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Post by Jon Preddle on Nov 17, 2021 20:44:10 GMT
Fair enough! I did look on the Shroeder Media site, but clearly not thorough enough.
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Post by fredjones1 on Nov 17, 2021 20:53:58 GMT
I mean I might be wrong but it does not appear that way.
The reason why I persist with this is because 1) It would be nice to establish a precedent where material which is supposedly not available for release only due to paperwork issues (I refer to TVS in particular) but where such paperwork is in fact available can in fact be released. 2) I also have many quarms which I think are justified about the approach to audio-visual material from the BBC and other broadcasters in the UK. This is not to blame the BBC or any other broadcaster but unlike the national archive which deals in books, there is no central coordination with respect to an asset (archives) which should be regarded as valuable in terms of its cultural value and which should be exploited more fully.
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Post by Jon Preddle on Nov 17, 2021 21:26:04 GMT
While copyright can at times be very complex (especially when one of the rights holders, be it a person or company, is dead or no longer exists), BUT can often be 'loop holes' when the home media rights are acquired by a third party, and those rights can sometimes be exclusive to that company and/or held in perpetuity, meaning they are not affected by what else might happen with the broadcast or other publishing rights.
The international broadcast rights would have been held by whichever company / distributor / agencies TVS used at the time (incidentally, KOG did not screen in Australia or New Zealand!). And there are documented issues getting a sale to the US (mainly on account of the title: the US stations wanted that changed, but it appears it was not shown in the states, even under an alternative title).
So from the looks of it, the only known foreign screenings were in Europe, and possibly also Latin America?
Then there's the VHS rights. Those were held by various different distributors in Europe, with tapes edited and in subtitled or dubbed formats depending on the standards of each territory.
Those rights if they were indeed "held in perpetuity" or not tied up in red-tape could be why there there were not any issues with the DVD release in Germany.
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Post by Nick Cooper on Nov 18, 2021 15:45:47 GMT
Thanks for this. You state it is perhaps dubious and it might well be but then again one might consider the following. 1) The PQ would be because it was limited edition and they would wish to ensure greater profitability. They just proceeded on the basis of what was allowed rather than contacting the company concerned because it was less bother. 2) The same has occurred with other DVDs in terms of PQ. 3) Is it probable that all three companies deciding to break the law? in particular I refer to Shroeder media who I think look especially legitimate www.schroeder-media.at/home.htmlIf they do have the paperwork then what is to prevent an actual release of the full version from the masters which apparently exist but for which there is no paperwork? Or indeed are other copies of the masters available in say France or Germany. The limited edition and the lack of proper remastering makes sense in what is obviously a fair niche title, notwithstanding the fact that it does seem to have a bit of a cult following in Germany, even if only from the original VHS release. I would agree that Schröder Media do appear to be totally legit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't have been misled. The plot thickens somewhat, as in the process of comparing the DVD cover with that of the original VHS, I noticed the details of the company: * Highlight Communications AG, Römerstrasse 37, CH-8401 Winterthur The "CH" is a clue I'd not spotted before, as this address is not actually in Germany, but rather in Switzerland, north-east of Zurich, and thus in the German-speaking part of the country! It does bear a German FSK '12' certificate, albeit as a very carefully applied sticker. Oh, and it turns out that Schröder Media are in fact an Austrian company. Looking carefully at the DVD artwork, it's fairly obvious that it was taken from a copy the VHS, due to the softening of the image, as well as obvious "repairs" to mask extraneous details on the original packaging. The most obvious is the top of the front sight of the Knight's futuristic (and non-canonical!) rifle, which on the VHS is obscure by the Highlight logo. This can be contrasted with the Finnish release, in which it was not obscured: videospace.fiClearly the original VHS was legitimate, but it would seem very unlikely that Highlight held distribution rights in the German-language version in perpetuity. If their master tape/s and documentation survived to come into the possession of Schröder Media, maybe it would have been possible to renegotiate with Disney, and yet the lack of any acknowledgement to them or even TVS on the packaging remains a red flag. Even if it is all above board though, it is the case that there are a number of cast members who appear in the full 13 episode version, but not in this compilation. They would still need to be cleared to get the whole series released in its original form.
