Will B5 TLT be available for Region 2

[cornholio1980]

But not not in full, did they? The period over which it appeared in the tv-guide seemed much too short for the whole season as far as I remember.

The first season only had 13 episodes - which might explain why you felt it's run to be so short.

[SpanishFan]

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...

Here in Spain it's even worse.
Farscape has never been shown, Lost S2 started about 4 weeks ago, Stargate is on the autonomic channels (which means it only airs in certain parts of the country and some have seen more than others; here in the Basque Country S7 ended a year ago, no word on S8), we saw S1 and part of S2 of Scrubs before it went to the digital channels, and no Who, Firefly, Eureka or BSG. The Practice is on mid-S3, Tru Calling was on mid-S1 last we saw, Angel wasn't shown past S1...

The Killer: B5 ended in S3.

In the digital channels it's better. SG-1 is on S8, I believe they've shown something of BSG and Farscape, all of Angel, and they say they'll show Eureka soon.

B5 ended in S4 in the digitals, but the Spanish Sci-Fi channel has just started showing it, and they say they'll show S5, but no word on the movies or Crusade.

Meanwhile we've got lots of Big Brothers, Dancing with the stars, Survivors,...

Spanish TV sucks.

[I love Lyta]

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

But not not in full, did they? The period over which it appeared in the tv-guide seemed much too short for the whole season as far as I remember.
But then I didn't really care much about it anyways.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

In fairness, BSG is only shown on Sky here in the UK. It has not made it to any of the free terestrial channels yet...

I could be mistaken, but I am sure I read somewhere recently that Sky is involved with the funding of BSG to some extent. If that is the case, it is not really surprising that it hasn't yet made it to terrestrial television. After all, if Sky want to use BSG as a way of encouraging SF fans to buy their television service, it is of no long-term benefit to them to let it be sold on in this way.

Much like 24 ... first two seasons were a big success on the BBC, then Fox (who also own Sky) "wangled" seasons 3 onwards onto Sky instead, and terrestrial viewers haven't been able to see any of that. S3 has only recently made it onto Sky 3, which is available on Freeview. Still not available to non-digital viewers though.

On the assumption that I am wrong ... I am surprised that BSG hasn't yet made the jump to terrestrial TV.

Editted to add ...

This is what Wikipedia says:

Unusually, it was aired first in the UK & Ireland on Sky One, and then later aired in North America in January 2005. The reason for this was that Sky gave the finance required to shoot the first season and because of this Ronald D. Moore agreed to give Sky the first showing. Unlike NBC, who was very uncertain, Sky had faith in the success of the show, mainly due to the mini-series having been a hit in the UK & Ireland. However, due to massive downloading from BitTorrent sites by North American broadband users, any further seasons would be aired in North America first.

[Darth_librarian]

In fairness, BSG is only shown on Sky here in the UK. It has not made it to any of the free terestrial channels yet...

[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...

[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...

[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!

[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]

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...

[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!

[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.

[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...

[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

[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.