Where to watch Babylon 5 these days?

[Rainer]

Hi all. As a huge fan of Babylon 5 back in the 90's, I collected the whole series on VHS. The obsolete video tapes are now collecting dust in my attic and in all honesty, I could do with freeing up the space. But, of course, I still want to be able to watch an episode on a whim as I often do from time to time. So, a couple of questions. Is there still a demand for the series on VHS? If so, I'll put my collection up for sale on eBay, Amazon or a similar online sales or auction website. And what is the best method to watch Babylon 5 online these days? Can I find it through the likes of Netflix or would I be better served by one of these Android box devices that everybody is now raving about? (And which I don't fully understand. How on earth do they work for such a low price?)Any pointers would be greatly appreciated folks.

[Ubik]

Hey Rainer,

You could always try listing the VHS tapes. Even if no one bites, you've lost nothing. I actually got rid of my DVD box sets in favour of digital versions last year. I just don't watch hard copy media anymore, it all comes via the net. I think I got my B5 digital seasons via Amazon and have some of my own DVD rips somewhere on a hard drive.

I think both Amazon and iTunes offer the series in a digital format for around

[babylonlurker]

I think there are legal ways of getting B5 (WB or iTunes/Amazon ?) - but the price per episode, added up, most likely exceeds the price of a DVD set.

I have not seen B5 on any legal streaming service lately.

Amazon regularly has good offers of the season and series DVD boxes, so that is probably the best option for viewing the series at a whim, as you say.

[Ubik]

I have not seen B5 on any legal streaming service lately.

This remains a real shame. I always thought Netflix might bring it back due to Sense8... but nope... They do have every single incarnation of Trek, but i would think that's to light the way for the new Trek series when it arrives.

[Jan]

This remains a real shame. I always thought Netflix might bring it back due to Sense8... but nope... They do have every single incarnation of Trek, but i would think that's to light the way for the new Trek series when it arrives.

Before Sense8 came out, the #FreeBabylon5 campaign did what we could to get people to request it on Netflix. My feeling, and it's just that, is that WB is married to their $2/episode model on Amazon, Hulu, etc. and not making it available at all. No way to be sure because we got no response at all from them when writing directly to WB.

Jan

[sense8ional]

Yeah, I'd like to think that because of Sense8 Netflix tried to get it back (they used to have it), it's WB that doesn't want it made available. Why? I can't say I understand. I sincerely doubt so many people buy all those episodes for WB to prefer it like that.

[JoeD80]

The streaming service Vudu has all five seasons of B5 (and mostly the fullscreen original). They do a buy or rent kind of thing; I forget the price difference because I just bought them all ($39 per season I think).

As for Netflix, I dunno if I'd blame WB for that one; Netflix tends to drop all sorts of good stuff from their lineup. I used to have a queue of 200 movies/tv shows that I wanted to watch at some point and at least half of those are now unavailable.

[sense8ional]

Yes they drop some stuff when they don't believe it's worth to renew the license to keep them, but I/we are thinking that they'd like to have Babylon 5 if (economically) possible because of the Sense8 connection. This remains to this day what you (or at least I) see on Sense8's page on Netflix:

From the creators of "The Matrix" and "Babylon 5" comes this tense series in which eight people can telepathically experience each other's lives.

Wouldn't it make sense to get Babylon 5 back, even if it's only for the first 1-2 years of the debut of Sense8, given they, themselves, use B5's name to promote it? One would think so.

But definitive proof, of course it's not.