One Step Beyond -- Restored! (2 Viewers)

[Professor Echo]

Can anyone recommend a relatively good quality public domain set of OSB that contains many of the unreleased episodes?

 

[Jack P]

The 50 episode Mill Creek one was the one I went with.

 

[Professor Echo]

The 50 episode Mill Creek one was the one I went with.

Thank you. I'll check it out. In the mood to watch this and don't think they will do the remaining seasons in an "official" release, unfortunately.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi jack,

i have had this conversation with quite a few others on different threads.

most of them think that i am "over-confident".

however, i do think that i am taking a realistic view, and you guys tend to be too pessimistic !!

i have been willing to put my foot in my mouth on quite a few shows, now - ones that i actually watched.

i do not take your comments as being at all disrespectful - just different, from mine.

just look at how many times your side has already been wrong.

since it is already there sitting on the shelf - at some point most of these shows "that will never come out" will come out.

and every time another one comes out, there will tend to be more and more of you jumping over into my boat.

 

[jimmyjet]

as mick jagger put it, "time is on my side".

 

[ChrisALM]

I am aware of the PD releases of OSB, but have held out getting them in hopes that CBS would finish the show's remaining seasons or that a licensing deal might happen.

 

[smithbrad]

as mick jagger put it, "time is on my side".

Okay Jimmy, every title that was unexpected or people questioned as having issues deterring a release you trumpet as a success to your overall viewpoint, even though statistically speaking it is still a drop in the bucket to what remains out there. Not to forget that many of the releases remaining are lesser known and/or have more established issues.

I'll grant you surprises come from time to time but again statistically speaking you still haven't proven anything. Your canned response is to just wait and all will be released. You say you have accepted the challenge but yet you have an unlimited amount of time on your side with no measuring stick for real progress, other than to say "see" whenever a single release may sneak through.

So how about this, you have that list in another thread that currently has 160+ titles (that BTW is still a drop in the box for unreleased titles but I'll go with it since you said they will all be released some day). Most are older titles where the majority waiting for them would have to be middle aged. Lets just say these people would probably need these released in the next 30 years to be of an value to them (using whatever distribution approach at the time). So with that in mind, for a measuring stick we would need to see 5 or 6 titles from that list released each year. Doesn't that sound reasonable? If that happens I will be more than happy to change my tune, but if it doesn't wouldn't it be fair that you have to acknowledge that we may be right and that there are many titles that will never see the light of day.

You already have two from the top of the list pseudo announced for this year so are you willing to state three to four more from the list will be released this year, and another five or six each year after? Deal?

 

[JeffT.]

Jimmy is a nice fellow and I (sincerely) appreciate his encouraging optimism and support. As far as I am concerned we are all brothers here and despite our differences we still stand together.

When a title is delayed for (almost) five years that is definitely not a good sign but still this particular DVD set had such a great start and the product is such a worthy one that it would be a genuine shame if it weren't carried through.

The delay may well be symptomatic of the ever-increasing trend toward bluray and a mounting discontinuation (or an ever-steadily decrease) of "standard" DVD production which I am all for. How much longer is "standard" DVD going to continue anyway? How much longer will the home entertainment market inefficienctly support two mediums? Who really wants to buy a title in "standard" DVD then have to purchase it all over again (sometime later) in bluray? Maybe (or likely) these companies just want to get out of "standard" DVD production altogether so the ONE STEP BEYOND series (which came late in the game) is now in a kind of indefinite limbo of just how to practically continue on having started in a medium which (sooner-or-later) is doomed to be obsolete.

Speaking for myself I will now not buy a film unless it is made available in the bluray medium. I would like to see certain previously released classic tv titles (ultimately) advanced to the bluray medium (VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, THE TIME TUNNEL and THE INVADERS will more-than-satisfactorily do for a start).

All of us who have contributed to this discussion thread have purchased this particular set so the fault is not with us. We supported it!

Pertaining to BURKE'S LAW aka AMOS BURKE, SECRET AGENT (ABC 1963-66) the problem may lie with VCI Entertainment and not the product. The company (from what I have been able to ascertain) seems to be a state of relative inertness and doesn't really seem to be doing much of anything lately. VCI also never completed the (excellent) SPACE ANGEL (Syndicated 1964) 1960s SF-premised animated tv series...and surely that must have sold well enough!

Jeff T.

 

[Nebiroth]

I'm afraid that a series that got it;s first season released and then nothing for five years speaks to me of one where the studio got it's fingers burnt and made a loss.

The best hope for a series like this is where either a small label like Shout - which has lower expectations and requirements for profit margins - pick it up or that it goes into something like the Warner Archive, which only Warner seem to have really run with.

I think it;s very unlikely that a series such as this one is going to be picke dup again. It either sells well enough on the initial realease to continue or it falls at that first fence, at least as far as one of the big labels is concerned. It also doesn;t help that there are several PD versions out there.

