Have you seen the prices on the old BCI/Eclipse Filmation sets? (1 Viewer)

[Regulus]

I was surfing amazon.com looking to see what the prices were of box sets I intend to purchase later this year when I stumbled across a listing for the 1970s set Secrets of Isis. It was selling for $149.89!

I looked up the other sets sold by BCI/Eclipse and I came up with the following:

Ark II. $ 230.24

Space Academy.. $48.98

Jason of Star Command. $95.04

The Box Set containing all three of these sets goes for $299.99.

Space Sentinels. $52.10

Blackstar. $133.93

All four of Filmation's Archie's shows can be had for $79.53

the only saving grace is Flash Gordon. The Mill Creek version goes for as little as $2.06, but that one is MISSING two episodes. (The BCI version sells for $46.42.

I'm glad I picked up all of these shows for approximately $15.00 each before they all went OOP.
To play it safe I'm backing up all of them (I have a disk copy program LAUGHS at "Copy Protection"). (Don't worry, I'm making these for my own use, they will replace the official versions, which I will place in storage.

 

[Jack P]

I went the extra mile on "Secrets Of Isis" for myself and not only re-edited the Season 1 closing morals back into the episodes they were meant for but I also slowed the main episodes down 4% to remove the PAL speedup! (the closing morals were already at the correct speed being off-air 1976 recordings)

 

[Bryan^H]

I was surfing amazon.com looking to see what the prices were of box sets I intend to purchase later this year when I stumbled across a listing for the 1970s set Secrets of Isis. It was selling for $149.89!

I looked up the other sets sold by BCI/Eclipse and I came up with the following:

Ark II. $ 230.24

Space Academy.. $48.98

Jason of Star Command. $95.04

Don't believe the hype. I have tracked multiple sets of ISIS on E-Bay. I can tell you they never sell for that much. In fact, I got a sealed copy of Secrets of Isis last year(Best Buy $19.99 price sticker still on it) for $87. Good condition loose copies tend to go for $50-$75

 

[Regulus]

All the prices I posted were from amazon.com. It would be nice to see this show rereleased, this time with the morels, such as they did with SHAZAM! a couple of years ago. On the other hand when they hear ISIS they do not associate this with the Egyptian Goddess or this TV show.

 

[Bryan^H]

All the prices I posted were from amazon.com.

I know, they are all from the Amazon Marketplace. And they don't sell at the outrageous prices there either.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

Sadly, this was the main reason BCI went under. They released these kinds of shows.

 

[Bryan^H]

Sadly, this was the main reason BCI went under. They released these kinds of shows.

Correct, Secret of Isis sold really well, Jason of Star Command broke even, and all the other live action Filmation shows failed.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Correct, Secret of Isis sold really well, Jason of Star Command broke even, and all the other live action Filmation shows failed.

I wonder how the game show sets did?

It was a great idea, but I don't know how many buyers there were.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

one wishes that Classic Media (or whoever owns the rights to this now) would at least re-release Isis, if nothing else. The question is whether they'd be allowed to include any of the bonus features from the previous set, though, as those were produced by BCI/Eclipse.

At least people who missed the boat the first time around would be able to own the episodes at a reasonable price.

I, personally, would like to see a UK company release them, so that a nice, clean PAL set would be out there (as the US set is an NTSC conversion from the only-existing masters, which are PAL). I have copies of some of the PAL-format Filmation releases from Spain (no English soundtrack, unfortunately). Besides looking better than the US sets (no extra standards conversion, after all), they also show more picture information, since some of that also gets lost in the PAL/NTSC conversion.

The only PAL releases in English are, sadly, just chapters 1-12 from season 1 of Jason of Star Command.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

All the prices I posted were from amazon.com. It would be nice to see this show rereleased, this time with the morels, such as they did with SHAZAM! a couple of years ago.

Only a couple of problems with that:

1. they were never able to track down a complete set of morals. The only ones they were able to locate all came from the first season (many were from Joanna Pang's own off-air beta tapes). No second-season morals were ever located.

2. Even if BCI/Eclipse wanted to include the option of playing the episodes with morals intact, they were strictly forbidden from doing so by Entertainment Rights (who owned the masters). E.R. had a very strict policy that their masters were not to be modified in in any way. That means no "taking away from" (editing out) or "adding to" (editing in) other materials. This is why the reconstructed credits for Freedom Force had to play after the E.R. logos, rather than at the end of the individual segments.

The situation was different with Shazam! because the company releasing the DVDs was also the company which owned the masters. Even so, the people at Warner Archives wouldn't have done what they did without the persistence of Paul Hamerlinck and other super-fans who told them they'd be making a big mistake if they didn't allow some sort of option to 'play with moral segment'. WB didn't want to do it since all the season 1 and 3 morals were of much poorer visual quality than the episodes themselves, but they at least listened to the fans and rather than making it the default, compromised by allowing it as a selectable option.

Regarding all of the above statements, I am not quoting something second-hand. I have first-hand knowledge of this and know what I speak of. I was involved in both of these releases (and provided some of the materials shown on those DVD sets) and had communication with the releasing companies prior to each release.

