protoncharging.com: RGB DVDs released

| February 28, 2006 |

RGB DVDs released - and they're cheap!

Well, they're finally out, and the best that can be said is that they're cheap to buy ($9,99CDN at HMV - Best Buy didn't get its order.)

As expected, the discs are intended to be low-price point for parents to pick up for the rec room collection of DVDs the kids can trash (the Quick Start sticker on the cover is a dead give-away.) Viewers are give a chance to see the trailers for Zathura, Stuart Little 3 (all computer animated), and Open Season (which is good for a giggle.)

Sadly, being bargain basement discs, the quality of the episodes is, well, VHS. Possibly they were mastered FROM someone's old VHS tape, I dunno (That's a little over the top, but Ghostbusters of the year was pretty fuzzy - I want to watch it again, just to see if my first impressions are right.) I haven't listened to the sound enough to comment yet. I watched a couple last night and it's not as bad as I thought and I had an independant expert has a look and they think it's pretty good too - not perfect, but not bad.

If you found copies at a good price somewhere or just have something to say (OTHER than how they should put out a full series set), go for it.

Posted at February 28, 2006 05:22 PM

Comments

Hey man, I found them for $5.99! Check this site out: www.DeepDiscountDVD.com.

Posted by: Cory at February 28, 2006 06:23 PM

I found them in Ohio at a store called Meijer for 6.96 each. Whole set for 23 bucks after tax. Not bad.

Posted by: beezer at February 28, 2006 07:44 PM

Great find cory!

Posted by: Adam Dawson at February 28, 2006 07:46 PM

6.99 per DVD at Best Buy in Watertown, MA. Thats 22.02 for the set!

Posted by: Dan at February 28, 2006 08:31 PM

I could not find them at all here in Jefferson City MO. So I bought a 1st season bootleg.

Posted by: Matt k at February 28, 2006 09:32 PM

Found all three for $6.99 each at a Best Buy here in Minnesota, I am quite happy with the audio/video quality actually... It certainly beats any of the copys I recorded off of Fox Family Channel way back when, and at least matches or is better then any thing I've found on the internet so far, nor have I noticed any sort of cuts/editing of the episodes. I was rather surpprised by the movie trailers that were put on in front of the dvd though (guess sony has to advertise as much as it can right?)

Posted by: El at February 28, 2006 09:45 PM

Well, the point is to make money, so it was unavoidable that they'd put trailers on it, hoping people will by more Sony products.

And yes, it does look better than the internet copies, but my mind's eye seems to think the recent showing on Teletoon was clearer. I'll have to check when I get home.

Posted by: castewar at February 28, 2006 10:25 PM

i couldn't find them anywhere here in Wisconsin. kmart(place i work at), wal-mart,brookfield square(mall here in town). none of them had it. i had marked the release date on my calender. i went to work early (7am) to be the first to buy them. we had none.

Posted by: Ralph Powers jr. at March 1, 2006 10:37 AM

The only place that I could find them in the St.Louis area was Best Buy. Amazingly they were the cheapest at $6.99 per disc. However, they only got in three copies of each. When I got there at 2PM they were down to two of each. I don't know what kind of sign that is. Whether Sony didn't think they would sell many copies, or what.

Posted by: Matt at March 1, 2006 02:06 PM

how many episodes on each DVD?

Posted by: Adam Dawson at March 1, 2006 03:07 PM

Four episodes a dvd (one of the four is counted as a "bonus" episode though) I was slightly dissapointed by that, when I first read the early press kit thingie that Paul Rudoff posted on Spook Central.com I thought there was going to be four epiodes PLUS a bonus ep.. Oh well, its still better then nothing :)

Posted by: El at March 1, 2006 03:31 PM

I've added a link in the article to the original article on the DVDs from nearly three months back - and I'd like to take this opportunity to admonish you all for not reading more regularly. :P

Posted by: castewar at March 1, 2006 03:48 PM

I noticed the brightness/colour fluxuated while watching the first 5-10 minutes of Ghostbuster of the Year, but otherwise it seemed good. The sound quality was certainly fine.

The copies I got via internet trade from the Fox Family Channel had the logos of course, and seemed edited. Recent airings on Teletoon wer better, but they did not include titles and commercial bumpers 100% of the time.

This from a guy who taped the originals in the '80's (albeit in EP...some of those recordings till hold up though).

Posted by: Toren at March 1, 2006 05:40 PM

However - the art on the boxes is CRAP!

Posted by: Toren at March 1, 2006 05:42 PM

Ordered from Amazon.com waaaaaay back when they were first announced. They even honored the price of $6.99. I think the whole set ran me just shy of $21. So far, so good. Its amazing how well the stories have held up over the years.

Posted by: TOPolk at March 2, 2006 04:40 PM

$6.99 per disc was just the icing on the cake. I was happy enough with Sony actually releasing some RGB episodes. Though I'd really like to see a box set of THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS and Extreme Ghostbusters to come out. I'd be OVER-THE-TOP happy!

Posted by: TantalizedMind at March 3, 2006 09:18 PM

I wish all DVDs had the "quick start" feature.

Posted by: Toren at March 10, 2006 01:48 PM

If only they were actually quick starting - I still see a parade of trailers and commercials before you get to the main menu.

Posted by: castewar at March 10, 2006 02:07 PM

The world hates us.

Posted by: Toren at March 13, 2006 05:47 PM

I was really excited when I first heard that Sony was releasing three RGB DVDs. But I was expecting which episodes would be picked for the releases nor did I know how many would be on each disc.

I live in the United Kingdom and I already own most of the episodes that were aired on Fox Kids and ones which I taped off TV back in the 80s.

When I received them in the post, I immediately unwrapped the DVDs and watched all the episodes, I was disappointed that Sony made such a poor effort to digitally enhance or remaster the episodes from the source materials.

Image quality was considerably crap in some episodes particularly "Adventures in Slime & Space" when the episode began there was a lot of film grain, which made it look older than it was supposed to.

Another criticism I have, is the fact that Sony chose episodes at random instead of doing the noble thing and showing them in the order as aired originally back in 1986.

The menu is very plain and the "Quick Start" menu function is a load of crap because you can't skip all the copyright warnings to get to the episodes.

My advice to Sony, is to pull their finger out and give the fans what they want, which is complete boxed sets with episodes that have been cleaned up visually and sound which is a lot clearer

Posted by: stevo92 at July 30, 2006 09:25 AM