That's the way it works sadly. I think getting the final 13 episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea finally out on DVD was one of the very few occasions where a marginal title got released for the sake of completing it. I have a feeling that if it hadn't been the last few episodes, but say halfway through, we might not have been any more of those either.

The Midnite Movies range appears to have suffered a similar fate.

The best hope for this one is that someone picks it up, like MPI have done with My Favorite Martian.

The upcoming Adam West Batman series is a very different prospect to One Steo Beyond, so we shouldn;t draw any conclusions from that finally appearing.

 

[Jack P]

Pertaining to BURKE'S LAW aka AMOS BURKE, SECRET AGENT (ABC 1963-66) the problem may lie with VCI Entertainment and not the product. The company (from what I have been able to ascertain) seems to be a state of relative inertness and doesn't really seem to be doing much of anything lately. VCI also never completed the (excellent) SPACE ANGEL (Syndicated 1964) 1960s SF-premised animated tv series...and surely that must have sold well enough!

VCI never had the rights to do the remainder of "Burke's Law" and was only granted a license from Fox on a season to season basis (this is why they could not include the Honey West pilot episode from S2 of BL in the Honey West DVD set). So whatever their status is right now is not relevant to the matter because its up to Fox to license it out and I just have to hope that Timeless can find room for it at this point.

 

[JoeDoakes]

How much longer is "standard" DVD going to continue anyway? How much longer will the home entertainment market inefficienctly support two mediums? Who really wants to buy a title in "standard" DVD then have to purchase it all over again (sometime later) in bluray? Maybe (or likely) these companies just want to get out of "standard" DVD production altogether so the ONE STEP BEYOND series (which came late in the game) is now in a kind of indefinite limbo of just how to practically continue on having started in a medium which (sooner-or-later) is doomed to be obsolete.

Speaking for myself I will now not buy a film unless it is made available in the bluray medium. I would like to see certain previously released classic tv titles (ultimately) advanced to the bluray medium (VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, THE TIME TUNNEL and THE INVADERS will more-than-satisfactorily do for a start).

For a lot of product, the reason we still have DVDs is twofold: (1) The market is limited, and DVD allows sales to those with and without blu-ray players; (2) existing transfers of certain shows and films are not high def quality, so a blu would not result in a very improved picture. It's fine for you to "vow" never to purchase a film on DVD, but it seems rather self defeating to me. There's a lot that will never come out on blu-ray.

 

[Nebiroth]

The delay may well be symptomatic of the ever-increasing trend toward bluray and a mounting discontinuation (or an ever-steadily decrease) of "standard" DVD production which I am all for. How much longer is "standard" DVD going to continue anyway? How much longer will the home entertainment market inefficienctly support two mediums? Who really wants to buy a title in "standard" DVD then have to purchase it all over again (sometime later) in bluray? Maybe (or likely) these companies just want to get out of "standard" DVD production altogether so the ONE STEP BEYOND series (which came late in the game) is now in a kind of indefinite limbo of just how to practically continue on having started in a medium which (sooner-or-later) is doomed to be obsolete.

Speaking for myself I will now not buy a film unless it is made available in the bluray medium. I would like to see certain previously released classic tv titles (ultimately) advanced to the bluray medium (VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, THE TIME TUNNEL and THE INVADERS will more-than-satisfactorily do for a start).

All of us who have contributed to this discussion thread have purchased this particular set so the fault is not with us. We supported it!

Pertaining to BURKE'S LAW aka AMOS BURKE, SECRET AGENT (ABC 1963-66) the problem may lie with VCI Entertainment and not the product. The company (from what I have been able to ascertain) seems to be a state of relative inertness and doesn't really seem to be doing much of anything lately. VCI also never completed the (excellent) SPACE ANGEL (Syndicated 1964) 1960s SF-premised animated tv series...and surely that must have sold well enough!

Jeff T.

Oh, we'll have DVD for a long time. You know, it still outsells BluRay by a hell of a lot. If you put something out on DVD, you know everyone can play it - even people with BluRay players. That's before you factor in the fact that there's a lot of stuff that's simply not worth releasing on BluRay because the quality of source materials make it pointless.

There's plenty of lif elef tin BluRay, and I strongly suspect that a studio that looks at a title and decides it can only release it in one format will opt for DVD; not BluRay.

A title out on BluRay can only be used (and therefore bought) by people with BluRay players. A title on DVD has full access to the still-large legacy consumer group of DVD only and people with BluRay.

You don't "have" to buy something again on BluRay. For me I have much that is perfectly satisfactory on DVD and I wouldn;t double-dip, even if they brought it out on Blu, which they won't because the source is standard def anyway.

