The Avengers and The New Avengers OOP on DVD. The Saint and The Persuaders!? (1 Viewer)

I am wondering if there is any news on The Avengers 60's spy series and The New Avengers 70's spy series on DVD.
They are out of print with A&E Home Video. A&E Home Video does not respond to emails that I send to them about the series as well.
I assume they no longer have the distribution license for the shows?
I know in the UK, new transfers were done for the series by Optimum and have been released on DVD.
I'm also curious about The Saint and The Persuaders!. The Persuaders! is out on DVD I believe here in the US from A&E, however in the UK Network has done a new blu ray released. I believe Network is also planning on blu ray releases of The Saint series as well.
I did think of getting the UK set of The Avengers and selling my Emma Peel US set.
If anyone has news or just general discussion about the future of the shows in the US, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!

I picked up the Avenger's Emma Peel A&E sets when first releasesd back in the late 90's. But finally ended up trading them in a few years back and buying the UK R2 mega Avengers set. I also have New Avengers, The Saint (b/w) and Persuaders as all UK R2 releases.
The US A&E sets generally don't compare with their UK R2 counterparts quality wise. If you don't already have region free and PAL capabilties you might want to just invest in it and just go with UK releases. Many times they are cheaper as well.

smithb said:

I picked up the Avenger's Emma Peel A&E sets when first releasesd back in the late 90's. But finally ended up trading them in a few years back and buying the UK R2 mega Avengers set. I also have New Avengers, The Saint (b/w) and Persuaders as all UK R2 releases.
The US A&E sets generally don't compare with their UK R2 counterparts quality wise. If you don't already have region free and PAL capabilties you might want to just invest in it and just go with UK releases. Many times they are cheaper as well.

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I have the complete Saint B/W & Color sets from Network.
The best thing I did a few years ago regarding DVD collection, was to get a Region-Free DVD player that converts to NTSC. I know it's not the same as viewing a pure PAL output and the next player that I get will be the Oppo 93 or 95 based on Andy's and Brad's info. Sounds like a great player with a lot of menu options related to outputting to PAL to the TV.

To be honest, I don't think the R2 are that much better than the R1 counterpart for The New Avengers. Now for The Avengers on R2, they are as good as they are going to get apart from a Blu Ray release. It is a revelation.
Region free DVD players are fine to convert to NTSC with stuff shot on film but stuff shot on video tape does not convert nearly as well. Of course, The Avengers and The New Avengers were all shot on film so that doesn't really matter.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

Actually the first three seasons of the series, prior to the Diana Rigg episodes, were indeed shot on videotape.

I just got the Optimum UK set for the first/second season of the series with a very cool "scrapbook" book included. I then had to contact Optimum to get the three replacement discs with the non-edited episodes that came in the original set.

The first three seasons and the last season with Linda Thorsen were only released in BEST OF sets in the U.S., so going with the Optimum releases is the way to go, but they are pricey.

There have been rumors on the Steve Hoffman forums that a BD release of the Avengers was being prepped. Who knows if this is reality and if/what region this will be released in. I have the Mega Emma Peel set but would get the BD if done correctly (with English subtitles this time please).

Professor Echo said:

Actually the first three seasons of the series, prior to the Diana Rigg episodes, were indeed shot on videotape.

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However, they are not as good as the clean up an "VidFire" Treatment the B&W Doctor Who episodes have been getting.

Professor Echo said:

Actually the first three seasons of the series, prior to the Diana Rigg episodes, were indeed shot on videotape.

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Right and I wasn't thinking of those when I wrote my response but no one would have known that.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the responses! So there are no plans for additional US releases of The Avengers? Who holds the license for US distribution of The Avengers?
I have many of the Network DVD sets. The Saint, Return of the Saint and The Persuaders!.
I would really like to get The Persuaders! blu ray set, but would have to upgrade my blu ray player to do so. Frustrated on that one.
It would be nice if someone knew more about the distribution. Maybe there is no news and that is all there is.
I am disappointed that A&E Home Video will not respond to my inquiries as well. I have emailed them numerous times, but they will not respond or contact me.
Years ago, I did have a good contact with them and they were always very good about responding and letting me know about the releases.

It seems to me A&E will not re-release DVDs. It seems more likely that any re-release from them would come in the form of a Blu Ray. Two examples are The Prisoner & Space 1999. Both series had better quality/remastered UK DVDs released after the initial A&E release but A&E did not touch it. When HD versions became available, they released those. I think if any of The Avengers were released on Blu Ray in the UK, there would be a better chance of it being released that way over here.
My two cents.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

Gregbert said:

It seems to me A&E will not re-release DVDs. It seems more likely that any re-release from them would come in the form of a Blu Ray. Two examples are The Prisoner & Space 1999. Both series had better quality/remastered UK DVDs released after the initial A&E release but A&E did not touch it. When HD versions became available, they released those. I think if any of The Avengers were released on Blu Ray in the UK, there would be a better chance of it being released that way over here.
My two cents.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

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Didn't A&E rerelease Secret Agent on DVD? There must be some other issue; money, waiting for better elements, that explains the absence of the Avengers. At the very least, if they thought the license fee was affordable, I am sure that A&E would release the Emma Peel episodes. The ole boxes bring a fortune online (e.g., if you have a new copy of the 2006 Emma Peel meagaset, you could probably sell it and buy the Dark Shaddows Complete Series and, maybe, make money in the process).

