Voltron: Fleet of Doom - Coming Sept. 28th

[mikey_myers138]

Surprised no has mentioned it. I'm not a huge Voltron fan, but I like it enough to pick this up

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Vol...Doom-Blu/14161

[Batman1980]

Sounds awesome to me, will have to read a review first of course.

[Al Bundy]

Another classic cartoon onto the big screen. Nice.

[SethRex]

Very cool. Maybe if this looks as good and does as well, they'll release the full series on Blu-Ray.

[RudyC]

this is most welcome.

but i want the whole voltron lion force seasons on blu

[Arkitect76]

just saw that it will also include the first episodes of both the vehicle and lion voltrons....i think that just made it for me!!!

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Wow, that's really unexpected. I never thought that they'd release Voltron on Blu-Ray.

Dang it, now I'm going to have to buy this movie for a 3rd time! (I already have 2 different editions on DVD).

But, if they re-release the entire series, I'm not buying that again. I already spent enough collecting the entire series of both Lion and Vehicle Voltron on DVD. I'll pick up this movie, but that's as far as it will go.


First GI Joe, and now this. I wonder if they'll put Transformers the Movie (the 80s cartoon one) out on Blu-Ray in the US sometime (I know it was released elsewhere).


Too bad He-Man & She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword will probably never make it to Blu-Ray (even if it does, it won't look any better than the DVD) thanks to the morons at Hallmark.

[Jodi]

Cool!
I have all of Voltron Lion Force eps and all of Voltron Vehicle Forces eps on DVD.
I saw this "movie" on DVD and was pretty cool. In case you all didn't know, "Fleet of Doom" was a Thanksgiving special on broadcast TV back in either '85 or '86, syndicated by World Events.
Hmmmm.....while were on the subject of 80s toons suddenly making their way on Blu these days, it would be cool to see the likes of He-Man and She-Ra -- problem is those DVDs were done off of PAL masters.
Anyhoo, other cool 80s toons on Blu would be ThunderCats, SilverHawks, and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

M-M-M-M-M-M-Master! M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Monster Minds!!! --Oon

[Moefiz]

Really good news and not a bad price at 19.99 either...

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Jodi

Hmmmm.....while were on the subject of 80s toons suddenly making their way on Blu these days, it would be cool to see the likes of He-Man and She-Ra -- problem is those DVDs were done off of PAL masters.

Unfortunately He-Man and She-Ra on Blu-Ray will most likely never happen, and it would be relatively pointless if it did (the only potential benefit would be fitting all of the episodes on fewer discs). I'm probably about to give you WAY more information that you were looking for.

The reason that the DVDs were done off of PAL masters is because they are the only masters that exist anymore. At one point, the entire Filmation library including He-Man and She-Ra was owned by Hallmark after Filmation closed down or whatever.

Hallmark took the actual original masters, cleaned them up, etc, and then digitally converted them (into PAL format). They then destoryed/discarded the original masters, keeping only these digital conversions.

The problem with this is not only are we now stuck with DVDs converted from PAL masters (which include the audio speed up that is common with PAL), but these digital masters were only done in standard defintion. There is NO WAY to get them up anything higher.


I am a big He-Man fan and am a regular poster over on he-man.org (the Eternia in my screen name is reference to it). All of this was confirmed by a forum member who's screen name is BCI_Guy. Since the Hallmark days, the Filmation Library was purchased by a company called Entertainment Rights, who lisenced the entire library for DVD release to a company called BCI. BCI is the company that originally put out all of the DVDs of He-Man and She-Ra a few years ago (plus many other Filmation shows). BCI also later put out the newer 2002-2004 He-Man series on DVD (this series is still owned by Mattel separately from the Filmation shows, BCI just also managed to get that lisence).

BCI_Guy was worked for them at the time and would update everyone on what was going on with the releases, and the issues with the PAL covnersion, etc. At one point there was some talk of the 2002-2004 series possibly getting released on Blu-Ray (because it is widescreen and can be converted in Hi-Def), but they never materialized. BCI_Guy even commented at one point on how nice the hi-def masters of the show look and how great they would be on Blu-Ray.