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Post by Nick Cooper on Nov 18, 2021 15:56:13 GMT
One might also add that the DVD cover is too high quality to come from some mashup involving the VHS cover. Having got the two in front of me right now, I'd disagree with that. The DVD cover bears all the hallmarks of being scanned and tarted up with the actual VHS packaging, rather than the original artwork. The latter was also used in a slightly different form for the Finnish release, so it was presumably something prepared by TVS International at the time. The shorter (shortest?!) Spanish release uses a very different cover, which can be seen here: mangaclassics.mboards.comThe Greek tapes have a very stylised version of the machine gun motif, which also appears on the spine of the Highlight packaging, as well as the Finnish tapes, which again suggests it came from the TVSI publicity material. The only date that appears on the Highlight packaging is "1986" on the spine in reference to the UK origin - I don't think this can be taken as the date of the release. The Spanish tape has a 1988 copyright date, while the Finnish ones have 1990. There is no date on the Greek tapes.
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Post by fredjones1 on Nov 18, 2021 15:58:46 GMT
Thanks for this. You state it is perhaps dubious and it might well be but then again one might consider the following. 1) The PQ would be because it was limited edition and they would wish to ensure greater profitability. They just proceeded on the basis of what was allowed rather than contacting the company concerned because it was less bother. 2) The same has occurred with other DVDs in terms of PQ. 3) Is it probable that all three companies deciding to break the law? in particular I refer to Shroeder media who I think look especially legitimate www.schroeder-media.at/home.htmlIf they do have the paperwork then what is to prevent an actual release of the full version from the masters which apparently exist but for which there is no paperwork? Or indeed are other copies of the masters available in say France or Germany. The limited edition and the lack of proper remastering makes sense in what is obviously a fair niche title, notwithstanding the fact that it does seem to have a bit of a cult following in Germany, even if only from the original VHS release. I would agree that Schröder Media do appear to be totally legit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't have been misled. The plot thickens somewhat, as in the process of comparing the DVD cover with that of the original VHS, I noticed the details of the company: * Highlight Communications AG, Römerstrasse 37, CH-8401 Winterthur The "CH" is a clue I'd not spotted before, as this address is not actually in Germany, but rather in Switzerland, north-east of Zurich, and thus in the German-speaking part of the country! It does bear a German FSK '12' certificate, albeit as a very carefully applied sticker. Oh, and it turns out that Schröder Media are in fact an Austrian company. Looking carefully at the DVD artwork, it's fairly obvious that it was taken from a copy the VHS, due to the softening of the image, as well as obvious "repairs" to mask extraneous details on the original packaging. The most obvious is the top of the front sight of the Knight's futuristic (and non-canonical!) rifle, which on the VHS is obscure by the Highlight logo. This can be contrasted with the Finnish release, in which it was not obscured: videospace.fiClearly the original VHS was legitimate, but it would seem very unlikely that Highlight held distribution rights in the German-language version in perpetuity. If their master tape/s and documentation survived to come into the possession of Schröder Media, maybe it would have been possible to renegotiate with Disney, and yet the lack of any acknowledgement to them or even TVS on the packaging remains a red flag. Even if it is all above board though, it is the case that there are a number of cast members who appear in the full 13 episode version, but not in this compilation. They would still need to be cleared to get the whole series released in its original form. They got the year wrong to be fair but I understand that was the case with the actual story. I perhaps only glanced at the cover which in comparison to fanmade DVD covers looks rather more professional and I don't have the VHS to compare it with. An edited and restored release would still be of interest if not ideal and might perhaps in turn prompt a full release. I meant to ask the following. Was there ever a full release anywhere (I can't find one)? This is perhaps very doubtful but would it be the case that a foreign archive has a copy of the full version plus paperwork, something which would not prevent the release of an English language version? In the meantime I am going to attempt to do some restoration involving virtualdub and something else.
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Post by fredjones1 on Nov 18, 2021 16:04:04 GMT
One might also add that the DVD cover is too high quality to come from some mashup involving the VHS cover. Having got the two in front of me right now, I'd disagree with that. The DVD cover bears all the hallmarks of being scanned and tarted up with the actual VHS packaging, rather than the original artwork. The latter was also used in a slightly different form for the Finnish release, so it was presumably something prepared by TVS International at the time. The shorter (shortest?!) Spanish release uses a very different cover, which can be seen here: mangaclassics.mboards.comThe Greek tapes have a very stylised version of the machine gun motif, which also appears on the spine of the Highlight packaging, as well as the Finnish tapes, which again suggests it came from the TVSI publicity material. Fair enough. I don't have the VHS and was comparing it with fan made covers. I don't own any pirate DVDs either and those which I have seen look less professional. I was going to ask, how many VHS copies do you own and why exactly? Moreover I understand the bandwidth on VHS is obviously lower than DVD or indeed broadcast media but would it possible to combine VHS copies to make a better quality version? I don't know the technical details and I realize the question probably sounds like Alan Partridge with regards to his request for a quadrophonic hifi.
