Ian's Newsround - 28/11/03
Honestly! You wait five weeks for a DVD Details update, and two come along at once! Firstly, the BBC have released a new statement on the bonus menu fiasco, which is elaborated on in this article.
Those who are having trouble with the menu on Disc Two of their Series III DVD will be able to send off for a replacement, which will give you the option of a plain text menu, as well as the animated one. Hurrah for the BBC and GNP, say I. Apparantly, this is an unprecedented move, and it reinforces the fact that those in charge really do care about the DVD. OK, it was bad that they didn't spot it before it went out, but at least they're rectifying it now. What more can you ask for? Excellently, the easter egg on the menu will be rehidden elsewhere, meaning we'll have the fun of finding it all over again!
The Series IV DVD will be released with the two options, which is marvellous. I have to say that after using the animated menus a few times, I prefer to just go straight to the extras themselves, so the text menu will not just be benefitting those who own one of the thousands of DVD players that don't "conform to the industry standard". And speaking of the Series IV DVD, we now have some sneak peeks at the menus. The main drive room will have Cat's hairdryer, a parrot from... Parrot's and some cans of Leopard Lager. And amongst the paraphinalia on the bonus menu is: Talkie Toaster, Bellini's escape pod, the escort boots, Lister's guitar, Kryten's spare heads, more lager and... a big heart. I WONDER WHAT FEATURE THAT WILL LINK TO.
The other DVD update today is the Region One release. There's the nasty big-logo covers, as well as discs with massive holes in them! The releases will also include some lovely limited edition trading cards, which I bloody well want. Some titbits: the Region Two Series V release will have Cat on the spine; it is confirmed that Series IV will be released in America a fortnight before it is in Britain; there's a little Warner Brothers logo on the discs (I wasn't aware that they were involved); the USA is apparantly a "big country". Thanks for that.
Don't forget that the Memorabilia fair starts tomorow at Birmingham's NEC. I did forget, and have spent all my money and arranged to go out. Bah! This means I'll be missing out on meeting Chloe Annett, Craig Charles, Clare Grogan, Danny John-Jules and Norman Lovett. That's a mightily impressive line-up; at least two of those people will definately not be at the next Dimension Jump. If you are going, buy me some of those lovely new gravity pens from The Stamp Centre. Go on.
Comments
Nice news about the replacement disc!
A shame the BBC won't make a replacement 'Doctor Who - The Three Doctors' disc, which has a crash zoom looping at the end of one episode due to a mastering error. This also causes a 2-second synch drift - boo! Loads of DW discs have authoring errors, as the BBC seem to keep hiring Frank Spencer to encode them.
Posted by Darrell Jones at November 28, 2003 10:00 PM
Nice newsround [again] Ian, I never noticed the bit about Cat on V...
On the subject of DVD extra's and the lack of, on certain BBC releases, I raised the question with Ross McGinley who explained that answers would have to go through the BBC Press Office..I was particularly interested in Black Adder [as raised by someone on here], anyway..I recieved the other day, a Press Office statement, Drafted by Ross regarding this issue and have posted it on CRAP HQ for anyone who is interested..(it's under Ross McGinley, with some other stuff)
Posted by Cpt-D at November 28, 2003 10:57 PM
Norman Lovett appears in an episode of "Keeping Up Appearances". I'm not sure exactly which episode, but I know that it is an episode which is either in series 1 or series 2 of "Keeping Up Appearances". "Keeping Up Appearances" the complete series 1 and 2 DVD is available in Australia. I'm not sure whether the "Keeping Up Appearances" the complete series 1 and 2 DVD is available in region 2.
Posted by Jessica Malcolm at November 29, 2003 10:18 AM
The region 4 release of the "Red Dwarf III" DVD comes with a few free postcards.
Will the region 4 release of the "Red Dwarf IV" DVD come with any free postcards or free trading cards?
Posted by Jessica Malcolm at November 29, 2003 10:20 AM
The Beeb don't seem to have a strong distribution arm in the ol' US of A, so Warner Brothers are often used for key releases (it's the same deal with the Region 1 DVDs of Blakadder).
My apologies for that amazingly dull piece of trivia.
Posted by Pete Martin at November 29, 2003 11:15 AM
Yeah I noticed the WB spalsh screen on my Region 1 version of Series I and II.
I think it's pretty annoying about Series IV coming out in america first. Never mind, God bless PlayUSA.com!
And muchos respect to the BBC and GNP. I am VERY impressed with this move to replace the disks.
Posted by Cappsy at November 29, 2003 03:59 PM
I have to say Memorobilia was a very nice day out, Great to catch Chloe and Clare together, and it was great to finally meet Craig..Drumajay bought Listers 'Stunt' Guitar, for a nice hefty 3 figure sum...
Posted by Cpt-D at November 29, 2003 09:13 PM
More news just in, and particularly sad too - Robert Addie, who played Gilbert in Timeslides, died on the 19th of this month, aged 43.
Posted by Darrell Jones at November 29, 2003 09:43 PM
Oh, Jesus. That's awful. He was fantastic.
"Excuse me, sir, a gentleman appears to have appeared in the corner of the room."
Posted by Ian Symes at November 29, 2003 10:30 PM
Very sad news. RIP.
Posted by Tanya Jones at November 29, 2003 10:32 PM
What the fucking BBC are doing?
Why yankees have limited edition trading cards?
It's British or American series?!
Posted by Kadet Ja'Nusz Wu at November 30, 2003 07:13 AM
Gah. Robert Addie was one of my favourite guest stars ever in Dwarf. Very sad news indeed. He was great. "Apparently, the gentlemen's name is Rimmer, sir."
As for the trading cards - well, I guess it's up to BBC America what they do with their releases - if they want to add something extra, it's really their business. It's easy enough to import the Region 1, if you want to get hold of them.
Posted by John Hoare at November 30, 2003 07:28 AM
Yes, as I did.
Series I originally got some trading cards to make up for not having the 'Drunk' featurette. I guess it's just continues. I'm more annoyed about america getting Series IV before us.
Posted by Cappsy at November 30, 2003 10:19 AM
Hey, it's the Polish bloke! What does "�wie�e infa, opisy, recenzje & inne" mean?
Posted by Ian Symes at November 30, 2003 01:46 PM
Could you call for the hall porter, there appears to be a frog in my bidet?
Posted by John Hoare at November 30, 2003 07:23 PM
Yes, its very sad news about Robert, Gilbert, he
had one of those faces that seemed to keep cropping up on TV...only 43 as well, Sad..
Posted by Cpt-D at November 30, 2003 09:57 PM
What does "swieze infa, opisy, recenzje & inne" mean?
Said the Mayor of Warsaw in 1546 before he spontaneous combustioned ;-)
Seriously it's mean: fresh news, descriptions, reviews & other.
Posted by Kadet Ja'Nusz Wu at December 2, 2003 06:47 AM
Excellent! Thanks very much!
Posted by Ian Symes at December 2, 2003 12:05 PM
Ian, could you rename the appropriate sections of G&T "swieze infa," "opisy," "recenzje" & "inne" just to be annoying?
Thanks!
Posted by Frogmarch Jimmy at December 2, 2003 08:18 PM
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