And whilst the Irwin Allen stuff would look great on Blu, it's not going to happen: the troubles that surrounded getting Voyage completed on DVD point to the fact of disappointingly low sales volumes - there's just no way that doing the whole thing over again in high-defintion and releasing it on Blu is ever going to be profitable - if not enough people were buying the DVD releases, how many are going to be double-dipping to buy it again on Blu? Even a show like Batman will only be viable on Blu if it;s offered, or at least promised with a firm date on that in it's initial release.

And I sure as heck wouldn;t deny myself the pleasure of owning a title just because it;s not on BD!

Many, many titles are only with us because the sheer mass of the DVD market made nominal sales profitable. BD has not yet attained that mass, nor is it likely to; it is already too squeezed between DVD and streaming.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi guys,

it remains to be seen how overly optimistic i am.

it has already been proven though, that your boat is too pessimistic.

too many "never gonna make it" have already done so.

hi brad,

the list in that thread do not represent me, which is why i had encouraged you earlier to start a thread about the ones that i put my foot in my mouth on.

i dont think i even know half of the ones in the thread that you mentioned.

most of my tv watching is from the 60s and some early 70s. by the time i got to college, i did not have the luxury of tv watching !!

and in later adult life, there was not that much that i even cared to watch !!

i still encourage you to start a thread about the ones that i stated would occur. and i will yield to a 30-year time frame.

i told you guys that wonder years would happen. i will take credit for that.

i did not say that batman would necessarily happen. i will not take credit for that one.

at least you cant say i am not fair !!

 

[Tooncy]

Back to the original topic, I have the Mill Creek OSB set, and the quality is pretty bad. Not entirely unwatchable, but only worth having just to get the episodes.

 

[Gary16]

Back to the original topic, I have the Mill Creek OSB set, and the quality is pretty bad. Not entirely unwatchable, but only worth having just to get the episodes.

I believe OSB was a test case for CBS that unfortunately failed. As I see it, they were well aware of all the shoddy-looking DVDs (and VHS) out there for the program, so their test was to put out the first season in brand new 35mm high quality transfers, fully complete, to see how it would sell. Apparently too many consumers were satisfied with the less-than-good transfers and weren't enticed to buy the authorized first season despite the major quality difference.
That's too bad for those of us who are true collectors and will in fact buy the best quality out there. I have to assume that the only reason all of those sub-par DVDs of TV shows and feature films continue to be produced is because stores like Walmart are stocking them and people are buying them not realizing, in many cases, that they're buying copies that probably look OK on an old small screen tube TV.
Whether it's TV programs or movies, there are still a lot of titles that were out on VHS that haven't yet made it to DVD. There are even titles on Laserdisc that either took a long time to get to DVD or haven't yet.

 

[Tooncy]

What I don't understand is, why didn't they release the copyrighted episodes first, to get those out there since they're obviously not included on the PD compilations? Even collectors who are satisfied with the PD stuff would have jumped at those, and at least that way the entire series would be available.

 

[Jack P]

I think if you didn't go with a strict chronological approach of first season you also would have alienated people who wouldn't like the schizoid approach of only releasing "copyrighted" shows.

 

[Tooncy]

I don't think so. The results certainly wouldn't have been worse than with what they actually did do.

 

[Tooncy]

The third season would be the copyrighted shows. And it wouldn't have been the first time they did this. They didn't release Season One of The Beverly Hillbillies for that very reason.

 

[smithbrad]

hi guys,

it remains to be seen how overly optimistic i am.

it has already been proven though, that your boat is too pessimistic.

too many "never gonna make it" have already done so.

hi brad,

the list in that thread do not represent me, which is why i had encouraged you earlier to start a thread about the ones that i put my foot in my mouth on.

i dont think i even know half of the ones in the thread that you mentioned.

most of my tv watching is from the 60s and some early 70s. by the time i got to college, i did not have the luxury of tv watching !!

and in later adult life, there was not that much that i even cared to watch !!

i still encourage you to start a thread about the ones that i stated would occur. and i will yield to a 30-year time frame.

i told you guys that wonder years would happen. i will take credit for that.

i did not say that batman would necessarily happen. i will not take credit for that one.

at least you cant say i am not fair !!

Sorry for the off topic...but just to finish up and redirect to the other thread for future discussions on this.

Jimmy, I refrenced in that other thread that there was no need to start a new thread since that thread was perfectly able to support it, and the 150+ shows I referenced were posted by you from comments gathered in that thread.

I assumed when you posted that list that you were stating that all of those contained within would be released some day. However, if that is not the case then you are admitting that some won't be released. Two out of 150+ having been announced is not a sign of of being overly pessimistic. So to prove your point I would think at least a majority of those would have to be released within a measurable timeframe, and if not that would be a sign of being overly optimistic to think they would. I would suggest you just identify 50+% of those listed (back in the other thread) that you think will be released in the next 30 years and then we can just take a wait and see approach.

Sorry for the intrusion...back One Step Beyond.