Gregbert said:

It seems to me A&E will not re-release DVDs. It seems more likely that any re-release from them would come in the form of a Blu Ray. Two examples are The Prisoner & Space 1999. Both series had better quality/remastered UK DVDs released after the initial A&E release but A&E did not touch it. When HD versions became available, they released those. I think if any of The Avengers were released on Blu Ray in the UK, there would be a better chance of it being released that way over here.
My two cents.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

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Blu ray would be fine with me! I hope they come to their senses soon.
It could be a concern that it might not sell as well on blu ray vs. DVD?

JoeDoakes said:

Didn't A&E rerelease Secret Agent on DVD? There must be some other issue; money, waiting for better elements, that explains the absence of the Avengers. At the very least, if they thought the license fee was affordable, I am sure that A&E would release the Emma Peel episodes. The ole boxes bring a fortune online (e.g., if you have a new copy of the 2006 Emma Peel meagaset, you could probably sell it and buy the Dark Shaddows Complete Series and, maybe, make money in the process).

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Agreed. The sets are selling for quite a bit right now.
A home video label should really take notice!!
Does anyone have a contact with A&E Home Video?
Thanks!

Osato said:

Agreed. The sets are selling for quite a bit right now.
A home video label should really take notice!!
Does anyone have a contact with A&E Home Video?
Thanks!

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Especially, the individual two case sets. I dumped mine when the latest complete UK set came out. They went a long way to helping me offset the cost of the new complete collection.

smithb said:

Especially, the individual two case sets. I dumped mine when the latest complete UK set came out. They went a long way to helping me offset the cost of the new complete collection.

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I've had the same thought actually.
I feel like a blu ray release should be right around the corner.

JoeDoakes said:

Didn't A&E rerelease Secret Agent on DVD? There must be some other issue; money, waiting for better elements, that explains the absence of the Avengers. At the very least, if they thought the license fee was affordable, I am sure that A&E would release the Emma Peel episodes. The ole boxes bring a fortune online (e.g., if you have a new copy of the 2006 Emma Peel meagaset, you could probably sell it and buy the Dark Shaddows Complete Series and, maybe, make money in the process).

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Maybe I am misunderstanding. A&E is not interested in re-releasing stuff on SD DVD that already has come out previously, even if they have been remastered since the original release. If they did, we would have had re-released DVDs of The Avengers, Space 1999, The Prisoner. If that better version was available in HD to be released on Blu Ray, then we would have a better chance of seeing these series re-released though on Blu ray and not DVD.
I am not quite understanding you reference to Secret Agent (I am assuming you mean Danger Man?). I am not talking about full series releases with the same content previously released in one box set, I am only talking about A&E re-releasing series because new re-mastered versions are available. If I made any sense of that.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

Gregbert said:

I am not quite understanding you reference to Secret Agent (I am assuming you mean Danger Man?). I am not talking about full series releases with the same content previously released in one box set, I am only talking about A&E re-releasing series because new re-mastered versions are available. If I made any sense of that.
http://from-the-archive.blogspot.com/

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My guess is that the problem is that A&E doesn't have access to the better prints produced in the UK. A possibility, someone had to pay to transfer newer elements from better masters and do restoration. That may have been the UK company distributing the newer versions over there. If they put up the expense why should that mean others should profit from it by using the same prints?
Most likely A&E just licensed the ability to distribute in the US using older tape master they already had based on what they broadcast in the past. Now if the UK company decides to produce blu-rays from their efforts, they could make a deal with A&E to do the distribution for them in the US. That is my guess on how it could work.

Unfortunately the rights almost certainly lie with Studio Canal and they are notoriously difficult about licensing out their products to third parties
The only reason that OPtimum released the series here in the UK is that they were, in actuality, bought out and are now simply a subsection of Studio Canal. The same happened in Germany, where they bought up Koch Media

Nebiroth said:

Unfortunately the rights almost certainly lie with Studio Canal and they are notoriously difficult about licensing out their products to third parties
The only reason that OPtimum released the series here in the UK is that they were, in actuality, bought out and are now simply a subsection of Studio Canal. The same happened in Germany, where they bought up Koch Media

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Interesting. Thanks for the post.
Hopefully things change very soon and maybe A&E Home Video or another US company will look into a blu ray release.
For the series that A&E did release on blu ray, did they wait until the series (Prisoner, Space 1999) were issued on blu ray in the UK?
I really wish we could get a behind the scenes answer on these great UK Spy series shows and blu ray.

As I recall, the BluRays of Space:1999 and The Prisoner were co-operative efforts between Network and A&E. I think the UK got the actual releases a little earlier, but not much difference between them