Hitchhiker's Guide DVD to be released on January 28

hitchhacker writes "It looks like The BBC series version of 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' is being released on DVD January 28, 2002. 'disc set contains all six episodes from the classic BBC sci-fi comedy as well 10 minutes of additional footage which was cut to acheive the 30 minute run time. Also included are a few additional features - making of, deleted scenes, interviews and more.'" CD: Word has it that this is a region 2 dvd.

Comments

Remember the movie?

[YouAreFatMan]

I remember, the first 10 minutes were the worst. The next 10 minutes, they were the worst. The next 10 minutes after that were even more horrible. After that, it went into a bit of a decline...

Re:And how do regions...

[SkulkCU]

Well, if you can't even view it outside of a single DVD region, it's not much of a guide to the galaxy, now is it?

Re:Region two?

[tunah]

Yeah, finally the region coding is effective. They've managed to stop you buying a copy to play at home (they frown on 'fair use'), and forced you to download a DVD rip from kazaa.

Region codes cut both ways...

[JScarpace]

The Hitchhiker's DVD may only be region 2 for now, but on the other side of the coin, the March release of the Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1 box set will be region 1 (U.S.) only.

How about a trade? We get the BBC to release the six episodes of HHG in region 1 over here, and we'll give them 26 episodes of ST:TNG for region 2 in return. I think we'd come out better on the deal, but hopefully the Brits will be too busy watching the ST:TNG episodes to notice. :-)

Re:why on earth?

[forged]

The purpose of region encoding is to ensure that a movie leaving US markets can be "staged" into foriegn markets

You're forgetting that other countries produce film material, too. The region coding in this case is to ensure EU marget gets served first before anyone else can get it.

Region encoding [...] serves no purpose other than to simultaneously reduce sales and annoy customers.

I couldn't agree more with this statement.
Now imagine that this would be the case for you almost every time a movie comes out on DVD. Annoying, eh?

Why would the BBC want to stop sales of this DVD to the US? The math is simple...more sales means more money ...

Your point is also valid viewed in the other perspective. Why would the US firms possibly want EU and other zones to wait sometimes 6 months or 1 year, to get the material on DVD ? See all the points above.. Makes no sense to me.

BBC DVD region coding

[e6003]

BBC DVD releases are usually regions 2 and 4. The reason for this (more specifically, no region 1) is because BBC Worldwide handles the marketing of BBC video releases in the UK and Australia/NZ. However for the US it sub-licences the rights and BBC video releases are issued by Warner, who decide their own release schedule. It's because of this contract that the discs employ region coding to "prevent" them being played in the US. Although you can import the release and use a region-free player, remember you will need a PAL (or dual-standard) TV set and these are AFAIK less common in the US than they are in Europe! This applies even if using a computer DVD drive to play the disc, unless you just want to view it on your monitor.

Re:Regarding the PAL vs. NTSC

[uglyduckling]

DVDs don't need PAL to NTSC convertors. The whole point is that they don't conform to any type of picture standard other than aspect ratio. It's the job of the DVD player to render the picture in PAL, NTSC, SECAM, SVGA or whatever standard you care to mention. The aspect ratio obviously depends on the physical screen, but can be corrected by adding black bars at the top or sides of the picture or by stretching if the view prefers.

This is why there is so much dicussion about the region coding - because there is no reason why any DVD cannot be played anywhere in the world, the 'region coding' has been added because the film industry has got very used to controlling when and where a product can be distributed by choosing what picture standard to release it in. By delaying PAL releases they have been able to release films later in UK cinemas without the cinema release clashing with tape sales and therefore decreases losses if the film is a flop.

I would guess that the BBC have decided to delay marketing this new DVD in the US, and so are pragmatically taking advantage of the region coding to see how it does over here first.

The only time a PAL/NTSC convertor might be useful is if a foreign DVD player were imported in order to play DVDs from another region, which at 100 dollars/pounds, it's quite a viable thing to do. Of course, here in the UK many off-the-shelf players will play any region.....

Re:Regarding the PAL vs. NTSC

[Markus Landgren]

DVDs don't need PAL to NTSC convertors. The whole point is that they don't conform to any type of picture standard other than aspect ratio.

