Will B5 TLT be available for Region 2

[Joseph DeMartino]

I am no expert on this and don't wish to be, but I think that the main problem might be to get your computer to read the thing in the first place.

Actually, no. The region coding would prevent your DVD software from playing the thing, but it wouldn't prevent Windows Explorer or something similar from simply "looking" at the disc and seeing what files are on it. So any DVD ripper program would similarly be able to copy the files from the DVD, take them apart, removed flags and then output to a playable disc. The region coding only kicks in when you try to watch the movie, not when you try to access the file system of the disc.

Regards,

Joe

[Shabaz]

Anyway, that's the theory of region coding. Just as the studios forced copyprotection on the new format they - responding to pressure from their overseas business partners - forced the DVD consortium to accept region coding as part of the price for their support. I'll have to check this, but I don't believe that either of the newer hi-def DVD formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) incorporates region coding. Interesting if true, as it seems a tacit admission by the studios that the idea didn't work out as planned and is better quietly dropped.

Regards,

Joe

Quite the opposite actually. Studios have gone into even further overdrive with restricting usage of HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and they still include regional coding. AACS, the DRM scheme used by both disc formats, goes quite a bit further than DVD ever did.

You can find the new regions on the Blu-ray Disc Association's website here.

[Milkman]

Hmm.. last i heard Blue ray was going to have regional coding and HD-DVD was not... but i have no links to back that up that aren't a year old... so things may have changed.

[Shabaz]

Well, I believe that Blu-ray region restrictions are done at the AACS level, a system that is shared between the two disc formats. But doing a bit of quick googling, it seems you might be right, and that the DVD Forum, HD-DVD and DVD's controlling body, has decided not to go for region restriction for HD-DVD. Too bad that Blu-ray is the one with the most studio and electronics industry support, from what I remember reading.

[qstor]

dvd

That's odd. Amazon refuses to sell me (in Belgium) region 1 DVD's! Only one ever managed to get through (Shadowlands). And region free players are illegal in Belgium.

That's wierd. It must be something with the European Union and copyright laws.

EDIT: I missed Joe's post on this issue.

Mike

[cornholio1980]

That's wierd. It must be something with the European Union and copyright laws.

No, since in most countries of the European Union, buying R1 DVD's is legal (it's just forbidden for stores to sell them, and in germany you have rather strict censorship laws, so if you want to import a DVD that's forbidden there and the customs department finds it, they will send it back). It really has to have something to do with the laws in belgium, but I have to say it still strikes me as rather odd. I never heard about that before.

Concerning an R2 release: I'm positive that Warners will release The Lost Tales in Europe too. The only thing I'm not sure about is if they will pay for dubbing. So while England definitely will see "The Lost Tales" in their stores, I'm not so sure about Germany, France etc.

[Joseph DeMartino]

The only thing I'm not sure about is if they will pay for dubbing. So while England definitely will see "The Lost Tales" in their stores, I'm not so sure about Germany, France etc.

Interesting question. My guess is the answer is "almost certainly not." Circumstantial evidence from the way The Gathering was handled suggests that such dubbing is done by whoever buys the broadcast rights in each country or by the studio but only after such a broadcast deal is in place.

So, if this is going to be purely direct-to-DVD in Europe, regardless of what happens in the States, I'd say chances are that the first set, at least, will be in English only with a choice of subtitles. (If the first disc sells really well, WB may reconsider if they judge that they'll gain enough extra sales in each country to cover the - considerable - cost of having the episodes dubbed.) But if it is also shown on television than chances are it will be dubbed for broadcast and therefore can be released that way on DVD. I think this project will be a tough sell for WB unless they already have a U.S. TV deal in place, so the whole thing could depend on how the dominoes fall.

If the show sells for airing in Canada then there will be at least a French dub, regardless of what happens in Europe. Chances are that WB would just put the French language track on all the R1 DVDs rather than bother with a separate inventory for Canada.

