"TV Guide" Coming Out With Its Own Brand Of TV-On-DVD Products In September 2004 (1 Viewer)

[David Von Pein]

Another very interesting and informative news item, courtesy the crack team at TVShowsOnDVD.com. .......


>>> "TV Guide Publishing Group Inc...announced today it signed a new licensing deal with Falcon Picture Group, bringing its powerful brand and expertise in on-screen entertainment to the fast-growing genre of TV shows on DVD.

Under the multi-year deal with Falcon Picture Group, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based maker of DVDs, TV Guide will license a variety of TV Guide brand assets for use in the products and packaging of Falcon Picture Group's newest line, TV Guide brand classic television shows on DVD. Targeting all ages, these DVDs will utilize TV Guide's brand leadership and expertise for a line of digitally remastered classic television shows.

Through its exclusive distribution agreement with Genius Products (OTCBB:GNPI), Falcon Picture Group is developing the first collection of 12 TV Guide brand DVDs, which will include "digitally remastered" classic television programming featuring The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show, The Milton Berle Show, The Burns & Allen Show, You Bet Your Life, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Red Skelton Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza and others. TV Guide brand DVDs will also feature famous Christmas episodes from a variety of series; Unaired Pilot episodes from series including The Munsters, Sea Hunt and others; the best in Sci-Fi and Western programming; and others to be determined. Genius Products will work with major retail outlets to distribute the first collection of 12 DVDs to retail stores in September 2004.

...Falcon Picture Group will license television programs and work with public domain series to generate the content and package the DVD collections, using TV Guide's logo and magazine cover design art as part of the packaging. The DVDs will also contain an enormous amount of "Value Added Material" including TV Guide crossword puzzles, trivia questions, nostalgic advertisements, related feature articles from the magazine and commentary from TV Guide Magazine's Editorial team.

"Each DVD collection will contain two disks with six television programs on each disk -- a total of 12 classic television programs in each collection with a suggested retail of $9.99. We plan to bring the line to retail in September in time for holiday gift-giving," said Mike Meader, president of Genius Products. "At a retail of under 10 dollars for 12 television programs -- six hours of programming -- we expect this to be a huge success. Future TV Guide collections will include The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, The Jack Benny Program, The Cisco Kid, One Step Beyond, Gangbusters and many, many others."

But Falcon and TV Guide are taking a different approach, bringing us the episodes at a similar under-$10 price point, but with all of the unique content that only TV Guide has to offer, and packaged in a way TV fans can trust."

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(These DVDs sound tempting, even if they'll probably only contain a recycling of Public Domain episodes -- albeit "remastered" (which will be a plus ). Heck, for $9.99 Retail, which will probably mean an actual cost to the buyer of about
$7.00-$8.00, how can you lose? I'll be especially interested in the "Jack Benny" volume(s). )

 

[Frank Anderson]

I certainly would be interested in some volumes. I would like to know what is meant by "and packaged in a way TV fans can trust." My two cents would be to use slims. I don't trust digipaks.

[url=http://members.aol.com/nightdog35/spidey_smiley.gif] [/url]

 

[David Von Pein]

I doubt we'll see the "ThinPaks" on just a two-disc DVD package. (Anybody ever see a 2-discer that was housed in ThinPaks? I haven't.)

I wonder if perhaps the person quoted really meant "PRESENTED in a way TV fans can trust" ?? (Meaning: these public domain shows will see their first re-mastering ever.)

 

[Adam Tyner]

Doubtful. I think it's just another way of saying "our DVDs look as bad as the public domain kids, but the familiar TV Guide brand name might put potential buyers at ease".

 

[David Von Pein]

Well, if they truly are "remastering" these fuzzy VHS-equivalent prints of TV shows, they *should* look better than the P.D. counterparts.

However, with really, really old shows from the '50s, the "remastering" actually doesn't make *that* much of a difference (IMO, that is). Example: "Groucho Marx--You Bet Your Life--The Lost Episodes" --- these shows are still fuzzy and grainy even after a huge restoration project. Obviously, they look better than before the expensive restoration, but the prints were so bad to begin with (evidently), that the shows will never exhibit "Finding Nemo" type quality. (Nor, in actuality, using common sense, should we expect them to.)

 

[Brian W.]

"Packaged" doesn't necessarily mean the physical packaging of the discs. Packaged is also another word for "put together," which is what I think they mean in this case.

