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Zorro & Time Tunnel series (1 Viewer)

Jeff Willis

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Hello, all....

I'm a real Time Tunnel fanatic. I've wanted this one on DVD for a long time. I'm hoping that, since another Irwin Allen series is doing well with DVD release ("Lost In Space"), that this will speed up TT's release :)
 

DavidofLondon

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Sep 13, 2004
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This may upset some people but apparently Time Tunnel and Voyage to the Bottomn of the Sea (Season 1) are due for an R2 release in Britain late Sep/early Oct.

I've not heard any news regarding R1 releases though.
 

Jeff_HR

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That's no hardship on me, I'm multi-regional. ;) But it is for those who refused to go this way.
 

LaurenceGarvey

Second Unit
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Jan 27, 2005
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Everybody should be region free.

I have the French ZORRO: COMPLETE SEASON 1. It's the only colorized DVD I ever bought. I wish it were B&W, but I still enjoy it the best I can. I hope when there's finally an American release, it's the original B&W.

Speaking of which, you know, when I started watching ROCKY & BULLWINKLE on DVD with my son, the darn thing just didn't LOOK right. Finally, I turned off the color and -- voila! Moose and Squirrel exactly as I remembered them from my childhood.
 

DavidofLondon

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Most DVD players you buy from stores are pre-configured to only play DVDs from a single region, as you're in Texas that would be R1.

However, the vast majority of machines can be altered so they play DVDs from all regions. For some DVDs this can be some as simply as entering a pre-determined "code-sequence" on the remote control or front panel. For others its necessary to replace an internal chip that checks the regions.

If you run a web-search for something like "DVD Region Hack" you should find multiple sites that will detail how to make machines multi-region. Include details of your machine's model number and make in the search and you should get specific information for your machine.

I don't know about Texas but here in London its easy to find local electrical repair shops where they'll happily apply chip changes if that is whats needed. The only downside being that automatically voids any manufacturers warranty.
 

David Lambert

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Want to go region-free? Read this post about the Cyberhome CH-300. I've gotten them for as cheap as $40 at Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, or Best Buy. Simple code sequence to make it region-free, plus it already does PAL-to-NTSC conversion that is a vital part of what's needed.

Ally McBeal season sets from the UK are waiting for you! :wink:
 

Jeff Willis

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Dave,

Thanks for the region-free links. I have an older Sony DVP-S530D player and I tried a published hack code for it and it didn't work for me. I even contacted the original author of the post and he sent me an e-mail instructions but I wasn't able to get that to work either. I'll try the links you provided. I'm wanting any Sony player that either comes region-free or one where the hack code works.

Back on-topic :D I'm dying for that Time Tunnel DVD release. I can't figure out why this one-season gem hasn't been released already considering the other Irwin-Allen 60's series (Lost in Space) seems to be selling well enough for all 3 season's release. Interesting....perhaps another legal-clearance issue for TT? Irwin Allen was quoted as saying that "Time Tunnel was his personal favorite of all of my TV series". :emoji_thumbsup:
 

DavidofLondon

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Sep 13, 2004
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I find this comment quite surprising. Probably US systems are very different from UK systems.

Over here pretty much all TVs and Screens will switch automatically between NTSC and PAL. PAL->NTSC and NTSC->PAL conversion is actually very difficult to do "on the fly" while a disk is being watched owing to the different framing rates so converted signals invariably end up much poorer than signals watched in native mode.

In my system both my DVD player and Screen (both are Panasonic) display DVDs as produced in PAL or NTSC and at the framing rate on the DVD. The only thing they ignore is region coding.

Incidentally one thing I didn't mention earlier is RCE disks (Region Coding Enhanced). Certain suppliers (mainly Sony) do some disks in RCE format. These are designed to check if your machine has been hacked to make it multi-region. If it has the DVD won't play. Mainly they do this on R1 disks, so there is a risk that certain R1 titles won't play if you permanently make your machine region free.

However, when I got my machine hacked (it needed a chip change which the shop I bought it from arranged free of charge) the new chip bypasses RCE code as well. So its not the limitation to viewing that was intended.
 

David Lambert

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Peggy, Jeff: you're welcome!




Yes, David, it's different over here than in the UK. In the USA, when you go into a store and talk about DVD players, everything is Region 1 and NTSC and noone talks like anything else exists in the world.

It was intended, I would think, that the same scenario be the case in UK, France, Australia, Japan, etc. But in other parts of the world, the system was bucked! :wink: Now what is common in these other countries - being able to walk into a local store and openly talk about region-free players and have them sitting on the shelf marketed as such! - is a totally alien concept here. The last time I started talking about region-free players in a chain store around here, the employee blushed and started looking around like he thought we would be overheard. :rolleyes
 

DavidofLondon

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Sep 13, 2004
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Not just the smaller stores either. Even the big high-street names such as Woolworths, Dixons etc list some of their machines as region-free.

The same applies to advertising (both print and media) where machines are regularly advertised as region free.

Early on in the game some distributors tried to have people advertising/selling region free equipment fined. But the courts basically ruled it wasn't illegal or breaking copyright. If the distributors didn't want DVDs region free it was up to them to make the technology so sophisticated it couldn't be done.

Of course, with DVD players so cheap these days if they did make it impossible for me to get a region free machine I'd just buy two machines, one I'd keep R1 and the other R2.
 

JeffCNY

Agent
Joined
Mar 16, 2004
Messages
40
It should be noted that Season 1 of "Zorro" is available in France, in glorious original black & white.

Astonishing and a bit dodgy to think that the Guy Williams Estate would balk at the DVD release of what is, surely, the role he's most identified with, don't you think? The European release also suggests this isn't the case.

Not impossible to imagine oh-so-politically-correct Disney being a bit frazzled over how to deal with the fact that Williams filled those impossibly snug Zorro trousers a bit >too< well. (LOL!) Maybe they can digitially smooth over his troublesome bits in much the same way they've removed cigarettes from animated character's hands.

What a world.
 

JeffCNY

Agent
Joined
Mar 16, 2004
Messages
40
My error.... Owing to a post on a Disney wesbite, I was under the impression the French release of ZORRO was in somewhat glorious black and white, and not in the early (and horrid) Colorization process which gives everyone grey lips to match grey eyes. (And a grey sky.)
 

Jerome

Second Unit
Joined
Apr 9, 2002
Messages
301
I live in France and the dvd are in colorization mode. too bad :angry:

But you can have the english track free of any subtitles
 

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