You have to remember that to dubbbing a show into another language is a lot harder and more expensive than subtitling it, or even doing voice work for an animated feature. You need as exact as possible a translation of the script, and then you have to tinker with it so that the words used match the existing lip movements of the original actors as much as possible. (In animation the voices get recorded first and the animators match the lip movements to the voice track.) Then you have to hire good actors, often high-priced voice specialists - to perform the show. Which isn't easy when you're standing on a recording stage wearing headphones and watching a screen instead of being on a set, in costume, and interacting with the other cast members. Actors often find it tough to do ADR (Automatica Dialogue Replacement) for scenes where the wind or other ambient noise drowns out the sound recorded live on the day - and that's matching their own reading of the identical line in the original language. Now think about doing that to someone else's performance paraphrasing the line in French.

(About a million years ago, I acted in a student film as a favor for a friend of a friend. I spent a whole Saturday in a suburban high school for a scene that would last under a minute on screen and in which I spoke three lines. A couple of months later the director was doing the final edit on this opus and he called me in to "loop" one of the lines. It seems he had tinkered with the plot in editing and one of my lines no longer made sense. Rather than reshoot he wanted to see if we could come up with something that would make sense in the context of his new ending, but still match my lip-movements on-screen. It took about four hours to come up with something that worked and sounded OK when cut into scene on the editing system. And that was one line. )

Regards,

Joe

[Towelmaster]

To get back to the question for a moment :

a) B5 was hugely successful outside the U.S.A.
b) The Dvd-release was a big financial monsterhit for WB.

I think it is safe to assume that this project will also be released in Europe. It is a much bigger market you(may) assume. SF was always popular here, especially in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Scandinavia. In fact; American publishers would typically keep a part of their stock reserved for the Netherlands... Don't know if that's still the case though.

And as for translated subtitles: BLEEEEeeeeehHHHhhh! Who needs 'em? Just the English subtitles will do, and that's just because I have a slight hearingproblem...


p.s. Did I ever tell you about that good friend of mine who held the dutch rights to StarshipTroopers? He had them for 15 years, it cost him about 45 dollars a year. So he got fed up with not finding people who could translate it and forfeited the rights. Not two years later some dutch guy called Paul Verhoeven releases the movie... Sour grapes man...

[cornholio1980]

Circumstantial evidence from the way The Gathering was handled suggests that such dubbing is done by whoever buys the broadcast rights in each country or by the studio but only after such a broadcast deal is in place.

Yeah that's true, and it's the reason why "Legend of the Rangers" was released in Germany, and the recut of "The Gathering" wasn't. A TV station (I think it was RTL) paid for the dubbing because they had acquired the rights of the B5 tv-films and Crusade. Funny enough: While they bought the rights and paid for dubbing, they only showed the movies (except "Legend of the Rangers").

So I agree, the only chance for Germans to see those new Lost Tales will be if the RTL-Group or a similar TV-station gets the right to broadcast them and hires a company to dub them (and even then I highly doubt if they would be careful enough to hire the same voice actors ) - something that would definitely be more likely if the Lost Tales would be broadcasted (and quite successfully so) in the US.

I'd say chances are that the first set, at least, will be in English only with a choice of subtitles.

Then they will definitely not be released in Germany, because over here, they only release DVD's with a german language track. So in that case, german B5-fans would have to pay the UK-release...

I think it is safe to assume that this project will also be released in Europe. It is a much bigger market you(may) assume. SF was always popular here, especially in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Scandinavia.

For obvious reasons, I can only speak for the german speaking countries, but... I would be very careful with that assumption. With the exception of Star Trek and Stargate, there are not many TV shows that are successful over here and that are broadcasted in the evening (prime time) on one of the bigger stations. Even after B5 and other shows, they still have this stigma of being "something for children", which is why they are often broadcasted in the afternoon. Or late at night, because while SF has a quite loyal fanbase over here, it's also rather small compared to the mainstream audience (who seems to especially like such highly demanding programs like "Big Brother" and the zillion other Reality-TV-bullshit-shows). The USA is much more open in that regard, I think.

[white_star25]

Um, guys, I don't want to jump to any certain conclusions and make you happy in advance but...

I've bought the "Babylon 5 - The Movie Collection" from Amazon.com, all supposed to be Region 1, but it's actually region-free!! I'm not kidding, it plays just fine in my Region 2 dvd-player, a player that is quite sensitive and picky with these things! There's a reviewer in Amazon saying the same thing, that the collection is region-free, so it was not just my bunch! The only thing that may affect the playback is the NTSC form of the picture, Europe is PAL. However, if your TV-set can handle both PAL and NTSC feed or your dvd-player has a PAL/NTSC switch, then all is fine!

