Movie Box set Uk!! screwed again?

[Dr Maturin]

<<Z'ha'dumDweller, yes we have a Monchay and donÆt even get me started on the fact that we donÆt even have a democracy, (our head of state is not elected) the fact the royal family is built on the blood, rape, and despair of English working class is often forgotten by you Yanks.>>

Cool accents and cars, then.

[Jan]

Jan, At the end of the day, JMS is head of the series, he should at least put a pressure on WB, or at least come out in support of us, if fact he should be doing something, instead silence on this issue, if I was JMS I would be concerned that a Lot of B5 FANS were quite Upset and would want to try to help.

Umm..."head of the series"? The series is *over*! JMS is the creator and WAS the Executive Producer/Showrunner/writer. By contract, he has to be involved somehow in any future Babylon 5 project. That doesn't mean that he has any 'pull' when it comes to marketing decisions for the DVDs, especially overseas. "Put pressure on WB"? He's said on several occasions that the different divisions of WB are made to compete and work against each other. It's not as if WB is one person he can call up now, is it?

That said, none of us have any way of knowing whether he's tried within his limited means to intercede for the fans. I've been reading his posts for several years now and I don't remember *any* where he reported a null result. Certainly never when he'd have to initiate the thread.

Again, I'm sorry you're upset. Railing that 'somebody' should do something doesn't help though. Perhaps you should spearhead a writing campaign. Form letter response or not, it seems that several hundred or thousand people letting them know that they're buying the competing division's product might just do some good. I'm afraid it's probably too late now, though.

Jan

[WRTWORTHY]

Jan, why do you defned him so much? he is as much to blame as WB in my opnion, dont defned people who are in the wrog, he is the wrong, he should come out publicly and side with us, he EU fans, Untill he does, nothing is going to make me think he is not to blame

as for letter writeing, I have sene it tried so many times before and WB ingore us and dont really care too much as what we think or buy as B5 is more of cult thing then a mainstream market target

and they wonder why trek beats us with the networks!!! our writer,producer, cant even stand up against WB

[Jan]

I'm not simply trying to defend JMS. He doesn't need me to defend him. What I wrote was an attempt to make you see reality. If all you want is to be angry...keep ranting all you like.

Jan

[Dr Maturin]

It's not really that big of a deal, anyway. Nothing along the lines of putting Europeans into slavery or other such crimes against humanity. At the end of the day, it's a TV show. I love B5 as much as the next fan, but the truth is we're lucky to have it on DVD at all. You can either buy a R1 DVD player, do without the R1 features or continue this screeching. It's asinine to call for JMS to "speak out" against WB for this minutiae. He doesn't need to anger WB in any way at this time. So use logic and stop this soapbox whining. Please.

[Doktor]

I live in the UK and find the movie box-set release for region 2 to be a bit of an insult. So I bought the region 1 version. It's not like this sort of situation is exactly new. Hell, we still haven't got Ridley Scott's director's cut of Legend, years after it was released in region 1. But this is down to studios, not to writers. JMS could make all the noise he wanted and I doubt it would affect a marketing decision. And it's not the end of the world, is it? The other two movies are still available individually on DVD, and being able to watch them is surely the most overwhelmingly important point here? I have to agree with the other posters - time to quit moaning, dude.

[WorkerCaste]

Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems like an awful lot of anger for what appears to be primarily a packaging issue. As I understand it, R2 has reasonably good versions of the first two movies and now the other three will be coming, with commentaries. If you spend all your passion on these issues, what will you have left when the momentous ones come along?

[jal]

to WRITWORTHY

a lot of dvd players have hidden codes on them that can allow you to switch regions anyway, just hunt on the net to see if the one you have has that option.

if it does, then buy the region one set and watch away till your hearts content.

what`s jms got to with this anyway?
this is a marketing and merchandising issue, making it warner brothers can of worms.

[DGTWoodward]

Hello WRTWorthy,

I am from Leamington Spa (just down the road from you) and was actually in your neck of the woods this past Saturday, so let me say a few things, if you'll hear me out.

This is a subject that you feel very strongly about. That is easy to tell from the obvious emotion in your words. I DO TOO however, it may be better for you to take a deep breath and try again. There have been some replies to your posts which you have answered in a way which - if it had been aimed at me - could have been considered very dismissive (at best) and plain rude (at its worst). Please remember that no one here is your enemy. All replies have been posted in good faith and in the hope of providing you with the means of solving your problems.


JMS. If you know B5, then you will know that the whole 5 year arc has been a total labour-of-love for Joe - and so too the rest of the crew. Do you really think that after all the hard work, the sleepless weeks, years of continuous writing and everything else that JMS would want anything but the best possible versions available to the fans to buy? It seems that you procede from the assumption that JSM has done nothing. MAYBE his efforts have been responsible for producing this 3 in one boxed set, instead of the awful, single releases that our German friends are getting. Who is to say?

