The May 12th CSI Blu-ray in Canada? Forget it.

[NL197]

The runner of the great TV Shows On DVD (himself Canadian) confirmed that this season 1 CSI set will not be released in Canada, probably because of (you guessed it) Alliance.

Confusing, because Alliance allegedly sold their rights to the CSI franchise here, which is why the most recent DVD sets were direct ports of the CBS/Paramount versions with the Alliance logo thrown on, instead of the previous bilingual nightmares of season sets' past.

Amazon.ca has a vague listing of a June release of this from Alliance, but given the word-of-mouth on Alliance titles compared to their U.S. counterparts, it probably wouldn't be worth getting.

Damn.

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by NL197

The runner of the great TV Shows On DVD (himself Canadian) confirmed that this season 1 CSI set will not be released in Canada, probably because of (you guessed it) Alliance.

Confusing, because Alliance allegedly sold their rights to the CSI franchise here, which is why the most recent DVD sets were direct ports of the CBS/Paramount versions with the Alliance logo thrown on, instead of the previous bilingual nightmares of season sets' past.

Amazon.ca has a vague listing of a June release of this from Alliance, but given the word-of-mouth on Alliance titles compared to their U.S. counterparts, it probably wouldn't be worth getting.

Damn.

Right now, all title that were done before in the US by a US distributor had only a Alliance Sticker on the box (with the same disc). It's the film that alliance encode themself before it's release in the US that are screwed..

[rileyparrish]

I dont get it, we have all of the standard dvd seasons of CSI. Why doesn't "Alliance" release this here? Is it because CTV owns the rights to the show here?

[Rhylliam]

Odd that tvshowsondvd.com didn't post a news item stating this...

[NL197]

Originally Posted by rileyparrish

I dont get it, we have all of the standard dvd seasons of CSI. Why doesn't "Alliance" release this here? Is it because CTV owns the rights to the show here?

CTV broadcasts it but has no stake in the ownership of the franchise.

Alliance released seasons 2 through 5 of CSI exactly the same as the Paramount versions, only replacing the CBS/Paramount logo with the Alliance logo.

For season 6, as well as CSI: Miami season 4 and CSI: NY seasons 2 and 3, Alliance screwed up by creating their own crappy menus and accommodating both English AND French stereo tracks and subtitles.
What that did was compromise the image quality of those particular releases, and in the case of CSI: NY season 2, forced the removal of that DVD's commentary tracks. So the U.S. versions of these seasons are superior in all aspects.

Not to mention the horrible bilingual packaging of these Alliance-only versions.

Seasons 7 and 8 of CSI, seasons 5 and 6 of Miami and season 4 of NY were back to the original English-only packaging and no longer had shoehorned-in French and English stereo tracks. They were released jointly by CBS and Alliance, the latter of which apparently no longer co-owns the CSI franchise if I read that information correctly...not 100% on the end of the Alliance ownership.

So because the most recent seasons were released to match the U.S. ones, it makes no sense that the Blu-ray wouldn't be available here. I'm betting that when these current seasons hit DVD this fall (as that's the usual time they come out) they won't be affected.

Also, if you go into any store that sells them, for whatever reason Alliance went back and repackaged their original CSI releases of all three shows in hideously ugly and oversized digipack packaging, so the original English-only U.S.-looking packaging is totally unavailable now. I never bought seasons 2 and 3 of CSI, and I won't now because of that disgusting Alliance repackaging.


If the Amazon.ca link is accurate:

http://www.amazon.ca/CSI-Season-1-Bl...2459449&sr=8-2

and this Canadian-version Alliance Blu-ray is indeed coming next month, I sincerely hope it's the same as the U.S. version, but without the reported disc defects.

[peter008]

i wanted to buy (csi vegas) yesterday but the saleslady at archambeault musique told me that this blu-ray would be out only on the (09 of june 2009) i guess i will have to wait a while longer like everyone else.

[BrahmaBull1969]

CSI Season 1 was released on blu June 9th, yesterday, saw it at Future Shop tonight

[digitalbabe]

CSI Season 1 at inetvideo.com for under $40+ S&H. Enjoy!

[NL197]

Picked this Canadian version up today.

The discs themselves don't have any Alliance logos or anything of the sort - disc one starts up with the CBS logo and a "Star Trek: Season 1" promo.

So the delay seemed to be for nothing but slapping a couple of small Alliance logos on the cover and disc art!