things are in the pike. Nothing monumental, just a few continuations of series already released.


Gary "things have slowed substantially, but a trickle is preferred to nothing at all" O.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Good News on The Rebel Gary. Hopefully they are able to get good Prints.

 

[oldtvshowbuff]

I wonder if S!F/TMG might consider an anthology series that served as a weekly history lesson in 1963-64, I'm talking about "The Great Adventure" on CBS. All kinds of episodes set in different periods of U.S. History, even there were western episodes, and a two-parter starring Peter Graves as frontiersman Daniel Boone, of course before the Fess Parker series about Boone that came along beginning in the fall of 1964 on NBC and running for six seasons.

 

[LouA]

Good News on The Rebel Gary. Hopefully they are able to get good Prints.

Yes and hopefully with the original song by Johnny Cash . Timeless didn't license the theme for Yancy Derringer and used the generic syndicated theme instead. These old westerns aren't as much fun without the theme songs which were, after all, a part of the show.

 

[Darby67]

That's terrific news about The Rebel; thanks for the update, Gary.

Darby

 

[GMBurns]

Some good news concerning Timeless. Looks like The Rebel is still coming. Hopefully we get news sooner rather than later. A few other things are in the pike. Nothing monumental, just a few continuations of series already released. Gary "things have slowed substantially, but a trickle is preferred to nothing at all" O.

Gary, have you heard anything about a possible re-release of Tombstone Territory? I missed the complete series release through Wal-Mart, and was hoping that Timeless might eventually have a general release of seasons 2 and 3.

 

[phenri]

Yes and hopefully with the original song by Johnny Cash . Timeless didn't license the theme for Yancy Derringer and used the generic syndicated theme instead. These old westerns aren't as much fun without the theme songs which were, after all, a part of the show.

I would love for the original Johnny Cash theme song to be included, but I could do without as long as the episodes are complete and uncut.I'm excited for this release, which will be yet another series crossed off my want list. The only other unreleased western I want this badly is "The Loner".

 

[Tooncy]

As far as I can tell the original theme song isn't even included in the reruns on TV.