Region 1 I really don't grasp why you are so set against unlocking the potential of your machine. We have the good fortune of having Japan (an NTSC TV country) in our (PAL TV)region - If you think about it, it is compensation of sorts. This is how I look at it....I have a Sony, chipped, multi-region player. My girlfriend Sharon has a Panasonic, also chipped. My mum and sis have a cheapie which was region free from the box, as do Sharon's mum and dad. All the people that will get to see my disks are capable of playing them. I tend to not worry about anybody else. You say that you'd want your disks to play in any player you have or might get? Blimey! How many have you got? The first thing I did with mine was to chip it! As for playing it any machine you buy. Well, these formats change and develop so quickly that I really wouldn't hold on to that view for too long or you shall just be upset all over again.

I hope that this has been of help to you.

[Capt.Montoya]

Originally posted by WRTWORTHY
Capt.Montoya, The point I was trying to make is that yes I can get cheap DVD player that will play R1 but I want it so that I can play it on any DVD in my house or anyone elseÆs house or even any DVD player I get the future, understood? Yanks tend to think that if it works on their systems it works for everyone else!!

[...]

I am sorry but at the end of the day, here in the EU they are doing some crazy things with the DVD movie box sets, My question is WHY? And to any Yanks that try to defend it, well, I am sure if you was living here in the EU you would feel the same as us, you would just as angry, Ive not even SEEN season5, I could not get the videoÆs and its never shown on Tv and when it was shown once, it was on at 2am in the morning, so sorry I feel a bit p**** at the fact that series I love is getting messed around and so are we, and people wonder why Babylon 5 could not beat trek?????? Maybe something to do with at least trek can actually release box sets in a decent way!

First: you got something wrong. I'm no Yank... I've been living in the USA for a few years, but I ain't from this neck of the woods...
Second, I agree with you and many others that the region coding system sucks, but I'm one to look for possibilities within the system instead of complaining about things I can not change.
Let me tell you something, I love to watch international films, in languages other than English, but in the USA I don't get to see many of those because the distributors here don't care to release them and it's worthless for me to import them myself, because if they are not R1 coded, or not in NTSC, my USA bought DVD player (which doesn't know anything beyond NTSC and R1) won't play them.
So believe me, I understand your frustration, but I don't let it get to me as you seem to do, nor am I looking for people to blame, much less assign blame to the movie/TV series creators, I'm sure they would be the first to wish their creations could be seen by as many people as possible and also dislike how the existing commercial distribution system makes it difficult.

There are ways of changing settings on DVD players to change their region or even make them region free, and I guess they're legal in the UK. The USA, however, is ruled by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which makes it a crime to distribute or provide the means to crack the encryption of region codes... if I knew and told you of how to change your settings to make your player region free I might be commiting a crime under the DMCA...

As for your question of "WHY?" In one way or another all previous replies have tried to tell you possible answers. Don't let your being upset blind you to factsyou dislike. Calm down and read the previous answers, you might not agree nor like the way things are, but people have been nicely trying to tell you how it is, and how to work with the way things are.

[I love Lyta]

It's really awful how people like JMS have merely no influence of what's been done with their work by companies like WB.
If it wasn't for them those companies wouldn't even have anything to make money with...

Anyways, there are three things that keep me personally from buying the R1 versions although my DVD is code free.
1) My TV set can't handle NTSC. (that's baout to change soon)
2) The R1 version of i.e. season 5 is about 2,5 times as expensive as the R2 version.
3) Stuff sent from the US will be blocked in customs and I'd have to pick it up to show that it isn't anything illegal and that I'm old enough to get it.

[cornholio1980]

Just FYI:
The american Movie-Box has the region codes 1, 2, 3 and 4... so there's no reason not to buy it, even if you haven't got a codefree-player. The only thing you have to make sure is if your TV can handle the NTCS-format...

FAITH MANAGES
cornholio1980

[I love Lyta]

"FAITH MANAGES"

No, money manages. If all it took was faith to get a new TV set I'd be the greatest believer of all times.

[cornholio1980]

Originally posted by I love Lyta
[BNo, money manages. If all it took was faith to get a new TV set I'd be the greatest believer of all times. [/B]

Well... have you got a DVD-ROM on your PC? Because the NTSC-Format shouldn't be a problem there.

Still this strikes me as kinda odd... I really thought that the TV-sets released nowadays all are compatible to NTSC.

But concerning point 3: YOu could buy them at dvdboxoffice.com. They are not the cheapest sellers around, but usually they send their products from france (for european orders, anyway). At least, they USED to (don't want to make any promises about that).

If you wanna go with the cheapest offer (to save money for a new tv set - when did you buy this thing anyway?), try dvdsoon.com. They are reliable and usually the cheapest (and if not, you can tell them on their website and they usually would lower their price to equal their competitors).

Hope that helps you at least a little bit...
cornholio1980

[I love Lyta]

Thanx for the heads-up on where to get the DVDs. I bought my TV in '89. And it was a pretty cheap one too.
Currently I'm waiting for a friend o mine to get me a 40" LCD set from Asia.