If, IF mind you, they produce the B5:TLT dvds with the same method as the movie collection, region-free, then we poor Region 2 Europeans and all other B5 fans from all over the world can rest assured!

[Towelmaster]

For obvious reasons, I can only speak for the german speaking countries, but... I would be very careful with that assumption. With the exception of Star Trek and Stargate, there are not many TV shows that are successful over here and that are broadcasted in the evening (prime time) on one of the bigger stations.

Well... Obviously we get our share of Big Brother crap as the formula was invented in Holland(I am REALLY sorry about that...). But having said that, we have had all the incarnations of StarTrek, we had B5, Farscape, Precinct something(something about a policestation in space, terrible....). And we had 'The 4400' which I really like. And of course there was the X-files, there was Xena, and all that stuff. The only one we haven't had was Firefly and that is supposed to be on next season.

So come and have a look in Holland if you are looking for english Sci-Fi. It's quite abundant here!

And erm.... Dutch and German Trekkies Are The Worst Fanatics In The World. I've heard the stories about the Klingon weddings in the Black Forest...

[cornholio1980]

I've bought the "Babylon 5 - The Movie Collection" from Amazon.com, all supposed to be Region 1, but it's actually region-free!!

Thanks for the advice, but I'm sorry to tell you that this is common knowledge, at least in this forum.

Still, the thought that the american release of the lost tales could be region-free too is an intruiging one. I wouldn't count on it, though, since they may apply harder rules on direct to dvd-titles. Still, I'm 100% sure that "The Lost Tales" will be released in England on DVD too, so all the european B5-fans that understand english well enough should be fine

So come and have a look in Holland if you are looking for english Sci-Fi. It's quite abundant here!

You sure are a lucky bunch . I really wish it would be the same over here. In Austria, they stopped showing B5 (which they did monday-friday in the afternoon, during the child/teenager program ) after Season 2. In Germany they showed it 1 episode per week on saturdays and then sundays, in the early evening (5 or 6 pm, if I recall correctly). So no prime time treatment for the best SF-show ever.

And I simply cannot point it out often enough: The poor german B5-fans had to wait 1-1/2 years before the season 3-cliffhanger got resolved. I still wonder how I survived that

And erm.... Dutch and German Trekkies Are The Worst Fanatics In The World. I've heard the stories about the Klingon weddings in the Black Forest...

I think there are weird people everywhere, so I don't think that klingon weddings are limited to the Black Forest. And... aren't we all a little crazy?

[Towelmaster]

I think there are weird people everywhere, so I don't think that klingon weddings are limited to the Black Forest. And... aren't we all a little crazy?

Oh but you've got to admire the effort that goes into the costumes and all... The pictures were magnificent!

Mind you: I have heard from people on several occasions that Klingon sounds best when it is spoken with a German accent... Ka'Pla!

[I love Lyta]

So come and have a look in Holland if you are looking for english Sci-Fi. It's quite abundant here!

I'll remember that next time I visit my ex g/f. Usually I bring but coffee pads and Stroopwafels back to Germany when I do.

Though usually I just order english Sci-Fi through amazon.co.uk.
Otherwise I would never have been able to see e.g. Firefly.
And since I don't give a rat's ass for dubbed versions I don't really care if the DVDs make it to Germany as long as they will be available in the UK (or Holland for that matter ).

Oh btw., to paint a picture of how much behind germany is: BSG the mini series was broadcasted here in spring. But so far not the series.
Farscape was till season 3 with the episodes in more or less random order.
LOST season 2 started here about 6 weeks ago. Stargate SG-1 season9 will start next week. Scrubs season 4 will start in 3 weeks.
And not shown at all: Dr. Who, Firefly, Eureka (I love it) and countless other series because obviously noone here deemed those worth showing...

[cornholio1980]

Oh btw., to paint a picture of how much behind germany is: BSG the mini series was broadcasted here in spring. But so far not the series.

While I totally agree with your point, that statement is false. RTL II showed not only the mini-series but also the first season...