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Post by Nick Cooper on Nov 18, 2021 19:29:26 GMT
I was going to ask, how many VHS copies do you own and why exactly? I have my original off-airs from 1987, which I initially recorded because the series looked worth it, and kept because that expectation was justified. I've acquired the German-language VHS some time before 2012, as I was curious to see what had been done with it. I got the shorter Spanish release in 2019 when I first became aware of it, at the same time adding the Arcade Video re-release* of the German-dubbed tape to the collection. I knew about the Danish and Finnish two-tape compilations for years, but never encountered copies up for sale, but a semi-regular search of eBay last month revealed first a UK seller who had the cover sleeve only for one of the Greek tapes - which I wasn't previously aware of - and that rather surprisingly led to finding a seller in Athens who had the actual tapes. Really I acquired the tapes simply because I'm a fan of the series, and copies were available. I'd still like to add the Danish and Finnish versions to the collection, not least because of the damage I mentioned to the second Greek tape. Apart from that I have the novelisation, and the ITV Yearbook which featured the series. * Again the company was Swiss, based in Wil, which is about 20 km east of Winthur where Highlight Video were. And to answer an earlier question, I'm not related to Richard Cooper, as far as I know! I would think that the only benefit of having multiple copies would be to make up for there being different damage or transmission artifacts on different recordings, if that was the source material.
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Post by fredjones1 on Nov 18, 2021 19:44:40 GMT
I have my original off-air recordings from 1987, which I initially recorded because the series looked worth recording, and kept because that expectation was justified. I've acquired the German-language VHS some time before 2012, as I was curious to see what had been done with it. The got the shorter Spanish release in 2019 I first became aware of it, at the same time adding the Arcade Video re-release* of the German-dubbed tape to the collection. I knew about the Danish and Finnish two-tape compilations for years, but never encountered copies up for sale, but a semi-regular search of eBay last month revealed first a UK seller who had the cover sleeve only for one of the Greek tapes - which I wasn't previously aware of - and that surprisingly led to finding a seller in Athens who had the actual tapes. Really I acquired the tapes simply because I'm a fan of the series, and copies were available. I'd still like to add the Danish and Finnish versions to the collection, not least because of the damage I mentioned to the second Greek tape. * Again the company is Swiss, the address being in Wil, which is about 20 km east of Winthur where Highlight Video were based. Yes it is rather good isn't it. Incidentally there are anecdotal reports of a Betamax version having been sold. In case you are interested (or can locate a copy if it exists) wizzley.com/knights-of-god-science-fiction-series-starring-gareth-thomas/Fair enough. Its probably the same 3Mhz of bandwidth which is used by VHS.
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Post by Nick Cooper on Nov 19, 2021 13:43:37 GMT
Incidentally there are anecdotal reports of a Betamax version having been sold. In case you are interested (or can locate a copy if it exists) That can't possibly be true, as even in 1987 the video would have to had been classified by the BBFC for home release, and obviously they have no record of it.
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Post by fredjones1 on Nov 19, 2021 13:55:19 GMT
Oh well. It's a shame seeing as you are a collector but there you go. If I do have a restored version, I will let you know.
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Post by fredjones1 on Nov 20, 2021 19:22:59 GMT
Oh well. It's a shame seeing as you are a collector but there you go. If I do have a restored version, I will let you know. Actually I meant to ask, which is the better quality VHS you have?
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Post by Nick Cooper on Nov 25, 2021 11:49:02 GMT
Actually I meant to ask, which is the better quality VHS you have? My original off-airs.
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Post by fredjones1 on Dec 2, 2021 22:58:53 GMT
Actually I meant to ask, which is the better quality VHS you have? My original off-airs. Would you happen to have a digitised copy at all? I am currently in the process of attempting to improve the picture quality using some new software and would be glad to share the results with you.
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Post by anthonybartley on Dec 3, 2021 13:34:55 GMT
I'm also keen to see a better version, if possible.
I'd never heard of this series until I discovered this thread - I watched it spread out over a few evenings. I really enjoyed it, but the copies on Youtube do leave a lot to be desired (although I'm certainly grateful they exist!)
This series completely passed me by - I was born in 1976 and do remember series like The Tripods, Blake's 7, etc... but not this one. Given that we only had 3 or 4 channels back then, I'm really surprised I never saw it at the time. I guess it also wasn't repeated very much? (again, strange, given that we all remember the BBC being clogged with 'repeats' especially in the 1980s. Ah, how times have changed?!
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