Blake's 7 is on it's way? (1 Viewer)

[Don Peskin]

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere but while looking up upcoming titles at deepdiscountdvd's web site I saw that Blake's 7 is supposed to be released 10/1/02. It's a 10 disc set with a list price of 179.95 and a buy for price of 99.99.
I saw the show on PBS years ago and thought it was great. Since it was on PBS you know it was a British SF show.
Anyone else interested in it or know any more details?

 

[alan halvorson]

I have it ordered; however, many (including me) are skeptical about the transfer quality since each disc will contain either 5 or 6 episodes each of this almost 1 hour per episode series. There is also a British release that may be better and will contain some supplements, but individual discs won't start releasing until next year - I don't know if there will be a complete set.

 

[David Lambert]

I posted complete info about a month ago, in this old thread on the subject.
The Oct. 1 2002 date at DeepDiscountDVD is just plain wrong. They've had that date up since early May, and it wasn't until late June that BFS Entertainment came forward with any real data. As Gord Lacey, owner of TVShowsOnDVD.com posted at his site, BFS says Jan. 7 2003.
If that's not good enough, chew on this: no other online retailer I can find has Blake's 7 listed yet. Not Amazon, DVDEpire, DVDPlanet, or a host of others I checked.
As soon as BFS is ready to solicate it to retailers, and have therefore locked down the final word as to the feature list, Gord or I will probably list all ten separate discs AND the complete box set at TVShowsOnDVD. We might do it sooner with just basic information, but we'd at least like to get a tad closer to the release date...it's still a long ways off (5 months). There still isn't even box art yet!
As to quality issues, I suspect it could easily look worse than Stargate SG-1. There are noticable compression flaws on the SG-1 episodes. SG-1 has 46-minute shows, and stacked as many as 5 to a disc on Vol's 2, 3, & 4 of the Season 1 set. B7 has 50-minute shows, and is stacking 5 per disc on Vol's 1-8, and then 6 per disc on Vol's 9 & 10. Whew! Gonna have to be a low-bitrate affair with lots of compression artifact possibilities.

 

[Scott Kriefall]

B7 on DVD? Excellent! I'm really looking forward to this. Even if the quality isn't top-notch it should still be much better than my old 3rd- or 4th-generation VHS dubs of the episodes. I'll actually be able to hear what's being said without having to concentrate on blocking out the high level of audio noise .

 

[Michael Sliger]

BFS Entertainment also is now listing the January 7th, 2003 release date on their website (http://www.bfsent.com in the Products/Future Releases section), so we can formally dismiss Deep Discount DVDs information now. Still, they are only listing 10 disks. It looks like I will be waiting to hear reviews on these disks and the R2 sets (which are rumored to be more feature-rich) before I upgrade my off-air VHS tapes.

 

[Mark_Wilson]

Maybe they'll be 10 dvd18s or dvd14s? Well I can wish...

 

[David Lambert]

Michael, didn't I say that in my old post which I linked to here?
Here's the DIRECT link to the (meager) info that BFS has on their site about this. I had to call them to fill in the gaps.
And Mark, yes...there IS some indication that double-sided discs could be employed here. But that either wasn't known or wasnt' decided yet. It's still early in the game for this set. We'll keep you posted!

 

[oscar_merkx]

this is absolutely fab

 

[Brandon Gantt]

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine recently confirmed that the Region 2 DVDs of Blake's 7 will also be out in 2003 for the 25th Anniversary. The 4 Season Box Sets will be joint ventures between BBC Worldwide and UK distributor Fabulous Films. Basically this means 2 things: restored masters and extras! So far the only extra confirmed by DWM is The Making of Blake's 7, directed by Kevin Davies(of More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS fame). The documentary is a 4 part, 30 minute feature, with 1 episode to be included in each box set. So if you want Blake's 7 on DVD done right, Region 2 is the way to go.
Sources:
Doctor Who Magazine #320
R2-DVD Project
Hermit.org

 

[Michael Sliger]

It appears that the Region 1 release of Blake's Seven may on hold or canceled. On BFS Entertainment's website at http://www.bfsent.com , the listings for those disks in the Future Releases section are now gone. Hopefully they are rethinking the disk format and will tell us about it before January. I would rather have NTSC disks, but I will start buying the Region 2 sets if that appears to be the only/best option. I don't see any details coming from the Horizon fan club or TVShowsonDVD.com yet.

 

[David Lambert]

I don't see any details coming from the Horizon fan club or TVShowsonDVD.com yet.

Gord and I have been quite busy/distracted with doings related to the MSCL set, among other things. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll make sure this gets looked into.

 

[Michael Sliger]

FYI, I received a brief reply from BFS Entertainment via email. The Blake's Seven DVDs have been put on hold for re-evaluation. No other details were given to me. Hopefully they will make their new intentions public before late January so that fans can make a proper choice between the R1 and R2 sets.

 

[David Lambert]

That agrees with what Gord was told. :frowning:
Let's hope the time is used to make something great!

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

A quick quote from Steve Roberts of the Doctor Who Restoration Team, when asked on the forum the other day about who's doing the Blake's 7 restoration work:

It's being overseen by Ralph Montagu. I think they've only done the first series so far, but they've all gone through the transform decoder and had their film sequences replaced by new Spirit transfers where possible.
I don't think there'll be many complaints!

Sounds good to me!

 

[oscar_merkx]

I quite agree, and thanks for the link as well.