When this came up, people starting asking about the possibility of the original series on Blu-Ray. I was hoping for them on Blu-Ray because even when watching on a standard-def TV, while the picture overall looks good, when Cringer transforms into Battlecat and all of that energy if flying around him, you can see a great deal of compression artifacts.

And BCI_Guy was explaining how they wouldn't look any better on Blu-Ray because of how they were converted in standard def. I even directly asked him at one point if Blu-Ray editions would get any benefit at all from a higher bit-rate or anything like that (hopefully giving at least some improvement to the issues with some DVDs), and he said no.


Since that time, BCI basically went out of business. The parent company that owned it (Navarre, I think it is called), closed up shop on them, and the DVDs were discontinued. No Blu-Ray release of the 2002-2004 series ever materialized since that time. BCI_Guy still posts on the he-man.org boards under his same screen name, but obviously no longer works for BCI and has nothing to do with any further releases of these series.

I know that the 2002-2004 series has since been sublisenced to and re-released by a company called Mill Creek in a much cheaper "budget set" on DVD. Unfortunately no Blu-Ray has materialized through them so far, and I'm not holding my breath since they tend to specialize in cheap budget DVD releases and don't usually do anything fancy.


My understand is that the Filmation rights have also since changed hands again. A company called Classic Media is actually going to be re-releasing She-Ra on DVD this fall in both a 25th Anniversary set and an individual first season set (I'm fuzzy as to whether they flat out own the Filmation rights now or if they are lisencing them from someone else who owns them... I kind of lost track).

No word yet on any further releases of the original He-Man series, but if they are reissuing She-Ra, I figure He-Man can't be far behind. Maybe they'll wait until 2012 which will be the 30th anniversary of He-Man.




I really don't see the original Thundercats series making it's way to Blu-Ray, unfortunately. Warner Bros. owns it, and they basically did a half-assed job with the DVDs and didn't really do any remastering to them at all. Silverhawks definatley won't come to Blu-Ray. WB also owns it, and after the first DVD volume didn't sell well enough, they never released a second one.

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by mikey_myers138

Surprised no has mentioned it. I'm not a huge Voltron fan, but I like it enough to pick this up

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Vol...Doom-Blu/14161

Well it was mentioned in the U.S. Anime Blu-ray thread but that article has lots more info about the release.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Moefiz

Really good news and not a bad price at 19.99 either...

Please, like you've ever seen Voltron, the show I consider to be the inspiration for and much better version of Power Rangers.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Please, like you've ever seen Voltron, the show I consider to be the inspiration for and much better version of Power Rangers.

Technically the Japanese incarntion of what eventually became Power Rangers in the USA already existed at that time. The earliest incarnation of the Japanese shows were from around the mid 1970s.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

And BCI_Guy was explaining how they wouldn't look any better on Blu-Ray because of how they were converted in standard def. I even directly asked him at one point if Blu-Ray editions would get any benefit at all from a higher bit-rate or anything like that (hopefully giving at least some improvement to the issues with some DVDs), and he said no.

This is not true at all. Compression artifacts should be eliminated in the moment you "upload" the digital files on BD. You got an upscaled image where compression is off.

[XDragon]

The Blu-Ray of FoD has been officially canceled! Very sad news which leaves little hope for getting the series on Blu-Ray.

Maybe WEP can re-license it to another company in the future but who knows how long Media Blasters has left in their contract.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Vol...Doom-Blu/14979

[W_T_K]

This release is now shipping via RightStuf.com.

[Show spoiler]

[demiscy]

I smell bootleg.
If there was a release the official store would have it

[W_T_K]

Originally Posted by demiscy

I smell bootleg.
If there was a release the official store would have it

RightStuf doesn't sell bootleg stuff. The release can also be ordered via Allegro Music (Allegro Media Group). They are the distributors for Media Blasters.

[demiscy]

Do you have it yourself? Is it region-free?
(I know it shows A on the back cover)

[W_T_K]

Originally Posted by demiscy

Do you have it yourself? Is it region-free?
(I know it shows A on the back cover)

I have it though I don't how to test if it's region free or not.