So my copy of West Wing Season 1 on DVD finally arrived. There's a number of things I find interesting, not the least of which is that you can't get it in the States. It appears to only be available in Region 2 (UK and Japan). (luckily, my DVD player is not hampered by those silly region-encodings you may encounter on your typical US-purchased unit). Another weird thing is that I've gotten used to NOT having "real closing credits". In the US (for those foreign-based visitors), the end credits are actually squeezed into like the right-hand 10% of the screen and the rest of the screen is used for advertising the next show, etc. On the DVD, there's actually "real" closing credits, with a closing theme and everything.
I'm not sure if there's any content changes, because while I'm a West Wing fan, I'm not anal-retentive enough to know every word uttered in the US broadcast, so I can't really compare.
All I know is that I'm glad I can finally ditch my VHS tapes, complete with commercials and crappy NBC logo overlays.
So Derek...when do those become Region 0 VCD isos?
:D
lol... I don't think so. I'm not that inspired.
Although I do have to give Blackstar oodles of praise. In shipping one of the discs came loose from the little nipple thing in the center and got scratched. They're shipping me a replacement set free of charge, without bothering to hassle me with credit-card holds, etc., like when most places cross-ship RMA's.
This is especially good, because I'll wait to ship back the original, in case, say, disc 3 is scratched on the replacement, so that I can be sure I get "one complete good set" out of the whole thing.
Let us know how the DVD is. I may need to put that on my Giftmas list.
Oh the DVD's are great. I previously owned the first half of the season, and now I'm halfway through the second half set. Great transfer (it's TV, so it's not like there's aspect ratios, and such, to worry about).
If you like West Wing, you'll want the box.
D
To your knowledge, is there a Region 1 release in the works?
To my knowledge, no. If it's any indicator, the Friends season sets were available on DVD in the UK about 3-4 years prior to the first season being made available in the US.
TV shows have a much stronger history of being pushed to video (and now DVD) in the UK because of the much-different television situation (syndication rights aren't really lucrative there, so there's less incentive to hold off on video in favor of broadcast rights)
Hmm. Guess I'd better hack my AD-703. Or try and talk Z out of his hot spare 600a. :)