It finaly happened season 1 has been relesed on DVD by warner bros. I picked up my copy yesterday and thought it to be a mostly good reliese. Signs & Portents and Chrysallis both have audio commentarys by JMS, who is very informative as always. The final disc has some cool tech features like an interactive diagram of the station and some of the ships and some dicumentarys about the show.

Now onto the bad. The transfers are not the best that they could have been. They went back to the super 35 film to extract a new 16x9 digital transfer of the filmed scenes and the years have done some damage to the prints. Every now and than we see film artifacts like scratches and the like. WB had serious doubts about the profitability of the series on video and removing film artifacts frame by frame is a costly prodedure. Hopefully if the sales are good they will do better next season. The sepcial effects sequences look dated, partally because they were rendered in 4x3 fullscreen but composed so that a 16x9 image could be extracted. The problem is that the resolution they were rendered at suffers noticably when put up aginst the new widescreen transfers of the rest of the show.

So far I've only watched the first few episodes on the UK release but agree about the artifacting. At least it's not a faulty disc as I would have hated to return the package to the mail order company.
Despite faults, if the sales are sufficient, further seasons should be better treated. It doesn't help however that the majority of high street shops point blank refuse to stock it while they will stock countless Star Trek discs.

Addendum to the above. "Sky Full of Stars", one of my favourite year 1 episodes came out particularly bad in the transfer when sometimes switching between FX shots and live action with some sort of squashed widescreen effect.

The whole episode was pretty poor treatment wise but everything else seems fine. I've heard others comment on this episode on DVD so it seems to be a common problem.

I just got the S2 set (Region 2). The booklet I got with the set was in French instead of English. As this happened to anyone else?

A practical joke?

Just got an email from Amazon announcing that Season 3 is coming out August 12. Whooo-hoooo!!!!!

Anyone found the Easter Egg for the Season 1 boxset, yet ?
Yours, Mark

I haven't at least, what is it?

It's the initial U.S trailer for B5, that was used to promote the series for WB.
I did find how to access it, But can't remember it at the moment.
To access the season 2 "Easter Egg", insert disc 6, access the data files, highlight the "Lazarus File", don't enter it, but press left on the direction pad on the DVD remote. A "5" comes up, highlight this & press enter to access the "Gag/Blooper" Reel !

I have a question about JMS's Jeremiah series. I didn't see a board for it, so I thought I'd use the B5 board.

I watched the last episode of season 1 on videotape about 6 months ago - but the last minute or so was cut off. Last thing I saw was Jeremiah being brought to a jail. I suspect I know what might have been revealed next, but was wondering if anyone can tell me for sure?

Feel free to email me directly if this is the wrong place to post this.

Thanks.

Question: Now that the first 3 seasons of B5 are together in one box set, does anyone know if there are extras there that you wouldn't get if you bought all three box sets individually? Thanks.

Sorry, But In the U.K, the B5 Season 3 boxset (Region 2)is not out until the end of next month (September), so I can't comment on if there is any differences between the U.S & U.K versions
(Besides, aren't 18 discs enough ?).
The estimated cost of this Box set in the U.K (if it was ever released in this form)would be approx. 150 pounds ($210 dollars + !)

I've finally got my Season 4 box set from Amazon but got a nasty surprise. Apparently, disk 4 had slipped free of its fastening and now has numerous scratches. Should I return it for a replacement or is there something that can be used to repair the scratches?

Are the scratches minor or major? It they're minor than a Skip Dr. could help. If they're major, just get a replacement.

None of them look too big but there are a lot of them, covering at least half the disk surface.

Gordon, apparently it's been a major problem if the B5 box sets, most likely any ordered through a mail order company like Amazon, Play etc. The holders don't seem to be great at keeping the DVD's in in transit. The Babylon 5 board Firstones.com is full of complaints about it, with over half of all box sets being affected that way with sometimes many discs not playing correctly due to damage.

In contrast, look at the holders in the Battlestar Galactica box set where each holder sits flush with the plastic meaning the discs cant slip

Here's something I've wondered about. I keep hearing about how crappy the video on the B5 DVDs are, but I don't really see it. Is it because I'm not watching it on a digital TV, or is it just that I don't go out of my way to note even the most minute flaws?

FYI - now they have all 5 movies in one box set. Here is the link from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002B15UQ/qid=1092285161/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/002-4398055-2721623?v=glance&s=dvd

Word is out that Crusade is slated to be released on December 7.

Crusade is already available for pre-order on Amazon.

Two points.

To correct the horrendous packaging that caused so many damaged discs, the B5 box sets are now released with each disc in a slimline DVD case, six of which sit inside the box. This makes each season take up slightly more shelf space than the old style, but I prefer the reassurance that there's a great chance the discs will be undamaged.

Point 2 is for those of us in the UK, WH Smiths are doing promotions on US Drama series like THe West Wing, The Sopranos, etc, B5 is one of these and you can get Seasons 1-4 for £24.99 per set which is pretty good.

Question - I just saw on Amazon that they are selling Babylon 5 in 1 five-pack set. Does anyone know if there is a difference here between this set and buying each season individually?

I believe it's just the five sets wrapped together. I imagine the total price is lower than what it would be to buy them seperately.

Gordon,

Thanks man. I was more concerned if there were features or extras available on one set and not the others. Do you have any info on that?

Here's a point for any of us covered by Region 2 or Region 4 DVD's. I post at a message board called Spacebattles.com, and there it has been mentioned that these regions Season 5 DVD's have a fault.

The beginning of the episode "The Fall of Centauri Prime" has the section before the titles apparently snipped from it, if you play the episode it goes straight to the titles. The person testing tried accessing the episode through the "Play all" option, the individial episode selection and even through scene selection but to no joy.

I've just checked the picture they have at Amazon. It's clearly the five sets wrapped together. So it's doubtful there are any extras that the more impatient fans don't get.

Here's a point for any of us covered by Region 2 or Region 4 DVD's. I post at a message board called Spacebattles.com, and there it has been mentioned that these regions Season 5 DVD's have a fault.- Douglas Nicol

Yup indeed. If you contact Warner Home Vision in Sydney and give them your name and address they will mail out a replacement dvd 5 free of charge (they said to me mid-march)

No offence, kudos to Waner in Australia, but how does that help us in the UK or the rest of Europe for that matter, or is it a matter of contacting Warner in Europe?

I would assume so. Check on the back of the box for the distributor and contact them. As it is a production fault, they are obliged to replace the faulty disc free of charge.

There's a web address for Warners UK site, but there's no contact email there, nor at Warners main site either.

I got my replacement disc the other day. I suggest perhaps using the phone or snail-mail.

TVShowsOnDVD.com has just announced that Legend of the Rangers will be coming out in March.

I will add that I like the case design of the B5 dvds over other TV shows I've bought. It's not as fragile as Star Trek Voyager, TOS (Remastered Season 2), and DS9; it doesn't require the whole thing to be opened like Star Trek TNG...