A question on G1 - Excuse my newbiness

[Purple-is-Evil]

Hi all! I’m new here, clearly…

Anyway, been a transformers fan for awhile, though never really IN to it so to speak. However I’ve been picking up the IDW comics, which I love despite their horrid writing at times and confusing art panels, but now I want to watch me some old G1 episodes!

I remember them coming out awhile back but from what I’ve seen, and was hoping to confirm here, is that the originals were lost or destroyed so they can only use the 35mm stuff that includes incomplete animation. Also sound effects not present in the originals were also added.

I ask this because I was thinking of picking up the Chinese released set only because well… it is available to buy.

So in a nut shell:
Is it true that the originals have been lost and it is impossible to have DVDs as G1 was originally presented?

I noticed a post referred to this:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Transf ... wered/9692

So perhaps there is hope that they may be released again? I just don’t want added sound effects or that stupid cube they introduced several years back.

Basically I want to watch all the episodes again and am wondering if I should wait to see what comes from the above deal, or just pick up the Chinese box.

Thanks in advance for any pointers to places where I can acquire this info, or insights.

[Cliffjumper]

Can't remember/don't know well enough to confirm that's why the DVD sets have added sound effects (I half-remember it being claimed Rhino had done it sort-of because they could), but if they're the same as the UK sets, it's pretty hard to notice IMO.

The Cybenret Space Cube CGI stuff from G2 isn't on any of the G1 DVDs - there was a single volume of G2 released on DVD in the UK (presumably for a bet or something), but I think you lot escaped it.

Welcome aboard. Aboard, a board? No? Not laughing? Fine.

[Purple-is-Evil]

Thanks for the info and welcome!

Yeah, I'm more worried that anything they do release would try that cube thing again. I mean who doesn't love being spun in 100 directions every time a scene changes?

I'm uh... laughing on the inside... with my inner child... and because I'm posting on a Transformer forum I'm guessing my inner child isn't so inner.

[Denyer]

(Mostly written before Cliffy posted...)

The cube thing was G2 repackaging of episodes, of which a stray handful of episodes got pushed out on a cheap DVD in the days before box sets. You're unlikely to run into any G2 eps.

Not sure if it's a question of tapes being destroyed or Rhino opting to use better-preserved production masters and touch them up rather than versions that aired. As a for instance, if I'm remembering correctly, Maverick's UK release used a different version of Dark Awakening -- alternate sources for some of the audio/video do seem to exist.

(Hopefully if Chris McFeely is around he'll have a better idea of differences between Rhino and Maverick releases.)

I imagine Hasbro might engineer re-releases to tie into the next movie timeframe. Sony's internal restructuring has kept the material off the market at an opportune time to catch nostalgia sales. The Chinese sets aren't particularly thin on the ground if you feel like waiting.

Welcome aboard.

[inflatable dalek]

The new sound effects are down to them creating a 5.1 sound mix. As Denyer says, the picture problems seem to be due to them using more error ridden, but less copied (and thus less deteriorated) early eidts of the episodes. that's actually a fairly standard way of remastering things, you just have to be careful to correct everything that was changed (a famous mistake on that score is the DVD of Rememberance of the Daleks missing the most remembered special effect because they used an early edit for the junkyard battle).

[Chris McFeely]

It's not that the originals are LOST, just that, when they began their remastering process for the R1 DVDs, Rhino elected to use the less-degraded production masters, instead of the finalised broadcast masters. Unfortunately, those masters had some unfinished animation and colouring errors that were fixed for the TV broadcast in 'em. Now, what's important to note here is that this actually doesn't affect very many episodes at all. I don't know if there are ANY instances of wonky stuff after Season 1, and even in Season 1 itself, not every episode shows any trace of this - "SOS DInobots," "Fire on the Mountain" and "Heavy Metal War" are the worst, and "The Ultimate Doom Part 3" suffers from a VERY nasty-looking attempt by Rhino to restore a piece of important missing footage. But, anyhoo, these versions were used by Rhino and Metrodome, but I DON'T think they were used by Madman, who released the sets in Australia. Also, the licence holders in the UK before Metrodome, Maverick, released the unremastered broadcast masters, so they're as-were.

Audio wise, a studio called Magno Sound raped our collective ears with it's faux-5.1 sound mix, adding in a bunch of extra noises and effects. Now, these were only supposed to be on the 5.1 audio track, but in a few instances, they wound up on the 2.0 track. This is inconsistent from region to region, but breaks down something like this:

Rhino Season 1 - Sounds on 2.0 tracks for eps 4-10
Metrodome Season 1 - Sounds on 2.0 tracks for all eps
Rhino and Metrodome Season 2 Pt 1 - Sounds on 2.0 tracks for "Changing Gears" through to "Traitor"
Rhino Season 2 Pt 2 - Sounds on 2.0 tracks for all eps
Metrodome Season 2 Pt 2 - Sounds on 2.0 track for "Kremzeek!" only
Rhino Season 3/4 - Sounds on 2.0 tracks for all eps, unaltered "Original broadcast audio" option included.
Metrodome Season 2/4 - No sounds on 2.0 tracks

Maverick, meanwhile, used unaltered audio for their individual volume releases, but when they brought out a box set, they only used Rhino's 5.1 audio.

I'm not clear on what audio Madman used.

And I've got NOOOO idea what any of the assorted dubious Chinese sets use for anything.

[Damolisher]

Madman's DVDs were simply done reusing some form of remastering, i know that much, but Madman's DVDs are fine. No additional errors caused by people screwing around with animation cells, no wonky audio, no loss of quality, there were no problems whatsoever. (Except for the fact they copied the subtitles for Headmasters directly from the Metrodome set, INCLUDING errors...)