B5 DVD R2: Something happening? (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

According to Amazon.co.uk The Gathering and In the Beginning will be released in R2 in March. No other U.K. DVD retailers that I can find has listed the two movies, but Amazon does have catalog numbers and ISBNs for them, and when Amazon in the States jumped the gun on the R1 release they turned out to be right, so I'm inclined to believe this.

Each film will be released on a separate disc, unlike the R1 and R4 releases, and they're pretty pricey for bare-bones discs - about twenty pounds each. Of course, we can't be absolutely sure that they are barebones discs, since the only technical information given for them lists region, PAL video, languages and subtitles, period.

There is no mention of any episode discs.

And yet...

When I did a search on "Babylon 5" at Blackstar.co.uk, to see if they also listed the DVDs for pre-order, I was directed to their VHS catalog page. They had the whole series on tape of course, pages of them. Every single one of them is now marked "deleted" and cannot be purchased.

In the past two days I've seen several posts about a book and video chain in the U.K. called "The Works" selling the two-episode tapes for three pounds each - they normally sell for about fifteen, if memory serves.

Question: Have the U.K. VHS tapes been discontinued? If so, does this have something to do with a pending DVD release of the episodes? Are U.K. video dealers dropping the VHS tapes and/or unloading them at firesale prices because they know something the rest of us don't? Inquiring minds want to know...

Regards,

Joe

 

[PhilipG]

I wouldn't get too optimistic that cancelled VHS = forthcoming DVDs. I haven't seen any B5 VHS tapes on the shelves here for donkey's years, at least in my local medium-sized stores. They probably can only be found in the really big stores in London/Brum etc.