 

[Adam Tyner]

As many of these companies have proven, "digitally remastered" is a meaningless phrase.

 

[streeter]

This is the same company that used the AMC TV name for a line of DVDs. Those proved to be no more than nicely packaged public domain rereleases with the same a/v quality.

 

[Dane Marvin]

Michael Streeter probably hit the nail on the head there. I doubt there will be much remastering to speak of. I think TV Guide just wants to capitalize on its name, knowing they can do so and turn a huge profit by releasing only public domain titles. I think these will only serve as a sad reminder that there exist no great DVD offerings for shows like Andy Griffith and Dragnet and that even a powerhouse name like TV Guide isn't out to change that.

We shall see. But for now:

 

[mark-edk]

The Falcon Picture Group sets of tv shows of the 1950s are by far the best-looking transfers out there, far better than any of the typical dirty/fuzzy public domain junk. (Deep Discount DVD sells them at really cheap prices.) So I wouldn't rush to proclaim TV Guide sets as no better than the typical PD releases until we see what they look like.

 

[David Von Pein]

DVD Definition Question........

"Re-mastered" and "Restored" are two entirely different things....correct?

IOW, saying "re-mastered" does not necessarily mean "restored", right?

 

[ToddL]

I was not happy to see this news item. I for one am very interested in getting season sets of Andy Griffith and this looks to be more best-of crap.

It is suppose to be Twelve TV shows across 2 DVDs the way I understand it. Oh well, I guess that this means season sets of Andy Griffith will be further away from reality now.

 

[David Lambert]

1) *I* was the one who wrote the "trust" quote. By that I meant that it will have the TV Guide logo on it. That people trust TV Guide. It was a veiled warning to TV Guide to exert some quality control over this, because it represents them. If they let Falcon do it any way they want to, I feel it will look like all the rest of the PD crud already on the market.

2) Nowhere in the press release did I see where the words "restore" or "remaster" were used. Not to say this won't happen, but I don't see where they are promising it to happen. Just to add trivia, crossword puzzles, articles, etc. Not the improve the video quality. See #1.


P.S. - there was NO indication of how the releases will be packaged. For all I know, they'll be in Ziploc bags.

 

[David Von Pein]

"Remastered" is used.......

>> "Falcon Picture Group is developing the first collection of 12 TV Guide brand DVDs, which will include "digitally remastered" classic television programming featuring The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show, The Milton Berle Show, The Burns & Allen Show, You Bet Your Life, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Red Skelton Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza and others."

 

[David Lambert]

Aha. I sit corrected...

 

[David Von Pein]

Anyone have any more info on these "TV Guide" 2-Disc value-priced DVDs?

http://www.babygenius.com/

http://www.babygenius.com/ListProduc...?brandcode=amc

 

[David Von Pein]

As September 2004 AD fast approaches.........

Any updates on these "TV Guide DVD Collections"? TV Guide's website doesn't seem to give any data re. these items.

To repeat part of the initial blurb in this
thread's first post. Sounds nice, IMO. ............

"Each DVD collection will contain two disks with six television programs on each disk -- a total of 12 classic television programs in each collection with a suggested retail of $9.99. We plan to bring the line to retail in September in time for holiday gift-giving," said Mike Meader, president of Genius Products. "At a retail of under 10 dollars for 12 television programs -- six hours of programming -- we expect this to be a huge success. Future TV Guide collections will include The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, The Jack Benny Program, The Cisco Kid, One Step Beyond, Gangbusters and many, many others."

 

[David Von Pein]

http://tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=2245

Wonder how these can be purchased? No e-store has them. And TVGuide.com doesn't either.

Any idea?

I tried "pulling a Jeannie" (i.e.: blinking orbs with arms crossed), but no dice. They didn't magically appear even after blinking. (Funny, that usually works, too. )

Very odd marketing strategy, IMO. Virtually no pre-release announcement(s), detailing the titles, extras, etc.; and no stores on-line carrying them ahead of release date (or just after release date, purported to be September 21, 2004). Most curious.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Crosswords on DVD? How does that work?

I sure hope these disks have the TV Guide logo on screen.

How about an option for B&W shows to have a strip of blue on top, green on the bottom, so we can pretend we have one of those sheets of colored plastic in front of our TV?

 

[David Von Pein]

Oh yeah! That WOULD be sweet huh? (Not!)

Very strange that Amazon doesn't have these for sale. They sell everything from A-to-Zinc.