 

[Regulus]

Only a couple of problems with that:

1. they were never able to track down a complete set of morals. The only ones they were able to locate all came from the first season (many were from Joanna Pang's own off-air beta tapes). No second-season morals were ever located.

2. Even if BCI/Eclipse wanted to include the option of playing the episodes with morals intact, they were strictly forbidden from doing so by Entertainment Rights (who owned the masters). E.R. had a very strict policy that their masters were not to be modified in in any way. That means no "taking away from" (editing out) or "adding to" (editing in) other materials. This is why the reconstructed credits for Freedom Force had to play after the E.R. logos, rather than at the end of the individual segments.

The situation was different with Shazam! because the company releasing the DVDs was also the company which owned the masters. Even so, the people at Warner Archives wouldn't have done what they did without the persistence of Paul Hamerlinck and other super-fans who told them they'd be making a big mistake if they didn't allow some sort of option to 'play with moral segment'. WB didn't want to do it since all the season 1 and 3 morals were of much poorer visual quality than the episodes themselves, but they at least listened to the fans and rather than making it the default, compromised by allowing it as a selectable option.

Regarding all of the above statements, I am not quoting something second-hand. I have first-hand knowledge of this and know what I speak of. I was involved in both of these releases (and provided some of the materials shown on those DVD sets) and had communication with the releasing companies prior to each release.

So that's why Shazam! had the morels in them while Secrets of Isis didn't.

 

[Radioman970]

Glad I got all those as soon as I got word about BCI. and it's definitely a good idea to make personal backups. I haven't done that yet but need to. Same with my Krofft shows.

 

[Mark Y]

All the prices I posted were from amazon.com. It would be nice to see this show rereleased, this time with the morels, such as they did with SHAZAM! a couple of years ago. On the other hand when they hear ISIS they do not associate this with the Egyptian Goddess or this TV show.

It's our era's version of "the AYDS diet plan."

 

[Mark Y]

Only a couple of problems with that:

1. they were never able to track down a complete set of morals. The only ones they were able to locate all came from the first season (many were from Joanna Pang's own off-air beta tapes). No second-season morals were ever located.

2. Even if BCI/Eclipse wanted to include the option of playing the episodes with morals intact, they were strictly forbidden from doing so by Entertainment Rights (who owned the masters). E.R. had a very strict policy that their masters were not to be modified in in any way. That means no "taking away from" (editing out) or "adding to" (editing in) other materials. This is why the reconstructed credits for Freedom Force had to play after the E.R. logos, rather than at the end of the individual segments.

The situation was different with Shazam! because the company releasing the DVDs was also the company which owned the masters. Even so, the people at Warner Archives wouldn't have done what they did without the persistence of Paul Hamerlinck and other super-fans who told them they'd be making a big mistake if they didn't allow some sort of option to 'play with moral segment'. WB didn't want to do it since all the season 1 and 3 morals were of much poorer visual quality than the episodes themselves, but they at least listened to the fans and rather than making it the default, compromised by allowing it as a selectable option.

Regarding all of the above statements, I am not quoting something second-hand. I have first-hand knowledge of this and know what I speak of. I was involved in both of these releases (and provided some of the materials shown on those DVD sets) and had communication with the releasing companies prior to each release.

Hi, Andy -- thanks for these insights. In light of this, I'm curious about that one episode of The Archie Show where they had to sub in a video transfer of a song in one of the episodes. Can you enlighten me about what happened there? Also, where the video dub they used came from?

Thanks for all your contributions to these releases.

 

[JayHink]

Good thread. I've been (very) slowly picking off the BCI sets as I'm able to find them. It had been a while since I spotted one, but I found a vol. 1 set of Filmation's Ghostbusters for $16 new a month or so ago.

Still don't have Isis. Was hoping more of these would see rerelease from another company. (Although I prefer hunting down BCI versions over Mill Creek rereleases.)

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Hi, Andy -- thanks for these insights. In light of this, I'm curious about that one episode of The Archie Show where they had to sub in a video transfer of a song in one of the episodes. Can you enlighten me about what happened there? Also, where the video dub they used came from?

Thanks for all your contributions to these releases.

Hi:
Sorry, was only really in communication with them about the live-action shows and Freedom Force. One thing I did find out was at the time BCI was releasing this stuff, Entertainment Rights still hadn't catalogued all of the Filmation master materials they acquired from Hallmark (the whole library---not just Isis, Jason, etc). There were some film cans in the acquisition, besides the digital tapes, so they held film for at least some stuff, but the guy who saw all this stuff had no idea which shows they had film for, what they had video for and whether they had some of it on both formats or not.

My best guess: maybe their episode master was damaged (whether a film cut/splice or tape damage) and someone tracked down an off-air recording, maybe, to restore it? I don't know if the Archie stuff was released under Entertainment Rights ownership, or Classic Media, or if maybe they relaxed their policies about their masters.

Maybe this substitution was allowed because it was something that existed in their master, but was damaged, whereas restoring a moral segment to Isis would have not been allowed because those were never a part of the masters that E.R. held.