...and of course frame rate. Even though the signal on the DVD is neither in NTSC nor PAL formats, the DVDs are made for either NTSC or PAL. The fact that the frame rate is the only thing that really separates the two types makes it an even bigger scandal that some players can't output both NTSC and PAL from any type of disc.

Re:Region 2?

[Amanset]

Then check out DVD Region X for the PS2. Older versions came with a special memory card, newer versions just take up space on a standard memory card. You boot from a special disc, then it prompts you to choose your region. You select it, the disc tray opens, you replace the disc, push in the tray and then select the DVD in the browser.

It is simple and it works. I use it all the time to view R1 DVDs with my R2 PS2. Your TV has to be capable of outputting the PAL source though, which is one area where Europe has an advantage. Our TVs these days are almost always PAL/NTSC compatible, whereas US TVs rarely have PAL compatibility.

You have to get an NTSC version of DVD Region X. I know it exists, but I don't know where you buy it. The PAL version is widely available and is made by Datel Electronics.

Finally, you can plug in codes from the website, if you update your PS2 DVD driver version.

Go get the Mega-Adams.tar

[thrysoee]

I made the obvious Google and found this treat:

The Douglas Adams media archive is presented here by the wi2600.org groups for your enjoyment. This allso is to serve as a tribute to Mr. Adams's great, but suddely shortened carrer. Those who have not heard his voice, and those who know it well, will both enjoy having this material available. We will miss him! For convienience, you may download the "Mega-Adams.tar" which is a simple tarball of the entire Adams collection.

Go get your copy of the Mega-Adams.tar, enjoy!

Re:extras

[ewhac]

...it would have been really nice to see:
1. text of the original novels.

There is no "authoratative" version of the story. Douglas Adams kept making small changes to it every time it was published in a new medium. Even different BBC radio broadcasts were slightly different. I remember reading somewhere that he did this deliberately just to mess with the fans' heads, but I can't locate the reference. I daresay he would have insisted the DVD go out with yet another minor tweak to the story line.

Here's a quote from the Introduction to The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts:

"The people who heard the show on BBC World Service will have heard a slightly different version from the original BBC Radio 4 transmission. Those people who heard the BBC transcription service disc will have heard another version, and those who heard the commercial records will have heard another version again. Those people who saw the television show will have seen another different version, and those people who have read the books will have come across yet another different version."
-- Geoffrey Perkins

Schwab

Off-Topic: The Whale

[ewhac]

This is easily one of my most favorite of Adams' explanations on where he got an idea. This is a quote from The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts:

"Ah yes, the whale. Well, this came about as a result of watching an episode of a dangerously insane TV detective show called Cannon in which people got shot the whole time for incredibly little reason. They would just happen to be walking across the street, and they would simply get killed, regardless of what their own plans for the rest of the day might have been.

"I began to find the sheer arbitrariness of this rather upsetting, not just because characters were getting killed, but because nobody ever seemed to care about it one way or another. Anybody who might have cared about any of these people -- family, friends, even the postman -- was kept firmly offstage. There was never any, 'Good night sweet Prince,' or, 'She should have died hereafter,' or even, 'Look you bastard, I was meant to be playing squash with this guy tonight,' just bang, clear them out of the way, on to the next. They were merely, excuse me, Cannonfodder.

"I thought I'd have a go at this. I'd write in a character whose sole function was to be killed for the sake of a small detail in the plot, and then damn well make the audience care about it, even if none of the other characters in the story did. I suppose I must have succeeded because I received quite a number of letters saying how cruel and callous this section was -- letters I certainly would not have received if I had simply mentioned the whale's fate incidentally and passed on. I probably wouldn't have received them if it had been a human either."
-- Douglas N. Adams

Schwab

Re:why on earth?

[Zeinfeld]

Well, I agree that it's annoying, but as much as I hate to admit it I can sort of see the logic for Region encoding for films . I still don't like it, but I see the logic.

The purpose of region encoding, from start to finish was to support differential pricing. The story about movie releases is a smokescreen. If the industry execs. stated that the purpose of zone encoding was to allow them to maintain DVD prices in Europe that were double those in the US they would end up in jail.

In fact they may still end up with a huge fine. The EU commission is investigating the DVD zone encoding scam and unlike the US regulators they are not easily bought off with Enron sized campaign contributions.